Risk is an intrinsic component of finance that both dictates and complicates investments and companies. This book offers an exceptionally thorough and ambitious introduction to financial risk and risk management direct from the capital markets editor of The Economist.

Dealing with Financial Risk presents key concepts in a simple and entertaining way by explaining the endeavors, mistakes, and successes of others as they tried to identify, measure, and simplify risk and make it work for them. It includes analysis of some of the recent corporate disasters and what each has added to the understanding of financial risk, including Baring Brothers in 1995, Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, and Enron in 2001. In addition, the book explores the risks of the financial system as a whole and analyzes recent attempts to ensure greater stability within the system.



This book will become a standard introduction to the concept of financial risk and the realities of financial risk management. Written for the intelligent layman as well as for a company or bank executive or a student who needs an introduction or refresher course on risk, Dealing with Financial Risk capitalizes on the pervasiveness and persistence of the topic.



Contents:

The growth of modern financial markets -- Market theory -- Derivatives and leverage -- Temples to risk management -- Models for everyman -- Credit models get a thrashing -- The rise of the firm-wide risk manager -- Basel 2 is born, a new regulatory regime -- In praise of liquidity, funding and time horizons -- ART exhibitions -- Sibylline books -- The play's the thing -- What lies ahead -- Lessons from Metallgesellschaft -- Lessons from the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management -- The crash of Mulhouse Brand -- The Sigma affair.



About the Author

David Shirreff is the Frankfurt correspondent of The Economist covering business and finance. Before that, he was the capital markets editor of The Economist in London. He has also written about banking and risk management for EuroMoney and he co-founded Risk magazine in 1987.