Continuous Stochastic Calculus with Applications to Finance

Book Description

The prolonged boom in the US and European stock markets has led to increased interest in the mathematics of security markets, most notably in the theory of stochastic integration. This text gives a rigorous development of the theory of stochastic integration as it applies to the valuation of derivative securities. It includes all the tools necessary for readers to understand how the stochastic integral is constructed with respect to a general continuous martingale. The author develops the stochastic calculus from first principles, but at a relaxed pace that includes proofs that are detailed, but streamlined to applications to finance. The treatment requires minimal prerequisites-a basic knowledge of measure theoretic probability and Hilbert space theory-and devotes an entire chapter to application in finances, including the Black Scholes market, pricing contingent claims, the general market model, pricing of random payoffs, and interest rate derivatives. Continuous Stochastic Calculus with Application to Finance is your first opportunity to explore stochastic integration at a reasonable and practical mathematical level. It offers a treatment well balanced between aesthetic appeal, degree of generality, depth, and ease of reading.

Customer Reviews:

Material every quantitative financial analyst should know........2006-01-25

Time spent to read the book in detail: Four weeks
The book, 295 pages, is ordered as follows:

Chapter 1 (First 50 pages):
These cover discreet time martingale theory.

Expectation/Conditional expectation: The coverage here is unusual and I found it irritating. The author defines conditional expectation of variables in e(P) - the space of extended random variables for which the expectation is defined - i.e. either E(X+) or E(X-) is defined - rather than the more traditional space L^1(R) - the space of integrable random variables. The source of irritation is that the former is not a vector space. Thus given a variable X in e(P) and another variable Y, in general X+Y will not be defined, for example if EX+ = infinity, EY= - infinity. As a result, one is constantly having to worry about whether one can add variables or not, a real pain. Perhaps an example might help:

Suppose I have two variables X1 AND X2. If I am in the space L^1 then I know both are finite almost everywhere (a.e) and so I can create a third variable Y through addition by setting say Y = X1+X2. In the treatment here however, I have to be careful since it is not a priori clear that X1+X2 is defined a.e. What I need is - one of the proofs in the book - that E(X1)+E(X2) be defined (i.e. it is not the case that one is + infinity the other -infinity). If both E(X1)and E(X2) are finite this reduces to the L^1 case. However, because the Author chooses to work in e(P), we still have, in order to show even this basic result, quite a bit of boring work to do. Specifically: if E(X1) = +infinity then we must have, recall the definition of e(P), that E(X1^+)= +infinity AND E(X1-) < -infinity and also, because E(X1)+E(X2) is defined E(X2)> -infinity and so , since X2 is in e(P), that E(X2^-) < -infinity. Now since,
(X1+X2)^- <= (X1)^- +(X2)^-, we have
E(X1+X2)- less than infinity which shows that a)X1+X2 is defined a.e. and b) it is in e(P).A little more work shows that, E(X1)+E(X2) =E(X1)+E(X2).

When one introduces conditioning the above irritation continues. We have that if X is in e(P) that the conditional expectation E(X|L) exist and is in , not as is standard in the literatureL^1, but rather, in e(P). Consequently we can no longer carry out simple operations, normally done without thinking, such as E(X1|L)+ E(X2|L)= E(X1+X2|L), but rather have to pause to check if as in the example above that E(X1|L)+ E(X2|L) is defined etc, etc.

Submartingale , Supermartingales ,Martingales: The definitions here again are a little unusual. The variables for both Sub and Super martingales are taken to be, yet again, in e(P). This in turn forces the definition:

A submartingale is an adapted process X = (Xn,Fn) such that:

1) E(Xn^+) <¥ ( The Standard in the literature is to have E(Xn) <¥
2) E( Xn+1|Fn)>=Xn
Likewise for a supermartingale we get:

A supermartingale is an adapted process X = (Xn,Fn) such that:
1) E(Xn^-) <¥ ( The Standard in the literature is to have E(Xn) <¥
2) E( Xn+1|Fn) <=Xn

These definitions, along with the fact that a martingale is both a supermartingale and submartingale, lead then to the standard - as appears in the literature - definition of a martingale.

