All About Derivatives (McGraw-Hill, 2011, a fully revised second edition) is a curious book, and I don’t say that unkindly. It’s just odd that in a book in the “All About” series, touted as “the easy way to get started,” you find such a lengthy discussion of options pricing. But then Michael Durbin is, among other things, a financial technology consultant specializing in high-frequency trading of financial derivatives, and he has helped numerous Wall Street firms develop derivative pricing and trading systems.

The structure of this book is straightforward. After an overview chapter, the author devotes a chapter each to forwards, futures, swaps, options, and credit derivatives. He then looks at using derivatives to manage risk, pricing the various derivatives, hedging a derivatives position, and derivatives and the 2008 financial meltdown. In three appendices he investigates interest, swap conventions, and binominal option pricing.

Even though this book would be a fine introduction to the subject of derivatives, it often goes beyond the elementary. For instance, Durbin points out the subtle pricing differences between warrants and options. Moreover, the book is laced with interesting tidbits. I didn’t know, for example, that Enron issued a series of credit-sensitive notes in 1998 that offered a coupon rate inversely tied to its credit rating. (more…)