Book Description
If you're like most people, you bet your career and company on innovation--because you must. Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation offers you a new way to think about and manage innovation that will dramatically improve the odds of success.
Authors James Andrew and Harold Sirkin, senior partners in The Boston Consulting Group, describe an approach to managing innovation based on the concept of a cash curve--which tracks investment against time. They ask the questions you need to ask: How much should you invest in a new product or service? How fast should you push it to market? How quickly can you get to optimal value? How much additional investment should you pour into sustaining and building the product or service?
Payback offers you practical and economically sound advice on when to pursue cash flow indirectly by first pursuing other benefits, such as brand and knowledge. It also shows you how to reshape the cash curve by using different business models--integrator, orchestrator, and licenser--each of which balances risk and reward differently.
The authors then present a short list of decisions and activities that you must make--not delegate--to achieve a high return on innovation. You won't find facile answers in Payback--but you will find valuable insights and practical guidance for mastering one of the most challenging and critical business activities: innovation.
Customer Reviews:
Solid idea; very weak exposition.......2007-05-24
This book bears all the weaknesses one expects from management consultants. It has a solid core concept, the cash curve, and a very simple graph to go with it. Virtually everything worth knowing gets said in the first 50 pages of the book.
What follows is a logical, step by step exposition of each point in more detail using selected examples from the authors' consulting experience. Sadly, no single customer example is longer than four pages, and details are sparsely strewn. It is especially noteworthy that they graphic of the key concept, the cash curve, is wholly absent from the second (much longer) half of the book.
One also gets the feeling that if the authors had had different customer engagements, they would have come to different conclusions. For instance, they discuss how Intel practices the integration business model in their chip business. However, virtually every other semiconductor company of any note on the planet is using outside factories (fabs in semiconductor parlance). Many, such as Qualcomm and Broadcom just to pick two examples have built market capitalizations in the tens of billions of dollars practicing the orchestration business model. It would have been very instructive to compare and contrast how two different models in essentially the same business can both lead to outstanding results for investors. Sadly, that discussion is wholly absent.
In summary, the core principal of the book is a very important one. I cannot think of a single business that could become a big success not understanding it. However, the lack of details in the customer examples keeps this book from realizing anywhere close to its real potential.
Freshman overview.......2007-05-14
Don't expect any insight into the process of innovation. Payback provides a freshman-level overview of innovation taking place in various companies, but is not a source of insight into the process. Years after the results of internal policies of many companies have become apparent to the business World, the author merely points to seeming successes and says "Do That", and to the failures "Don't Do That".
There is a decent comparison of the Integrator, Orchestrator, and Licensor models and some of the issues facing decision makers. Look for this around the middle of the book.
For a far more profound study that is immediately useful there is probably nothing better than Christensen's Innovator's Solution - cover-to-cover. Payback lacks any reference at all to many of the biggest challenges to implementing policies and deriving return in the market place, from innovation. Beginning with Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma, learn first of all why established companies get stuck in a rut of satisfying the demands of existing customers and simply cannot produce new products and services that really will produce big paybacks. Learn also the big difference between sustaining innovations and disruptive innovations. Discussing payback without this understanding is like studying Rocks without studying Geology.
I must have read a different book.......2007-04-09
Based on the other reviews I must have read a different book. But seriously Payback bills itself on the ideas behind creating practical and actionable innovation, how else could you meet the promise of 'reaping the rewards of innovation.'
Unfortunately the rewards they are talking about are all in terms of cash and profits making this book a 101 finance book built around the authors notion of the Cash Curve with the following basic tenants:
- don't spend to much to create an idea because that consumes upfront cash
- don't take too long to commercialize and bring the idea to market
- get your idea into volume production as soon as possible
- support the idea with a measured post launch investment.
Sorry but that's it. The book is heavy on the finance 101 side and extremely light on the idea of practices and ideas. Sure they say that you can play different role: innovation integrator, orchestrator, or liscensor but you pretty much know what the authors are going to say just by the role names.
The book does have an number of case studies, many that are available in the public domain, however these cases are more narrative telling you what happened without being analytical and telling you why the did this or that and the result it took.
Overall this book is very light on the ideas and actions required to deliver the rewards of innovation because it treats innovation as a financing event that is intended to generate cash. While that view is true, there is allot of insight, actions and practices that must happen before we can start thinking about how to get cash out of an innovation. I only hoped that the authors had taken the time to tell us that.
Business libraries and business managers will find it inspirational........2007-03-12
Written by professional consultants James P. Andrew and Harold L. Sirkin, Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation is a solid guide to the difference between having a good idea and turning that idea into financial reward. Payback puts forth the argument that the biggest challenge facing most companies today is their need to increase returns from their innovation spending. Introducing a concept called the "cash curve", Payback explores the fundamental factors that affect how much financial return will be netted. From how and when it can be profitable to apply innovation to noncash goals (such as the acquisition of new knowledge or enhancement of the company's brand), to models that accurately assess financial, technical and market risks to the relative advantages and disadvantages of the integration, orchestration, and licensing models and when to employ each, Payback is a reservoir of solid, high-stakes insight into skilled decision making. As valuable for innovative small business owners as for managers of grand enterprises.
