A Deep History of Quantitative Finance

Beginning with ancient option-like contracts and Louis Bachelier's overlooked 1900 thesis on Brownian motion, the narrative moves through Markowitz's Modern Portfolio Theory, Sharpe's CAPM, and Fama's Efficient Market Hypothesis, before arriving at the Black-Scholes revolution that reshaped derivatives markets. It examines the rise of quantitative hedge funds – Renaissance Technologies, D.E. Shaw, and LTCM – alongside the crises that exposed the limits of financial models, from Black Monday and the LTCM collapse to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 2010 Flash Crash.

The talk covers algorithmic and high-frequency trading, the post-LIBOR benchmark rate transition, the explosive growth of 0DTE options, factor investing and smart beta, and the rise of machine learning and alternative data in modern quant strategy—closing with a look at fine wine as an emerging quantitative asset class. Throughout, the story affirms one theme: quantitative finance has always been about pricing uncertainty.