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» Modeling Adverse
   Consequences in the
   Financial Markets: Decision-
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Industry experts present real-world case studies about innovative and interesting approaches to risk and decision analysis. Also, ever-popular workshops and training delivered by Palisade consultants, and sneak previews of new software.
» Amsterdam: 29-30 March

» Europe
Munich: 2-3 December
London: 18-20 January
Oslo: 3-4 February
London: 12-13 April
London: 24-15 May

» North America
Atlanta: 14-15 December
Redondo Beach: 18-19 Jan
Ottawa: 8-9 February
Houston: 22-24 February
Columbus, OH: 8-9 March
Miami: 22-24 March
Washington, DC: 5-7 April
Phoenix: 19-20 April

» India
Mumbia: 27 January
Bangalore: 31 January
New Delhi: 1 Feburary
  » More information

» Latin America
Quito: 26-28 de enero
Bogotá: 2-4 de febrero
México, D.F.: 8-10 de febrero
Lima: 9-11 de marzo
Buenos Aires: 22-24 de marzo
Santiago, Chile: 5-7 de abril
Panama: 18-20 de mayo



» Decision-Making and Quantitative Risk Analysis using @RISK
PART I
27-28 Jan, 9am-1pm ET
28-29 April, 11am-3pm ET

PART II
20-21 Dec, 11am-3pm ET
17-18 Feb, 9am-1pm ET
12-13 May, 11am-3pm ET

» Decision-Making and Quantitative Risk Analysis using the DecisionTools Suite
PART I
28-29 Dec, 9am-1pm ET
17-18 March, 9am-1pm ET
1-2 June, 11am-3pm ET

PART II
13-14 Jan, 9am-1pm ET
11-12 April, 9am-1pm ET
30 June - 1 July, 11am-3pm ET

» Project Risk Assessment Using @RISK for Project
13 Dec, 9am-1pm ET
4 March, 9am-1pm ET
11 July, 11am-3pm ET

Palisade software is available in fully functional trial versions. Try @RISK or any of our software today!


The complete risk and
decision analysis toolkit

The world's most widely
used risk analysis tool
» @RISK for Excel
» @RISK for Project
» @RISK for Six Sigma


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for spreadsheets


Sophisticated neural networks for spreadsheets


Advanced statistical analysis for spreadsheets


The Innovative Optimizer
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Palisade Kicks off 2011 Conference Series in Amsterdam, Conference Program Announced
March 29-30, 2011

Palisade is pleased to announce the first Risk Conference of 2011 at the historic West Indische Huis in Amsterdam. The preliminary program for the conference is now available online, and includes discussions of risk and decision making from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Unilever, DNV, Captum Advisors, and many, many others. This is truly an international event, attracting participants from different countries and spanning multiple industry sectors such as energy, insurance, project management, finance and more. In addition to case studies from industry, Palisade’s own experts will provide training on @RISK, DecisionTools Suite, and the latest software techniques. In addition, you’ll see sneak previews of new software in the pipeline from Palisade.

The conference will feature plenty of opportunities to network with other professionals, including a pre-dinner cruise followed by a meal at another location steeped in Dutch history, the award winning D’Vijff Vlighen (Five Flies Restaurant).

More conferences in the series will be announcing soon in Brazil, Las Vegas, and other locations.

» View the conference program
» Register now and save

Palisade Announces First Events in India
Next month, we are excited to be holding our first-ever events in India. Palisade is hosting a series of three “roadshow” style seminars on quantitative risk analysis and management. These events are free of charge and will educate participants on both the value of sound risk management and how to go about performing risk analysis. Decision makers are already registering from a wide array of industries.

       27th January 2011 – Mumbai
       31st January 2011 – Bangalore
       1st February 2011 – New Delhi

» Learn more and register at no charge

Palisade in China and Brazil
This month, Palisade ran five risk management roadshows in Brazil and China. Three industry-specific events were held in São Paulo, Brazil on focusing on risks in finance, major projects, and Six Sigma, while two more general risk management courses were given in Beijing and Shanghai. All were well-attended, with Beijing attracting the biggest crowd at over 120 delegates.

The Brazilian series marks a year of record growth for Palisade in Brazil during which we opened a new office in Rio de Janeiro and provided risk solutions to the largest banks and energy companies in that country.

The Chinese series is a springboard for the launch of the entire DecisionTools Suite line of software in Chinese. The Chinese version and our increased presence in that country are in response to growing demand for quantitative risk techniques, and to demand for @RISK in particular given its reputation as the worldwide leader in the field.

More events are planned for 2011, starting in India in January.

