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Since the breakthrough introduction of the Black–Scholes–Merton options pricing model in 1973, the field of financial derivatives has evolved into an extensive and highly scientific body of theoretical knowledge alongside a vast and vibrant market where economic producers, investors, finance professionals, and government regulators all interact to seek financial gains, manage risk, or promote price discovery. It is hard to imagine how even the most thoughtful and diligent practitioners can come to terms with such a broad and complex topic – until they read this book.

CFA Institute has compiled into a single book those parts of its curriculum that address this critically important topic. And it is apparent from reading this book that CFA Institute attracted preeminent scholars to develop its derivatives curriculum.

This book has several important virtues:

1. It is detailed, comprehensive, and exceptionally accessible.

2. It is efficiently organized in its coverage of topics.

3. It makes effective use of visualization with diagrams of transactions and strategy payoffs.

4. It includes numerous practice problems along with well-explained solutions.

5. And finally, unlike many academic textbooks, its focus is more practical than theoretical, although it does provide more-than-adequate treatment of the relevant theory.

The book begins by addressing the basics of derivatives, including definitions of the various types of derivatives and descriptions of the markets in which they trade.

It goes on to address the purpose of derivatives and the benefits they impart to society, including risk transfer, price discovery, and operational efficiency. It also discusses how derivatives can be misused to enable excessive speculation and how derivatives could contribute to the destabilization of financial markets.

The book provides comprehensive treatment of pricing and valuation with discussions of the law of one price, risk neutrality, the Black–Scholes–Merton options pricing model, and the binomial model. It also covers the pricing of futures and forward contracts as well as swaps.

The book then shifts to applications of derivatives. It discusses how derivatives can be used to create synthetic cash and equity positions along with several other positions. It relies heavily on numerical examples to illustrate these equivalencies.

It offers a comprehensive treatment of risk management with discussions of market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, and model risk, among others. It describes how to measure risk and, more importantly, how to manage it with the application of forward and futures contracts, swaps, and options.

This summary of topics is intended to provide a flavor of the book’s contents. The contents of this book are far broader and deeper than I describe in this foreword.

Those who practice finance, as well as those who teach it, in my view, owe a huge debt of gratitude to CFA Institute – first, for assembling this extraordinary body of knowledge in its curriculum and, second, for organizing this knowledge with such cohesion and clarity. Anyone who wishes to acquire a solid knowledge of derivatives or to refresh and expand what they have learned about derivatives previously should certainly read this book.

Mark Kritzman