The electronic glitch that cost Knight Capital Group $440m points to a new threat to our digital economy: technological risk. As one of the largest and most technologically advanced broker-dealers in the US, much of Knight’s trading is handled electronically. Its growth is a reflection of Moore’s law, an observation on the trend towards ever cheaper, faster, and more powerful computer hardware. However, financial services differs from the semiconductor industry in at least one important respect: human behaviour. As the great physicist Richard Feynman once said: “Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings.” While finance undoubtedly benefits from Moore’s law, it must also contend with Murphy’s law: “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.”

MIT Finance Professor Andrew Lo discusses the volatility of volatility. He speaks with Adam Johnson and Alix Steel on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart."

A “proof-of-concept” study applying financial portfolio theory to U.S. biomedical research funding shows that the nation’s health might gain the largest benefit by increasing funding on heart, lung, and blood diseases, and might gain the quickest benefit by increasing spending on mental illness research.

Time recognizes MIT's Sloan School of Management professor, Andrew W. Lo as one of the World's 100 most influential people of 2012.

Translational research - the point at which general scientific knowledge starts to be applied to addressing a specific disease or condition - is the first step on the path to developing a new drug. But traditional investors in translational research (large- and medium-cap biopharmaceutical companies and life science-focused venture capital funds) are becoming increasingly risk averse in the face of escalating challenges in the drug development process. FasterCures recently hosted a Financial Innovations Lab to examine business models and financial instruments that can improve the risk/return ratio for early-stage investors. In this session you'll hear from experts who have designed and implemented new models like leveraged funds, research-based obligations and collaborative funding. If we can find a way to close the funding gap for translational research, we can get one step closer to urgently needed treatments.

The MIT/Sloan School of Management professor and Director of MIT’s Laboratory for Financial Engineering has been widely quoted on the implications of the 2008 financial crisis. One theme that Dr. Lo emphasizes repeatedly is that the risks associated with different asset classes can vary dramatically over time and for this reason, risk must be tracked, forecasted and budgeted.

MIT economist Andrew Lo set out to review a couple books about the financial crisis. Those books led to a couple more books, which led — you see where this is going — to 17 more books. Now, Lo is about to publish "Reading About The Financial Crisis: A 21 Book Review."

Andrew Lo, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, was asked by the Journal of Economic Literature to write a review of three or four of the more important academic books on the crisis. The initial sample, he thought, was too small. There were lots of useful books on the topic, from journalists as well as academics. Widening the spectrum would also highlight areas of disagreement between authors.

Andrew Lo, the Harris & Harris Group Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gives the keynote speech at the Conference on Systemic Risk and Data Issues.

As the Greek government appears increasingly likely to default on its debt, economists are envisioning potential dire spillovers to the United States, with anxiety afflicting the financial system, making money tight and possibly tipping the American economy back into recession. MIT Sloan Professor Andrew Lo says, "We may see a number of banks go under."

With shock waves roiling financial markets worldwide, investors are seeking new ways to protect their portfolios from the next upheaval. MIT Sloan Professor, Andrew Lo, says that key strategies to eke out a profit include minimizing costs and getting as much diversification as you're comfortable with."

Day after day, stocks swing sharply by hundreds of points. Some experts see volatility as a problem. Another viewpoint is that stocks are rightly volatile now because there is so much uncertainty about where the economy is heading. MIT Sloan Professor Andrew Lo says that the last few years have been the most volatile for all of recorded history—10 of the biggest 20 daily upswings and 11 of the largest 20 daily drops since the beginning of 1980 to the end of August have occurred in just the last three years.

MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) welcomed its first full-time member from the MIT Sloan School of Management: Andrew Lo. While the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence may seem atypical for the work of an economist, Lo feels that joining CSAIL is a natural extension of the research path he has forged for many years.

Stock markets have calmed down over the past few days, but economists and analysts warn that investors face years of severe market swings until national debt crises and other threats to the global financial system are finally resolved. MIT Sloan Professor, Andrew Lo, notes that "What's unique is the volatility of the volatility."