Leading Beyone Where The Numbers Can Tell You.......2007-02-18
Innovation is one of the biggest problems facing companies today. This book does an excellent job of analyzing innovation into various types of companies and showing several examples of successful and unsuccessful companies.
The authors break innovation approaches within companies into three broad categories:
1. The Integrator - Here is where a company has a core competence and they hold the developement very close to their chest. The example they use is BMW who has a core technology in engines that they protect as much as they possibly can. Afer discussing a couple of other successes they then discuss Polaroid who attempted to move from film to digital cameras but failed.
2. The Orchestrator - where a company has the broad general idea and the ability to take a product to market but doesn't have the time, expertise, or desire to do this particular design/manufacturing job.
3. The Licensor - Some companies develop technologies that they are not going to take to market themselves. Dolby is the example they use, with technology licensed to various manufacturers. They have become the standard for audio professionals.
These decisions cannot be made by accountants, they take a leader. Someone has to see the potential beyone what the sheer numbers are showing.
Book Description
Designed to form the basis of an undergraduate course in mathematical finance, this book builds on mathematical models of bond and stock prices and covers three major areas of mathematical finance that all have an enormous impact on the way modern financial markets operate, namely: Black-Scholes’ arbitrage pricing of options and other derivative securities; Markowitz portfolio optimization theory and the Capital Asset Pricing Model; and interest rates and their term structure. Assuming only a basic knowledge of probability and calculus, it covers the material in a mathematically rigorous and complete way at a level accessible to second or third year undergraduate students. The text is interspersed with a multitude of worked examples and exercises, so it is ideal for self-study and suitable not only for students of mathematics, but also students of business management, finance and economics, and anyone with an interest in finance who needs to understand the underlying theory.
Customer Reviews:
Mathematics for Finance: A useful tool for the unskillled investor.......2007-03-19
I enjoyed reading the book and solving exercises in it. I have a Ph.D.in chemistry and my wife and I did our his and her's MBA in the 1990s. I wanted to learn more concepts in finance and needed an easy entry, something I could enjoy, and without spending much money. The book by Capinski came recommended from a friend who teaches Economics at Cal State. I can speak for myself: I feel reasonably informed and I feel the book gave me concepts I can use to handle my own portfolio.
In the future, this text should be offered with an interactive CD that contains Xls, matrix, calculus, and graphing capabilities so one (I) can visualize the outcomes of proposed solutions.
Incoherent.......2007-01-18
Anyone can scribble a bunch of equations on paper and call it a book. Without sufficient context, they are useless.
Insufficient and disappointing. Not even a good introductury text........2006-05-15
As a graduate student in Financial Engineering I have found this book useless.
The title of the book is "Mathematics for Finance", but can you find in it even an elementary introduction to the stochastic processes? No. Ditto for the Ito's lemma and many other topics. The derivation of the Black Scholes formula is just sketched, and the insight that you can get from it is very limited.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind these limitations if this book provided a clear introduction to more advanced topics: unfortunately this book is not good even in that. In comparison to other textbooks the theorems and definitions are convoluted and do not go straight to the point. For example, in Shreve's "Stochastic Calculus for Finance" or Baxter & Rennie "Financial Calculus" the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing is stated in this way: "In a market with risk neutral probability there is no arbitrage". Can you find such a simple and explanatory definition in Capinski's book? Not at all. The theorem at page 83 (you can see it yourself by searching inside the book) basically says the same thing using 8 lines of text and little financial intuition.
The only good thing that I can say about this book is that all exercises are resolved.
Overall, "Mathematics for Finance" has been a big disappointment: it doesn't have either the mathematical depth of Shreve's books or the conciseness in explaining financial concepts of Baxter & Rennie.
Whatever is the level of education that you are pursuing, graduate or undergraduate, I don't see any point in using it.
Great Book for Undergrad Quants.......2005-08-29
Mathematics for Finance (An Introduction to Financial Engineering) is a book intended for undergrad students "IN MATHEMATICS" or other discipline with a relative high mathematical content.
The book assumes some basic notion of Calculus and Probability Theory and it is focused more on the mathematics than in its theory and application of Finance. If you are looking to dwell into the mathematics (Proof of Equations) this is a great book, but if you are looking for a book that is rich in theory and in application then you should consider "Option, Future and Other Derivatives" or "Quantitative Methods for Finance" as an alternative. Both books are "a most" for any finance student and are of great help. Now if you want an introduction into the mathematics behind Finance then this book is a perfect purchase.
Important to state that all the problems presented in this book are solved meaning that it is great for self teaching. Marek Capinsi and Thomas Zastawniak have done a great job on this book.
I gave it four stars, because it has room for impovement.
Joining the chorus.......2005-08-03
I can only echo the other reviewers. As far as I can tell this book has no serious competition. This is an excellent introduction to mathematical finance for those with a solid undergraduate level understanding of higher math but without graduate level exposure. I agree that it is ideal for self study as that is exactly what I am using it for. The price is right especially in contrast with its overpriced brethren. Five stars!
