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.

This 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 over time, what optimal strategies one can expect from the participants, what characterizes such markets and what major theoretical and practical differences distinguish futures from forward contracts. It should be of interest to students (majoring in finance with quantitative skills) academics (both theoreticians and empiricists), practitioners, and regulators.

This book offers a comprehensive and coherent presentation of almost all aspects of Capital Market Finance, providing hands-on knowledge of advanced tools from mathematical finance in a practical setting. Filling the gap between traditional finance textbooks, which tend to avoid advanced mathematical techniques used by professionals, and books in mathematical finance, which are often more focused on mathematical refinements than on practical uses, this book employs advanced mathematical techniques to cover a broad range of key topics in capital markets. In particular, it covers all primitive assets (equities, interest and exchange rates, indices, bank loans), most vanilla and exotic derivatives (swaps, futures, options, hybrids and credit derivatives), portfolio theory and management, and risk assessment and hedging of individual positions as well as portfolios. Throughout, the authors emphasize the methodological aspects and probabilistic foundations of financial asset valuation, risk assessment and measurement. Background in financial mathematics, particularly stochastic calculus, is provided as needed, and over 200 fully worked numerical examples illustrate the theory. Based on the authors' renowned master's degree courses, this book is written for students in business and finance, as well as practitioners in quantitative finance. Apart from an undergraduate-level knowledge of calculus, linear algebra and probability, the book is self-contained with no prior knowledge of market finance required.

This monograph collects in one place the basic definitions, a careful description of the model, and discussion of how convex optimization can be used in multi-period trading, all in a common notation and framework.