Laura Núñez

Laura Núñez is Professor of Finance and Director of the Center for Insurance Research at IE Business School. She has also been a visiting professor at Bentley University in 2009 (MA, US) and at The University of Queensland in 2015 (QLD, AUS).

Laura began her professional career in the area of financial markets, working as a financial analyst with Paco García Paramés (known as the “Spanish Warren Buffett”) at Bestinver. She has subsequently worked as a trader at GVC (a stock exchange broker, currently GVC Gaesco Beka) and as a portfolio manager in the asset management division of Norwich Union (a British insurance company, currently AVIVA). While her main specialization lies within equity valuation and equity portfolio management, she has also worked in other capital market domains such as fixed income and derivatives.

Her passion for financial markets led her to pursue a PhD in financial economics. Her doctoral thesis on Artificial Intelligence applied to the design of trading systems published under the tittle "Genetic Algorithms: control parameters and applications to investment management through technical analysis" received the highest rating and the award for the best doctoral thesis on investment management of the Savings Bank of Madrid (currently Bankia).

Her lines of research are focused on: (i) the analysis and forecast of stock prices; (ii) the behavior of investors (financial literacy, attitudes, and behavioral non-rational biases); (iii) the estimation of the cost of capital; (iv) and the performance of listed family business. She has published at leading academic journals and presented at top conferences.

In 2018, her coauthored research work "The disposition effect: a longitudinal study for private and institutional investors in the Belgian market in different market circumstances" with Alexander de Groot, DBA student at IE, won the "Robert A. Olsen Best Doctoral Student Paper in Behavioral Finance & Economics - 2018 " of the 11th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics.

In her leisure time she loves to ski, kitesurf, play paddle, travel and read.

Academic Background

• PhD in Finance, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

• BSc in Economics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

• BA in Economics, UAM

• Participant Centered Learning Program, Harvard University

Academic and Professional Background

• Associate Professor of Finance, IE Business School, 2001 – present

• Director of the Center for Insurance Research, IE Business School, (2016 – present)

• Visiting Professor, The University of Queensland, QLD, AUS (2015)

• Visiting Professor,  Bentley University, MA, US (2009)

• Director of the Research Office, IE Business School (2001 – 2007)

• Head of Equity Trading, GVC SVB (1995 – 1996)

• Portfolio Manager, Norwich Union (1993 – 1995)

• Financial Analyst, Bestinver. (1991 – 1993)

Latest Publications

• Lyubchenko, A.A., Pacheco, J.A., Casado, S., Núñez, L. (2020). “An Effective Metaheuristic for Bi-objective Feature Selection in Two-Class Classification Problem”. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol.  1210

• Rady, A., Meshreki, H., Ismail, A., Núñez, L. (2019). “Variations in Valuation Methodologies and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from MENA Countries”. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Vol. 55 (9): 2016-2123

• Casado, S., Nuñez, L., Pacheco, J.A. (2019). “Predicción de la quiebra empresarial: el modelo GRASP-LOGIT”. Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa, Vol. 26

• Núñez, L. (2019). “La Formación del Asesor en el Sector Financiero y Asegurador. El Camino hacia la Educación Financiera del Cliente”. In  (Eds.). Transformación del Conocimiento: Futuro de la formación y desarrollo del talento en el sector financiero y asegurador

• Contreras, I., Hidalgo, J. I., Núñez, L. (2018). “Exploring the Influence of Industries and Randomness in Stock Prices”. Empirical Economics, Vol. 55 (2): 713-729