"I vowed to one day write a book so that other novices would not have to go through the same grueling process to learn about trading."--Sunny Harris
With a surge in the number of people trying their hand at trading today--baby boomers, retirees, individual investors--it's more important than ever to develop a solid working knowledge of the rudiments of this potentially profitable practice. Trading 101 is a clearly written, concise, and thorough introduction to the basics.
The author, renowned for her successful Trading 101 seminars, creates an indispensable reference covering everything from charting techniques and trading vehicles to technical analysis and current market buzzwords. With easy-to-read charts and graphs supplementing the text, this is an invaluable resource for complete information on:
* The whats and the how-tos: What is a put? What is a call? How do I place a trade? How do I select a broker?
* Fundamental analysis and its economic indicators -- leading indicators, real GDP, interest rates, productivity
* Developing your own trading system--design, costs, backtesting the system, and evaluating your performance
* Obtaining fundamental data--bulletin board services, commercial data vendors, the Internet, chart services
* Setting up your trading as a business -- developing a business plan, legal and tax questions, back office services
* Discipline--sticking to your system, finding coaches that can help you stay motivated, keeping a diary

Trading 101 also provides details on which newsletters offer dependable investment advice, how to choose the best discount brokerage, and which of today's computers and financial software packages are the best for planning and evaluating trades.
Complete with glossary, bibliography, and listings of networking and educational meetings on the Internet, as well as beginner seminars and conferences, software vendors, and recommended books, this comprehensive, easy-to-use guide is the one to have in hand before entering the unpredictable and competitive world of trading.
Praise for Trading 101
"Trading 101 should be required reading for every new or prospective futures trader. It provides more solid information and all-around knowledge than any other book I've ever seen on the subject. It receives my unqualified endorsement and takes top place on my list of recommended titles for futures traders."--Edward Dobson, President, Traders Press, Inc.
"Trading 101 is a great idea. There was nothing like this when I started out. The novice trader now has a place to start the search. Oh, the time it would have saved me "--John Bollinger, CFA, CMT, President, Bollinger Capital Management, Editor, The Capital Growth Letter
"Sunny has done a great job in bringing a highly complex and diverse topic to the level of human understanding--must reading for every new trader."--Jake Bernstein, author The Investor's Quotient, Second Edition

"This book offers a practical answer for the non-mathematician to all the questions any businessman always wanted to ask about risk quantification, and never dare to ask."

Enterprise-wide risk management (ERM) is a key issue for board of directors worldwide. Its proper implementation ensures transparent governance with all stakeholders' interests integrated into the strategic equation. Furthermore, Risk quantification is the cornerstone of effective risk management, at the strategic and tactical level, covering finance as well as ethics considerations. Both downside and upside risks (threats & opportunities) must be assessed to select the most efficient risk control measures and to set up efficient risk financing mechanisms. Only thus will an optimum return on capital and a reliable protection against bankruptcy be ensured, i.e. long term sustainable development.

Within the ERM framework, each individual operational entity is called upon to control its own risks, within the guidelines set up by the board of directors, whereas the risk financing strategy is developed and implemented at the corporate level to optimise the balance between threats and opportunities, systematic and non systematic risks.

This book is designed to equip each board member, each executives and each field manager, with the tool box enabling them to quantify the risks within his/her jurisdiction to all the extend possible and thus make sound, rational and justifiable decisions, while recognising the limits of the exercise. Beyond traditional probability analysis, used since the 18th Century by the insurance community, it offers insight into new developments like Bayesian expert networks, Monte-Carlo simulation, etc. with practical illustrations on how to implement them within the three steps of risk management, diagnostic, treatment and audit.

With a foreword by Catherine Veret and an introduction by Kevin Knight.

