Derivatives-market

I'm an interest rate professional with more than 10 years of successful pricing and trading experience, and I enjoyed and appreciated Riccardo Rebonato's clear presentation of the pricing of these derivatives. I keep this on my desk as one of my key references.

Another great read is "Credit Derivatives" (2nd Edition) by Tavakoli. The products and their uses are clearly explained, and ties in relative value to the interest rate market. I concede that the models for this product may be trickier because of documentation risk and data issues, but Tavakoli brings clarity to this topic so any interest rate professional can grasp the products and why investors - even hedge funds - are so keen to use them.

It's hard to believe a reviewer with such a myopic view of Derivatives pricing could go through the whole book, understood it and found time to rate it. Mindblowing waste of time !
Few hundreds years ago, he would have recommended burning the Madmen claiming the earth was round.

Anyway, while Derivatives Pricing achieves little for the welfare of mankind, the recent need for assets based on ever complex market scenarios calls for a more refined pricing methodology. There no supply and demand here, only customers who want hedge/trade/tradge assets /liabilities and traders who need to make sure their firms don't go burst when market move.

The author answers that demand by formatting and publishing his papers.

My avid reading kept jostling out superb hot ideas from this book. Rebonato carries out a comprehensive survey of the LIBOR market model. He tackles historical background, calibration, and effective implementation. The later chapters also cover extensions to the LIBOR market model to take account of smile and skew. In particular, there is extensive discussion of the cutting-edge Joshi-Rebonato stochastic-vol, displaced-diffusion LIBOR market model.

If you are working on the pricing of exotic interest rate derivatives, this book is a must buy.

The author did a great job in putting mathematical concepts in simple language.

This is a great little book. I would put it in my category of 'original' books on quant finance, which includes books written by Paul Wilmott, Mark Joshi, Rick Osband and Neftci.

The reason being that the author uses a more informal style than most quant books and is very hands-on. If you're interested in understanding quant models and eventually applying them in the real world, then this is the kind of book you want. If you're looking for mathematical beauty and formalism, then look elsewhere.

The editors could have done a better job with some of the flow and formatting - maybe next edition (it is sometimes hard to link the text to the figures and tables).

Great book.

Consider first, this book's subtitle, "Tools for Incomplete Markets." A "complete market" (the kind assumed by the Black-Scholes-Merton model) is one in which any derivative product can be dynamically replicated by means of cash and the underlying asset. An incomplete market, then, is one is which the world of derivatives and their underlyings do not match each other in the point-by-point replicable manner implied by that definition of completeness. This failure to match makes for a necessary imperfection in hedging. That, of course, is the real world, where traders practice, as Scholes and Merton famously discovered in Greenwich, CT not long ago!

A variety of illustrations of this practical emphasis might be adduced. In the preface, for example, Dr. Cerný tells us frankly that in his experience "is it hard to understand the Itô calculus, but it is possible to get used to it and to apply it quickly and consistently...." [italics in original.]

Good solid introduction to the subject - but wont leave you as a "master". All of the fundamental concepts are set out - and as you would expect from an introductory text they are all explained well but there is a real lack of depth in terms of pricing, market operations and dealing with real world issues - eg how do you cope with derivatives on dividend paying stocks? How do you model vol smiles etc.

Good as a first reader - or for a person who wants to "blag the interview" - but you will need to buy another book sooner or later.

Tom

This is a good reading for someone with no Futures & Options knowledge. I find it quite useful how the author clearly defines various swaps namely-- Currency, Interest Rates and Energy. However, this book would not cover newer Derivs stuff i.e. Credit Derivatives (though it provides a simple snapshot of CDS and TRS). I commend the author for not taking the GEEK approach.

You may seldom locate a book telling you one of the most practical aspect in recent regime of financial accountng - booking the derivatives. Nevertheless, it spent a few paragraphs together with some examples showing you the booking of three major types of derivatives in the financial market. Other topics also illustrate comprehensively the functioning of the derivatives as well as accompanied with various examples. Had it not been for the limited pages in explaining the booking methodology, it would have been the best derivatives related book that I have met before.

An excellent introduction to options and the over-the- counter foreign exchange markets.Lays out in simple plain English trading strategies and goes about removing some of the mystery that surrounds this subject