Suspended in 2025/26
FM408E      Half Unit
Financial Engineering

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Co-requisites:

Either before taking this course, or in the same year as this course, students must complete:

FM436

or

((FM422 or FM422E) and (FM423 or FM423E))

This course provides a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of financial engineering. The emphasis is on the application of derivatives pricing and hedging methodology to equity, FX, commodities, volatility and correlation trading strategies, and to structured products. We study selected case studies in order to gain a better understanding of their practical, sometimes live, usage. We also implement the models numerically in R.

30 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course is taught in the interactive lecturing format. There is no distinction between lectures and classes/seminars; there are “sessions” only, and the pedagogical approach in each session is interactive. There will be extra introductory lessons on the mathematical concepts required and on R coding tailored to the course.

Based on a set of extensive lecture notes. No one book covers the material of the entire course, and no books are required. Books recommended include The Volatility Surface: A Practitioner's Guide, 2nd Edition, by Jim Gatheral, and The Volatility Smile by Derman, Miller and Park. Background reading can be found in Volatility: Practical Options Theory by Adam Iqbal, Derivatives Markets by Robert McDonald or Options, Futures and Other Derivatives by John C. Hull.

Continuous assessment (100%)