Derivatives-market

This is an exhaustive listing of every major world bank in the world, fax, CEO' numbers, balance sheets of major banks, expensive reference book in Library....Necessary for risk managers, to use at a glance, can detect who owns it all......

This book is probably useful as a reference for practitioners. (Or was useful -- as another reviewer points out, much material is dated.) As a text or learning tool it is not particularly good. While I understand that my disppointment was probably from a misunderstanding of the books target, in the sections that I have read, the author sometimes suffers from failing to see the forest for the trees.

Good source of basic information, but not much on hedging which is key. Also, information is somewhat outdated. Good to have for a reference book on daycounts, basic structures, etc.

This is a very comprehensive book on this subject. Covers all the aspects of Swaps and related issues. Although, some isues like BIS guidelines are changed since the last publication of this book, it gives good idea of the regulatory and taxation issues of swaps & other related derivatives. This book can be used as a reference in this field. (not for first time reader of this topic)

.... [This] book says it proves the Black-Scholes equation. Hence why
does it reveal anything new about trading options as you have
indicated that you have done personally and why would anyone pay [this much money]
or more not to find out anything of use? .... I might have paid [half of the price] for the comic relief,
such as the following. Your comment that you have proven why markets
rise when the market aggregate put/call ratio increases doesn't seem
to make sense. Put premiums maybe prepaid costs of default ( in a
perverted sense as discussed below) but the point of a put is to earn
a return above the premium, ie it is expected that the market will
decline; no one pays a premium to incur an overall loss. I don't
think you have explained it at all. Almost any theorem can be
justified by (selective) statistics. As Mark Twain said; 'there are
lies, damn lies, and statistics". Further I believe you play
with words as much or more than the experts you condemn, many of them
Nobel prize winners (Black, Scholes, Merton, Samuelson). All
specialties create their own jargon but I don't think this is a
reflection of shimary. For instance your use of the phrase that
'options are prepaid costs of default' is a complete distortion of the
word 'default', which is defined to be a breach of contract on an
obligation; whereas under an option contract no one breaches anything
in complying with the contract. Instead your complaint that an option
is not a right to anything , but an obligation, is a total
misrepresentation of the fact that the right exists before exercise or
expiry pending the future price results of the underlying. For
instance, in the case of a call, 'I have the right to acquire the
underlying, which I will do if the price increases before expiry'. At
least the right was a right for a period of time; your default never
occurs and is totally vacuous. Finally you say that that while tha
B/S equation is right for stocks, it is wrong for everything else. Yet
you quote no statistics to support your case; would this have not been
a good time to go to the stats and perhaps earn your $60? As Einstein
said, all theories are worthless if not based on empirical evidence;
or was he another idiot? However in terms on showmanship, I applaud;
but intellectual rigor? I think not!

Finally, a book that has an in-depth, technical review of options and derivatives is here. Helpful explanations follow the analysis made. A great book to use to learn and to think about options and option valuation. I enjoyed it!

This book is a continuation of volume 1 - being that it is purely focused on financial markets and financial products. I was looking for a book on managing risk surrounding the development of new products (i.e. goods) and services for the market place. These issues are VERY different than those surrounding financial products in a nearly efficient market. I'll keep the book for the excellent content, but beware - it's probably not what you might expect!

The chapters on Interest Rate Option Models (Riccardo Rebonato) and Calculating Risk Capital (Thomas Wilson) are great critical surveys on their respective topic