Book Description
Evidence-Based Technical Analysis examines how you can apply the scientific method, and recently developed statistical tests, to determine the true effectiveness of technical trading signals. Throughout the book, expert David Aronson provides you with comprehensive coverage of this new methodology, which is specifically designed for evaluating the performance of rules/signals that are discovered by data mining.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic!.......2007-09-26
Just wanted to add to the praise of this book. If you're not following the backtesting practice of this book then you're playing slots with your trading (hey, maybe you'll get lucky!!). Some of the material is tough going and will require a second reading, but it'll be worth it. As another reviewer said about this being a kind of in-depth follow on to "Fooled by Randomness", I couldn't agree more. As matter of fact it's what I read just prior, so I couldn't help smiling as I went through this book, because he was putting the meat on the plate that Nassim set! Thank you, thank you..
The previous reviewer (Useless..) that gave it one star clearly did not get the concepts of the book. Did he even read it? That review does not compute. The *only* negative I would say is that if you're just looking for how to do robust backtesting, then the extensive material on the scientific method might be a bit much (but you can always read lightly those sections). But I understand why he put it in there, since it's the entire premise of taking a different and more rigorous approach to TA.
Now back to re-reading Chapter 6... Thank you Mr. Aronson!
Useless.......2007-08-29
I found this book useless..a total waste of time and money.Instead of analyzing the results obtained by using the various technical indicators,the author simply trashes their use,and does so in a preverse use of mathematical formulas,from which the reader gains nothing.I truly felt like my money was taken,for the purchase of the book,under false pretenses.
Make backtesting meaningful.......2007-08-24
Most trading books are pseudoscience or entertaining reminiscences of successful traders. Aronson has done an admirable job of applying the requisite rigor to the many difficulties associated with analyzing the results of historical backtesting.
Best for professional, intellectual and philosophical trading system developers.......2007-08-08
I had thought of using another review title "For fans and followers of Victor Niederhoffer" as inspired by his praise on the front cover. Pardon me to assume the following: if you had not heard of Niederhoffer, the chance is high that you have no prior experience/idea of testing the statistical significance of various TA tools, nor dwelling into the philosophical/scientific aspects of TA at all. Please accept the fact that this book is not for you. For trading professionals who deem themselves philosophical and intellectual (preferably with a college level of knowledge on statistics), this book is an inspiration. Highly recommended!
A must-have for TA practitioners.......2007-08-01
This book shakes some of your most deep beliefs in TA - and this is a healthy thing. Read it with an open mind.
Download Description
"It's more important than ever for companies to objectively assess the value of their customers. But conventional measures of ""customer lifetime value"" haven't been linked to overall business value and haven't been useful to senior managers. Managing Customers as Investments overcomes both shortcomings.
Through practical examples and case studies, you'll learn a rigorous yet simple approach to estimating the lifetime value of your customers¿and how you can use that information to make better tactical and strategic decisions. You'll learn how customer value calculations impact customer acquisition, service, retention, and segmentation¿as well as strategic M&A and alliance decisions.
Whether you're a CxO, line-of-business manager, marketer, analyst, or investor, Managing Customers as Investments will help you focus your resources where they'll deliver maximum value.
Key takeaways include
- Customers are assets
- How to calculate the value of customers in a simple way
- How the value of customers provides the basis for marketing strategy and planning
- The importance of balancing the value of the customer to the firm with the value the firm provides to the customer
- How to use the value of the customer as a basis for firm valuation and M&A decisions
- The implications for organization and incentive structure and the limitations of product and brand management
- How to link customer value to business value
- Practical techniques for CxOs, line-of-business managers, marketers, financial analysts, and investors
- How to make better decisions about marketing, partnerships, and organizational structure
- Easy-to-use metrics and real-world case studies
What your customers are really worth: crucial knowledge for better strategic and tactical decision-making
How can you find out, without endlessly complex modeling? And after you know, what should you do with that knowledge?
Managing Customers as Investments has the answers¿and they may surprise you.
You'll learn surprisingly simple ways to get reliable customer value information...and get it in a form you can use.
You'll learn how to use it to measure your marketing effectiveness more accurately than ever before¿and drive improvements throughout your entire customer relationship lifecycle.
You'll learn how customer value can bring new clarity to decisions about M&A and firm valuation.
Everyone tells you to manage your business around customers. This book gives you the tools to do it.
"
Customer Reviews:
Good Quality, Poor Quantity.......2007-09-19
The substance of the information presented was genuinely useful knowledge. The first 2 or 3 chapters really give a good analysis of the value of a customer. The extensive examples that follow are merely verbose repetitions of the previously presented (and actually well supported) concepts. Sadly there is not a Harvard Business Review for this book, but there should be, to cut down on absorbtion time. Not a waste of money, but perhaps time.
Very interesting customer life time model but a bit weak in customer strategy level.......2007-03-16
Book is centered around understanding customer life time value and what is the required mind set and strategy to drive customer life time value as a business driver.
Life time value model is very very interesting because of its simplicity yet usability - I plan to use it. However where the book is no delivering is its strategy angle. Customer strategy is too much simplified as how do you drive customer acquisition and retention with different programs highlighting the loyalty programs (and also setting some question marks on it). What the book does not address is the core mindset of customer driven business strategies: How companies should understand the business they are in from outside in view i.e. from customer side: what is the category we are in, what is the mindshare we have among our customers, how are we integrating our business and the offerings to our customers' businesses and lifes, what alternative business models we have to drive life time value.