Stopping Times, Upcrossing Lemmas, Modes of Convergence: The treatment here is quite nice - modulo the e(P)- inconvenience. The proofs are all given in detail. And the level is at that of Chung's "A Course in Probability Theory", Chapter 9.

Optional Sampling Theorem, Maximal Inequalities: A very rigorous treatment of the Optional Sampling Theorem (OST) is given. The need for closure is emphasized in order for OST to be applied in its full generality. In the absence of closure - the author emphasizes why - it is shown how the OST still applies if the optional times are taken to be bounded. The author then uses these results to show how stopped smartingales - super, sub and marts - are smartingales. Finally, Doobs, submartingle and L^p inequalities are derived.

Chapter 1 (Next 50 pages)

These cover continuous time martingale theory under the assumption that the probability space is complete and the filtration augmented and right continuous.

The treatment here - most of the hard work has already been done in the discreet case - uses the standard bootstrapping technique based on sequences of optional times taking only countable values, along with the assumption of right continuity of paths to generalize the discreet time results - through passing to limits - to analogous ones for a continuous time, i.e. where the index set is a subset of [0, ¥], setting. The Upcrossing lemmas, Convergence results, OST and Doobs inequalities are all derived

Next follows a superb treatment of local martingales.

At this point, and for what follows, the treatment switches to smartingales, with continuous paths.

It is now shown that for any bounded - continuous - martingale M, there exists a unique continuous bounded variation (increasing) process starting at 0 -denoted by [M], such that the process M^2-[M] is a closed martingale. Moreover, it is shown that this process is the limit in L^2 of the Quadratic variation of M. This result is then generalized to the case where M is a local martingale where it is shown that M^2-[M] is also a local martingale and where [M] is now only the limit in probability of the quadratic variation. Next the covariation process for two local martingales [M N] is defined and it is shown that MN -[MN] is again a local martingale.
Finally, integration with respect to integrators of bounded variation is defined for a suitable class of integrands and the "Kunita Watanabe", inequality derived.

All of the above is then extended to the case of Semi Martingales.

Chapter 2 (29 Pages) Brownian Motion
Definition of. Existence is shown. The Weak Markov properties derived. I found the notation in this chapter to be rather cumbersome. One would be better served by skipping this chapter, replacing it instead, by chapter 2 in Karatzas and Shreve's "Brownian Motion and Stochastic Calculus" (KS).

Chapter 3 (80 Pages) Stochastic Integration
This chapter, my favourite in the book, is a detailed discussion of integration with respect to continuous semi-martingales. The approach is modern. The chapter starts with a detailed definition of stochastic integration with respect to a continuous local martingale M. The level of rigour, is at the level of sections 3.1 and 3.2 of KS. However, the approach is different and in my opinion more elegant. Leveraging on the material in chapter 1 the stochastic integral for a square integrable - with respect to the induced product measure-progressively measurable, r.v X is defined to be the unique square integrable local martingale, starting at 0, I, such that for any other continuous local martingale N we have:

[I, N] = X DOT [M,N].

This is then extended to the case where X is only locally pathwise integrable with respect to [M], which is then extended to the case where M is a continuous semi martingale.
It is then shown how in the case where X is simple predictable the above definition yields that suggested by one's intuition, that the space of simple predictable variables is dense in the space of square integrable - with respect to the induced product measure - predictable processes, and that I in this case is an L^2 - this is the usual approach - limit of , with respect to P, of simple integrals.

