Quantitative finance is the use of mathematical models and large datasets to analyse financial markets and securities. It is also my area of work and as well as the field of my graduate studies. My role as a desk quant at Barclays made use of the field extensively. My area of focus was interest rate modeling, which encompasses many of the fundamental concepts of quantitative finance due to the complexity and high-dimensionality of many of the products traded in the fixed income space.
To me, quantitative finance is interesting because it builds upon many core areas of maths in interesting and practical ways. In particular, it utilises stochastic calculus, probability and statistics.
In the following series of posts, I aim to introduce and delve into key areas within quantitative finance. My aim is to approach these topics with the spin of a practitioner - someone who practices what he preaches.