Finance and the finance industry Books

Book SynopsisA very funny book that tackles some serious football issues.'Gary LinekerEver dreamed of setting up your own football club? Join the team behind The Price of Football podcast as they start a (fictional) football club and discover what's really going on behind the scenes of the beautiful game.Buying a football club will set you back a few quid, but you've also got to pass the Premier League and EFL''s fit and proper persons test'. That all seems like a bit of a faff to the team behind the award-winning podcast The Price of Football, so acclaimed comedy writer Kevin Day, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and producer Guy Kilty start an imaginary club instead.In Unfit and Improper Persons they take West Park Rovers on a hilarious journey from the lowest level of the FA pyramid right up to the English Football League, the Premier League and, if fortune favours the fictional, into the heart of Europe.<

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Book SynopsisIs this the right book for me?The world of finance and accountancy can seem one of impenetrable mystery but it is one that many managers have to face in their day to day lives. With its comprehensive coverage of the subject, this book allows you not only to ask pertinent questions but also to understand the answers. Chapter by chapter, the workings of finance are mapped out and laid bare - the formal reports, the methods used to prepare the numbers and what accountants actually do every day.This edition is fully updated to reflect current allowances, rates and regulations and further information. It also includes even more questions (with comprehensive answers) to challenge the reader''s understanding. Finance for Non-Financial Managers includes:Chapter 1: The purpose of accountingChapter 2: Basic terminologyChapter 3: Accounting concepts and principlesChapter 4: The profit and loss accountChapter 5: The balancTable of Contents : The purpose of accounting : Basic terminology : Accounting concepts and principles : The profit and loss account : The balance sheet : The cash flow statement : Ratio analysis : Users of financial information : The general ledger : Costing : Standard costing : Variance analysis : Two more costing issues : The audit of annual accounts : Tricks of the trade : Financial information for managers : Capital investment appraisal: experts only? : Activities of an accounts department : Cash flow management : Corporate financial planning : Personal finance: income tax and national insurance : Personal finance: investment : Personal finance: capital gains tax and others

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Book SynopsisThe Buy Side is Turney Duff''s high-adrenaline journey through the trading underworld, as well as a searing look at an after-hours Wall Street culture where sex and drugs are the quid pro quo and a billion isn''t enough. In the mid-2000''s, Turney Duff was, to all appearances, the very picture of American success. One of Wall Street''s hottest traders, he was a rising star with Raj Rajaratnam''s legendary Galleon Group before forging his own path. What few knew was that the key to Turney''s remarkable success wasn''t a super-genius IQ or family connections but rather a winning personality - because the real money wasn''t made on the trading floor or behind a computer screen, but in whispered deals in the city''s most exclusive nightspots, surrounded by the best drugs and hottest women. For Turney, this created a perilously seductive cycle: the harder he partied, the more connected and successful he became, which meant he could party even harder. In time, he became a Trade ReviewThis is why I keep my money safe and sound under the mattress. You could get high just reading this book. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Wall Street traders. -- James Patterson The book is by turns hilarious, harrowing, maddening, and illuminating. After this debut, the smart money will be on Duff. -- Bethany McLean New York Times bestselling author of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here The perfect parable for Wall Street's lost decade. A fast-paced coke-crazed trip through Manhattan nightlife that conjures Bright Lights, Big City, to an eyewitness account of insider trading and front running that reads like a federal indictment. -- Guy Lawson New York Times bestselling author of Octopus The Buy Side is 'Wall Street' meets 'Breaking Bad' - except that this book is fact not fiction. Turney Duff yields to temptation at every turn, and the sheer volume of criminal behavior he saw, and even participated in, is astonishing.If you want to see Wall Street's seamy underbelly first-hand, read this book. -- Frank Partnoy bestselling author of F.I.A.S.C.O and Infectious Greed

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Book Synopsis''Sound and caring, this is a book we all need to read'' Stylist''This book is going to change the way I live'' Daisy Buchanan''Compassionate, practical and insightful'' Vicky SprattIt''s impossible to talk about wellbeing without addressing our financial wellbeing. While it may be true that money can''t buy you happiness, you will struggle to find balance and contentment in all other areas of your life when you aren''t in control of your finances.In Five Steps to Financial Wellbeing, Clare Seal walks you through five straightforward, achievable steps to take to change your relationship with money for good, and in doing so, change the rest of your life for the better.This book also addresses the deeper fundamentals of a healthy relationship with money, from building self-worth to tackling consumerism. Five Steps to Financial Wellbeing is a toolkit to help reTrade ReviewSound and caring, this is a book we all need to read * Stylist *This book is going to change the way I live * Daisy Buchanan *Compassionate, practical and insightful - I wish I'd had this book to hand in my early twenties * Vicky Spratt *

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Book Synopsis Discover the 50 secrets that productive people know - complete with strategies for putting them into practice.What do productive people know that the rest of us don''t? Do they have a secret recipe for success? Is there a special alchemy to being productive? The Secrets of Productive People reveals the 50 things you need to know to get things done. Each chapter outlines one of the 50 ideas and gives three strategies for putting it into practice. Some ideas will surprise you, all will inspire you. Put these simple strategies together and you have a recipe for a better life, a formula that will unlock a more productive you. Whether you want to improve your efficiency, clear your desk, or be on top of your work, this book provides the tools and techniques you need to be more productive. With dedicated sections on having a productive attitude, managing specific projects, aids to productivity and productivity in action, it gives you everything you need to

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsContents 1. The role of accounting in business SECTION I: Financial accounting and reporting 2. The statement of financial position 3. The statement of profit or loss 4. Applying accounting conventions 5. Depreciation and amortization 6. The statement of cash flows 7. Financial reporting by limited companies 8. Understanding financial reports: trend analysis 9. Understanding financial reports: using accounting ratios SECTION II: Management accounting 10. Management and cost accounting information 11. Costing: overview and basic techniques 12. Costing: accounting for overheads 13. Pricing 14. Marginal costing and decision making 15. Capital investment decisions 16. Budgets 17. Accounting for control 18. Performance measurement SECTION III: Financial management 19. The management of working capital 20. Financing the business Answers to self-test questions Answers to exercises Glossary Index

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Book SynopsisUsing practical examples throughout the book, author Yves Hilpisch also shows you how to develop a full-fledged framework for Monte Carlo simulation-based derivatives and risk analytics, based on a large, realistic case study. Much of the book uses interactive IPython Notebooks.

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Book SynopsisOver the next few decades, machine learning and data science will transform the finance industry. With this practical book, analysts, traders, researchers, and developers will learn how to build machine learning algorithms crucial to the industry.

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Book SynopsisMore than 25 experts from around the world have contributed to this unique and provocative book. In a series of illuminating short essays, each author has presented a striking image as an invitation to consider the ghosts of colonialism and imperialism in today’s global economy. In defiance of those who claim that today’s capitalist system is free of racism and exploitation, this book shows that the past is not behind us, it defines our world and our lives. This book takes the reader on a global tour, from Malaysia to Canada, from Angola to Mexico, from Libya to China, from the City of London to the Australian outback, from the deep sea to the atmosphere. Along the way we meet the financiers, artists, advertisers, activists and everyday people who are grappling with the entangled legacies of empire.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Paul Robert Gilbert, Clea Bourne, Max Haiven and Johnna MontgomeriePart I: Blowouts1 Pumpjacks, playgrounds and cheap lives – Imre Szeman2 ‘Boom!' – Tracy Lassiter3 Spillcam – Alysse KushinskiPart II: Circulations4 Te Peeke o Aotearoa: colonial and decolonial finance in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1860s–1890s – Catherine Comyn5 Both sides of the coin: Lady Liberty and the construction of ‘the New Native’ on currency in Oregon’s colonial period – Ashley Cordes6 Milo – Syahirah Abdul RahmanPart III: Borders7 ‘The trust will pursue debt through all means necessary' – Kathryn Medien8 Hunger or indebtedness? Enforcing migrant destitution, racializing debt – Eve Dickson, Rachel Rosen and Kehinde Sorinmade9 Libre: debt, discipline and humanitarian pretension – Christian RossipalPart IV: Emergence10 ‘Afro-pessimism’ and emerging markets finance – Ilias Alami11 Dreams of extractive development: reviving the Benguela Railway in central Angola – Jon Schubert12 Spectral cities and rare earth mining in the North China Plain – Linsey LyPart V: Gestures13 Italy, Libya and the EU: co-dependent systems and interweaving imperial interests at the Mediterranean border – Alessandra Ferrini14 Racial capitalism and settler colonization in Australia: Australian debts to Gurindji economies – Holly Eva Katherine Randell-Moon15 Connected by a blue sweater: ethical narratives of philanthrocapitalist development – Zenia KishPart VI: Play16 Eternal conflict: Sderot’s underground playground – Oded Nir17 I am your dividend – Ben StorkPart VII: Control18 ‘The shape of the Stock Exchange is shapeless’ – Laura Kalba19 Data Centre Séance: telepathic surveillance capitalism, psychic debt and colonialism – Jacquelene DrinkallPart VIII: Imaginaries20 Mesoamérica Resiste: staging the battle over Mesoamerica – capitalist fantasies vs grassroots liberation – Debbie Samaniego and Felix Mantz21 Extractive scars and the lightness of finance – Maria Dyveke Styve22 Imagined maps of racial capitalism – Gargi BhattacharyyaIndex

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Book SynopsisThe startling picture of how China’s revolution in finance and technology is changing both Wall Street and the way individuals manage their personal finances.The future of finance – the way Wall Street operates and how individuals manage their money - is on the verge of upheaval. And the force underlying the change comes from China, where finance and technology are being merged into a system with consequences that resonate far beyond China’s border. The changes of this global revolution in finance and technology - fintech - will be as powerful as those wrought in social media, retailing and advertising by giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, which have overturned how we shop and communicate.China reinvented money with lightning speed, transforming a backward, antiquated cash-based finance system into one centered on super-apps created by technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. More powerful than anything available outside of China, they allow their billion users to pay, borrow, invest, buy goods and services, travel, chat (and far more) all fused together in one mobile phone application. Think Facebook, Google, Twitter, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, J.P. Morgan Chase all rolled into one app.We in the West need to understand China’s cashless revolution for reasons ranging from the macroeconomic to issues of personal liberty: The cutting edge of finance is now in China, forcing major financial firms in the United States and the West to figure out how not to be left behind.. China’s cashless revolution is also a harbinger of our future if we let the genie out of the bottle and allow big tech to become big finance. As money goes digital and central banks around the world consider launching digital currencies, we may have both immense convenience and a frightening concentration of power that could violate our privacy, stifle competition, increase financial risk, and give big firms or the government more control over our financial lives. And, once this genie is out of the bottle, the struggle to put it back in may be impossible.

