Financial modeling

Financial modeling is the task of building an abstract representation (a model) of a real world financial situation. This is a mathematical model designed to represent (a simplified version of) the performance of a financial asset or portfolio of a business, project, or any other investment. Financial modeling is a general term that means different things to different users; the reference usually relates either to accounting and corporate finance applications, or to quantitative finance applications. While there has been some debate in the industry as to the nature of financial modeling—whether it is a tradecraft, such as welding, or a science—the task of financial modeling has been gaining acceptance and rigor over the years. Typically, financial modeling is understood to mean an exercise in either asset pricing or corporate finance, of a quantitative nature. In other words, financial modelling is about translating a set of hypotheses about the behavior of markets or agents into numerical predictions; for example, a firm's decisions about investments (the firm will invest 20% of assets), or investment returns (returns on "stock A" will, on average, be 10% higher than the market's returns).