The ongoing evolution of international commodity markets is a fscinating aspect of globalisation, inasmuch as many basic commodities are traded globally on international physical markets, often associated with efficient and global futures markets.
International Commodity Trading

• offers a comprehensive discussion of the specific mechanisms that apply to physical and futures markets
• discusses the various techniques associated with the management of market operations
• presents and analyses the various types of commodity markets
• provides an in-depth coverage of trading companies, of their role and of their strategies
• gives techniques for forecasting commodity prices
• gives practical examples and case studies

This book illustrates the application of the economic concept of stochastic dominance to option markets and presents an alternative option pricing paradigm to the prevailing no arbitrage simultaneous equilibrium in the frictionless underlying and option markets. This new methodology was developed primarily by the author, working independently or jointly with other co-authors, over the course of more than thirty years. Among others, it yields the fundamental Black-Scholes-Merton option value when markets are complete, presents a new approach to the pricing of rare event risk, and uncovers option mispricing that leads to tradeable strategies in the presence of transaction costs. In the latter case it shows how a utility-maximizing investor trading in the market and a riskless bond, subject to proportional transaction costs, can increase his/her expected utility by overlaying a zero-net-cost portfolio of options bought at their ask price and written at their bid price, irrespective of the specific form of the utility function. The book contains a unified presentation of these methods and results, making it a highly readable supplement for educators and sophisticated professionals working in the popular field of option pricing. It also features a foreword by George Constantinides, the Leo Melamed Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, USA, who was a co-author in several parts of the book.

By now, you've probably heard lots of stories about the thousands of individuals worldwide who, armed with little more than their PCs, are making a killing day trading stocks online. Could electronic day trading be your ticket to financial independence? Here's your chance to find out.

Written by Sunny J. Harris, a successful electronic trader and one of today's most respected trading educators, Electronic Day Trading 101 is a complete step-by-step introduction to online day trading--what it is, how it works, and how to get started in business for yourself--and succeed. Requiring no prior stock market or electronic investing experience, it covers all the basics, from stock market fundamentals and essential trading terminology to sophisticated techniques for evaluating your trading performance. With dozens of illustrations and real-life examples, Harris fills you in on what you need to know about trading hardware and software, selecting an online broker or ECN, opening a trading account, developing a trading system that's right for you, trading from home or from a trading salon, performing fundamental and technical analysis, and researching stocks online.

Drawing upon her two decades of experience as head of her own trading firm, Harris provides expert coaching on the all-important business aspects of running a thriving electronic trading practice. She provides invaluable tips on goal setting, maintaining discipline, managing your time, budgeting, good record keeping, and taxes. She also helps you to understand the psychological barriers that often keep people from succeeding as traders, and tells you how to overcome them.

Electronic Day Trading 101 is an indispensable springboard for anyone considering taking the leap into online trading.

A top trading guru tells you everything you need to know about getting started as an online day trader.

"Sunny Harris has created a most comprehensive road map for guiding one into the exciting world of 'Direct Access Electronic Trading.' Very informative, realistic, and helpful. A 'must read'." - Harvey Houtkin, CEO, All-Tech Investment Group Author of Secrets of the SOES Bandit

"If you're going to start trading, start here. And, if you don't know a Level 2 screen from a Short List, then don't go further without reading this book. Sunny Harris has put together a great resource that will save you time and work, and added common sense that could only come from a successful, experienced trader." - Perry Kaufman, author of Trading Systems

"An excellent book in investments. But, more importantly, this volume is a primer explaining to Main Street, especially Main Street businesspeople, how Wall Street really operates." - Eugene M. Isenberg, Chairman of the Board, Nabors Industries, Inc.

