Guide to Financial Markets, Third Edition (The Economist Series) - Hardcover

Levinson, Marc

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576601420 ISBN 13: 9781576601426

Publisher: Bloomberg Press, 2003

Synopsis

This is the definitive guide explaining why different financial markets exist and how they operate. The world's markets play a hugely important role in the modern economy and globalization of these markets continues apace. Electronic trading has led to exponential year by year growth in trading on the money and foreign exchange markets. And billions of dollars' worth of derivatives in all kinds of new and fancy--and often almost incomprehensible--forms are created and sold daily. Stock markets have bubbled and burst, proving that their performance can never be taken for granted and giving the bond market a fillip. This book provides a brilliantly clear guide to this complex world that even those who work in it often find hard to understand. With chapters on the markets that deal in money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options, and other derivatives, it looks at why these markets exist, how they work and who trades in them, and it gives a rundown of the factors that affect prices and rates.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The credit crunch and ensuing financial crisis showed just how volatile the financial markets can be. Even slight movements in market prices can have substantial effects on national economies, businesses and institutional investors such as pension funds. Individual investors, meanwhile, face choices among highly complex financial products that are increasingly difficult to get to grips with. Astute use of the financial markets can make all the difference to the bottom line. But in order to act astutely you must understand what you are doing.

The Guide to Financial Markets provides a clear explanation of the different markets. It goes well beyond stocks and bonds to explain the purposes and uses of equity futures and options, securitised instruments, and innovations such as the credit derivatives that can help manage risk but can also prove toxic when not used carefully. And so for anyone who wants a good understanding of:

• why markets matter

• international fixed-income markets

• foreign-exchange markets

• equity markets

• money markets

• futures and options markets

• bond markets

• derivatives markets

• securitisation

there is no better reference source than this fully revised and updated fifth edition of the Guide to Financial Markets.

From the Inside Flap:

Financial markets have been around ever since people settled down to growing crops and trading them with each other. They take many different forms and operate in many different ways. But all of them, whether highly organised, like the New York Stock Exchange, or highly informal, like money-changers in Africa, serve the same basic functions, which range from providing a way of setting prices and valuing assets, through raising capital or investing it, to managing exposure to risk.

The credit crunch and ensuing financial crisis brought home to everyone the enormous influence that financial markets exercise and highlighted the pace of innovation in them and the instruments they trade. This book explains why the different financial markets exist, how they work and who trades in them, and gives a run-down of the factors that affect prices and rates.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomberg Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1576601420
• ISBN 13: 9781576601426
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 256