When a terrible accident left Joe Peta in a wheelchair and out of work for several months, he took the opportunity to contemplate his 15-year trading career. Exploring the overlap between asset management, sports betting, and the analytic revolution taking place in sports (primarily in baseball) led Joe to write TRADING BASES: HOW A WALL STREET TRADER MADE A FORTUNE BETTING ON BASEBALL.

Both baseball and finance are data-rich, yet Joe observed the finance industry’s use of data paled in comparison to baseball’s cutting-edge implementations. Reducing noise and isolating players in performance metrics provided a framework for baseball that quickly traveled to other sports; Joe carries this exact framework over to finance and portfolio managers, identifying three key metrics for predicting investor success.

After the publication of his book, Joe served as managing director at Novus. Most recently, he worked for one of largest multi-manager long/short equity firms in the industry, creating a multi-factor framework which entirely explains PM alpha in terms of skills exhibited, not factor attribution.

Speaking about his book, Joe shares, “[It] really does ask a very serious question that underlies all of the stories, which is why is the industry of baseball—which is worth a fraction of the finance industry—why is baseball so much better at using their data to evaluate performers [and] compensate their highly talented individuals than finance?”

Joe Peta has enjoyed a 25-year career on Wall Street, having spent the first 15 years as both a buy-side and sell-side equities trader; this included a 12-year stint at Lehman Brothers as head of biotech trading in New York before moving to San Francisco to run the trading desk at a Lehman-sponsored long/short equity hedge fund. Joe holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BS in accounting from Virginia Tech. His book, TRADING BASES, received substantial critical acclaim and was a best-seller in a number of categories; during 2013 TRADING BASES was named a Top 10 Business book by Amazon.com, a Top 10 Sports book by Publisher’s Weekly, and a Top 10 Non-Fiction book by Fortune.

“TRADING BASES is available at https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Bases-Fortune-Betting-Baseball/dp/0451415175.”