Current Topics in Quantitative Finance

Current Topics in Quantitative Finance
Author: Elio Canestrelli
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3642586775

The present volume collects a selection of revised papers which were presented at the 21st Euro Working Group on Financial Modelling Meeting, held in Venice (Italy), on October 29-31, 1997. The Working Group was founded in September 1986 in Lisbon with the objective of providing an international forum for the exchange of information and experience; encouraging research and interaction be tween financial economic theory and practice of financial decision mak ing, as well as circulating information among universities and financial institutions throughout Europe. The attendance to the Meeting was large and highly qualified. More than 80 participants, coming from 20 different Countries debated on 5 invited lectures and 40 communications in regular sessions. The sessions were located at the Island of San Servolo, on the Venetian lagoon, just in front of the Doges Palace. San Servolo Island is a natural oasis, in the midst of a unique urban setting, offering great relaxation in a peaceful park and a panoramic view of Venice. The friendly atmosphere added great benefit to the formal and informal discussions among the participants, -which is typical of E.W.G.F.M. Meetings. It is interesting to consider the story of the Meeting. The previous locations were held at Cyprus, Crete and Dubrovnik - former mile stones of the Venitian Republic influence on the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, that this Meeting should be harboured in the heart of the Republic itself (namely, the Saint Mark basin), was only a matter of consequence.

Quantitative Finance

Quantitative Finance
Author: T. Wake Epps
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2009-03-23
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9780470455272

A rigorous, yet accessible, introduction to essential topics in mathematical finance Presented as a course on the topic, Quantitative Finance traces the evolution of financial theory and provides an overview of core topics associated with financial investments. With its thorough explanations and use of real-world examples, this book carefully outlines instructions and techniques for working with essential topics found within quantitative finance including portfolio theory, pricing of derivatives, decision theory, and the empirical behavior of prices. The author begins with introductory chapters on mathematical analysis and probability theory, which provide the needed tools for modeling portfolio choice and pricing in discrete time. Next, a review of the basic arithmetic of compounding as well as the relationships that exist among bond prices and spot and forward interest rates is presented.? Additional topics covered include: Dividend discount models Markowitz mean-variance theory The Capital Asset Pricing Model Static?portfolio theory based on the expected-utility paradigm Familiar probability models for marginal distributions of returns and the dynamic behavior of security prices The final chapters of the book delve into the paradigms of pricing and present the application of martingale pricing in advanced models of price dynamics. Also included is a step-by-step discussion on the use of Fourier methods to solve for arbitrage-free prices when underlying price dynamics are modeled in realistic, but complex ways. Throughout the book, the author presents insight on current approaches along with comments on the unique difficulties that exist in the study of financial markets. These reflections illustrate the evolving nature of the financial field and help readers develop analytical techniques and tools to apply in their everyday work. Exercises at the end of most chapters progress in difficulty, and selected worked-out solutions are available in the appendix. In addition, numerous empirical projects utilize MATLAB® and Minitab® to demonstrate the mathematical tools of finance for modeling the behavior of prices and markets. Data sets that accompany these projects can be found via the book's FTP site. Quantitative Finance is an excellent book for courses in quantitative finance or financial engineering at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners in related fields including engineering, finance, and economics.

Quantitative Finance

Quantitative Finance
Author: Maria C. Mariani
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2019-11-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118629965

