Download or read book An Introduction to Wavelet Theory in Finance written by Francis In and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2013 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an introduction to wavelet theory and provides the essence of wavelet analysis including Fourier analysis and spectral analysis; the maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform; wavelet variance, covariance, and correlation in a unified and friendly manner. It aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by presenting substantial applications of wavelets in economics and finance. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive application of wavelet analysis to financial markets, covering new frontier issues in empirical finance and economics. The first chapter of this unique text starts with a description of the key features and applications of wavelets. After an overview of wavelet analysis, successive chapters rigorously examine the various economic and financial topics and issues that stimulate academic and professional research, including equity, interest swaps, hedges and futures, foreign exchanges, financial asset pricing, and mutual fund markets. This detail-oriented text is descriptive and designed purely for academic researchers and financial practitioners. It assumes no prior knowledge of econometrics and covers important topics such as portfolio asset allocation, asset pricing, hedging strategies, new risk measures, and mutual fund performance. Its accessible presentation is also suitable for post-graduates in a variety of disciplines applied economics, financial engineering, international finance, financial econometrics, and fund management. To facilitate the subject of wavelets, sophisticated proofs and mathematics are avoided as much as possible when applying the wavelet multiscaling method. To enhance the reader's understanding in practical applications of the wavelet multiscaling method, this book provides sample programming instruction backed by Matlab wavelet code.

Download or read book Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets written by John C. Hull and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2007-05-29 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition presents a reader-friendly textbook with lots of numerical examples and accounts of real-life situations.

Download or read book Trading and Pricing Financial Derivatives written by Patrick Boyle and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trading and Pricing Financial Derivatives is an introduction to the world of futures, options, and swaps. Investors who are interested in deepening their knowledge of derivatives of all kinds will find this book to be an invaluable resource. The book is also useful in a very applied course on derivative trading. The authors delve into the history of options pricing; simple strategies of options trading; binomial tree valuation; Black-Scholes option valuation; option sensitivities; risk management and interest rate swaps in this immensely informative yet easy to comprehend work. Using their vast working experience in the financial markets at international investment banks and hedge funds since the late 1990s and teaching derivatives and investment courses at the Master's level, Patrick Boyle and Jesse McDougall put forth their knowledge and expertise in clearly explained concepts. This book does not presuppose advanced mathematical knowledge, though it is presented for completeness for those that may benefit from it, and is designed for a general audience, suitable for beginners through to those with intermediate knowledge of the subject.

Download or read book Stock Index Futures written by Charles M.S. Sutcliffe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 844 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global value of trading in index futures is about $20 trillion per year and rising and for many countries the value traded is similar to that traded on their stock markets. This book describes how index futures markets work and clearly summarises the substantial body of international empirical evidence relating to these markets. Using the concepts and tools of finance, the book also provides a comprehensive description of the economic forces that underlie trading in index futures. Stock Index Futures 3/e contains many teaching and learning aids including numerous examples, a glossary, essay questions, comprehensive references, and a detailed subject index. Written primarily for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, this text will also be useful to researchers and market participants who want to gain a better understanding of these markets.

Download or read book Indian Stock Market written by Bishnupriya Mishra and published by Excel Books India. This book was released on 2008 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indian Capital Market is considered the second largest capital market in the world next only to the United States of America. Stock Markets in India have grown exponentially as measured in terms of the number of listed companies, market capitalization, turnover on stock exchanges, price indices and others. In terms of reforms and development, the Indian stock market has been the fastest to grab every opportunity presented by the paradigm shift in India's economic policy. A well-organized and well-regulated capital market facilitates sustainable development of the economy by providing long-term funds in exchange for financial assets to investors. This book is based on a collection of chapter-contributions from leading academicians on relevant, authoritative and thought provoking aspects of Indian Stock Market. It contains both conceptual and empirical studies so as to enable the reader to acquire a holistic view of the subject. This book is designed to meet the requirements of MBA students specializing in the area of Finance, students of CA/ICWA, students of M.Com/B.Com, academicians, researchers, practitioners and investors in general.

