Significato

ALABAMA：Indian， "thicket-clearers"  or  "vegetation-gatherers" 

AlASKA: Arabian，"great land"  or "that which the seas breaks against"

ARIZONA：Indian "Arimnac"，"hule spring" 

ARKANSAS：Indian，"a breeze near the ground"

CALIFORNIA：French "Califerne"，a wonderland in French literature in 11 century 

COLORADO：Spanish ,"ruddy" or "red"

CONNETICUT：Indian，"beside the long tidal river"

DELAWARE：In honor of "Sir Thomas West, Lord De La Warr"

FRORIDA：Spanish, "feast flowers(Easter)"，Easter Holiday

GEORGIA：In honor of George II of England.

HAWAII：Unsure. In honor of (Hawaii Loa) ，or in honor of Bohomian’s hometown Hawaii or Hawaiki

IDAHO：Indian，"gem of the mountains",or "Good morning"

ILLINOIS：Indian French "tribe of superior men" INDIANA：Indian, "land of Indians"

IOWA：Indian, "the beatiful land" or "the sleepy ones" KANSAS：Indian,"people of the south wind"

KENTUCKY：Indian "Ken-tah-ten"，"land of tomorrow"or"the dark or bolldy ground"

LOUISIANA : "In honor of Louis XIV fo France".

MAINE：In honor of "Henrietta Maria, Queen fo Charles I of England" she owned "The province of Mayne in France"

MARYLAND："In honor of Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I of England".

MASSACHUSETTS：Indian, "great mountain place"

MICHIGAN：Indian，"great lake"or"big water"

MINNESOTA：Indian , "sky-tinted water"

MISSISSIPPI：Indian, "father of waters"

MISSOURI：Indian, "town of the Large canoes"

MONTANA：Latin spanish

NEBRASKA：Indian，"flat water"

NEVADA：Spanish, "snow-capped"

NEW HAMPSHIRE：In honor of british town "Hampshire"

NEW JERSEY："the Channel Isle of Jersey"

NEW MEXICO："the country of Mexico"

NEW YORK："In honor of the English Duke of York"

NORTH CAROLINA："In honor of Charles I of England".

NORTH DAKOTA：Indian，"allies"or"leagued"

OHIO：Indian,"great river"

OKLAHOMA：Indian,"red people"

OREGON：Unsure,derived from a book written by the british capitain (Robert Rogers)

PENNSYLVANIA：In honor of "Sir William Penn”，"penn‘s Woodland"

RHODE ISLAND："the Greek Island of Rhodes"

SOUTH CAROLINA："In honor of Charles I of England"

TENNESSEE：Indian，"the vines of the big bend"

TEXAS：Indian,"friends" UTAH：Indian, "people of the mountains"

VERMONT：French "vert mont"，"green mountain"

VIRGINIA："In honor of Elizabeth I，’Virgin Queen‘ of England"

WASHINGTON："In honor of George Washington"

WISCONSIN：French indian, Unsure WYOMING：Indian,"mountains and valleys alternating"

Geography

A continent is derived from Latin continere meaning "to hold together".

 

In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete. For Homer, Europa (Greek: Ευρώπη) was a mythological queen of Crete. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece and by 500 BC its meaning was extended to lands to the north. The Greek term Europe is derived from Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops), broad having been an epitheton of Earth herself in Proto-Indo-European religion. A minority, however, suggest a Greek popular etymology really based on a Semitic word, pointing to Akkadian erebu which means "sunset" . From a Middle Eastern viewpoint, the sun sets over Europe: the lands to the west. Likewise, Asia, Greek Ασία /a.si.a/, is also thought to have derived from the Akkadian word asu, which means "sunrise" and is the land to the east. The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who used the name Africa terra — "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular) — for the northern part of the continent. The origin of Afer may either come from the Afri, a tribe who dwelt in North Africa in the Carthage area; the Greek word aphrike, meaning without cold; or the Latin word aprica, meaning sunny. The name Australia is derived from the Latin australis, meaning southern. Legends of an "unknown southern land" (terra australis incognita) date back to the Roman times, and were commonplace in mediæval geography, but were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent. The earliest known use of the name America for the continents of the Americas dates from 1507. It appears on a globe and a large map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. An accompanying book  explains that the name was derived from the Latinized version of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci‘s name, Americus Vespucius, in its feminine form, America, as the other continents all have Latin feminine names. The Pacific Ocean (from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan) is the world’s largest body of water. Atlantic Ocean ,the ocean’s name is derived from Greek mythology, means the "Sea of Atlas". In Greek mythology, Atlas was a member of a race of giant gods. 

