Customer Reviews

The Math Behind Wall Street: How the Market Works and How to Make It Work for You

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

 

 

This is a very good introduction to the basic mathematics used in Wall Street. The author is a professor of mathematics, which explains the ease in which he explains all of the mathematical concepts for even the average reader. The downside to this book is that it does not go very far. Given its small size, only 100 pages, I feel that he could have gone on much further into more advanced topics. He starts with means and variances, and works his way through correlation, risk measures, performance measures, investment planning, and indexes. He wraps up with some ultra-brief comments on ARCH models and neural networks. I would love for him to come out with a much larger, much more detailed, much more advanced book.

I am currently on a Financial Markets course that is at Masters Level. I bought this book because of its small size and the basic details it covers. I have many other bigger books that go into more detail about stock pricing. However, this book really does explain the basics better than any other I have read. It explains in very simple and statistical terms areas such as the Simple Index Model (SIM), CAPM , Measuring performance of a portfolio, and Modern Portfolio theory. It also touches the surface of advanced moddelling in ARCH/GARCH.

But what really sets it apart is that it explains terms not from a purely academic point of view but a much more informative way by looking at how investors should and would approach a problem. If you have some understanding of statistics such as mean and variance (although both are explained in the book) then I would recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about embarking on an investment course of some kind. It is a definite read for any beginner and will make the course easier becasue it explains the fundamentals very well.

This book places heavy emphasis on the technical and mathematical aspect of investing. It is quite excellent but I found the math to be very advanced and therefore it is probably not suitable to most individual investors. Like the previous reviewer, I also found the book to be too brief.

This book definitely has merit, but it isn't right for beginners or the mainstream investment community. The best audience would be investors with highly specialized investing methods.

This is a great book.

I use it as a reference for putting formulas into my investment spreadsheets.

It would be a good read, if you can reading a mathematics book enjoyable, in order to become familiar with the concepts behind probability, risk, and measuring return on an investment or portfolio. As already stated, I just use it as reference material - but I find myself going to it again and again.

The value of this book is not as an instructional book (yes, it is too short for that. The bibliography of this book provides excellent direction for further instruction), but as a reference. It is a pretty comprehensive reference for basic finance math. The only thing missing is risk management formulas (VaR, etc). I used this is a constant reference while doing my MBA and found it made my life much easier! Highly recommended.

Savvy investors in the stock market need knowledge of the math behind the market, and The Math Behind Wall Street provides it: a slim book masks a wealth of information covering statistics, probability, and other practical applications of business math concepts. From risk factors to annual rates of return, The Math Behind Wall Street will prove invaluable.

This book will disappoint if you are looking for investment insights using mathematical analysis. If you just want to stimulate the math side of your brain then, fine, buy it.