Welcome to the weekend and three spanking new courses live at Finance Training Course.com

In the Pitching Case Studies course (55 minutes) we review common challenges faced by startup and venture teams in making an impression, including:

1. Making a pitch real
2. Breaking the “They can’t do it mindset”
3. Presenting and pitching financial models
4. Visualizing customer pain and choice
5. Building credibility with your audience
6. Listening to the voice of the customer

The Pitching your business plan course (3 hours and change) was the original pre-requisite that led to Pitching Case Studies. While case studies dissected actual pitches, Pitching your business plans presented the framework that was used for dissection. Starting from the voice of the customer, we quickly waltz through business models, competition, competitive advantage and pitching.

In early September we ran Cross Selling Treasury Products (90 minutes) in Dubai for an audience of Corporate and Private Bankers. A market oriented video edition of our Treasury risk series, the Treasury product course focuses on the client exposure estimation question. Designed for Corporate RM’s and account managers, the video helps walk through the process and tools required to structure a solution for a client using a case study. Cross Selling Treasury Products goes live for purchase on Monday, 17^th October.

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Three new posts at the Finance Training Course portal this week that broke the popularity graph.

Continuing Profession Education (CPE) online learning solutions for actuaries

Stress testing crash course for Board of Directors and Board Risk Committee members

Cross selling treasury products

Two new online video based courses – The Stress Testing, ALM and Capital Adequacy Crash Course and the shorter and more cost effective ALM and Capital Adequacy Crash Course are live and available for purchase.

In over six hours of video based instruction the two courses cover the following topics

The Stress Testing, ALM and Capital Adequacy Crash Course

1. The need for stress testing
2. Stress testing capital
3. Stress testing methodology
   1. Price Risk
   2. Credit Risk
   3. Interest Rate mismatch & ALM
   4. ALM reports and extending them

Annexure and related topics

1. Using Value at Risk – the Value at risk course
2. Understanding Capital
3. Understanding Capital Adequacy
4. Understanding Duration and Convexity

The ALM and Capital Adequacy Crash Course

1. Introduction to ALM
2. Interest Rate mismatch & ALM
3. ALM reports and extensions
4. Evolution of Capital Adequacy requirements
5. A review of ICAAP (Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process) and Basel II (III) – Liquidity risk adjustments

Annexure and related topics

1. Using Value at Risk – the Value at risk course
2. Understanding Duration & Convexity

Across 200,000 pageviews and 90,000 visitors here is a list of our top 29 posts over the last 8 weeks at Finance Training Courses. The posts cover the impact of US credit rating downgrade, basics of derivative pricing, ICAAP, dissecting gold models, business plan pitches, credit derivatives, structured products, counterparty limits, correlations, a first course in corporate finance, stress testing and treasury operations. Enjoy

Here is the model we used last year to dissect the projected price behavior of oil. This was a fundamentals driven model that examined supply and demand gap, future supply sources and shocks, core demand growth drivers and relative value effects. The same approach was used later this year in building our fundamentals driven model for gold price forecast.

Our summarized outlook was simple. Oil demand growth is likely to remain stunted given high prices and a number of major issues structurally which will remove any impetus for an oil price shock similar to the one that we witnessed in 2008. With additional supply coming back to the market from Iraq and Libya, Europe struggling with the fallout of the PIGS crisis and the slowdown in China the demand situation was not likely to be rosy.

The original dated note is available on request. Please drop me a line if you would like to receive a complimentary electronic copy.

Short half day and full day format applied and corporate finance training courses coming soon to the Capital Club at DIFC in Dubai (UAE) and locations in Abu Dhabi and Al-Ain in collaboration with our DIFC Partners, Kinetrix Limited. Courses cover a range of hands on practical topics from treasury risk to project finance, from interest rate modeling to understanding commodities risk.

A joint venture managed by

.For our portfolio of financial services customers in the region and beyond.

Three courses, three outlines, one happening location

While Alchemy Technologies offers a portfolio of more than 20 domain specific treasury, risk and derivative pricing topics, the outlines below represent our most popular course offering.