Download or read book Stock Index Futures written by Charles M.S. Sutcliffe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global value of trading in index futures is about $20 trillion per year and rising and for many countries the value traded is similar to that traded on their stock markets. This book describes how index futures markets work and clearly summarises the substantial body of international empirical evidence relating to these markets. Using the concepts and tools of finance, the book also provides a comprehensive description of the economic forces that underlie trading in index futures. Stock Index Futures 3/e contains many teaching and learning aids including numerous examples, a glossary, essay questions, comprehensive references, and a detailed subject index. Written primarily for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, this text will also be useful to researchers and market participants who want to gain a better understanding of these markets.

Download or read book Market Risk Analysis Pricing Hedging and Trading Financial Instruments written by Carol Alexander and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-06-09 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by leading market risk academic, Professor Carol Alexander, Pricing, Hedging and Trading Financial Instruments forms part three of the Market Risk Analysis four volume set. This book is an in-depth, practical and accessible guide to the models that are used for pricing and the strategies that are used for hedging financial instruments, and to the markets in which they trade. It provides a comprehensive, rigorous and accessible introduction to bonds, swaps, futures and forwards and options, including variance swaps, volatility indices and their futures and options, to stochastic volatility models and to modelling the implied and local volatility surfaces. All together, the Market Risk Analysis four volume set illustrates virtually every concept or formula with a practical, numerical example or a longer, empirical case study. Across all four volumes there are approximately 300 numerical and empirical examples, 400 graphs and figures and 30 case studies many of which are contained in interactive Excel spreadsheets available from the the accompanying CD-ROM . Empirical examples and case studies specific to this volume include: Duration-Convexity approximation to bond portfolios, and portfolio immunization; Pricing floaters and vanilla, basis and variance swaps; Coupon stripping and yield curve fitting; Proxy hedging, and hedging international securities and energy futures portfolios; Pricing models for European exotics, including barriers, Asians, look-backs, choosers, capped, contingent, power, quanto, compo, exchange, ‘best-of’ and spread options; Libor model calibration; Dynamic models for implied volatility based on principal component analysis; Calibration of stochastic volatility models (Matlab code); Simulations from stochastic volatility and jump models; Duration, PV01 and volatility invariant cash flow mappings; Delta-gamma-theta-vega mappings for options portfolios; Volatility beta mapping to volatility indices.