"Value Investing: A Balanced Approach is a must read for all thoughtful investors interested in a rational, disciplined, risk-averse template for successful long-term compounding. Bravo, Marty." - O. Mason Hawkins, CFA, Chairman, and CEO, Southeastern Asset Management, Inc. and The Longleaf Partners Fund

"This author knows whereof he speaks. His many years of extremely successful experience as a professional manger of investments, his academic training, and his period of teaching at a major university all make their mark on this illuminating volume. It reveals how a bright, analytically minded person with extensive practical experience studies and evaluates investments." - William J. Baumol, Professor and Director, C.V. Starr Center, NYU, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

"This book by an experienced and practicing master, Martin Whitman, is a treasure amd a reference book on how to think and feel like an owner of a business without the headache of running it day to day." - Papken S. Der Torossian, Chairman and CEO, Silicon Valley Group, Inc.

"Risk is an inescapable feature of investing, and risk, more than anything else, is what this fine book is all about."
–Peter L. Bernstein

Praise for this Second Edition

"For those looking for a serious introduction to the concepts and tools of quantitative financial analysis, this is a great book. The focus is economics and statistics as applied to financial markets. Though the topics are technical, the author’s wit and good sense of humor are evident throughout."
–Bob Litterman, head of the Quantitative Resources Group, Goldman Sachs Asset Management

"This book is an essential resource for the thoughtful practitioner and serious student of finance. Kritzman straightforwardly introduces the reader to tools and concepts of huge significance in finance and investment management today. Neither brain candy nor mental steroids, this book is solid intellectual protein. Buy it. Study it. Bulk up."
–Robert F. Bruner, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Executive Director of the Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

"This is a wonderful collection of wide-ranging essays on financial analysis written by a preeminent practitioner in a remarkably lucid style . . . don’t leave home without it!"
–Andrew W. Lo, Harris & Harris Group Professor, MIT Sloan School

Praise for the First Edition

"In one book, Mark Kritzman covers the key tools of modern investment practice. Clear, concise, and always to the point, the treatment is succinct but never superficial. This valuable volume should be included in the library of every serious investor."
–Dr. William F. Sharpe, Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University and Nobel Prize Laureate, 1990, Economic Sciences

"Mark Kritzman makes the recondite transparent, the technical accessible, and the horrendously complex elegantly simple. Keep this book close at hand and you won’t have to figure out these difficult issues again (and again and again)."
–Jack R. Meyer, President and CEO, Harvard Management Company, Inc.

This practical guide on the theory and practice of Investor Relations combines the art and science of marketing, financial analysis and financial communications in a single source. It offers expert advice and helpful tips to be used in real business life by corporate executives, financial analysts, students, and anyone competing for capital.

This book is based on A Trading Desk's View of Market Quality, a conference hosted by the Zicklin School of Business on April 30, 2002. The text includes the edited transcripts of each panel as well as separate presentations by two distinguished industry officials, Joel Steinmetz, who at the time was Senior Vice President, Equities, Instinet Corporation, and Laura Unger, formerly Acting Chairperson and Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This book is not simply a historical record of the conference. It is also an exposition of the complex issues raised by the industry experts and speakers in attendance. Therefore, we introduced new material from foll- up interviews with many of the panelists so that the final result would be a more valuable document. Our intention was to examine the discussions with a critical eye, then modify or expand various sections to reflect contemporary conditions. In addition, we have included a paper by Ozenbas, Schwartz and Wood (see Chapter 8, page 151) that provides further analysis on the connection between market quality and intra-day 1 volatility that was noted several times during the conference. During the production process, we worked with the panelists, and took pains not to put words in their mouths. They have all approved the final draft of the manuscript, and we thank them for their assistance and patience.

This book reconsiders the role of nobility as influential economic players and provides new insights into the business activities of noblemen in Europe and Asia during the nineteenth century thus offering up opportunities for comparison in an age of economic expansion and globalisation. What was the contribution of the nobility to the economy? Can we consider noblemen to have been endowed with an entrepreneurial spirit? Research shows that far from being passive, throughout the century the European nobility were widely involved in business, carried on innovations, refined management strategies, and diversified their investments from agriculture to transport, industry and finance. Both in Europe and Asia businesses were embedded in social networks and personal relationships. In modern Japan after the Meiji Restoration - the unique case in Asia where a Western-style nobility was created - business, trust, personal connections and aristocratic marriages were intertwined and Japanese noblemen, especially the richer ones, acted as promoters of industrialisation, even though their role was certainly limited in time and space. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of economics, management, political science, sociology, public management and history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Business History.

