The Math of Money: Making Mathematical Sense of Your Personal Finances [Paperback]

This lively and practical introduction to the mathematics of money invites us to take a fresh look at the numbers that underpin our financial decisions. Morton D. Davis talks about strategies to use when we are required to bet against the odds (purchasing auto insurance) or choose to bet against the odds (wagering in a casino or at the track). He considers the ways in which we can streamline and simplify the choices available to us in mortgages and other loans. And he helps us understand the real probabilities when we accept a tip on that one in a thousand stock, even when the tip comes from a successful day trader. With a wealth of entertaining and counterintuitive examples, The Math of Money delights as well as informs, and will help readers treat their financial resources more rationally.This book reflects one mathematician's view of certain areas of economics and finance. It is not a how-to book, it is not exhaustive or rigorous, and it comes with no guarantee of instant wealth. It tries to maximize the use of the reader's imagination and minimize rote calculation. Although some mathematical background is assumed, ordinary high school algebra will usually suffice. Whenever possible, a verbal rather than a mathematical explanation is given, but where formulas serve a useful purpose they are introduced without derivation or apology. We are primarily concerned with concepts rather than applications, so many topics of practical importance are omitted or papered over-we do not worry about taxes, commissions, and fees and we assume an ideal world in which assets can always be bought at the same price for which they can be sold, and where loans have the same interest rate whether you make them or take them. On the other hand, we sniff out paradoxes and anomalies that chal? lenge our intuition. At the beginning of each chapter we generally pose a few problems that are discussed later in the text. The reader is invited to use his l³3