LTCM was the fund that was too big to fail, the brightest star in the financial world. Built on genius, by legends of Wall Street and two Nobel laureates, it spiralled to ever greater heights, commanding unimaginable wealth. When it fell to earth in Spetember 1998 it shook the world. This is the story of the rise and fall of LTCM and the legends behind it.
"Inventing Money is a brave and ambitious book....a highly readable account of a financial drama of the highest kind." The Independent
"Nicholas Dunbar's fascinating book is a well-writen chronicle of these events....a book to enjoy." Times Higher Educational Supplement
"A substantial primer on the history of financial theory, not least because of Mr Dunbar's knack for colourful parallels that illuminate his arguments." New York Times
"...not the last word on the subject, but it is a good start." The Economist
"Dunbar's is....a highly readable introduction to the origins of alternative strategies employed throughout the industry today." Portfolio International
"...a fascinating account of this spectacular episode." CIB News
"A well researched book...very readable." Investors Chronicle
"...a penetrating look at this enthralling story, stripping away the shroud of mystery surrounding the drama that rocked the financial world........Dunbar tells the full story of this most public of financial disasters, unveiling previously undisclosed information, in captivating and accessible terms." Euro Business
"...a fast moving and readable account that explains the development of finance over the centuries before recounting the brief but eventful life of LTCM. It gives a strong flavour of the people and the times, their resentments and motivations." Risk
"...an essential insight into the development of financial markets and the history of man's attempt to predict investor behaviour....It should be required reading for anyone considering investing in financial markets." Allianz Global Risk Report

Emerging economies have faced new challenges and opportunities in banking and finance in the post-crisis era under increasing uncertainty. This edited volume of International Finance Review contains original papers that examine rising challenges facing emerging financial markets and institutions. It covers issues such as global banking, risk and contagion, stock market behaviour, global financing for firms, and financial inclusion in the major emerging economies. Particular emphasis on banking is given to the impact of foreign banks on lending by domestic banks, bank loan pricing behaviour with corporate default risk, determinants of nonperforming loans and their macrofinancial implications, foreign bank activities of emerging market entry, international financial shock transmission through the foreign bank lending channel via internal capital markets, and spillover effects of global monetary shocks from an advanced to an emerging economy. Additional emphasis on stock market behaviour and financing is given to emerging stock markets under policy uncertainty from advanced economies, extended multifactor models for emerging stock markets, asymmetric volatility and herd behaviour in geopolitical crises, trade financing as an important cause of the recent trade collapse, determinants of capital structure, and social and financial inclusion in the major emerging markets. This volume also provides significant insight and important policy implications for market participants, researchers, and policy makers in emerging market finance.

Absent evidence to the contrary, it is usually assumed that US financial markets developed in spite of government attempts to regulate, and therefore laissez faire is the best approach for developing critically important and enduring market institutions. This book makes heavy use of extensive archival sources that are no longer publicly available to describe in detail the discussions inside the CBOT and the often private and confidential negotiations between industry leaders and government officials. This work suggests that, contrary to the accepted story, what we now know of as modern futures markets were heavily co-constructed through a meaningful long-term collaboration between a progressive CBOT leadership and an extremely knowledgeable and pragmatic US federal government. The industry leaders had a difficult time evolving the modern institutions in the face of powerful reactionary internal forces. Yet in the end the CBOT, by co-opting and cooperating with federal officials, led the exchange and Chicago markets in general to a near century of global dominance. On the federal government side, knowledgeable technocrats and inspired politicians led an information and analysis explosion while interacting with industry, both formally and informally, to craft better markets for all.

Federal Reserve monetary policy has a profound effect on the U.S. economy and consequently on investments. This unique book combines the institutional approach to monetary policy with the theories and principles involved in applying that knowledge to investing. Although there are many books on the Federal Reserve and a myriad of books on investing, this synthesis of institutional, theoretical, and practical applications is unique to the marketplace.

