Financial modeling with Crystal Ball and Excel (Q2904642)

The book is written to help statisticians, financial analysts and other interested persons learn how to build and interpret the results of Crystall Ball\(^{\circledR}\) models for decision support. Instructors with a practical bent may also find it useful as a supplement for courses in finance, statistics, management science and industrial engineering. The book consists of 16 chapters. The first six chapters cover the features of Crystal Ball and OptQuest. Several examples illustrate how these programs can be used to enhance deterministic Excel models for stochastic financial analysis and planning. The remaining ten chapters provide more detailed examples of how Crystal Ball and OptQuest can be used in financial risk analysis of investments in securities, derivatives, real options and project management. The technical appendices provide details about the methods used by Crystal Ball in its algorithms and a description of some methods of variance reduction. All of the models described in the book are available through a link to a web site from which a trial version of Crystal Ball may also be downloaded.