This book uses empirical research to examine fluctuations and periodicities in housing markets in the United Kingdom. Chapters investigate received wisdom on housing market co-determination before exploring an unconventional approach to analysing the interaction and diffusion evidence base. Finally, the author presents varied case studies, analysing price diffusion across first-time and repeat buyer groups, regions and housing vintages, as well as related macro variables. This volume will be of interest to academics and researchers interested in the area of price diffusion across housing markets.

Anyone can buy stock in a public company, but not all shareholders are equally committed to a company’s long-term success. In an increasingly fragmented financial world, shareholders’ attitudes toward the companies in which they invest vary widely, from time horizon to conviction. Faced with indexers, short-term traders, and activists, it is more important than ever for businesses to ensure that their shareholders are dedicated to their missions. Today’s companies need “quality shareholders,� as Warren Buffett called those who “load up and stick around,� or buy large stakes and hold for long periods. Lawrence A. Cunningham offers an expert guide to the benefits of attracting and keeping quality shareholders. He demonstrates that a high density of dedicated long-term shareholders results in numerous comparative and competitive advantages for companies and their managers, including a longer runway to execute business strategy and a loyal cohort against adversity. Cunningham explores dozens of corporate practices and policies—such as rational capital allocation, long-term performance metrics, and a shareholder orientation—that can help shape the shareholder base and bring in committed owners. Focusing on the benefits for corporations and their investors, he reveals what draws quality shareholders to certain companies and what it means to have them in an investor base. This book is vital reading for investors, executives, and directors seeking to understand and attract the kind of shareholders that their companies need.

There is a large and growing audience for this type of book, as investors from individuals to asset managers have followed the impact revolution with great interest and are looking for a clear roadmap. Takes a practical and constructive approach to the industry with case studies included throughout. Written by a leading author in the field of finance.

There is a large and growing audience for this type of book, as investors from individuals to asset managers have followed the impact revolution with great interest and are looking for a clear roadmap. Takes a practical and constructive approach to the industry with case studies included throughout. Written by a leading author in the field of finance.

Written for first-time buyers who have never owned a property or had a mortgage, rather than buy-to-let investors. Provides a holistic view of the property purchase process, and examines several key aspects: property, mortgages, and legal considerations. Written by academics who have extensive practical experience in property and mortgages.

The scope of the study reported in this book entails understanding the constraints and providing potential diagnostics to Africa's leather sector, which is otherwise globally, one of the most lucrative agro-based industries in the world, estimated at over US$ 130Billion. One of the principle core thematic aspects of the leather sector is, characteristically, its long value chain with multiple socio-economic dimensions. These entail employability, creation of wealth, gender parity and rural development. Thusly, in an effort to stimulate scholarly discussion, the study argues that preemptively, the problems facing the leather value chain stratums are high losses, low value addition initiatives and unexplored opportunities that are synonymous with the Africa's leather industry. Indeed, the results of the research conceptualized opportunity management as a critical panacea towards value addition strategy for the leather sector in developing countries. In dealing with this concept, the book evaluated the various value chains phases and identified nine specific issues and variables drawn between value addition and the main leather strata. With this background, the study posed a main question and four sub questions to closely expound on related hypotheses and in lieu pursue four thematic aspects: trade, productivity, competitiveness, and innovation covered in twelve chapters of the book. Conclusively, the book manages to successfully conceptualize as a novelty that opportunity management is integral towards developing a leather value addition strategy for the developing countries with particular emphasis to Africa.

This book analyses different strategies and their results in implementing financial regulation in terms of rule-making, public enforcement and private enforcement. The analysis is based on a comparative study of conduct of business regulation on mis-selling of financial instruments in the UK and South Korea. It extends into liquidity regulation in the banking sector and credit rating agency regulation. The book concludes that in rule-making, purposive rules are more effective for achieving regulatory goals with minimal undesirable results, but a rule-making system with purposive rules can only work on a foundation of trust among rule-makers, enforcers and the regulates, that with respect to public enforcement, the enforcement strategies should combine the compliance-oriented and deterrence-oriented approaches and be continuously adjusted based on close monitoring of the regulatory outcomes and that in private enforcement, regulation should be instituted as the minimum requirement in private law.

