Money-market-security

Thau provides a good, thorough overview of bonds from beginning to end, including what you need to know about "bond math." I came to this book as someone both interested and invested in the stock market and I wanted to expand my knowledge to include other types of investments. The Bond Book definitely served my purpose. I recommend it to any beginner or novice investor looking to learn more about the nuances and varieties of fixed-income securities.

This book can help you make money. How? It reviews the history of spreads between Treasuries and Municipals, between Treasuries and Junk bonds, and between Treasuries and other types of bonds/securities. By buying the appropriate security when the spread is abnormally large by a wide margin, which admittedly may only occur once every ten years or so, I believe one could make a ton of money. An example would be to buy junk bonds when the spread between junk and treasuries exceeds 1200 basis points. Another example would be to buy municipals if their yield surpasses the treasury benchmark. Patience will be required, though, since, as the author points out, it is tough to make a killing in the bond market all the time (i.e. the market is usually highly efficient).

The author also does a terrific job pointing out the different types of risk (reinvestment, inflation, currency, interest rates, credit, etc.) for all the different types of securities and duration of securities. She then tells you how to select a security appropriate for your needs given the risks. For example, if you don't want to worry about a rise in rates destroying the value of your bond, buy one that you can hold to maturity and collect at par. Better yet, buy one with a short duration.

In conclusion, any well rounded financier needs to know about bonds--even Warren Buffet--the famous "stock picker"--invests a ton in bonds. This book is a great start to earning this skill.

This is a clear, thorough, comprehensive look at the world of bonds, starting with some general explanations and then going through each major category of bond in turn. The only problem is that the book is getting old and some of the examples and explanations are based on market conditions that no longer exist. However, the book is excellent and certainly stands the test of time.

This was the second book I read on financial markets. There is a wealth of information on all kinds of financial stuff.
I specially liked the Options chapter. I think the Stocks chapter was an overkill but still there was much useful info.
Pretty organized and fairly unbiased. The retirement piece at the end of the book was definitely underdone but I don't think this book was meant to cover retirement anyways.
The author doesn't try to portray the financial markets as a road to riches. He lets the reader draw his own conclusions from the topics covered. An educational read overall.

I learned a great deal from this book and I can tell you it is worth every cent of its price, which I considered high before purchasing. The author has a very creative style and yet is able to explain even the most complicated information in an easy to understand and often humorous way. Even if you don't think you will take advantage of all the knowledge you will gain from reading it, I suggest you do read it all, as you never know what may prove useful in the future.

I had the pleasure of having Mr. Questa as a guest lecuturer in a Fixed Income class. This book was used as the text, prior to its publication. The book is a great intro-intermediate fixed income book. It also covers the advanced stochastic models well. It is one of few books that also integrates the foreign exchange market into the analysis. In a few areas the book is difficult to follow however after a careful re-reading it sinks in.

Non ho avuto il piacere di leggere il libro ma il nome dell'autore mi piaceva tantissimo...... è il mio (omonimia) Giorgio Questa

Only last week there was an article on YAHOO! about authors favorably reviewing THEIR OWN BOOKS!!

Apparently some hacker exposed these scumbags. Now I see 2 reviews by the author and 1 by his son-in-law.

I read a favorable review of this book in TECHNICAL ANALYSIS of STOCKS and COMMODITIES. Despite misgivings about the reviews I cited, I will read a library copy and judge it by it's merits.

Warren Buffett says if you're trying to decide who the sucker is in a poker game, the sucker is YOU! Kinda describes buyers of books given favorable reviews by their own authors.

I'm a real novice in the financial world, not because of age but simply because I never had money to invest. Then my parents left me with a wonderful portfolio that I didn't know how to manage. I pretty much left it alone and watched it decline during 2002. But luckily for me, I met George Muzea and read his book. His words made me feel that following the stock market did not have to be viewed as a foreboding experience. Reading his book gave me the confidence to become a more knowledgeable investor. But it wasn't only Mr. Muzea's financial advice that gave me that confidence; it was the sense of his integrity that I garnered about him from the personal experiences he shared in his book. He is a successful financial advisor because of who he is as a man. He takes people, life and its many adventures seriously, deferring to how people like me invest their hard earned money. His heart, as well as his financial wisdom, pervades this book.
-Carol Murphy
English teacher
Sage Ridge, School

