Not bad... but there is much better out there

books:


	• bogus entry- correct this or eliminate on (Start to Paint Series) P. Wilmott, Ernest Savage, ... Taplinger Publishing Company, 1980 average customer review:based on 22 reviews
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Easy to read, very comprehensive.

I bought this book to learn about financial derivatives by myself. It is very easy to read for a first timer, no prior knowledge is required. It is also very comprehensive in its coverage of the subject. Overall it is a very good first book for the subject.

Good Buy

maps one to one with many chapters in Hull. more elaborate derivations than Hull. Fixed income area treatment is very slim though. Good Buy for the Price.

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Okay but not an introduction

If you want an introduction, read another book like Hull. If you want to learn how to apply Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) approach to finance then it is a useful book. However, it is better to read an elementary PDEs book before reading this book. At least, learn how to solve parabolic PDEs analytically because the technical notes in the book would not help much.

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Not bad... but there is much better out there

Wilmott's book was one of the first to tackle options pricing from a PDE point of view. The original book (now out of print) was a little more detailed and later superseded by this cheaper "Student Edition" overview on one hand and the "Wilmott on Quantative Finance" 3-volume set on the other hand. A per its title, this is an applied mathematics book, and therefore a minimal level of math is expected from the reader (so please, do not compare with Hull...).

Taking a PDE approach, the book aims at presenting various methods for pricing financial options. While the first few chapters are pretty good at skimming the surface of the theory and laying down the key principles of options pricing, the book, in general, lacks depth. Many results (prices of barrier, lookback, asian, etc...) are given without real development or simply with a little "hand-waving". As soon as things get a little complicated, Wilmott just outlines the way forward and drops buzz-words.

In that sense, the book, while attempting go beyond introductory level topics in some details, does not provide great insight into the more difficult areas of option pricing and, lacking courage, simply goes through what has become the standard presentation without adding much value. Not for beginers, but not for more advanced readers either !

It is nonetheless an acceptable quick overview if you are looking for a refresher of key concepts. For a more thorough mathematical introduction to options pricing, You-Lan Zhu's book (for example) does a much better job at covering the PDE approach rigorously (proving for example some of the convergence criterias for the finite difference method, covering the linear complementarity approach as well as presenting other numerical techniques) without being overly formal.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Finance is one of the fastest growing areas in the modern banking and corporate world. This, together with the sophistication of modern financial products, provides a rapidly growing impetus for new mathematical models and modern mathematical methods. Indeed, the area is an expanding source for novel and relevant "real-world" mathematics. In this book, the authors describe the modeling of financial derivative products from an applied mathematician's viewpoint, from modeling to analysis to elementary computation. The authors present a unified approach to modeling derivative products as partial differential equations, using numerical solutions where appropriate. The authors assume some mathematical background, but provide clear explanations for material beyond elementary calculus, probability, and algebra. This volume will become the standard introduction for advanced undergraduate students to this exciting new field.

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