This book argues that economic activity in the public sphere now underwrites private corporations, and rejects rigid adherence to traditional economic theories that no longer apply. Adam Smith's widely used "merchant's model" assumes that most investment is private, when in fact research demonstrates that public investment in the workforce through education and training far outweighs the private sector, and does not account for the growing presence of consensual pricing, the diversification of modern businesses, or the increasing internal authoritarianism of globalizing companies. With de facto public support for these adaptations undermining the universally presumed economic model, private corporations are able to increase their profits while misrepresenting the investment of their own global labor forces. This book suggests an "economy of laws" solution that balances the needed degree of central investment planning with the continuation of our pluralist economy of largely autonomous firms, principally by extending the full rights of citizens into the workplace itself.

This book is a guide to the purposes, strengths, and weaknesses of disclosures as consumer protections in financial transactions such as loans, deposits, and consumer leases. It focuses on the federal Truth in Lending Act but also covers a variety of other federal disclosure statutes designed to protect consumers in their financial relationships. It comes at a time when federal financial consumer protection policy in the financial area is again a matter of intense public scrutiny and debate. Because of the importance of public policy issues surrounding use of disclosures as consumer protections, the intended audience includes anyone interested in these issues, not simply specialists who spend their time focused on them. For this reason, the work avoids academic jargon and the mathematics that is the modern language of economics. It also examines the psychological, sociological, historical, and especially legal traditions that go into fully understanding what has led to the demand for better disclosures for consumers and to what they have become today. Despite a need to outline and review prior difficulties with disclosure laws, the book remains optimistic that disclosures will continue to be an important means of consumer protection and that future reforms can improve their effectiveness and lower their regulatory costs and burden.

Introducing a revolutionary new quantitative approach to hybrid securities valuation and risk management To an equity trader they are shares. For the trader at the fixed income desk, they are bonds (after all, they pay coupons, so what's the problem?). They are hybrid securities. Neither equity nor debt, they possess characteristics of both, and carry unique risks that cannot be ignored, but are often woefully misunderstood. The first and only book of its kind, The Handbook of Hybrid Securities dispels the many myths and misconceptions about hybrid securities and arms you with a quantitative, practical approach to dealing with them from a valuation and risk management point of view. * Describes a unique, quantitative approach to hybrid valuation and risk management that uses new structural and multi-factor models * Provides strategies for the full range of hybrid asset classes, including convertible bonds, preferreds, trust preferreds, contingent convertibles, bonds labeled "additional Tier 1," and more * Offers an expert review of current regulatory climate regarding hybrids, globally, and explores likely political developments and their potential impact on the hybrid market * The most up-to-date, in-depth book on the subject, this is a valuable working resource for traders, analysts and risk managers, and a indispensable reference for regulators

Sound investment decisions require an in-depth knowledge of the financial markets and available financial instruments. This book provides students and professionals with an understanding of the role and activities of an equity security analyst within the investment process. Emphasis is on understanding the process of analyzing companies; the valuation process; and the challenges of achieving success in a highly competitive capital market. The authors present a comprehensive compendium on the financial theory, the empirical evidence and the mathematical tools that form the underlying principles of investment decisions.

An insider's view of how to develop and operate an automated proprietary trading network

Reflecting author Eugene Durenard's extensive experience in this field, "Professional Automated Trading" offers valuable insights you won't find anywhere else. It reveals how a series of concepts and techniques coming from current research in artificial life and modern control theory can be applied to the design of effective trading systems that outperform the majority of published trading systems. It also skillfully provides you with essential information on the practical coding and implementation of a scalable systematic trading architecture.