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Book SynopsisIn their short history, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have gone through booms, busts, and internecine wars, recently reaching a market valuation of more than $2 trillion. The central promise of crypto endures-vast fortunes made from decentralized networks not controlled by any single entity and not yet regulated by many governments.The recent growth of crypto would have been all but impossible if not for a brilliant young man named Vitalik Buterin and his creation: Ethereum. In this book, Laura Shin takes readers inside the founding of this novel cryptocurrency network, which enabled users to launch their own new coins, thus creating a new crypto fever. She introduces readers to larger-than-life characters like Buterin, the Web3 wunderkind; his short-lived CEO, Charles Hoskinson; and Joe Lubin, a former Goldman Sachs VP who became one of crypto's most well-known billionaires. Sparks fly as these outsized personalities fight for their piece of a seemingly limitless new business opportunity.This fascinating book shows the crypto market for what it really is: a deeply personal struggle to influence the coming revolution in money, culture, and power.

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Book SynopsisPreviously published as The Trillion Dollar Meltdown Now fully updated with the latest financial developments, this is the bestselling book that briefly and brilliantly explains how we got into the economic mess that is the Credit Crunch. With the housing markets unravelling daily and distress signals flying throughout the rest of the economy, there is little doubt that we are facing a fierce recession. In crisp, gripping prose, Charles R. Morris shows how got into this mess. He explains the arcane financial instruments, the chicanery, the policy misjudgments, the dogmas, and the delusions that created the greatest credit bubble in world history. Paul Volcker slew the inflation dragon in the early 1980s, and set the stage for the high performance economy of the 1980s and 1990s. But Wall Street's prosperity soon tilted into gross excess. The astronomical leverage at major banks and their hedge fund and private equity clients led to massive disruption in global markets. A quarter century of free-market zealotry that extolled asset stripping, abusive lending, and hedge fund secrecy will go down in flames with it. Continued denial and concealment could cause the crisis to stretch out for years, but financial and government leaders are still downplaying the problem. The required restructuring will be at least as painful as the very difficult period of 1979-1983. The Two Trillion-Dollar Meltdown , updated to include the latest financial developments, is indispensable to understanding how the world economy has been put on the brink.Trade Review"New York Times Notable Book of the Year" "[The Trillion Dollar Meltdown] is an absolutely excellent narrative of the horror that we have in the credit markets right now... It's a wonderful explanation of how it happened and why it's so rotten, and why it will take a long time to unwind."-Paul Steiger, former Mng Editor,

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Book SynopsisThis book discusses the interplay of stochastics (applied probability theory) and numerical analysis in the field of quantitative finance. The stochastic models, numerical valuation techniques, computational aspects, financial products, and risk management applications presented will enable readers to progress in the challenging field of computational finance.When the behavior of financial market participants changes, the corresponding stochastic mathematical models describing the prices may also change. Financial regulation may play a role in such changes too. The book thus presents several models for stock prices, interest rates as well as foreign-exchange rates, with increasing complexity across the chapters. As is said in the industry, 'do not fall in love with your favorite model.' The book covers equity models before moving to short-rate and other interest rate models. We cast these models for interest rate into the Heath-Jarrow-Morton framework, show relations between the different models, and explain a few interest rate products and their pricing.The chapters are accompanied by exercises. Students can access solutions to selected exercises, while complete solutions are made available to instructors. The MATLAB and Python computer codes used for most tables and figures in the book are made available for both print and e-book users. This book will be useful for people working in the financial industry, for those aiming to work there one day, and for anyone interested in quantitative finance. The topics that are discussed are relevant for MSc and PhD students, academic researchers, and for quants in the financial industry.Supplementary Material:Solutions Manual is available to instructors who adopt this textbook for their courses. Please contact sales@wspc.com.

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Book SynopsisIn today's world, we are increasingly exposed to the words 'machine learning' (ML), a term which sounds like a panacea designed to cure all problems ranging from image recognition to machine language translation. Over the past few years, ML has gradually permeated the financial sector, reshaping the landscape of quantitative finance as we know it.An Introduction to Machine Learning in Quantitative Finance aims to demystify ML by uncovering its underlying mathematics and showing how to apply ML methods to real-world financial data. In this book the authorsFeatured with the balance of mathematical theorems and practical code examples of ML, this book will help you acquire an in-depth understanding of ML algorithms as well as hands-on experience. After reading An Introduction to Machine Learning in Quantitative Finance, ML tools will not be a black box to you anymore, and you will feel confident in successfully applying what you have learnt to empirical financial data!The Python codes contained within An Introduction to Machine Learning in Quantitative Finance have been made publicly available on the author's GitHub: https://github.com/deepintomlf/mlfbook.gitTable of Contentsoreword; Acknowledgments; Overview of Machine Learning and Financial Applications; Supervised Learning; Linear Regression and Regularization; Tree-based Models; Neural Network; Cluster Analysis; Principal Component Analysis; Reinforcement Learning; Case Study in Finance: Home Credit Default Risk; Bibliography;

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Book SynopsisThe past two decades have seen a rapid rise in large-scale, state-led transnational investment from countries as different as China, Norway and Russia. By bundling economic resources, these countries have entered global markets through massive state-led investments. This transformation of states into global economic actors is historically unprecedented and presents a major challenge for how states relate to each other in the international system. Milan Babic examines how states have become major corporate owners in the global economy and unpacks the lasting effects of this on our understanding of the state and international politics. Drawing on research into the largest firm-level dataset on state ownership to date, in combination with in-depth historical and conceptual analysis, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of the rise of the state in the global economy and its present and future consequences for international relations.Trade ReviewIn this innovative book, Babić muscles aside the sterile and incorrect dichotomy between state and market and its related debate about the return of state capitalism in favour of a detailed empirical analysis of something new: the expansion of transnational state capital through foreign direct and portfolio investment. Transnational state-owned enterprises are increasingly powerful actors in the global economy. -- Herman Mark Schwartz, Professor of Politics, University of VirginiaThis is illuminating and essential reading at a critical turn in world politics when geoeconomics is returning to centre stage. Babić accessibly – and based on a wealth of comprehensive data – guides the reader to see states as owners and investors in the global political economy, the strategies they employ vis-à-vis markets, and how all that matters in the current state of global capitalism and interstate rivalry. -- Naná de Graaff, Associate Professor in International Relations, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamThis exciting new look at states and capital investment replaces the increasingly threadbare "standard" state–market dichotomy narrative and its "rise of state capitalism" trope with a more credible account of how both states and the firms they own and influence have integrated themselves into a "transnational agency space" that is fully compatible with globalization and private capital. This perceptive analysis of state responses to new opportunity structures of global markets presents both the big picture and the fine-grained, case-based data to support the theory. -- Geoffrey Underhill, Professor of International Governance, University of AmsterdamBabić argues convincingly through a range of case studies how states and markets are not that different in how they operate in a more open, interconnected and what we call heterarchical world political economy. In particular, he regards capitalism as being fundamentally underpinned, shaped, and made effective and profitable by states, i.e. that what we are dealing with is the transformation of state capitalism itself, capitalism created and shaped by states for their own purposes. -- European Review of International StudiesTable of ContentsForeword by Erik Jones 1. Introduction: states and markets are different things – or are they? 2. A short history of the re-emergence of state capital(ism) 3. Transnational state capital in the global political economy 4. Strategies of the competing state: controlling strategies 5. Strategies of the competing state: financial strategies 6. Consequences: Covid-19, geoeconomics, climate change 7. Conclusion: states, markets and the future of globalization

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Book SynopsisMastering climate change has been recognised as a major challenge for the current decade. Besides the physical risks of climate change, the accompanying economic risks are substantial. Carbon Finance: A Risk Management View provides an in-depth analysis of how climate change will affect all aspects of financial markets and how mathematical and statistical methods can be used to analyse, model and manage the ensuing financial risks. There is a focus on the transition risk (termed carbon risk), but also a discussion of the impact of physical risks (as these risks are closely entangled) on the way to low carbon economies. This is a valuable overview for readers seeking an analysis of carbon risks from the perspective of financial risk management, utilising quantitative risk management tools.

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Book SynopsisMany roads can lead to success but which comination of ideas and strategy will actually help you in achieving your dreams?In The Impatient Libertarian, Australian mining legend Ron Manners presents compelling accounts of how individuals with vastly different personalities, circumstances and strategies have successfully addressed threats to Australian liberty - apathy and complacency. In his markedly entertaining and informative fashion, Ron reveals the life-changing benefits of the libertarian philosophy of self-responsibility and the other proven approach to successful economic leadership.