Download or read book Optimization Based Models for Measuring and Hedging Risk in Fixed Income Markets written by Johan Hagenbjörk and published by Linköping University Electronic Press. This book was released on 2019-12-09 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global fixed income market is an enormous financial market whose value by far exceeds that of the public stock markets. The interbank market consists of interest rate derivatives, whose primary purpose is to manage interest rate risk. The credit market primarily consists of the bond market, which links investors to companies, institutions, and governments with borrowing needs. This dissertation takes an optimization perspective upon modeling both these areas of the fixed-income market. Legislators on the national markets require financial actors to value their financial assets in accordance with market prices. Thus, prices of many assets, which are not publicly traded, must be determined mathematically. The financial quantities needed for pricing are not directly observable but must be measured through solving inverse optimization problems. These measurements are based on the available market prices, which are observed with various degrees of measurement noise. For the interbank market, the relevant financial quantities consist of term structures of interest rates, which are curves displaying the market rates for different maturities. For the bond market, credit risk is an additional factor that can be modeled through default intensity curves and term structures of recovery rates in case of default. By formulating suitable optimization models, the different underlying financial quantities can be measured in accordance with observable market prices, while conditions for economic realism are imposed. Measuring and managing risk is closely connected to the measurement of the underlying financial quantities. Through a data-driven method, we can show that six systematic risk factors can be used to explain almost all variance in the interest rate curves. By modeling the dynamics of these six risk factors, possible outcomes can be simulated in the form of term structure scenarios. For short-term simulation horizons, this results in a representation of the portfolio value distribution that is consistent with the realized outcomes from historically observed term structures. This enables more accurate measurements of interest rate risk, where our proposed method exhibits both lower risk and lower pricing errors compared to traditional models. We propose a method for decomposing changes in portfolio values for an arbitrary portfolio into the risk factors that affect the value of each instrument. By demonstrating the method for the six systematic risk factors identified for the interbank market, we show that almost all changes in portfolio value and portfolio variance can be attributed to these risk factors. Additional risk factors and approximation errors are gathered into two terms, which can be studied to ensure the quality of the performance attribution, and possibly improve it. To eliminate undesired risk within trading books, banks use hedging. Traditional methods do not take transaction costs into account. We, therefore, propose a method for managing the risks in the interbank market through a stochastic optimization model that considers transaction costs. This method is based on a scenario approximation of the optimization problem where the six systematic risk factors are simulated, and the portfolio variance is weighted against the transaction costs. This results in a method that is preferred over the traditional methods for all risk-averse investors. For the credit market, we use data from the bond market in combination with the interbank market to make accurate measurements of the financial quantities. We address the notoriously difficult problem of separating default risk from recovery risk. In addition to the previous identified six systematic risk factors for risk-free interests, we identify four risk factors that explain almost all variance in default intensities, while a single risk factor seems sufficient to model the recovery risk. Overall, this is a higher number of risk factors than is usually found in the literature. Through a simple model, we can measure the variance in bond prices in terms of these systematic risk factors, and through performance attribution, we relate these values to the empirically realized variances from the quoted bond prices. De globala ränte- och kreditmarknaderna är enorma finansiella marknader vars sammanlagda värden vida överstiger de publika aktiemarknadernas. Räntemarknaden består av räntederivat vars främsta användningsområde är hantering av ränterisker. Kreditmarknaden utgörs i första hand av obligationsmarknaden som syftar till att förmedla pengar från investerare till företag, institutioner och stater med upplåningsbehov. Denna avhandling fokuserar på att utifrån ett optimeringsperspektiv modellera både ränte- och obligationsmarknaden. Lagstiftarna på de nationella marknaderna kräver att de finansiella aktörerna värderar sina finansiella tillgångar i enlighet med marknadspriser. Därmed måste priserna på många instrument, som inte handlas publikt, beräknas matematiskt. De finansiella storheter som krävs för denna prissättning är inte direkt observerbara, utan måste mätas genom att lösa inversa optimeringsproblem. Dessa mätningar görs utifrån tillgängliga marknadspriser, som observeras med varierande grad av mätbrus. För räntemarknaden utgörs de relevanta finansiella storheterna av räntekurvor som åskådliggör marknadsräntorna för olika löptider. För obligationsmarknaden utgör kreditrisken en ytterligare faktor som modelleras via fallissemangsintensitetskurvor och kurvor kopplade till förväntat återvunnet kapital vid eventuellt fallissemang. Genom att formulera lämpliga optimeringsmodeller kan de olika underliggande finansiella storheterna mätas i enlighet med observerbara marknadspriser samtidigt som ekonomisk realism eftersträvas. Mätning och hantering av risker är nära kopplat till mätningen av de underliggande finansiella storheterna. Genom en datadriven metod kan vi visa att sex systematiska riskfaktorer kan användas för att förklara nästan all varians i räntekurvorna. Genom att modellera dynamiken i dessa sex riskfaktorer kan tänkbara utfall för räntekurvor simuleras. För kortsiktiga simuleringshorisonter resulterar detta i en representation av fördelningen av portföljvärden som väl överensstämmer med de realiserade utfallen från historiskt observerade räntekurvor. Detta möjliggör noggrannare mätningar av ränterisk där vår föreslagna metod uppvisar såväl lägre risk som mindre prissättningsfel jämfört med traditionella modeller. Vi föreslår en metod för att dekomponera portföljutvecklingen för en godtycklig portfölj till de riskfaktorer som påverkar värdet för respektive instrument. Genom att demonstrera metoden för de sex systematiska riskfaktorerna som identifierats för räntemarknaden visar vi att nästan all portföljutveckling och portföljvarians kan härledas till dessa riskfaktorer. Övriga riskfaktorer och approximationsfel samlas i två termer, vilka kan användas för att säkerställa och eventuellt förbättra kvaliteten i prestationshärledningen. För att eliminera oönskad risk i sina tradingböcker använder banker sig av hedging. Traditionella metoder tar ingen hänsyn till transaktionskostnader. Vi föreslår därför en metod för att hantera riskerna på räntemarknaden genom en stokastisk optimeringsmodell som också tar hänsyn till transaktionskostnader. Denna metod bygger på en scenarioapproximation av optimeringsproblemet där de sex systematiska riskfaktorerna simuleras och portföljvariansen vägs mot transaktionskostnaderna. Detta resulterar i en metod som, för alla riskaverta investerare, är att föredra framför de traditionella metoderna. På kreditmarknaden använder vi data från obligationsmarknaden i kombination räntemarknaden för att göra noggranna mätningar av de finansiella storheterna. Vi angriper det erkänt svåra problemet att separera fallissemangsrisk från återvinningsrisk. Förutom de tidigare sex systematiska riskfaktorerna för riskfri ränta, identifierar vi fyra riskfaktorer som förklarar nästan all varians i fallissemangsintensiteter, medan en enda riskfaktor tycks räcka för att modellera återvinningsrisken. Sammanlagt är detta ett större antal riskfaktorer än vad som brukar användas i litteraturen. Via en enkel modell kan vi mäta variansen i obligationspriser i termer av dessa systematiska riskfaktorer och genom prestationshärledningen relatera dessa värden till de empiriskt realiserade varianserna från kvoterade obligationspriser.

