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Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options 1st Edition
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Watch the professionals. From central banks to brokerages to multinationals, institutional investors are flocking to a new generation of exotic and complex options contracts and derivatives. But the promise of ever larger profits also creates the potential for catastrophic trading losses. Now more than ever, the key to trading derivatives lies in implementing preventive risk management techniques that plan for and avoid these appalling downturns. Unlike other books that offer risk management for corporate treasurers, Dynamic Hedging targets the real-world needs of professional traders and money managers. Written by a leading options trader and derivatives risk advisor to global banks and exchanges, this book provides a practical, real-world methodology for monitoring and managing all the risks associated with portfolio management.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the founder of Empirica Capital LLC, a hedge fund operator, and a fellow at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. He has held a variety of senior derivative trading positions in New York and London and worked as an independent floor trader in Chicago. Dr. Taleb was inducted in February 2001 in the Derivatives Strategy Hall of Fame. He received an MBA from the Wharton School and a Ph.D. from University Paris-Dauphine.
- ISBN-100471152803
- ISBN-13978-0471152804
- Edition1st
- PublisherWiley
- Publication dateDecember 31, 1996
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7 x 1.38 x 10 inches
- Print length528 pages
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Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
From the Inside Flap
The author discusses, in plain English, vital issues, including:
* The generalized option, which encompasses all instruments with convex payoff, including a trader's potential bonus.
* The techniques for trading exotic options, including binary, barrier, multiasset, and Asian options, as well as methods to take into account the wrinkles of actual, non-bellshaped distributions.
* Market dynamics viewed from the practitioner's vantage point, including liquidity holes, portfolio insurance, squeezes, fat tails, volatility surface, GARCH, curve evolution, static option replication, correlation instability, Pareto-Levy, regime shifts, autocorrelation of price changes, and the severe flaws in the value at risk method.
* New tools to detect risks, such as higher moment analysis, topography exposure, and nonparametric techniques.
* The path dependence of all options hedged dynamically
Dynamic Hedging is replete with helpful tools, market anecdotes, at-a-glance risk management rules distilling years of market lore, and important definitions. The book contains modules in which the fundamental mathematics of derivatives, such as the Brownian motion, Ito's lemma, the numeraire paradox, the Girsanov change of measure, and the Feynman-Kac solution are presented in intuitive practitioner's language.
Dynamic Hedging is an indispensable and definitive reference for market makers, academics, finance students, risk managers, and regulators.
The definitive book on options trading and risk management
"If pricing is a science and hedging is an art, Taleb is a virtuoso." --Bruno Dupire, Head of Swaps and Options Research, Paribas Capital Markets
"This is not merely the best book on how options trade, it is the only book." --Stan Jonas, Managing Director, FIMAT-Société Générale
"Dynamic Hedging bridges the gap between what the best traders know and what the best scholars can prove." --William Margrabe, President, The William Margrabe Group, Inc.
"The most comprehensive, insightful, intuitive work on the subject. It is instrumental for both beginning and experienced traders."--
"A tour de force. That rare find, a book of great practical and theoretical value. Taleb successfully bridges the gap between the academic and the real world. Interesting, provocative, well written. Each chapter worth a fortune to any current or prospective derivatives trader."--Victor Niederhoffer, Chairman, Niederhoffer Investments
From the Back Cover
The author discusses, in plain English, vital issues, including:
* The generalized option, which encompasses all instruments with convex payoff, including a trader's potential bonus.
* The techniques for trading exotic options, including binary, barrier, multiasset, and Asian options, as well as methods to take into account the wrinkles of actual, non-bellshaped distributions.
* Market dynamics viewed from the practitioner's vantage point, including liquidity holes, portfolio insurance, squeezes, fat tails, volatility surface, GARCH, curve evolution, static option replication, correlation instability, Pareto-Levy, regime shifts, autocorrelation of price changes, and the severe flaws in the value at risk method.
* New tools to detect risks, such as higher moment analysis, topography exposure, and nonparametric techniques.
* The path dependence of all options hedged dynamically
Dynamic Hedging is replete with helpful tools, market anecdotes, at-a-glance risk management rules distilling years of market lore, and important definitions. The book contains modules in which the fundamental mathematics of derivatives, such as the Brownian motion, Ito's lemma, the numeraire paradox, the Girsanov change of measure, and the Feynman-Kac solution are presented in intuitive practitioner's language.
Dynamic Hedging is an indispensable and definitive reference for market makers, academics, finance students, risk managers, and regulators.