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Book SynopsisThis book, written jointly by an engineer and artificial intelligence expert along with a lawyer and banker, is a glimpse on what the future of the financial services will look like and the impact it will have on society.The first half of the book provides a detailed yet easy to understand educational and technical overview of FinTech, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies including the existing industry pain points and the new technological enablers.The second half provides a practical, concise and engaging overview of their latest trends and their impact on the future of the financial services industry including numerous use cases and practical examples.The book is a must read for any professional currently working in finance, any student studying the topic or anyone curious on how the future of finance will look like.Table of Contents Chapter 1 - The Digital Triumvirate of Computation, Data, and Connectivity 13 1.1 Increasing computational power 13 1.2 Increasing data collection and availability 16 1.3 Increasing digital connectivity 18 1.4 Bringing computation, connectivity and data together in the cloud 20 Chapter 2 - New Interfaces for the Digital World 22 ​2.1 The evolution of visual displays 23 2.2 Voice as a user interface 24 2.3 Wearables and the body as an interface 25 The Fundamentals of Fintech 27 Chapter 3 - The Rise of Fintech 28 3.1 Drivers of the fintech revolution 29 3.1.1 A changing economic/regulatory landscape 29 3.1.2 A rapidly evolving technology environment 29 3.1.3 Shifting customer expectations 30 ​3.2​ Types of fintechs 31 3.2.1 Fintech and payments 31 3.2.2 Fintech and lending 36 3.2.3 Fintech and wealth management 38 3.2.4 Fintech and insurance 41 3.2.5​ Fintech and digital banking 43 3.2.6​ Regtech: A different sort of fintech innovation 45 3.3​ Challenges faced by fintechs 49 3.3.1 Access to talent 49 3.3.2 Regulatory compliance 51 3.3.3 Customer trust 53 3.3.4 Scaling the customer base 53 3.3.5 Raising capital 55 Chapter 4 - Incumbent Financial Institutions and their Response to Fintechs 55 4.1 Impediments to incumbent innovation 56 4.2 Incumbents building/replicating fintech offerings 58 4.3 Incumbents investing in fintechs 61 4.4 Incumbents partnering with fintechs 62 Chapter 5 -​ The Emergence of Techfin 64 5.1 The case for tech to techfin 64 5.2 China as a template for the growth of techfin 65 5.2.1 Alibaba and Tencent’s transformation of payments in China 65 5.2.2 Alibaba and Tencent’s expansion beyond payments 66 5.2.3 Alibaba and Tencent’s international expansion 67 5.3 Early techfin developments outside of China 68 Chapter 6 - The Changing Structure of the Financial Ecosystem 70 6.1 Incumbent collaboration with techfins 70 6.2 Fintech collaboration with techfins 71 Chapter 7 - Financial Innovation and Inclusion 72 7.1 Fintech as a driver of financial inclusion 72 7.2 Government as an enabler of inclusive fintech solutions 75 The Fundamentals of Crypto-assets 76 Chapter 8 - The Basics of Cryptography and Encryption 77 8.1 Early encryption 77 8.2​ Asymmetric or public key cryptography 78 8.3 Early experiments with cryptocurrencies 79 Chapter 9 - The Rise of Bitcoin 80 ​9.1​ The Bitcoin white paper 81 9.2 The technical foundations of Bitcoin 84 ​9.2.1​ The role of cryptography in Bitcoin 84 9.2.2​ The role of decentralization in Bitcoin 86 9.2.3​ The role of immutability in Bitcoin 87 ​9.2.4​ The role of proof-of-work in Bitcoin 87 9.3​ The growth of Bitcoin 89 9.4​ Challenges facing Bitcoin 93 ​Chapter 10 - Blockchain as an Enabling Technology 95 ​10.1​ Defining the characteristics of a blockchain 96 10.2 Challenges 99 10.3 Use cases of blockchains 100 Chapter 11 - The Proliferation of Crypto-assets 103 11.1 The emergence of new crypto-assets 103 11.2 Mechanisms for distributing new crypto-assets 105 11.2.1 The creation of new tokens via mining 106 11.2.2 The creation of new tokens via a hard fork 106 11.2.3 The distribution of new tokens via sale 108 11.3 A closer look at ICOs 108 11.3.1 Technical structure of an ICO 109 11.3.2 The regulatory treatment of ICOs 112 11.3.3 Advantages and challenges of ICOs 115 Chapter 12 - A High-Level Taxonomy of Crypto-assets 117 12.1 Establishing a taxonomy of crypto-assets 117 12.2 Payment tokens 119 12.2.1 Characteristics of a payment token 119 12.2.2 Challenges facing payment tokens 120 12.2.3 Regulation of payment tokens 121 12.3.4 Stable coins 122 12.3​ Utility tokens 124 12.4 Investment tokens 126 12.4.1 Tokenization of new investment instruments 126 12.4.2 Tokenization of pre-existing investment instruments 127 ​12.5 Non-fungible tradable tokens 130 12.6 Non-fungible non-tradable digital assets 131 Chapter 13 - The Crypto-asset Ecosystem 132 13.1 Crypto-asset exchanges 133 13.1.1 Centralized crypto-asset exchanges 133 13.1.2 Decentralized crypto-asset exchanges 136 13.2 Crypto-asset custodians and wallets 136 13.2.1 Crypto-asset custodians 137 13.2.2 Crypto-asset wallets 138 13.3 Advisory and consumer services for the crypto-asset ecosystem 139 The Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence 139 Chapter 14 - Understanding Artificial Intelligence and its Capabilities 140 14.1 The surprisingly tricky problem of defining AI 140 14.2 Why artificial intelligence matters 142 14.3 Selected AI techniques 143 14.3.1 Machine learning 143 14.3.2 Neural networks and deep learning 144 14.3.3 Genetic and evolutionary algorithms 145 14.3.4 Limitations of these techniques 145 14.4 Selected capabilities of AI 145 14.4.1 Machine vision 146 14.4.2 Natural language processing 146 14.5 High-level implications of AI for business 147 Chapter 15 - Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services 148 15.1 Key artificial intelligence opportunities for financial institutions 148 15.1.1 AI-enabled automation 149 15.1.2 AI-enabled improved decision-making 150 15.1.3 AI-enabled customization 150 15.1.4 AI-enabled new value propositions 150 15.2 Specific applications of AI in sub-sectors of financial services 151 15.2.1 Key applications of artificial intelligence in lending 151 15.2.2 Key applications of artificial intelligence in wealth and asset management 153 15.2.3 Key applications of artificial intelligence in insurance 155 15.2.4 Key applications of artificial intelligence in payments 157 15.3 Key challenges to the deployment of artificial intelligence in financial institutions 159 15.3.1 Data challenges to deploying of AI in financial institutions 159 15.3.2 Technology challenges to deploying of AI in financial institutions 160 15.3.3 Talent challenges to deploying of AI in financial institutions 160 15.3.4 Regulatory challenges to deploying of AI in financial institutions 162 Future Trends in Fintech, Crypto, and AI 163 Chapter 16 - Fintech and the Future of the Financial Ecosystem 164 16.1 The changing shape of the financial ecosystem 165 16.1.1 The shift from in-person to digital channels 165 16.1.2 Larger shifts in the financial ecosystem on the horizon 167 16.2 A new approach to customer experience 168 16.2.1 Open banking and the ‘platformization’ of the customer experience 168 16.2.2 Who will own the financial platform of the future? 170 16.2.3 Broader challenges of a platform model of customer experience 171 16.3 New market dynamics for competing financial products 172 16.4 Renovating the back office and shared financial infrastructure 174 16.4.1 Outsourcing the back office 174 16.4.2 The much needed modernization of financial infrastructure 175 Chapter 17 - The Continuing Evolution of Crypto-assets 176 17.1 Regulators provide improved clarity on crypto-assets 177 17.1.1 A positive disposition to crypto-assets 177 17.1.2 A neutral approach to crypto-assets 178 17.1.3 A negative approach to crypto-assets 179 17.1.4 The future of crypto-asset regulation 180 17.2 Financial incumbents as facilitators of crypto investments 181 17.2.1 Institutional investors and crypto-assets 181 17.2.2 Incumbent financial institutions as crypto-asset service providers 182 17.3 ​Large tech firms’ forays into crypto 183 17.4 Central bank-backed digital currencies 185 Chapter 18 – Future Trends in Artificial Intelligence 189 18.1 The perils of predicting AI developments 189 18.2 The democratization of artificial intelligence 191 18.3 AI trends in financial services 193 18.3.1 Alternative data and ‘quantamental’ asset management 194 18.3.2 AI-as-a-service by and for financial institutions 196 18.3.3 AI enabled ‘self-driving finance 198 18.4 Responsible regulation of AI in financial services 201 Artificial Intelligence Meets Cryptoassets 202 Chapter 19: Selected Scenarios for a Crypto-AI World 203 19.1 Real-time auditing 203 19.2 Artificially intelligent distributed autonomous corporations 206 19.3 Blockchain based identity powered by AI data managers 208 19.4 Data marketplaces and the democratization of AI 210 19.5 AI catalyzing the adoption of cryptoassets 213 19.6 The machine-to-machine payment economy 214 A Financial Future Full of Possibilities 217

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Book Synopsis More than 80% of the financial assets in the United States fall under the purview of a trustee. That's a big responsibility for an estimated 1% (around 1.5 million people) of the U.S. working population charged with overseeing investments for millions and millions of beneficiaries, public sector, and non-profit organizations. In a world proliferated by investment products, increasingly dominated by indexes, faced—particularly in the pension world—with increasing liabilities, more regulation, and a growing number of social and sustainability objectives, what's a trustee to do?The Trustee Governance Guide is here to help guide today’s board trustee through the brave new world of 21st century investing. The book focuses on the critical aspects of the Five Imperatives: Governance, Knowledge, Diversification, Discipline, and Impact. Based on more than a decade of research, practice, and discussions with many key decision makers and influencers across the industry, this book addresses the many topics related to better governance, greater mission-driven financial performance, and impact. The questions the book addresses include: · What is good governance, how do we know it when we see it, and why does it matter?· How much knowledge is necessary to be a competent board member?· How big should my endowment be?· What are the key elements of a diversified portfolio?· How much does cost matter?· What's the difference between socially responsible and ESG investing?· Can I focus on sustainability and still be a good fiduciary? This book provides a way for boards to improve and benchmark their own governance performance alongside their peers, and uniquely covers related investment topics in each chapter. Table of ContentsChapter 1: Introduction The First Imperative: Be Well-Governed Chapter 2: Crisis Chapter 3: Fiduciary Duty Chapter 4: Good Governance Practitioner Focus: Board Self-Assessment The Second Imperative: Be Knowledgeable and Beware of Common Errors Chapter 5 – Human Error and Behavioral Finance Practitioner Focus – How Much Endowment is Enough? Chapter 6 – Knowledge Not Just for Knowledge’s Sake Chapter 7 – Origins of Financial Illiteracy Practitioner Focus: Investment 101 and Foundation Board Basics The Third Imperative: Be Diversified Chapter 8 – 30,000 Products Practitioner Focus – Cryptocurrencies Chapter 9 – Theory Time Practitioner Focus – Return Targeting Chapter 10 – Over-diversification Practitioner Focus – Why Over-complicate Things? The Fourth Imperative: Be Disciplined and Control Costs Chapter 11 – The Active vs. Passive Debate Chapter 12 – Active vs. Passive-The Evidence Chapter 13 – Cost Savings and What Really Matters Practitioner Focus – Fee and Expense Reports: What to ask your Consultant for on an Annual Basis The Fifth Imperative: Be Impactful Chapter 14 – Farewell to Uncle Milt Practitioner Focus – Doesn’t ESG Investing Pose a Conflict with Fiduciary Duty? Chapter 15 – ESG Challenges Practitioner Focus – What Exactly is the Difference between SRI and ESG? Chapter 16 – Ok, I’ve Bought In…Now What? Practitioner Focus – Writing ESG into your Investment Policy

