Of necessity, our text has evolved along with the financial markets. In the Fifth Edition, we address many of the changes in the investment environment.
At the same time, many basic principles remain important. We believe that attention to these few important principles can simplify the study of otherwise difficult material and that fundamental principles should organize and motivate all study. These principles are crucial to understanding the securities already traded in financial markets and in understanding new securities that will be introduced in the future. For this reason, we have made this book thematic, meaning we never offer rules of thumb without reference to the central tenets of the modern approach to finance. The common theme unifying this book is that security markets are nearly efficient, meaning most securities are usually priced appropriately given their risk and return attributes.

There are few free lunches found in markets as competitive as the financial market. This simple observation is, nevertheless, remarkably powerful in its implications for the design of investment strategies; as a result, our discussions of strategy are always guided by the implications of the efficient markets hypothesis. While the degree of market efficiency is, and always will be, a matter of debate, we hope our discussions throughout the book convey a good dose of healthy criticism concerning much conventional wisdom.

The text is composed of seven sections that are fairly independent and may be studied in a variety of sequences. Since there is enough material in the book for a two-semester course, clearly a one-semester course will require the instructor to decide which parts to include. Part I is introductory and contains important institutional material focusing on the financial environment. We discuss the major players in the financial markets, provide an overview of the types of securities traded in those markets, and explain how and where securities are traded. We also discuss in depth mutual funds and other investment companies, which have become an increasingly important means of investing for individual investors. Is a general discussion of risk and return, making the general point that historical returns on broad asset classes are consistent with a risk–return trade-off.

The material presented in Part I should make it possible for instructors to assign term projects early in the course. These projects might require the student to analyze in detail a particular group of securities. Many instructors like to involve their students in some sort of investment game and the material in these chapters will facilitate this process. Parts II and III contain the core of modern portfolio theory. We focus more closely in on how to describe investors’ risk preferences. In we progress to asset allocation and then in Chapter 8 to portfolio optimization. After our treatment of modern portfolio theory in Part II, we investigate in Part III the implications of that theory for the equilibrium structure of expected rates of return on risky assets.

Treat the capital asset pricing model and its implementation using index models, and covers the arbitrage pricing theory. We complete Part II with a chapter on the efficient markets hypothesis, including its rationale as well as the evidence for and against it, and a chapter on empirical evidence concerning security returns. The empirical evidence chapter in this edition follows the efficient markets chapter so that the student can use the perspective of efficient market theory to put other studies on returns in context. Part IV is the first of three parts on security valuation. This Part treats fixed-income securities— bond pricing , term structure relationships, and interest- rate risk management. The next two Parts deal with equity securities and derivative securities. For a course emphasizing security analysis and excluding portfolio theory, one may proceed directly from Part I to Part III with no loss in continuity.

Part V is devoted to equity securities. We proceed in a “top down” manner, starting with the broad macroeconomic environment, next moving on to equity valuation, and then using this analytical framework, we treat fundamental analysis including financial statement analysis. Part VI covers derivative assets such as options, futures, swaps, and callable and convertible securities. It contains two chapters on options and two on futures. This material covers both pricing and risk management applications of derivatives. Finally, Part VII presents extensions of previous material. Topics covered in this Part include evaluation of portfolio performance, portfolio management in an international setting, a general framework for the implementation of investment strategy in a nontechnical manner modeled after the approach presented in CFA study materials, and an overview of active portfolio management.