ESSENTIALS OF STOCHASTIC FINANCE

There was and still is a big "public noise" about applications of stochastics to financial business. At the core lies a deep interconnection between two seemingly quite different areas Stochastic Calculus and Financial Stock Markets. Stochastic Calculus (SC) is a well-developed and well-established branch of contemporary mathematics requiring advanced ideas and techniques. Who could have predicted, say 30-40 years ago, that SC would become the "right" approach to analyzing complicated phenomena occurring in the world stock markets? Not only has SC become a powerful theory but it has also become a powerful tool used in practice at the highest levels of decision-making in the financial world. Many universities throughout the world now have joint graduate programs in mathematics and finance. The field has attracted first-rate probabilists and statisticians, as well as practitioners in finance, and many of these have made great contributions to both the fundamental theory and the actual practice of finance. The author of "Essentials of Stochastic Finance" is so well-known that he needs no