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Book SynopsisMining is a capital-intensive industry, and involves long lead times to develop projects that demand a structured approach, from mine exploration to exit. This book provides mine developers, investors, owners, shareholders, and mineral policymakers a comprehensive game plan to raise capital for the development of new mining projects or to bolster operational mines. The author, an experienced mining capital consultant, shows how mine developers and mine owners can secure capital in any phase of the commodity price cycle, at any site, and at any project stage. The book follows a proven and structured approach that enables mine developers and owners to successfully raise capital for their projects. With the aid of case studies and practical methods, the reader will learn the essentials on topics ranging from developing and marketing a business case for investment, to the types and sources of mining capital for different project stages, as well as the structure and significance of due diligence. The author presents actual mining projects and their funding plans, transaction structures and term sheets for capital. The mining projects discussed represent various project stages, commodities, and parts of the globe, offering a comprehensive reference guide for mine developers, investors and promoters alike. Table of ContentsCharacteristics of Mining Capital.- Developing a Mining Business Case for Investment: Methods.- Marketing the Mining Business Case: Best Practice.- Raising Mining Capital: Best Practices.- Mining Capital Case Studies.- References.

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Book SynopsisThis book uses relatable case studies to dispense practical financial advice to educators. Written by an expert team of four award-winning economics educators, the book provides an engaging narrative specifically designed for teachers and their unique financial needs. Educators are attracted to the teaching profession for numerous reasons. Prospective teachers enter the profession believing it offers a certain level of job security and good benefits, usually including a defined-benefit, state-funded pension. But things are changing. Pensions vary widely from state to state and even within school districts. Many private schools do not offer even basic 403(b) saving plans and, when they do, they are often not very generous. Much the same can be said of many charter schools and private colleges and universities. The book consists of fourteen chapters covering a comprehensive group of topics specifically curated for educators teaching at the K-12 and university level, including saving for retirement, managing debt, investment strategies, and real estate. Each chapter begins with a case study of an educator in a specific financial situation, which sets the scene for the introduction and explanation of key concepts. The chapters include a Q&A section to address common questions and conclude with a “Financial 911” focusing on a financial emergency related to the chapter topic. Table of ContentsChapter 1: Yes, Teachers Can Be Financially Fit.- Chapter 2: Spending and Saving: A Guide for Teachers.- Chapter 3: Earning Extra Income.- Chapter 4: Teachers’ Wheels: Cars and Transportation.- Chapter 5: Walls and a Roof: Housing for Teachers.- Chapter 6: Managing Credit and Debt.- Chapter 7: Investment Basics for Teachers.- Chapter 8: Retirement for Public School Teachers.- Chapter 9: Saving for Retirement: Options for Charter and Private School Teachers.- Chapter 10: The Higher Education Connection.- Chapter 11: Educators and Insurance.- Chapter 12: Unconventional Risk Management.- Chapter 13: Teachers in a Market Economy.- Chapter 14. Don’t Keep It a Secret.

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Book SynopsisEffective decision making requires understanding of the underlying principles of financial markets and economics. Intellectually, economics and financial markets are genetically intertwined although when it comes to popular commentary they are treated separately. In fact, academic economic thinking appears separate from financial market equity strategy in most financial market commentary. Historically, macroeconomics tended to assume away financial frictions and financial intermediation whereas financial economists did not necessarily consider the negative macroeconomic spill overs from financial market outcomes. In more recent years, the economic discipline has gone through a serious self-reflection after the global crisis. This book explores the interplay between financial markets and macroeconomic outcomes with a conceptual framework that combines the actions of investors and individuals. Of interest to graduate students and those professionals working in the financial markets, it provides insight into why market prices move and credit markets interact and what factors participants and policy makers can monitor to anticipate market change and future price paths. ​Table of ContentsChapter 1: Why Finance Matters for Economics: The Story of Financing the Railroad.- Chapter 2: The Story of the Original Boom and Bust in Western Finance: The Mississippi Bubble.- Chapter 3: Price Determination in a Multi Sector Global Economy.- Chapter 4: Credit Allocation and the Role of the Price of Credit.- Chapter 5: Short-term Credit: Financing the Consumer and Business.- Chapter 6: Capital Markets: Financing Business over the Long Term.- Chapter 7: Internal Dynamics of Corporate Finance: What’s Behind the Curtain?.- Chapter 8: Evolution of Household Finances.- Chapter 9: Global Capital Flows: Credit Allocation across Borders.- Chapter 10: Profits: Rewards and Incentives.- Chapter 11: Equity Finance: Financing Innovation and Long-term Household Wealth.- Chapter 12: Federal Government Finance: The Grand Assumption. ​

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Book SynopsisThis book, one of three volumes, showcases the effective transformation of companies providing banking and insurance services. This first volume gives a business-oriented introduction to the setting and the current challenges of fintech, regtech, and insurtech and provides an outlook on what will be needed in the future. Specific sub-departments in financial services are examined with a view to accounting, risk, and regulatory segments. The book also addresses the importance of cultural aspects of the coming digital transformation with an eye to requirements that will enable a digital bank or insurance company to thrive in 2025. The angle shifts over the volumes from a business-driven approach in “Disruption and DNA” to a strong technical focus in “Data Storage, Processing and Analysis”, leaving “Digitalization and Machine Learning Applications” with the business and technical aspects in-between.Table of ContentsPart I. Market View. - Chapter 1. Digitalization Landscape Banking. - Chapter 2. Digitalization Strategy. - Chapter 3. The Knab Story: How We Turned the Bank Around. - Part II. Accounting/Controlling. - Chapter 4. The Need for Resilience and Agility in Finance. - Chapter 5. Value-Driver-Oriented Planning – Management-Oriented Design and Value Driver Identification. - Chapter 6. AI for Impairment Accounting. - Part III. Risk Management. - Chapter 7. Financial Navigator – A Modern Approach to Analytical Banking. - Chapter 8. Actuarial Data Science. - Chapter 9. BSDS – Balance Sheet Dynamics Simulator (Application ABM). - Chapter 10. Breaking New Grounds in Non-Financial Risk Management. - Part IV. Culture and Projects. - Chapter 11. Digi-Cultural Mindset. - Chapter 12. New Project Structure – Agile & Scrum. - Chapter 13. Hybrid Project Management. - Chapter 14. Remote Projects. - Chapter 15. Project Management and RPA. - Part V. Summary.

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Book SynopsisThis book, the third one of three volumes, focuses on data and the actions around data, like storage and processing. The angle shifts over the volumes from a business-driven approach in “Disruption and DNA” to a strong technical focus in “Data Storage, Processing and Analysis”, leaving “Digitalization and Machine Learning Applications” with the business and technical aspects in-between. In the last volume of the series, “Data Storage, Processing and Analysis”, the shifts in the way we deal with data are addressed.Table of ContentsPart I. Big Data and Special Databases. - Chapter 1. Data Lineage. - Chapter 2. Digitization and MongoDB – The Art of Possible. - Chapter 3. Graph Databases. - Chapter 4. Data Tiering Options with SAP HANA and Usage in a Hadoop Scenario. - Part II. Streaming. - Chapter 5. Kafka – Real-Time Streaming for the Finance Industry. - Chapter 6. Architecture Patterns – Batch & Real-Time Capabilities. - Chapter 7. Kafka – A Practical Implementation of Intraday Liquidity Risk Management. - Part III. Data: A View on Meta Aspects. - Chapter 8. Data Sustainability – A Thorough Consideration. - Chapter 9. Special Data for Insurance Companies. - Chapter 10. Data Protection – Putting the Brakes on Digitalization Processes? - Part IV. Distributed Ledger. - Chapter 11. Digital Identity Management – for Humans Only? - Part V. Machine Learning and Deep Learning. - Chapter 12. Overview Machine Learning and Deep Learning Frameworks. - Chapter 13. Methods of Machine Learning. - Part VI. Summary.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a thorough overview of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets and their impact on the future of money and finance. It provides a 360-degree practical, concise, and engaging overview of all the topics that one interested about digital assets needs to know including how Bitcoin and Ethereum work, an overview of the most important digital assets in the market, and deep dives into the various types of digital assets including cryptocurrencies, stable coins, CBDCs, utility tokens, security tokens, NFTs, and many others. The book also covers all the essentials including DeFi, crypto mining, crypto regulations, crypto investors, crypto exchanges, and other ecosystem players as well as some of the latest global crypto trends from Web 3.0 and the Metaverse to DAOs and quantum computing. Written by a leading industry expert and thought leader who advises some of the leading organisations in the digital assets space globally, this book is ideal for anyone looking to acquire a solid foundational knowledge base of this fast-growing field and understand its potential impact on the future of money. Table of Contents1. History of Money.- 2. Bitcoin.- 3. Ethereum.- 4. The Emergence of New Blockchains and Crypto-Assets.- 5. The Technology Behind Bitcoin: Blockchain.- 6. Cryptocurrencies.- 7. Stablecoins.- 8. Central Bank Digital Currencies.- 9. Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currencies.- 10. Retail Central Bank Digital Currencies.-11. Utility Tokens and Social Tokens.-12. Security Tokens.- 13. Non-Fungible Tokens.- 14. Bitcoin and Crypto Mining.- 15. Asset Creation and Distribution.- 16. Decentralised Finance.- 17. Crypto Regulations, Compliance and Tax.- 18. Crypto Exchanges.- 19. Crypto Funds.- 20. Crypto Ecosystem Enablers.- 21. Future Technology Trends to Watch.

