Read All About Derivatives Second Edition All About Series Michael Durbin 9780071743518 Books

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51u3fcitUHL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Product details Series All About Series Paperback 288 pages Publisher McGraw-Hill Education; 2 edition (December 7, 2010) Language English ISBN-10 0071743510

All About Derivatives Second Edition All About Series Michael Durbin 9780071743518 Books Reviews

• Currently using this as supplementary reading to my textbook, makes learning about derivatives easy. I don't think this would be a good read for someone already knowledgable on the topic but it could be used as a refresher. This book is good for understanding concepts and getting basics down, there's not much depth in this book but that's totally fine with me. I also like the paper quality of the pages!
• I thought I had a fair understanding of derivatives. This book gives you a very clear introduction to the basics of derivatives with clear examples and counterexamples, and then moves on to more complex scenarios and approaches but without any jumps in reasoning or interruptions. It's an apparently small book, but I can assure you is full of valuable information. A small book that gives you tons of insight and understanding. I now like even more reading about derivatives, I understand a lot more news, articles, and it was after patiently reading this book that I got to this new level of understanding.
• I gave this book 5 stars mainly because it's exactly what I expected when I bought it.
  
  Indeed, it's meant to introduce derivatives to the average Joe, and it succeeds greatly.
  
  You won't need any strong (or average for all that matters) level in math to understand the concepts the author introduces. I guess specialists must scream in horror before this book, as everything in it seems so easy that the author must be lefting out a huge chunk theory.
  
  Another good point (although it's not that relevant) is the author's humour and style, it definitely eases some examples.
  
  Anyway, I was trying to find a book to learn about derivatives from, and every book I opened I just had that feeling that there's stuff I should know before starting the book in question (I tried "The Mathematical of Financial Derivatives, a Student's Introduction" by Paul Wilmott, "The Concepts and Practice of Mathematical Finance" from Mark Joshi, and both seemed to me that I should be familiar with basics concepts of finance that I weren't).
  
  To sum up, if you don't know anything about derivatives I think this is the book to start learning from (and probably go onto John Hull's "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives"). After you're done with both these books, maybe it will be time to dive into Wilmott's and Joshi's books.
  
  Remember, it's not a self-contained book, but just an introduction to the subject despite it's tittle "ALL about derivatives". It actually should be more "Basics of Derivatives".
• I have an MBA and even though we covered Derivatives in school we never really went deep into the subject. I always wanted to know about about option pricing, arbitrage, synthetic products and the sort, I found that this book is just that. This is not a school course not intended for you to think that you can turn yourself into the next John Paulson but it clearly explains with detail and simple examples of how the the different derivatives product work (Forwards, Futures, Options, Swaps, Warrants, Arbitrage, etc). It doesn't really have any hard core math throughout the book. There are a few exception like Option Pricing where it covers the Black-Scholes formula.
  
  Great book if you want to learn what the Derivates world is all about.
  Very well written..!
• This book is great if you want to understand what derivatives are, how they work, some of the theory of how they are priced, and what they are good for. What it doesn't do is go into lots of strategies on how to get rich trading derivatives. Having read this book might help you to understand a book on trading strategies though. The author is very up front about what the book covers and does not cover, and what is covered is covered very well. The explanations are clear and you don't need a lot of maths knowledge to understand them. (Although as someone who can follow maths, I sometimes wished the author had used more advanced maths to explain a concept, since it might have made it a little quicker.)
  
  I am sure I will use this boook as a reference source in time to come.
• This book is well-written and provides an easy to comprehend introduction to derivatives. It explains futures, options, forwards and delves a bit into swaps and other derivatives. Michael Durbin provides definitions of key terms and does an excellent job of breaking down and explaining a complicated subject. If you are a journeyman pursuing a job or career in finance it is a must read.
• Teacher required this for Financial Derivatives. Very informative. But a boring read. Would recommend for anyone who has to take Financial Derivatives.
• Awesome Book! Now I FULLY understand what derivatives are all about.