Computational Finance

This book discusses the interplay of stochastics (applied probability theory) and numerical analysis in the field of quantitative finance. The stochastic models, numerical valuation techniques, computational aspects, financial products, and risk management applications presented will enable readers to progress in the challenging field of computational finance.When the behavior of financial market participants changes, the corresponding stochastic mathematical models describing the prices may also change. Financial regulation may play a role in such changes too. The book thus presents several models for stock prices, interest rates as well as foreign-exchange rates, with increasing complexity across the chapters. As is said in the industry, 'do not fall in love with your favorite model.' The book covers equity models before moving to short-rate and other interest rate models. We cast these models for interest rate into the Heath-Jarrow-Morton framework, show relations between the different models, and explain a few interest rate products and their pricing.The chapters are accompanied by exercises. Students can access solutions to selected exercises, while complete solutions are made available to instructors. The MATLAB and Python computer codes used for most tables and figures in the book are made available for both print and e-book users. This book will be useful for people working in the financial industry, for those aiming to work there one day, and for anyone interested in quantitative finance. The topics that are discussed are relevant for MSc and PhD students, academic researchers, and for quants in the financial industry.Supplementary Material:Solutions Manual is available to instructors who adopt this textbook for their courses. Please contact [email protected].

Although there are several publications on similar subjects, this book mainly focuses on pricing of options and bridges the gap between Mathematical Finance and Numerical Methodologies. The author collects the key contributions of several monographs and selected literature, values and displays their importance, and composes them here to create a work which has its own characteristics in content and style.This invaluable book provides working Matlab codes not only to implement the algorithms presented in the text, but also to help readers code their own pricing algorithms in their preferred programming languages. Availability of the codes under an Internet site is also offered by the author.Not only does this book serve as a textbook in related undergraduate or graduate courses, but it can also be used by those who wish to implement or learn pricing algorithms by themselves. The basic methods of option pricing are presented in a self-contained and unified manner, and will hopefully help readers improve their mathematical and computational backgrounds for more advanced topics.Errata(s)Errata

The book covers a wide range of topics, yet essential, in Computational Finance (CF), understood as a mix of Finance, Computational Statistics, and Mathematics of Finance. In that regard it is unique in its kind, for it touches upon the basic principles of all three main components of CF, with hands-on examples for programming models in R. Thus, the first chapter gives an introduction to the Principles of Corporate Finance: the markets of stock and options, valuation and economic theory, framed within Computation and Information Theory (e.g. the famous Efficient Market Hypothesis is stated in terms of computational complexity, a new perspective). Chapters 2 and 3 give the necessary tools of Statistics for analyzing financial time series, it also goes in depth into the concepts of correlation, causality and clustering. Chapters 4 and 5 review the most important discrete and continuous models for financial time series. Each model is provided with an example program in R. Chapter 6 covers the essentials of Technical Analysis (TA) and Fundamental Analysis. This chapter is suitable for people outside academics and into the world of financial investments, as a primer in the methods of charting and analysis of value for stocks, as it is done in the financial industry. Moreover, a mathematical foundation to the seemly ad-hoc methods of TA is given, and this is new in a presentation of TA. Chapter 7 reviews the most important heuristics for optimization: simulated annealing, genetic programming, and ant colonies (swarm intelligence) which is material to feed the computer savvy readers. Chapter 8 gives the basic principles of portfolio management, through the mean-variance model, and optimization under different constraints which is a topic of current research in computation, due to its complexity. One important aspect of this chapter is that it teaches how to use the powerful tools for portfolio analysis from the RMetrics R-package. Chapter 9 is a natural continuation of chapter 8 into the new area of research of online portfolio selection. The basic model of the universal portfolio of Cover and approximate methods to compute are also described.

Computational finance is increasingly important in the financial industry, as a necessary instrument for applying theoretical models to real-world challenges. Indeed, many models used in practice involve complex mathematical problems, for which an exact or a closed-form solution is not available. Consequently, we need to rely on computational techniques and specific numerical algorithms. This book combines theoretical concepts with practical implementation. Furthermore, the numerical solution of models is exploited, both to enhance the understanding of some mathematical and statistical notions, and to acquire sound programming skills in MATLAB®, which is useful for several other programming languages also. The material assumes the reader has a relatively limited knowledge of mathematics, probability, and statistics. Hence, the book contains a short description of the fundamental tools needed to address the two main fields of quantitative finance: portfolio selection and derivatives pricing. Both fields are developed here, with a particular emphasis on portfolio selection, where the author includes an overview of recent approaches. The book gradually takes the reader from a basic to medium level of expertise by using examples and exercises to simplify the understanding of complex models in finance, giving them the ability to place financial models in a computational setting. The book is ideal for courses focusing on quantitative finance, asset management, mathematical methods for economics and finance, investment banking, and corporate finance.

