Important external links
Guide to the SoA written exams
Desmos: An online graphing and scientific calculator
Lecture notes and the like
A few “shortcuts” for R and RStudio
Here are some resources I created for Applied Statistics. They will be useful in this course as well and can be used in conjunction with our lecture notes.
Class 1: August 24th, 2026
Orientation.
Important prerequisite topics: A checklist of the prerequisite material.
Class 2: August 26th, 2026
Setting up R and
RStudio. Basics of R: Arithmetic. Vectors. R-scripts.
Class 3: August 28th, 2026
For
loops. Functions in R. If ... else in R.
R-notebooks.
Problem Set #1: Problems we will work on in class
Problem Set #1: Solutions from class
Background.
Lecture One: Background.
Homework #1 – due on Friday, September 4th, 2026
Class 4: August 31st, 2026
Prerequisite
review.
Problem Set #2: Problems we will work on in class
Problem Set #2: Solutions
Class 5: September 2nd, 2026
Standing
assumptions and conventions. Risky assets. Transaction costs.
Lecture Two: Transaction Costs
Lecture Three: Standing Assumptions and conventions
Outright purchase.
Class 6: September 4th, 2026
Historical returns
of stocks.
Wikipedia: Stock market index
The Normal Distribution from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project by Ian McLeod
Homework #2 – due on Friday, September 11th, 2026
Project #1
Alphabet data – the data for Project #1
Project #1 – due on Monday, September 21st, 2026
Project #1 - this is the Rmd file which you are more than welcome to use to neatly complete your project
Class 7: September 9th, 2026
Short
sales.
Investopedia: On margin accounts for short sales
On portfolios.
The R-notebook for class: Problems
The R-notebook from class: Complete solutions
Class 8: September 11th, 2026
Payoff and
profit.
Lecture Four: Initial cost, payoff and profit (the simplest case).
Problem Set #3: Problems we will work on in class
Problem Set #3: Solutions
Homework #3 – due on Friday, September 18th, 2026
Class 9: September 14th, 2026
Basic risk
management. Forward contracts.
Lecture Five: Basic risk management. Forwards.
Class 10: September 16th, 2026
Hedging using
forward contracts.
Wikipedia: Hedging
Problem Set #4: Problems
Problem Set #4: Solutions
Class 11: September 18th, 2026
European call
options.
Lecture Six: European call options.
Problem Set #5: Problems
Problem Set #5: Solutions
Class 12: September 21st, 2026
Hedging with
European call options.
Class 13: September 23rd, 2026
European put
options. Moneyness.
Lecture Seven: European put options. Moneyness.
Class 14: September 25th, 2026
Hedging using
European put options.
