He is one of the most influential economists of the moment. Crowned world’s best forecaster of American, Chinese and Eurozone statistics in 2019 for the 3rd consecutive year! And already at the time of his doctoral thesis, defended at Université Paris-Dauphin, this Azuréen born in St-Laurent-du-Var did not lack for fun. “The idea was to show that sports betting is a reliable indicator for predicting stock market trends. It also makes it possible to have real-time information, unlike surveys,” enthuses the thirty-year-old, who would go to the Cagnes-sur-Mer Hippodrome with his father as a child. To this day Christophe Barraud continues to use sports betting among other indicators for his conclusions, as in the context of the Brexit referendum or the American presidential election.
Who does the numbers and where do they come from?
Having started his career at Dexia Securities, Christophe joined Market Securities almost 10 years ago. As Chief Economist and Strategist in Paris, he advises banks, insurance companies and hedge funds internationally, and even convinced his company to open an office in the Arénas in Nice. He is no stranger to working from home: “I’m here almost half the time.” Although numbers are an essential aspect of his job, he doesn’t define himself as a maths champion. “You have to get yourself organised to collect as much data as possible in a variety of fields, know how to sort it and then build simple models. You get a projection zone with a confidence interval, but after that, it will always be a question of perception”, Laurentin insists. All the more so during the COVID-19 period, when health, economic and political logics may diverge. He concludes, “Last March, I said to myself one night I could do away with all my models. It’s a job in which, above all, you have to know how to challenge yourself.”
By Eve Chatelet – Photo Loïc Basoli
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