New York Autumn

 

Autumn comes. Outside becomes cold when the night falls. Today is even colder than yesterday. The worst thing is that it’s raining this evening. New York autumn is so different from what I expected. Compare it with Cambridge, I prefer the latter. I particularly like Cambridge in the night and in fall. While I walked down the River Cam in the early evening, I would observe the beauty of the city: the lawns and the falling leaves make Cambridge like a national park.  

 

As the weather changed, I am thinking about to take off my air conditioner.  I put my French textbook and PC on the extra chair I took from the downstairs security guard. Suddenly, my small room looks very organized. This morning , I washed all the clothes and turned the AC on for the whole day to dry them on. Aunt Gu is visiting me on this Friday. However I want to go to the Wagashi shop on the fifth avenue. Japanese is an interesting language. Most characters are from ancient Chinese Song style calligraphy, but grammars and pronunciations are more like those of English. My interest to linguistics has been fully discovered in New York.

 

Cassie sent me an email to ask the answer for the 2nd mini-case. I just realized that it is due tomorrow!! There are also lots of readings in the Mid-East Econ class. Tonight, I might not be able to sleep 

Options and Futures

Mikhail Smirnov (smirnov@cpw.math.columbia.edu) 

To: smirnov@cpw.math.columbia.edu

Subject: Matching Lectures to Chapters in Hull‘s book

 

The following is the matching of class lectures to the Hull‘s book. The lectures that are not mentioned here but mentioned in Syllabus have no match in the Hull‘s book.Hull’s Chapters are from the 6th edition.   9/7 Introductory lecture. Overview. Basic assets: cash, stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities. How they are traded. Forward contracts. Arbitrage. Hull Chapter 1   9/14 Futures, options, other derivatives. Mechanics of the futures markets. Margins, margin calls. Contango and backwardation. Futures trading. CTA’s, their strategies, risk management of CTA’s, Margin to Equity, leverage, drawdown. Sharpe and other ratios. Basics of portfolio optimization. Hull Chapter 2, Capter 3, Chapter 5   9/19 Options and options combinations. Straddles, strangles, spreads etc. Hull Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10   9/28The Black-Scholes model. Parameters of the model. Historical volatility, implied volatility, volatility smile. Put-Call parity. More complex option strategies. Investments. Traditional long investments. Long/Short and Market Neutral investments. Arbitrage strategies. Use of derivatives for investment management. Hull Chapter 13   10/3 Analogy between the behavior of the stock prices and Brownian motion. Ideas of L. Bachelier and B. Mandelbrot. Other models. Elementary description of Brownian motion. Further properties of Brownian motion. Geometric Brownian Motion and its properties.  Hull Chapter 12   10/5 Log-Normal distribution as a resulting price distribution from Geometric Brownian Motions. Black-Scholes formula through expected payoff. American options. Early exercise. Options on dividend paying stocks, currencies and futures. Hull Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14   10/10 Risk-Free portfolio. Risk-Neutral valuation of options. (Key concept). A one step binomial model. Examples. Hull Chapter 17   10/12 Trading and hedging of options. Greeks (sensitivities with respect to the inputs of the Black-Scholes): Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, Rho. Trading Gamma. Hedging of other greeks. Dynamic option replication. Hull Chapter 15, Chapter 16   10/17 Ito lemma and its use. Hull chapter 12   10/19 Derivation of the Black-Scholes equation using risk-free portfolio. Black-Scholes price as a solution of that equation using appropriate boundary conditions. Hull Chapter 13 10/19. Martingales. Martingale methods. Hull Chapter 25   10/24 Risk measurment and risk management. Value-At-Risk, CVAR. Calculation and usage of Value-At-Risk. Methods of calculation Value-At-Risk (covariance matrix, historical, simulation). Examples. Alternative risk measures. Hull Chapter 18   11/2 Elements of bond math. Duration and Convexity. Bond options. Hull Chapter 4   11/28 Use of derivatives techniques. Derivatives abuses and disasters.