offset function in excel

Recently I realized that for portfolio management related excel modelling the most powerful function that excel has is "offset". It is as if Microsoft included it in excel to create dynamic portfolios. It is usually used by the people as an ordinary function. However it can be used to create dynamic arrays- something we use quite a lot in portfolio modelling- and now one can develop a completely dynamic portfolio model without using VBA.

There is a cost however. It slows down the machine speed considerably particularly if one has also used a Table in the model to create the efficient frontier.

The secret in using the Offset function is: keep both the row-ref and column-ref zero, and use the height and breadth using some dynamic reference. You will see real magic in your portfolio models.

Why US B Schools are at the TOP?

Fifty years back Indians used to look at cambridge and Oxford as the top universities. But that is no more the case. I recently found some interesting research papers, internet postings, etc that proves what is so special about US Universities and why they have dominated the world.

An accounting professor from a well-known university got the best teacher's award. (In US most B School students select one of the professors as the best professor for the year) And at the end of the year he was politely asked to leave the school. The reason is that he did not publish a single paper that year. There is a very well know lady in another top-rated school who got promoted despite having got poor feedback from students. The reason is that she publishes very frequently in well-known journals.

This penchant for research- the slogan that publish else perish- is what keeps the US Universities and B-Schools at the top. In fact an internet site for PhD students advises PhD students not to give a good seminar at the time of recruitmenmt. The reason is obvious. Those who give good seminars will inevitably turn out to be good teachers. That means they will often be visited by students for all sorts of things. And that means less time for research. So an unwritten policy most top schools follow (the internet site claims so) is do not recruit somebody who gives a very good seminar.

You need guts to take such decisions. But it pays handsomely. As my professor at IIM B used to tell me the job of a management school teacher is to create knowledge not to disseminate it. The dissemination part can be left to lesser mortals.

Not everybody may agree. But as somebody said "If you do not like my ideas then there are others".