Book Description

Since its inception, the market for credit derivatives has shown impressive growth and is expected to hit a volume of more than $4.8 trillion by 2004. Credit derivatives have begun to transform modern banking; they have become a standard instrument for the management of default risk; they are being used for risk management and hedging as well as for speculation, balance-sheet management and regulatory capital purposes.

Despite their great usefulness, even established professionals often feel insecure when it comes to the quantitative analysis of the prices and risks of credit derivatives. Confronted with a bewildering variety of fundamentally different pricing approaches, it can be very challenging to understand their relative advantages and disadvantages and to choose the "correct" one for the problem at hand.

In this book, the author carefully explains the different pricing models for credit derivatives in a very application-oriented way. Based on his wide experience in professional training for credit derivatives analysis, the models are developed with a view to their application to real pricing problems rather than just presenting the theory.

Philipp Schönbucher is one of the most talented researchers of his generation. He has taken the Credit Derivatives world by storm. In this book he carefully explains the concepts and the mathematics behind all of the most important and popular credit risk models. Professor Schönbucher has filled an important gap on the quantitative finance bookshelf. –Paul Wilmott

The reader is presented with a clear, concise and readable treatment of credit pricing models that will appeal to practitioners and academics. It provides a useful roadmap to the many daily challenges that face practitioners. It will become a standard reference.
–Stuart M. Turnbull, Senior Vice President, Fixed Income Research, Lehman Brothers, NY

"This is the most comprehensive, and also the clearest, book on the details of constructing credit risk models that I have read. Throughout, it is directly useful for general value-at-risk credit modelling as well as its stated focus of credit derivatives. Readability is greatly enhanced by its step-by-step organization across what has grown to be a large topic area and the focus of its single author, as opposed to a collection of disjointed papers. Alternative modelling frameworks are written in a common notation and the reader is given all the details needed for direct implementation. The author, Philipp Schönbucher, is clearly one of the top researchers in this area, even before the writing of this book." –Greg M Gupton, DefaultRisk.com

"Philipp addresses a wide range of modelling issues in the fast growing market of credit derivatives. He covers a broad spectrum of topics starting with the simple everyday trading tools while gradually building up to the more complex mathematical models. It successfully bridges the gap between academia and practice in an elegant and easy style, making it a valuable book for a wide audience"  –Ebbe Rogge, Product Development Group, Financial Markets, ABN AMRO
... Read more

Reviews (6)

Amongst the best of a bad lot
The state of theory is in such tremendous flux at present with a majority of research unpublished and a growing consensus that the state of the art is entirely inadequate. No book could possibly please industry researchers at this point, but Philipp contributes some ideas and clarification here and there and some leads which are valuable. He is perhaps a little dismissive and pessimistic when the theory wanders into hard mathematical problems, and to to a large extent his book ends where the fun stuff begins. Nontheless I would recommend, especially to those entering the field.

Academic's Imperfect Idea of the Market
This book on credit derivatives models is written by an academic without a feel for how the market trades in practice. Schonbucher presents the mathematical equations without expanding on the meaning of the models or their application.

There are some errors of fact when he discusses how certain products work, such as first-to-default baskets, a serious error in and of itself, but unfortunately there are additional similar errors which show the author has an imperfect understanding of the market he writes about. All in all this book was an unsatisfying treatment of the topic.

Models in theory
Nice equations, but hasn't kept up with Ph.D.'s who work on Wall Street and know the theory, thoroughly understand the products, and can apply practical but theoretically sound compromises to accommodate reality. Ph.D.'s at work in finance - including myself (physics) - are probably too busy to write the definitive modelling book. This book fails to address key ingredients such as daycounts, settlement conventions, documentation asymmetry, and more.

Informative, Rigorous, Excellent
The book covers the basics of credit risk modeling and derivative pricing (both structural and intensity type of models), explained in a clear style with enough detail to enable implementation (a rarity in financial literature!). Basics of the theory of stochastic processes and risk-neutral pricing are also covered. Calibration methods for the models are clearly explained. Due to the limited scope, some topics are given only cursory coverage (Copula function methods, role of interest-rates models etc.), but even then, enough references are provided. A very useful, concisely written tome!

Good Model Overview
This is a fine overview of credit derivatives modeling. The model explanations are good, but the book may have benefited from more disclosure about data limitations and the current sources of data. Value dislocations due to documentation language are not captured by the models, especially in the light of ISDA's 2003 language changes. More detail on applications and the need to deal with risks introduced by specific structures would also have been helpful.

Curiously, there are a few conventions inconsistent with market practice used in this book. For instance, the author defines credit risk as default risk, ignoring the standard definition of credit risk which includes general credit spread widening, and credit downgrades. It also seems the author is unfamiliar with how first-to-default baskets are traded, and seems to think that premiums of the survivors are paid after a first-to-default event (They cease.). These observations aside, this is a long-awaited reference for credit derivatives professionals.