Based on years of practical experience in building successful research and infrastructure processes for purpose of trading at several frequencies, this book is designed to be a comprehensive guide for understanding the theory of design and the practice of implementation of an automated systematic trading process at an institutional scale.Discusses several classical strategies and covers the design of efficient simulation engines for back and forward testingProvides insights on effectively implementing a series of distributed processes that should form the core of a robust and fault-tolerant automated systematic trading architectureAddresses trade execution optimization by studying market-pressure models and minimization of costs via applications of execution algorithmsIntroduces a series of novel concepts from artificial life and modern control theory that enhance robustness of the systematic decision making--focusing on various aspects of adaptation and dynamic optimal model choice

Engaging and informative, "Proprietary Automated Trading" covers the most important aspects of this endeavor and will put you in a better position to excel at it.

The recent global economic crisis has highlighted the importance of strong corporate governance systems. The failure of many of the 'gatekeepers' (i.e. auditors) to protect the efficiency of the financial markets has left many wondering whether there exists a sound model of corporate governance and if so, what the features of such a model are.
"The International Corporate Governance System: Audit Roles and Board Oversight" provides a comprehensive legal, economic and financial approach to corporate governance. It addresses the practical aspects of corporate governance, auditing and risk management whether within principles-based regulatory approach or the rules-based approach. Starting with the OECD principles, their application by both the IMF and the World Bank, the book analyzes and compares corporate governance systems in the US, the UK, Canada, Australasia, Japan, Continental Europe, the BRICS, Saudi Arabia. The book moves on to analyze the audit roles and legislations in the US (SOX Act), the EU Statutory Audit Directive, the ROSC, the Audit Scandals, the auditors' liabilities, and the future of auditing. Finally, the author provides comprehensive coverage of the board oversight function, the management fraud types and the role of the audit committee.
"The International Corporate Governance System" is geared to a large public of lawyers, economists, financiers, and accountants who want to enhance their knowledge and skills in this interdisciplinary field. Business school students, law graduates, economics graduates will learn how law and regulation affect management practices, strategies and aims. Likewise, government officials, risk managers, chief financial officers, chief operating officers in charge of supervision and enforcement of laws and regulations will find a guide in their difficult environment.

"Dr Marcelo Cruz is rightfully acknowledged as a world expert in the quantification of operational risk. He has set out to produce a book that is comprehensive yet also comprehensible to non-mathematicians - and is to be congratulated for succeeding in this aim. This book should be regarded as essential reading for all professional risk managers, irrespective of their particular lens of perception." Brendan Young, Chairman, Operational Risk Research Forum

"As a technically trained analyst, Marcelo Cruz summarizes a wide range of mathematical techniques. As an experienced capital markets trader and risk manager, he provides real world examples of their relevance for operational risk. This will be a common reference work in the field for years to come." David M. Rowe, Ph.D., Group Executive Vice President for Risk Management Sun Gard Trading and Risk Systems

Operational risk is an important, yet little explored, area within risk management. The need to model and measure the risks arising from operational errors and to allocate capital against them will be soon become a regulatory requirement for financial institutions. In this book, Marcelo Cruz provides a quantitative look at the subject, presenting several mathematical models that can be used and adapted to measure, manage and hedge operational risk.

Based on the author's extensive experience, the book maps out state-of-the-art mathematical and statistical techniques that can be used to model operational risk. In addition, the book describes a variety of appropriate models that can be applied to specific structures or areas, including operational risk database modeling, stochastic models, statistical distributions for frequency and severity, extreme value theory, operational VaR models, artificial intelligence models, dynamic multifactor models, Bayesian analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, stress test/ scenario analysis, real options, state-space models and the Kalman filter, Markovian stochastic models and others. These models have been tested with real data in real operational events. Based on this experience, numerous examples are sited throughout.

Modeling, Measuring and Hedging Operational Risk provides a complete quantitative reference for all those involved in modeling and managing operational risk as well as for those involved with developing hedging products for operational risk within insurance companies and derivatives houses.