Student-Managed Investment Funds: Organization, Policy, and Portfolio Management, Second Edition, helps students work within a structured investment management organization, whatever that organizational structure might be. It aids them in developing an appreciation for day-to-day fund operations (e.g., how to get portfolio trade ideas approved, how to execute trades, how to reconcile investment performance), and it addresses the management of the portfolio and the valuation/selection process for discriminating between securities. No other book covers the "operational" related issues in SMIFs, like organizations, tools, data, presentation, and performance evaluation. With examples of investment policy statements, presentation slides, and organizational structures from other schools, Student-Managed Investment Funds can be used globally by students, instructors, and administrators alike.

Control of an impartial balance between risks and returns has become important for investors, and having a combination of financial instruments within a portfolio is an advantage. Portfolio management has thus become very important for reaching a resolution in high-risk investment opportunities and addressing the risk-reward tradeoff by maximizing returns and minimizing risks within a given investment period for a variety of assets. Metaheuristic Approaches to Portfolio Optimization is an essential reference source that examines the proper selection of financial instruments in a financial portfolio management scenario in terms of metaheuristic approaches. It also explores common measures used for the evaluation of risks/returns of portfolios in real-life situations. Featuring research on topics such as closed-end funds, asset allocation, and risk-return paradigm, this book is ideally designed for investors, financial professionals, money managers, accountants, students, professionals, and researchers.

This book is mainly devoted to finite difference numerical methods for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) models of pricing a wide variety of financial derivative securities. With this objective, the book is divided into two main parts. In the first part, after an introduction concerning the basics on derivative securities, the authors explain how to establish the adequate PDE boundary value problems for different sets of derivative products (vanilla and exotic options, and interest rate derivatives). For many option problems, the analytic solutions are also derived with details. The second part is devoted to explaining and analyzing the application of finite differences techniques to the financial models stated in the first part of the book. For this, the authors recall some basics on finite difference methods, initial boundary value problems, and (having in view financial products with early exercise feature) linear complementarity and free boundary problems. In each chapter, the techniques related to these mathematical and numerical subjects are applied to a wide variety of financial products. This is a textbook for graduate students following a mathematical finance program as well as a valuable reference for those researchers working in numerical methods in financial derivatives. For this new edition, the book has been updated throughout with many new problems added. More details about numerical methods for some options, for example, Asian options with discrete sampling, are provided and the proof of solution-uniqueness of derivative security problems and the complete stability analysis of numerical methods for two-dimensional problems are added. Review of first edition: "...the book is highly well designed and structured as a textbook for graduate students following a mathematical finance program, which includes Black-Scholes dynamic hedging methodology to price financial derivatives. Also, it is a very valuable reference for those researchers working in numerical methods in financial derivatives, either with a more financial or mathematical background." -- MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

In 1982, the Dow hovered below 1000. Then, the market rose and rapidly gained speed until it peaked above 11,000. Noted journalist and financial reporter Maggie Mahar has written the first book on the remarkable bull market that began in 1982 and ended just in the early 2000s. For almost two decades, a colorful cast of characters such as Abby Joseph Cohen, Mary Meeker, Henry Blodget, and Alan Greenspan came to dominate the market news.

This inside look at that 17-year cycle of growth, built upon interviews and unparalleled access to the most important analysts, market observers, and fund managers who eagerly tell the tales of excesses, presents the period with a historical perspective and explains what really happened and why.

Your Essential Guide to Quantitative Hedge Fund Investing provides a conceptual framework for understanding effective hedge fund investment strategies. The book offers a mathematically rigorous exploration of different topics, framed in an easy to digest set of examples and analogies, including stories from some legendary hedge fund investors. Readers will be guided from the historical to the cutting edge, while building a framework of understanding that encompasses it all. Features Filled with novel examples and analogies from within and beyond the world of finance Suitable for practitioners and graduate-level students with a passion for understanding the complexities that lie behind the raw mechanics of quantitative hedge fund investment A unique insight from an author with experience of both the practical and academic spheres.