For the above risks, I recommend two other sources. Applications and documentation risks are clearly explained in Tavakoli's "Credit Derivatives" (2nd Edition). For professionals who want to know how to apply derivatives in structured finance, I highly recommend Tavakoli's just released book: "Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance". ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Technicals move only with Fundamentals!!!
As a brief introduction of myself, I have passed CFA Program. In my opinion, you can't make money by reading ANY book on Technicals or Fundamentals. In Stock Market, thought Process is THE sought-after thing. Much of the theories in fundamentals or technicals contain some assumptions. All or some of these may not be true. So decision-making lies in the valuation of stock considering the noise in such theories.

I used to be ardent follower or Technical Analysis. But after 3 years of experience, though in a smaller market, I now strongly believe that Technicals don't have any foot-hold of their own. These only move with the Fundamentals.

I have read this book. On the whole I found this a great book. The reason that I have given 3 stars is not about the book that remain below my expectations, but it's about the Technical Analysis that actually remained below my expectations!!!

Regards,

There is wisdom in there, if you can find it
This text is well known and required by the MTA for its CMT program. Its author is well studied and an expert at technical analysis and has a good historical approach. HOWEVER, his writing style is horrid. I am a fully licensed securities professional and have done technical analysis for a considerable amount of time. Even when I know what he is trying to say I personally find it almost impossible to understand some of his paragraphs. Throw in some typographical errors and some paragraphs are too obtuse to bother trying to decipher. Further, the charts in this book are not the best. They are all so compressed his examples are difficult to find and seldom marked. Its hard to find the early part of a year when the whole year is about an tenth of an inch. Buy this book if you have to or if you can read his style easily that you see in the sample provided. If not there are equally good books on the same subject out there.

Comprehensive - but oh, the typos!
This book has become one of the classics for the beginning technical analyst, and is one of the two texts set for the first level of the Chartered Technical Analyst exam. I'm working my way through it, but I've found myself as frustrated as informed. Certainly you will find some information about almost every technical indicator that you will hear about in the press or on the web, but the attempt to be comprehensive means that the treatment of many issues is cursory at best.
Worst of all, though, is the almost total absence of editing in the first half of the book. Some random examples - the RSI formula is misstated, the text refer to charts that don't exist, charts are mislabelled (e.g a Microsoft chart labelled as WalMart). One important table has the column headings offset by one column. The accompanying workbook suffers from the same problem (e.g reversing answers to multiple choice questions). And to add insult to injury, the book is falling apart! Martin Pring's contributions to technical analysis is unquestioned - unfortunately the poor editing and presentation of this expensive book does poor service to his reputation.

A Valuable Guide
A well rounded comprehensive guide to TA thats easy to read and apply. A great value for the price, good up to date information for the student of the markets. Filled with many easy to understand diagrams and scenarios, A good buy.

Covers it all
This book has something for everyone, covers all aspects of technical trading. Well worth the money and a good reference book in any traders library. The chapters in the book on barcharts and candlestick charting are good. Although there are some typos in the book and the fonts are rather small, for this i give it 3 1/2 stars , a good buy. ... Read more

Book Description

This book's descriptive, balanced overview of the U.S. financial system, its primary institutions and markets, coupled with an introduction to international markets, creates a presentation truly reflective of today's global marketplace. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A good starting point for business and finance students
This book is updated to the latest development in financial market, institutions and structure.

It concisely presented the money and capital markets with a touch of history and functionality.

I particularly like the balanced view of the authors in their presentations. It successfully illustrates the functional as well as risk consideration of the markets and institutions.

This book should serve well for student studying in domestic financial market and also as a bridging link to international financial system. ... Read more

Book Description

Updated and revised to reflect the mostcurrent information, this introduction to futures and options markets isideal for those with a limited background in mathematics. Based on Hull's Options, Futures and Other Derivatives, one of thebest-selling books on Wall Street, this book presents an accessible overview of the topic without the use of calculus. Packed withnumerical samples and accounts of real-life situations, the Fifth Editioneffectively guides readers through the material while providing them with ahost of tangible examples.For professionals with a career infutures and options markets, financial engineering and/or risk management. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Great Book!
I needed to understand everything I could about Futures and Options in a short time and this book was perfect for that purpose. The introduction about futures and options is great and the content in general is very easy to understand and follow. I really liked the examples and the way the author explained each topic. However, I have to confess that maybe my engineering background helped me to understand the math behind, but I believe that even if you don't have much mathematical knowledge you can follow the book.

A big plus of this book is that it contains a chapter about Value at Risk and one focused more on more recent types of derivatives contracts (e.g., energy, weather, etc.).

In general, I think that with this book you could cover more ground more quickly than with other books.

Great Book!!
This book is a great introduction to options and futures, I do not have any university experience in mathematics and was able to follow nearly all that I have read so far. However, if you are not comfortable with substituting into equations and following equation derivations, maybe option/futures trading is not for you.

You better know your math
The book is a good book IF you know your math. It has been a while since I have done calculus and finance classes and needed to review other books in order to understand all the math. I laughed at the introduction when the author stated math is not needed. While this is partially true, it is because the author expects the reader to memorize his formulas and so omitts some of the steps of how the formulas come about. Do not try to do this book without help or even better yet, without the solution manual. It was a grueling class with more than 1/2 the class dropping it because the book was so hard to understand. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Pithecanthropus
The book contains a wealth of practical information however there are errors in the mathematical formulas, dates and etc. This is most frustrating from a reader point of view and dampened the confidence in the material presented. However, it is relatively a easy read for general understanding of the money and FX markets. I hope the author does a more thorough check in the future edition in order to do this book justice.