In recent years, currencies of major industrial nations have fluctuated widely in response to trade imbalances, interest rates, commodity prices, and political uncertainty. The pressure to maintain currency parity has led to the breakdown of many exchange rate mechanisms, and has forced the need for active foreign exchange hedging decisions to prevent the erosion of profit margins. To counteract this worldwide market volatility, currency options were developed as an alternative risk management tool to the spot and forward foreign exchange market, and owe their existence to the demands of foreign exchange users for alternative hedging and exposure management techniques. This essentially practical book gives a thorough and comprehensive guide to currency options, with clear explanations of the technicalities. It should become recommended reading for many business courses, and will be of interest to new recruits and junior members in investment and merchant banks; to Forex specialist firms; to Treasury institutions; and to investors who require a quick guide within a trading and sales environment.

This book presents a personal financial decision making model based on six dominant decision making pathways. It outlines each pathway in detail before focusing on real estate investments in the second part of the book. Based on the authors extensive research into investment decision making, decision modeling and experimental psychology, strategies presented in this book will facilitate more successful investment decision making.

Grocery store products packaged to deliver the most environmentally correct message. Large brokerage firms offering "green" and socially responsible investment products. Even an environmental bank. If you'd imagined all this in college, and dreamed of a large socially screened mutual fund outperforming the S&P 500 by as much as 11%, your father would have said--"Nice idea, but it'll never happen!" It happened. As the junk bond era fades from the scene and deregulation turns Wall Street back into a prehistoric jungle, socially responsible investments are outperforming traditional investments. Not just sometimes--but consistently and reliably. Investing with Your Conscience tells you why--and how to participate in an increasingly profitable investment strategy. It analyzes the influences of apartheid; the global environment; corporate governance; women, health and family; domestic, social and economic justice; as well as Third World development on a corporation's value. And it gives you the knowledge, resources, and tools you need to manage your money well, increase your net worth, and make the world a better place--all at the same time. You'll find clear, demystifying discussions of measuring performance, setting goals, selecting an investment professional, and making investments based on sound financial, economic, and social analyses. And you'll discover how to pinpoint investment opportunities and identify those socially responsible stocks that will make the best investments. Let your conscience be your guide. Invest in Investing with Your Conscience right now.

Praise for the Mutual Fund Industry Handbook

"The Mutual Fund Industry Handbook is a remarkably important work . . . I am profoundly impressed by the broad and comprehensive sweep of information and knowledge that this book makes available to industry participants, college and business school students, and anyone else with a serious interest in this industry."
--From the Foreword by John C. Bogle President, Bogle Financial Markets Research Center Founder and former chief executive, The Vanguard Group

A Foreword by John C. Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group and one of the most respected leaders in the mutual fund industry, sets the stage for this authoritative book that explains the complexities of the phenomenal industry in simple terms.

Investors like the fact that mutual funds offer professional management, easy diversification, liquidity, convenience, a wide range of investment choices, and regulatory protection. Mutual Fund Industry Handbook touches on all of those features, but it also focuses on the diverse functions performed in the day-to-day operations of the mutual fund industry. You'll learn about: Front-office functions--analysis, buying, and selling Back-office functions, including settlement, custody, accounting, and reporting Commission structures--front-end loads, back-end loads, or level loads The various fund categories used by the Investment Company Institute, Morningstar, and Lipper The roles played by fund managers, investment advisors, custodial banks, distributors, transfer agents, and other third-party service providers

If you want a definitive reference on the mutual fund industry, this is the book for you.

