CHRISTIAN L. DUNIS is Girobank Professor of Banking and Finance at Liverpool Business School, and Director of its Centre for International Banking, Economics and Finance (CIBEF). He is also a consultant to asset management firms, a Visiting Professor of International Finance at Venice International University and an Official Reviewer attached to the European Commission for the evaluation of applications to finance of emerging software technologies. He is an Editor of the European Journal of Finance, and has widely published in the field of financial markets analysis and forecasting. He has organised the Forecasting Financial Markets Conference since 1994. JASON LAWS is a Lecturer in International Banking and Finance at Liverpool John Moores University. He is also the Course Director for the M.Sc. in International Banking, Economics and Finance at Liverpool Business School. He has taught extensively in the area of investment theory and derivative securities at all levels, both in the UK and in Asia. Jason is also an active member of CIBEF, and has published in a number of academic journals. His research interests are focussed on volatility modelling and the implementation of trading strategies. PATRICK NAÏM is an engineer of the École Centrale de Paris. He is the founder and chairman of Elseware, a company specialising in the application of nonlinear methods to financial management problems. He is currently working for some of the largest French institutions and co-ordinating research projects in the field at European level.