Excellent practical book for the beginners
This is a great practical book for the beginners and intermediate people in the market. When I started in the market as a business analyst, with no prior experience, it was a confused world of trading. After reading this book, things make much more sense. In addition, the book explains brief analytics on how to price and when and why certain instruments will be used for trading. It is geared towards trading. Refer to other books if you are more interested in middle/back office functionality (like settlements, P&L calc, risk management etc.)

Great help for trainers
Many a times, trainers in the banking industry find it very difficult to teach complex subjects like foreign exchange and money markets to relatively junior guys. This book will prove to be of great help to those trainers. Probably the first ever attempt in this subject.( Luca's text book can easily be replaced by this book just because of its excellant padagogy). Hope other titles advertised by RFT will also become available soon, specially the one on Risk Management.

Not recommended for anyone who has previous experience
If you have some experience of foreign exchange trading, this book is not for yourself. You would learn everything written here within the first six weeks of your job as a foreign exchange trader.

However, this book is great for the REAL beginners who want to learn about foreign exchange from the very beginning and for trainers or teachers who teach those who has little knowledge the foreign exchange. This book starts from explaining what bids and asks are and explains so far up to the mechanics of foreign exchange derivatives. The most remarkable feature of this book is illustrations of deal components and market segments showing how each deal components and markets are related to each other. Detail explanation on different market conventions applied to different currencies is also useful. Short questions at end of chapters are good to review what you should take away from the chapters.

Excellent Book
This book is excellent for beginner as well as for advance. It covers all the details right from bottom to top in a very lucid language. It also covers enough diagrams that explains the subject very well. ... Read more

Book Description

Drive . . . and grow rich!

The bestselling author of Investment Biker is back from the ultimate road trip: a three-year drive around the world that would ultimately set the Guinness record for the longest continuous car journey. In Adventure Capitalist, legendary investor Jim Rogers, dubbed “the Indiana Jones of finance” by Time magazine, proves that the best way to profit from the global situation is to see the world mile by mile. “While I have never patronized a prostitute,” he writes, “I know that one can learn more about a country from speaking to the madam of a brothel or a black marketeer than from meeting a foreign minister.”

Behind the wheel of a sunburst-yellow, custom-built convertible Mercedes, Rogers and his fiancée, Paige Parker, began their “Millennium Adventure” on January 1, 1999, from Iceland. They traveled through 116 countries, including many where most have rarely ventured, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Angola, Sudan, Congo, Colombia, and East Timor. They drove through war zones, deserts, jungles, epidemics, and blizzards. They had many narrow escapes.

They camped with nomads and camels in the western Sahara. They ate silkworms, iguanas, snakes, termites, guinea pigs, porcupines, crocodiles, and grasshoppers.

Best of all, they saw the real world from the ground up—the only vantage point from which it can be truly understood—economically, politically, and socially.

Here are just a few of the author’s conclusions:

• The new commodity bull market has started.
• The twenty-first century will belong to China.
• There is a dramatic shortage of women developing in Asia.
• Pakistan is on the verge of disintegrating.
• India, like many other large nations, will break into several countries.
• The Euro is doomed to fail.
• There are fortunes to be made in Angola.
• Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are a scam.
• Bolivia is a comer after decades of instability, thanks to gigantic amounts of natural gas.

Adventure Capitalist is the most opinionated, sprawling, adventurous journey you’re likely to take within the pages of a book—the perfect read for armchair adventurers, global investors, car enthusiasts, and anyone interested in seeing the world and understanding it as it really is. ... Read more

Reviews (56)

A libertarian touring the world
Following up the success with Investment Biker, Jim Rogers tours the world again. While touring, Rogers is on a constant search for good investment opportunities, based on the credo: buy when there is blood in the streets, sell when the shoeshine boy asks for investment tips. Besides looking for investment opportunities, Rogers is trying to judge how countries around the world are run economically.

The lion's share of the book is dedicated to developing countries, which is sensible given that these countries rarely get much attention in the press (as long as floods, earthquakes or wars stay away). One common observation across developing countries all over the world is the NGO-bureaucrats, living like kings in foreign countries. Backed by their own governments money, driving around in their 4WHs to tell the local people how stupid they are. This is a recurring point throughout the book, a point he makes really well. Rogers' anger towards the whole developing aid industry, which ruins the business for local entrepreneurs and destroys the knowledge of farming, is very visible.

So what about the investment opportunities? Rogers is clearly disappointed, closing as many accounts as he opens. He endorses the capitalist spirit of China (the president understands exchange derivatives!), and finds some good places in Africa. A running theme is to look at a countries demographics to forecast its future. Government bureaucrats are getting on his nerves everywhere, however, especially in the border controls.

But Adventure Capitalist is a good read, and excellent for airports and the like. Easy available to all readers, particularly to those with the slightest of interest in economics or finance.

