Puzzles of Finance: Six Practical Problems and Their Remarkable Solutions

". . . shining clarity and enviable originality" --Peter L. Bernstein, author of Against the Gods "Mark Kritzman presents the reader with an entertaining way of learning some serious finance." --Harry Markowitz, Nobel Prize Recipient, 1990, Economic Sciences President, Harry Markowitz Company Six challenging questions . . . six entertaining solutions, profound yet straightforward, and relevant to the everyday challenge of investing and investment management. Puzzles of Finance takes on today's most persistently challenging financial questions and, through clever examples and just plain logic, helps you move beyond those questions to arrive at a deeper understanding of finance and the daily management of money. From Siegel's Paradox ("Is it possible to profit from asymmetry of exchange rate changes?") to questions of option value ("Why is the value of an option unaffected by the underlying asset's expected return?"), Puzzles of Finance goes beyond vague theoretical suppositions to supply practical, concrete solutions that investors and money managers can benefit from every day. While the intellectually curious will be drawn to Puzzles of Finance, it is the day-to-day finance professional who will derive the most benefit from this remarkable book. In clear, concise language-with more than a touch of humor-renowned author and financial professional Mark Kritzman simplifies six of today's most perplexing financial riddles. Along the way, he presents a finance primer as practical as it is profound, as illuminating as it is entertaining. Kritzman artfully explores the relationship of such seemingly disparate fields as botany and thermodynamics to options. These proofs propel Puzzles of Finance forward with the pace of a novel. An easy-to-understand primer on financial concepts and quantitative methods combined with a technical glossary ensures that no concept is misunderstood. The result is an unprecedented book that will change the way you view finance and investing. When you invest your time in reading Puzzles of Finance, you will uncover some of the most probing and insightful lessons in financial literature today. For updates on new and bestselling Wiley Finance books: wiley.com/wbns Critical Praise for Puzzles of Finance ". . . an extraordinary combination of the elements of finance, commonsense wisdom, sparkling humor, shining clarity, and enviable originality. This is a potent blend by any standard of measurement. Long time Kritzman watchers, however, would anticipate nothing less." --Peter L. Bernstein, Author, Against the Gods "A modest, lively, clever, little book. Kritzman's puzzles range from party tidbits to the profound, and each is presented with a bit of history, a lot of insight, and just the right measure of wit. While he may not have intended it to be more than a collection of interesting conundrums, Kritzman has actually created a wonderful introduction to finance for the uninitiated with challenges for even the most sophisticated." --Stephen A. Ross, Franco Modigliani Professor of Finance and Economics, Sloan School, MIT; Co-Chairman, Roll and Ross Asset Management Corp. "Some people do crosswords. Mark Kritzman does financial puzzles and his explications amuse and instruct. Financial theory has never been this much fun."-Jack R. Meyer, President, Harvard Management Company "Puzzles of Finance should be a joy to finance mavens and even their friends! Perhaps all students of the field should be required to solve these six puzzles; they go to the heart of the intuitions for essential contributions, such as the pricing of options, the meaning of efficient diversification, and the definition of risk." --Kenneth A. Froot, Andre R. Jakurski Professor of Business Administration and Director of Research, Harvard Business School

Business & Money

Kritzman, Mark P.

Economics

wiley

Financial professionals are faced with increasingly technical topics that are theoretically complicated but practically necessary in determining the trade-off between risk and return. The Portable Financial Analyst, Second Edition is a unique collection of essays that address the heart of every analyst's and investor's dilemma: how to make decisions in the face of unknown forces and how to assert some control over the outcome

The Portable Financial Analyst: What Practitioners Need to Know, 2nd Edition

Finance

Since the formalization of asset allocation in 1952 with the publication of Portfolio Selection by Harry Markowitz, there have been great strides made to enhance the application of this groundbreaking theory. However, progress has been uneven. It has been punctuated with instances of misleading research, which has contributed to the stubborn persistence of certain fallacies about asset allocation. A Practitioner's Guide to Asset Allocation fills a void in the literature by offering a hands-on resource that describes the many important innovations that address key challenges to asset allocation and dispels common fallacies about asset allocation. The authors cover the fundamentals of asset allocation, including a discussion of the attributes that qualify a group of securities as an asset class and a detailed description of the conventional application of mean-variance analysis to asset allocation.. The authors review a number of common fallacies about asset allocation and dispel these misconceptions with logic or hard evidence. The fallacies debunked include such notions as: asset allocation determines more than 90% of investment performance; time diversifies risk; optimization is hypersensitive to estimation error; factors provide greater diversification than assets and are more effective at reducing noise; and that equally weighted portfolios perform more reliably out of sample than optimized portfolios. A Practitioner's Guide to Asset Allocation also explores the innovations that address key challenges to asset allocation and presents an alternative optimization procedure to address the idea that some investors have complex preferences and returns may not be elliptically distributed. Among the challenges highlighted, the authors explain how to overcome inefficiencies that result from constraints by expanding the optimization objective function to incorporate absolute and relative goals simultaneously. The text also explores the challenge of currency risk, describes how to use shadow assets and liabilities to unify liquidity with expected return and risk, and shows how to evaluate alternative asset mixes by assessing exposure to loss throughout the investment horizon based on regime-dependent risk. This practical text contains an illustrative example of asset allocation which is used to demonstrate the impact of the innovations described throughout the book. In addition, the book includes supplemental material that summarizes the key takeaways and includes information on relevant statistical and theoretical concepts, as well as a comprehensive glossary of terms.