Following this, is a derivation of Ito's lemma - this says that semimartingales are preserved under smooth transformation. It is then shown that given a P semimartingale X, a probability measure Q equivalent to P, X is a Q semi martingale and its Compensator under Q given by Uq = Up + [logM,X], where M is the Radoyn Nikodym derivative of Q with respect to P. It is then an easy step to conclude that the local martingale component of X under Q is related to that under P by:
LMq = LMp - [logM,X].
Thus the Girsanov theorem is proved. In the case where M is of the form,
M = exp( L - [L]/2), where L is a continuous local martingale, conditions on L , those of Novikov and other weaker one, necessary to make M a martingale are given and proven.

Finally, the Chapter concludes with a detailed section on the Martingale representation theorem. Most of this section is very similar to that in section 3.4 of KS. However, while the treatment there leaves a lot of work for the reader, many of the key results are buried in the exercises, the results here are all spelled out and detailed proofs furnished.

Chapter 4 (84 Pages) Applications to Finance:
I only read, the first 40 pages - the section dealing with the Black and Scholes Economy and that with The General Market Model. The treatment of the Black and Scholes economy - 17 pages -is standard and concise. The General Market model is at the level of chapters 4 and 5 in Nielson Pricing and Hedging of Derivatives Securities"(N). Because however, the Author has spent the time to develop the machinery in detail, unlike in the case Nielsen's 106 pages of "hand waving", the pace is a lot faster and the treatment more general. Moreover, results like, no free lunch with limited risk implying the existence of local martingale measure, based the work of Schaechermayer, something not alluded to in Nielson, are covered here The final 40 or so- which I have not read-pages are devoted to applications of the general theory to pricing specific derivatives.

Good Treatment of Continuous Time Martingales .......2005-06-10

Chapter 1: This is a summary of what every probabilist should know about Continuous Time Martingales. Essentially it does, although in a rather terse fashion, and with no examples, for Continuous Time Martingales, what David Williams book, "Probability and Martingales", does for the discreet time case. By restricting himself to the continuous case, as opposed to the more general cadlag processes, the author is able to provide a simple proof of the Doob Meyer Decomposition. The coverage in this chapter is more extensive than that of Chapter 1 in Karatzas and Shreeve and perhaps closer to ChapterII in Rogers and Williams.

Chapter 2: Essentially a brief introduction to Brownian Motion. I would advize the reader to skip this Chapter and replace it with chapter 2 of Karatzas and Shreves "Stochastic Calculus and Brownian Motion". The coverage there is more rigorous.

Chapter 3:This chapter covers Stochatic Integration with respect to a Continous Time Local Martingales. The coverage here mirrors that of chapter three in Karatazs and Shreve though the notation is perhaps closer in spirit to Chapter 4 of Rogers and Williams, Diffusions, Markhov Processes and Martingales. The construction of the Stochastic Integral is then followed by the usual suspects: Ito's Lemma which says that the SemiMartingale property is preserved under smooth transformations. The Martingale Representation Theorem this says that in the case where the integral is with respect to Brownian Motion, then the integral viewed as a mapping from the space of measurable adapted processes that are square integrable with respect to the product measure onto the space of continuous square integrable martingales is surjective. And last but not least Girsanovs theorem which allows one, modulu the satisfaction of the Novikov Condition, to alter the "drift term" in semi martingales through changing to an equivalent measure.

Chapter 4: I would advice the reader to replace this with chapters 4 and 5 in Nielsen's "Pricing and Hedging of Derivative Securities" for the general theory and chapter 6 for the Black and Scholes Economy. The coverage there is the best I have seen.

Elegant Math Book on Finance - you need the math to read.......2004-01-22

This is a math book first and foremost. It uses advanced mathematical techniques to discuss aspects of randomness that can be used to understand finance. Please don't mistake it for a course to teach concepts in basic finance.

It is a very elegant and sophisticated book for those who are very well versed in the necessary mathematics in stochastic calculus and in particular Martingale theory to show them how these tools can be applied to problems in finance.

If you have the math background and are interested in this topic you will get a lot from this book. If you don't have the math, don't bother. This book will be opaque.

It is indeed meant for learning.......2004-01-02

I completely disagree with Student.

