Customer Reviews

Modeling Financial Markets : Using Visual Basic.NET and Databases to Create Pricing, Trading, and Risk Management Models

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a "How To Program" book which uses financial applications as samples. It is heavy on programming basics and scratches the surface of financial modeling. That's fine if that's what you expect from the book, but the title led me to believe that I'd learn modeling techniques. I expected a book that assumed proficiency in VB and dealt with moderate to advanced financial topics.

If you already know what a where clause is and are proficient at VB.Net, this is not for you. If you know nothing about VB and want to learn it using interesting examples, this is for you.

I'm a software engineer who read this while developing an automated trading system. I think the book was aimed more at people who know financial systems engineering but do not know .NET rather than at programmers trying to build financial systems, but I still found it very useful (useful enough so that I have read it twice already). It is well-written and provides insight in a number of different areas.
The VB.NET stuff is mostly solid, but anyone wants to use .NET to perform these chores should also read a book that provides a thorough introduction to datasets. Much of the database-centered guidance in the book ignores the dataset, and the dataset is what makes .NET the ideal tool for web database applications. For example, they devote many pages to telling people how to write out an XML file, a chore you can do with a dataset with one line of code (and the dataset never makes a mistake).

I am a student at IIT and took Professor VanVliet's course so that I could write some risk management and trading programs in VB.Net. I have had classes and some previous experience in C, C++, COBOL, and Visual Basic.

We used "Modeling Financial Markets" in the class. It was a very demanding class but you LEARNED the material. The great thing was, however, that you could read his book before the lecture and understand the concepts and applications before you came to class. It is a GREAT practitioner's manual.

I have written several major applications since taking the class last August and do use some other books as references. However, this book should not be just a book sitting on your shelf as an occasional reference:read the entire book because it can get you up and running as a programmer unlike anything else I have read (and I have read a lot in my 43 years). The SAMMs series,Microsoft Press stuff, etc. don't even come close.

The book is well organized. I use it as my first reference when programming in VB.Net. It is especially strong in its chapters on ADO.Net (datatables, dataviews, etc). There is more to be learned but this book gives you a lot of meat and honestly covers probably 95% of what I have needed to know as I write more complex applications.

In each chapter in the front of the chapter the book outlines the key methods, objects, etc. For arrays for example the book summarizes what can be done to an array: how to get an element count, how to sort it, etc. He does this for collections, datatables,hashtables, etc.

There are a few typos in the book code BUT since a CD is included with code that works you can always just cut and paste the code out of the CD. If some code doesn't work you just go to the CD. Which is another thing:the book actually has complete programs as examples, not just little snippets that are not put in the context of a larger program.

The chapter on SQL is a great way to get started programming SQL. If you are using ACCESS as your database be careful to check the datatypes because they are different than those in Oracle. The book mentions VARCHAR2(),and NUMERIC(,): these are Oracle-only datatypes. I found that a great companion book to this one is Patrick's "SQL Fundamentals". (It has a nice section comparing and contrasting datatypes not to mention tons of easy to follow examples on how to write simple and complex SQL statements. This is another great PRACTITIONER book like "Modeling Financial Markets". I contrast these two books to books written by academics trying to show everyone how smart they are).

I would recommend "Modeling Financial Markets" for those outside of the financial areas as well. It just is a quick way to become an effective programmer. It cuts through a lot of the jargon that make many books nearly impossible to read.

I am a software engineer with a goal of learning more about designing trading software. I bought this book with the hope that it would give me some insight into how trading software is designed and implemented. However 90% of this book focuses on general programming concepts. The book covers broad topics such as creating variables, classes, methods, overloading methods, inheritance, polymorphism, UML, SQL, ADO.NET. It also sprinkles in a few complex formulas for calculating values of various contracts. I have spent years and a lot of money learning and mastering these programming concepts. I think the target audience for this book (financial analysts) might be a bit overwhelmed with some of these concepts.
For a financial analyst who just wants to get a feel for what programmers actually do, the book is satisfactory. Although, there are plenty of programming for beginners books out there. After reading this book, I haven't gained any insight as to how financial professionals design and build trading software.

Real time systematic trading is rapidly taking over markets around the world. Those without the tools to compete in this faster environment may find that trading profits are getting harder to come by. This book is more about the design and implementation of real time trading systems than it is about vb.net. Those who follow the discussion in vb.net should be able to transfer the design concepts into their programming language of choice. Besides building the trading engine, concepts of risk management and data integrity are also discussed. A variety of trading problems are explained, while other chapters discuss database and OOP methodologies. This book is designed specifically for those with financial knowledge who would appreciate seeing programming code and methodology used to attack their common problems.

Sub-Title: Using Visual Basic.NET and Databases to Create Pricing, Trading, and Risk Management Models

This book is written at the delicate interface between financial analysis and computer programming. You could say that it's a book on financial modelling that spends a lot of time telling you how to program. Perhaps more accurately, it is a book on computer programming but written with the vocabulary and direction necessary to have the computer programs automatically select and evaluate investment opportunities.

The particular programming techniques described here use the Microsoft .NET environment, so the examples are very Microsoft centric. Still much of the material would be easily transferred over to other development environments if the reader desires.

Lately I've been making heavy use of Amazon's Table of Content look up capability. I think that I didn't use that well enough when I purchased this book. More on that.

I like to buy books as reference material. Things should be easy to find. I bought this book when I was first getting into building Automated Trading Strategies. I had the impression that this would help me.

I no longer support that impression. The Table of Contents has no reflection whatsoever on the financial perspective of the book. If you are looking for inspiration on programming a particular financial capability, one is left with scanning the book sequentially from front to back. There is no detailed table of content. One learns very early in programming that random access may be a trifle harder, but in the end it is much faster. No random access here.

I get the impression the book includes a few financial snippets, but nothing that really builds on anything else. I could be wrong. My attention span was never long enough to persist in finding out stuff in the book.

On the bright side of things, if I was learning .VB and wanted to learn it in within the Financial Modelling world, it might be a good book to pick up.

But as other reviewers suggest, VB isn't a heavy hitter. I grew up with C/C++. Lately, I've been using C# substantially in my Financial Modelling.

So... I'd give this one two thumbs down due to it's lack of ability to be used as a reference. I'm sure there is good info in there somewhere, but how does one find it easily?

I'd instead pick up the O'Reilly book C# Essentials, your favorite Financial Book, and try things out that way.

I found this book to be very useful in helping me develope real time trading applications. These trading applications were developed in Visual Basic and interfaced with the Trading Technolgies X_Trader system. I found myself refering to this
book very often for ideas and explanations and examples.

This book is the first I've found after an exhaustive search for instruction on how to automate my trading strategies using VB.Net. I have not been dissapointed and hope that the authors plan to produce more work that will allow me to further my knowledge of automated trading systems. The knowledge I have gained from Modeling Financial Markets is allowing me to implement automated trading systems on a person level. The book will pay for itself many times over on my first day of trading.

I found this book informative and extremely accessible. It's incredulous that all these dorks keep insisting that the title of this book rings false for them. The content does provide a great deal more than the title alone suggests but one could see that by glancing at the content prior to buying the book. What I enjoyed most about it was the matter of fact, easy tone which conveyed so much so simply.