But because the life time value is useful and the book as total is rather enjoyable to read I recommend this book
The Customer Lifetime Value approach to business strategy.......2006-12-18
"Managing Customers..." does a wonderful job of providing a holistic approach to customer lifetime value (CLV).
Founded on the principle of viewing customers as assets, the book provides a super-efficient, highly-impactful read on transforming the CLV principle into actionable tactics in key aspects of business - fusing marketing, finance, and organizational structure into a well-aligned strategy for enabling a business to maximize the value it creates & derives from customers. Truly a must read for students of business.
On a side note - just wanted to express how impressed I have been with all of The Wharton School books that I have read to date - they are truly some of the finest business books available.
Highly recommended to all marketing executives.......2006-07-12
How much are your customers worth? If financiers and investors had bothered to ask themselves this basic question, they might have prevented the Internet bubble and other expensive corporate mistakes. Such disasters can occur when people invest in businesses with no earnings and fanciful business models. Authors and professors Sunil Gupta and Donald Lehmann make a powerful case that executives should abandon outdated business-evaluation models based on traditional financial metrics, such as cash flows. Instead, they should rely on the present and future value of their businesses' customers: the "customer's lifetime value," or CLV. The authors discuss these issues in understandable language and buttress their arguments with formulas that will enable marketers to implement their ideas. They also provide helpful examples that are like mini business-school case studies. We highly recommend this book to all marketing executives, as well as to executives who are financially responsible for mergers and acquisitions, or advertising. This book could change the way you do business and increase your earnings from your best customers.
Important metrics for effective customer management.......2005-12-12
Are you spending more on your customers than they are worth? That is the question these authors attempt to answer in this book. Whether it is acquisition cost or retention cost many businesses may be spending too much on their customers. As with all investments there is a time to increase investment, a time to hold them, and a time to let them go. This is a detailed analysis of how to develop metrics for your company that help determine customer value. With increasing customers there are increasing costs. Once you have developed your metrics they show how to use that information to determine things like customer lifetime value. Once you know their lifetime value you can make effective marketing and management decisions related to your customers. You have to manage your customers in order to manage your business. Now you can determine how to best manage your customers. A practical approach to managing customers that is both effective and easy to apply while providing real results. Managing Customers as Investments is a recommended read for all marketing and customer-centric managers as well as all corporate executives.
Book Description
It is essential to have a thorough understanding of economic information and to be able to grasp fully the real implications of the economic indicators referred to in business reports and by the media. This guide is, above all, a practical work that clearly explains the underlying economic realities of today's world. Fully updated and revised, this sixth edition is an invaluable reference for those in business, the financial markets, or government, and a necessary resource for students. Written for the nonspecialist, this accessible guide explains how to understand and interpret all that main economic indicators that relate to: GDP and GNI (GNP); Growth, trends and cycles; Population, employment, unemployment; Government; Investment and savings; Industry and commerce; Balance of payments; Exchange rates; and Money and financial markets.
Customer Reviews:
Nice handy guide .......2006-03-03
I wish I would have had it during Macroeconomics class for a reference.
A reference guide.......2006-03-01
I expected a guide that would assist in determining where we were in the business cycle. This wasn't really it. The book is structured more like an encyclopedia - analyzing each indicator in detail and in isolation. A fine addition to anyone's economic reference books, but disappointed me by failing to treat the economy as an organic whole.
If only economics were that easy.......2004-02-09
True to the style of The Economist, this book makes everything seem easier than it really is. However, for people who spend too much time thinking about economic issues, this is actually rather refreshing, much like a cold beer after a long day's work.
Some examples: "In the long term, the growth in economic output depends on the number of people working and output per worker (productivity)" (Page 41); Or "In general, the more optimistic consumers are, the more likely they are to spend money. This boosts consumer spending and economic output" (Page 93)...
...One begins to yearn for the days where economics was more of an explanatory and less a mathematical science.
The guide is divided into a number of chapters discussing issues and examples related to
- How economic activity is calculated, and what the main indicators GDP/GNP/NNI capture and do not capture, as well as what changes in these indicators or their components mean.
- Employment indicators such as employment by sector or the unemployment rate
- Balance of payments and fiscal indicators, such as tax revenue or budget deficit
- Consumer indicators, such as disposable income or consumer confidence and their significance
- Investment and savings indicators, such as investment intentions or sales/inventory ratios
- Business indicators, including business conditions, auto sales, construction orders and other common stats
- Exchange rates and financial market indicators, such as interest rates and money supply.
- Prices and wages, like the effect of oil price changes, among others
Coverage of the most common and widely available indicators is fairly comprehensive. Given the simplicity of the book, it is better to have a certain level of economic knowledge and opinion to be able to put the content in context. Not much different to reading The Economist, really.
A good reference guide for understanding economic indicators.......2000-09-20
The book itself will be of great use for those analysts who evaluate country risk analysis. Economic indicators sometimes tend to be hard to understand, but this guide makes them easy to comprehend and relate to each other.
A good purchase.......2000-06-11
As the title says, this book can help you make sense of economic indicators. The more you know, the easier it is for you to understand the economical aspects of society, and this seemed to add a lot more to my knowledge, and it clarified other thoughts.