In part I, Laura Nowak reviews the political origins of the Federal Reserve and follows its growth into the powerful arbiter of U.S. economic policy today. The actual conduct and effects of monetary policy are then explained with an eye toward identifying changes in policy that can be applied to the investment world. In part II, the effects of monetary policies on stock and bond markets and on particular industires are discussed, followed by a description of the investment instruments that will be impacted by different policies. In conclusion, Nowak offers a chapter of suggestions for hedging against changes in monetary policy and another chapter describing the tools that can be used for this purpose. The book will be useful to investment professionals who are intimately involved in their own specialty but who want and need to understand how the system works so they can improve their performance and advise their clients with more knowledge and authority.

An engaging exploration of modern-day deals and deal-making

"Gods at War" details the recent deals and events that have forever changed the world of billion-dollar deal-making. This book is a whirlwind tour of the players determining the destiny of corporate America, including the government, private equity, strategic buyers, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds.

It not only examines many of the game-changing takeover events that have occurred in the past years, but also puts them into context and exposes what is really going on behind the scenes on Wall Street. "Gods at War" completely covers the strategic issues that guide the modern-day deal, and since they unfold under the shadow of the law, it also focuses on the legal aspects of deal-making and takeovers.Each chapter unfolds through the lens of a recent transaction, from the battle between Yahoo and Microsoft to the United Rental/Cerberus disputeProvides in-depth explanations and analysis of the events and actors that have shaped this fast-moving fieldExamines the federal government's regulation by deal approach to saving the financial system and explains the government's biggest "deals," including its bail-outs of AIG, Bank of America, and Citigroup

Filled with in-depth insights that will enhance your understanding of this field, "Gods at War" offers an engaging look at deals and deal-makers in the context of recent historical events. It's a book for those who want to understand deals, takeovers, and the people and institutions who shape our world.

In China, aggregate investment levels have been high and the cycles of investment growth rate have been remarkable. In order to reveal the mechanisms which drive investment hunger and cycles, this book develops an integrated growth-cycle framework which integrates the standard theory of socialist economies, the distributive barrier-constrained growth theory of developing economies, and the recent technical progresses in the western business cycle theory. It also analyzes the evolutionary dynamics of China's state investment system and the policy trade-off between industrial expansion and agricultural development.

Small businesses in virtually all industrialized countries find it increasingly difficult to obtain finance from institutional sources. Banks have become more risk-averse; venture capital funds, previously of only marginal significance, are now often concentrating their investments on established companies; and management buyouts and buyins and pressures to reduce government spending have resulted in a reduction in public policy initiatives. In this context there is a growing interest in the role of the informal venture capital market as an alternative source of risk finance for small business. Informal Venture Capital: Investors, Investments and Policy Issues in Finland investigates the phenomenon of business angels' - wealthy private individuals who invest in small businesses - who are increasingly recognized throughout the developed world as representing the most important source of venture capital for entrepreneurial businesses in their start-up and early growth stages. This volume answers key questions about these investors, and contributes significant new evidence on aspects of the informal venture capital market which have not been examined in previous studies. It further provides an authoritative assessment of the effectiveness of policy initiatives to stimulate the supply of informal venture capital, based on the experiences in Finland.

Build substantial wealth with mutual funds (and ETFs)!

Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are great for professional management, diversification and liquidity into your portfolio, but what are the costs and risks? And how have the best investment strategies changed with the rise of robo-investing, ETFs, and new tax rules? Mutual Funds For Dummies answers all your questions, giving you insight on how to find the best-managed funds that match your financial goals.

With straightforward advice and plenty of specific fund recommendations, Eric Tyson helps you avoid fund-investing pitfalls and maximize your returns. This new edition covers the latest investment trends and philosophies, including factor investing, ESG investing, and online investing. You’ll also find completely updated coverage on the best mutual funds and ETFs in each category.

Earn more with funds!

• Learn how mutual funds and ETFs work and determine how much of your portfolio to devote
• Weigh the pros and cons of funds, and use funds to help you pick your own stocks
• Make the most of online investing and other new technologies and trends
• Maximize your gains by choosing the funds and strategies that work for you

Mutual Funds For Dummies is a trusted resource, and this update has arrived to help you plan and implement a successful investment strategy. The fund market is rebounding―get on the train and take advantage of the opportunity today!

