Fundamentals of Financial Instruments, 2nd Edition

Preface

Readers the world over have appreciated the first edition of this book, which appeared over a decade ago. Some people pointed out that I should include more material on financial institutions and the key features of the markets in which financial products trade.

Consequently, I have included a detailed chapter on mutual funds, pension funds, and exchange-traded funds. There is also a new chapter on orders and exchanges, which deals with continuous markets in detail, with a brief focus on call markets as well. Macroeconomic issues are key for understanding financial markets, and hence there is a new chapter on such issues. The chapter is by no means exhaustive, and people wishing to acquire a more detailed perspective would have to look for an economics text.

Interest rate derivatives are perhaps the hardest product to explain in futures and options. Consequently, while the book continues to have three separate chapters on futures, options, and swaps, I have opted to include a chapter on interest rate derivatives and on financial products with such derivatives built in, such as callable bonds and putable bonds.

Excel has many useful functions for students and professionals in the field of Finance. I have described the use of many of these functions at key places in the book.

The previous edition had some statistical information on markets, and certain qualitative descriptive features, which I felt were better to remove. I have eliminated such features in the second edition. ...