Can anybody explain the terms “levered beta riders”, “equity long-short” and “the quant process driven discipline” for me, please?
"Leverage here is referring to ""financial leverage"". This is the practice of ""levering"" [ie increasing, like the use of a lever to increase the amount of weight you can lift] the value of your investment by taking on debt.  For example: if you have 100k in cash, you can buy a 100k rental property. Assume the property makes 10k a year, net of expenses [10%]. Now assume the bank will also give you a 100k mortgage, at 3%. You could take the mortgage, plus your cash, and buy a 200k rental property. This would earn you 20k from the rental property, less 3k a year in interest costs [the 3%]. Your total income would be 17k, and since you only used 100k of your own money, your rate of return would now be 17% instead of 10%. This is financial leveraging. Note that this increases your risk, because if your investment fails not only have you lost your own money, you now need to pay back the bank. ""Beta riders"" appears to be negative commentary on investors who use Beta to calculate the value of a particular stock, without regard to other quantitative factors. Therefore ""leveraged beta riders"" are those who take on additional risk [by taking on debt to invest], and invest in a manner that the author would perhaps considered ""blindly"" following Beta. However, I have never seen this term before, and it appears tainted by the author's views on Quants. A ""quant process driven discipline"" appears to be positive commentary on investors who use detailed quantitative analysis to develop rules which they rigorously follow to invest. I have never seen this exact phrasing before, and like the above, it appears tainted by the author's views on Quants. I am not providing any opinion on whether ""beta riding"" or ""quant processes"" are good or bad things; this is just my attempt to interpret the quote as you presented it. Note that I did not go to the article to get context, so perhaps something else in the article could skew the language to mean something other than what I have presented." "Translation : Funds managers that use traditionnal methods to select stocks will have less success than those who use artificial intelligence and computer programs to select stocks.  Meaning : The use of computer programs and artificial intelligence is THE way to go for hedge fund managers in the future because they give better results.  ""No man is better than a machine, but no machine is better than a man with a machine."" Alternative article : Hedge-fund firms, Wall Street Journal. A little humour : ""Whatever is well conceived is clearly said, And the words to say it flow with ease."" wrote Nicolas Boileau in 1674."
"Evaluate if the Rs 5 million term insurance is sufficient. Typically the term insurance provided by employer is in the range of 1 to 3 times the gross. Generally one should be covered in the range of 5 to 10 times the Gross. The sooner you start the lesser the premium and you can get insured for a large amount for a long duration at very nominal rate.  NOTE:  You can also buy a health insurance for your father, note these typically come at high cost, generally if over 70 years of age, 25% is the premium amount and 25% as co-pay. So if your dad doesn't fall ill once in 3 years, its a loss making proposition. Edit: Accident insurance best take is along with rider on term plan. Additional Health insurance is a good idea and helps if you are in between jobs. Plus the new company health insurance can reject a particular treatment as ""Pre-Existing"". i.e. certain illness [in certain plans] require one to have coverage for 3 years before the claim for it can be covered." It is worth noting first that interest and short-term dividends/capital gains are all taxed at the same rate. So all the investments below I mention (even savings accounts) will be taxed at the same rate.  Also, even short-term capital losses can often be harvested to reduce your tax rate in many countries. While it is worth paying attention to the taxes when investing in the short term the more important factor is how much risk that you can take or want to take with the money.  Most equity portfolios like the S&P index give a much higher risk that there will be much less in the account when you need to buy.  You generally have a higher expected return with equity but as you mention that return is very random over such a short period. Over such a short variable period many people will invest in short term bond-index funds or just keep the fund in a high-yielding savings account.  With the savings account your money is guaranteed.  Short term bond funds will have generally higher yields but a small chance you may lose money in the short term. Some people can trade short-term bond indices for free with their broker but if you can't be sure to include the trading costs when thinking about which investment to use as with how low yields are currently the fees may eat up any advantage you gain. "I actually interviewed to work at the SEC as an ""industry transplant.""  I was surprised to learn the limits of the SEC's power - namely, they cannot compel anybody to show them any documents - even ones financial firms are required to hold.  When firms do ""cooperate,"" they tend to make it as difficult as possible for investigators.  All the SEC can do in the end is sue the firm, and that's a long drawn out process (I understand now why there are so many settlements).  What I learned, however, is that the SEC needs more people like myself who have worked in the business.  Most people who interviewed me were attorneys and (sometimes) accountants.  Their experience in the financial industry was limited to working at legal firms who did financial advisory work.  Many simply don't even know what to look for.  I'm still waiting to hear back, but there are a lot of lawyers who are sick of working industry jobs and would love the pay and work environment of the SEC - so it's tough to get a position there." Tell your employer during your initial contract Terms of Service discussions.  Ordinarily, this is boilerplate but you should ask for a rider in your contract which says - in some form - I already have IP, I will continue to work on this IP in my own time, and any benefit or opportunity derived from this IP will continue to be entirely mine. I requested exactly such a rider when I took up a new job just over a year ago and my employer was extremely accommodating.  That I already had a company in which that IP could reside actually made the process easier. As @JohnFX has already mentioned, not telling your employer is both unethical as well as storing up potential legal hassles for you in the futre. as someone who made a fair attempt at understanding money subjects, I'd like some more writing from you.  I took high school level Marketing; Business economics; commercial law. it took six months on top of my previous High school ( with high level maths).  during those months I got medium grades, and failed  in- can you believe it - marketing. I had a go at The intelligent investor. I made it to page 96. But honestly I felt like I needed a lot of background in order for me to understand it. English is my second language. Sure I can understand  words like liability vs assets. but to this day i still can't remember the difference between a bull and bearish market. I know its about risk assesment on a national/ global level.  So who honestly gave finance a go but got their ass kicked. What would you say?  any books? "Being ""long"" - expecting the price to go up to make a profit - is a two step process:  1) buy 2) sell Being ""short"" - expecting the price to go down to make a profit - is a 5 step process:  1) borrow someone else's asset 2) sell their asset on the open market to somebody else a third party 3) pocket the proceeds of the sell for your own account 4) buy an identical asset for a cheaper price 5) return this identical asset to the person that let you borrow their asset if this is successful you keep the difference between 3) and 4)" Beta is an indication of a Stock's risk with respect to the market.  For instance if a stock had a beta of 1 it means it is in tandem with the S&P 500. If it is more than 1, the stock is volatile.  If it is less than 1, it implies market movement doesn't affect this stock much. Tech stocks and small cap stocks have high beta, utilities have low beta. (In general, not always). Hope this helps - I've tried to explain it in very simple terms! Those are the three books that were considered fundamental at my university: Investments - Zvi Bodie (Author), Alex Kane (Author), Alan Marcus (Author), Stylianos Perrakis (Author), Peter Ryan (Author) This book covers the basics of financial markets. It explains how markets work, general investing principles, basic risk notions, various types of financial instruments and their characteristics and portfolio management principles. Futures and Options markets - John C. Hull This book goes more in depth into derivatives valuation and the less common / more complex instruments. The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities This books covers fixed income securities. In all cases, they are not specifically math-oriented but they do not shy away from it when it is called for. I have read the first and the other two were recommended by professors / friends now working in financial markets.