In this paper we present an application where advanced undergraduate students can solve the expected utility portfolio model with a risk-free and a risky asset with both up and down returns in the Stock Market. With real Stock Market data, we use Excel Solver to find the portfolio decision and...

Under the CAPM assumptions, the market capitalization weighted portfolio is mean-variance efficient. In real world applications it has been shown by various authors that low risk portfolios outperform the market capitalization weighted portfolio. We revisit this anomaly using high-frequency data...

All too often, the concept of risk-neutral probabilities in mathematical finance is poorly explained, and misleading statements are made. The aim of this paper is to provide an intuitive understanding of risk-neutral probabilities, and to explain in an easily accessible manner how they can be...

The complexity of the global financial crisis beginning 2007 has challenged professionals. For students, the crisis's interconnected elements, covered in multiple courses and the concepts of derivatives central to it, are overwhelming. Providing short answers to their questions often creates...

Define the riskiness of a gamble as the reciprocal of the absolute risk aversion (ARA) of an individual with constant ARA who is indifferent between taking and not taking that gamble. We characterize this index by axioms, chief among them a “duality” axiom which, roughly speaking, asserts...

Option prices embed predictive content for the outcomes of pending mergers and acquisitions. This is particularly important in merger arbitrage, where deal failure is a key risk. In this paper, I propose a dynamic asset pricing model that exploits the joint information in target stock and option...

Markets for risky loans clear on two dimensions - an interest rate (or equivalently a spread above the riskless rate) and a specification of the amount of collateral per dollar of lending. The latter is summarized by the margin or "haircut" associated with the loan. Some key models of endogenous...

This paper develops methods and a framework of financial market theory. We model financial markets as a system of agents which perform market transactions with other agents under the action of numerous expectations. Agents’ expectations are formed of economic and financial variables, market...