Books/Resources to begin learning mathematical finance

It is near impossible to try get into a postgraduate financial mathematics course with only a BCom degree so looking for some resources to begin learning the quantitative side of finance on my own. I have had some minimal maths/stats experience but would rather suggestions from complete beginner -> intermediate -> expert.

Any suggestions on topics/books for each level would be appreciated. When I am saying from the bottom, even the mathematical principles before learning stochastic calculus applications in finance is desired. I’d like to be well rounded so coverage of maths/stats/compsci/advanced financial methods equally would be ideal.

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Steven Shreve's Stochastic Calculus for Finance II: Continuous-Time Models is standard reading. Walks you through the basics of stochastic calculus and derivation of the Black-Scholes PDE.

Then read Iain Clark's Foreign Exchange Option Pricing: A Practitioner's Guide for the corresponding equations for FX options.

And of course, John Hull's Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives.

Not sure how much programming experience you have, but Mark Joshi's C++ Design Patterns and Derivatives Pricing provides a primer on C++ and how to implement a Monte Carlo simulation model.

 

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