Forestland investment has surged in the past few decades as a result of land ownership change in the forestry industry. Timberland investment and management organizations and real estate investment trusts have bought up land and resources that were divested by vertically integrated forest products companies. This book provides a seminal coverage of this seismic shift in the industry, exploring the philosophy, driving factors, valuation, theory, research, implementation, practice, and effects of forestland investment. Across 15 chapters the book reviews the history of forestland investment; discusses the optimal forest rotation; explains timberland appraisal; examines the return drivers of forestland; analyzes timberland index construction methods and results; prices timberland assets; reviews financial and real options; investigates real option values in forestland management; evaluates timber harvest contracts; examines new opportunities in the emerging woody bioenergy market; and eventually offers prospects on forestland investment in the future. It also discusses how forest carbon can be used as a nature-based climate solution. This book is essential reading for forestry business students and scholars, as well as practitioners and policymakers in the industry.

Specialists and floor brokers, in direct contact on the trading floor, are at the heart of operations at the national U.S. equity exchanges. At the other end of the spectrum, electronic trading platforms characterize most other equity markets globally. Why have we not followed the international trend, and should we? Can the unique services offered by the floor be provided as effectively in an electronic environment? Which environment would institutional and retail traders each find most suitable to their special needs? These are some of the questions that will be addressed. In so doing, Electronic vs. Floor Based Trading will provide perspective on the future direction that exchange market structure is likely to follow in the coming years.

A collection of papers on the determinants and consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the real and financial sectors of industrial countries. The text sheds new light on the determinants of FDI, in particular the role of governmental incentives. Another main topic is the role of FDI in the east European accession countries. It provides insights into the question of whether EU enlargement will have consequences for capital flows into those countries. Since the start of European monetary union, the discussion on cross-border mergers in the European banking industry has intensified. The final part of the book contains contributions to this debate.

Some of the most successful and well-known hedge funds have long profited from a trading strategy that applies macroeconomic views to global markets: global macro. Pioneered by hedge fund managers such as George Soros and Julian Robertson, this strategy has led to enormous profits. By placing directional bets on liquid assets, it is particularly suited for trending markets.

In Macro Trading and Investment Strategies: Macroeconomic Arbitrage in Global Markets, Gabriel Burstein defines and rigorously analyzes this investment style. He then proposes macro arbitrage as an original alternative to trading subjective macroeconomic views at times when markets are either trending or are extremely volatile, lacking direction, and in crisis, such as during the Asian, Russian, and Latin American economic and financial collapses of the late 1990s. Macro arbitrage is introduced as a new, lower-risk, long/short macro strategy that is based on detecting objective macroeconomic mispricings in global markets. Burstein shows how this trading strategy works in stock market sector spreads (food retailers/general retailers, banks/utilities), stock index spreads (Italy/Spain, Sweden/Finland), and with the European Monetary Union (EMU) ahead of its 1999 single-currency final stage.

In Macro Trading and Investment Strategies, Burstein presents, with examples, the framework for traditional global macro strategies, then shows how to use macroeconomic mispricings in global financial markets to design innovative global macroeconomic arbitrage strategies for trading and investing.

Macro Trading and Investment Strategies is the first thorough examination of one of the most proficient and enigmatic trading strategies in use today—global—macro. More importantly, it introduces an innovative strategy to this popular hedge fund investment style—global macroeconomic arbitrage.

