All Forum Posts by: Xing Zhu

I have been thinking about it for a while. Maybe I'll do it in the near future. Besides Fed tax credit, NC has the best policy on solar panels. I use a lot electricity during daytime. 

A friend did it with a loan. He said considering subsidy and money he saved from electricity bills , this costed him nothing. 

Devaluation of US dollar is good for my US real estate investments.

In fact, US dollar is too strong now against Canadian dollar and my investment here is hurt.

David,

Yes, if he does not like probability and statistics, there is practically no background advantage for him to get involved in finance.

Since you mentioned statistics, I'd like to make a few more comments.

From my point of view, statistics is more important than any other materials in math finance education for equity trading and management. Unfortunately, it is only a very small part in their curricula. Academics are often too fascinated by their Nobel results, which are often too theoretical and the basic hypotheses are too strong to be practical. An introductory level of statistics without modern probability theory can already be quite useful, and can be learnt quickly by math majored undergraduates.

It is true that it eventually requires a PhD to understand thorouly those modern concepts in math finance. Many math BAs look for jobs in investment banks to work for a couple of years and then go back to school, possible a business school to obtain a higher degree.

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David,

Let me try to elaborate more on this subject. Forgive me if you think this is too technical.

The background math involved in modern finance here is mathematical analysis, which is a major branch of pure math that has little to do with C-coding. Computer skills, on the other hand, are typically required in applied math. Those who ascribe the recent surge on hiring mathematicians by financial industry to computer skills are at least 10 years behind the curve. Mathematical analysis was not a routine education for business major (not even for a PhD in business) until recent years.

To make a connection, for example, understanding of stochastic PDEs (used in math finance) requires a background of modern probability theory, which is in turn built on measure theory. Measure theory is also the foundation of math analysis.

By the way, measure theory is slightly above most math BAs in the US, but at least, a math BA is closer to it than any other majors.

In the past decade, many math majored graduates were hired by financial industry. Typically, a math BA got an entry level job in an investment bank, and a math (or theoretical phys) PhD got a job in a big hedge fund. For example, I knew a fact that an offshore hedge fund manager was saying that she was only hiring math PhDs and computer engineers.

It all started from Wall Streeters' discovering the fact that by far the best large hedge fund was managed by Jim Simons, a former professor in math.

Even the structure of a business school curricula had been forced to change fundamentally that now the most important courses are of math finance type, which requires relatively more modern mathematical analysis as the ancient calculus is now considered insufficient.

In a Wall Street job interview, it often happens that all questions are deeply math related.

I normally don't consider recommendations from friends. Best agents can be sometimes found based on certain ratings, such as the agent with largest listing and sales in your area in the past.

It is very interesting that people failed to talk this market down.

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/asking-prices/nevada/las-vegas/

Hotel occupancy and room rates are also up this year!

The Genting Project is yet to commence as it needs its casino licence to be issued.

High HOA fees are usually associated with luxury condos, from which the net rental income is usually very low. Investors buy them mostly for appreciation.

Rental restrictions could be a big problem. Without rental income, the carrying cost would be too high.

When you buy a home for yourselves, you have selectability; when you sell, you don't. When you have selectability, you want to make sure you like the home in almost all prospects. When you have any major concerns, just look for something else. Assuming that you buy it and later you cannot get rid of the smell with a reasonable cost or you think you overpaid for it, you will blame yourselves for the mistake badly because you foresaw the mistake.

I would not buy this house.