A workbench for the derivatives education that's missing
Built by derivatives practitioners tired of resources that bury intuition under 200 pages of stochastic calculus before any of it clicks.
Why Derivatives Insights exists
Derivatives are taught two ways in finance schools, and both have a gap.
- The math-first track (typical quant / engineering Master's) starts with measure theory, Itō, Girsanov, and PDEs — and never quite lands the intuition before exams. Students pass without understanding why they'd ever use what they learned.
- The applied track (typical business school MSc) skips the math, jumps to product descriptions, and leaves graduates unable to answer "why does this Reverse Convertible pay 8% — what's the risk you're actually taking?".
Derivatives Insights is built for the middle: enough math to be rigorous, enough intuition to be useful, and enough hands-on tools to make abstract concepts immediate. You can read about no-arbitrage in plain English, then click through to a pricer where you see the forward shift when you bump the dividend yield.
Who it's for
How it's built
Pure-Python PricerEngine(closed-form Black-Scholes-Merton, Reiner-Rubinstein down-and-out put for Bonus Certificates, Cox-Ingersoll-Ross fixed-income engine), FastAPI backend, Next.js + shadcn frontend, Plotly for the surfaces, Postgres on Railway, Caddy reverse-proxy in front. KaTeX-typeset math throughout. JWT auth, bcrypt password hashing, Pro-gated Q&A and cheat sheet APIs — anti-scraping where it matters.
The design philosophy: every concept page links to a working tool, every tool links back to the relevant Q&A, every cheat sheet maps to a category in the Coach. Pedagogically self-reinforcing, not a stack of independent features.
What's next
- Stripe checkout for self-serve Pro subscriptions (currently mailto-driven during beta).
- More Coach categories: Python for quant, FX options conventions, Credit / CDS, Bloomberg shortcuts.
- More cheat sheets: Barrier options (Reiner-Rubinstein full table), Heston deep dive, FX options.
- First school license deals — actively in conversation with finance schools. Institutional buyers welcome.
- Group coaching cohorts for derivatives interview prep — 6-week programs with weekly live sessions.
Feedback, partnership, or just curiosity?
Best way to reach the team is direct email. We read everything and reply within a couple of days.