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Book SynopsisWhen the global financial crisis broke, central banks in both the US and the UK undertook massive asset purchase programmes which resulted in considerable increase in assets. Cross-border spillover effects were noted across global economies. Balance sheet adjustments may eventually gnaw at the profit-earning capacities of central banks, and in extreme cases, negative equity can manifest. This updated book investigates a benchmark for comparing central banks. The author employs a unique and large set of metrics to gauge the quality of central banks and presents an argument to reflect upon international best practices covering 124 banks in this latest study. The study uses different criteria including the accounting body, research, presence of stress-testing exercises, inflation-targeting frameworks, staff efficiency, and languages of communication with the public, amongst others. The book begins by providing an overview of central banking, before exploring some stylized facts about central banks in unique detail. It then presents a ratings methodology for worldwide central banks to analyse the results. A backtesting exercise is included to validate the quality of the ratings obtained. The book concludes by offering insights into the comparison of central banks.Table of ContentsChapter 1.Introduction Chapter 2.An Overview of Central Banking in the WorldChapter 3.Some Stylized Facts about Central Banks.Chapter 4.Ratings Methodology for central banks worldwideChapter 5.Second and Third Division Rated Central BanksChapter 6.Results and DiscussionsChapter 7.BacktestingChapter 8.Global Central Bank Ratings Sheets

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Book SynopsisIn a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty, this book provides empirical guidance to the economy and what to expect in the near and distant future. Beginning with a historic look at major contributions to economic indicators and business cycles starting with Wesley Clair Mitchell (1913) to Burns and Mitchell (1946), to Moore (1961) and Zarnowitz (1992), this book explores time series forecasting and economic cycles, which are currently maintained and enhanced by The Conference Board. Given their highly statistically significant relationship with GDP and the unemployment rate, these relationships are particularly useful for practitioners to help predict business cycles.Table of ContentsChapter 1. Economic Growth and Business Cycles in the United States. - Chapter 2. Mr. Wesley Clair Mitchell: The Advent of U.S. and NBER Business Cycle Research. - Chapter 3. Measuring Business Activity, An Introductions to the Contributions of Mr. Persons, Mr. Schumpeter, Mr. Haberler, and Mr. Eckstein. - Chapter 4. Mr. Burns and Mr. Mitchell on Measuring Business Cycles. - Chapter 5. Mr. Geoffrey Moore and NBER Business Cycle Research. - Chapter 6. Mr. Victor Zarnowitz and Economic Forecasting, and NBER Business Cycle Research. - Chapter 7. Regression and Time Series Modeling of Real GDP, the Unemployment Rate, and the Impact of Leading Economic Indicators on Forecasting Accuracy. - Chapter 8. Granger-Causality Testing and LEI Forecasting of Quarterly Mergers and the Unemployment Rate. - Chapter 9. Active Management in Portfolio Selection and Management within Business Cycles and Present-Day COVID. - Chapter 10. Testing and Forecasting the Unemployment Rate with the Most Current Data, TCB LEI, data as of 11/05/2021. - Chapter 11. Conclusions and Summary.

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Book SynopsisThis book challenges the notion that commodities are always good hedges against inflation, which is the conventional belief today in financial markets. Specifically, it focuses on gold as a traditional hedge and the ways in which crypto assets are argued to be positioned as an alternative hedge against inflationary risk.The book engages with emerging debates around the performance of gold since the 2008 financial crisis, analyzing its characteristics, relationship with inflation, and the role of mining companies, and discusses ways that cryptocurrencies have replaced precious metals as an attractive asset class during an inflationary scenario. In considering the case of crypto as being or not a good inflation hedge, the book devotes particular attention to the theoretical financial and macroeconomic implications of a monetary system based on Bitcoin, dealing with the concept of money and the determination of Bitcoin’s supply and purchasing power. Additionally, it outlines the consequences that such a system would entail for the banking industry, and financial conditions involving interest rates, exchange rates, and the inflation-deflation dynamic. The book also analyses the relative impact of past and future events on the different commodity families.This work will be of interest to students and researchers in financial economics, macroeconomics, and monetary economics, as well as analysts and traders in financial and commodity markets.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Are Commodities a Good Hedge Against Inflation?.- Chapter 2: Precious Metals: The Bull Market that Faded.- Chapter 3- The Market’s New Gold and the Promise of Bitcoin.- Chapter 4: Final Thoughts on Commodities, Crypto and Inflation.

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Book SynopsisThis award-winning book comprises multiple finance and ethics case studies. The purpose of the book is twofold. First, the case studies teach readers how to evaluate and determine resolutions to ethical issues in finance. Second, the reader will enjoy a journey with the author, a woman, over her years working in finance, through the use of case studies.Prefaced by the additional of video introductions, these studies focus on ethical issues in finance which the author encountered over nearly a 30-year career in the industry. There are 10 case studies extracted from different sectors of finance. This broad range is a consequence of the author’s experience from almost all sides of the business: the buy side, the sell side, equity research in Asia, equity sales, mutual funds, hedge funds, the finance academy, and consulting.Each case study has an engaging narrative describing the background, transactions, players, and ethical issues. The ethical issue is analyzed and resolved using the appropriate theories of moral philosophy. Descriptions and analyses are rigorous yet comprehensible, approachable, and entertaining.Apart from ethics determinations, the material in the book covers and explains a variety of specific, and even complex, financial transactions. In every transaction there is an explanation of the roles of various players involved. In this way, readers will learn about the work of people in different positions in finance from investment bankers and equity traders to portfolio managers and equity analysts. Through these case studies, readers also will get an understanding of major financial transactions and activities such as IPOs, secondary offerings, equity trading, and equity valuations. The book will appeal to practitioners, college and high school students, and lecturers who can use it to supplement courses in finance or business ethics. Table of ContentsIntroductionChapter 1 Plantation Adventure Case Study1.1 Chapter 1 The Story: A Reverie of Somerset Maugham1.2 Chapter 1 Ethics Issue: Honesty in Equity Research1.3 Chapter 1 Ethics Analysis: Honesty and Integrity are Virtues1.4 Chapter 1 Right Action: Write it as You See itChapter 2 Bangkok Misadventure Case Study 2.1 Chapter 2 The Story: A Sordid Request – to Do or Not to Do? 2.2 Chapter 2 Ethics Issue: Friedman and Free Markets 2.3 Chapter 2 Ethics Analysis: Free Markets, Market Failures and Values 2.4 Chapter 2 Right Action: Values in Finance Chapter 3 Hong Kong Hike Case Study 3.1 Chapter 3 The Story: The Pressure to Perform 3.2 Chapter 3 Ethics Issue: Cheating Our Way Up 3.3 Chapter 3 Ethics Analysis: What Would Kant Say? 3.4 Chapter 3 Right Action: Keep Calm and Carry on Ethically Chapter 4 Mutual Fund Fun Case Study 4.1 Chapter 4 The Story: Quick Money at Others’ Expense 4.2 Chapter 4 Ethics Issues: Duty and Fairness 4.3 Chapter 4 Ethics Analysis: What Would Socrates Do? 4.4 Chapter 4 Right Action: Engage in Transparency and Fairness Chapter 5 High Finance Gender Inequity Case Study 5.1 Chapter 5 The Story: An Inner Sanctum for Men Only 5.2 Chapter 5 Ethics Issue: Gender Exclusion, Gender Discrimination 5.3 Chapter 5 Ethics Analysis: All Theories Say Gender Discrimination is Wrong 5.4 Chapter 5 Right Action: Stand Up for Women’s Rights Chapter 6 Hedge Fund Edge Case Study 6.1 Chapter 6 The Story: Pushing the Edge to Get an Edge 6.2 Chapter 6 Ethics Issue: Insider Information 6.3 Chapter 6 Ethics Analysis: Why Insider Trading is Unethical 6.4 Chapter 6 Right Action: Don’t Be Seduced by the Money Chapter 7 Hedge Fund Harassment Case Study 7.1 Chapter 7 The Story: Hedge Fund Boss Behaving Badly 7.2 Chapter 7 Ethics Issue: Maltreatment of Employees 7.3 Chapter 7 Ethics Analysis: It’s About Human Dignity 7.4 Chapter 7 Right Action: Your Money or Your Life Chapter 8 Whistleblowing Consultant Case Study 8.1 Chapter 8 The Story: Whistleblowing or No Good Deed Goes Unpunished 8.2 Chapter 8 Ethics Issue: Whistleblowing 8.3 Chapter 8 Ethics Analysis: To Whistleblow or Not, that is the Question 8.4 Chapter 8 Right Action: Consider Options Rationally, Then if you Can or Must, Whistleblow Chapter 9 Finance Academy Gender Inequity Case Study 9.1 Chapter 9 The Story: Gender Discrimination in the Finance Academy 9.2 Chapter 9 Ethics Issue: Systemic Gender Discrimination, Implicit Bias 9.3 Chapter 9 Ethics Analysis: Fair Treatment and Rights 9.4 Chapter 9 Right Action: Speak Up and Garner Support Chapter 10 Finance Academy Ideological Bias Case Study 10.1 Chapter 10 The Story: Fear of Allowing Different Perspectives 10.2 Chapter 10 Ethics Issue: Exclusion Based on Ideology 10.3 Chapter 10 Ethics Analysis: Making Finance Theories Better 10.4 Chapter 10 Right Action: Allow Other Ideas, Improve Finance Theory

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Book SynopsisChapter One – The Introduction: The ‘Rivers of Money’.- Chapter Two – Freight is the King.- Chapter Three – Difficult Deals in Difficult Places.- Chapter Four – Messy Business.- Chapter Five – The London Crowd.- Chapter Six – The Industry In Which We Were Paid.- Chapter Seven – Wall Street Warriors.- Chapter Eight – Troubles with Brent.- Chapter Nine  - The White Guys in Tokyo.- Chapter Ten – China is Back.- Chapter Eleven – Market Astrology.- Chapter Twelve - An End and Two Beginnings.- Chapter Thirteen – Transparency and Trading Around Assets.- Chapter Fourteen – Traders 1 : A billion dollars is not what it used to be.- Chapter Fifteen – Traders 2 : Arcadia is in Nigeria.- Chapter Sixteen - Financialization and the Great Recession.- Chapter Seventeen – Paper Boys.- Chapter Eighteen – Epilogue.