Average customer rating:
- It might be a good finance book,
- superb coverage of subject matter
- good but not excellent
- Good book to understand quantitative finance
- Investment Science must have
|
Investment Science
David G. Luenberger
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195108094 |
Book Description
Fueled in part by some extraordinary theoretical developments in finance, an explosive growth of information and computing technology, and the global expansion of investment activity, investment theory currently commands a high level of intellectual attention. Recent developments in the field are being infused into university classrooms, financial service organizations, business ventures, and into the awareness of many individual investors. Modern investment theory using the language of mathematics is now an essential aspect of academic and practitioner training. Representing a breakthrough in the organization of finance topics, Investment Science will be an indispensable tool in teaching modern investment theory. It presents sound fundamentals and shows how real problems can be solved with modern, yet simple, methods. David Luenberger gives thorough yet highly accessible mathematical coverage of standard and recent topics of introductory investments: fixed-income securities, modern portfolio theory and capital asset pricing theory, derivatives (futures, options, and swaps), and innovations in optimal portfolio growth and valuation of multiperiod risky investments. Throughout the book, he uses mathematics to present essential ideas of investments and their applications in business practice. The creative use of binomial lattices to formulate and solve a wide variety of important finance problems is a special feature of the book. In moving from fixed-income securities to derivatives, Luenberger increases naturally the level of mathematical sophistication, but never goes beyond algebra, elementary statistics/probability, and calculus. He includes appendices on probability and calculus at the end of the book for student reference. Creative examples and end-of-chapter exercises are also included to provide additional applications of principles given in the text. Ideal for investment or investment management courses in finance, engineering economics, operations research, and management science departments, Investment Science has been successfully class-tested at Boston University, Stanford University, and the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, and used in several firms where knowledge of investment principles is essential. Executives, managers, financial analysts, and project engineers responsible for evaluation and structuring of investments will also find the book beneficial. The methods described are useful in almost every field, including high-technology, utilities, financial service organizations, and manufacturing companies.
Customer Reviews:
It might be a good finance book,.......2007-08-14
but it's a terrible math book.
Too often, explanations, examples, and problems do not clearly explain the meanings of variables and applicable assumptions. This poor presentation of material makes the book barely usable to someone trying to learn the material for the first time.
superb coverage of subject matter.......2007-07-30
Prof. Luenberger currently teaches at Stanford and this book is used as the textbook for a 2-quarter series in investment science there. The coverage is concise and the math is manageable and yet extremely practical. I agree that this an excellent self-study book in the subject of investment science.
good but not excellent.......2007-03-15
This book serves very good introduction to mathematical finance. Particularly,
I enjoyed the discussion of bonds immunization, mean-variance theory, CAPM, APT.
It's most suitable for senior undergraduates or any junior graduate students.
But it doesn't deserve 5 star for the following reasons:
1) Most of the theories discussed so far in the book are TOO idealized and
over simplified. Financial data is dynamic and massive. In model quantitative/computational finance, the most important thing is to understand what the data says rather than what one thinks the data structure might be. With the book, one probably can only do some macroeconomic/very coarse analysis. Author should incorporate more data analysis evidence together with proposed theories.
2) The proof of ito's lemma is wrong(i.e. "Deltaz^2 --> deterministic as Deltat --> 0"). It's surprising since most books make the same mistake. It is the law of the large number contributes to the equality!(i.e. integration sense). The misunderstanding of the proof might lead to the misunderstanding of the hedging process.
3) In the commodity option pricing session, author demonstrated the use of futher market to price the option. This should be discussed further (i.e. black's model).
4) The volatility pumping session should be further researched. The explanation is
not satisfactory.
Good book to understand quantitative finance.......2005-06-10
Luenberger was a professor of optimization and his books on that subject are also very good. Clear and Precise. But sometimes he is extremely concise, so that you need to work a bit to completely understand a point.
In this book, we have again the same style (after all, it is the author style): Clear and precise book, GOOD choice of notation (I cant say the same thing about HULL's books) but sometimes extremely concise.
Overall, a good book to start learning and on a solid foundation.
Investment Science must have.......2005-03-24
Great book, covers lots of material and goes beyond by using the log utility to portfolio growth. Great buy!!!!
Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
Good Buy.......2007-08-29
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.
Okay but not an introduction.......2006-07-31
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.
Introduction to partial differential equations in finance.......2005-10-13
This book treats only the partial differential equations
in Finance and how to treat them using Finite Differences
and Tree. For this purpose it is very well written and
understandable. A very good beginning for student. Even
undergraduate.
Now after reading it you should understand the martingales reading the baxter and how to implement Monte Carlo using, for example Glasserman (see my reviews)
A good introduction to the PDE approach.......2005-10-10
Contrary to what many readers believe, this book explains the pricing of derivatives much better than Hull. Hull gives an overview of the mechanics and properties of the derivative pricing industry, along with its pricing methodologies, and this book provides an in depth method to one of the pricing methods.
Financial derivatives can be priced by a wide range of methodologies, among some the elegant equivalent martingale measure approach (or risk-neutral pricing), replication, multinomial tree approximation, Monte Carlo simulation, partial differential equations etc etc.
