Overview — Calculus

A quant needs to calculate both changes and totals. Derivatives measure how a price responds to a small input change; integrals add a flow over time. Partial derivatives extend sensitivity to several inputs. This topic teaches those operations with small financial calculations before the common quantitative core develops the full theory.

By the end of this topic you should be able to:

• interpret a limit and compute elementary derivatives;
• read a derivative as a local sensitivity and use the chain rule;
• interpret definite integrals as accumulation and evaluate them through antiderivatives;
• compute partial derivatives by holding other inputs fixed;
• connect the resulting mathematics to discounting, payoff sensitivity and risk aggregation.

1. Contents
2. The big picture
3. Diagnostic use