A friend gave me this book. When I got a glimpse of the title I thought to myself, "Oh! here's another also ran self help book destined to be archived on the book shelves of America, gathering dust and aging like a vintage wine that will never be uncorked." Boy ! was I wrong. As I scrolled down the pages,I soon realized that this was a well written book and quite revealing as a way to actually make money in the stock market by making the right choices at the right time based on a unique, but proven strategy. Using his concept of the Vital Few Vs. The Trivial Many, George demonstrates the value of watching what the consistent winners do. This information is not usually touted by the media or market experts. While written in the form of an autobiography,the concepts discussed and methods revealed in the book. were explained very clearly and developed chapter by chapter as George takes the reader through his dynamic, personal career, sharing his failures then finally his success and continued prosperity as his revolutionary theories of " the vital few vs. the trivial many, " empower him to consistently be a winner in the stock market. George has written this book with the passion of someone that has " been there, done that". As I read on, I got the impression that he was talking to me as a mentor. I continued to read the manuscript with an appetite for more. I couldn't stop until I was done.

(...) It gives a lot of general info on a lot of different Fixed income topics. It's a good ref. for people just getting involved with fixed income. However if you are looking for focused material, you should look into one of Frank's books on that area. Good overall intuition on Fixed income markets and products.

If you are in the financial world dealing with fixed income directly or indirectly, just entering into the fixed income world, or looking for a great FI reference, go no further. This is it. Very broad with heavy MBS influence as well as the basics of fixed income. This is for novice to intermediate FI users. Academics and advanced portfolio managers might find this general. But, for the large population this is the spot.

This book has been around for years and new editions are lapped up by fresh generations of bond geeks. You will find a copy on pretty much every fixed income desk in the industry (including mine). Why all the hoopla? Because there is simply no other book like it. Because it is simply the most comprehensive survey of the various fixed income markets in print. For a basic understanding of the structure and institutional aspects fixed income securities, Fabozzi is the inevitable first stop. All this being said, it is important to understand the book's weaknesses. There is relatively little depth in terms of analytics and if you want formulae you will have to look elsewhere. But for basic overviews, structural details and the orientation that is a precondition for deeper study, the Handbook is in a class by itelf.

The author is very good in leading the reader through how money and its avaliability play an important role in determining the economy of any country.
The banking industry and its role are covered as well - starting from a historical perspective to the present day. Our class was doing a chapter on the various reforms in the banking industry when the Enron-Anderson scandal happened. We had some very though-provoking discussions in the class based on the material in the text.
While I am not a complete stranger to economics, I took home a lot of valuable information by the time I was done with this course and this text book. I only wish the publishers had included a CD ROM of real-world exercises / problems that stimulate thought on issues to consider when determining monetary policy.

Highly recommended for both dummies and people familiar with economics. The author presents an unbiased, unpartisan, clear introduction to numerous aspects of monetary policy, financial institutions, and financial markets. Along with factual material the author presents important and profound generalizations and principles.

For once, there is an economist with a passion to teach and communicate well. Although it is supposed to be an introductory text in monetary economics, I return to it again and again to check my basic understanding of this subject.

I read this book in 1998 and moved out of stocks because of it. Thank You Mr. Sarlos.

I only wish Mr. Sarlos was still with us to give his insight on the current market.

As of January 2003, the market is only back to the level it was at the time Mr. Sarlos wrote this book and ringing the alarm bell !!!

Do we still have this much further to fall ?

Dow 4000 in 2005, Mr. Sarlos ???

In response to a previous reviewer's query - Andy Sarlos died a few years ago.

HA!! read last review,

> The main concern with people like this (and Rifkin, et al) is that they don't recognize that technology represents a new paradigm and that traditional stocks need new metrics

what a CLASSIC sign of top,,written in Jan 2000. This investor is clearly broke now, losing all profits, and then some. Looks like the author gets the last laugh here.

Doesn't this book sound like a battle plan for investment success, maybe one filled with value-based accounting lessons? It's not.

In fact, we are spared math, and we are not given practical counsel, either. That was what I looking for, as the title suggests. The title should be How Can The Smart Money Be So Dumb.

