The Future of Financial Information
Annual conference:
2021
2020
2019
Webinar series:
As researchers, investors or just interested observers, we are often left scratching our heads why financial markets behaved the way they did. It often boils down to the question of information – what did those traders know and respond to?
Out of this fundamental recognition, the Future of Financial Information conference was born.
The intellectual journey to come up with this conference theme was an interesting one. Together with my colleague, Björn Hagströmer, we decided back in mid-2018 to organize a conference. We even had the means for it thanks to a research grant from Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser. Ok, about what? Hmm… something exciting like:
Clearly, there is no shortage of exciting topics but whatever theme we tried to make of them turned out to be either too technical, too narrow or… already taken. In research, it is hard to come up with new ideas, even for a conference! And then came my epiphany:
What unifies all these disparate topics is information. I was now confident we had a theme that resonates broadly. After all, information is so central to financial markets that it has become somewhat cliché to say that „asset prices respond to information.” From this perspective, it actually seemed surprising that there was no academic conference dedicated to financial information in its different aspects. Turns out, the best ideas are sometimes hidden in plain sight…
I believe the time is ripe to ask about the future of information. It is fascinating to ask what kind of insights alternative data sources, such as satellite images, and new methods, e.g. textual analysis and machine learning, can provide. It is also highly relevant to the performance of financial markets. Even though such topics are present at general finance conferences, looking at them through the lens of information is unique and leads to unexpected connections and insights.
The conference, now in its third edition, brings together leading academic experts in the field for two days of presentations and discussions. It attracts audiences from investment companies, central banks and research institutions, providing fertile ground for exchange of ideas and networking.
Interested? Check this space or follow us on Twitter for updates.