Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance

I believe that this book accomplishes its intention: help students and users to get a quick entry into the subjects of use in finance.One first impression that jumped out was the author's (PW) delightful sense of humor. ("Magicians and mathematicians!")PW has taught and practiced this stuff, and it shows.A big part is mathematical finance, and a big part of this is based on certain stochastic differential equations, the Black-Scholes equation for the computation of the value of options.It uses the geometric Brownian motion which is also explained from a practical viewpoint.The book takes both a narrow and a wide view.Illustration: (i) It offers both short answers and long ones; the latter include mathematical formulae.(ii) For the particular tasks at hand, the author offers an overview of the tools needed, mathematical tools figuring prominently.(iii) List of keywords, with enlightening discussion and answers. Guides to the literature, etc.(vi) There is a list of options and derivatives that are used: Accrual, American, European, Asian, Asset swap, Balloon option, Barrier option, Basket option, Bermuda option, Call and put options, Cap, Cliquet option, and more.The book concludes with a list of tips for folks interviewing in banks and in the financial industry: typical questions! What to say, and what not! Review by Palle Jorgensen, July 2011.

I've been very pleased with this book. As someone starting out in the field, I'd been very curious about where the rubber meets the road in terms of application of all the fancy theory one learns in school. Wilmott covers that in detail, including mistakes that people seem to consistently repeat.

Very simple, funny and straight to the point book.

This review is for the Kindle version I have on my iPad. I really hope Amazon rework on the equations and formulas in the book. The scanned images are too small and blur to read. For example, go to page 458 showing a poor image quality of equation table. I would rather like to see that equations are actually typed into the text-fields so that they look clear, big and natural in pages.

New and quality

It's a tiny but thick book. Hope its printed on bigger size paper

Good book. Exactly what I needed.

I am a math finance student who will soon start a summer internship on Wall Street. I want to leave feedback for the best and worst books that I used in my studies so far.A great interviews book. The 60 FAQs that are the main part of the book are amazing! For each one of them, a short answer is given (the kind you would give on a phone interview), followed by a brief example (very useful in understanding both the question and the answer) and by a long detailed answer.Reading the short answers and the example on topics that were never taught to me was very useful in getting out of questions which I did not know the topic but wanted to answer something correct without going in details.The book also has great brainteasers (although a lot more difficult than what usually asked on interviews). I was told all PhDs looking for finance jobs must read this book and masters students can get ahead by reading it.

If you are not very talented in maths & statistics and very (very) expert in options just stay clear of this book. The formulas are simply overwhelming. But the fact that I could grasp only a part of it it's my fault and not the author's. To be fair I believe this is an amazing work and the author is a genius.

Good book

Nice and compact book covering financial/trading concepts

This books has vastly deepened my understanding of quantitative finance and derivatives pricing. It's a great complementary reading to courses and books in quantitative finance. I do not see too much as a source for those who have little time to prepare a quant interview, but rather a pretty general reading on the topic. You will get many new inputs on practical issues.

Useful primer