The definitive book on options trading and risk management
"If pricing is a science and hedging is an art, Taleb is a virtuoso." --Bruno Dupire, Head of Swaps and Options Research, Paribas Capital Markets
"This is not merely the best book on how options trade, it is the only book." --Stan Jonas, Managing Director, FIMAT-Société Générale
"Dynamic Hedging bridges the gap between what the best traders know and what the best scholars can prove." --William Margrabe, President, The William Margrabe Group, Inc.
"The most comprehensive, insightful, intuitive work on the subject. It is instrumental for both beginning and experienced traders."--
"A tour de force. That rare find, a book of great practical and theoretical value. Taleb successfully bridges the gap between the academic and the real world. Interesting, provocative, well written. Each chapter worth a fortune to any current or prospective derivatives trader."--Victor Niederhoffer, Chairman, Niederhoffer Investments
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Wiley; 1st edition (December 31, 1996)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 528 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0471152803
- ISBN-13 : 978-0471152804
- Item Weight : 2.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 7 x 1.38 x 10 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #46,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9 in Financial Risk Management (Books)
- #17 in Options Trading (Books)
- #290 in Economics (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent more than two decades as a risk taker before becoming a full-time essayist and scholar focusing on practical, philosophical, and mathematical problems with chance, luck, and probability. His focus in on how different systems handle disorder.
He now spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés. In addition to his life as a trader he spent several years as an academic researcher (12 years as Distinguished Professor at New York University's School of Engineering, Dean's Professor at U. Mass Amherst).
He is the author of the Incerto (latin for uncertainty), accessible in any order (Skin in the Game, Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, and Fooled by Randomness) plus a technical version, The Technical Incerto (Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails). Taleb has also published close to 55 academic and scholarly papers as a backup, technical footnotes to the Incerto in topics ranging from Statistical Physics and Quantitative Finance to Genetics and International affairs. The Incerto has more than 200 translations in 41 languages.
Taleb believes that prizes, honorary degrees, awards, and ceremonialism debase knowledge by turning it into a spectator sport.
""Imagine someone with the erudition of Pico de la Mirandola, the skepticism of Montaigne, solid mathematical training, a restless globetrotter, polyglot, enjoyer of fine wines, specialist of financial derivatives, irrepressible reader, and irascible to the point of readily slapping a disciple." La Tribune (Paris)
A giant of Mediterranean thought ... Now the hottest thinker in the world", London Times
"The most prophetic voice of all" GQ
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For example, for american options, you can tend to think of the early exercise having some sensitivity to interest rates (as rates go higher, it becomes more optimal to exercise puts and less optimal to exercise calls), so in some circumstances, the early exercise provision of american option is actually an option on rates. Also, every mathematician teaches delta as a continuous derivative d[option value]/d[spot], but really what's important is to the know the delta at discrete intervals since no one hedges continuously and also since in a real options book the greek sensitivities might flip or go through extreme changes over discrete intervals. Just some great material which makes you think hard.
The structure of the book jumps over the place, but mainly Taleb is focused on options, volatility, and exotics. So not exactly a good book on vanilla rates or commodities for example.
This text is certainly one I keep as a reference guide on my desk. As a sign of its value, everytime I read it, I do learn something new. I rated it highly based solely on the excellent and juicy material but the writing style is really horrible. Not for beginners but a great read for anyone interested in the deep details of trading derivatives.
Excellent guide on the properties of options and their impact on your portfolio!
Thanks Nassim!
I am a vol trader and I use this book to filter out idiots. If this book ticks you off, you don't have a makeup of a trader. Do yourself a favor and find something else to do. People who give this book a negative review are most frequently quants. His criticism towards guants has a purpose - it is to make you as an impressionable young trader aware that a person with a PhD does not have all the answers, and that you should not be intimidated and use your own head. If this ticks quants off then so be it. The book is not for them.
I'm still working through this book, but I've noticed that it is replete with algebraic errors. Taleb doesn't always go through every step of his calculations, so they're difficult to follow.
Does anyone else notice these errors or am I getting caught in the algebra? An example is on page 38 towards the top:
He says that 12,500,000/.985 is 1,269,000. Even with the rounding (shaving off the 355), I'd say he's off by a factor of 10. Shouldn't the answer by 12,690,000? To confirm this, in the next paragraph he writes that a 1 cent rise in the futures price will yield $125,000 in profits on the future (12,500,000*.01) or $126,900 on the forward hedge. Intuitively, it seems that to get $126,900, you could divide $125,000 by .985 or multiply 12,690,000 (the answer you should've previously arrived at) by .01.
