Portfolio Theory: Past, Present and Future September 14, 2005

Harry M. Markowitz, a world-renowned financial expert who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990, will present the Nash Distinguished Lecture at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14, in Carnegie Mellon University?s McConomy Auditorium in the University Center. The lecture, entitled ?Portfolio Theory: Past, Present and Future,? is free and open to the public.

Developed by Markowitz in the 1950s, modern portfolio theory proposes that an efficient portfolio relies not on the risk of an individual security and its reward, but on the risk and reward of the entire portfolio. Portfolio theory now is a widely used tool in asset allocation, risk control and attribution analysis by institutional investors and financial planners.

In 1990, Markowitz shared the Nobel Prize in Economics for developing a rigorously formulated operational theory for portfolio selection under uncertainty?a theory that evolved into a foundation for further research in financial economics, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Markowitz is a research professor at the University of California at San Diego and president of the Harry Markowitz Company, which helps to extend and apply portfolio theory. He also is on the advisory board of Sungard Expert Solutions, a firm that supplies portfolio selection software to thousands of investment advisors.

For more information about the Center for Computational Finance, please contact Mike Laffin at Carnegie Mellon?s Tepper School of Business at 412-268-3486 or Lauren Ward at the university?s Mellon College of Science at 412-268-7761.