Don Quixote of La Mancha is a fearless knight. Accompanied by his faithful squire Sancho Panza, he takes up his lance and sword and sets out on a mission to rid the world of evil and injustice.

Except… he’s not really a knight, and the ferocious enemies he fights are quite harmless objects, even useful.

Popular Finance harbors many Don Quixotes, fighting against ferocious Gaussians and ruthless Linear Models. Unfortunately, their obsessions with their putative enemies are no less delusional.

QUIXOTIC FINANCE CATEGORIES:

CARGO CULT FINANCE: in which Richard Feynman’s characterization of cargo cult science is applied to finance. Cargo cult scientists “conduct flawed research that superficially resembles the scientific method, but which fails to produce scientifically useful results.”

CHECKING THE FACTS: in which questionable claims are checked and proved misleading at best, mendacious and dishonest at worst.

FOOLED BY A RED HERRING: in which the Black Swan is revealed to be a stinking fish, meant to divert our attention away from the issues that really matter.

MODELING 101: in which the point of mathematical models, in finance and elsewhere,  is explained, and many popular myths are dispelled.

REVIEWS: in which books are reviewed that, for better or worse, play an important part in quixotic finance.

SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC: in which side topics are discussed which provide background information to QF’s central topics.

NEDERLANDS: in which I make a special effort to please speakers of Vondel’s language.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Jozef Van Giel (www.kritischdenken.info) for helpful comments about the website. If it still looks amateuristic (and I’m sure it does), it’s because I haven’t asked him for more advise yet.

I extend special gratitude to Anastassia Antonenkova, who drew the Don Quixot picture shown on top of the pages.