Business-valuation

I would recommend this book to someone who wants a broad exposure of "Security Analysis on Wall Street." Mr. Hooke gives a great overview of the many facets of securities analysis. The drawback of this book is that it lacks specifics. For example, I was interested in getting a deeper analysis of valuation methodologies, however, what I found was a general overview of this section--the author then jumped right on to the next section. This example relates to all of the topic areas. Going deeper into topic areas so that more educated and experienced readers could get insight was not available for the most part. Nevertheless, I rate this book 4 stars because it does a great job of giving a strong overview of security analysis. I would recommend this book, especially for beginners and intermediate students and practitioners.

Hooke's book was a fine overall review of how Wall Street pros evaluate common stocks. He showed many examples of actual firms, and he supplies a lot of anecdotes. The book reads pretty well, and it covers a good variety of industries, including hi-tech, distressed companies and emerging markets.

MR. HOOKE HAS WRITTEN AN EXCELLENT BOOKOF THE SECURITY MARKETS, WALL STREET AND SECURITY ANALYSIS. IT SURPASSES A SIMILAR ONE WRITTEN BY GRAHAM & DODD. AS A 20 YEAR STUDENT OF BUSINESS AND SECURITY ANALYSIS, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND MR. HOOKE' S ANALYSIS OF SECURITIES, SECURITY ANALYSIS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE ECONOMY.

THIS IS MR. HOOKE'S SECOND BOOK. HIS FIRST BOOK CONCERNED MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS . BOTH BOOKS USE PLAIN ENGLISH MAKING IT EASILY UNDERSTANDABLE TO THE AVERAGE PERSON AND NOT JUST A STUDENT OF THE SECURITY MARKET. THIS IS A GOOD BOOK FOR TEACHERS AND PROFESSORS WHO WANT THEIR STUDENTS TO READ , INFORMATIVE AND BOOKS WELL WRITTEN BOOKS ON THE SECURITY MARKET.

MR. HOOKE HAS 20 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE OF CORPORATE FINANCE, M AND A, INVESTMENT BANKING AND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE.HE HAS WORKED ON WALL STREET AND FOR THE WORLD BANK. HIS EXPERIENCE IS WELL EXEMPLIFIED IS HIS SECOND BOOK.

I HAVE REFERRED MR. HOOKE'S BOOK TO ALL OF MY ASSOCIATES ESPECIALLY THOSE IN THE INSURACE INDUSTRY WHICH IS MY PLACE OF WORK.

As a senior analyst at a prominent Wall Street firm, I found this book extremely helpful in advising my Fortune 500 clients on their valuation strategies. The interactive CD demonstrates that the author does not only have the powerful tools of knowledge and insight, but offers cutting edge technology that helps the reader put insightful words into immediate action. This highly acclaimed book provides extremely useful techniques for senior managers whose ultimate goal is to maximize shareholder value.

Professor Glantz has been instrumental for us in his writings and seminars. He truly is one of the world's foremost authorities on credit and the world of banking.

Don't know who wrote such silliness from the previous review. Obviously, not someone who is a senior member of the financial community. Mr. Glantz, well done! For readers yet to come, this book demonstrates and applies brilliant techniques. Enough said!

I have read this book... from a learning perspective of trying to learn what the theory behind options pricing is it is a great book. A lot of more recent topics are missing, but as a starter book for those who already price options/work in the industry without having learned all the theory (or in my case forgotten what they learned in school) it is a great read and a great reference.

This book covers quite a few fields (axiomatic probability, stochastic processes, financial theory) to the extent that they relate to valuation of securities. Naturally, the scope of coverage in such a brief tome (< 300 p.) is limited. It is written clearly and with precision, with sufficient number of exercises provided at chapters' ends. I would say that it goes to greater depth than Neftci, and is far more rigorous than Wilmott. Incomparably easier to understand than Merton. The only shorcomings I can find are relative paucity of examples and inadequate Index.

The language of financial derivatives is, arguably, the language of the modern theory of martingale stochastic processes. In this approach pricing contingent claims is reduced to finding an "equivalent martingale measure". Practitioners would think in terms of risk adjusted or risk neutral valuation. To understant this topic from an abstract and rigorous point of view is a daunting task restricted to a relatively small elite. For those seeking to learn the mechanics of this discipline a good foundation is well provided by the texts from Hull, Options, Futures and Other Derivatives, as well as Jarrow & Turbull, Derivatives Securities. These books present the intuition behind the formulas and how to use them in practical situations, but they do not show where the formulas come from and much less the mathematics necessary to prove them. Before the book under review was published, this task was attempted by other authors with mixed degrees of success. Here we briefly mention three of them. Baxter and Rennie's Financial Calculus (233 pages) is written in an informal fashion about deep mathematics and one has the feeling that the essence of the topics covered can be grasped and understood from it. However, behind this innocent style there is a huge amount of sophisticated machinery that, in my opinion, should have in part been presented in more detail. An instructor is left with the feeling that it could have been much more profitable to work a bit harder on the students and give them a more complete picture of the theory. Next comes Neftci's Mathematics of Financial Derivatives (352 pages). Its language is more accessible than Baxter and it gives a more detailed and extensive description on most topics. Mathematically, though, it falls short of current usage and rigour. The book by Musiela & Rukowski, Martingale Methods in Financial Modelling (511 pages), is far more difficult than any of these and should be read and understood only by a few. It requires previous knowledge of stochastic processes at the level of, for example, Probability with Martingales by D. Williams. The book under review is an excellent text for courses and for individual readers with a modest background in probability. There is no compromise with mathematical language and concepts. They are presented precisely and illustrated by examples without the burden of more technical theorem-proving approach in advanced mathematical texts. After introducing the idea of derivatives and risk-neutral valuation, it gives a summary of modern probability theory including measure, integral, conditional expectation, modes of convergence, characteristic functions and the Central Limit Theorem. This sets the framework for the rest of the book. Stochastic processes and finance in discrete time are not pre-requites for the much more complicated continuous time but serve as a pedagogical preparation for it. The Third and Fourth Chapters are dedicated to the discrete case and key concepts are carefully analysed. Information and filtrations are discussed as well as the important random walk processes as a motivation for the Brownian Motion. The culmination of these efforts is the proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing: in an arbitrage-free complete market there exists a unique equivalent martingale measure. A very readable discussion on binomial trees is given, including the proof that in the limit of small time increments one recovers from it the usual Black-Scholes formula for a call option. Chapters Five and Six are dedicated to stochastic processes and finance in continuous time. This includes filtrations, a sketch for the construction of Brownian Motion, quadratic variation of Brownian Motion, stochastic integrals and Ito calculus, stochastic differential equations, etc. A continuous version of the Fundamental Theorem is discussed but not proven. The main formula for risk-neutral valuation in terms of expected values is proven. A general result about the relationship with other approaches is that solutions to partial differential equations have a stochastic representation in terms of expected values (Feynman-Kac Formula). On p. 211 a discussion is presented regarding our knowledge concerning continuous time securities market in comparison to the discrete case.

If you are really interested in understanding the probabilistic foundations of modern financial derivatives theory, please consider seriously this book. Another reference, in the same spirit that I recommend is the excellent notes from Shreve, Stochastic Calculus and Finance, which is not yet in book form. After reading the text by Bingham and Kiesel you will gain a solid background well worth the effort and will be able to read profitably most of the contemporary texts and articles on this subject.

Very helpful. A good discussion of the theory and practice of corporate risk management in banks. Outlines methods that can be used to create economic value in any financial institution.