So I finished “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.” I am quite appreciative of this book. Yet I admit it surprises me a little bit that the father of the index fund has a forty-page appendix devoted to derivatives. Especially after reading Malkiel’s explanation, derivatives strike me as excessively risky to the point of being dangerous, or at the very least, highly problematic for the average investor. I wonder if working with derivatives is even consistent with the philosophy of buy-and-hold, long-term index fund investing. Admittedly I have no actual…