Book Bits | 16 December 2017

Predicting Stock Returns: Implications for Asset Pricing
By David G. McMillan
Summary via publisher (Palgrave)
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of asset price movement. It examines different aspects of stock return predictability, the interaction between stock return and dividend growth predictability, the relationship between stocks and bonds, and the resulting implications for asset price movement. By contributing to our understanding of the factors that cause price movement, this book will be of benefit to researchers, practitioners and policy makers alike.

Listening In: Cybersecurity in an Insecure Age
By Susan Landau
Summary via publisher (Yale University Press)
New technologies have provided both incredible convenience and new threats. The same kinds of digital networks that allow you to hail a ride using your smartphone let power grid operators control a country’s electricity—and these personal, corporate, and government systems are all vulnerable. In Ukraine, unknown hackers shut off electricity to nearly 230,000 people for six hours. North Korean hackers destroyed networks at Sony Pictures in retaliation for a film that mocked Kim Jong-un. And Russian cyberattackers leaked Democratic National Committee emails in an attempt to sway a U.S. presidential election.

The Message Is Murder: Substrates of Computational Capital
By Jonathan Beller
Summary via publisher (Pluto Books)
Written as a wake-up call to the field of media studies, The Message is Murder analyses the violence bound up in the everyday functions of digital media. At its core is the concept of ‘computational capital’ – the idea that capitalism itself is a computer, turning qualities into quantities, and that the rise of digital culture and technologies under capitalism should be seen as an extension of capitalism’s bloody logic.

Turning Financial Planning Right-Side Up
By Jeffrey Small
Summary via Amazon.com
Financial planning today is formulaic, redundant and not very helpful to the consumer. This book reveals exactly how Wall Street, financial planners, and the news steer investors into poor and expensive decisions. It prescribes proven alternatives that place readers on a path to reach or exceed the specific yield necessary in their situation.

Credit Risk Analytics: The R Companion
By Harald Scheule, et al.
Summary via Amazon.com
Credit risk analytics in R will enable you to build credit risk models from start to finish. Accessing real credit data via the accompanying website www.creditriskanalytics.net, you will master a wide range of applications, including building your own PD, LGD and EAD models as well as mastering industry challenges such as reject inference, low default portfolio risk modeling, model validation and stress testing. This book has been written as a companion to Credit Risk Analytics: Measurement Techniques, Applications, and Examples in SAS