Chapter 8
Speaking Greek
In This Chapter
Understanding the Greek letters used to analyse financial risk
Seeing financial risk from a modern portfolio theory perspective
Treating financial risks as derivatives
Using concepts from bond analysis for financial risk management
For non-nerds in finance (I, myself, am a card-carrying nerd from way back), nothing is more terrifying than Greeks. I don’t mean the ones bearing gifts, nor the 300 Spartans blocking the only mountain pass to Thessaly, nor the government in Athens with its troublesome budgets. I mean those letters used for fraternity names and to chase cool students out of mysterious courses in arcane financial arts.
Taken one at a time, each Greek letter represents an important financial concept that can be appreciated without advanced mathematics. Each one was developed for a specialised subfield in finance, but they’ve grown to express general concepts that all risk managers must master. They’re valuable because they allow complex portfolio risks to be reduced to a manageable series of numbers, communicated with single words, ...
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