The Fear Index

Dr. Max Hoffman is a legend. A physicist once employed on the Large Hadron Collider, he now uses a revolutionary and highly secret system of computer algorithms to trade on the world's financial markets. None of his rivals is sure how he does it, but somehow Hoffman's hedge fund -- built around the standard measure of market volatility: the VIX or "Fear Index" -- generates astonishing returns for his investors. But what if the algorithm is more like a mind than a computer? What if it...
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Dr. Max Hoffman is a legend. A physicist once employed on the Large Hadron Collider, he now uses a revolutionary and highly secret system of computer algorithms to trade on the world's financial markets. None of his rivals is sure how he does it, but somehow Hoffman's hedge fund -- built around the standard measure of market volatility: the VIX or "Fear Index" -- generates astonishing returns for his investors. But what if the algorithm is more like a mind than a computer? What if it could connive as well as place bets on Wall Street? What if it could worm its way into the records of Hoffman's hidden past and use it to destroy him? The Fear Index answers these questions in a fiendishly smart and powerfully gripping narrative -- a brilliant departure for Harris from his historical novels and perhaps his most spellbinding novel ever. Robert Harris is an international bestselling author whose work has been translated into thirty-seven languages.