The essential guide for anyone trying to get a handle on the fundamentals of investing, the Visual Guide to Financial Markets distills 30 years of Bloomberg expertise into one straightforward, easy-to-read volume. The book teaches readers about three basic investment options―governments, companies, and real assets, including gold and other commodities―and offers valuable insights into money-market securities, bonds, stocks, derivatives, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and alternatives.
Introduction:
Financial markets are supposed to be complicated. If they were easier to understand, there wouldn’t be as much money to go around. Individual investors wouldn’t need to pay brokers and financial advisers as much to manage their nest eggs. They might be less inclined to buy high and sell low, ensuring profi ts for those who do the opposite. This book is designed to make things simpler. It’s built around the choices that you have about where to put your money, an approach that’s more in keeping with the investment decisions that people make in the real world.
Look at it this way: If a family member asked you for some money to start a business, your first thought probably wouldn’t be about the kind of securities you would receive in return. More than likely, it would be about the person, his or her relationship to you, success in life and work, background in business, and any past requests made for financial help. You’ll find three basic equivalents of the family member in financial markets:
- Governments, which rely on money from investors to bridge gaps between spending and taxes. The bigger the budget deficit, the more borrowing they need to do.
- Companies, which raise funds to run and expand their business and enable owners to buy and sell their investments.
- Hard assets, which have a presence that goes beyond entries in computer databases or on scraps of paper. Gold is one example that many investors favor. Commodities and real estate are others.
After deciding what to invest in, you have to figure out how to put your money to work. You can invest directly in governments, companies, and hard assets, and there’s more than one choice for each. You can make investments that indirectly reflect their value as well.
Contents:
- Government
- Companies
- Hard Assets
- Indexes
- Government Revisited
- Companies Revisited
- Hard Assets Revisited
- Derivatives
- Mutual Funds and Exchange-Traded Funds
- Indexes Revisited
Visual Guide to Financial Markets By David Wilson pdf