Dr. Burstein, an ex-Goldman Sachs macro proprietary trader who now heads a hedge funds-dedicated equity sales group at Daiwa Europe, proposes a new global macro strategy that is nondirectional and more objective. The classic global macro strategy utilizes macroeconomic information to anticipate market direction through subjective views. As a result, global macro has a strong subjective-directional component. Based on objective mispricings of macroeconomic information in stock market index and stock sector index spreads, a new long/short arbitrage strategy is presented here that capitalizes on the correction of objective macroeconomic mispricings. These macro arbitrage strategies are evaluated and tested in volatile markets such as the "domino effect" of the global financial crises of 1997-1998 that led to a hedge fund crisis. In fact, the book shows how global financial crises create strong macro arbitrage opportunities while also being a catalyst for correcting preexistent macro mispricings.

Macro Trading and Investment Strategies: Macroeconomic Arbitrage in Global Markets presents a new and compelling trading and investment strategy. Written in a clear and concise style, it includes definitions and carefully tested trading examples.Packed with revealing trading case studies, examples, explanations, and definitions, this comprehensive work covers:

• Global directional macro, long/short macro, and macroeconomic arbitrage trading and investment strategies
• Causes of macroeconomic mispricings in markets; tackling secondary macroeconomic variables in trades
• The importance of technical timing in macro arbitrage
• Volatility of macro arbitrage strategies versus volatility of relative-value strategies
• Mispricing opportunities due to the effect of the Asian crisis on global markets
• Macro arbitrage of the EMU convergence mispricing in equity markets
• Mispricings of retail sales, GDP, industrial production, interest rates, and exchange rates in stock markets

In-depth and timely, Macro Trading and Investment Strategies covers an area of intense interest to today's trading and investment community and shows new opportunities. It is invaluable reading for those seeking new ways to tackle today's volatile global markets.

Look to the stars for a whole new approach to market cycle forecasting

"A Trader's Guide to Financial Astrology" is the definitive guide to trading market cycles based on astrological data. Written by a highly-respected technical analyst, this book makes the connection between the movements of planets and the volatility of the market. Readers can draw upon one hundred years of historical data as they learn how to spot correlations from the past, and refer to planetary and lunar data for the next five years as they shape their own strategy. The book covers the principles of astrological forecasting as applied to the financial markets, explaining what to watch for and how to interpret planetary and lunar activity, plus expert insight on everyday practical application.

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta determined that the U.S. stock markets tend to be negatively affected by geomagnetic storms, and the Royal Bank of Scotland demonstrated that a trading system based on the phases of the moon would have outperformed the market. "A Trader's Guide to Financial Astrology" shows traders how to tap into the planetary forces that influence market activity. Readers will: Learn how planetary and lunar movements relate to the financial marketsDraw upon 100 years of historic correlations and five years of forecast dataForecast long-term and short-term activity based on planetary relationships and lunar movementEnter the markets at key turning points, using price patterns and other tools

When integrated with technical trading patterns, astrology can be an effective way of shifting perspective and approaching the market differently. For traders who have always wanted to know what to do when Mercury is in retrograde or the moon is new, "A Trader's Guide to Financial Astrology" provides information and insight from a leading market educator.

The digital transformation of finance and banking enables traditional services to be delivered in a more effective and efficient way but, at the same time, presents crucial issues such as fast growing new asset classes, new currencies, datafication and data privacy, algorithmization of law and regulation and, last but not least, new models of financial crime. This book approaches the evolution of digital finance from a business perspective and in a holistic way, providing cutting-edge knowledge of how the digital financial system works in its three main domains: banking, insurance and capital markets. It offers a bird's eye view of the major issues and developments in these individual sectors. The book begins by examining the wider framework of the subsequent analysis and over the next three parts, discusses the opportunities, risks and challenges facing the digitalization of these individual financial subsectors, highlighting the similarities and differences in their digitalization agenda, as well as the existing linkages and dependencies among them. The book clarifies the strategic issues facing the development of digital finance in these major subsectors over the coming years. The book has three key messages: that digital transformation changes fundamentally the way financial businesses operate; that individual trades have their own digitalization agenda; and that the State with its regulatory power and central banking and money has a particularly important role to play. It will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers of finance and banking, as well as policymakers wishing to understand the values and limitations of new forms of digital money.