Commodity Trades & Risk Management

The rising volatility in precious metals, petrochemicals and agricultural products has created an unprecedented opportunity to profit from market price movements. On the risk front there is a need to understand the impact of this volatility on trades, transactions and desks. By the end of this two day workshop participants will be able to:

1. Appreciate the linkage between commodity markets (precious metals, crude oil), currencies and rates
2. Trace the impact of monetary policy announcements on commodity markets
3. Explain trading strategies using futures, options and exotic products
4. Understand trading triggers
5. Derive risk limits for counterparty exposures

Project Finance – Concepts and Applications

The workshop is aimed at account managers, bankers, risk managers, credit analysts and students interested in building a stronger understanding of the project finance space. At the end of this two day hands on workshop participants will be able to:

• Understand the unique characteristics, benefits and issues associated with Project Finance.
• Compare project finance with conventional corporate finance using a power system expansion case
• Understand the role and importance of Project Finance in infrastructure and large scale investment projects and the role of Project Companies (SPVs) in Project Finance.
• Identify key project risks and understand the techniques for mitigation of such risks in Power and Infrastructure project space.
• Use Montecarlo simulation to test core assumptions, value drivers and linkages between interest coverage and capital structure of the SPV.

We achieve these goals by creating an opportunity for students to step into the shoes of all major stakeholders (sponsors, financiers, lenders, beneficiaries and managers), apply the primary principals of project finance, sensitivity analysis and risk mitigations on specific historical transaction and get comfortable with the concept of using project companies to align incentives. The course combines hands on model building, presentation, analysis and the application of creative thinking to structuring transactions and has a heavy case and workload.

Treasury products crash course

The workshop is aimed at non-treasury customer facing team members who work as facilitators and relationship managers between Treasury customers and the Treasury function at a bank.

The primary objective of this workshop is to help relationship, risk and limit managers better understand transaction, limits and pricing mindset from a Treasury point of view. Armed with this awareness and knowledge they can help customers understand the rationale behind a treasury price quote, leading to a quicker close and a higher yield on customer treasury transactions.

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to

• Explain primary treasury products, processes and functions of a treasury department to a non-treasury outsider.
  
• Work with pricing examples across basic treasury products including both Money Market and FX products.
  
• Follow the workflow of treasury operations and identify common exceptions and solutions from rate quotation to settlement.
  
• Identify suitable treasury products for specific customer needs involving Money Market and FX transactions.
  
• Calculate counterparty limits using PSR and PFE methodology.
  

About Kinetrix

Kinetrix is one of the leading providers of Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) advisory services. It provides a front to back service offering including Strategy and Operational Formulation, built on robust GRC frameworks.

Kinetrix is recognized as a thought leader aligning in depth experience, expertise and business philosophy to create efficient, growing and sustainable businesses for its clients from start ups SMEs, Large Corporations, Family Businesses and Governments. Headquartered in the prestigious Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) we pride ourselves in our strong record of service delivery, client driven approach, professional excellence and understanding of local market needs. Our network of offices and affiliates spans the region and to complement our service offenng to our clients. Kinetrix has selected strategic partners (such as Complinet) to provide additional valued expertise, technology products and service excellence.

About Alchemy Technologies

Founded in 2003, Alchemy has grown to be one of the leading Enterprise risk and Actuarial firms in the region with a portfolio of several blue chip customers. Alchemy’s enterprise, treasury and Basel II risk solutions have all been built over the last 6 years with feedback from International and local industry user groups.

The firm has won multiple product recognition awards including the MIT Business Acceleration Plan runners-up Award, the PASHA ICT Award for Best Financial Application as well as the Asia Pacific ICT Finalist for the Best Financial Application Category. Our products have now been show cased in Pakistan, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Macau and the Middle East.

Alchemy’s product offerings include Risk Management and Treasury Management solutions, Obligor and Facility Risk Rating platforms, Financial Institution (FI) Limit Allocators, PD Calculators, custom financial model development and audits, interactive workshops, risk and actuarial advisory, Basel II compliant risk solutions for banks, insurance companies and portfolio managers.

