The Money Formula

Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets

By Paul Wilmott

2017

First Published

4.10

Average Rating

272

Number of Pages

8H18M

Audio Length

Explore the deadly elegance of finance's hidden powerhouse The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. Written not from a post-crisis perspective – but from a preventative point of view – this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You'll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest. Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. By exploring the heart of the shadow economy, you'll be better prepared to ride the rough waves of finance into the turbulent future. How do you create a quadrillion dollars out of nothing, blow it away and leave a hole so large that even years of "quantitative easing" can't fill it – and then go back to doing the same thing? Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.

Avg Rating

4.10

Number of Ratings

195

5 STARS

39%

4 STARS

38%

3 STARS

18%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Paul Wilmott

Author · 7 books

Paul Wilmott is a researcher, consultant and lecturer in quantitative finance. He is best known as the author of various academic and practitioner texts on risk and derivatives, and for Wilmott magazine and Wilmott.com, a quantitative finance portal. He is the co-owner and Course Director for the Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF), a half year distance learning course on mathematical finance at 7City Learning, a London-based company providing training for the financial services industry. He is a founding partner of Caissa Capital, a volatility arbitrage hedge fund. He is on the editorial board of the academic journal International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance. He founded the Diploma in Mathematical Finance at Oxford University and the journal Applied Mathematical Finance. He is a director of Wilmott Electronic Media, which manages Wilmott.com, a website for the quantitative analyst community, and is a director of Paul & Dominic Quant Recruitment. He studied mathematics at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, where he received his D.Phil in Applied mathematics in 1985.