Fundamental Models in Financial Theory

This book provides an innovative, integrated, and methodical approach tounderstanding complex financial models, integrating topics usually presented separately into acomprehensive whole. The book brings together financial models and high-level mathematics, reviewingthe mathematical background necessary for understanding these models organically and in context. Itbegins with underlying assumptions and progresses logically through increasingly complex models tooperative conclusions. Readers who have mastered the material will gain the tools needed to puttheory into practice and incorporate financial models into real-life investment, financial, andbusiness scenarios. Modern finance's most bothersome shortcoming is that the two basic models forbuilding an optimal investment portfolio, Markowitz's mean-variance model and Sharpe and Treynor'sCapital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), fall short when we try to apply them using Excel Solver. Thisbook explores these two models in detail, and for the first time in a textbook the Black-Littermanmodel for building an optimal portfolio constructed from a small number of assets (developed atGoldman Sachs) is thoroughly presented. The model's integration of personal views and itsapplication using Excel templates are demonstrated. The book also offers innovative presentations ofthe Modigliani--Miller model and the Consumption-Based Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM). Problemsat the end of each chapter invite the reader to put the models into immediate use.Fundamental Models in Financial Theory is suitable for classroom use or as areference for finance practitioners.

Doron Peleg has worked in both academia and industry. He has taught Finance and Entrepreneurial Management at institutions of higher education including Hunter and Lehman colleges in New York City and Tel Aviv University and Tel Hai College in Israel.