1.0 Commodity Trades & Risk Management

The rising volatility in precious metals, petrochemicals and agricultural products has created an unprecedented opportunity to profit from market price movements. On the risk front there is a need to understand the impact of this volatility on trades, transactions and desks. By the end of this two day workshop participants will be able to:

• Appreciate the linkage between commodity markets (precious metals, crude oil), currencies and rates
• Trace the impact of monetary policy announcements on commodity markets
• Explain trading strategies using futures, options and exotic products
• Understand trading triggers
• Derive risk limits for counterparty exposures

2.0 Project Finance – Concepts and Applications

The workshop is aimed at account managers, bankers, risk managers, credit analysts and students interested in building a stronger understanding of the project finance space. At the end of this two day hands on workshop participants will be able to:

• Understand the unique characteristics, benefits and issues associated with Project Finance.
• Compare project finance with conventional corporate finance using a power system expansion case
• Understand the role and importance of Project Finance in infrastructure and large scale investment projects and the role of Project Companies (SPVs) in Project Finance.
• Identify key project risks and understand the techniques for mitigation of such risks in Power and Infrastructure project space.
• Use Montecarlo simulation to test core assumptions, value drivers and linkages between interest coverage and capital structure of the SPV.

We achieve these goals by creating an opportunity for students to step into the shoes of all major stakeholders (sponsors, financiers, lenders, beneficiaries and managers), apply the primary principals of project finance, sensitivity analysis and risk mitigations on specific historical transaction and get comfortable with the concept of using project companies to align incentives. The course combines hands on model building, presentation, analysis and the application of creative thinking to structuring transactions and has a heavy case and workload.

Hand on Cases:

HBS Case: Calpine Power: From Project Finance to Corporate Finance

HBS Case: Asia Japan Cable

HBS Case: Chad Cameron Oil Field Development and Pipeline

3.0 Treasury products crash course

The workshop is aimed at non-treasury customer facing team members who work as facilitators and relationship managers between Treasury customers and the Treasury function at a bank.

The primary objective of this workshop is to help relationship, risk and limit managers better understand transaction, limits and pricing mindset from a Treasury point of view. Armed with this awareness and knowledge they can help customers understand the rationale behind a treasury price quote, leading to a quicker close and a higher yield on customer treasury transactions.

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to

• Explain primary treasury products, processes and functions of a treasury department to a non-treasury outsider.
  
• Work with pricing examples across basic treasury products including both Money Market and FX products.
  
• Follow the workflow of treasury operations and identify common exceptions and solutions from rate quotation to settlement.
  
• Identify suitable treasury products for specific customer needs involving Money Market and FX transactions.
  
• Calculate counterparty limits using PSR and PFE methodology.
  

Facilitator profile

Jawwad Ahmed Farid is a Fellow Society of Actuaries (Chicago), a MBA from Columbia Business School (New York City) and a computer science graduate. During the last 19 years, he has worked as a consultant in North America, Pakistan and the United Kingdom with a number of blue chip clients including Hartford Life, Aegon, American General, Goldman Sachs, ING, Manu Life, Merrill Lynch, Met Life, Sun America, Nationwide, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Sun Life of Canada, Pacific Life, AllState, Fidelity Investments, Transamerica, Skandia, GE Financial Assurance, AXA Equitable and Washington Mutual Bank.

Jawwad’s core areas of expertise include Asset/Risk Management, Investments, Product Development & the Financial Services Back Office. Jawwad blends a rare combination of risk management, information systems, international standards, business and product development skill set side by side with his actuarial expertise. He is the author of three books on Entrepreneurship (Reboot), Commodity Markets (Understanding Commodities Risk) and Risk Management (Risk Application and Frameworks).

As an investment advisor Jawwad has advised a 3 billion US$ dollar life insurance fund in Pakistan on allocation and bid patterns for 10, 20 and 30 year bonds, a 30 million dollar Middle East fund on their ALM mismatch and fixed income strategy, a 10 million dollar fund on asset allocation and equity market timing in Pakistan. He has also worked with the securities regulator on assessing the state of the corporate bond market as well as issued valuation opinions on cross currency swaps, interest rate swaps, caps, floors, participating forwards and contingent liabilities for Exchange Guarantee Funds in the region.

Jawwad has worked directly as a founder, founding team member, mentor and advisor at multiple startups including two green field life insurance companies, multiple technology product businesses, financial services consulting operations, risk and investment advisory businesses, product focused distribution as well as micro insurance, micro pensions and micro finance startups.

In addition to being a PASHA CEC member and Treasurer he has also served as a judge at the Asia Pacific ICT Awards in Macau, Singapore, Kula Lumpur and Jakarta as well as at PASHA ICT Award in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. He currently serves as member of the oversight board for the PASHA Social Innovation Fund.

