Description: This article introduces the reader to probabilistic methods used to model interactions in the financial market place. Three topics are specifically discussed, two concern modeling methods and the other concerns data analysis methods.

Description: Describes ways to avoid the next financial crisis by following the example of those who got it right and discerning what you could be doing to prevent your firm from experiencing excessive losses in future crises.

Description: The United States has received severe negative press the last several years regarding its massive U.S. federal government debt, currently estimated as of April 2007 at about $8.9 trillion. This article looks at the U.S. debt relative to other countries and also explores the impact on U.S. investments.

Description: This article discusses capital market cycles, specifically considering whether or not 2008 was a good time to buy. It concludes that “stocks have likely only recently entered the buying opportunity range on an aggregate basis. However, from a psychological and risk management perspective, we should strongly consider that stock prices will revert beyond the mean for many years, perhaps even decades, before they get better.”

Description: The manner in which the actuarial profession models and manages mortality risk is undergoing dramatic changes. New modeling techniques have led to better risk management tools. Capital markets solutions are evolving for insurers wishing to protect against unfavorable mortality developments in both life insurance and annuity products. In this session recent key developments in mortality modeling and in the transfer of mortality risk are examined. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 30, No. 3: Annual Meeting and Exhibit, New York, NY, October 24-27, 2004, Session 133 TS.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Boston Meeting describes the expansion and consolidation of the U.S., Canadian and Mexican life insurance industries and the discusses the top players in the insurance industry in the world and their market share. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 4b.

Description: Author’s response to discussant comments for the 2009 Housing Wealth monograph paper, “Modigliani, Miller and Mortgages.” The paper is essentially about the genesis of the credit crisis. The discussant found the paper makes some interesting points but leaves too much out of the story. The author reiterates his point that mortgage based derivatives often subtract value and that the Federal Government accommodated that at great expense to the nation's wealth and economic well-being.

Description: This article discusses creating a good organizational strategy for incentive compensation plans.

Description: Panelists opine on where we are in the economic cycle as well as where we are headed. One panelist describes in detail his company's economic scenario generator, nicknamed GEMS [TM]. From the 2002 Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 28, No. 3. Session 71PD of the Boston Annual Meeting.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA New Orleans Meeting reviews trends in savings products including the Index Annuity, the CD annuity, variable life, variable annuities, modified endowment contracts - MEC and shifts in the banking industry. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 1.