This book is indeed meant for learning. Just do not take it as your first entry into Stochastic Calculus. Take it as a second reading. It is complete, thorough and well, very well written.

It will teach you. A lot. All theorems are cross-referenced, so you will not have any "it is obvious that" etc. Theorems are proved, over and over again, until they hammer themselves in your head.

It is a fine achievement, if you want something quick and dirty read something else.

Not meant for learning.......2001-02-03

Some books are meant to teach, and to elucidate new material; this book is not one of them. It seems the purpose of this book was rather to record for prosperity all theorems related to Stochastic Calculus. Instead of developing any intuition on the subject, the author seems to think the purpose of writing is to use the most elegant proofs with the most modern of mathematical jargon. In short, the book consists of stated lemmas and theorems with terse, undeveloped proofs. This book will not teach you anything.

Stochastic Processes with Applications to Finance

Average customer rating:

For beginners only

Stochastic Processes with Applications to Finance
Masaaki Kijima
Manufacturer: Chapman & Hall/CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1584882247

Book Description

In recent years, modeling financial uncertainty using stochastic processes has become increasingly important, but it is commonly perceived as requiring a deep mathematical background. Stochastic Processes with Applications to Finance shows that this is not necessarily so. It presents the theory of discrete stochastic processes and their applications in finance in an accessible treatment that strikes a balance between the abstract and the practical. Using an approach that views sophisticated stochastic calculus as based on a simple class of discrete processes-"random walks"-the author first provides an elementary introduction to the relevant areas of real analysis and probability. He then uses random walks to explain the change of measure formula, the reflection principle, and the Kolmogorov backward equation. The Black-Scholes formula is derived as a limit of binomial model, and applications to the pricing of derivative securities are presented. Another primary focus of the book is the pricing of corporate bonds and credit derivatives, which the author explains in terms of discrete default models. By presenting important results in discrete processes and showing how to transfer those results to their continuous counterparts, Stochastic Processes with Applications to Finance imparts an intuitive and practical understanding of the subject. This unique treatment is ideal both as a text for a graduate-level class and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in financial engineering, operations research, and mathematical and statistical finance.

Customer Reviews:

For beginners only.......2005-07-08

If you know calculus, there are better books around to learn stochastic processes applied to finance. Its just very basic introductory book.

Stochastic Modeling and Optimization: With Applications in Queues, Finance, and Supply Chains (Springer Series in Operations Research)

Average customer rating:

Stochastic Modeling and Optimization: With Applications in Queues, Finance, and Supply Chains (Springer Series in Operations Research)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387955828

Book Description

This book covers the broad range of research in stochastic models and optimization. Applications covered include networks, financial engineering, production planning and supply chain management. Each contribution is aimed at graduate students working in operations research, probability, and statistics.

Pricing American options with stochastic interest rates: International money market applications (Working paper / Mitsui Life Financial Research Center, ... Administration, University of Michigan)

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Pricing American options with stochastic interest rates: International money market applications (Working paper / Mitsui Life Financial Research Center, ... Administration, University of Michigan)
Kaushik I Amin
Manufacturer: Mitsui Life Financial Research Center, School of Business Administration, University of Michigan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Guide to Resume Writing.......2000-06-14

I recommend this book to anyone who is seeking advice on writing a killer resume and cover letter. I really liked how the author included "real" examples of people struggling to write a good resume; giving a whole sense of practicality. Also, the "real world" advice sections is very useful in providing information regarding what top executives want to see in resumes and cover letters.

Book Description

Providing in-depth coverage of the wine industry and comprehensive self-assessment material, Sales and Service for the Wine Professional is an indispensable one-stop resource for sommeliers, hospitality managers, food and beverage managers, trainers and students. With detailed treatment of recently emerged regions and a continued emphasis on the importance of service, this new, fully international edition offers ideal support for students and trainees on higher educational, vocational and professional courses.

