My talk on the financial crisis

I was asked by the graduate students in our department to give a talk on the financial crisis. The talk is oriented towards physicists and other scientists, but everyone is welcome. Slides (pdf).

Institute of Theoretical Science, 4 pm Tuesday November 4.

Speaker: Steve Hsu
Title: The Financial Crisis

Abstract: After a brief review of basic financial topics such as valuation, markets and bubbles, I discuss the origins and consequences of the current financial crisis. The discussion focuses on issues such as leverage, securitization, mortgage finance, CDO (collateralized debt obligations) and CDS (credit default swaps). The talk is aimed at non-experts.