There are other errors like this throughout the book - anyone else notice them?
Top reviews from other countries
Dynamic Hedging basiert auf dem Working-Paper N. Taleb (1997), "Essays in Applied Option Theory". Es wird mehrmals erwähnt, allerdings habe ich es am Netz nicht gefunden. Der Autor hat dieses working-paper mit Gschichteln u.A. zum Livestyle von Tradern zu einem Buch aufgeblasen. Die im Schwarzen Schwan so penetrante Geschwätzigkeit und Selbstdarstellung sind auch hier bereits in Ansätzen vorhanden. Mitten in eine triviale Behandlung von Korrelationen mischt er möglichst exotisch klingenden Finanzprodukte. Eine einzige Call-Position hat den Wert von 100 Millionen $. Das Buch ist 1997 erschienen. Es dürfte damals wenige Calls gegeben haben, bei denen man eine derartige Position überhaupt eingehen konnte. Im klassischen Optionen Buch (6. Auflage von 2006) von J. Hull hat eine typische Call-Position einen Wert von 300.000$. Aber Taleb umgibt sich halt gerne mit dem Odium vom Big-Man im Big-Business.
Die im Buch gestellten Fragen sind aber durchaus interessant und relevant. Schwach sind hingegen die Antworten. Taleb betont am mehreren Stellen den beschränkten Nutzen von statischen Greeks und führt das Konzept von sogenannte Shadow-Greeks ein.
"Shadow gamma is the computation of the forecast of changes in delta taking into account the changes in volatility and its impact on the position. The position is then reevaluated using new volatility parameters".
Es erhebt sich die Frage wie man diese Berechnungen durchführt. Die Talebsche Antwort ist: Fragen sie einen erfahrenen Trader ihres Vertrauens. "The seasoned option trader can look into his memory and assess the impact on volatility of a market move".
Tatsächlich würde der Trader meines Vertrauens den Quant seines Vertrauens fragen und ich könnte mir die Frage daher gleich selber stellen.
Ich habe schon mit Experten auf verschiedensten Gebieten zusammen gearbeitet. Auch wenn ein Experte ein gutes Gefühl für sein Gebiet hat. Er kann dieses Gefühl nie und nimmer explizit formulieren oder gar quantifizieren. Man bekommt keine brauchbaren Antworten.
Nachdem Taleb von GARCH oder ähnlichen Modellen auch nichts hält, verliert das Shadow-Greek Konzept seinen praktischen Wert.
Dort wo Taleb sich auf konkrete Aussagen einlässt liegt er falsch. Z.B. legt er dar, dass ein Crash im Aktienmarkt auf Optionen mit unterschiedlicher Laufzeit unterschiedliche Auswirkungen hat. Laut Taleb nimmt der Effekt mit der Quadratwurzel zur Zeit ab. Ich habe das für VIX-Futures genauer untersucht. Im Relation zum VIX-Index folgt das Beta der VIX-Futures mit unterschiedlicher Laufzeit sehr gut dem funktionalen Zusammenhang: Beta(t) = 0.99 - 0.15*ln(t). (siehe [1]). Die korrekte funktionale Form ist eindeutig der Logarithmus und nicht die Quadratwurzel.
Das Buch enthält auch keinerlei quantitative Untersuchungen über die Auswirkungen verschiedener Hedging-Strategien auf die Performance von Optionen. Sich mit Datenschaufeln die Hände schmutzig zu machen ist nicht die Art des Autors.
Ich kaufe mir Bücher antiquarisch nicht nur wegen des geringeren Preises. Mich interessiert auch der Weg des Buches in den Hochland-Büchergnadenhof. Manche meiner Bücher haben bereits eine erstaunliche Karriere in renommierten Bibliotheken hinter sich. Bei diesem Buch gibt es keinerlei Hinweise auf einen früheren Benutzer. Keinen Bibliotheksstempel, keine Anmerkungen in Bleistift, nichts. Es wirkt wie neu. Dafür kann der Autor nichts. Für einen Büchersammler war es dennoch ein bisserl enttäuschend.
[1] Ch. Donninger: Modeling and Trading the VIX and VSTOXX with Futures, Options and the VXX. Sibyl-Working-Paper, May 2015.
Nachtrag: 2016-01-08: Ein sehr gutes Paper zum Problem "Shadow-Greeks" ist:
John Hull, Alan White: Optimal Delta Hedging for Equity Options, Oct. 2015