Upcoming Webcasts
Managing and Measuring Diversification Effect
Presented by Gregory Hight, Hight Capital Management
December 16, 2010, 11:00am ET
This webcast provides background on the theoretical and practical issues about diversification and asset allocation. Once the foundation has been set, I'll provide some detail about applications of quadratic programming and discuss how we can apply Monte Carlo Simulation to the analysis of diversification effect. I will spare the audience Greek letters and will provide mostly the big picture issues and the rationale underlying the processes. (There is NO CHARGE for this webcast.)
» Register now

What Is Our Risk If We Cut Too Deep In Our Workforce?
Presented by Sandi Claudell, CEO, MindSpring Coaching
January 20, 2011, 11:00am ET
In all businesses there is a certain demand on resources to produce a certain amount of results in a given window of time. In the discipline of “Lean” there are a few key calculations we use to determine the needed time and resources. Claudell uses @RISK's Six Sigma functions in a healthcare situation to determine how many doctors, nurses, and exam rooms would be required to keep up with the pace of incoming patients. (There is NO CHARGE for this webcast.)
» Register now

Better Management of Product Pricing
Presented by Sean Ritchie, Manager, Clarisant Consulting
February 17, 2011, 11:00am ET
This live webcast will explore the use of @RISK’s functionality for managing product prices. We will discuss the applications of simulation techniques to manage the impact of price changes at a macro (regional price changes) and micro level (individual bid) levels. We will discuss the challenges of acquiring accurate elasticity and demand data and how effective modeling can help to improve the quality of this data in the long term. (There is NO CHARGE for this webcast.)
» Register now

Gambling, Money Management, and Monte Carlo Simulation
Presented by Dr. Wayne Winston, Professor of Operations & Decision Technologies, Kelley School of Business at Indiana University
March 3, 2011, 1:00pm ET
Wayne Winston will demonstrate @RISK models that apply to various casino games such as roulette, keno, poker and craps. He will also explain the money management strategy (known as the Kelly Growth Criterion) adopted by the students profiled in the movie "21." (There is NO CHARGE for this webcast.)
» Register now

Palisade Blog Headlines
The Number and Its Evils
Thursday, December 2, 2010 - Holly Bailey
At a recent Palisade Users Conference, v.p. Randy Heffernan offered up some fun and insightful comments about risk analysis and the need many managers seem feel to boil risk assessment down to a single "correct" answer--the Number...
» Read more

Information Rich Data Poor -
Data Converted into Information for Hospital Management
Monday, November 22, 2010 - Steve Hunt
A couple of months ago Palisade Partner Ed Biernat and I gave the Times of London our perspective on what kinds of workplaces were promising avenues for expansion of Six Sigma. We pointed out that hospital operations were a field wide open for plowing. We didn't go into the substance of this suggestion, but now MindSpring's Sandi Claudell, a Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma, has sent us a richly detailed white paper with an example of process improvement in a hospital emergency department...
» Read more

Subscribe to the Palisade blogs.

Modeling Adverse Consequences in the
Financial Markets: Decision-Theoretic Risk Management Models
As presented by Christina I. Ray of Omnis at the Palisade Risk Conference Las Vegas, November 5, 2010

Over the last few years, the financial markets have experienced “black swan” (undirected, unpredicted, and rare) events and “tipping points” (points at which a previously rare phenomenon becomes dramatically more common), popularized by Nassim Taleb and Malcolm Gladwell, respectively. The “frequentist” approach most commonly used by financial risk managers —while adequate for measuring routine risk—was shown to be a failure in identifying the existence, magnitude, and drivers of extreme risk, and led to the failure of several financial institutions.

In the search for alternative methods, these experiences have shifted the worldview of some risk managers from the probable to the plausible. This presentation focuses on how one can anticipate extreme events, estimate their magnitude, and design solutions that will avoid them or mitigate their worst consequences using decision-theoretic models that include expert knowledge about causality. Such models focus on indentifying and quantifying the plausible – albeit improbable – outcomes that lie at the end of a cascade of causal events.

» Download the presentation

Using Simulation Statistics Functions

@RISK statistics functions return a desired statistic on simulation results or an input distribution. For example, the function RiskMean(A10) returns the mean of the simulated distribution for the cell A10. These functions are updated real-time as a simulation is running.

@RISK statistics functions include all standard statistics plus percentiles and targets (for example, =RiskPercentile(A10,.99) returns the 99th percentile of the simulated distribution).

@RISK statistics functions can be used the way you would use any standard Excel function. @RISK statistics functions that return a desired statistic on a simulation input distribution have the identifier Theo in the function name. For example, the function RiskTheoMean(A10) returns the mean of the probability distribution in the cell A10.

» Read more about @RISK statistics functions
» Download an example using @RISK statistics functions (QualitywRiskTheo.xls)

The Global Leader in Risk and Decision Analysis
Palisade Corporation is the world’s leading provider of risk and decision analysis software and solutions. Founded in 1984, its products @RISK and the DecisionTools Suite are used by over 95% of the Fortune 100, in nearly every industry around the world. Palisade is headquartered in New York State, and has offices in London, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo.