This a question for those who use this product or have knowledge about it. As i understand it, it´s just an Excel plugin to quickly price a contract. So if you want to aggregate price and risk figures for your whole portfolio of say, 500 swaps then one typically will use a real FO system. And fincad is just as a "quick pricer", much like bloomie and reuters ? Why don´t people just use bloomie then. What extra value is there with the FinCad workbooks ?Thanks

well you will have a lot more flexibility with Fincad (or any other Excel absed plugin) than Bloomberg. Also, valuing 500 plain vanilla swaps should be quick in Excel. trying do a multi-currency swaps book using Bloomberg if you can. I am not sure you are comapring like with like. full disclosure I have no dog in this fight.

QuoteOriginally posted by: daveangelwell you will have a lot more flexibility with Fincad (or any other Excel absed plugin) than Bloomberg. Also, valuing 500 plain vanilla swaps should be quick in Excel. trying do a multi-currency swaps book using Bloomberg if you can. I am not sure you are comapring like with like. full disclosure I have no dog in this fight.I guess you have flexibility in building up the input parameters that get pushed into the model call. Customized volatility grid interpolation or implementing your own obscure daycount e.t.c. Is this how people actually use fincad though ? My impression was that it´s sold as a "quick n dirty" plugin to get your theor price without having to fiddle around too much. (A serious player with specific requirements buys a real FO system or builds his own).QuoteOriginally posted by: daveangelwell you will have a lot more flexibility with Fincad (or any other Excel absed plugin) than Bloomberg. Also, valuing 500 plain vanilla swaps should be quick in Excel.If the swaps are unique, then that would require 500 fincad sheets. This is exactly what i'm wondering about. Is this how people use Fincad. Do they manage their swap book using hundreds of Fincadized excel sheets ? I'm not trying to be a di*k here. I'm honestly curious.Point of order, I wouldn´t ever touch bloomie. But it seems to me that the two are equivilant.

i certainly don't think that you will need 500 sheets. you can easily fit all the parameters for a swap on a single row in Excel. so perhaps one sheet with 500 rows.i think your question is more about how can I use fincad ... which is quite broad. You can one sheet where all your curves are handled - if its asingle currency book then thats one curve. I think the FINCAD function allows you to reference a curve by a "handle". on another sheet you can have all you deals in a standard form - start date, end date, frequecy, currency, day count etc ... its then quite easy to aggregate risk and p+l by currency and into your base currency.

Whatever the pricer, and how generic its interface for valuation, is, if your representation is in the Excel front-end, you have the trade off between."elegant" layout in compact A4-page-like sheets for one position, or a one-row-many-column sheet for many positions.Because Excel is about transforming 2-dimensional inputs in a book into results, the book can be thin and large or ....The templates coming with the system will have their motivations from its positioning-for-usages (training, quick single valuations, valuation of instrument groups, across scenarios, ...)