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Quantitative Finance For Dummies
An accessible introduction to quantitative finance by the numbers--for students, professionals, and personal investors
The world of quantitative finance is complex, and sometimes even high-level financial experts have difficulty grasping it. Quantitative Finance For Dummies offers plain-English guidance on making sense of applying mathematics to investing decisions. With this complete guide, you'll gain a solid understanding of futures, options and risk, and become familiar with the most popular equations, methods, formulas, and models (such as the Black-Scholes model) that are applied in quantitative finance.
Also known as mathematical finance, quantitative finance is about applying mathematics and probability to financial markets, and involves using mathematical models to help make investing decisions. It's a highly technical discipline--but almost all investment companies and hedge funds use quantitative methods.
The book breaks down the subject of quantitative finance into easily digestible parts, making it approachable for personal investors, finance students, and professionals working in the financial sector -especially in banking or hedge funds who are interested in what their quant (quantitative finance professional) colleagues are up to. This user-friendly guide will help you even if you have no previous experience of quantitative finance or even of the world of finance itself.
With the help of Quantitative Finance For Dummies, you'll learn the mathematical skills necessary for success with quantitative finance and tips for enhancing your career in quantitative finance.
Get your own copy of this handy reference guide and discover:
An easy-to-follow introduction to the complex world of quantitative finance
The core models, formulas, and methods used in quantitative finance
Exercises to help augment your understanding of QF
How QF methods are used to define the current market value of a derivative security
Real-world examples that relate quantitative finance to your day-to-day job
Mathematics necessary for success in investment and quantitative finance
Portfolio and risk management applications
Basic derivatives pricing
Whether you're an aspiring quant, a top-tier personal investor, or a student, Quantitative Finance For Dummies is your go-to guide for coming to grips with QF/risk management.
The world of quantitative finance is complex, and sometimes even high-level financial experts have difficulty grasping it. Quantitative Finance For Dummies offers plain-English guidance on making sense of applying mathematics to investing decisions. With this complete guide, you'll gain a solid understanding of futures, options and risk, and become familiar with the most popular equations, methods, formulas, and models (such as the Black-Scholes model) that are applied in quantitative finance.
Also known as mathematical finance, quantitative finance is about applying mathematics and probability to financial markets, and involves using mathematical models to help make investing decisions. It's a highly technical discipline--but almost all investment companies and hedge funds use quantitative methods.
The book breaks down the subject of quantitative finance into easily digestible parts, making it approachable for personal investors, finance students, and professionals working in the financial sector -especially in banking or hedge funds who are interested in what their quant (quantitative finance professional) colleagues are up to. This user-friendly guide will help you even if you have no previous experience of quantitative finance or even of the world of finance itself.
With the help of Quantitative Finance For Dummies, you'll learn the mathematical skills necessary for success with quantitative finance and tips for enhancing your career in quantitative finance.
Get your own copy of this handy reference guide and discover:
An easy-to-follow introduction to the complex world of quantitative finance
The core models, formulas, and methods used in quantitative finance
Exercises to help augment your understanding of QF
How QF methods are used to define the current market value of a derivative security
Real-world examples that relate quantitative finance to your day-to-day job
Mathematics necessary for success in investment and quantitative finance
Portfolio and risk management applications
Basic derivatives pricing
Whether you're an aspiring quant, a top-tier personal investor, or a student, Quantitative Finance For Dummies is your go-to guide for coming to grips with QF/risk management.
416 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 2014
72 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Steve Bell
141 books4 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Steve 2^ Bell: GR author, Memoir, Nonfiction
Steve 3^ Bell: Cartoonist
Steve 2^ Bell: GR author, Memoir, Nonfiction
Steve 3^ Bell: Cartoonist
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 17, 2023
Great book for absolute starters in quantitative finance. Gives you many necessary keywords to search about plus enough info so you can actually make some sense of what you are looking up. Although sometimes the content, especially some of the more technical stuff, is presented in a way that could be confusing for people with no prior training in that topic.
If you want to get into quantitative finance with zero financial background but some knowledge of calculus and statistics, this is a good starting point. Of course, after you finish you realize this field is an ocean you have yet to even skim the surface of. So, good luck, folks!
If you want to get into quantitative finance with zero financial background but some knowledge of calculus and statistics, this is a good starting point. Of course, after you finish you realize this field is an ocean you have yet to even skim the surface of. So, good luck, folks!
March 14, 2023
Need a 'Quant finance for dummies for dummies'. Lmfao.
Was pleasantly surprised tho. When I looked online and saw that the author, Steve Bell, is a lecturer at LSE, I immediately expected a book full of pretentious jargon and refusal to simplify needlessly esoteric and isolated concepts (I suspect some LSE profs make shit messy on purpose). Turns out that Steve has a great sense of humor and has the ability to speak like a normal human being. Good on him. I like this dude. Very conversational language.
