Ideas for the People Who Make the Decisions

摘要

Being editor of the Financial Analysts Journal was one of the most fascinating jobs I ever held. I had written for the Journal when Nicholas Molodovsky was the editor. In fact, Molodovsky requested the first article I co-authored for the Journal. It was on estimating risk. I admired the man, and I admired what he was doing with the magazine. When Molodovsky died suddenly, which was a shame, some people said, "Gee, Jack, you ought to think about doing that job." My first reaction was: Why? I had never edited anything, not even my high school yearbook. But the more I thought about it, the more appealing it became. I was working for Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith at the time. I kind of created Merrill Lynch's first "quant group," and some very talented people were working in it. But because Merrill Lynch was so big, I suspected that they would want to make me a specialist of some sort. So, I thought "maybe this is an opportunity to focus on my true interest, which was the analytical problem behind investment decisions."