This book gives an excellent introduction, and an insight to the PDE approach. Although being a big fan of the Girsanov-change-of-measure method myself, these analytical methods often fail in the valuation of highly complex derivatives like the exotics. Pricing americans prove to be hard and inefficient too, even with simulation and the risk-neutral approach.
This is where PDE methods come in. Since most derivatives (or term structures) have a PDE describing its evolution, solving the PDE seems to be a good (or sometimes the best) way, no matter how complex the derivative can get. PDEs on the other hand, have very robust and easy methods for solving. Therefore, this book brings the reader through basic PDE solving methods, analytical solutions, techniques for fast and efficient numerical approximations as well as rigorous technical explanations for some of the mathematics of partial differential equations (which arise in the financial industry).
The authors are famous for their research in the field of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and this book continues to be a classic for undergraduates in mathematics in Oxford. If you want to have an overview of the pde approach to option valuation, without the hassle of learning up Radon-Nikodým and martingales, I highly recommend this book!
waste of time.......2005-03-10
This book is very bad, lacks almost everything you can think of, but if you don't know any better you probably won't care. It certainly needs to be supplemented by a respectable book if you want to learn derivatives (c.f. Hull's textbook, for example), and on the other hand, the math isn't rigorous at all, so you'll need a book on stochastic calculus (e.g. Michael Steele's, actually there are tons of better books out there, it's not hard to find better).
Book Description
Bean's PROBABILITY: THE SCIENCE OF UNCERTAINTY WITH APPLICATIONS TO INVESTMENTS, INSURANCE, AND ENGINEERING is an 'applied' book that will be of interest to instructors teaching probability in mathematics departments of operations research, statistics, actuarial science, management science, and decision science. Comprehensive, easy to read and comprehend, and current, the book uses investment, insurance, and engineering applications throughout as a unifying theme.
Customer Reviews:
Good for self-study.......2007-04-03
I used this textbook as my main study material for the SOA/CAS P/1 exam. I found it to be well-written and understandable. I have some background in calculus and probability (long-forgotten college courses). I'm hanging on to it for future reference. It's actually possible to learn the material from the book all on your own. All in all, one of the better textbooks out there.
I use this book almost every day.......2006-07-21
I appreciate that many people will be buying this because it has been endorsed by the Society of Actuaries. My review is for those who aren't being compelled to use the book in exam prep. I find "The Science of Uncertainty" to be the most consistently useful of the statistics texts in my office. The examples are clear, it has the right equations, and it's well organized.
Some people here are complaining of inaccuracies but they provide no examples and, frankly, I've never noticed a problem.
I like that authors provided an appendix explaining how to manipulate the distributions they discuss in the book using Mathematica. This was not new to me, but I can imagine it would save others some headaches.
Excellent for SOA exam P.......2005-05-26
I used this book to study for SOA exam P and loved it! If you already have some background in statistics and probability, this is the book to go. It will fill in the blanks left by your average school textbook and give you the nesessary coverage of the exam material.
A hard book to digest.......2005-01-18
As a statistics graduate, I found it hard to understand this book. There are not many friendly examples to help the readers to understand the concepts, even with the help of solution manual. There are some mistakes too.
Not a good learning book.......2003-03-02
Some gaffes in this book, I don't think the author has any real understanding. He even messes up the definition of expectation, and it doesn't get more elementary than that. There are many better probability books out there, don't choose this one.
Book Description
This book explores the intuitive appeal of neural networks and the genetic algorithm in finance. It demonstrates how neural networks used in combination with evolutionary computation outperform classical econometric methods for accuracy in forecasting, classification and dimensionality reduction.
McNelis utilizes a variety of examples, from forecasting automobile production and corporate bond spread, to inflation and deflation processes in Hong Kong and Japan, to credit card default in Germany to bank failures in Texas, to cap-floor volatilities in New York and Hong Kong.
* Offers a balanced, critical review of the neural network methods and genetic algorithms used in finance
* Includes numerous examples and applications
* Numerical illustrations use MATLAB code and the book is accompanied by a website
Download Description
This book explores the intuitive appeal of neural networks and the genetic algorithm in finance. It demonstrates how neural networks used in combination with evolutionary computation outperform classical econometric methods for accuracy in forecasting, classification and dimensionality reduction. McNelis utilizes a variety of examples, from forecasting automobile production and corporate bond spread, to inflation and deflation processes in Hong Kong and Japan, to credit card default in Germany to bank failures in Texas, to cap-floor volatilities in New York and Hong Kong.
Customer Reviews:
More Mathematical than Technical.......2006-06-13
Defiantly more of a math book than a programming guide, but that was what I was expecting. This book explains how to use neural networks in the field of finance. It does so very logically and mathematically. You are shown how to apply neural networks to many different financial problems. But you are mostly left to yourself to actually implement the neural networks on a computer system. Some example source code is provided for MathCad, which is an expensive software package you can buy separately.
If you are already comfortable with neural network programming, and are looking to learn to apply neural networks to finance, this book is great. Being a Java programmer I used the open source JOONE package to implement some of the book's examples in Java. Though JOONE is not suited to all examples in the book, it is a good start for a Java programmer.
The book shows how neural networks can be applied to many real world financial problems. The book pays particular interest to international finance. The book examines Hong Kong and Japan, examining inflation, deflation, currency volatility, and other issues.
