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📉 Finance II

Sources: MIT OCW 18.S096 · MIT OCW 15.450 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

The math behind the prices. Stochastic calculus, derivative pricing, volatility modeling, and credit risk — with industry applications from Morgan Stanley.

t S(t) S₀ Sample paths of geometric Brownian motion.
Chapter
1. Stochastic Processes Random walks, Markov chains, and the probabilistic machinery prices live on. 📉
2. Ito Calculus Brownian motion, Ito's lemma, stochastic differential equations. The calculus of noise. 📉
3. Black-Scholes Derivation Risk-neutral valuation, the replicating portfolio argument, and the PDE. 📉
4. Monte Carlo Methods Simulating prices to price derivatives. Variance reduction, convergence, path-dependent options. 📉
5. Volatility Modeling GARCH, implied volatility surfaces, the smile, and why constant volatility is wrong. 📉
6. Time Series Analysis Autoregression, stationarity, cointegration. Extracting signal from financial data. 📉
7. Factor Models Fama-French, PCA on returns, risk decomposition beyond CAPM. 📉
8. Interest Rate Models Vasicek, CIR, HJM framework. Modeling the term structure and pricing rate derivatives. 📉
9. Credit Risk Default probability, credit spreads, ratings transitions, structural and reduced-form models. 📉
10. Credit Derivatives CDS, CDOs, counterparty risk. The instruments that amplified 2008. 📉
11. Value at Risk Measuring tail risk: historical simulation, parametric VaR, expected shortfall. 📉
12. Dynamic Portfolio Choice Multi-period optimization, rebalancing, dynamic programming for long-horizon investors. 📉

📺 Video lectures: MIT 18.S096: Topics in Mathematics with Applications in Finance

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