This is one of the most refreshing Quantitative Finance books that have come along in the last few years. This book has been a work in process from the author for at least four or five years.
Glyn Holton's mathematical background and experience as practising risk managemer and consultant is thoroughly reflected in character of this book. The notation is consistent and logical, the mathematical/theoretical presentation is rigorous but accessible to pretty much all the intermediate/advanced undergrad students.
The emphasis is on the methodological process of building a model rather than directly presenting the final product itself. This is in contrast to most of the Value-at-Risk books on the markets which up to this point, have been written mainly by academics (University professors) rather than practitioners.
Throughout the book, Mr. Holton keeps emphasizing the duality of VaR metrics in terms of the exposure and the uncertainty of its underlying portfolio. And using the conceptual differences of these two components of risk as starting point, the relevant mathematical, probabilistic, and statistical background material are presented. For the exposure component of risk, Holton presented the mathemcatical mapping procedure; while for the uncertainty component, the conditional distribution characteristization of the risk factors are thoroughly investigated. This 'Bottom-up' analytical approach breaks down the VaR metrics into its 'atomical' parts. From there the VaR measure is methodologically built from the ground up. As result all the VaR models are presented under a uniform theoretical umbrella. This is in contrast with a 'disjointed list of VaR models' approach taken by most of the available literature up to this point. The result is a book suitable for beginners and advanced practitioners alike. Well done Glyn.