I found the book to be very useful in giving me an introduction to neural networks in finance.
The table of contents follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part 1: Econometric Foundations
Chapter 2: What Are Neural Networks?
Chapter 3: Estimation of a Network with Evolutionary Computation
Chapter 4: Evaluation of Network Estimation
Part 2: Applications and Examples
Chapter 5: Estimating and Forecasting with Artificial Data
Chapter 6: Time Series: Examples from Industry and Finance
Chapter 7: Inflation and Deflation: Hong Kong and Japan
Chapter 8: Classification: Credit Card Default and Bank Failures
Chapter 9: Dimensionality Reduction and Implied Volatility Forecasting
Amazon.com
Psychology rules the stock market, according to Hersh Shefrin. In Beyond Greed and Fear, Shefrin shows how bias, perception, and other aspects of psychology often rattle investors and move stocks. From the individual who keeps losers too long to overconfident money managers who mistakenly think they can predict financial trends, human nature foils investment returns. "Behavioral finance is everywhere that people make financial decisions. Psychology is hard to escape; it touches every corner of the financial landscape, and it's important. Financial practitioners need to understand the impact that psychology has on them and those around them. Practitioners ignore psychology at their peril," writes Shefrin, a finance professor at Santa Clara University. An academic volume geared toward financial professionals, the book details an emerging field known as behavioral finance, in which psychology is believed to be at least as important as market fundamentals, such as earnings and balance sheets. Shefrin describes how investors are motivated by fear, hope, overconfidence, and the need for short-term gratification. The book gives plenty of examples of investment mistakes, and analyzes them from a behavioral-finance perspective. While Beyond Greed and Fear targets professionals, individual investors will benefit from this look at an important mover of markets. --Dan Ring
Book Description
Even the best Wall Street investors make mistakes. No matter how savvy or experienced, all financial practitioners eventually let bias, overconfidence, and emotion cloud their judgement and misguide their actions. Yet most financial decision-making models fail to factor in these fundamentals of human nature. In Beyond Greed and Fear, the most authoritative guide to what really influences the decision-making process, Hersh Shefrin uses the latest psychological research to help us understand the human behavior that guides stock selection, financial services, and corporate financial strategy. Shefrin argues that financial practitioners must acknowledge and understand behavioral finance--the application of psychology to financial behavior--in order to avoid many of the investment pitfalls caused by human error. Through colorful, often humorous real-world examples, Shefrin points out the common but costly mistakes that money managers, security analysts, financial planners, investment bankers, and corporate leaders make, so that readers gain valuable insights into their own financial decisions and those of their employees, asset managers, and advisors. According to Shefrin, the financial community ignores the psychology of investing at its own peril. Beyond Greed and Fear illuminates behavioral finance for today's investor. It will help practitioners to recognize--and avoid--bias and errors in their decisions, and to modify and improve their overall investment strategies.
Customer Reviews:
Look to market experts for success.......2005-12-21
So long as market investors are human beings rather than machines, market participants will be governed by emotion. The efficient market theory, as Warren Buffett states, works most of the time. But when unusual or exceptional news comes into play, a stock (and/or markets) nearly always overreacts.
The best book I have found on investing is "The Intelligent Investor". There is a clear picture of what works and does not work in investing, and why. There is a fair amount of analysis of the behavior of market participants.
Warren Buffett asserts that he doesn't have much use for what is taught in a typical college business class. As he points out, if professors understand stocks and markets so well, why are so few of them wealthy? People like Ben Graham, Buffett and Peter Lynch are not 'lucky'. They read a great deal, they have keen insight into what makes a stock go up and they are unafraid to buy when prices are low if prospects look good. I would prefer to emulate those who are truly successful rather than those who postulate about what may work.
Selective Presentation of the Evidence.......2005-06-26
I am a behavioral economist with a deep belief in the notion that human decision-makers deviate in important ways from the scientific principles laid down in modern rational choice theory. There is no doubt but that very many investors hold erroneous notions of the dynamics of price movements, and having a correct understanding will, on average lead to better returns on one's portfolio. Sheffrin presents the evidence for this position in an interesting and accessible manner.
Shefrin's main advice for investors is absolutely correct, and would improve the asset positions of many poor souls with idiotic notions of stock dynamics. His advice is that if you are not a gifted and dedicated stock expert, you should invest in a low-maintenance cost array of mutual funds, and above all, do not churn your stocks. It doesn't help to be smart, lucky, a stud with the girls, or blessed by God. Moreover, if you think you have one of the "gifted analysts" for a broker, you are to be counted as among the suckers who are never given an even break.
Shefrin has another thesis which he presents with great verve, but which is on very shakey grounds. This is that "gifted stock analysts" can on average, significantly out-perform the market. He believes this MUST be the case if a significant fraction of investors are behaving irrationality. However, there is another possibility, which is that stock brokers as a group gain from the excessive churning that irrational investors permit or ask them to do, but that it is impossible to "beat the market" except by pure luck or by personally studying firm fundamentals and future prospects.