Instead, this is an interesting run-through of recent horror stories on Wall Street from the Internet bubble to IPO's to pro forma accounting and Enron. Behavioral finance is discussed here, but Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich is far superior.

Or read Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. Or John Neff On Investing instead.

Mr. Cunningham is one of the new wave of Buffett explainers. (Where were you people 15 years ago when there was money to be made buying Berkshire?) And why does someone so incisive, so downhome funny as Mr. Buffett need so much explanation?? (Try Cunningham's The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America or the Berkshire Hathaway annual report.)

Unfortunately, the author lets slip his idea of a five-year holding period for stocks. That may turn out to be good advice, but which stocks would he choose to hold? We have no idea. (Tech stocks, big winners 2 years ago, have crashed back down to their 1997 prices. And non-tech Walt Disney is well below its 1997 prices.)

I think Mr. Cunningham is an extremely brave and patient investor.

I read Cunningham's book based on the review in Barron's rounding up the best investment books of 2002. They were right. The book is a eye-opening intro to the psychology of investing, important to investors and market observers/regulators. (Cunningham's other books have more of the basics for investors--also very good books.)

Awesome. Cunningham dissects the woes besetting corporate American using lucid, concrete examples, with boundless energy and enthusiasm, endorsed properly on the back cover by those who take behavioralism seriously, including Gary Belsky, who wrote the top-seller "Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes" (which is about general habits, not investment philosophy of which Cunningham writes) and Robert Hagstrom, prolific author (who writes about investment philosophy, and sometimes behavioralism). What an astonishing record Cunningham has developed as a writer and expert in invesetment theory and practice! A better title for this book would be Rational Investing in a Hair Brained Environment; the one chosen is unduly flashy for the seriousness of Cunningham's pursuits (he's a professor of law and business!).

I really like the way the fundamentals of valuation are derived from first principle's. It gives a very good presentation of where the assumptions are made. It is extremely important to understand the assumptions if you really want to know what the results do and do not tell you.

That said, there are several typo's and mathematical errors that really need to be corrected - such as the inverted numerator and denominator in the Newton-Raphson equation presented.

I found this is the excellent book for anyone to understand bond yielding calculation. Whether you are experienced bond market player, or just beginner, you can always find something useful in the book. I would rate this book 4 stars.

Most people take for granted the calculations used to generate a yield, duration and other fixed income statistic. These values are, more often than not, taken as being absolutes by the people who should most know that they are not always absolute and that yields in one market sector are not always comparable to yields in other market sectors. This book, a long anticipated follow-up to "Money Market Calculations" codifies in a succinct manner the basic conventions used to calculate bond numbers for various market sectors. While the book is certainly not a page-turner, it is a very important reference that should be found on every buy and sell-side trading desk.

If you're a conservative investor searching for alternatives that don't involve gambling or sticking with the conventional wisdom of stock market investing you'll love this book. I've made some changes to my investments as a result of information I learned from reading this well researched book. It was actually entertaining as well! 5 Stars Loved It!

If you are a big company executive or a stockbroker you're going to hate this book. The author really rips into the big brokerage firms and corporations and how they take advantage of the little guy. If everyone practiced what was recommended in the book there would be a lot less left on the table for big business to glean from the small investor. 1 Star I'm sure they hate it!

It seems that all the books on low risk investing emphasize picking good companies or funds and keeping them for a long period of time. Blind Faith is different.

I'd love to be stress or worry free but traditional Cd's and money markets pay so little and I certainly don't believe that corporate America has cleaned up its act. This book taught me another investment strategy and discussed in detail investments that I never heard of before like market-linked CDs.

I enjoyed the authors cynical approach and found the book to be entertaining as well as enlightening.

Finally, a book that speaks to concerns that I've had about investing since I read my first investment book but that no one seems to talk about.

The author covers topics that are taboo in most investment texts, such as how the investment industry is rigged against the individual investor (corporate structure, taxes, investment banks, government regulation, etc.), and what you can do to protect yourself from market risk. Diversification doesn't help when the whole market collapses after a catastrophic event like 9-11 or in a deep recession.

If you want to take advantage of up markets and hold onto your gains in down markets, then read this book.