Numerical and Computational Methods for Mathematical Finance

John Armstrong

This is the website for the FM06 course. There are more extensive notes for some of the lectures in the form of chapters of an imaginary book. Due to time constraints I haven't been able to produce more extensive notes for absolutely every lecture as yet.

All material is © John Armstrong 2013-2017.

Please email me any typos or corrections you notice.

Polls

For in class polls visit https://pollev.com/johnarmstron561.
Slides Worksheets Notes Code
Lecture 1: Introducting MATLAB. Writing functions Worksheet 1 Introduction
Chapter 1 chapter1.zip
Chapter 2 chapter2.zip
Lecture 2: Tests, flow of control, vectorization Worksheet 2
Chapter 3 chapter3.zip
Lecture 3: Numerical Integration Worksheet 3 Chapter 4lecture3.zip
Lecture 4: Simulating Black Scholes, Monte Carlo Pricing Worksheet 4 Chapter 5lecture4.zip
Lecture 5: Delta and Gamma hedging Worksheet 5 Chapter 6lecture5.zip
Lecture 6: More interesting processes - Cholesky decomposition and Euler method Worksheet 6 Chapter 7lecture6.zip
Lecture 7: Risk Management and Modern Portfolio Theory. Note that Chapter 11 is where you'll find a prose write up of modern portfolio theory, I decided to bring this forward in the course this year.
Video 1: Value at Risk and how to compute it
Video 2: Expected Shortfall and the theory of risk
Worksheet 7 Chapter 8lecture7.zip
Lecture 8: The explicit finite difference method. Worksheet 8 lecture8.zip
Lecture 9: The implicit and Crank-Nicolson methods. Worksheet 9 lecture9.zip
Lecture 10: Optimization
Data: Google Options, Stock prices
Worksheet 10 Chapter 10
lecture10.zip
Lecture 11: Richardson extrapolation, variance reduction techniques. Revision. Worksheet 11lecture11.zip
Revision Lecture

Exams and Solutions

Note that the format of the exam has changed in 2020. You will be expected to answer 3 of 4 questions rather than 4 of 5. This is intended to reflect the fact that 20% of the mark is from coursework.

PaperCommentsSolutions
Mock questionsThis was written in 2014 as an illustration of the type of questions I might ask. Solutions
Bonus questionsThese were written in 2014 to give more examples of the types of questions I might ask.
August 2019Solutions
May 2019Solutions
May 2018There were only 4 questions this yearSolutions
August 2017
May 2017Solutions
August 2016
May 2016Solutions
May 2015
May 2014Solutions
May 2013Only Q1, Q4, Q5 are currently examinable.
May 2012Only Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 are currently examinable.
May 2011Only Q1, Q2 are currently examinable.

I will not provide solutions for all past exam papers as I believe it is better for you educationally to solve the problems yourself. The solutions for the mock and bonus questions will be made available at the end of term, those for May 2014 and May 2016 are available immediately.

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