Using Spreadsheets for Finance

The book gives the reader a hands on insight into a variety of financial models and it supplies the reader with a bag of tricks enabling him to actually solve a wide range of financial problems. The lay-out and efficient calculation of spreadsheets is dealt with in great detail as is the use of VBA functions and macros. The book consists of 5 parts. Part 1 deals with optimal cash management in the shape of inventory control models and with Weingartner's surplus liquidity model, solved by linear programming. Part 2 deals with fixed income. Subjects covered are discount factors, zero coupon and forward rates or yield to maturity; estimation and calculation of term structures of interest rates and duration and immunization. Part 3 deals with calculation of returns and their key statistics as well as the CAPM and the APT portfolio model. Part 4 deals with financial risk in general, the basic concept of risk and the pricing of financial securities, the pricing of option in a variety of ways and the determination of risk premia in general. The last part deals with useful mathematical and statistical issues.