Shefrin's data in favor of the "gifted analyst" is episodic and anecdotal, and there is plenty of data on the other side. For instance, in Malkiel's classic "Random Walk Down Wall Street", he relates the evidence that chimps throwing darts do as well as major brokerage houses. Sheffrin presents contrary evidence for a more recent period in which "gifted experts" outperform the random darts. New evidence, collected by Money magazine, shows that a group of experts did far worse than the darts in 2003. All of this evidence is spotty and anecdotal. The plural of anecdote is not data.
I am not convinced by this book that the efficient markets hypothesis, applied to final returns to investors (after payments to stock brokers and other transactions costs), is not correct. I think the author makes a mistake taking so strong a position when the evidence is so weak on this account. I am certainly not convinced that Malkiel's analysis is in any way overturned by new evidence.
However, if Shefrin convinces a few investors to act more sanely, he will have fulfilled an important social function.
Packed with Knowledge ! .......2005-02-23
If only you could bring yourself to ditch those losers from your portfolio, and hang onto your winners. If you can, you are unusual. Unprofitable habits afflict nearly all investors, beginners and pros alike, writes Hersh Shefrin in this intriguing study of the role of emotions in investing. Shefrin balances the jargon with plenty of real-world examples and wisely cautions you not to delude yourself into thinking that his tips will make you rich. Viewing investing through the prism of behavior finance, he analyzes emotionally-laden decisions made by private investors, money managers, bankers and other professionals handling stocks and various other forms of investments including options, foreign currency and futures. Shefrin offers juicy case histories, so his tour of behavioral finance is mostly enjoyable and useful. At times, though, the book bogs down in the author's attempts to legitimize behavior finance, a relatively new school of thought. For instance, he charges failed investors with committing "heuristic bias" or falling prey to "representativeness." That quibble aside, we recommend this intriguing tome to investment decision makers on any level. Whether you are running billions or managing a retirement account (which, as Shefrin notes, most people do badly), maybe this book will buffer you against emotional investing and pocketbook pain.
Comprehensive, Entertaining Overview of Fascinating Field .......2004-12-25
Wondering what Brealy & Myers or Sharpe left out? Don't expect your broker (or fund manager, excepting Richard Thaler) to fill you in. This book is a must read for any active (or passive) participant in the markets, or any other citizen who is affected by said markets. Meaning all of us.
Shefrin provides a masterful exposition of the application of cutting-edge cognitive psychology to the behavior of retail and institutional investors, analysts, mutual fund managers, CEO's and even heavily-advised university investment committees. The result is the theoretical demolition of the efficient markets hypothesis in even its weakest form, and the related CAPM(s), catching up to their long-noted empirical failings. As it turns out the market does have a memory, and that's not just an anomaly any more. Not every trade is zero-NPV: trust the market price at your own peril. Think dividends are irrelevant? Think again.
What we're left with is a fascinating account of how market participants actually behave: holding on to losers too long, trading too much and trading on "noise," and most alarmingly, undersaving for retirement. What is significant is that these phenomena are so prevalent that they can no longer be dismissed as irrational with the hope that "more sophisticated" money will magically correct the market. To the contrary, what Shefrin describes is proved to be the psychological norm; if you believe you're different, you're either very lucky or overconfident about your lack of overconfidence.
One quibble, in an area that I have looked at before, is in Shefrin's discussion of takeovers. First, I found a bit of confusion between the question of whether the takeover premium should be tested by reference to the post-announcement combined value of both firms, or just the buyer. Since the buyer's CEO is initially fiduciary for just his shareholders, I see only the latter as relevant.
More significantly, Shefrin does not provide any means to rigorously discriminate among his hubris hypothesis and other, more rationalistic theories, such as agency costs and private benefits. And his brief treatment omits many puzzling follow-up questions: if CEO psychology has the potential to systematically destroy shareholder wealth, what should we then conclude about the investors and analysts who allow them to get away with it? Just a governance problem, or is there yet another psychological story to be told?
But the desire to delve further into the subject is just indicative of Shefrin's compelling and readable narrative. For bottom line types, I'm afraid the answer to your question is no, he doesn't explain how to get rich. But you'll surely do alot better with a single yellowing copy of Graham & Dodd than all the reams of abstruse, dogmatic journal articles ever spewed by the Chicago School.
A very good book, but quite academic.......2003-04-29
I had mixed feeling about this book. Content wise, it's incredible. It's full of real life stories, data, analyses, propositions of many so called market anomalies. However, I really find some of the chapters too long, especially those after chapter 5. The author had copied his style of thesis writing and actually many of his own theses (he's a renowed professor after all) into a book which has a big audience group of investors or traders who want quick fix or certain level of entertainment and personal improvement. In these respects, the "Psychology of Finance by Lars Tvede" and the "Devil take the hindmost by Edward Chancellor" are "easier" but not definitely better alternatives.
Anway, this is one of the very few "serious" books about behavioural finance that is relatively practical. If you are abound of time, go for it. Otherwise, you may try the two books I mentioned above.
p.s. I like the following the most: In April 1997 Financial Times ran a contest suggested by economist Richard Thaler. Readers were told to choose a whole number between 0 and 100. The winning entry would be the one closest to two thirds of the average entry. The winning choice is 13. The real point of this game is that playing sensibly requires you to have a sense of the magnitude of the other players' errors. Hope you got it right.
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