Seeing the world at the right level....
Jim Rogers has taken the great American notion of a road trip, and made it into a sensational read. I was really taken by his first book, i.e. Investment Biker, and followed his next trip via his website. Each time I checked his site, my interst in the book to come increased, and I was not disappointed.

I think that Mr. Rogers might have about 5 more books from this one trip, and each one would be better and more insightful as he mulls over the things that he saw and experienced and has the time to take a longer view. I will look forward to buying those future books should they come to pass.

The book is well written, thoughtful and persuasive as to the the failings of our foreign policy. It's too bad that national leadership seems to be fashioning a neo-isolationist policy, when the real goal should be to understand how those in the rest of the world really see us.

I wanted the book to be longer, to provide more detail as to how he got things done, the stuff that worked, and more on what he saw and experienced. As I wrote this review, I found myself listening to the BBC World news trying to connect with the world that Rogers so eloquently describes.

This is a great book, and the kind that should be required reading for students of all ages!

Excellent adventure, read, political commentary, investment
Wow!

Maybe I'm not as smart as the reviewer who preceded me.

I picked up A.C. on the way to Australia. I read it at light speed. To say this book is an eye opener is an understatement. I travel a lot...but not this much! ...no one does!

I learned a great deal following the Jim, Paige, videographer and car around the world. I confess there is much of their journey I would never have had the guts to undertake and thus was impressed by some of their choices of travel.

Here's some of what you are going to pick up:
1) You're going to find out what countries to put a few shekels into and which one's not to. (There are a lot more to NOT.)
2) You're going to get an excellent idea of where you want to visit on your next non-5-star trip out of the country.
3) You're going to find out that Vancouver B.C. is overall one of the finest cities in the world. (I can't think of a better one myself.)
4) Some darn good arguments for unrestricted free trade and open borders.
5) Solid challenges to your way of looking at the political messes of virtually every nation on the planet and a few ideas on what could make things better.
6) Lots of ways to save your hard earned money.
7) The fact that there are precious few powerhouse opportunities right now.

Of some interest, Jim notes he was told you can't buy a house in Australia if you don't live there. That's what I was told by some cab drivers, realtors and university prof's. Others told me the exact opposite and a few noted that you can't buy but you can build. Go figure. This is truly a bizarre phenomenon. Whatever the deal is, don't cut the check until you know the answer.

This book was a lot of fun. Thoroughly enjoyable and a lesson in looking at the world and the USA that sometimes is a bit stern.

Loved it.

Kevin Hogan
Author of The Psychology of Persuasion
http://www.kevinhogan.com/

Excellent
Jim Roger's knows investing, and he makes it interesting. Don't read this book if you think you're going to get a hot investment tip. He moves too quickly to focus on any one country's investment potential. It's a combination of geography, history, and capitalism. You will learn more about the state of the world than investing. I now know many tidbits about countries that I never knew previously.

Do you know how Africa's geography will most likely change within the next two decades? Wonder how Apartheid is progressing in South Africa? The best African country to vacation in, and why? The freedom in China that we never hear about? The "feed the children" programs, and how they are corrupted once they ARRIVE in Africa?

I've focuses in on Africa here, but that's what I found most interesting. Again, you will not become an expert currency trader here, but you will attain valuable insight into world affairs.

Read this travelogue to sate your wanderlust
This book is an extensive travelogue written by a wealthy, cosmopolitan, middle-aged American who has spent many years working in global money management. As such, its easy for me to relate to him, and I found his thoughts and observations useful and entertaining.

Mr. Rogers' trip was a massive undertaking, with three years spent criss-crossing six of the seven continents. Its a spectacular achievement, and a rich and delightful repast for anyone with even a little of the armchair traveler within them. ... Read more

Book Description

This cutting-edge financial casebook is divided into four modules: Structuring Projects, Valuing Projects, Managing Project Risk, and Financing Projects. The cases have been carefully selected to reflect actual use of project finance over the past five years in terms of geographic location (the cases come from 15 different countries) and industrial sectors.
* Benjamin Esty, of the Harvard Business School, is one of the leading scholars in project finance.
* Project finance is becoming the financing mechanism of choice for many private firms.
* Cases require the reader to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines when making a single managerial decision. This integration of functional areas such as strategy, operations, ethics, and human resource management encourages the reader to adopt a more integrative perspective and understanding of the interconnectedness of managerial decision-making. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A book for students of budgeting
This book aimes at giving the reader a comprehensive picture of the budgetprocess from the creation of the different parts of the budget to the finished result, and the processes after the completion.

The authors try to make it the most complete, practical and readable book about budgeting.

I think, that the result is very good. The only things I miss is more emphasis on the subject of making the budgetassumptions and the difficulties in educating people in the company in the budgetprocess. ... Read more

Book Description

The purpose of this casebook is to provide students with an opportunity to bridge the gap between learning concepts in a lecture setting and actually applying them on the job. By using these cases, students can be better prepared to deal with the multitude of problems that arise in the practice of healthcare finance.

