Investments

This title seeks to provide a comprehensive introduction to the financial markets. Based on class-tested material, the authors provide coverage of equity, bond and FX-markets and international portfolio diversification. Adopting a practical, real-world flavour throughout, the text is peppered with many numerical examples, whilst "Topic boxes" on current issues and newspaper extracts should enable the student to see the practical application and real-world context of the ideas presented The treatment of anomalies, noise traders, technical analysis, chartism, neural networks and chaos theory reinforce the real-world emphasis, whilst material on corporate finance includes valuation of companies using NPV and real options theory. Raising capital via equity and debt securities as well as dividend and merger policy provide practical illustrations of the theoretical ideas. Futures, options and swaps and their use in speculation, hedging and arbitrage are also examined. Excel spreadsheets are provided, enabling the reader to obtain "hands on" experience in reproducing the numerical examples from the text and inputting their own "scenarios".