Download or read book Freight Derivatives and Risk Management in Shipping written by Manolis G. Kavussanos and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This advanced practical textbook deals with the issue of risk analysis, measurement and management in the shipping industry. It identifies and analyses the sources of risk in the shipping business and explores in detail the “traditional” and “modern” strategies for risk management at both the investment and operational levels of the business. The special features and characteristics of all available freight derivative products are compared and contrasted between them. Practical applications of derivatives are showcased through realistic practical examples, while a number of concepts across the contents of this book appear for the first time in the literature. The book also serves as “the reference” point for researchers in the area, helping them to enhance their knowledge of risk management and derivatives in the shipping industry, but also to students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Finally, it provides a comprehensive manual for practitioners wishing to engage in the financial risk management of maritime business. This second edition has been fully updated in order to incorporate the numerous developments in the industry since its first edition in 2006. New chapters have been introduced on topics such as Market Risk Measurement, Credit Risk and Credit Derivatives, and Statistical Methods to Quantify Risk. Furthermore, the second edition of this book builds upon the successful first edition which has been extensively (i) taught in a number of Universities around the world and (ii) used by professionals in the industry. Shipowners, professionals in the shipping industry, risk management officers, credit officers, traders, investors, students and researchers will find the book indispensable in order to understand how risk management and hedging tools can make the difference for companies to remain competitive and stay ahead of the rest.

Download or read book A Tea Reader written by Katrina Avila Munichiello and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Tea Reader contains a selection of stories that cover the spectrum of life. This anthology shares the ways that tea has changed lives through personal, intimate stories. Read of deep family moments, conquered heartbreak, and peace found in the face of loss. A Tea Reader includes stories from all types of tea people: people brought up in the tea tradition, those newly discovering it, classic writings from long-ago tea lovers and those making tea a career. Together these tales create a new image of a tea drinker. They show that tea is not simply something you drink, but it also provides quiet moments for making important decisions, a catalyst for conversation, and the energy we sometimes need to operate in our lives. The stories found in A Tea Reader cover the spectrum of life, such as the development of new friendships, beginning new careers, taking dream journeys, and essentially sharing the deep moments of life with friends and families. Whether you are a tea lover or not, here you will discover stories that speak to you and inspire you. Sit down, grab a cup, and read on.