Benefits:

Four new cases have been added, focusing on marginal pricing and outlier protection, activity-based costing analysis, analysis of the use of physician extender, and evaluation of two competing technologies, including backfill and replacement project analysis
Cases can be used at both the introductory and advanced levels
An Excel disk with useful spreadsheet models is included in this book
This book is 20% off when purchased with either Healthcare Finance or Understanding Healthcare Financial Management ... Read more

Book Description

Swing trading is gaining popularity as a powerful method to increase returns—and potentially lower risks—by profiting from short-term price moves. The Master Swing Trader explains how traders can use technical analysis, charting, and market sentiment to make trades that hold through price fluctuations and noise with wider stops. This complete, practical guide to making profitable short-term trades—based on the author’s popular “Mastering the Trade” online course—uses dozens of charts and graphs to illustrate proven swing trading concepts and strategies. Experienced day, position, and online traders will benefit immediately from: - The 7 Bells – unique tools to uncoverpromising short-term prospects - Techniques to profit from low-risk short sales- The 4 repeating cycles for perfectlytimed trades ... Read more

Reviews (212)

A good book beyond the apprehension of the mass
Seldom on Amazon a popular book (with 187 reviews utd) carries so extreme comment as this. I fully understand so because I did have negative feeling of it, which only improved gradually from page to page. In the beginning, the book really seems so complicated, full of jargons, candlestick charts elaborating on chart patterns with little reference to oscillator indicators like MACD, Stochastics, which I personally believe the alignment of several of them to be a prerequisite for any profitable trade. In the end, I realized that if I didnt put so much emphasis on the words "Swing Trading" and its virtual difference with "Momentum Trading" which the author criticized much, this book is not so bad when considered to be a general trading book with above average practical advice.

Amongst others, I found the following so called 7 Bells, tools to locate outstanding opportunities most interesting.

1. Dip Trip - Price that moves against a strong trend will rebound sharply
2. Coiled Spring - Constricted price gives way to directional movement
3. Finger Finder - Candles flag reversals in the next smaller time frame.
4. Hole in the wall - Gap downs after strong rallies signal a trend change
5. Power Spike - High volume events print the future diretion of price (Big volume kills a trend)
6. Bear Hug - Weak markets drop quickly after rallying into resistance
7. 3rd Watch - Breakouts through triple tops signal major uptrends

In a word, this book is quite a helpful tool of reference amidst the competitive life of trading which regular glance of its graphs do help much to refresh one's mind. Complex, time consuming but well worths the price.

Read it and Loved it
I would like to strongly recommend this book to everyone. I have been trading stocks for about 4 years and read almost every book written on trading. This book covers so many important elements of short-term trading, including patterns, indicators, psychology, cycles and execution. It doesn't only touch upon these issues but explains them thoroughly with excellent illustrations, I counted over 180 of them. If you're anything like me, you will appreciate all of the charts as visual aids for the teachings in the book.

I also found it to be very well organized. The early chapters required a lot of attention. But everything really starts to click as each new chapter builds on previous information. By the time I got to the excellent "7-Bells" sections, I could almost anticipate how the author was going to treat his detailed examples.

I learned a tremendous amount reading this book. My overall rating is 5 stars. It is well worth its price tag and you will get what you pay for.

No substance, Very wordy
VERY difficult to understand, the charts in this book look like tangled spaghetti, the wording is long and makes little sense. I returned the book 5 days after i bought it. The techniques in this book are useless if you can understand them. I am not new to trading books and have read my share but this has to be one of the worst. Don`t waste your time or money on the book.

Great ideas, disabled by poor expression
Some pluses for this book:

- I would have to say this book contains great ideas - both of logic and experience. Excellent in this regard.
- Not only are some of the ideas great, this is comprehensive stuff. It's almost everything you'd learn if you traded for a couple of years yourself (minus the actual experience of course)

However, there are some really terrible negatives in this book:

- the English is POOR. I'm not going to argue with what is good or bad English, but the simple fact that it is DIFFICULT to read make it poor. There are some very obscure expressions used to describe say, certain price movements. These are DIFFICULT to understand if not ambiguous. I do not know why the author decides to use such esoteric terms - why not use simple english?
- The diagrams are labelled somewhat poorly. Text should refer more to the diagrams!! Argh!!
- [update] forgot to mention that his elliott wave counts are basically wrong. I think he has very limited understanding of EW (even less so than me, which is quite appalling). Beginners need to be aware of this!

Although the book contains some excellent ideas, I suspect most people will have difficulty extracting this information. It's such a waste it's not funny. Needless to say, the text is quite verbose and accordingly is heavily demanding on the reader's time.

Trader
Mr. Farley is obviously an experienced and probably successful trader. He is one of the more knowledgable writers I have read on trading. His book is through and detailed.

I have only one criticism. Mr. Farley has a talent for taking a fairly simple function and making it sound complicated.

This book would make an excellent college text. ... Read more

Book Description

Short-term financial management skills are increasingly important. Written by authors who both hold Certified Cash Managers credentials, this comprehensive book offers broad coverage of treasury and working capital management, while using valuation and the cash flow timeline as integrating themes. Its complete coverage includes current developments in treasury management, banking deregulation, globalization of financial services delivery, e-commerce, international cash management and foreign exchange risk ? all with a decision-making emphasis throughout. In addition, Short-Term Financial Management highlights examples of companies using the Internet for treasury management and other emerging trends. ... Read more

Book Description

The new edition of Volatility and Correlation has been thoroughly updated and expanded with over 80ew or reworked material, reflecting the changes and developments that have taken place in the field. The new and updated material includes: empirical and theoretical analysis of the smile dynamics; examination of the perfect-replication model in relation to exotic options; treatment of additional important models, namely, Variance Gamma, displaced diffusion, CEV, stochastic volatility for interest-rate smiles and equity/FX options; questioning of the informational efficiency of markets in commonly-used calibration and hedging practices.

