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Quant Finance Boot Camp

Summer 2025

May 8, 2025

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Aug 15, 2025

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Registration Deadlines

May 8, 2025

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Summer 2025 Cohort participants

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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.

Relevant Resources:

Basic Probability: Introduction to Probability by Grinstead and Snell (Available online for free)

Financial Mathematics:

Stochastic Calculus for Finance I and II by Steven Shreve
Mathematics for Finance An Introduction to Financial Engineering by Capiński and Zastawniak

Economics:
Market Microstructure Theory by O'Hara
Asset Pricing by John Chrane

Slack

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

Click here to access the slack channel: #slack-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: 592607
 
Zoom Passcode for Office Hours: 082126
 
 
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!

Lecture 12

The Heston Model and Market Data

Overview of Monte-Carlo methods and the Heston model. Also contains a demonstrating of calibrating a Heston model to market option data.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Lecture 9

Advanced Monte-Carlo Methods

Explores Monte-Carlo accurate simulation of call option prices through Delta based control variants. The same principles are used to explore expected payoffs of regularly delta-hedged portfolios.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Lecture 6

Call/Put Options and Black-Scholes

Intro to Call/Put Options and how to derive fair market value under the standard Black-Scholes assumptions.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Lecture 3

Random Walks

Random Walks and Modeling Random Walks in a Python Environment.

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Transcript
Code

Lecture 11

Introduction to the Heston Model

An overview of the Heston model and its use in option portfolio management.

Slides
Transcript
Code

Lecture 8

Delta Hedging Call Options

Impact of hedging an option portfolio through buying/selling stock.

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Transcript
Code

Lecture 5

Stock path models

Lecture is on deriving the Geometric Brownian Motion model of a stock path as a limit of binomial trees.

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Lecture 2

Correlation, Covariance Matrices, and volatility

Overview of volatility and the effect of diversification.

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Lecture 10

Exploring volatility trends with real data

We look at historical volatility data in comparison to Black-Scholes assumptions. We also look at real-time market prices of options and paper trade options to see the effect of delta hedging.

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Lecture 7

Intro to delta hedging

Review of Black-Scholes Option pricing, risk-free pricing method, and introduction to delta heding.

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Lecture 4

Random walks and binomial trees

Overview of binomial tree method to random walks and towards geometric brownian motion.

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Lecture 1

Review of Probability

Review of probability and the use of probabilistic methods in Python.

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Transcript
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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: May 13 - Jul 2, 2025
Project Review & Judging: Jul 3 - Jul 9, 2025
Phase 2 - Intense Interview Prep & Career Connections: Jul 10 - Aug 15, 2025

Class 1

May 13, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 3

May 20, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 5

May 27, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

May 28, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

Jun 4, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

Jun 11, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

Jun 18, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 10, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 17, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 24, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 31, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 7, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 14, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

May 14, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

May 21, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Office Hour

May 28, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 6

May 29, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 8

Jun 5, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 10

Jun 12, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 12

Jun 19, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 11, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 18, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 25, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 1, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 8, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 15, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

EVENT

Class 2

May 15, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 4

May 22, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Office Hour

May 28, 2025 at 05:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 7

Jun 3, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 9

Jun 10, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Class 11

Jun 17, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Technical Interview Prep Overview

Jul 8, 2025 at 06:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 11, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 18, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)

Jul 25, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 1, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 8, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Quant Finance Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)

Aug 15, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC

EVENT

Project/Homework Deadlines

May 8, 2025

03:59 AM UTC

Last chance to switch bootcamps

Email Amalya Lehmann at amalya@erdosinstitute.org if you would like to switch to a different bootcamp.

May 20, 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 this cohort and defer to a future cohort.

Jun 28, 2025

04:59 AM UTC

Mini Projects Due

See Project/Homework submission instructions

©2017-2025 by The Erdős Institute.

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