Download or read book Nonparametric Econometrics written by Qi Li and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-09 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, up-to-date textbook on nonparametric methods for students and researchers Until now, students and researchers in nonparametric and semiparametric statistics and econometrics have had to turn to the latest journal articles to keep pace with these emerging methods of economic analysis. Nonparametric Econometrics fills a major gap by gathering together the most up-to-date theory and techniques and presenting them in a remarkably straightforward and accessible format. The empirical tests, data, and exercises included in this textbook help make it the ideal introduction for graduate students and an indispensable resource for researchers. Nonparametric and semiparametric methods have attracted a great deal of attention from statisticians in recent decades. While the majority of existing books on the subject operate from the presumption that the underlying data is strictly continuous in nature, more often than not social scientists deal with categorical data—nominal and ordinal—in applied settings. The conventional nonparametric approach to dealing with the presence of discrete variables is acknowledged to be unsatisfactory. This book is tailored to the needs of applied econometricians and social scientists. Qi Li and Jeffrey Racine emphasize nonparametric techniques suited to the rich array of data types—continuous, nominal, and ordinal—within one coherent framework. They also emphasize the properties of nonparametric estimators in the presence of potentially irrelevant variables. Nonparametric Econometrics covers all the material necessary to understand and apply nonparametric methods for real-world problems.

Download or read book An Introduction to Wavelet Theory in Finance written by Francis In and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2013 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an introduction to wavelet theory and provides the essence of wavelet analysis OCo including Fourier analysis and spectral analysis; the maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform; wavelet variance, covariance, and correlation OCo in a unified and friendly manner. It aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by presenting substantial applications of wavelets in economics and finance.This book is the first to provide a comprehensive application of wavelet analysis to financial markets, covering new frontier issues in empirical finance and economics. The first chapter of this unique text starts with a description of the key features and applications of wavelets. After an overview of wavelet analysis, successive chapters rigorously examine the various economic and financial topics and issues that stimulate academic and professional research, including equity, interest swaps, hedges and futures, foreign exchanges, financial asset pricing, and mutual fund markets.This detail-oriented text is descriptive and designed purely for academic researchers and financial practitioners. It assumes no prior knowledge of econometrics and covers important topics such as portfolio asset allocation, asset pricing, hedging strategies, new risk measures, and mutual fund performance. Its accessible presentation is also suitable for post-graduates in a variety of disciplines OCo applied economics, financial engineering, international finance, financial econometrics, and fund management. To facilitate the subject of wavelets, sophisticated proofs and mathematics are avoided as much as possible when applying the wavelet multiscaling method. To enhance the reader''s understanding in practical applications of the wavelet multiscaling method, this book provides sample programming instruction backed by Matlab wavelet code.

Download or read book Security Analysis Portfolio Management And Financial Derivatives written by Cheng Few Lee and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 1190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Security Analysis, Portfolio Management, and Financial Derivatives integrates the many topics of modern investment analysis. It provides a balanced presentation of theories, institutions, markets, academic research, and practical applications, and presents both basic concepts and advanced principles. Topic coverage is especially broad: in analyzing securities, the authors look at stocks and bonds, options, futures, foreign exchange, and international securities. The discussion of financial derivatives includes detailed analyses of options, futures, option pricing models, and hedging strategies. A unique chapter on market indices teaches students the basics of index information, calculation, and usage and illustrates the important roles that these indices play in model formation, performance evaluation, investment strategy, and hedging techniques. Complete sections on program trading, portfolio insurance, duration and bond immunization, performance measurements, and the timing of stock selection provide real-world applications of investment theory. In addition, special topics, including equity risk premia, simultaneous-equation approach for security valuation, and Itô's calculus, are also included for advanced students and researchers.

