LongTail Alpha Announces Appointment Of Nobel Laureate Harry Markowitz As Research Adviser

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Feb. 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LongTail Alpha LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser and CFTC-registered commodity pool operator and commodity trading adviser that focuses on adding value to portfolios during volatile markets, is pleased to announce the appointment of Nobel Laureate Harry Markowitz as a research adviser. Markowitz, who is known as the "father of Modern Portfolio Theory" for his pioneering work on investment portfolio selection, was awarded the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990. Markowitz is the principal of Harry Markowitz Company, and an adjunct professor at the Rady School of Management, University of California San Diego.

Markowitz joined LongTail Alpha as of February 1.

"Dr. Markowitz was not only the inventor of modern portfolio theory, but over the last few decades has continued to do research that has anticipated problems and solutions in finance that form the centerpiece of LongTail Alpha's approach to financial markets," said Dr. Vineer Bhansali, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of LongTail Alpha.

Markowitz said: "I look forward to combining my own skill-set in applying mathematical and computer techniques to solve practical problems including -- but not limited to -- those of institutional investors, with Vineer Bhansali's knowledge and experience in the creation and use of hedging means and methods."

A native of Chicago, Harry Markowitz earned undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Chicago, where he chose to apply mathematics to the analysis of the stock market as the topic for his dissertation. While researching the then current understanding of stock prices, which at the time consisted of the present value model of John Burr Williams, Markowitz realized that the theory lacked an analysis of the impact of risk. This insight led to the development of his seminal theory of portfolio allocation under uncertainty, published in 1952 by the Journal of Finance.

In 1952, Markowitz went to work for the RAND Corporation, where he met George Dantzig. With Dantzig's help, Markowitz started to research optimization techniques, developing the critical line algorithm for the identifications of the optimal mean-variance portfolios, relying on what was later named the Markowitz frontier. In 1955, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago with a thesis on the portfolio theory. The topic was so novel that while Markowitz was defending his dissertation, Milton Friedman jokingly argued that portfolio theory was not economics. During 1955-1956 Markowitz spent a year at the Cowles Foundation, which had moved to Yale University, at the invitation of James Tobin. He published the critical line algorithm in a 1956 paper and used the time at the foundation to write a book on portfolio allocation which was published in 1959.

Markowitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1990, while a professor of finance at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

About LongTail Alpha LLC

LongTail Alpha was founded in 2015  by Vineer Bhansali, following his departure from PIMCO in December of 2015. LongTail Alpha believes that sustained portfolio performance comes from expecting the unexpected, and from positioning portfolios to earn yield while maintaining convexity. The firm bases its investment decisions on a proprietary framework based on academically rigorous research, positioning for both "left-side" or negative tail risks and "right-side" or positive tail risks, and by seeking to optimize performance by combining market positions and risk allocation across asset classes. LongTail Alpha is a member of the National Futures Association and is registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and operates as an independent entity in Newport Beach.

Disclaimer:  This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, any securities or investment products sponsored by LongTail Alpha, LLC, and is intended for informational purposes only.  All investments in securities involve a risk of loss of capital and no guarantee or representation can be made that an investment will generate profits or that an investment will not incur a total loss of invested capital. Furthermore, nothing herein is intended to imply that LongTail Alpha, LLC's investment strategies may be considered "conservative", "safe", "risk free" or "risk averse." Only qualified investors may invest. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

SOURCE LongTail Alpha LLC