Finance and Investments merit their own Asset class because of their value and their unique characteristics.

For strategic investment analysis, optimization can elevate traditional spreadsheet-driven models and therefore provide a quantitative edge.

• For the service network company, we helped executive management evaluate strategic investments in various business units, as well as potential spin-offs and acquisition targets. To evaluate these choices, we used optimizing-simulation to evaluate the network effects of these choices (simulation) and to recommend the choices with the highest returns (optimization).

Perhaps no better example of the power of optimization for finance is under conditions of Big Data.

• The high frequency hedge fund makes real-time, black box trading decisions among thousands of equities.