His regional client list includes First Gulf Bank, Riyad Bank, Ministry of Finance Malaysia, May Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Noor Islamic Bank, Dubai Bonds, Deutsche Bank, SP Jain, Marcus Evans, LSW International, State Bank of Pakistan, National Bank of Pakistan, Muslim Commercial Bank, Crescent Commercial, MyBank, Dawood Islamic Bank, KASB Bank, United Bank Limited, Pak-Kuwait Investment, Saudi Pak Commercial Bank, ABN AMRO, State Life Insurance, Dawood Family Takaful, Asia Health Care, Adamjee Insurance, Shell Pakistan, and International General Insurance.

The Capital Club, DIFC, Dubai, UAE

The Capital Club is Dubai’s premier private business club offering an elegant and welcoming ambience in which to mix and meet, to exchange ideas and to entertain guests. The Club is committed to the highest levels of comfort and cuisine, exceptional events and an unmatched level of personal service, at home and abroad.

Calendar, Dates and Timelines

Short half day, full day and two day formats starting end of October till early December covering Derivative Pricing, Interest Rate Modeling, Montecarlo Simulations, FX Derivatives, Quant Crash Course, Treasury Risk, Project Finance and Commodities Risk Models.

For details, fees and registration

Mr. Faheem Aziz, Kinetrix Limited, DIFC, Dubai – faheem.aziz@kinetrix.com

Mr. Jawwad Farid, Alchemy Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Karachi – jawwad@alchemya.com

Also see

Risk and Treasury Online Training Courses at Finance Training Courses Portal

Risk and Treasury Training Courses at DIFC, Dubai and the Capital Club

Please see our previous two posts on the US credit rating downgrade posted earlier on Finance Training Course. The first post is an initial announcement and gut check, while the second reviews analysis published over the last 48 hours in global media supplemented by our opinions and outlook.

US Credit Rating Downgrade Day One – Commodities Outlook for Monday

US Credit Rating Downgrade End of Day One – Impact on Commodities and Financial Markets – Analysis

All eyes on Tokyo and Singapore open to get a sense on trading direction for the US$, precious metals and crude oil. Somewhere over the next six hours we will get a sense of how investors have digested the rating downgrade news from New York and DC over the weekend.

For now according to the Wall Street Journal, DTCC, OCC and ICE have all indicated that there Treasury valuation models, collateral rules and hair cut requirements will not change when it comes to AA+ rated US treasury securities. Post the ECB and G7 conference Sunday evening, similar re-assuring statements are expected from ECB and G7 member countries. The ECB plan to buy European bonds this week should also fuel weakness in Euro which should counterbalance any depreciation of the US dollar against the Euro.

No spike in treasury sales is expected given reassuring noises made by all major sovereign investors in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

It will be interesting to see how LIBOR rates on dollar deposits move when market opens in Europe on Monday morning.

If equity market action in the Middle East (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Israel) is any indication, markets should drop anywhere from 3% – 7% today starting from Tokyo and ending in New York as speculative trades and unwound and investors move to safer assets (US Treasuries).

Some analysts are forecasting a $10 – $25 spike in the price of crude oil if the US dollar heads south.

Agnes recently did a lot of work in putting together a short course on correlations from a risk and trading point of view. Unlike the boring text book stuff, there are some interesting lessons and applications here if you want to track correlations over a period of time as a trader or risk manager. This is the same methodology we use to track crude oil, precious metals (gold, silver) and currencies as part of our own internal analysis. Given the number of queries we get on our methodology I thought this post should put a lot of questions to rest.

Enjoy the course.

Correlation – Introduction

Next raw data time series line graphs such as price trends and derived data graphs such as volatility trend lines including the methodology for constructing line graphs in EXCEL.

Correlation – Times series data graphs –Prices & More

Scatter plots, a visual representation of the correlation coefficient tackled a little bit later on the course.

Correlation – Scatter Plots

An example of the calculation of the correlation coefficient method is given in our available-for-sale Computational Finance – EXCEL examples course “Portfolio Risk Metrics Example“.

Correlation – Correlation coefficient, r

The trailing correlations graph, a graphical representation of how correlations have changed over a period of time.