What I hoped to get out of this book tho, was a philosophical understanding on quant finance, why it exists, and how it reconciles with starkly contrasting strategies and philosophies such as fundamental analysis, value investing etc. Why on earth get a PhD, run deep computational models, backtest and validate and then trade until you blow up, when you can scan balance sheets and hold for the long term and get very possibly better returns?
Lots of the more interesting quant strategies e.g., statistical arbitrage have unreliable returns and underperform good old fundamental analysis. Most people who do quant trading run thousands of backtests, p-hacking until they find a statistically significant market anomaly, then they trade it until they blow up. Makes them look smart in the short run, but long term undocumented market anomalies are rare and typically what they find either isn't real or doesn't last. More illustrative examples of this: LTCM, Alameda Research lol.
Why make your head explode with out-of-this-world math when simple, reliable, intuitive strategies exist? That's one thing I hope to understand.
Shoutout to this book and its author for being a lecturer who strives to teach rather than impress. My boy Steve Bell, if you ever read this, you're a homie.
Edit: Realized that Steve is a physicist not an economist by training so that explains it - he has no physics envy. He's a real one
Was pleasantly surprised tho. When I looked online and saw that the author, Steve Bell, is a lecturer at LSE, I immediately expected a book full of pretentious jargon and refusal to simplify needlessly esoteric and isolated concepts (I suspect some LSE profs make shit messy on purpose). Turns out that Steve has a great sense of humor and has the ability to speak like a normal human being. Good on him. I like this dude. Very conversational language.
What I hoped to get out of this book tho, was a philosophical understanding on quant finance, why it exists, and how it reconciles with starkly contrasting strategies and philosophies such as fundamental analysis, value investing etc. Why on earth get a PhD, run deep computational models, backtest and validate and then trade until you blow up, when you can scan balance sheets and hold for the long term and get very possibly better returns?
Lots of the more interesting quant strategies e.g., statistical arbitrage have unreliable returns and underperform good old fundamental analysis. Most people who do quant trading run thousands of backtests, p-hacking until they find a statistically significant market anomaly, then they trade it until they blow up. Makes them look smart in the short run, but long term undocumented market anomalies are rare and typically what they find either isn't real or doesn't last. More illustrative examples of this: LTCM, Alameda Research lol.
Why make your head explode with out-of-this-world math when simple, reliable, intuitive strategies exist? That's one thing I hope to understand.
Shoutout to this book and its author for being a lecturer who strives to teach rather than impress. My boy Steve Bell, if you ever read this, you're a homie.
Edit: Realized that Steve is a physicist not an economist by training so that explains it - he has no physics envy. He's a real one
January 4, 2017
A good introduction to quantitative finance.
The chapters are well-organized and cover various topics from mathematics, financial products, to trading strategies, risk management and quantitative model design. Moreover, most of the chapters are independent which allows readers to skip them or read them later.
There is not too much calculus which is one the most frequent drawbacks of quantitative finance books that are a bit "dry" for not-mathematical enthusiast readers. In my opinion, reading lines and lines of formulas is useless : either take a pen and a paper and do the calculation on your own to understand where the result comes from or skip to the end and read the final formula.
But if you want more details, you will have to read the classics such as Hull's Options, Futures and Other Derivatives which offer more description of financial products and more calculus.
The chapters are well-organized and cover various topics from mathematics, financial products, to trading strategies, risk management and quantitative model design. Moreover, most of the chapters are independent which allows readers to skip them or read them later.
There is not too much calculus which is one the most frequent drawbacks of quantitative finance books that are a bit "dry" for not-mathematical enthusiast readers. In my opinion, reading lines and lines of formulas is useless : either take a pen and a paper and do the calculation on your own to understand where the result comes from or skip to the end and read the final formula.
But if you want more details, you will have to read the classics such as Hull's Options, Futures and Other Derivatives which offer more description of financial products and more calculus.
December 4, 2017
A good introduction to a complex subject, usefully bridging the gap between maths and it''s application to finance. McCloud doesn't avoid the maths so it's probably useful to have some basic knowledge of calculus and probability/stats - i.e. it's not really 'for dummies'.
February 22, 2025
For Dummies diyor ama icinde baya bir Statistics ve Math var. Cok beginner seviyesi degil Guzel bir kapsama olmus formullerin derive edilmesi anlatimi esprili olmasi bekledigimden daha iyi bir kitapti.
November 8, 2025
Decent introductory read. I feel like more/better diagrams would help break down some of the more advanced concepts, especially for the formulas
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews