Informing Decisions and Drawing Conclusions
Not all data is meant to be put into a dashboord. Sometimes business leaders and customers want the analysis done for them so that they don’t have to look for answers themselves. It’s not uncommon to hear, “that’s a lot of data, give me the punch line”.
Successfully extracting the critical data points and communicating them effectively is more an art than science.
Wall Street firms are often under heavy scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). One such bank ran into trouble because they had provided inconsistent and conflicting data to the SEC during an exam.
Tony was brought in to become the single source of truth for all data that went to the SEC. He worked closely with groups across the organization to gather information and present findings to senior leadership, including the CEO of the division. During the follow-up review, Tony sat with the SEC to walk them through the data and findings, fielding questions in real-time from the examiners. This helped resolve the issues that were being probed.
Opinions make for good stories, but things become more clear when you back up statements with hard data. The US Government is in a lot of debt that puts the country at risk. Day-to-day it can be hard to see this risk and know what to do about it.
Tony started a blog with a precious metals dealer to help bring attention to different macroeconomic risks. He used data to add weight to his arguments and explain potential outcomes. He correctly predicted many macro events such as the spike in inflation long before it was even on the radar of the Federal Reserve. On a monthly basis, he would predict how gold and silver would perform over the following 4 weeks. Using different data variables, he accurately predicted the next move 11 out of 12 months.
The SEC proposed a change in rules that would have negatively impacted an asset management firm and their ability to offer some of their products.
Tony collaborated with several internal employees at the asset manager to work on a response to the SEC. He ran scenarios and built charts guided by key individuals who had advanced degrees in mathematics. The team systematically went though each issue raised by the SEC and broke down each point to demonstrate the issue was not valid. The SEC went on to drop the proposed rule change.