Princeton Lectures in Finance

Darrell Duffie is the Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. His books include How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It and Dynamic Asset Pricing Theory (both Princeton). A concise introduction to modeling over-the-counter markets Over-the-counter (OTC) markets for derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, and repurchase agreements played a significant role in the global financial crisis. Rather than being traded through a centralized institution such as a stock exchange, OTC trades are negotiated privately between market participants who may be unaware of prices that are currently available elsewhere in the market. In these relatively opaque markets, investors can be in the dark about the most attractive available terms and who might be offering them. This opaqueness exacerbated the financial crisis, as regulators and market participants were unable to quickly assess the risks and pricing of these instruments. Dark Markets offers a concise introduction to OTC markets by explaining key conceptual issues and modeling techniques, and by providing readers with a foundation for more advanced subjects in this field. Darrell Duffie covers the basic methods for modeling search and random matching in economies with many agents. He gives an overview of asset pricing in OTC markets with symmetric and asymmetric information, showing how information percolates through these markets as investors encounter each other over time. This book also features appendixes containing methodologies supporting the more theory-oriented of the chapters, making this the most self-contained introduction to OTC markets available. "Extremely informative and revealing, the book leads readers to a world of dark corners of the financial market. Those who dabble in the market should definitely read it for understanding the pitfalls and those who don't must read it for the satisfaction of knowing what they have not missed. Either way it is a valuable read."---R. Balashankar, Organiser "Dark Markets offers a concise introduction to OTC markets by explaining key conceptual issues and modeling techniques, and by providing readers with a foundation for more advanced subjects in this field." "Over-the-counter markets concern a large set of financial assets and received significant attention during the recent financial crisis. Darrell Duffie has been a key contributor to a promising new area of research that seeks to understand the behavior of these markets. His comprehensive, rigorous book will be very useful to all researchers interested in this important subject."-Dimitri Vayanos, London School of Economics and Political Science "Dark Markets describes and models over-the-counter markets, with an emphasis on 'doing it right.' People apply the law of large numbers all the time, even when it is inappropriate. This book tells you when it is appropriate. Darrell Duffie is a giant in the field."-Ed Nosal, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

William F. Sharpe, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in economics, is STANCO 25 Emeritus Professor of Finance at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He is the author or coauthor of six books, including Portfolio Theory and Capital Markets, Asset Allocation Tools, and Fundamentals of Investments. In Investors and Markets, Nobel Prize-winning financial economist William Sharpe shows that investment professionals cannot make good portfolio choices unless they understand the determinants of asset prices. But until now asset-price analysis has largely been inaccessible to everyone except PhDs in financial economics. In this book, Sharpe changes that by setting out his state-of-the-art approach to asset pricing in a nonmathematical form that will be comprehensible to a broad range of investment professionals, including investment advisors, money managers, and financial analysts. Bridging the gap between the best financial theory and investment practice, Investors and Markets will help investment professionals make better portfolio choices by being smarter about asset prices. Based on Sharpe's Princeton Lectures in Finance, Investors and Markets presents a method of analyzing asset prices that accounts for the real behavior of investors. Sharpe makes this technique accessible through a new, one-of-a-kind computer program (available for free on his Web site, at http://www.stanford.edu/~wfsharpe/apsim/index.html) that enables users to create virtual markets, setting the starting conditions and then allowing trading until equilibrium is reached and trading stops. Program users can then analyze the final portfolios and asset prices, see expected returns, and measure risk. In addition to popularizing the most sophisticated form of asset-price analysis, Investors and Markets summarizes much of Sharpe's most important previous work and reflects a lifetime of thinking about investing by one of the leading minds in financial economics. Any serious investment professional will benefit from Sharpe's unique insights. "Throughout the past 40 years, Sharpe has remained one of the most influential voices in finance for both academics and practitioners. As is true for all of Sharpe's writings, investment professionals will do well to read Investors and Markets and carefully absorb its insights."---Ronald L. Moy, Financial Analysts Journal "William F. Sharpe says his pioneering work on the Capital Asset Pricing Model is ready for a makeover. The 42-year-old model--which earned Mr. Sharpe a Nobel Memorial Prize in economics in 1990-- is being revamped because Mr. Sharpe says he found a better way for portfolio managers and business-school students to learn about how portfolios are constructed and securities are priced. . . . Mr. Sharpe's new book shows that a simulator based on the state/preference model can mimic market behavior and can be used where mean-variance analysis won't work."---Joel Chernoff, Pensions and Investments "William Sharpe has written a new book . . . which may cause a revolution -- or, at least, a coup in finance. . . . Investors and Markets brings the subjects of portfolio choice and asset pricing together into a single, integrated view of investment science. . . . The impact of [this book], though more a coup than a revolution, deserves to occur more quickly."---John Finneran, The Motley Fool "Sharpe's Investors and Markets is an impressive and thought provoking work. . . . [H]is work breaks new ground in the fields of portfolio and asset pricing theory. I highly recommend this book, particularly for planners interested in understanding the theory behind the advice that we give." "[Sharpe's book] has much that is good: setting out complex issues such as the capital-asset pricing model and market risk/reward theorem in readily understandable terms, showing the importance of trading. Mime preferences, risk aversion, how individual actions, perhaps irrational on occasion, can still lead to a rational