ISBN1566984750

good book with lots of worked examples detailing financial mathematics such as annuities and interest rates. Do all examples for exam success

An excellent supplement to the interest theory portion of the course 2 actuarial examination. Provides many problems and more thorough mathematical explanations of many of the concepts. Some are more detailed than required for understanding of the exam syllabus, but it is still worthwhile to work as many problems as time permits.

I liked the explanations of some concepts better than the standard text for this course (Kellison), but a linear reading of this material would take too much study time away from other topics.

Conclusion: Use as supplemental material, but very useful nonetheless.

Like all of the Actex texts that I have seen, "Mathematics of Investment and Credit" is cheaply produced and poorly presented. It covers all of the main areas of financial math: interest rates, annuities, bonds etc, and with worked examples, but even with the examples, I found the material to be poorly explained and often difficult to comprehend. There is a reasonably large number of exercises in this text. However, presumably because Actex also sells a solutions manual to accompany this book, the solutions are only given to selected questions and no working is provided.

This is the textbook that was prescribed when I took Financial Mathematics at university. At the time, I found this book so difficult to follow that I ended up buying a second financial math text, Theory of Interest, and working from that instead. Without that second book, I don't think I would have done nearly as well in that unit.

I just completed working though this book in preparation for the FM exam. While I though that the presentation of the concepts were straightforward, I found that the book was riddles with mistakes... not crucial mistakes, but errors in the examples that were clearly a result of the author perhaps entering a 10% when it ought to have been a 5% or the like. I am currently compiling a list to send him. Like I said, not fatal errors, but enough to be frustrating.