Advanced modelling in finance using Excel and VBA First Edition

It's great as expected.

Most people use a tiny fraction of the potential of Excel, and their skill level hits a plateau soon after learning the very basics. This book will allow you to go to the next level, and to start using Excel from its platform level to meet your more specific needs.

It's a good book.

I like the style of this book. Don't let the small number of pages fool you. The authors didn't get overly wordy explaining the basics of the models (they assume the reader is already a proficient Excel user), and focus instead on explaining the key Excel functions and VBA codes in order to allow the readers to get their own model up and running in a short time. Like the other reviewer said, the authors should be congratulated for such a superb effort.Many subjects are materials not normally covered in a typical MBA curriculum (although they would in a MS program) Examples: in Chapter 13, Non-normal Distributions and Implied Volatility, the authors showed the way to model a Black & Scholes Equity Option using the more realistic non-normal distribution assumptions acounting for skewness and kurtosis (non-symetry and fat tails). In the Appendix, author introduced the ARIMA models in Excel (modeled typically with statistical or time-series software packages, such as SAS or SPSS), splines curve fitting and lastly estimation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors (for estimation of principal components analysis). You will find the Excel/VBA codes bundled in the CD handy for those who wish to develop more advanced models.This book is a godsend for busy practitioners who want to master quickly the art and science of building numerical techniques and coding models with Excel. Feel free to email me if you need to know any details from the book.P.S. book divided into four componentsPart ONE: Advanded Modelling in Excel (teaches the advanced Excel functions and procedures, VBA macros and user-defined functions)Part TWO: EquitiesPart THREE: Options on EquitiesPart FOUR: Options on BondsAppendix: Other VBA functions

A fantstic book on Excel modelling for Equities, Equity Options, and Bond Options that fills the lack of books on this topic nicely.It's probably best to compare it to Beninga's Financial Modelling". It differs in many ways though. It's more compact (250 pages instead of 600), with less detailed explanations, leaves Corporate Finance completely out, and covers fewer topics but to a more advanced level.The book deserves definitely advanced", since the equity section was developed for an MBA elective at London Business School. The parts on options and bonds compromise a course for the MSc in Mathematical Trading & Finance at City University Business School. Standard material covered: porfolio theory and efficient frontiers / the CAPM, beta and covariance matrices / performance measurement / the Black & Scholes formula / binomial trees for equity and bond options / Monte Carlo simulation / bond yield-to-maturity, duration and convexity / term structure models from Vasicek and Cox, Ingersoll and Ross.Advanced topics: value at risk / style analysis / an improved binomial tree (Leisen&Refmer) / quasi Monte Carlo simulation / volatility smiles / Black, Derman & Toy trees / normal interest rate trees.

Good read, have not gone through it all yet, but could be a worthy read from a non-IT perspective..

Met expectations.

This is probably the best book written on financial modeling in excel, definitely worth the $50. Comes with a great CD-ROM. The books strength is its illustration of financial models and implantation in Excel. Since the models focus on static solutions the book is probably of greater use in academics than in industry. It would be great if there was instruction about how to input real time data into Excel and implement the models dynamically. Of particular interest to me is the great VBA code given on the CD, namely the code to calculate autocorrelation, cubic spines, eigenvalues and eigenvectors. This alone was worth the 50 bucks.There are some major deficiencies in this book. Noticeably absent topics include: bond portfolio immunization; swap pricing; forwards and futures hedging; the ARCH, GARCH and CHARMA models.My background is in finance, mathematics and computer science. Unlike the guy above, I don't see any need for advanced mathematics in order to study this book. In fact I am sure you don't. The point is to make excel do it for you. However it will a lot easier for those who understand the finance and mathematics behind what they are telling excel to do. I am assuming that those who are considering this book most likely have taken at least one college level calculus course and one statistics course. But I don't think even that is necessary and definitely not stochastic calculus.