Smart Portfolios is about building and maintaining smart investment portfolios. At its heart are the three key questions every investor needs to answer: 1. What to invest in. 2. How much to invest. 3. When to make changes to a portfolio. Author Robert Carver addresses these three areas by providing a single integrated approach to portfolio management. He shows how to follow a step-by-step process to build a multi-asset investment portfolio, and how to rebalance the portfolio efficiently. He covers both investment in collective funds like ETFs, and also direct investment in individual equities. Important features include: -- Why forecasting future returns is so difficult, and how to account for uncertainty when making investment decisions. -- How to accurately calculate the true costs of an investment, including costs that you may not even be aware of. -- How to select the best ETF for each asset class. -- How to compare the costs and other features of different ETFs. -- How to select individual shares. -- Calculating the number of shares needed for adequate diversification. -- How to use systematic forecasting algorithms to adjust portfolio allocations. -- How to cut trading costs through smart rebalancing strategies and execution tactics. Robert Carver also explains how to blend assets with different levels of risk, and how to construct portfolios that suit the level of risk that the investor can cope with. Smart Portfolios is detailed, comprehensive, and full of practical methods, rules of thumb and techniques, all fully explained with examples. It is intended for professional investors worldwide, including financial advisors, private bankers, wealth managers and institutional funds; as well as experienced private investors.

Elevate your game in the face of challenging market conditions with this eye-opening guide to portfolio management Investing Amid Low Expected Returns: Making the Most When Markets Offer the Least provides an evidence-based blueprint for successful investing when decades of market tailwinds are turning into headwinds. For a generation, falling yields and soaring asset prices have boosted realized returns. However, this past windfall leaves retirement savers and investors now facing the prospect of record-low future expected returns. Emphasizing this pressing challenge, the book highlights the role that timeless investment practices - discipline, humility, and patience - will play in enabling investment success. It then assesses current investor practices and the body of empirical evidence to illuminate the building blocks for improving long-run returns in today's environment and beyond. It concludes by reviewing how to put them together through effective portfolio construction, risk management, and cost control practices. In this book, readers will also find: The common investor responses so far to the low expected return challenge Extensive empirical evidence on the critical ingredients of an effective portfolio: major asset class premia, illiquidity premia, style premia, and alpha Discussions of the pros and cons of illiquid investments, factor investing, ESG investing, risk mitigation strategies, and market timing Coverage of the whole top-down investment process - throughout the book endorsing humility in tactical forecasting and boldness in diversification Ideal for institutional and active individual investors, Investing Amid Low Expected Returns is a timeless resource that enables investing with serenity even in harsher financial conditions.

Everyone faces big questions when it comes to money: questions about saving, investing, and whether you're getting it right with your finances. Unfortunately, many of the answers provided by the financial industry have been based on belief and conjecture rather than data and evidence-until now. In Just Keep Buying, hugely popular finance blogger Nick Maggiulli crunches the numbers to answer the biggest questions in personal finance and investing, while providing you with proven ways to build your wealth right away. You will learn why you need to save less than you think; why saving up cash to buy market dips isn't a good idea; how to survive (and thrive) during a market crash; and much more. By following the strategies revealed here, you can act smarter and live richer each and every day. It's time to take the next step in your wealth-building journey. It's time to Just Keep Buying.

The integration of technology into entrepreneurial initiatives has led to the use of online communities to raise funds for projects and ventures. Through the use of social media platforms and the social web, crowdfunding has provided an innovative, large-scale fundraising solution for both personal and professional initiatives. Strategic Approaches to Successful Crowdfunding brings together a collection of research-based chapters relating to the use of the social web to raise funds and provide financial support for start-up companies, individual pursuits, and philanthropic endeavors. Focusing on a diverse set of topics relating to e-commerce, capital investment, peer-to-peer lending, digital philanthropy, and virtual communities, this timely publication is an essential reference source for academicians, researchers, professionals, and graduate students interested in understanding the dynamics, best practices, and managerial solutions for drawing funds and financial support from online communities.