The book is split into four sections. Part I deals with a deterministic-volatility Black world (no smiles), and sets out the author's 'philosophical' approach to option pricing. Part II deals with smiles in the equity and FX worlds. Beginning with a review of relevant empirical information about smiles, this part provides coverage of local-stochastic-volatility, general-stochastic-volatility, jump-diffusion and Variance-Gamma processes. Part II concludes with an important chapter that discusses if and to what extent one can dispense with an explicit specification of a process-based model, and can directly prescribe the dynamics of the smile surface. Part III focuses on interest rates, and part IV extends the setting used for the deterministic-volatility LIBOR market model in order to account for interest-rate smiles in a financially-motivated and computationally-tractable manner. In this final part the author deals, in increasing levels of complexity, with CEV processes, with diffusive stochastic volatility and with Markov-chain processes.

Covering FX, equity and interest-rate products, Volatility and Correlation is a blend of theoretical and practical material and is designed for traders, risk managers, financial professionals and students.

‘The second edition is even more comprehensive than the first, and ideally suited to quantitatively oriented traders and risk managers. Rebonato has a knack for distilling the essence from a wide range of complex option pricing models.’ Darrell Duffie, Stanford University, USA

‘The author has greatly extended the first edition of this book, whose main merit remains its courage to deal with relevant issues for practitioners. Rather than concentrating on fictional problems stemming from the need to give financial ground to one’s favourite theories, the author moves from problems posed by the market. At times a colloquial stance is privileged over mathematical rigor and formalism, allowing a larger public to benefit from this book.’ Damiano Brigo, Head of Credit Models, Banca IMI, author of Interest Rate Models: Theory and Practice.

‘This book is about equity, FX and interest-rate option pricing at its best. It combines rigorous theory with practical knowledge of markets and models. Riccardo Rebonato uses his technical mastery to make the theory clear, and his wealth of experience to give insights into applications. Whatever your level of knowledge of these markets, you will learn from him.’ Ian Cooper, Professor of Finance, London Business School

‘In this book, Riccardo Rebonato discloses his invaluable expertise, shedding light over the gloomy path of modern model selection for pricing and hedging derivatives. Both practitioners and academics will benefit from his teachings and advice.’ Fabio Mercurio, Head of Financial Models, Banca IMI, Milan, Italy ... Read more

Book Description

ROI (Return on Investment) is today's key business tool for measuring how effectively money was spent--yet few marketing managers receive any ROI training at all. Marketing ROIchanges all that, showing marketing pros at every level how to use ROI and other financial metrics to support their strategic decision making.

This comprehensive book details how an accurate working knowledge of ROI is essential for using the latest marketing measurements, and provides insights for gaining the greatest competitive advantage from the skilled use and understanding of ROI concepts.

Reviews (1)

Introducing Rigor to Marketing Spending
With Marketing ROI, Jim Lenskold has introduced a very useful level of financial rigor into what the typically imprecise process of targeting investments in marketing and then measuring their impact on company profits. Two key concepts introduced are how Marketing ROI is correctly calculated (many companies do it wrong), and more importantly, how the Marketing ROI informantion is used to manage marketing investments, looking at the incremental investment in marketing, and its incremental effect on sales and profitablity. Jim covers the subject from a big company perspective, focusing on multi-product, multi-customer segment environments, but the concepts in the book can also be applied to small companies concerned with spending marketing dollars most effectively.

This is a key text to be used along with the latest in customer relationship management techniques and customer information technology to manage the profitability of a company's demand chain. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first volume in a two volume sequence providing the foundational material on Stochastic calculus models in finance. This first volume is suitable for discrete-time finance. The only pre-requisite is standard calculus; may aspects such as martingales and change of measure are treated in detailed depth. Probability is covered in detail using the binomial model.

The book will be suitable for advanced undergraduate courses and beginning masters-level students in mathematical finance and financial engineering. There are exercises and examples throughout and summaries at the end of each chapter. ... Read more

Book Description

Essentials of Managerial Finance is the classic that started the First in Finance franchise.Now in its Thirteenth Edition, this best-selling text is renowned for its excellent blend of theoretical and applied material, comprehensive support package, and applicable real-world examples. In addition to its continued coverage of such hot topics as multinational finance, ethical dilemma discussions are incorporated throughout the text. Formerly known as "Weston/Besley/Brigham", Scott Besley is now the primary author. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Maximizing shareholder value
I used this book for a 500-level MBA finance class, and I have to admit I liked it. The first 3/4's of the book drive home the financial manager's objective: Maximizing shareholder value. It does this consistently, and actually got me (A Sales Manager) to understand why profit needs to take a back seat to value.

