Principles of Quantitative Development

Thulasidas, Manoj

ISBN 10: 0470745703 ISBN 13: 9780470745700

Publisher: Wiley, 2010

Synopsis

Principles of Quantitative Development is a practical guide to designing, building and deploying a trading platform. It is also a lucid and succinct exposé on the trade life cycle and the business groups involved in managing it, bringing together the big picture of how a trade flows through the systems, and the role of a quantitative professional in the organization.

The book begins by looking at the need and demand for in-house trading platforms, addressing the current trends in the industry. It then looks at the trade life cycle and its participants, from beginning to end, and then the functions within the front, middle and back office, giving the reader a full understanding and appreciation of the perspectives and needs of each function. The book then moves on to platform design, addressing all the fundamentals of platform design, system architecture, programming languages and choices. Finally, the book focuses on some of the more technical aspects of platform design and looks at traditional and new languages and approaches used in modern quantitative development.

The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM, featuring a fully working option pricing tool with source code and project building instructions, illustrating the design principles discussed, and enabling the reader to develop a mini-trading platform.

The book is also accompanied by a website http://pqd.thulasidas.com that contains updates and companion materials.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"Thulasidas has written an excellent book describing how the modern investment bank works, the individual roles played by the many types of banker and how they interact... or often don't. This is an invaluable book for bank wannabes, recruiters, journalists, those stuck in their silo, educators, regulators, politicians, for almost everyone interested in how this important part of the modern world works. I'm even going to give my mum a copy, although I don't think it will reassure her about the safety of her pension."
—Paul Wilmott, Mathematician and Quant

"If only this book had been written much earlier, many banks and financial institutions would be spared the countless heartaches, frustrations and wasted investments into poorly thought out and badly designed quantitative platforms; and its inevitable toll on the business. The book is exceedingly useful for quant professionals who want to see the forest beyond the trees but more importantly, I think it should be mandatory reading for strategic decision makers in the structured products/exotics trading spaces. Unlike the typical 'big picture' book, I find Thulasidas’ approach refreshing in that he provides tangible examples, for example in terms of competing architectures and computing patterns. This enables the reader to clearly understand and concretely grasp the consequence of each design decision as opposed to being forced to decipher fuzzy concepts. I have no doubt that this book will become a classic."
—Alvin Harvey Kam, Exotics Trader, Global Commodities Citigroup

"Dr Thulasidas opens a window into an esoteric domain in the banking world which is rarely understood and mostly misinterpreted. The subject insights he possesses help a structured style of narration navigating the reader through abstract material with ease and adding a learning touch as well. A compelling read!!!!!"
—C.Krishna Kumar, Advisor to the Chairman, National Bank of Egypt

"Dr Thulasidas clarifies the obscure and interconnected world of quantitative finance, exotics trading and financial computing. A must read for the thinking professional, this work will prove valuable to those embarking on a career in any aspect of trading - from business associates to trading system architects, and from quantitative analysts to structurers and traders."
—Babek Saber, Retired Global Head, Commodity Structured Products Trading, Standard Chartered Bank

About the Author:

A physicist-turned-quant, Dr. Manoj Thulasidas works as a senior quantitative professional at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, focusing on the design and deployment of trading systems. Well recognized in his field, the author is a regular columnist for Wilmott Magazine, and has published several articles on a variety of topics related to quants and quantitative finance.
Thulasidas received his undergraduate degree from IIT, Madras in 1987. A physics aficionado, he then studied fundamental particles and interactions at the CLEO collaboration at Cornell University during 1988-93. After receiving his Ph.D from Syracuse University, he continued his work at the ALEPH collaboration at CERN, Geneva. During his 10-year career as a research scientist in the field of high energy physics, he co-authored over 190 publications.
In 2005, the author switched to quantitative finance, and joined OCBC, a regional bank in Singapore. He led the quantitative analytics team for pricing model validation and other mathematical tasks. This middle office job, involving risk management and curtailing ebullient traders, gave him a thorough overview of pricing models and, perhaps more importantly, a perfect understanding of the conflict-driven implementation of the risk appetite of the bank. Later on, he moved to Standard Chartered Bank, taking care of their in-house trading platforms, which further enhanced his "big picture" outlook and inspired him to write Principles of Quantitative Development.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0470745703
• ISBN 13: 9780470745700
• Binding: Product Bundle
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252