Customer Reviews:

Just a reference item.......2007-04-04

I enjoy having the book as a reference but I would never sit down and ready it from front to back. I did appreciate the clean black and white graphics espically when they were describing a product I have never used. I purchased this item as a supplement to a college class and it has worked out well when I need technical support for project reports.

enthusiast's dream.......2007-02-16

I was first introduced to Mr. Julyan's exciting syllabus through the Court of Master Sommelier's examination process. As both a student of wine and an educator in the hospitality sect, I have found his brief yet thorough writing to be an indispensable reference guide when educating my colleagues at both of my establishments.

For the home enthusiast or even someone just curious about broadening their horizons into a larger world of viticulture and enology, Mr. Julyan's writing broaches the sometimes forboding subject of the old world in an extremely approachable manner, the new world with a sense of excitement and the realms of bartending with both sensetivity toward tradition and the modern mixologist.

For the wine-savvy diner, this book provides valuable insight into the realm of "what should be going on" in the parts of the restaurant world you don't get to see. As a 20 year restaurant veteran, I also greatly appreciated Mr. Julyan's explainations of the difference between the should be's of service versus the nescessary practicality of providing service within the specific constraints of each establishment's environment and ability.

Both an exceptional value and a more approachable read than the sometimes overtly technical wine tomes available, I strongly recommend this to anyone looking to increase the caliber of thier sales and service training in their hospitality career or to soak in a little more than just grape-juice!

Sales and Service of the wine Professional 2nd ed........2007-02-13

Brian Julyan does presents a very comprensive study of wine's of the world, spirts, beers, and service of beverages.
Alot of material in 200 pages.
Self-assessment Questions are helpfull, multi demensional however sometimes he asks very trivial questions with the answer difficult to find in the text.
You will want to use the book over and over, like a good cook book, to increase your understanding and passion for wine.
Highly recomend to anyone wishing to futher their knowledage in the wine world

Very good Book .......2006-08-25

Very good book. I use it as a text book for my beverage class and it's fantastic, easy reading and informative.

Sales and Service for the Wine Professional.......2006-08-07

Great book that I will use often! A wealth of information contained in one book (I actually plan a purchasing more; one for each of my managers). It would be helpful to include a brief summary at the end of each chapter though.

Gourmet to Go: A Guide to Opening and Operating a Specialty Food Store

Average customer rating:

A great guide
Invaluable Tool
Good for starting stores or providing to stores.
Primer on Contemplating Gourmet Store Venture
Don't even think of opening a gourmet food store without it.

Gourmet to Go: A Guide to Opening and Operating a Specialty Food Store
Robert Wemischner , and Karen Karp
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
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ASIN: 0471139394

Book Description

"In this book we will communicate just how competitive and serious the business of specialty food retailing is today. We will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the industry, the market today, tools to [enable you] to make a commitment to go ahead, a thorough outline for your business plan, checklists for the most important planning stages, anecdotes and recommendations from the top players in the industry, and tips and insights into the intangibles of what makes good businesses good. You will have a better chance of success by being well armed and taking all the right precautions through careful preopening research and development. And you will see that, for success, it is not just information and organization but ample funding that will give your new business a fighting chance to ripen, develop, and succeed. Guided by this text and the accumulated wisdom of sage retailers who've paved the way, and fueled by your own enterprising spirit and imagination, dream big, plan carefully, and proceed with confidence to success." — From the Preface of Gourmet to Go

It begins with a dream, a longing for the independence, self-reliance, and creative freedom of running your own specialty take-out food store. But if you want that dream to become a reality, you can't rely solely on your expertise as a chef, manager, or owner of a previous business — you'll need to develop all of those skills and more. You need a comprehensive, reliable information source that shows you what to expect and prepares you to deal with the unexpected. You need to learn from the successes and failures of others how to envision, plan, finance, establish, and run a successful gourmet retail operation. You need Gourmet to Go.