Like all introductory texts, it skimps a little on complexity. However, I truly have an appreciation now for finance. Many decisions my company makes now make sense. Though I have little need to apply financial concepts in my current job, I can give better `business reason' explanations to my reports when they ask. Which is why I began pursuing an MBA in the first place.

Enough to avoid Financemistakes
This new edition of the classical title looks very informative and meaningful.Perhaps a little bit more strong in the mathematical treatment will provide the customers with a text more atractive. Anyhow, it is still a good text for beginners.

Dr. Guillermo E. Martinez.

Excellant materials for the study of finance.
The book is fairly easy to understand. Students with little or nobackground in accounting were able to grasp the subject and understand thematerial. Thoroughly enjoyed using the text. Would have liked to see a website available to use with the book. The test bank was effective and a timesaver. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone wishing to useup-to-date materials with which to teach the subject of finance. Can beused in both a regular semester and a condensed class. ... Read more

Book Description

"Richard Flavell has a long association with the swap market from an academic and practitioner's point of view. Swaps and Other Derivatives is a compendium of practical information on the valuation, pricing, trading and structuring of swaps. It will fulfill an important role as a reference source for the market." Satyajit Das

Swaps and Other Derivatives is designed for financial professionals to understand, and ultimately to do themselves, how the vast bulk of OTC derivatives are used, structured, priced and hedged. Adopting a practical flavour throughout, the book describes how the pricing, valuation and risk management of generic OTC derivatives may be performed, in sufficient detail and with various alternatives, so that the approaches may be applied in practice. The book is supported by a full range of detailed spreadsheet models, which underpin all the tables, graphs and figures in the main text.

Swaps and Other Derivatives is ideal for risk managers, traders, financial engineers, product controllers and other professionals involved in the construction and management of OTC derivatives. In addition, it should be of interest to those involved in internal audit, risk control and IT within financial institutions. End users such as fund managers and corporate treasurers who use derivatives to manager their risk profiles should also find it of value. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

an excellent book for pricing swaps
give clear excel examples on how to implement swap calculation.

Excellent field guide
This is definitely the best book in the market for Swaps and related derivatives. The level of detail is extraordinary in comparision with other available books. Leaves very little gaps which means it is easy to apply the knowledge in practical situations.

Most books lean either towards the technical/quantitative side or the financial business side. Richard Flavell's books is a much-needed well rounded book on the issue. Definitely a much better book than Satyajit Das/Fabozzi books.

I wish Richard Flavell would write more. If you're buying one book on Swaps and related OTC derivatives, its got to be this one!

Flavell's book find the right balance
Whilst I have only read the first 100 pages or so of Favell's book so far, my impression is very favourable. This is simply an excellent book that finds the perfect middle ground between academic texts and introductory works, both of which usually leave out practical market issues such as day count conventions, business day adjustments, rounding rules, interpolation concerns, available market data etc

As a quant working for financial software company finding the detailed information required to write documentation to drive software development is often difficult. This book supplies the level of detail needed, and also contains excellent descriptions of different pricing methodologies for interest rate swaps.

Later chatpers on risk management and pricing of other derivatives look equally impressive, and I look forward to reading them.

This is the best book on swaps that I seen so far; a definite improvement on Das in my opinion. ... Read more

Book Description

"The one, only, and by far the best book synthesizing psychology and investing. In addition to providing modern, scientific knowledge about psychology, this book provides a mirror into the mind and wide breadth of knowledge of one of the leading practitioners of brief and effectual cures. Will help to cure your trading and your life."
–Victor Niederhoffer, Chief Speculator, Manchester Investments
Author, The Education of a Speculator and Practical Speculation

"How refreshing! A book that rises above the old NLP model of the 80’s and provides insights on how our relationship with the market is indeed a very personal one. Not only has Steenbarger provided some fantastic tools for the trader to transform his mindset, but he has contributed unique trading ideas as well. Brilliant!"
–Linda Raschke, President, LBRGroup, Inc.

"‘Investigate, before you invest’ was for many years the slogan of the New York Stock Exchange. I always thought a better one would be, ‘Investigate YOURSELF, before you invest.’ The Psychology of Trading should help you increase your annual investment rate of return. Mandatory reading for anyone intending to earn a livelihood through trading. "
–Yale Hirsch, The Hirsch Organization Inc., Editor, The Stock Trader’s Almanac

"This highly readable, highly educational, and highly entertaining book will teach you as much about yourself as about trading. It’s Oliver Sacks meets Mr. Market–extraordinary tales of ordinary professionals and individuals with investment disorders, and how they successfully overcame them. It is a must-read both for private investors who have been shell-shocked in the bear market and want to learn how to start again, as well as for pros who seek an extra edge from extra inner knowledge. Steenbarger’s personal voyage into the mind of the market is destined to become a classic."
–Jon Markman, Managing Editor, CNBC on MSN Money
Author, Online Investing and Swing Trading

"Dr. Steenbarger’s fascinating, highly readable blend of practical insights from his dual careers as a brilliant psychologist and trader will benefit every investor; knowing oneself is as important as knowing the market."
–Laurel Kenner, CNBC.com Columnist, Author, Practical Speculation ... Read more

Reviews (18)

This book is the Ultimate Treatise on Trading Psychology
Words cannot put to justice the astonishingly accurate, profoundly well-researched and lucidly written work of Dr. Brett. Using his real life clients as models The Good Dr. takes us on a journey through previously unchartered regions of the human psyche with painstaking detail. This book and the references contained in it set me on a path to self-discovery that I shall never backtrack on. I now see things with an awareness beyond which I ever thought I could attain.

