De­riv­at­ives and Risk Man­age­ment

Course content

The purpose of this course is to give students a thorough understanding of derivatives, models for pricing derivatives, and to understand their role in financial risk management. We cover the Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model and some alternatives. We give an overview of fixed income securities and discuss bond pricing, the term structure of interest rates and term structure derivatives, including prepayment options in mortgage-backed securities. Credit risk and credit derivatives are also covered, as is Value-at-Risk (VaR) and related risk measures. The course will present numerical techniques frequently applied in derivatives pricing problems. The course is a fundamental quantitative finance course with wide applications in advanced financial institutions. It builds heavily on the first semester course in Asset Pricing Theory and to some extent on Corporate Finance.