Books by Jamil Baz

This uniquely comprehensive guide provides expert insights into everything from financial mathematics to the practical realities of asset allocation and pricingInvestors like you typically have a choice to make when seeking guidance for portfolio selection¿either a book of practical, hands-on approaches to your craft or an academic tome of theories and mathematical formulas.From three top experts, Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing strikes the right balance with an extensive discussion of mathematical foundations of portfolio choice and asset pricing models, and the practice of asset allocation. This thorough guide is conveniently organized into four sections:Mathematical Foundations¿normed vector spaces, optimization in discrete and continuous time, utility theory, and uncertaintyPortfolio Models¿single-period and continuous-time portfolio choice, analogies, asset allocation for a sovereign as an example, and liability-driven allocationAsset Pricing¿capital asset pricing models, factor models, option pricing, and expected returnsRobust Asset Allocation¿robust estimation of optimization inputs, such as the Black-Litterman Model and shrinkage, and robust optimizersWhether you are a sophisticated investor or advanced graduate student, this high-level title combines rigorous mathematical theory with an emphasis on practical implementation techniques.

This book offers a complete, succinct account of the principles of financial derivatives pricing. The first chapter provides readers with an intuitive exposition of basic random calculus. Concepts such as volatility and time, random walks, geometric Brownian motion, and Ito's lemma are discussed heuristically. The second chapter develops generic pricing techniques for assets and derivatives, determining the notion of a stochastic discount factor or pricing kernel, and then uses this concept to price conventional and exotic derivatives. The third chapter applies the pricing concepts to the special case of interest rate markets, namely, bonds and swaps, and discusses factor models and term structure consistent models. The fourth chapter deals with a variety of mathematical topics that underlie derivatives pricing and portfolio allocation decisions such as mean-reverting processes and jump processes and discusses related tools of stochastic calculus such as Kolmogorov equations, martingale techniques, stochastic control, and partial differential equations.