In the space of a few months, across Asia, a miracle became a nightmare. This was the Asian Financial Crisis of 1995-98. In this economic crisis hundreds of people died in rioting, political strong men were removed and hundreds of billions of dollars were lost by investors. This crisis saw the US dollar value of some Asian stock markets decline by ninety percent. Why did almost no one see it coming? The Asian Financial Crisis 1995-98 charts Russell Napier's personal journey during that crisis as he wrote daily for institutional investors about an increasingly uncertain future. Relying on contemporaneous commentary, it charts the mistakes and successes of investors in the battle for investment survival in Asia from 1995-98. This is not just a guide for investors navigating financial markets, but also an explanation of how this crisis created the foundations of an age of debt that has changed the modern world.

A pioneering and comprehensive work, The Singapore Blue Chips puts the spotlight on 22 of Singapore's largest corporates. This is the first book that provides a quick snapshot of Singapore's large cap (large market capitalisation) corporates as investment propositions, and is a timely tribute to the nation's 50 years of independence and development.Written for finance professionals and students as well as readers with a general interest in business, investing and finance, each chapter of this book is dedicated to one company and delves into its attractiveness as an investment proposition, the associated investments risk and the company's prospects as of end-2016.

This book introduces three innovative concepts and associated financial instruments with the potential to revolutionise real estate finance. The factorisation of commercial real estate with factor-based real estate derivatives is the first concept analysed in this book. Methodological issues pertaining to factors in real estate risk analysis are covered in detail with in-depth academic reference. The book then analyses the digitalisation of commercial real estate. The environment in which buildings operate is changing fast. Cities which used to be made up of inanimate architectural structures are growing digital skins and becoming smarter. Smart technologies applied to the built environment are fundamentally changing buildings' role in cities and their interactions with their occupants. The book introduces the concept of smart space and analyses the emergence of 'digital rights' or property rights for smart buildings in smart environments. It proposes concepts and methods for identifying, pricing, and trading these new property rights which will dominate commercial real estate in the future. Finally, the tokenisation of commercial real estate is explored. Sometimes described as an alternative to securitisation, tokenisation is a new tool in financial engineering applied to real assets. The book suggests two innovative applications of tokenisation: private commercial real estate index tokenisation and data tokens for smart buildings. With factorisation, digitalisation, and tokenisation, commercial real estate is at the forefront of innovations. Real estate's unique characteristics, stemming from its physicality, trigger new ways of thinking which might have a profound impact on other asset classes by paving the way for micro markets. Factor-based property derivatives, digital rights, and tokens embody how commercial real estate can push the boundaries of modern capitalism and, in doing so, move at the centre of tomorrow's smart economies. This book is essential reading for all real estate, finance, and smart technology researchers and interested professionals.

Revised and updated in its fifth edition, this internationally renowned and respected book provides the essentials to understanding all areas of airline finance. Designed to address each of the distinct areas of financial management in an air transport industry context, it also shows how these fit together, while each chapter and topic - for example, aircraft leasing - provides a detailed resource that can also be consulted separately. Supported at each stage by practical airline examples and recent data, Airline Finance examines the financial trends and longer term prospects for the airline industry as a whole, contrasting the developments for the major regions and airlines together with critical discussion of key issues that affect the industry as a whole. Important techniques in financial analysis are applied to the airlines as well as their investors such as banks and other financial institutions. Thoroughly amended and updated throughout, and expanded with the addition of two new chapters, the fifth edition reflects the many developments that have affected the industry, such as the impacts of the banking and sovereign debt crises on the airline industry, signs of re-nationalisation of airlines that have emerged in Europe, and the substantial changes that have occurred in connection with rating agencies and LIBOR. New start-ups and bankruptcies are covered for the first time in a new chapter, joined by airline mergers and acquisitions (M&A), both playing a role in airline concentration. Reflecting their status as a permanent feature, fuel hedging and fuel surcharges now also have their own chapter. The medium- to long-term future in terms of further concentration and government intervention (or the lack of it) and a shift in aircraft financing towards capital markets are discussed in the final chapter. The book is written for employees of airlines, airports and their suppliers, and investment bank and other analysts. It is also popular for use by universities and in-house courses on air transport management, within both academia and industry.