Presents a multitude of topics relevant to the quantitative finance community by combining the best of the theory with the usefulness of applications Written by accomplished teachers and researchers in the field, this book presents quantitative finance theory through applications to specific practical problems and comes with accompanying coding techniques in R and MATLAB, and some generic pseudo-algorithms to modern finance. It also offers over 300 examples and exercises that are appropriate for the beginning student as well as the practitioner in the field. The Quantitative Finance book is divided into four parts. Part One begins by providing readers with the theoretical backdrop needed from probability and stochastic processes. We also present some useful finance concepts used throughout the book. In part two of the book we present the classical Black-Scholes-Merton model in a uniquely accessible and understandable way. Implied volatility as well as local volatility surfaces are also discussed. Next, solutions to Partial Differential Equations (PDE), wavelets and Fourier transforms are presented. Several methodologies for pricing options namely, tree methods, finite difference method and Monte Carlo simulation methods are also discussed. We conclude this part with a discussion on stochastic differential equations (SDE’s). In the third part of this book, several new and advanced models from current literature such as general Lvy processes, nonlinear PDE's for stochastic volatility models in a transaction fee market, PDE's in a jump-diffusion with stochastic volatility models and factor and copulas models are discussed. In part four of the book, we conclude with a solid presentation of the typical topics in fixed income securities and derivatives. We discuss models for pricing bonds market, marketable securities, credit default swaps (CDS) and securitizations. Classroom-tested over a three-year period with the input of students and experienced practitioners Emphasizes the volatility of financial analyses and interpretations Weaves theory with application throughout the book Utilizes R and MATLAB software programs Presents pseudo-algorithms for readers who do not have access to any particular programming system Supplemented with extensive author-maintained web site that includes helpful teaching hints, data sets, software programs, and additional content Quantitative Finance is an ideal textbook for upper-undergraduate and beginning graduate students in statistics, financial engineering, quantitative finance, and mathematical finance programs. It will also appeal to practitioners in the same fields.

Machine Learning for Asset Managers

Machine Learning for Asset Managers
Author: Marcos M. López de Prado
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2020-04-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108879721

Successful investment strategies are specific implementations of general theories. An investment strategy that lacks a theoretical justification is likely to be false. Hence, an asset manager should concentrate her efforts on developing a theory rather than on backtesting potential trading rules. The purpose of this Element is to introduce machine learning (ML) tools that can help asset managers discover economic and financial theories. ML is not a black box, and it does not necessarily overfit. ML tools complement rather than replace the classical statistical methods. Some of ML's strengths include (1) a focus on out-of-sample predictability over variance adjudication; (2) the use of computational methods to avoid relying on (potentially unrealistic) assumptions; (3) the ability to "learn" complex specifications, including nonlinear, hierarchical, and noncontinuous interaction effects in a high-dimensional space; and (4) the ability to disentangle the variable search from the specification search, robust to multicollinearity and other substitution effects.

Applied Quantitative Finance

Applied Quantitative Finance
Author: Wolfgang Karl Härdle
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2017-08-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3662544865

This volume provides practical solutions and introduces recent theoretical developments in risk management, pricing of credit derivatives, quantification of volatility and copula modeling. This third edition is devoted to modern risk analysis based on quantitative methods and textual analytics to meet the current challenges in banking and finance. It includes 14 new contributions and presents a comprehensive, state-of-the-art treatment of cutting-edge methods and topics, such as collateralized debt obligations, the high-frequency analysis of market liquidity, and realized volatility. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1 revisits important market risk issues, while Part 2 introduces novel concepts in credit risk and its management along with updated quantitative methods. The third part discusses the dynamics of risk management and includes risk analysis of energy markets and for cryptocurrencies. Digital assets, such as blockchain-based currencies, have become popular b ut are theoretically challenging when based on conventional methods. Among others, it introduces a modern text-mining method called dynamic topic modeling in detail and applies it to the message board of Bitcoins. The unique synthesis of theory and practice supported by computational tools is reflected not only in the selection of topics, but also in the fine balance of scientific contributions on practical implementation and theoretical concepts. This link between theory and practice offers theoreticians insights into considerations of applicability and, vice versa, provides practitioners convenient access to new techniques in quantitative finance. Hence the book will appeal both to researchers, including master and PhD students, and practitioners, such as financial engineers. The results presented in the book are fully reproducible and all quantlets needed for calculations are provided on an accompanying website. The Quantlet platform quantlet.de, quantlet.com, quantlet.org is an integrated QuantNet environment consisting of different types of statistics-related documents and program codes. Its goal is to promote reproducibility and offer a platform for sharing validated knowledge native to the social web. QuantNet and the corresponding Data-Driven Documents-based visualization allows readers to reproduce the tables, pictures and calculations inside this Springer book.

Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance

Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance
Author: Julia Di Nunno
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 364218412X

This book presents innovations in the mathematical foundations of financial analysis and numerical methods for finance and applications to the modeling of risk. The topics selected include measures of risk, credit contagion, insider trading, information in finance, stochastic control and its applications to portfolio choices and liquidation, models of liquidity, pricing, and hedging. The models presented are based on the use of Brownian motion, Lévy processes and jump diffusions. Moreover, fractional Brownian motion and ambit processes are also introduced at various levels. The chosen blend of topics gives an overview of the frontiers of mathematics for finance. New results, new methods and new models are all introduced in different forms according to the subject. Additionally, the existing literature on the topic is reviewed. The diversity of the topics makes the book suitable for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of financial modeling and quantitative finance. The chapters will also be of interest to experts in the financial market interested in new methods and products. This volume presents the results of the European ESF research networking program Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance.

Frontiers in Quantitative Finance

Frontiers in Quantitative Finance
Author: Rama Cont
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2009-03-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470456809

The Petit D'euner de la Finance–which author Rama Cont has been co-organizing in Paris since 1998–is a well-known quantitative finance seminar that has progressively become a platform for the exchange of ideas between the academic and practitioner communities in quantitative finance. Frontiers in Quantitative Finance is a selection of recent presentations in the Petit D'euner de la Finance. In this book, leading quants and academic researchers cover the most important emerging issues in quantitative finance and focus on portfolio credit risk and volatility modeling.

Introduction to Quantitative Finance

Introduction to Quantitative Finance
Author: Robert R. Reitano
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 747
Release: 2010-01-29
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 026201369X

An introduction to many mathematical topics applicable to quantitative finance that teaches how to “think in mathematics” rather than simply do mathematics by rote. This text offers an accessible yet rigorous development of many of the fields of mathematics necessary for success in investment and quantitative finance, covering topics applicable to portfolio theory, investment banking, option pricing, investment, and insurance risk management. The approach emphasizes the mathematical framework provided by each mathematical discipline, and the application of each framework to the solution of finance problems. It emphasizes the thought process and mathematical approach taken to develop each result instead of the memorization of formulas to be applied (or misapplied) automatically. The objective is to provide a deep level of understanding of the relevant mathematical theory and tools that can then be effectively used in practice, to teach students how to “think in mathematics” rather than simply to do mathematics by rote. Each chapter covers an area of mathematics such as mathematical logic, Euclidean and other spaces, set theory and topology, sequences and series, probability theory, and calculus, in each case presenting only material that is most important and relevant for quantitative finance. Each chapter includes finance applications that demonstrate the relevance of the material presented. Problem sets are offered on both the mathematical theory and the finance applications sections of each chapter. The logical organization of the book and the judicious selection of topics make the text customizable for a number of courses. The development is self-contained and carefully explained to support disciplined independent study as well. A solutions manual for students provides solutions to the book's Practice Exercises; an instructor's manual offers solutions to the Assignment Exercises as well as other materials.

A Practitioner's Guide to Discrete-Time Yield Curve Modelling

A Practitioner's Guide to Discrete-Time Yield Curve Modelling
Author: Ken Nyholm
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2021-01-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108982301

This Element is intended for students and practitioners as a gentle and intuitive introduction to the field of discrete-time yield curve modelling. I strive to be as comprehensive as possible, while still adhering to the overall premise of putting a strong focus on practical applications. In addition to a thorough description of the Nelson-Siegel family of model, the Element contains a section on the intuitive relationship between P and Q measures, one on how the structure of a Nelson-Siegel model can be retained in the arbitrage-free framework, and a dedicated section that provides a detailed explanation for the Joslin, Singleton, and Zhu (2011) model.

Algorithmic and High-Frequency Trading

Algorithmic and High-Frequency Trading
Author: Álvaro Cartea
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2015-08-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1316453650

The design of trading algorithms requires sophisticated mathematical models backed up by reliable data. In this textbook, the authors develop models for algorithmic trading in contexts such as executing large orders, market making, targeting VWAP and other schedules, trading pairs or collection of assets, and executing in dark pools. These models are grounded on how the exchanges work, whether the algorithm is trading with better informed traders (adverse selection), and the type of information available to market participants at both ultra-high and low frequency. Algorithmic and High-Frequency Trading is the first book that combines sophisticated mathematical modelling, empirical facts and financial economics, taking the reader from basic ideas to cutting-edge research and practice. If you need to understand how modern electronic markets operate, what information provides a trading edge, and how other market participants may affect the profitability of the algorithms, then this is the book for you.