Some pause pensively as breaking news from Europe flashes onto a wall-mounted electronic panel nearby. It's another day at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Identical in every detail to the best trading rooms in financial capitals around the world, this unique facility will not only give Sloan MBAs first-hand experience in the world of high finance, it will also serve as a powerful platform for carrying on the School's tradition of pioneering research in finance and financial engineering. A special teaching station will connect the instructor's computer to an overhead projector. Faculty and students will use the 3,000 square-foot facility both for classroom study and for homework problems in a range of subjects on investments, financial market analysis, options pricing, and information technology in financial services.
Plans also call for using the facility to support a variety of continuing education programs.
At the same time, the trading room will be a major research facility. The trading room is an ideal place for us to collaborate with experts from all over campus, as well as from industry, to lay the groundwork for the next generation of sophisticated financial tools. Improved methods for analyzing and evaluating risk. Investigations of how psychology influences trading decisions. Advanced algorithms for optimizing complex portfolio strategies.