Financial Optimization

Rating:
Summary: A must for all Quantatative Financial Managers
Review: The book is on the prescribed reading list of the Society of Actuaries Fellowship Investments Examination and the reason why is pretty obvious! The book basically explains how techniques from the Applied Mathematics field can be applied to Finance and Investments and the benefits of this application. It explains in Chapter 12 why the traditional actuarial approach to Immunization Theory is too simplistic and how to generalize this theory so it becomes a useful tool in practice. In Chapter 5, actuaries are taught the advantages of using modern simulation techniques for valuing SPODA's, a very topical subject in the US today. My only critisism of the book is that not in all chapters are numerical examples given so that becomes more alive and meaningful. The book is useful not only to actuaries, but to all the Financial Engineering community.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent organization of conference and contents
Review: This book is a compilation of conferent at Wharton school, one topic was financial engineering. The editor, Zenios, categorizes the conferences in great organization. Even though it was from conference, I almost have no feeling or conference paper reading at all. The book consists of 3 parts. Part I is the general idea of financial engineering with methodology (e.g. risk management, stochastic optimization). Part II is the experience from practitioners (very good). Part III is more advanced issue in methodology. In sum, this is an intermediate book for senior undergrad or grad student or even practitioner in this area for the contents and presentation matter.