Mergers & acquisitions are an essential instrument of strategic corporate management for companies of all sizes. The success of an M&A project highly depends on an optimal transaction preparation, fast execution and the experience of all parties involved. Due to numerous endogenous and exogenous influences, no two M&A transactions are alike at the detailed level. This book is designed as a practical M&A guide for students and professionals alike. In addition to dealing with important basics of mergers & acquisitions, the focus is on a structured and in-depth examination of the individual process steps of a typical company sale. At various points in this book, specific differences between a company sale of medium-sized companies (mid-caps) and large companies (large-caps) are discussed in detail.

Sixty-one percent of Canadians between the ages of 45 and 64 don't have a formal financial strategy. In The BAPKIN Plan, author and financial planner Gerard Hassprovides simple yet effective guidance for creating a financial plan to help you save, invest, and plan for retirement.

The BAPKIN Plan presents an easy-to-remember framework and explains the basic steps you can use to simplify and improve your life and your financial wellbeing. Offering checklists to help you organize your journey, this reference tool can guide you to a better understandingof what your financial adviser or planner is recommending--including the positive and negative features of potential investments. You'll learn how to

- develop a commitment to setting simple goals and to following a simple plan based on common sense;- commit to strategies to live within your means;- draft a statement of net worth and revisit it every year;- protect yourself with an emergency fund, line of credit, and insurances;- protect your loved ones by having life insurance coverage, a will, and powers of attorney;- understand how you are taxed and the importance of seeking professional help;- develop a personal pension plan strategy based on your life stage;- institute a disciplined investment strategy that will suit your objectives;and- work with the adviser who is a professional--not a salesman.

Communicating a wealth of information, Hass provides advice to help move you forward in your financial empowerment.

Praise for Investment Management

"A compelling analysis of the challenges of investment management, and why investment management firms require innovation to succeed."
--Blake Grossman, CEO, Barclays Global Investors

"Great investment managers understand that positioning portfolios for clients should not be an act of conformity, but rather a constant journey of shifting fundamentals and opinion. Wayne and Ralph bring this fact to life by addressing some of the key challenges to serious investment thinking, using top-level researchers in their respective fields. For those investment managers and clients who want to go beyond the ordinary."
--Jeff Diermeier, former CEO of CFA Institute and retired CIO of UBS Global Asset Management

"The essays in this book provide an invaluable reference point of serious readings for money managers. The works provide the analyst with the most recent scholarship in a single book, presenting ideas and philosophy that will lead me back to its various sections time and time again."
--Kenneth S. Hackel, CFA, President, CT Capital LLC

"The crash of 2007-2009 brought a harsh conclusion to a quarter of a century of unprecedented growth and prosperity for the investment management industry, which faces no less a task than reinventing itself. Rieves' and Wagner's contribution to the way forward couldn't be timelier."
--Richard Ennis, Principal, Ennis Knupp + Associates

"This book uniformly focuses on the best practices to which investment management professionals should commit. I highly recommend this book to investment managers, sales people, and trustees of pensions, endowments, trusts, and mutual funds."
--Jack Clark Francis, PhD, Professor of Economics and Finance, Bernard Baruch College

A proven approach to trading success based on the best commodity trading advisors

Profiting from long-term trends is the most common path to success for traders. The challenge is recognizing the emergence of a trend and determining where to enter and exit the market. "The Trend Following Bible" shows individual traders and investors how to profit from this approach by trading like today's top commodity trading advisors.

In this book, author Andrew Abraham stresses the importance of a disciplined, consistent methodology, with stringent risk controls, that allows you to catch big trends, while limiting losses on unprofitable trades. By trading in this manner, he shows you how to successfully achieve market-beating returns over the long term and multiple your trading capital along the way.Reveals exactly how top commodity trading advisors operate and how individuals can incorporate these methods into their everyday trading endeavorsAddresses key issues like position sizing and risk control, which are critical to trading success, but often underemphasized in other trading literatureHighlights how to effectively execute the trading strategies outlined

Engaging and accessible, "The Trend Following Bible" will put you in a better position to profit as you make more informed trading decisions.