| Unit name | Financial Mathematics 34 |
|---|---|
| Unit code | MATHM5400 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Johnson |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | School of Mathematics |
| Faculty | Faculty of Science |
In 1973 Black and Scholes solved the problem of pricing a basic financial derivative (a product based on an underlying asset), the European call option. They assumed that the market had no arbitrage, and hence determined a unique fair price of the option. This course develops the sophisticated mathematics required by the subsequent explosion of trade in increasingly complex derivatives.
We first analyse a very simple model with just two time points where trading is possible. All basic ideas are already explained in this setting, including the notion of a risk-neutral probability measure. The theory is then extended to general discrete models with an arbitrary number of periods using martingales. In the second half of the course we model asset prices in continuous time by exponential Brownian motion, and informally introduce stochastic calculus. The final part of the course will consider the pricing of derivatives and the Black-Scholes formula.