Correlation – Trailing correlations

Finally, we look at an additional way of viewing the time series data of two factors- the relative price graph and its various uses:

Correlation – Relative Price Graphs

First Published on Finance Training Course.com on 26th March 2011

I recently ran a presentation for a client where I had to justify setting risk limits at a pre-defined threshold for a treasury and investment management function, linking Stop Loss, Value at Risk and Management Action Triggers. The question a very astute board member asked me was a simple one:

How likely is this worst case loss and what would happen when it would actually occur?

To explain my recommendation I had to lean on Nicholas Nassim Taleb and his suggestion of working with most likely loss which in this case (see table above) gave me even odds for a loss of .05%. From a pure expectation point of view it translated into 52,000 US$ alternate day (once in two days, 1:1 odd) for a 100 million US$ portfolio. That is the number the board was likely to see on every alternate day and rather than let the board sit idle and wait for the risk freight train to hit them at some point in time in the future while they were assured by their Worst Case Loss calculations, my and NNT’s suggestion was simple. Track deviation to your most likely loss rather than your unlikely loss. For two simple reasons:

1. You have more data points to understand the distribution
2. The number you quote to the board, the risk function and the treasury group is actually taken a lot more seriously given its likelihood of occurrence.

It also allowed me to link the concept of stop loss with risk limits by helping set a soft stop loss limit just beyond the most likely loss and a hard stop loss limit at the last known threshold of good data which interestingly enough sat between the 51% and 66% percentile threshold.

And if I was really really smart and had the right system and capabilities, I would move these limits around as the underlying portfolio volatility moved up and down in time.

The only exception to this rule was PSR limits (Pre-Settlement Limits) where I simply couldn’t walk away from worst case loss. So my question to you is

1. Have you started thinking about communicating your risk results, targets, exceptions and breaches in Most Likely Loss terms or are you still using Worst Case Loss?
2. Does your Board appreciate and understand and react better to Most Likely Loss or Worst Case Loss?
3. Have you connected your stop loss triggers and thresholds to trailing market volatility?

If you would like to learn more about the topic of setting limits and using most likely loss rather than worst case loss please see our setting limits online video course at Finance Training Videos

This post was first published at Learning Corporate Finance as part of the launch campaign for Finance Training Videos.

Understanding N(d1)

It is embarrassing to confess but it is a question that stumped me the first time a student posed it.

What is N(d1) and how is it different from N(d2)?

The difference is as subtle and fundamental to derivative pricing as is fission and fusion in nuclear physics. In today’s volatile markets a subtle oversight is all it takes to land you right in the middle of a core meltdown.

Over the years I tried different explanations, carefully measuring each trial’s confusion potency. Most explanations around Black Scholes turned bright, smart, hard working exec MBA students into glassy eyed zombies within a few minutes. At times I also wondered what if that sharp trader at the Goldman interview in London had posed this stumper. Would my answer and my life turned out differently?

So when we were done with our very first video based risk training offering focusing on value at risk and capital, I knew that the next course had to be on explaining N(d1). Fortunately for me a ready audience of 30 students awaited me at the SP Jain campus to try out my latest thought experiment. Together we broke the Black Scholes equation down and put it under the microscope using the Monte Carlo simulator as our lens.

I can safely say that led to some very interesting conversations. We finally understood what conditional probabilities mean after a little bit of pain. But there is only one way you can find out if there are thirty zombies waiting for you in LC-1 at Academic city. No peeking; Try out the new Understanding N(d1) course now.

When you are running a 10,000 trial Monte Carlo simulator it is difficult to stop with just N(d1). An expanded version of the course walks you through the process of building the entire Monte Carlo simulation in Excel and then helps you extend the same model to pricing Asian, Knock In and Knock out options.

If all this talk about simulation and obnoxious variables turns your stomach you can also try our much lighter, philosophical peace offering, the Quant Crash Course for non-Quants.

Try any of the three courses before 31^st March 2011 and take advantage of our US$ 99 launch prices valid only for the launch month of March (our Ides of March discount). Effective 1^st of April prices revert back to their normal US$ 199 price tag.

Later modules scheduled for release post March cover tools to reduce variance, increase price convergence as well as add additional products in the FX arena including digitals, binaries, participating forwards and structured packages.

With the introduction of video based training traffic at the site has really surged in the last two weeks. If for some reason you get timeout errors especially with video sessions please drop me a note and bear with us while we work at scaling up our streaming server capacity.

