Derivative instruments - The essentials

Whoever has watched "The Wolf of Wall Street" has likely struggled to understand the jobs, products, jargon that surround financial markets. Some of us are still trying to get our way out of this financial jungle and clarify the associated strategies. Let's demystify these!

In close collaboration with PwC's subject matter experts, PwC's Academy has developed a comprehensive, multi-layered training curriculum for junior and more experienced financial industries’ employees and managers alike, who seek to gain a solid knowledge of derivative instruments.

With the 'Derivative instruments - The essentials' module, participants will get a primary introduction to the derivative's world.

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• understand derivative instruments concept;
• gain a sound understanding of underlying financial instruments such as interest rates, bonds, currencies, and stock indexes, and their roles in the financial markets;
• learn about the main features of derivative contracts, both listed and over-the-counter (OTC) and how they are used for hedging and speculative trading;
• obtain foundational knowledge on derivatives market and investors' strategies, with a focus on futures, forwards, swaps and credit derivatives.

• Some useful insights about underlying instruments such as interest rates, bonds, currencies and stock indexes;
• Main features of a derivative contract, listed or OTC;
• Forward contracts and the role of the yield curve;
• Futures contracts, specific features of the trading on an exchange;
• The use of forwards and of futures contracts for hedging and for speculative trading purpose;
• Swap contracts (IRS, CRS) and swap rates market; importance of the ISDA contract;
• Options: main features, in-the-money (ITM), out-of-the-money (OTM), at-the-money (ATM) options, volatility, and basic option strategies, use of options vs use of forwards/futures;
• Credit derivatives: how to define and measure credit risk? The CDS market.

This training is coordinated by Samir Moussaoui, Director and Solimane Bsiss, Senior Manager at PwC Luxembourg.

Samir helps lead our AVS practice in managing and delivering a diverse range of alternative investments and assets valuation engagements, in the context of assurance and non-assurance services, to local and international clients and PwC offices. He has exposure to a wide range of valuation methodologies such as discounted cash flow models, trading and transaction multiple valuations, net asset value approach as well as milestone analyses, primarily in the context of financial reporting.

Samir is Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Valuation Surveyor (MRICS).

Solimane is senior manager within our Valuations Services (VS) practice and leads a high-performance quantitative team specializing in the valuation of Derivatives and Structured Products as well as Private Debt.

Solimane joined PwC in 2008 and has gained extensive knowledge and experience in the field of valuation of financial assets. He has extensive experience working on various valuation models such as Discounted Cash Flow models, Credit Spread models, Black models, Monte Carlo simulation, among others.