How utterly boring. If only this had been the first course of my degree it would have been much better, but now this didn't present any extraordinary concept. Anyway, let's hope for a good grade on my final
This book gave a systematic way of seeing the financial markets and institutions, and how they work. The only textbook I've ever finished reading out of school so far because it's that great!
I had a course based on this textbook in my sophomore year of college and the professor recommended we buy the textbook if we liked the course.
As someone who had some basic finance notions but who had trouble seeing the big picture at the time, this textbook is the perfect start for anyone who wants to get a good grasp of the financial system as a whole. It deals with everything you need to know regarding: what the financial system is, central banking (although I would’ve liked the book to go deeper on that front), financial institutions, financial markets and derivatives.
Overall a great introduction to the field of finance and to the financial system. I also read the 8th version so I’m guessing newer versions are probably even more interesting. I can’t recommend this textbook enough.
Overall the information presented was done in a way that is standard for a textbook. The main issue is that even though the authors keep releasing newer editions my teacher was quick to point out that a lot of the information was years out of date or was just plain incorrect to start with.
As an introduction to the financial system, this is pretty good. I did not read the entire thing because I learnt most of the basics in the corresponding seminar. But the book really helped clear some things up or just add some more complex knowledge that the seminar hinted at, but did not want to make mandatory learning. If you want to understand how the financial system basically works (what are bonds, what is the money market, how do exchange rates affect the economy and what exactly do banks and the FED do?), then this is a great read. A huge plus is the easy navigation in the PDF edition (and I'm sure Kindle as well), where you get a detailed breakdown of what is being talked about and can just click the links to get right where you need to go if you only want to look up something specific.
There also questions at the end of every chapter to test your knowledge. That's really neat. What I'm missing though are real life examples of the things talked about or some issues surrounding them. Bonds are interesting for example, especially municipal bonds which are tax free. So, they are used by well off people to stow their capital if tax rates are high. But the book does not go into that at all. There is no critique or deep dive into what some of these things mean for participants. It's just very dry and presents only hard facts without any application. If you want to dive deeper and see how these things might be used instead of just knowing how they function, you'd need another book.