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Book Synopsis The contemporary finance deals mainly with multilateral and multi-counterparty transactions. Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh) has yet to develop its conceptualization of this modality of financing. Thus far, it has become a norm for large financing projects to rely on a complex structure of interconnected bilateral contracts that in totality becomes opaque, complex and costly. An unfortunate result of the unavailability of an efficient Fiqhi model applicable to modern multilateral and multi-counterparty contracts has been the fact that the present Islamic finance has been forced to replicate conventional risk-transfer (interest rate based) debt contracts thus drawing severe criticisms of duplicating conventional finance. In 2012, a gathering of some of the Muslim world’s most prominent experts in Jurisprudence (Fuqaha) and economists issued the Kuala Lumpur Declaration (Fatwa) in which they identified risk sharing as the essence of Islamic finance. The Declaration opened the door for a new Fiqh approach to take the lead in developing the jurisprudence of multilateral and multi-counterparty transactions. This Declaration (Fatwa) provides a prime motivation to search for a comprehensive model of risk sharing that can serve as an archetypal contract encompassing all potential contemporary financial transactions. From the perspective of Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh), the technicalities of the concept of risk sharing in contemporary finance have yet to be defined in Islamic literature. This book attempts to clarify and shed light on these technicalities from the perspective of Fiqh. It is a comprehensive study that relies on the fundamental Islamic sources to establish a theoretical and practical perspective of Fiqh encompassing risk-sharing Islamic finance as envisioned in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration of 2012. This new paradigm should lead to a more efficient approach to multilateral and multi-counterparty Islamic contracts which, here-to-fore has been lacking in the current configuration of Islamic finance.

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Book Synopsis Finance is the study of how individuals, institutions, governments, and businesses acquire, spend, and manage their money and other financial assets to maximize their value or wealth. Fundamentals of Finance introduces the nuances of finance in a comprehensive yet concise manner and is essential reading for professionals building a career in finance or for students taking a course in finance. The book consists of four parts: Part I: "Introduction to Finance, Money and Interest Rates, and Time Value of Money" focuses on the role financial markets play in the financial system and financial basics that underlie how markets operate. Part II: "Investments and Portfolio Management" discusses the characteristics of stocks and bonds, how securities are valued, the operations of securities markets, formation of optimal portfolios, and derivatives. Part III: "Financial Management/Corporate Finance" explores financial planning, asset management, and fund-raising activities that will enhance a firm’s value. Part IV: "Management of Financial Institutions" focuses on management of financial institutions in general, and risk management in financial institutions in particular. The book’s many examples, appendices, graphs and tables provide valuable know-how to a wide audience, making it an excellent resource for professionals as well as students who wish to attain a broad understanding of finance. Please contact Stefan.Giesen@degruyter.com to request additional instructional material comprising a chapter-wise listing of questions and answers.

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Book SynopsisThis book covers each step in the asset allocation process, addressing as many of the relevant questions as possible along the way. How can we formulate expectations about long-term returns? How relevant are valuations? What are the challenges to optimizing the portfolio? Can factor investing add value and, if so, how can it be implemented? Which are the key performance drivers for each asset class, and what determines how they are correlated? How can we apply insights about the business cycle to tactical asset allocation? The book is aimed at finance professionals and others looking for a coherent framework for decision-making in asset allocation, both at the strategic and tactical level. It stresses analysis rather than pre-conceived ideas about investments, and it draws on both empirical research and practical experience to give the reader as strong a background as possible.Table of ContentsPrefacePart I: Foundations1. Introduction to Asset Allocation2. Performance Evaluation3. Strategic versus Tactical Asset AllocationPart II: Strategic Asset Allocation4. Long-Term Return Expectations5. Optimizing the SAA6. Factor Investing I7. Factor Investing IIPart III: Tactical AA8. Tactical Macro-Drivers9. The Four Phases Framework10. Appendix

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Book SynopsisThis edition sets out recent developments in East Asian local currency bond markets and discusses the region's economic outlook, the risk of another taper tantrum, and price differences between labeled and unlabeled green bonds.Emerging East Asia's local currency (LCY) bond markets expanded to an aggregate USD21.7 trillion at the end of September 2021, posting growth of 3.4% quarter-on-quarter, up from 2.9% in the previous quarter. LCY bond issuance rose 6.8% quarter-on-quarter to USD2.4 trillion in Q3 2021. Sustainable bond markets in ASEAN+3 also continued to expand to reach a size of USD388.7 billion at the end of September.

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Book SynopsisThis publication identifies investment approaches, opportunities, and finance mechanisms in Southeast Asia that can promote and catalyze funds for a sustainable ocean economy.It provides an overview of the "blue economy"" and emphasizes its significance for protecting the biodiversity of natural resources in Southeast Asia. The "blue economy" is defined as the sustainable use of ocean and coastal resources to drive economic growth and improve livelihoods, while protecting and nurturing marine ecosystems. The publication looks how multilateral and bilateral funding sources, a market-based approach, incentives, and regulations can contribute to achieving a blue economy. It also discusses how these elements need to be aligned within a cohesive development framework.

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Book SynopsisThis publication provides updates on the bond market in Indonesia since 2017.The ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide series provides information on the investment climate, rules, laws, opportunities, and characteristics of bond markets in Asia and the Pacific. It aims to help bond market issuers, investors, and financial intermediaries understand the local context and encourage greater participation in the region's rapidly developing bond markets. This edition updates the ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide 2017: Indonesia.

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Book SynopsisThe Pacific region is expected to contract by 0.6% in 2021, and to grow by 4.7% in 2022.This issue of the Pacific Economic Monitor explores how the region can reopen and rebuild. Besides safely resuming travel and protecting health, a resilient recovery will depend on promoting fiscal sustainability and strengthening economic management, including regional cooperation to revitalize tourism.

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Book SynopsisThis report examines the impacts of COVID-19 on labour markets along with adjustment patterns in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam.Labour markets in Southeast Asia were particularly hit hard in 2020 when government pandemic containment measures were most severe. COVID-19 exacerbated growing inequalities in the region and exposed large gaps in social protection . This report aims to help policymakers identify priorities, constraints, and opportunities for developing effective labour market strategies for economic recovery and beyond.

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Book SynopsisThis publication highlights short-term actions that can mitigate pressures and medium-term policy considerations for finance sector resilience in the post-COVID-19 period.The guidance note examines the effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on real economies and the measures taken to ease the impact. It notes risks to financial stability, such as an anticipated rise in nonperforming assets. Its recommendations include establishing a framework for epidemic risk financing, buttressing financial stability and macroprudential measures, developing insurance markets for risk sharing and transfer solutions, improving SME financing, and fostering digital transformation.

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Book SynopsisWhy is data science a branch of science? Is data science just a catchy rebranding of statistics? Data science provides tools for statistical analysis and machine learning. But, as much as application problems without tools are lame, tools without application problems are vain. Through example after example, this book presents the algorithmic aspects of statistics and show how some of the tools are applied to answer questions of interest to finance. This book champions a fundamental principle of science — objective reproducibility of evidence independently by others. From a companion web site, readers can download many easy-to-understand Python programs and real-world data. Independently, readers can draw for themselves the figures in the book. Even so, readers are encouraged to run the statistical tests described as examples to verify their own results against what the book claims. This book covers some topics that are seldom discussed in other textbooks. They include the methods to adjust for dividend payment and stock splits, how to reproduce a stock market index such as Nikkei 225 index, and so on. By running the Python programs provided, readers can verify their results against the data published by free data resources such as Yahoo! finance. Though practical, this book provides detailed proofs of propositions such as why certain estimators are unbiased, how the ubiquitous normal distribution is derived from the first principles, and so on. This see-for-yourself textbook is essential to anyone who intends to learn the nuts and bots of data science, especially in the application domain of finance. Advanced readers may find the book helpful in its mathematical treatment. Practitioners may find some tips from the book on how an ETF is constructed, as well as some insights on a novel algorithmic framework for pair trading to generate statistical arbitrage.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Cross-Sectional Data Analysis; Comparative Data Analysis; Price and Returns; Log Return and Random Walk; Stock Market Indexes and ETF; Non-Equity Indexes; Linear Regression; Event Study; Pair Trading;

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisPresents the innovative principles needed to address the instability of the markets and to rebuild our financial system. This book traces the evolution of ideas and institutions in the American banking system since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. It explains how the Fed took classic central banking wisdom from Britain and Europe.Trade Review"A well-written, scholarly dissection that should be required reading for all graduate courses (and perhaps some advanced undergraduate) in macroeconomics or monetary economics."--Choice "With lucid precision, Mehrling traces the history of how Fed policy makers became biased toward 'excessive elasticity'... Mehrling saves the best for the end, where he describes the Fed's battle to save the system with an alphabet soup of lending programs."--James Pressley, Bloomberg News "I continue to ponder Mehrling's main claims, but in any case this is an important book about the new Fed."--Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution "In The New Lombard Street, Perry Mehrling ... provides a lucid account of how the system worked when it was working--and of the growing role assumed by the Fed in an era of global economic volatility and 'credit-fueled bubbles.'"--Glenn C. Altschuler, Tulsa World "[A] fantastic book."--Rortybomb, Mike Konczal blog "[I]mportant... Mehrling's new book tries to do just what Bagehot did: to give an account both of how and why the Fed acted when it reinvented the rules in the middle of a financial crisis, and of what the implications for future monetary policy will be."--Harold James, Central Banking Journal "This is an excellent and accessible analysis for anyone wishing to understand the origins of the financial crisis and how the Fed came to respond as it did."--Larry Hatheway, Business Economist "[T]he book can be read as an important contribution in the ongoing debate on the future of central banks. In terms of monetary policy thinking, this book is another contribution to the increasing awareness that central banks, perhaps lured by seeming success of inflation targeting, in the years before 2008 did not manage to strike the right balance between monetary and financial stability."--Lars Fredrik Oksendal, Enterprise & SocietyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Introduction 1 A Money View Perspective 2 Lessons from the Crisis 6 Chapter One: Lombard Street, Old and New 11 The Inherent Instability of Credit 12 The Old Lombard Street 18 The New Lombard Street 23 Chapter Two: Origins of the Present System 30 From National Banking to the Fed 30 From War Finance to Catastrophe 37 Noncommercial Credit in Depression and War 43 Chapter Three: The Age of Management 48 Monetary Policy and the Employment Act 52 Listening to the Academics 57 Monetary Walrasianism 60 A Dissenting View 65 Chapter Four: The Art of the Swap 71 Currency Swaps and the UIP Norm 72 Brave New World 79 From Modern Finance to Modern Macroeconomics 85 Chapter Five: What Do Dealers Do? 92 Inside the Money Market 93 Funding Liquidity and Market Liquidity 98 Anatomy of a Crisis 103 Monetary Policy 107 Chapter Six: Learning from the Crisis 113 The Long Shadow of Jimmy Stewart 116 A Stress Test of Moulton-Martin 123 Dealer of Last Resort 132 Conclusion 136 Notes 141 References 149 Index 159