A Practitioner's Guide to Asset Allocation (Wiley Finance)

Turkington, David

Kinlaw, William

Discover a masterful exploration of the fallacies and challenges of asset allocation In Asset Allocation: From Theory to Practice and Beyond--the newly and substantially revised Second Edition of A Practitioner's Guide to Asset Allocation--accomplished finance professionals William Kinlaw, Mark P. Kritzman, and David Turkington deliver a robust and insightful exploration of the core tenets of asset allocation. Drawing on their experience working with hundreds of the world's largest and most sophisticated investors, the authors review foundational concepts, debunk fallacies, and address cutting-edge themes like factor investing and scenario analysis. The new edition also includes references to related topics at the end of each chapter and a summary of key takeaways to help readers rapidly locate material of interest. The book also incorporates discussions of: <ul> <li>The characteristics that define an asset class, including stability, investability, and similarity</li> <li>The fundamentals of asset allocation, including definitions of expected return, portfolio risk, and diversification</li> <li>Advanced topics like factor investing, asymmetric diversification, fat tails, long-term investing, and enhanced scenario analysis as well as tools to address challenges such as liquidity, rebalancing, constraints, and within-horizon risk.</li> </ul> Perfect for client-facing practitioners as well as scholars who seek to understand practical techniques, Asset Allocation: From Theory to Practice and Beyond is a must-read resource from an author team of distinguished finance experts and a forward by Nobel prize winner Harry Markowitz.

Asset Allocation: From Theory to Practice and Beyond (Wiley Finance)

A thought-provoking and startlingly insightful reworking of the science of prediction In Prediction Revisited: The Importance of Observation, a team of renowned experts in the field of data-driven investing delivers a ground-breaking reassessment of the delicate science of prediction for anyone who relies on data to contemplate the future. The book reveals why standard approaches to prediction based on classical statistics fail to address the complexities of social dynamics, and it provides an alternative method based on the intuitive notion of relevance. The authors describe, both conceptually and with mathematical precision, how relevance plays a central role in forming predictions from observed experience. Moreover, they propose a new and more nuanced measure of a prediction's reliability. Prediction Revisited also offers: <ul> <li>Clarifications of commonly accepted but less commonly understood notions of statistics</li> <li>Insight into the efficacy of traditional prediction models in a variety of fields</li> <li>Colorful biographical sketches of some of the key prediction scientists throughout history</li> <li>Mutually supporting conceptual and mathematical descriptions of the key insights and methods discussed within</li> </ul> With its strikingly fresh perspective grounded in scientific rigor, Prediction Revisited is sure to earn its place as an indispensable resource for data scientists, researchers, investors, and anyone else who aspires to predict the future from the data-driven lessons of the past.

Prediction Revisited: The Importance of Observation

Czasonis, Megan

Investing

Gary Gastineau and Mark Kritzman team up once again for the third edition of this classic reference tool designed for financial analysts and managers. Anyone involved in financial risk management must have a proper understanding of the words, terms, and phrases used in this fast paced field-and Dictionary of Financial Risk Management clearly provides that understanding. Risk management terminology is a part of almost any financial operation, including cash, forwards/futures, swaps, options-and is found in many disciplines: probability and statistics, tax and financial accounting, and law. The vocabulary of the risk manager continues to expand with the creation of new products and new concepts. This volume carefully defines and illustrates all the words and phrases that financial professionals need to know and understand. The Dictionary of Financial Risk Management includes listings of common acronyms, profit/loss diagrams of new financial instruments, and extensive coverage of derivatives and quantitative techniques. This invaluable reference guide provides comprehensive definitions of the key terms and concepts that many financial professionals need to know on a day-to-day basis.

Dictionary of Financial Risk Management, Third Edition

Gastineau, Gary L.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kritzman, Mark P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kritzman, Mark P.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kritzman, Mark P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Puzzles of Finance: Six Practical Problems and Their Remarkable Solutions

Puzzles of Finance: Six Practical Problems and Their Remarkable Solutions

The Portable Financial Analyst: What Practitioners Need to Know, 2nd Edition

A Practitioner's Guide to Asset Allocation (Wiley Finance)

Asset Allocation: From Theory to Practice and Beyond (Wiley Finance)

Prediction Revisited: The Importance of Observation

Dictionary of Financial Risk Management, Third Edition