Supercharge options analytics and hedging using the power of Python Derivatives Analytics with Python shows you how to implement market-consistent valuation and hedging approaches using advanced financial models, efficient numerical techniques, and the powerful capabilities of the Python programming language. This unique guide offers detailed explanations of all theory, methods, and processes, giving you the background and tools necessary to value stock index options from a sound foundation. You'll find and use self-contained Python scripts and modules and learn how to apply Python to advanced data and derivatives analytics as you benefit from the 5,000+ lines of code that are provided to help you reproduce the results and graphics presented. Coverage includes market data analysis, risk-neutral valuation, Monte Carlo simulation, model calibration, valuation, and dynamic hedging, with models that exhibit stochastic volatility, jump components, stochastic short rates, and more. The companion website features all code and IPython Notebooks for immediate execution and automation. Python is gaining ground in the derivatives analytics space, allowing institutions to quickly and efficiently deliver portfolio, trading, and risk management results. This book is the finance professional's guide to exploiting Python's capabilities for efficient and performing derivatives analytics. * Reproduce major stylized facts of equity and options markets yourself * Apply Fourier transform techniques and advanced Monte Carlo pricing * Calibrate advanced option pricing models to market data * Integrate advanced models and numeric methods to dynamically hedge options Recent developments in the Python ecosystem enable analysts to implement analytics tasks as performing as with C or C++, but using only about one-tenth of the code or even less. Derivatives Analytics with Python Data Analysis, Models, Simulation, Calibration and Hedging shows you what you need to know to supercharge your derivatives and risk analytics efforts.

The only guide focusing entirely on practical approaches to pricing and hedging derivatives One valuable lesson of the financial crisis was that derivatives and risk practitioners don't really understand the products they're dealing with. Written by a practitioner for practitioners, this book delivers the kind of knowledge and skills traders and finance professionals need to fully understand derivatives and price and hedge them effectively. Most derivatives books are written by academics and are long on theory and short on the day-to-day realities of derivatives trading. Of the few practical guides available, very few of those cover pricing and hedging two critical topics for traders. What matters to practitioners is what happens on the trading floor information only seasoned practitioners such as authors Marroni and Perdomo can impart. * Lays out proven derivatives pricing and hedging strategies and techniques for equities, FX, fixed income and commodities, as well as multi-assets and cross-assets * Provides expert guidance on the development of structured products, supplemented with a range of practical examples * Packed with real-life examples covering everything from option payout with delta hedging, to Monte Carlo procedures to common structured products payoffs * The Companion Website features all of the examples from the book in Excel complete with source code

When it comes to investing, the most important message for women is to start. Inspirational Investing is an empowering read that enables you to reflect on your own finances and plan ahead for those moments that matter. Many women doubt their own investing ability, but this book shows you why it is critical to plan for a better future, with inspiration from leading industry experts. Learn from some of the most successful women in finance as they share practical advice, combined with real-life journeys from people who have achieved investment success. Packed with insight and inspiration, this book features the true stories of women who have invested their way to financial freedom. In this edition, learn why and how to plan for a better future using pensions, investment trusts, cryptocurrency, ESG investing, alternative investments and much more. Amanda Taylor interviews leading women from the world of investment and asks: What is the impact of rising living costs? When is the best time for women to start investing? How can your health affect your money? How can you make sure your money is being invested in alignment with your values? What psychological biases affect how well you invest? Inspirational Investing is supported by a number of organisations including Allianz Global Investors, Baillie Gifford and Master Investor. Foreword by Rosie Carr, Editor, Investors' Chronicle.

David Nassar delivers a complete and proven system for aggressively and successfully trading in today's markets in "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Profits." He explains the fundamentals of technical analysis and risk management, giving you a solid foundation to approach the market, and then describes a variety of trading strategies that will help you make consistently large profits without undue risk. Unlike other trading advisors who advocate a single approach to trading, Nassar provides a variety of strategies you can choose. In addition, he explains how to use new trading instruments such as E-Mini contracts, options, and exchange-traded funds. If you're looking for a complete, proven system for aggressively trading the stock market, this book is an ideal guide.