Download or read book Derivatives and Hedge Funds written by Stephen Satchell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 20 years hedge funds and derivatives have fluctuated in reputational terms; they have been blamed for the global financial crisis and been praised for the provision of liquidity in troubled times. Both topics are rather under-researched due to a combination of data and secrecy issues. This book is a collection of papers celebrating 20 years of the Journal of Derivatives and Hedge Funds (JDHF). The 18 papers included in this volume represent a small sample of influential papers included during the life of the Journal, representing industry-orientated research in these areas. With a Preface from co-editor of the journal Stephen Satchell, the first part of the collection focuses on hedge funds and the second on markets, prices and products.

Download or read book RETRACTED BOOK 151 Trading Strategies written by Zura Kakushadze and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-13 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides detailed descriptions, including more than 550 mathematical formulas, for more than 150 trading strategies across a host of asset classes and trading styles. These include stocks, options, fixed income, futures, ETFs, indexes, commodities, foreign exchange, convertibles, structured assets, volatility, real estate, distressed assets, cash, cryptocurrencies, weather, energy, inflation, global macro, infrastructure, and tax arbitrage. Some strategies are based on machine learning algorithms such as artificial neural networks, Bayes, and k-nearest neighbors. The book also includes source code for illustrating out-of-sample backtesting, around 2,000 bibliographic references, and more than 900 glossary, acronym and math definitions. The presentation is intended to be descriptive and pedagogical and of particular interest to finance practitioners, traders, researchers, academics, and business school and finance program students.

Download or read book Value at Risk 3rd Ed written by Philippe Jorion and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2006-11-09 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its original publication, Value at Risk has become the industry standard in risk management. Now in its Third Edition, this international bestseller addresses the fundamental changes in the field that have occurred across the globe in recent years. Philippe Jorion provides the most current information needed to understand and implement VAR-as well as manage newer dimensions of financial risk. Featured updates include: An increased emphasis on operational risk Using VAR for integrated risk management and to measure economic capital Applications of VAR to risk budgeting in investment management Discussion of new risk-management techniques, including extreme value theory, principal components, and copulas Extensive coverage of the recently finalized Basel II capital adequacy rules for commercial banks, integrated throughout the book A major new feature of the Third Edition is the addition of short questions and exercises at the end of each chapter, making it even easier to check progress. Detailed answers are posted on the companion web site www.pjorion.com/var/. The web site contains other materials, including additional questions that course instructors can assign to their students. Jorion leaves no stone unturned, addressing the building blocks of VAR from computing and backtesting models to forecasting risk and correlations. He outlines the use of VAR to measure and control risk for trading, for investment management, and for enterprise-wide risk management. He also points out key pitfalls to watch out for in risk-management systems. The value-at-risk approach continues to improve worldwide standards for managing numerous types of risk. Now more than ever, professionals can depend on Value at Risk for comprehensive, authoritative counsel on VAR, its application, and its results-and to keep ahead of the curve.

Download or read book Empirical Asset Pricing written by Wayne Ferson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the theory and methods of empirical asset pricing, integrating classical foundations with recent developments. This book offers a comprehensive advanced introduction to asset pricing, the study of models for the prices and returns of various securities. The focus is empirical, emphasizing how the models relate to the data. The book offers a uniquely integrated treatment, combining classical foundations with more recent developments in the literature and relating some of the material to applications in investment management. It covers the theory of empirical asset pricing, the main empirical methods, and a range of applied topics. The book introduces the theory of empirical asset pricing through three main paradigms: mean variance analysis, stochastic discount factors, and beta pricing models. It describes empirical methods, beginning with the generalized method of moments (GMM) and viewing other methods as special cases of GMM; offers a comprehensive review of fund performance evaluation; and presents selected applied topics, including a substantial chapter on predictability in asset markets that covers predicting the level of returns, volatility and higher moments, and predicting cross-sectional differences in returns. Other chapters cover production-based asset pricing, long-run risk models, the Campbell-Shiller approximation, the debate on covariance versus characteristics, and the relation of volatility to the cross-section of stock returns. An extensive reference section captures the current state of the field. The book is intended for use by graduate students in finance and economics; it can also serve as a reference for professionals.