The Salmon of Knowledge (bradán feasa) is a creature figuring in the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology. This salmon was sometimes called Fintan (or Finntan) in ancient times. (It is sometimes confused with Fintan mac Bóchra, who was known as "The Wise" and was once transformed into a salmon.) Stories differ on whether Fintan was a common fish or one of the Immortals, that could be eaten and yet continue to live.

The Salmon figures prominently in The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn, which recounts the early adventures of Fionn mac Cumhaill. According to the story, an ordinary salmon ate nine hazelnuts that fell into the Well of Wisdom (aka Tobar Segais) from nine hazel trees that surrounded the well. By this act, the salmon gained all the world's knowledge. Moreover, the first person to eat of its flesh would, in turn, gain this knowledge.

Felix Salmon is a financial journalist, formerly of Portfolio Magazine and Euromoney, and a blogging editor for Reuters. He was also author of a Wired cover story on the Gaussian copula.

Salmon is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and moved to the United States from the United Kingdom in 1997.

He began blogging in 1999 for the wire service Bridge News, segueing into a job for noted economist Nouriel Roubini.

In 2007 he argued that margin calls are not dangerous for CDO market and gave example of Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leverage Fund where "leverage got brought down pretty painlessly to $1.2 billion in leverage without any fire sales and without any bailout from Bear itself" — half year after that Bear Stearns went bankrupt and Late-2000s financial crisis has started.

The American Statistical Association presented Salmon with the 2010 Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award "for his body of work, which exemplifies the highest standards of scientific reporting. His insightful use of statistics as a tool to understanding the world of business and economics, areas that are critical in today's economy, sets a new standard in statistical investigative reporting."