This book is an advanced text on the theory of forward and futures markets which aims at providing readers with a comprehensive knowledge of how prices are established and evolve in time, what optimal strategies one can expect the participants to follow, whether they pertain to arbitrage, speculation or hedging, what characterizes such markets and what major theoretical and practical differences distinguish futures from forward contracts. It should be of interest to students (MBAs majoring in finance with quantitative skills and PhDs in finance and financial economics), academics (both theoreticians and empiricists), practitioners, and regulators. Standard textbooks dealing with forward and futures markets generally focus on the description of the contracts, institutional details, and the effective (as opposed to theoretically optimal) use of these instruments by practitioners. The theoretical analysis is often reduced to the (undoubtedly important) cash-and-carry relationship and the computation of the simple, static, minimum variance hedge ratio. This book proposes an alternative approach of these markets from the perspective of dynamic asset allocation and asset pricing theory within an inter-temporal framework that is in line with what has been done many years ago for options markets.

In Money Masters of Our Time, John Train once again displays his ability to explain clearly the strategies, experience, and human qualities of those money masters who have stood the test of time as well as newer ones. He brings together experts who represent various investment "schools" -- growth, value, technology, emerging markets, specialty companies, micro-caps, turnarounds, top down, bottom up, and others—clarifying their similarities and differences and showing how diverse methods and techniques work.

Whether contrasting the long-term approach of Warren Buffett with the "relentless pursuit" style of Peter Lynch or distilling the principles of market timing or expounding a list of investment "don'ts," John Train makes the collective wisdom of the greatest, most successful investors available to all, professional and amateur alike.

This collection examines the extent to which foreign capital from conventional (OECD countries) and non-conventional (BRICS) sources has impacted economic development in Africa over the last two decades. It provides in-depth analyses of the nature, motives, and implications of this capital, and identifies drivers of contemporary rapid growth within and across African countries. Authored by leading experts, the book offers original insights for academics, policymakers, and practitioners studying the changes taking place in Africa as the continent strides more confidently toward integration with the global economy. The major themes addressed in this book include:* The implications of growing Chinese engagement in Africa * BRICS countries' versus OECD countries' investment contributions to Africa* The politics of land, land grab, and the puzzle of inclusive development in Africa* Foreign research and development spillovers, trade linkages, and productivity in Africa* Foreign aid effects on social sector, growth, and structural change in Africa* Remittances, foreign debt, resource management, and economic development in Africa

Getting agreement between finance theory and finance practice is important like never before. In the last decade the derivatives business has grown to a staggering size, such that the outstanding notional of all contracts is now many multiples of the underlying world economy. No longer are derivatives for helping people control and manage their financial risks from other business and industries, no, it seems that the people are toiling away in the fields to keep the derivatives market afloat (Apologies for the mixed metaphor ) If you work in derivatives, risk, development, trading, etc. you'd better know what you are doing, there's now a big responsibility on your shoulders.

In this second edition of "Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance" I continue in my mission to pull quant finance up from the dumbed-down depths, and to drag it back down to earth from the super-sophisticated stratosphere. Readers of my work and blogs will know that I think both extremes are dangerous. Quant finance should inhabit the middle ground, the mathematics sweet spot, where the models are robust and understandable, and easy to mend.

...And that's what this book is about.

This book contains important FAQs and answers that cover both theory and practice. There are sections on how to derive Black-Scholes (a dozen different ways ), the popular models, equations, formulae and probability distributions, critical essays, brainteasers, and the commonest quant mistakes. The quant mistakes section alone is worth trillions of dollars

I hope you enjoy this book, and that it shows you how interesting this important subject can be. And I hope you'll join me and others in this industry on the discussion forum on wilmott.com. See you there "

"FAQQF2."..including key models, important formulae, popular contracts, essays and opinions, a history of quantitative finance, sundry lists, the commonest mistakes in quant finance, brainteasers, plenty of straight-talking, the Modellers' Manifesto and lots more.