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Quant Finance Boot Camp

Fall 2025

Sep 10, 2025

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Dec 19, 2025

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Registration Deadlines

Jul 2, 2025

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All Erdős Summer 2025 Career Launch Cohort or Alumni Club members who are not participating in another Launch bootcamp

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Category

Launch, Certificate Program

Overview

This boot camp is designed to provide participants with a solid grasp of fundamental probabilistic techniques applied in financial markets.

Slack

Click here to be invited to the slack organization: The Erdős Institute

Click here to access the slack cohort channel: #slack-cohort-channel

Click here to access the slack program channel: #slack-program-channel

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Click here to download the Events & Deadlines .ics calendar file

Organizers, Instructors, and Advisors

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Thomas Polstra

Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Office Hours:

Wednesday 12:00-1:00 central

Email:

Preferred Contact:

Slack

Do not hesitate to reach out with any questions you may have through Slack @Thomas Polstra

Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Use probabilistic techniques to predict stock movement volatility using historical data. Use volatility predictions to evaluate a portfolio's value at risk and to price European option contracts using Monte-Carlo methodology. Create accurate European option price predictions by enhancing Monte-Carlo simulations through the use of control variates. Accuracy will be measured against closed-form solutions to option contracts provided by Black-Scholes option pricing equations. Adjust Monte-Carlo simulations of European contracts for the purpose of pricing more complicated option contracts whose expected value does not have a closed form solutions. Such option contracts may include American, Asian, lookback, and barrier option contracts. Develop hedging strategies which minimize risk and improve expected profit distributions of an option investment strategy. Backtest a trading strategy using historical stock prices.

Disclaimer:
By enrolling in this course you agree that in no event shall the Erdős Institute, its affiliates and their respective employees, agents, representatives and content providers or service providers be liable for damages of any kind, including, without limitation, direct, indirect, compensatory, special, incidental, punitive and consequential damages even if made aware of the possibility of such damages, whether in an action under contract, negligence or other theory, arising out of or in connection with the use, inability to use or performance of any course content, materials or services.

First Steps/Prerequisites

 
 
Zoom Passcode for Lectures:
 
039772
 
Zoom Passcode for Office Hours:
 
527363
First Steps

Program Content

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Course materials are available on github through the following link:

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Request Access to GitHub

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Program Content

Textbook/Notes

Note: our video player does not support playback speed options. You can find a third party browser extension which will allow you to modify video playback speed. For example, this one works for Chrome: video-speed-controller. If you would prefer to avoid a browser extension you can manually modify the playback speed in the javascript console as well: Speed up any HTML5 video player!

Orientation

Overview of Course

Description of Course and Expectation for Certificate

Transcript
Code

Using yfinance, introduction to volatility, and stock modeling

Lecture

Introduction to analyzing financial data with yfinance, modeling random walks, and measuring volatility.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Black-Scholes Equations

Lecture

Derive the closed form solution of the value of a call and put option when stock paths distributions are assumed to be geometric brownian motions and risk-free.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Black-Scholes and Real World Stock Paths

Lecture

An examination of Black-Scholes assumptions versus real-world stock path movements.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Probability Review

Lecture

Probability Review

Slides
Transcript
Code

Stock paths as GBM

Lecture

Stock paths as geometric Brownian motion and vectorized coding for fast simulation

Slides
Transcript
Code

Delta Hedging

Lecture

Delta Hedging and MC simulation

Slides
Transcript
Code

Implied Volatility in Market Data

Lecture

Look into implied volatilities and overview of the Heston model.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Probability Review and Probabilistic Methods in Python

Lecture

Central Limit Theorem review and Probabilistic Methods in Monte-Carlo Simulation

Slides
Transcript
Code

Options and Monte-Carlo Methods 1

Lecture

Estimate the fair market price of a European option using Monte-Carlo methods. Examine the influence of model parameters of stock under Geometric Brownian Assumptions on expected value of an option.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Delta Hedging and MC simulation

Lecture

Delta Hedging and MC simulation

Slides
Transcript
Code

Heston Model Simulation

Lecture

Heston Model simulation in a python coding environment

Slides
Transcript
Code

Project/Homework Instructions

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Project/Team Formation
Project Submission
Projects README

Schedule

Click on any date for more details

Phase 1 - Instruction and Project Completion: Sep 16 - Nov 5, 2025
Project Review & Judging: Nov 6 - Nov 12, 2025
Phase 2 - Intense Interview Prep & Career Connections: Nov 13 - Dec 19, 2025

Orientation

Sep 11, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 02

Sep 18, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 04

Sep 25, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 06

Oct 2, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 08

Oct 9, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 10

Oct 16, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

Oct 31, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 01

Sep 16, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 03

Sep 23, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 05

Sep 30, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 07

Oct 7, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 09

Oct 14, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 11

Oct 21, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Phase II Orientation

Nov 17, 2025 at 07:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

Sep 17, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

Sep 24, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

Oct 1, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

Oct 8, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

Oct 15, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Lecture 12

Oct 30, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Project/Homework Deadlines

Sep 22, 2025

03:59 AM UTC

Last day to defer enrollment to a future cohort

Contact Amalya Lehmann (amalya@erdosinstitute.org) if you would like to unenroll from this cohort and defer to a future cohort.

Nov 8, 2025

04:59 AM UTC

Final Project Due

You must submit all deliverables of your final project by this deadline.

©2017-2025 by The Erdős Institute.

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