Risk Is Misunderstood by Many Investors, Says VIX Pioneer
Dan Galai has spent his career trying to measure and manage uncertainty.
Volatility has always been a feature of markets. In a 1989 research paper, Dan Galai, along with Menachem Brenner, proposed creating an index—which they called Sigma—to track the volatility of stocks. That research eventually helped inspire Chicago Board Options Exchange (now Cboe Global Markets Inc.) to create the VIX, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge.” (There remains disagreement over how much credit their research deserves for the index.) Born in Jerusalem, Galai earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago before embarking on a career that included serving as dean of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s business school and founding Sigma Investment House. In April he spoke to Bloomberg about his career, the research around volatility, and what interests him today.
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