Customer Reviews

Advanced modelling in finance using Excel and VBA

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I like the style of this book. Don't let the small number of pages fool you. The authors didn't get overly wordy explaining the basics of the models (they assume the reader is already a proficient Excel user), and focus instead on explaining the key Excel functions and VBA codes in order to allow the readers to get their own model up and running in a short time. Like the other reviewer said, the authors should be congratulated for such a superb effort.

Many subjects are materials not normally covered in a typical MBA curriculum (although they would in a MS program) Examples: in Chapter 13, Non-normal Distributions and Implied Volatility, the authors showed the way to model a Black & Scholes Equity Option using the more realistic non-normal distribution assumptions acounting for skewness and kurtosis (non-symetry and fat tails). In the Appendix, author introduced the ARIMA models in Excel (modeled typically with statistical or time-series software packages, such as SAS or SPSS), splines curve fitting and lastly estimation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors (for estimation of principal components analysis). You will find the Excel/VBA codes bundled in the CD handy for those who wish to develop more advanced models.

This book is a godsend for busy practitioners who want to master quickly the art and science of building numerical techniques and coding models with Excel. Feel free to email me if you need to know any details from the book.

P.S. book divided into four components
Part ONE: Advanded Modelling in Excel (teaches the advanced Excel functions and procedures, VBA macros and user-defined functions)
Part TWO: Equities
Part THREE: Options on Equities
Part FOUR: Options on Bonds
Appendix: Other VBA functions

A fantstic book on Excel modelling for Equities, Equity Options, and Bond Options that fills the lack of books on this topic nicely.
It's probably best to compare it to Beninga's „Financial Modelling". It differs in many ways though. It's more compact (250 pages instead of 600), with less detailed explanations, leaves Corporate Finance completely out, and covers fewer topics but to a more advanced level.
The book deserves definitely „advanced", since the equity section was developed for an MBA elective at London Business School. The parts on options and bonds compromise a course for the MSc in Mathematical Trading & Finance at City University Business School. Standard material covered: porfolio theory and efficient frontiers / the CAPM, beta and covariance matrices / performance measurement / the Black & Scholes formula / binomial trees for equity and bond options / Monte Carlo simulation / bond yield-to-maturity, duration and convexity / term structure models from Vasicek and Cox, Ingersoll and Ross.
Advanced topics: value at risk / style analysis / an improved binomial tree (Leisen&Refmer) / quasi Monte Carlo simulation / volatility smiles / Black, Derman & Toy trees / normal interest rate trees.

This book serves as a good source for anyone who is interested in making a career in Financial Engineering. There are many worked examples that facilitate understanding of the theory. This also provides the basics for a person who wants to build benchmarks in Excel for financial modeling.
The numerical methods applied with the help of Excel are useful to understand the various facets of Financial Engineering.
The salient aspects are
- provides the VBA introduction along with the features of Excel
- Equities Risk management and portfolio optimization
- Option pricing using Binomial trees and Black Scholes formula applied in Excel
- Bond option Valuation Formula using the Vasicek, Cox Ingersoll and Ross using the assumptions of Risk neutral process are easily worked out and the examples elucidate the readers understanding
- Interest rate models, valuation of Bond options using the different approaches are done well.

This is probably the best book written on financial modeling in excel, definitely worth the $50. Comes with a great CD-ROM. The books strength is its illustration of financial models and implantation in Excel. Since the models focus on static solutions the book is probably of greater use in academics than in industry. It would be great if there was instruction about how to input real time data into Excel and implement the models dynamically. Of particular interest to me is the great VBA code given on the CD, namely the code to calculate autocorrelation, cubic spines, eigenvalues and eigenvectors. This alone was worth the 50 bucks.

There are some major deficiencies in this book. Noticeably absent topics include: bond portfolio immunization; swap pricing; forwards and futures hedging; the ARCH, GARCH and CHARMA models.

My background is in finance, mathematics and computer science. Unlike the guy above, I don't see any need for advanced mathematics in order to study this book. In fact I am sure you don't. The point is to make excel do it for you. However it will a lot easier for those who understand the finance and mathematics behind what they are telling excel to do. I am assuming that those who are considering this book most likely have taken at least one college level calculus course and one statistics course. But I don't think even that is necessary and definitely not stochastic calculus.

VBA is one of those tools I long knew I should be proficient in but never got around to learning. That is, not until I found this book. It makes it easy for a financial professional to quickly come up to speed and start coding VBA within spreadsheets. The fact that the focus is on financial applications means that you learn coding techniques that will be useful on the job. I highly recommend the book!

Yes, the book won't teach you CAPM, Black-Scholes, or much financial theory. But there is NO shortage of those books. There is a shortage of books with real-world Excel solutions to applying financial theory to data. I've had this book for a couple of years and have probably only used 10% of it, only because I don't have time, real business need, to do the rest. I sometimes take it to bed to read and dream of having the time to try out some of their other models. That's the only thing I can add to the other reviews here, the amount of love and passion for the subject put into this book. There's not one extra padded word or graphic in this book. Yes, if there was one book I'd have to take to a desert island with Excel and some financial data this would be it.

I always look for applied books about financial modeling. This book answers to many of my questions. It simply shows how to program complex formulas and equations into practical use. I think this book is the best of its type.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in risk management. I give only three stars to this book because it is not comprehensive, it continuously refers to other books and is not very scientific ( It just uses certain modells without giving the background theory and proof).
The book does not touch the aspect of valuation models.
Abyone reading this book needs a strong statistical knowledge. VBA used is very very simple, so if you do not have a good programming basis this might be the book for you.

This book was a godsend. My stochastic calculus background is very strong, and I'm a good modeller/programmer, too. Nonetheless, there are a lot of practical and well-presented tips in this book that have made my life a lot more pleasant. I stopped spinning my wheels, and I'm having fun again. I highly recommend this book!

I also highly recommend Tavakoli's "Credit Derivatives" (Second Edition) and Tavakoli's "Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance" for product descriptions and performance characteristics.

I actually found this book very helpful. The explanations were incredibly accessible and thorough. I did not use the accompanying disc, but I'm sure it's helpful as well, given the examples that the book goes through appear fairly straight forward.