Options, futures, & other derivatives

What Hacker News says

1. lordnachoJan 2026
   Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives by Hull, that's the classic.

   Not sure how exotic he gets but likely the page that sells this book will have other options books.

   I think there's one by Espen Hauge about exotics.

   Relevant book by Nassim Taleb (before his big break) is Dynamic Hedging, which tells you what to do with your option risk once you have it.

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2. lordnachoMay 2023
   Hull. Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives.

   Also Wilmott. Can't remember the name but it will be obvious.

   It's pretty much high school math, you establish what the cash flows are and the value of the thing flows from there. When it comes to optionality you probably haven't done stochastic calculus in high school, but you can follow along anyway. Both books will explain interesting things like how to price an option on an option, that kind of thing. Non-arbitrage is what holds the the whole thing together: if the price didn't follow {rules} then you could do {steps} to make free money.

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3. epguiDec 2021
   More recently, I've really enjoyed:

   - Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives (John C. Hull): https://www.amazon.ca/Options-Futures-Other-Derivatives-10th...

   - Financial Accounting Theory (Scott & O'Brien): https://www.amazon.ca/Financial-Accounting-Theory-8th-Editio...

   - Networks (Mark Newman): https://www.amazon.ca/Networks-Mark-Newman/dp/0198805098/

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4. guard0gApr 2021
   Nowadays RL and Gaussian processes are very popular on the trading side, as is applying attention-based NLP techniques for pattern recognition. If you are interested in stochastic calculus and convex strategies, John Hull's "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives" is a classic read. Another good book is Marcos Lopez de Prado's "Advances in Financial Machine Learning."
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5. omarhaneefJan 2021
   I would look up two terms:

   Covered calls

   Naked puts

   If you want to go heavy duty into it I recommend the Hull book (options, futures and other derivatives) but for your purposes the investopedia articles are enough.

   Basically naked puts means you’re selling downside insurance so if the stock crashes you eat the loss. Covered calls mean you sell upside risk but have the stock so if it goes up you make a little.

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6. GrustafDec 2020
   If you need to understand derivatives then start with Hull: Options, Futures and Other Derivatives. Then read Björk: Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time. Both excellent books in their own ways.

   But it depends completely on what kind of finance you’ll be doing!

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