Arguably the strongest addition to numerical finance of the past decade, Algorithmic Adjoint Differentiation (AAD) is the technology implemented in modern financial software to produce thousands of accurate risk sensitivities, within seconds, on light hardware. AAD recently became a centerpiece of modern financial systems and a key skill for all quantitative analysts, developers, risk professionals or anyone involved with derivatives. It is increasingly taught in Masters and PhD programs in finance. Danske Bank's wide scale implementation of AAD in its production and regulatory systems won the In-House System of the Year 2015 Risk award. The Modern Computational Finance books, written by three of the very people who designed Danske Bank's systems, offer a unique insight into the modern implementation of financial models. The volumes combine financial modelling, mathematics and programming to resolve real life financial problems and produce effective derivatives software. This volume is a complete, self-contained learning reference for AAD, and its application in finance. AAD is explained in deep detail throughout chapters that gently lead readers from the theoretical foundations to the most delicate areas of an efficient implementation, such as memory management, parallel implementation and acceleration with expression templates. The book comes with professional source code in C++, including an efficient, up to date implementation of AAD and a generic parallel simulation library. Modern C++, high performance parallel programming and interfacing C++ with Excel are also covered. The book builds the code step-by-step, while the code illustrates the concepts and notions developed in the book.

This book covers the techniques of data mining, knowledge discovery, genetic algorithms, neural networks, bootstrapping, machine learning, and Monte Carlo simulation. Computational finance, an exciting new cross-disciplinary research area, draws extensively on the tools and techniques of computer science, statistics, information systems, and financial economics. This book covers the techniques of data mining, knowledge discovery, genetic algorithms, neural networks, bootstrapping, machine learning, and Monte Carlo simulation. These methods are applied to a wide range of problems in finance, including risk management, asset allocation, style analysis, dynamic trading and hedging, forecasting, and option pricing. The book is based on the sixth annual international conference Computational Finance 1999, held at New York University's Stern School of Business.

The disciplines of financial engineering and numerical computation differ greatly, however computational methods are used in a number of ways across the field of finance. It is the aim of this book to explain how such methods work in financial engineering; specifically the use of numerical methods as tools for computational finance. By concentrating on the field of option pricing, a core task of financial engineering and risk analysis, this book explores a wide range of computational tools in a coherent and focused manner and will be of use to the entire field of computational finance. Starting with an introductory chapter that presents the financial and stochastic background, the remainder of the book goes on to detail computational methods using both stochastic and deterministic approaches. Now in its fifth edition, Tools for Computational Finance has been significantly revised and contains: A new chapter on incomplete markets which links to new appendices on Viscosity solutions and the Dupire equation; Several new parts throughout the book such as that on the calculation of sensitivities (Sect. 3.7) and the introduction of penalty methods and their application to a two-factor model (Sect. 6.7) Additional material in the field of analytical methods including Kim’s integral representation and its computation Guidelines for comparing algorithms and judging their efficiency An extended chapter on finite elements that now includes a discussion of two-asset options Additional exercises, figures and references Written from the perspective of an applied mathematician, methods are introduced as tools within the book for immediate and straightforward application. A ‘learning by calculating’ approach is adopted throughout this book enabling readers to explore several areas of the financial world. Interdisciplinary in nature, this book will appeal to advanced undergraduate students in mathematics, engineering and other scientific disciplines as well as professionals in financial engineering.

Quantitative Finance: An Object-Oriented Approach in C++ provides readers with a foundation in the key methods and models of quantitative finance. Keeping the material as self-contained as possible, the author introduces computational finance with a focus on practical implementation in C++. Through an approach based on C++ classes and templates, the text highlights the basic principles common to various methods and models while the algorithmic implementation guides readers to a more thorough, hands-on understanding. By moving beyond a purely theoretical treatment to the actual implementation of the models using C++, readers greatly enhance their career opportunities in the field. The book also helps readers implement models in a trading or research environment. It presents recipes and extensible code building blocks for some of the most widespread methods in risk management and option pricing. Web Resource The author’s website provides fully functional C++ code, including additional C++ source files and examples. Although the code is used to illustrate concepts (not as a finished software product), it nevertheless compiles, runs, and deals with full, rather than toy, problems. The website also includes a suite of practical exercises for each chapter covering a range of difficulty levels and problem complexity.