about us

The author

I am Markku Kurtti, an engineer with a day job in the telecommunications industry. Investing has been my long-time passion and I have acquired a master’s degree in finance to fulfil my thirst to learn the underlying theory. It turns out that digital communications and signal processing have lot of similarities with finance – especially when we consider the world of geometric returns.

The purpose of the blog

The purpose of this blog is to document and share my research and views. I am sure this will help me to achieve my goal – to learn more about finance – and I hope you may learn or pick up an alternative viewpoint along the way.

The name of the blog

The name of the blog – Outcast Beta – refers to often overlooked role of systematic risk or behavioural factors (betas), which in reality drive the bulk of portfolio returns. I believe that most people would be better off by harvesting the known betas rather than chasing the wished-for alpha.