Paul Wilmott Introduces Quantitative Finance (The Wiley Finance Series)

Even with a solid corporate finance background, it is difficult to break into quantitative finance. This book is an excellent bridge. Paul Wilmott in a gifted writer, who can make complex concepts easy to understand. I was also very impressed by the fact that Paul includes his personal email address in the book. When I had a problem with the CD, which is included with the book, I wrote to Paul. He promptly replied and directed the publisher to send me a new CD.

This book is an interesting introduction to the quantitative finance. It mainly focuses on pricing derivatives but also includes a little bit of modern portfolio theory and risk management. While reading you can choose if you want to dig deeply inside mathematical formulae or just understand the intuition behind them.

The author did a good job in explaining the mathematic intuition. Also, the way to introduces the financial terms makes non-finance professionals can get into the finance world quickly.

One of the few books for which I think I wasted my money. It is poorly written, often I would say it seems as material is even poorly understood or (most probably) there is a very limited capability in writing/explaining/organizing concepts. If you're looking for an understandable and intuitive intro to finance (or quantitative finance) this is the wrong book. If you're looking for something more deeper, precise and technical, this is *definetely* the wrong book. This book is far from being intuitive: even simple concepts such as VaR (value at Risk) are treated poorly and in an extremely complicated manner. Hull does a far better job in providing an intuitive approach to stochastic calculus, for instance. Often subjects are incomplete and almost always they lag intuitive and substantiated arguments; after one reads he/she will not understand much on the subject, unless they already know the subject matter very well and then would realized what little attention and competence has been put into this book. I bought it because of the somewhat good reviews and I the title and I am really surprise anybody can say this is a good book. Do not rely on this book. Keep looking elsewhere. These are my 2 cents.

what can i say the 'bible', all you need to get started in quant trading

Great book, however, the online edition has no page numbers just constantly changing locations.

This is by far one of the best introductory books on the market. Easily readable - concise - excellent examples - and good coverage of the material. Buy this book first - then consider Wilmott's 3-volume edition that expands further on the material. Other books that I would recommend as follow-up: Monte Carlo Methods in Financial Engineering, by Paul Glasserman The Concepts and Practice of Mathematical Finance, Second Edition, by Mark S. Joshi

Great quality.

Vielleicht ist es geschmackssache, ob man nun den Hull ( Optionen, Futures und andere Derivate: 8., aktualisierte Auflage (Pearson Studium - Economic BWL) ) oder den Wilmott als Einführungsbuch in den Bereich Optionen, Derivate und Quantitative Finance wählt. Im Hull steht sicherlich "alles" drinnen. Der hier vorliegende "kleine" Wilmott führt aus meiner Sicht etwas intuitiver als der Hull in das Thema ein, enthält aber auch die wichtigsten Themen (der große ist dieser: Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance: 3 Volume Set - dort steht dann auch "alles" drinnen.). Es wird kaum Vorwissen benötigt, alles lernt man sozusagen "nebenbei". Im Appendix A gibt es ein Kapitel "all the math you need ... and no more (a executive summary)". Wilmott's Schreibstil ist ellegant, didatiksch hervorragend, witzig und unterhaltsam. Es gibt sehr viel Grafiken und Bloomberg-Screenshots, die die Themen praxisnah veranschaulichen. Am Anfang jeder Kapitels und zwischendurch gibt es Wilmott als Comic-Figur, die das "Geschehen" im Buch kommentiert z.B. "Elemination of Risk: Delta Hedging --> This ist not just a theoretcial concept, it is used in real life as well" oder "Yield Curve Fitting" --> "I hate this so much" ;o). Für ein Finance-Master-Studium reicht - aus meiner Sicht - der "kleine" Wilmott aus. Nur wer sich als Mathematiker, Physiker, Strukturierer, etc. noch tiefer in die Materie einarbeiten möchte, kann dann zum "großen" Wilmott oder zum Hull greifen. Tolles Buch: 5 Sterne

You will get bored if you are a great mathematician or if you have already an MSc in Financial Math but you will find it useful if you are an engineer or if you have a background in Finance. Still this book is a reference and any serious quant should have one of Paul Wilmott's book even the ones with an Msc in Quant Finance.

I just bought this book. There should be an accompanying CD with spreadsheets and VB programs. Book came without it!! It's an important part of the teaching material!!! Need the CD!!

Extremely well-written book. Explains quantitative finance in very simple terms.

The book presentation was really good, the time delivery was sooner that expected