Coursera

Derivatives (Coursera)

Offered by University of Naples Federico II,

This course covers standard derivative pricing models. Both discrete time and continuous time techniques are considered. The course also includes an introduction to numerical option pricing, in particular the Monte Carlo Method.

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After this course, students should have a good knowledge of financial markets, security pricing, arbitrage, interest rates, risk and return. Contents:
1) Definition and classification of financial assets
2) Discrete-time pricing models
3) Continuous-time pricing models
4) Fixed income products
5) Monte Carlo methods for derivative pricing
This course is part of the Financial Markets Specialization.

What you'll learn

Evaluate the effect of investment strategies on the risk and return of a portfolio
Evaluate different uses of financial derivatives (e.g., hedging, speculation)
Evaluate different pricing models to calculate the price of the various financial instruments
Develop and employ theoretical asset pricing models to price these derivative instruments

Syllabus

Financial assets
By the end of this week you will learn: fixing some notation; describe the pay-off structure of financial assets; evaluate possible usages of derivatives (hedging, speculation).

Discrete time models
By the end of this week, you will understand the replication of a payoff function, state prices and risk neutral probabilities. Additionally, you will learn how to compute option prices in discrete time models.

Continuous time models
By the end of this week, you will learn about stochastic processes and Itô's lemma, financial markets in continuous time, and option pricing in continuous time.

Pricing fixed income products: discrete time & continuous time
By the end of this week, you will learn how to compute the price of fixed income products.

Numerical methods for option pricing
At the end of this week, you will learn numerical computation of option prices.

Go to Class

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