With Myron Scholes, Merton was awarded the Nobel for devising a new way to determine the value of stock options, generating new financial instruments and improving risk management. "In college I started studying the stock market," Merton explained. "I went down to the stock exchange, watched all the activity from the visitors' gallery, people running around, calling numbers, shouting, and all the paper flying and the bells ringing and of course that was exciting, and it seemed to lend itself to my analytical skills."