The Quant / Financial Engineering Podcast

As the market is heading down, we bring in Aidan Oster who is top ranked amongst 500+ entrants in the 2025 United States Investing Championship to give us his views on the stock market. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-oster/

Professor Salas comes back to the podcast to provide an update on the "Trump" Tariffs. Salas is the author of peer reviewed research on Tariffs. The discussion starts with the previous Trump Tariffs on China, then the impending Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are addressed in a lively discussion. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/

Discussion with Professor Salas on the impending "Trump" Tariffs. Salas is the author of peer reviewed research on Tariffs. The discussion starts with the previous Trump Tariffs on China, then the impending Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are addressed in a lively discussion.

Professor Zoro speaks with the CEO of Safebooks AI about accounting and AI. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/ Safebooks.ai is the first AI-powered financial data governance platform built for finance teams who demand accuracy, trust, and speed. It seamlessly integrates with all systems in the Office of the CFO such as ERPs, CRMs, billing systems, banks, AP systems, payroll, and more, unifying data from these sources into a centralized financial data warehouse. By ensuring 100% financial data coverage without sampling, Safebooks delivers real-time insights, automated controls and cross systems reconciliations, and fraud detection to help organizations eliminate errors, accelerate month end close, and stay audit ready. With seamless integration and complete visibility, Safebooks empowers finance teams to reduce manual workloads, ensure compliance, and make confident, data-driven decisions.

Professor zoro’s guests discussed the project they have been working on since 2024: Corporate Material Event Sequences with LLMs3 and associated sentiment scores (Historical and Real-Time with Forecasts). https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/ Lehigh MFEs shared their experience and views on LLMs and Deepseek with Professor Zoro who manages Lehigh MFE program: https://business.lehigh.edu/academics/graduate/masters-programs/ms-financial-engineering Fathmat Bakayoko is a MFE, working on extracting insights from SEC 8-K filings using language models and exploring crypto compliance. www.linkedin.com/in/fathmat-samira-bakayoko-30715024a." Nicholas Wagner is a MFE co-founded lab automation company Opentrons Labworks and works on blending quantitative finance with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs). He sees these emerging technologies as catalysts for data-driven breakthroughs in capital markets. https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-wagner-b7b743229/ Hariom Tastat is an MFE and Experienced quant and leader with expertise in the areas of quantitative research, financial AI/machine learning and derivative pricing. Co-author of the book “Machine Learning and Data Science Blueprints for Finance”. Website: https://htatsat.com/

3 Lehigh MFEs shared their experience and views on LLMs and Deepseek with Professor Zoro who manages Lehigh MFE program: https://business.lehigh.edu/academics/graduate/masters-programs/ms-financial-engineering Fathmat Bakayoko is a MFE, working on extracting insights from SEC 8-K filings using language models and exploring crypto compliance. www.linkedin.com/in/fathmat-samira-bakayoko-30715024a." Nicholas Wagner co-founded lab automation company Opentrons Labworks and works on blending quantitative finance with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs). He sees these emerging technologies as catalysts for data-driven breakthroughs in capital markets. Rish Kumar works on innovative projects in finance and blockchain analytics. He analyzes and labels swap transactions to enrich data, builds algorithms to classify blockchain accounts. He maintains and optimizes Python-based systems to track top publicly traded companies in Pennsylvania and creates dynamic data visualizations https://www.linkedin.com/in/riskumar/linkedin.com

Edris Loftpouri MFE /24 discusses his interest on the implementation of Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) for macroeconomic forecasting. He also touches on Castastrophe Modeling https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/ This project develops a Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) for macroeconomic forecasting, using stochastic volatility and Bayesian shrinkage priors to manage complex, high-dimensional data. With layer-specific and neuron-specific activation functions, the model captures both long-term dependencies and short-term nonlinear dynamics. Offering adaptive uncertainty quantification and robust volatility handling, it’s ideal for risk analysis, economic policy, and quantitative finance applications. https://www.linkedin.com/in/edris-lotfpouri/

The podcast welcomes Rob Navin, Founder of Real Time Risk Systems to discuss his new method of estimated a realized volatility based on P&L from a constant gamma position. This is a deep dive quant discussion on Option strategies. Estifanos Shekour, MFE also join the podcast and share his experience on designing option strategies. Link to Discussion Article https://optionstree.substack.com/p/gamma-capture-realized-volatility-9b5 https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnavin/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/estifanos-shekour/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/ Lehigh MFE Linkedin Page https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering

Professor Zoro speaks with Garrettt DeSimone about Options. Various aspects of the Option environment are discussed including OptionMetrics, The Vix on August 5th, 2024, Blogs by Garrett Garret is Head of Quant Research at OptionMetrics www.linkedin.com/in/garrett-desim…e-ph-d-4ab7ba68/ www.reuters.com/business/media-te…oubts-2023-07-28/ OptionMetrics optionmetrics.com www.businesswire.com/news/home/2023…ic-Researchers www.barchart.com/story/news/19307…roeconomic-risks Patrick Zoro www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/ Lehigh Master in Financial Engineeringhttps://business.lehigh.edu/academics/gradu…ial-engineering

Professor Zoro speaks with Joseph Furlong about the inverted Yield Curve and its implications. They get to talk about the $35 trillion national debt, the stock market and other salient topics. With over three decades of dedicated experience in banking, Joe's expertise lies in loan portfolio management and risk analytics. Patrick Zoro www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/Lehigh Master in Financial Engineeringhttps://business.lehigh.edu/academics/gradu…ial-engineering