This week we expect to break 3,000 weekly visitors and 8,000 weekly page views. As of March, the Finance Training Course platform has already crossed 60,000 visitors and 135,000 page views, with traffic doubling every four months. We wouldn’t be here without the role all of you have played over the last four years in getting Finance Training Courses and Alchemy to where they stand today.

Thank you.

Yours

Jawwad

(Ps. I will look forward to that note J)

In the summer of 1987, Lotus Symphony was the category killer in the integrated spreadsheet market. It was also my first introduction to the animals called spreadsheets and financial models. While other 16 year olds were doing things that 16 year olds are supposed to do in the summer, yours truly was digging through Symphony help to figure how to link a financial model together. A side lane off Zamzama, sitting on a sunlit desk on the mezzanine floor of an office which is now just a fond memory, one late afternoon I turned a static worksheet into a dynamic thing of beauty.

It would be an understatement to say that the direction my life was supposed to take changed that day. Many a spreadsheets and a few years later I possibly became the fastest teenaged draw with a spreadsheet you could find East of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea (a dubious claim at best). Fate dealt another kind shove and I found myself in an undergraduate program in computer science and for a while my love affair with spreadsheets was put on a hold. Tempted by semaphores and operating systems, compilers and the C language, the Borland IDE and code, I sort of forgot myself for a few years.

Till one fine evening when I opened the second edition of John C. Hull. I wish I could say it was love at first sight but it was more of a love and hate relationship. I loved the fact that I was finally studying Derivative Pricing and Risk Management; I hated the fact that I couldn’t decipher the language or the material. Oh it was plain English but such a torturous variant that it brought tears to my eyes every time I wandered too far off from the numerical examples. Alas Destiny played me for a victim for 5 long and painful year where I read Hull cover to cover 6 times a year, took the Fellowship actuarial exam on the text, failed it and then tried again the next year and the following year and the following year.

Flash forward to 1999, the year I left my internship at Goldman to start at Columbia Business School in New York. Three people helped break the curse of Hull (forgive the pun) and re-ignited the love affair with the sheet. Maria Vassalou, the Continuous Time Finance professor at the business school who allowed me to sit through her PhD elective that dissected the Black Scholes equation; Mark Broadie, the Security pricing Guru in Uris Hall who for the first time showed me the things one could do with spread sheet if one put his mind to it and Howard Corb, the Derivative Trader from Morgan Stanely who amply demonstrated every Tuesday evening how little us lesser mortals knew about the derivative trading desk and the derivative business and why Morgan and every other bank on the street was justified in not giving us the time of the day come recruiting season.

Twelve years later, I would still be embarrassed if I met Maria, Mark or Howard on the street (or for that matter any of my Columbia class mates who work on the street). Hull has finally stopped tormenting me. I am no longer the fastest draw on a spreadsheet, East of the Persian Gulf. But after confusing and tormenting more than 1,500 students in Bangkok, Singapore, Kula Lumpur, Dubai, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, I would like to believe that I now know a little bit more about pricing derivative securities on a spreadsheet. Certainly more compared to the 16 year old who stared dumbfounded at his screen when his summer long effort finally came together that afternoon in July 1987.

Throughout this 24 year journey I wished and searched for something online that would ease the pain of grasping the alien concepts of stochastic calculus, computational finance and risk management. About a year ago with Finance Training Courses I took the first step in creating a resource that another me in an alternate universe could use. By the end of this week, we will hopefully have the second iteration of that resource out. Armed and dangerous with a video and certainly not afraid to use it!

If you have ever been in love with a spreadsheet or a pricing model; or hated your 18^th run of Hull without understanding a word of it; or needed a spiffy answer to a question posed by our beloved Howard Corb, just so that you can make the right impression, the Online Quant Crash Course (for the non Quant?) is for you. Rather than limiting ourselves to PDF and excel files we decided to play with Finance Training Videos, the new home for online video based quantitative training.

Take a look at the Quant Crash Course samples as well as the Quant Training Crash Course pre-course announcement and keep an eye out for the “We are now live” announcement. The announcement should be up latest by this Friday (if not sooner) and we are almost done with the logistics behind the course. And if you like what you see please feel free to drop me a line telling me how I could do a better job. For there is nothing more, that we underappreciated (and occasionally underpaid) authors and trainers like more than a note (abusive or appreciative) from someone we have never met before from a place we have never been to in our lives.