It is really amazing as to how many people are sitting behind trading stations without the slightest clue as to the fiendish psychological challenges that trading presents to a human mind which is hard-wired to protect its ego at any and all costs. For those that are not brought up in an idyllic homestead with angels nursing their every psychopathological ailments trading is simply not somewhere to search for affluence and prosperity. As this applies to virtually everyone, those that intend to make money consistently must devote themselves to cultivating a superior level of self-understanding. Aspiring students of the markets must also increase their thresholds of pain exponentially since frustration & damper are the order of the day in this industry, at least initially.

The profitable trader must wield acute awareness, understanding of the underlying mechanism of the human brain and develop levels of self-discipline akin to the mythical Odysseus because the sirens of the market can be just as deadly. Dr Brett shows you step by step how the markets are relentless at exposing every one of our own individual emotional weaknesses, ferreting out every chink in our armor.Plentiful "screentime" and an objective mindset are the factors that go into the creation of a successful market player. Persistence without a doubt is the penultimate for it is their own painful battle scars that bring priceless wisdom to accomplished speculators.

This book should be on the shelf of anyone trying finish in the black on a consistent basis regardless of their level of sophistication. Thank you Dr. Brett for changing my life.

Trader: Know Thyself
An outstanding book for traders of all levels, even experienced traders will undoubtedly recognize some of their more subtle trading Achilles heels, and all of us have them.

If you're a system follower, you need this book. If you're a discretionary trader, you need this book. If you throw darts at the financial pages to choose your trades, you need this book (actually, in that case, you'd better get out of the markets altogether).

A lot has been written elsewhere, of course, on trading psychology, but Dr. Steenbarger, who apparently develops trading systems and trades actively himself -- so he puts his money where his mouth is -- shows how to integrate the quantitative and qualitative (i.e., human) elements into a coherent trading framework.

My trading results are up tremendously since I purchased this book, even though the market has been moving sideways the past few months. Thanks Dr. S!

Not bad, but not necessary
First, let me start by saying this book will not teach you how to trade (though you could probably see that from the title). I think the book is way longer than it needs to be. The author talks about many counceling events with clients in his life (most are non-trading related) and then tries to draw a parallel with them to trading. When he finally gets to his point about actual trading psychology, he has good things to say. But I think he could have said everything in one chapter. Nonetheless, I found that I was able to relate to many of the behaviors he discusses. I didn't feel like he really gave great help in trying to break the bad behavior, but at least being able to relate to it makes you think about it and pay attention when you are falling into it while trading. There are many other trading books I would probably read before this one. But if you're sick of all of the technical books that try to teach you how to trade, this book might be worth a read. It's actually one trading book that you could take on vacation with you.

Well researched and written, but not for the mass
The author's M.D. counsellor-trader identity did help him making this an uncommon trading psychology book full of "highly trading relevant" counselling records from both trader and non trader patients. The catch is: if you are not interested in or equipped with an intermediate level of knowledge about psychology or counselling, I doubt very much whether you can finish reading this 300 page book till its end.

To let you have a better grasp of my "worry" mentioned above, I would like to quote something from the last or conclusion chapter, which the author regarded them as 11 of the major themes explored in his book.

1. Behavior is patterned.
2. Your trading patterns reflect your emotion patterns.
3. Change begins with self observation
4. Problem patterns tend to be anchored to particular states. (When you enter a particular state thru emotional, physical, or cognitive activity, you tend to activate the behavioral patterns associated with that state.)
5. Our normal states of mind, which define most of our daily experience, lie within a restricted range of our possibilities. (Your immersion in daily routine keeps you locked in routine mind states)
6. Most trading occurs in a limited range of states, trapping traders in problem patterns. (Traders tend to place greater emphasis on the data they process than on the ways in which they process those data.)
7. People in general, and traders specifically, enact solutions as well as problem patterns.
8. Eliminating emotions is not necessarily the secret to improving trading. (Traders can utilize positive emotional experiences to identify constructive solution patterns and to create an anchoring of new, positive patterns.)
9. Success in the markets often comes from doing what doesnt come naturally.
10. The intensity and the repetition of change efforts are directly responsible for their utlimate success.
11. Trading success is a function of possessing a statistical edge in the markets and being able to exploit this edge with regularity.

In short, if you can appreciate or at least have a slight idea of what the above 11 points try to preach, this book suits you well. Otherwise, please give it a pass.

Don't let these reviewers fool you
In case you didn't notice, these other reviews are from the author circuit. I believe the practice is called log rolling. You review mine, I'll review yours - what a cozy little circle j***. Are any of them successful traders? Apparently not. Part-time prognosticators who have something to sell. Don't think that some nitwit psychologist can help you with your trading. Successful traders come in all shapes and sizes, and no amount of counseling is going to help you. ... Read more