This full-spectrum guide offers solid direction on every aspect of the retail specialty food industry. Making liberal use of case studies, Robert Wemischner and Karen Karp lead you step by step through each phase of the development and operation of a take-out gourmet store. They help you find the concept that's right for you, write a business plan, and secure the financing you'll need. Next, you'll discover what to look for in choosing your location; how to communicate with designers, builders, and contractors; and the ins and outs of legal structure and complying with government regulations. You'll learn how to select graphic designs, purchase and price merchandise, hire and train employees, set store policies, and manage your cash. Each of these issues is presented in a clear, forthright style that enables you to understand your options and make informed choices. You'll also learn how to:

Market and promote your store and build a steady clientele
Exceed your customers' expectations for quality and service
Use in-store signage and irresistible merchandise displays to increase sales
Expand or convert an existing business
Fine-tune your business to promote growth

Whether you're a foodservice professional yearning for independence or a retailer looking to expand or transform your current business; whether you're a caterer wanting to offer your creations to a broader public or a successful manager in search of a great business opportunity, Gourmet to Go helps you start strong and guides you every step of the way, until your dream comes true.

Customer Reviews:

A great guide.......2004-11-20

A friend recently opened a store and this book has acurately addressed some of the issues we are experiencing. The author has a knack for addressing both personal issues such as self doubt, fear, relations with partners as well as topics related to the business. He compels the entrepreneur to think hard about the objectives of his undertaking and then walks him through it step by step.

The sections on site location and templates for creating a business model, mission statement and feasability study are better than two other books that I had purchased.

Most of the book has little to do with specialty food and more about the decision and execution process of opening a new place. I would recomend it to both someone just toying with the idea and someone who is already established.

Invaluable Tool.......2003-06-14

I have been working on opening a specialty food shop/cafe and got stuck on the logistics of planning. After using several guides and books I randomly found (and getting NOWHERE) I decided to buy Gourmet to Go on a recommendation. It is THE best thing I could have ever bought, hands down. It seems that all the questions I had were answered in the book, and the structure of the book leads readers down a logical path through the maze of planning for this type of business. If you are to buy any book on this topic, this is the one. The money spent on this book will save you thousands later on. Two thumbs up!

Good for starting stores or providing to stores........2003-06-07

This is an excellent treatise of starting a specialty food store or, perhaps is even more beneficial to one who wishes to wholesale food products to place in food stores or delis..

People wanting to cash in on the current trend towards take-out convenience need this book, as well as From Kitchen To Market and How To Get Your Product Into Supermarkets.

The three books are invaluable for overlapping reasons. A prospective store operator needs to understand how to setup his or her store and, just as important, how their competition operates. Beginning store operators also need to understand their industry in detail not merely from the viewpoint of their competition and from their customers, but from their suppliers position.

Gourmet To Go does a great job from a narrow viewpoint. Probably the only topic not suffriciently explored is the hands'-on advice. Perhaps the next edition will detail the possibilities for including rollergrills, microwaves and how to earn what the industry refers to as "Plus-sales." I'm speaking of the technique in all fast food chains and convenience stores to get customers to spend more money.

Other hands-on topics that should be discussed are controlling theft and the experience of many store operators who have lost significant chunks of money in providing lottery tickets. I know of a feww whose losses exceeded $10,000. Adding insult to injury, lottery only reimburses stores from one to three percent of gross sales and pay-outs for winning tickets. Despite such a poor return on investment, many stores consider it mandatory to provide lottery.

Further, computerizing the store could be considered, as well as installing UPC readers. It is not uncommon to see even the smallest store using such equipment. Yet, those installing such systems all seem to have to reinvent the wheel.

Again, buy this book but augment it with From Kitchen To Market and with How To Get Your Product Into Supermarkets so you can keep up with and, perhaps, improve upon your competition and keep customers, suppliers and yourself happy!

Primer on Contemplating Gourmet Store Venture.......2003-04-04

Having some experience with new product projects for major corporations, this somewhat smaller scale, but nonetheless similar principled look at the operations and craft of specialty food store biz is well-done.

It is full of relevant and cogent thoughts for anyone interested in this market niche. What I found very well done is the sections of writing the biz plan and the steps therein critical to putting together and then implementing such.