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewGeorge A. Akerlof, Co-Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics Robert J. Shiller, Co-Winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics Winner of the 2016 Gold Medal in Economics, Axiom Business Book Awards One of Foreign Affairs' Best Economic, Social, and Environmental (Economics) Books of 2016 Selected for Bloomberg View's "The Writing that Shaped Economic Thinking in 2016" One of The Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year 2016, chosen by Paul Collier Honorable Mention for the 2016 PROSE Award in Economics, Association of American Publishers One of The Independent's Best Economics Books 2015 One of LinkedIn's Best Business Books of 2015 One of BusinessInsider.com's Best Business Books of 2015 One of Legal Theory Bookworm's Books of the Year 2015 Longlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2015 "[Akerlof and Shiller] want to go far beyond behavioral economics, at least in its current form. They offer a much more general, and quite damning, account of why free markets and competition cause serious problems... They are intellectual renegades... Akerlof and Shiller make a convincing argument that phishing occurs because of the operation of the invisible hand, not in spite of it... [This] extraordinary book tells us something true, and profoundly important, about the operation of the invisible hand."--Cass Sunstein, New York Review of Books "No question, Phishing for Phools is a radical book. It may also be a radically important one."--Fortune "Entertaining, readable and provocative."--John Lanchester, London Review of Books "I highly recommend this, even for those who might disagree with the authors' outlook. Their case studies are illuminating, and their insights on the way markets work are fascinating. When you consider the sorry state of the personal finances of the median working age family in the United States today, it's hard to disagree with their central thesis that our current system isn't working properly."--John Reeves, The Motley Fool, USA Today "A needed call for skeptical economics and financial mindfulness."--Nature "Using compelling examples of flawed decision making from advertising, health care and personal finances, the authors identify our rational weak spots and arm readers with the ability to resist manipulation."--Scientific American Mind "As you would expect, it's a very clearly written book with tons of examples. And it makes a simple and powerful point about the fragility of the normative, welfare economics conclusions economists tend to draw."--Diane Coyle, The Enlightened Economist "Akerlof and Shiller present convincing evidence of how tobacco, pharmaceutical, and liquor companies and politicians weasel a chapter of their own into our life stories, abusing the mutual storytelling--with all its signs and wonders--that is elemental to our humanity."--Peter Lewis, Barnes & Noble Review "With accessible language and everyday examples, Shiller and Akerlof are taking on the powerful belief that aside from a few blemishes (like widening income inequality) only fools advocate interfering with the free market."--Chris Farrell, Minneapolis Star Tribune "The book's central message is certainly thought-provoking."--The Economist "Phishing for Phools forswears technical language, making this book accessible not only to economists but to consumers and policymakers. It should make everyone rethink the unfettered free-market model."--Brenda Jubin, Investing.com "It's a very clearly written book with tons of examples. And it makes a simple and powerful point about the fragility of the normative, welfare economics conclusions economists tend to draw."--Enlightened Economist "Its critique of conventional economics is more powerful and comprehensive--and more paternalistic--than that of Animal Spirits."--Carlos Lozada, Washington Post "[Akerlof's and Shiller's] insight is a powerful one."--Economist.com's Buttonwood blog "Akerlof and Shiller show that unregulated free markets systematically make people worse off by providing the unscrupulous with opportunities to take advantage of the unwary."--Adam Bouyamourn, The National "[Phishing for Phools] serves the important purpose of holding up a mirror to economics, a subject that prides itself on (supposedly) being the most sophisticated of all the social sciences. Economics may look sophisticated on paper, but it is often completely out of touch when it comes to reality."--Victoria Bateman, Times Higher Education "The book offers powerful support for a skeptical view of free markets, but it's also a helpful guide for consumers to avoid getting ripped off in the course of making important purchases."--Chris Matthews, Fortune "An interesting and entertaining new book by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller looks at the role of trickery in market economies. Phishing for Phools explains that sellers are often out to deceive you, and shows that this isn't an occasional glitch in the market system so much as an intrinsic and pervasive trait... Phishing for Phools aims to help readers understand their psychological weaknesses, so that the phishermen can be phended off more ephectively."--Clive Crook, Bloomberg View "Where Akerlof and Shiller break new ground is the sweeping application of the idea of the 'phishing equilibrium' to finance... The style of Phishing for Phools will be familiar to fans of Shiller's work: light on jargon and pacy enough not to outstay its welcome. The authors tell some engaging tales."--Robin Harding, Financial Times "[A] surprisingly readable yet highly original book ... the evidence and explanations marshaled by Akerlof and Shiller are compelling and they have profound political implications ... an enlightening read by two expert economists. It should be required reading for policy makes and for consumers (which is to say, all of us... [An] important, sobering book."--Oliver Kamm, The Times "Narratives in this impressive book tell how to avoid being tricked by means of better enforcement and being told of pending scams... [O]ne of the few titles dealing with fraud in the marketplace."--Library Journal "The authors provide is a ... unifying theory for all kinds of trickery, an economic explanation for why deception is so rampant. It takes many of our scattered findings about humanity's blind spots--both psychological weakness and a lack of perfect information--and weaves them into a comprehensive framework that has the potential to be devastating for free market fundamentalists."--Victoria Finkle, Washington Monthly "Its central idea is an important one and merits more attention."--Emran Mian, Prospect "Phishing for Phools is packed with examples--including subprime mortgages, pharmaceuticals, political campaigns, gym memberships, credit cards, cars and cranberry juice labels--of the pervasiveness of deception and manipulation in our economy and the price it exacts on individuals and the society at large."--Glenn C. Altschuler, Tulsa World "This interesting book is written by economists mainly for economists, but it includes many entertaining stories about business behavior (and some disturbing ones), told in lively and accessible prose."--Foreign Affairs "The book is easy to read and relate; and more importantly will make you start thinking of the number of times you have been phished. The list would be endless!"--Madan Sabnavis, BusinessWorld "This unusual book offers a simple but challenging corrective to the assumptions made by most mainstream economists... Probably not every reader will agree with every interpretation or argument--but every reader will find something that enlightens and stimulates."--James Ledbetter, Yale Alumni Magazine "This book was enjoyable to read, and the expertise and knowledge of the authors are abundantly evident."--William Holcomb, PsycCRITIQUES "Bob and George urge us to slap Adam Smith's invisible hand when it steals from everybody's cookie jar. They ask us to ponder those situations, economic or political, that provide particularly tempting opportunities to phish for phools... Penetrating insights rendered in accessible prose."--Marlene Lang May, CommonwealTable of ContentsPREFACE vii INTRODUCTION Expect to Be Manipulated: Phishing Equilibrium 1 PART ONE Unpaid Bills and Financial Crash CHAPTER ONE Temptation Strews Our Path 15 CHAPTER TWO Reputation Mining and Financial Crisis 23 PART TWO Phishing in Many Contexts CHAPTER THREE Advertisers Discover How to Zoom In on Our Weak Spots 45 CHAPTER FOUR Rip-offs Regarding Cars, Houses, and Credit Cards 60 CHAPTER FIVE Phishing in Politics 72 CHAPTER SIX Phood, Pharma, and Phishing 84 CHAPTER SEVEN Innovation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 96 CHAPTER EIGHT Tobacco and Alcohol 103 CHAPTER NINE Bankruptcy for Profit 117 CHAPTER TEN Michael Milken Phishes with Junk Bonds as Bait 124 CHAPTER ELEVEN The Resistance and Its Heroes 136 PART THREE Conclusion and Afterword CONCLUSION: EXAMPLES AND GENERAL LESSONS New Story in America and Its Consequences 149 AFTERWORD The Significance of Phishing Equilibrium 163 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 175 NOTES 181 BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 INDEX 257

