Mathematics of Financial Markets

This book presents the mathematics that underpins pricing models for derivative securities, such as options, futures and swaps, in modern financial markets. The idealized continuous-time models built upon the famous Black-Scholes theory require sophisticated mathematical tools drawn from modern stochastic calculus. However, many of the underlying ideas can be explained more simply within a discrete-time framework. This is developed extensively in this substantially revised second edition to motivate the technically more demanding continuous-time theory, which includes a detailed analysis of the Black-Scholes model and its generalizations, American put options, term structure models and consumption-investment problems. The mathematics of martingales and stochastic calculus is developed where it is needed.
The text should prove useful to graduates with a sound mathematical background, ideally a knowledge of elementary concepts from measure-theoretic probability, who wish to understand the mathematical models on which the bewildering multitude of current financial instruments used in derivative markets and credit institutions is based. The first edition has been used successfully in a wide range of Master's programs in mathematical finance and this new edition should prove even more popular in this expanding market. It should equally be useful to risk managers and practitioners looking to master the mathematical tools needed for modern pricing and hedging techniques.

P. Ekkehard Kopp is Professor of Mathematics, and a former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, at the University of Hull.