Also included are fairly thorough lists of resources such as consultants, trade journals, suppliers, etc.

What could possibly have been additionaly useful was stress on two key areas: concentration on obstacles and their probability of happening (i.e. scenario plotting) and finding and use of two key players from the outset: attorney and accountant/tax specialist.

Don't even think of opening a gourmet food store without it........2002-01-28

Although, as the name suggests, this book is geared mainly towards gourmet to go operations (specialty food stores with emphasis on catering and gourmet take-out) it is an invuluable resource for anyone thinking about entering the gourmet food industry.

Book Description

A total guide to manufacturing, retail, and entrepreneurial success in one of today's most lucrative food industries.

Here is your one-stop guide to one of the fastest growing sectors of the food industry, where opportunities abound for manufacturers, retailers, and entrepreneurs. Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts is the only complete handbook on the commercial production and marketing of ice cream and frozen desserts for manufacturing and retail operations. It serves up a feast of how-to information, from writing business plans to purchasing equipment, from selecting a location to marketing your product—it even includes 500 delectable recipes using either the continuous or batch method of production.

Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts tells you what you need to know to:

Select the kind of frozen dessert business that's right for you.
Plan, finance, start, and operate a manufacturing or retail frozendessert business.
Purchase, install, and use ice cream making and serving equipment.
Determine which production method is right for you—continuous or batch.
Market and merchandise your frozen confections.
Manage employees, keep accurate financial records, and maintain sanitary conditions.
Create dozens of delectable types and flavors of frozen desserts.

Customer Reviews:

Not worth the money.......2006-06-11

This book is a nostagic look at ice cream manufacturing and store operation. We have opened 30 plus ice cream stores over the last 25 years and would not recommend anyone using this book as a reference. This guy enjoys making ice cream and spinning a good yarn but in the real world of ice cream store operation his ideas are outdated and seriously flawed. Ice cream shops work in only a few areas of this country and require hard work and long hours. They fail at an alarming rate and rarely gross enough to make a decent living. If you are planning on an ice cream store operation make sure you do a decent demographical study before attempting it.

Great Book.......2006-03-09

This book was an interesting guide to ice cream. It has helped me gain an insight in how to make and distribute ice cream. It answered most of my questions and helped me decide my next course of action.

Excellent book for ice cream professionals.......2002-11-21

Working as a dairy technician in a medium sized ice-cream-factory, I needed something to expand my knowledge on the subject. That's why I bought this book. And I was amazed: Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts: A Commercial Guide to Production and Marketing really met my expectations and did a lot more. It's well written, easily accessible and thorough. A must buy for both ice-cream-professionals and enthusiasts.

Excellent description of all phases.......2002-10-10

This book was *exactly* what I was looking for to help me get started in this business. A very broad overview of many different topics related to the ice cream business.

As my plans are to possibly open a parlor, some of the aspects of the commercial operations were not useful to me, but it *was* at least interesting to see how the big boys do it.

The one area that I was a little disappointed in was the business aspects of it. There were some general discussions of things to accomplish, without any real instruction in how to go about actually *accomplishing* them.

Overall, well worth the (rather steep, I admit...) price.

Very helpful in setting up a frozen desert establishment.......1999-10-07

This book contains invaluable information about making ice cream and gelato and about setting up and marketing the product. I was not disappointed and learned a lot.

Sales and Service for the Wine Professional (Paperback)

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Sales and Service for the Wine Professional (Paperback)
Brian Julyan
Manufacturer: Cassell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OS3E74

Book Description

This new edition contains major changes in the operation of business via technology, such as: € marketing of a GA business via e-commerce € protecting your Internet business

How to Start and Run a Georgia Business: With Forms (Self-Help Law Kit)

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How to Start and Run a Georgia Business: With Forms (Self-Help Law Kit)
Patricia Godwin Dunleavy , and Mark Warda
Manufacturer: Galt Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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