0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Best primer on derivatives, 2008-05-19
I've seen both the authors speak at an IOC seminar on equity derivatives. They make a difficult subject understandable. I highly recommend the book, or even better, to see them speak in person.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Best-written Book concerning Greeks, 2007-04-09
It's about time that someone writes a well-written book about the greeks. Now I understand the stuff.
This book reads to you like you are a baby. It taught me the greeks in a simple manner.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Finally...., 2002-06-23
Finally, a book about options that is understandable and helpful. The book has been reprinted so the errors that the other readers referred to have been corrected. I loved it!
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Good but many, many errors. Were the editors asleep?, 2002-04-05
The authors appear to know their subject well. I would recommend this as a beginner-to-intermediate introduction to fundamentals except for the numerous errors.Some errors are like "typos" such as 6 instead of 60, some are more serious and subtle such as specifying a call when a put was meant, and some are fundamental structural problems with the book. For example, the Quiz answers don't match the chapters to which they purportedly provide answers, and in some cases only some questions are answered anyway.
The errors are so numerous, and some of a type that they won't be caught by the average beginner, that it might be dangerous for a beginner to rely on this book as a reference or as an only introduction to options.
I'd really like to have a completely "cleaned up" copy, as I think that could make this the best introduction that I'm aware of.
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Too many errors to be used as a definitive resource, 2001-10-04
As an instructor in equity options for a major market making firm, I've been looking for an introductory text to supplement the lecture material presented in our training classes. While MacMillan and Natenberg have written great books on the topic, the former is not specific enough to our market making business and the latter is too advanced for the beginner. In looking for something in between these two fine works, someone suggested to me the Williams/Hoffman book. It has been unsatisfactory in several respects. Explanations of some concepts appear out of context with the material being covered, some others are very muddled, and some are just plain wrong. The book also suffers from a trait common to many traders-turned-authors in that while the authors may be very knowledgable about their subject they aren't very good at conveying - at least in book form - that knowledge to others. While students with previous exposure to options concepts may be able to overcome these deficiencies, I wouldn't recommend this book to the beginner. The beginner would be much better served by picking up MacMillan's timeless classic.