All About Derivatives Second Edition (All About Series)

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".

This was the book I was looking for. It seems like most books on the subject are too rudimentary or too academically dense to be of practical use. This one manages to expose the necessary math without getting too “in the weeds” with the proofs. I was specifically looking for precisely this level of explanation of the functions needed for working with derivatives and the author delivered. It’s also written in a way (and stated as such) that allows for skipping some of the math, in case you just want a handle on what these things are and how they’re used. It was so good, I immediately wrote this review out of sheer gratitude.

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.

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..!

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.

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!

The book presents the material I first feared would be difficult to grasp in a simple and straight forward manner. The only problem is the exclusion of too much maths which I would appreciate on such a subject like derivatives pricing

As I mentioned in the title of this review, this is a book on BASICS of derivatives. It does not teach you the complicated math (as if anybody could understand mathematics of the derivatives market), however it does give you a very thorough understanding on what derivatives are supposed to be about.

The book is in really good shape.

Great!!

This concise books holds all the basics regarding derivatives, it is well structured and reasonably detailed for a book of this size and price. I'd recommend it if you have little or no background in derivatives, it will teach you the fundamentals of swaps, futures, forwards and options. Little maths is involved, although there are notes at the end of the book which explain all the necessary maths to compute or price derivatives, although comprehension of the mathematical part is not essential, unless you want to trade derivatives or are a professional, in which case another book would probably be warranted. As far as I'm concerned, my trade required little more than basic comprehension of the overall mechanisms. As a consequence, I was quite happy with it.

This is a good book for starters to give a all round view on Derivatives. Interesting read.... if you are a starter... please do read this book for a stable, non-info-bombarding start!

This book gave me all I asked for, easy, comprehensive summary of derivatives, great starting point. I would reccomend it to anyone who needs or wants to learn about derivatives as a first book to read.