Thales of Miletus was born on the 7th century B.C (the year of the 35th Olympiad) and according to Diogenes Laërtius he was one of the Seven Sages of Greece (the first to be actually quoted in Dioegenes’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers). He is one of the most ancient Greek scientists to be known, he appears to be one of the oldest astronomer and geometer as well as the founder of the Ionian school. According to Diogenes (who quotes an anecdote of Hieronymus of Rhodes), Thales wanted to show how easy it was to get rich to the people of Miletus. Thanks to his unrivaled knowledge in astronomy he forecasted a great olive harvest for the next year; he reserved olive presses and then won a lot of money. In other words Thales invented the concept of derivatives (actually a call option) as he paid a premium (by paying a fee to reserve the olive presses) and bet on the upside (the abundant harvest) thanks to his view on the climatic conditions.
Through the name of this website we wanted to pay a tribute to Thales’ philosophy and sagacity.
As a team of financial markets professionals we study the behavior of financial instruments and techniques to ensure an adequate valuation of financial products. We also pay a careful attention to the evolution of technologies and the different computational ways to get to the price of a financial instrument.
We hope that this journey into our articles will be fruitful to the reader.
Feel free to contact us in case you would like to share opinions or to discuss specific topics:
contact@smileofthales.com
Team Smile of Thales
venkata
Excellent Content. Can you please share more details of sources where we read more of this kind of stuff.
Manish Sharma
Hello All,
Appreciate your views on various topics. I have been struggling to understand swap valuation. I tried reading various white papers, got some hint of the basics, hit curve building, and got lost in the complex mathematics. I understand mathematics, have gone through calculus in my school days, but am not at that advanced a level to understand and apply all the stated techniques. I am looking forward to hone my skills in the domain of valuation, and would greatly appreciate if you can help me achieve this in a simpler way. I will put my best efforts into understanding mathematics, but would sincerely want someone to start in a simpler fashion.
I work in Product Control for an IB, but have not been completely able to understand the drivers of my pnl in detail, since I lack knowledge on valuations and associated movements in valuations based on market drivers.
Kindly help/suggest.
Thanks and Regards
Manish