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"While it's difficult to pinpoint what type of trader would enjoy this book the most, I think there's something for everyone, whether you're a quaint, technical trader or a fundamentalist... I feel that I'm smarter after finishing this book; I thoroughly enjoyed the lengthy journey, and would recommend this to any stock market enthusiast."--Jeff Pierce, Seeking Alpha "A highly recommended, enjoyable, well-researched, and thought-provoking book for anyone interested in stock markets and the modeling of financial processes."--Rick Gorvett, Journal of Risk and Insurance "The book is written in a readable style and does not require technical knowledge. Any reader interested in a serious approach to the origin and possible prediction of financial bubbles will enjoy reading it."--Josep M. Porra, Journal of Statistical Physics "Sornette's book is not just about finance and economics; it is also a mesmerizing introduction to game theory, fractals, catastrophe theory, critical phenomena, and much more. No prior knowledge of finance or economics is needed to understand the book... Throughout the book, Sornette makes numerous, vivid comparisons with many other fields in which the various mathematical tools he describes can be applied."--Frank Cuypers, Physics TodayTable of ContentsPreface to the Princeton Science Library Edition xiii Preface to the 2002 Edition xix 1 Financial crashes: what, how, why, and when? 3 What Are Crashes, and Why Do We Care? 3 The Crash of October 1987 5 Historical Crashes 7 The Tulip Mania 7 The South Sea Bubble 9 The Great Crash of October 1929 12 Extreme Events in Complex Systems 15 Is Prediction Possible? A Working Hypothesis 20 2 Fundamentals of financial markets 26 The Basics 27 Price Trajectories 27 Return Trajectories 30 Return Distributions and Return Correlation 33 The Efficient Market Hypothesis and the Random Walk 38 The Random Walk 38 A Parable: How Information Is Incorporated in Prices, Thus Destroying Potential "Free Lunches" 42 Prices Are Unpredictable, or Are They? 45 Risk-Return Trade-Off 47 3 Financial crashes are "outliers" 49 What Are "Abnormal" Returns? 49 Drawdowns (Runs) 51 Definition of Drawdowns 51 Drawdowns and the Detection of "Outliers" 54 Expected Distribution of "Normal" Drawdowns 56 Drawdown Distributions of Stock Market Indices 60 The Dow Jones Industrial Average 60 The Nasdaq Composite Index 62 Further Tests 65 The Presence of Outliers Is a General Phenomenon 69 Main Stock Market Indices, Currencies, and Gold 70 Largest U.S. Companies 73 Synthesis 75 Symmetry-Breaking on Crash and Rally Days 76 Implications for Safety Regulations of Stock Markets 77 4 Positive feedbacks 81 Feedbacks and Self-Organization in Economics 82 Hedging Derivatives, Insurance Portfolios, and Rational Panics 89 "Herd" Behavior and "Crowd" Effect 91 Behavioral Economics 91 Herding 94 Empirical Evidence of Financial Analysts' Herding 96 Forces of Imitation 99 It Is Optimal to Imitate When Lacking Information 99 Mimetic Contagion and the Urn Models 104 Imitation from Evolutionary Psychology 106 Rumors 108 The Survival of the Fittest Idea 111 Gambling Spirits 112 "Anti-Imitation" and Self-Organization 114 Why It May Pay to Be in the Minority 114 El-Farol's Bar Problem 115 Minority Games 117 Imitation versus Contrarian Behavior 118 Cooperative Behaviors Resulting from Imitation 121 The Ising Model of Cooperative Behavior 122 Complex Evolutionary Adaptive Systems of Boundedly Rational Agents 130 5 Modeling financial bubbles and market crashes 134 What Is a Model? 134 Strategy for Model Construction in Finance 135 Basic Principles 135 The Principle of Absence of Arbitrage Opportunity 136 Existence of Rational Agents 137 "Rational Bubbles" and Goldstone Modes of the Price "Parity Symmetry" Breaking 139 Price Parity Symmetry 140 Speculation as Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking 144 Basic Ingredients of the Two Models 148 The Risk-Driven Model 150 Summary of the Main Properties of the Model 150 The Crash Hazard Rate Drives the Market Price 152 Imitation and Herding Drive the Crash Hazard Rate 155 The Price-Driven Model 162 Imitation and Herding Drive the Market Price 162 The Price Return Drives the Crash Hazard Rate 164 Risk-Driven versus Price-Driven Models 168 6 Hierarchies, complex fractal dimensions, and log-periodicity 171 Critical Phenomena by Imitation on Hierarchical Networks 173 The Underlying Hierarchical Structure of Social Networks 173 Critical Behavior in Hierarchical Networks 177 A Hierarchical Model of Financial Bubbles 181 Origin of Log-Periodicity in Hierarchical Systems 186 Discrete Scale Invariance 186 Fractal Dimensions 188 Organization Scale by Scale: The Renormalization Group 192 Principle and Illustration of the Renormalization Group 192 The Fractal Weierstrass Function: A Singular Time-Dependent Solution of the Renormalization Group 195 Complex Fractal Dimensions and Log-Periodicity 198 Importance and Usefulness of Discrete Scale Invariance 208 Existence of Relevant LengthScales 208 Prediction 209 Scenarios Leading to Discrete Scale Invariance and Log-Periodicity 210 Newcomb-Benford Law of First Digits and the Arithmetic System 211 The Log-Periodic Law of the Evolution of Life? 213 Nonlinear Trend-Following versus Nonlinear Fundamental Analysis Dynamics 217 Trend Following: Positive Nonlinear Feedback and Finite-Time Singularity 218 Reversal to the Fundamental Value: Negative Nonlinear Feedback 220 Some Characteristics of the Price Dynamics of the Nonlinear Dynamical Model 223 7 Autopsy of major crashes: universal exponents and logperiodicity 228 The Crash of October 1987 228 Precursory Pattern 231 Aftershock Patterns 236 The Crash of October 1929 239 The Three Hong Kong Crashes of 1987, 1994, and 1997 242 The Hong Kong Crashes 242 The Crash of October 1997 and Its Resonance on the U.S. Market 246 Currency Crashes 254 The Crash of August 1998 259 Nonparametric Test of Log-Periodicity 263 The Slow Crash of 1962 Ending the "Tronics" Boom 266 The Nasdaq Crash of April 2000 269 "Antibubbles" 275 The "Bearish" Regime on the Nikkei Starting from January 1, 1990 276 The Gold Deflation Price Starting in Mid-1980 278 Synthesis: "Emergent" Behavior of the Stock Market 279 8 Bubbles, crises, and crashes in emergent markets 281 Speculative Bubbles in Emerging Markets 281 Methodology 285 Latin-American Markets 286 Asian Markets 295 The Russian Stock Market 304 Correlations across Markets: Economic Contagion and Synchronization of Bubble Collapse 309 Implications for Mitigations of Crises 314 9 Prediction of bubbles, crashes, and antibubbles 320 The Nature of Predictions 320 How to Develop and Interpret Statistical Tests of Log-Periodicity 325 First Guidelines for Prediction 329 What Is the Predictive Power of Equation (15)? 329 How Long Prior to a Crash Can One Identify the Log-Periodic Signatures? 330 A Hierarchy of Prediction Schemes 334 The Simple Power Law 334 The "Linear" Log-Periodic Formula 335 The "Nonlinear" Log-Periodic Formula 336 The Shank's Transformation on a Hierarchy of Characteristic Times 336 Application to the October 1929 Crash 337 Application to the October 1987 Crash 338 Forward Predictions 338 Successful Prediction of the Nikkei 1999 Antibubble 339 Successful Prediction of the Nasdaq Crash of April 2000 342 The U.S. Market, December 1997 False Alarm 342 The U.S. Market, October 1999 False Alarm 346 Present Status of Forward Predictions 346 The Finite Probability That No Crash Will Occur during a Bubble 346 Estimation of the Statistical Significance of the Forward Predictions 347 Statistical Confidence of the Crash"Roulette" 347 Statistical Significance of a Single Successful Prediction via Bayes's Theorem 349 The Error Diagram and the Decision Process 351 Practical Implications on Different Trading Strategies 352 10 2050: The end of the growth era? 355 Stock Markets, Economics, and Population 355 The Pessimistic Viewpoint of "Natural" Scientists 357 The Optimistic Viewpoint of "Social" Scientists 359 Analysis of the Faster-Than-Exponential Growth of Population, GDP, and Financial Indices 361 Refinements of the Analysis 369 Complex Power Law Singularities 369 Prediction for the Coming Decade 371 The Aging "Baby Boomers" 377 Related Works and Evidence 378 Scenarios for the "Singularity" 383 Collapse 384 Transition to Sustainability 389 Resuming Accelerating Growth by Overpassing Fundamental Barriers 393 The Increasing Propensity to Emulate the Stock Market Approach 395 References 397 Index 419

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Book SynopsisIan Horne is the European Head of Content at Money 20/20, the organizer of the largest global events for the fintech industry where he works towards setting the fintech agenda for investors, technologists, banks and payments organizations. Prior to this, he was Head of UK Audience Development at Citywire. Ian Horne has been shortlisted for HeadlineMoney's UK Fintech Journalist of the Year award and is based in London, UK.Trade Review"Why DeFi Matters is a must-read for anyone interested in a holistic understanding of the nuanced conversation around decentralized finance. From addressing the polarizing political climate to financial inclusion, Ian seamlessly blends financial insights, technological trends and philosophical musings, creating a captivating narrative that leaves you feeling inspired and hopeful about the potential of DeFi." * Nicole Casperson, Founder and Author, Fintech is Femme *"This brilliantly informative book serves as a digestible and engagingly written guide, offering clear insights into the past, present and potential future of not just decentralized finance but also digital assets overall." * Erica Stanford, Author of Crypto Wars *"Why DeFi Matters provides a comprehensive, global and inclusive look at decentralized finance. Ian Horne expands the narrative beyond the narrow, store-of-value lens that often limits a real understanding of the depth and breadth of DeFi. The book skillfully captures the story of DeFi, leaving readers with a clear understanding of why money and commerce matters to the global innovation economy." * Cleve Mesidor, Executive Director, Blockchain Foundation & former Obama Presidential Appointee *"If decentralized finance is one of those crypto buzz words that annoy or scare you, fear not, because Ian Horne's new book will guide you through the history that brought us DeFi, breaking down jargon and uncovering details that even the OGs might have missed." * Mauricio Magaldi, Head of Product, Midnight, Input Output & host of the Blockdrops podcast *Table of Contents Chapter - 01: Crypto and DeFi: Why now, and what exactly is it?; Chapter - 02: Ethereum and DeFi: The creation of crypto’s Financial ecosystem; Chapter - 03: Key DeFi terms; Chapter - 04: What does DeFi do?; Chapter - 05: DAOs: The organizational framework for DeFi; Chapter - 06: NFTs: Beyond the hype; Chapter - 07: Virtually financial: The Metaverse, Web3 and the gamification of DeFi; Chapter - 08: TradFi enters the market: Game over for the decentralized dream?; Chapter - 09: CBDCs: The central bank’s answer to crypto; Chapter - 10: The long road ahead: Can DeFi fulfil its promise?; Chapter - 11: Why does DeFi matter?: Concluding thoughts;

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