Essentials of Investments (IRWIN MCGRAW HILL SERIES IN FINANCE, INSURANCE AND REAL ESTATE) - Hardcover

Bodie, Zvi; Kane, Alex; Marcus, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0256164592 ISBN 13: 9780256164596

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education, 1997

Synopsis

ESSENTIALS OF INVESTMENTS 3/E is intended for the required Undergraduate Investments course for all finance majors. A significant number of other business majors also take this course as an elective.

ESSENTIALS OF INVESTMENTS, 3/E is a text on investment analysis. The authors have eliminated unnecessary mathematical detail and concentrated on the intuition and insights that will be useful to practitioners throughout their careers as new ideas and challenges emerge from the financial marketplace. ESSENTIALS maintains the theme of asset allocation (authors discuss asset pricing and trading then apply these theories to portfolio planning in real-world securities markets that are governed by risk/return relationships). ESSENTIALS also continues to develop modern topics. However, since it is intended for undergraduates, the authors place more emphasis on securities and security analysis and de-emphasize technical aspects of portfolio analysis. The major objective in this revision is to maintain the current level in content and coverage, but work on improving the text's accessibility by enhancing presentation, pedagogy, and design.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Since many courses are requiring their students to complete their homework in spreadsheet format as it is done in the professional world, the authors have integrated Excel throughout the book in two ways:

a. Most chapters include a feature at the end that shows students how to create and manipulate the spreadsheet to solve a particular problem. This feature takes an example presented earlier in the chapter, gives a brief discussion on how the using a spreadsheet will be valuable for this particular problem, shows a cropping of a spreadsheet, and then asks 3 - 5 questions that can be answered by using the spreadsheet. The student can then go to the book's web site for the actual spreadsheet. At this site, there is a more detailed discussion on how the spreadsheet is built, the spreadsheet that can be manipulated which includes a comment feature that explains where the inputs and outputs came from, and the solutions to the questions. The students can use these models to solve problems at the end of the chapter.
b. Because it makes more sense to use spreadsheets for analysis than formulas, many examples formerly in tables and solved using formulas are now set in spreadsheets.
Chapters 19 and 21 will be combined for a new chapter 19 (title to come). This reorganization streamlines the coverage of active portfolio management by reducing redundancies and allowing instructors to hopefully have more time to cover this material in the course.
More international coverage throughout the text. There is a continuing interest in the markets overseas and their affect on the U.S. economy. This text strives to incorporate international current events and issues more thoroughly in this edition.
Annotated Internet sources will be listed at the end of each chapter to give students and instructors additional references for finding data and current events related to the chapter.
Chapter 4 on Mutual Funds added in the 3rd edition is a hot area in finance, and by placing it early in the text, the students will have the opportunity to learn about some interesting, relevant topics in investments.
Wall Street Journal Edition. This edition offers a WSJ edition featuring our discounted subscription program. Many professors use the WSJ in their investments class as the WSJ Edition gives students a look at the real world.
Part Openers help demonstrate how investments concepts from the text relate to the real world. This adds to the text's 'real world' flavor, along with making the subject matter more accessible and interesting for the students. The part openers use both current and key historical events in the narrative.
International emphasis. Relevant international examples and topics are found throughout the text, where appropriate (especially in the market structure and mutual funds chapters). We have maintained a separate international chapter near the end of the text, since students need a solid background in investments before they can completely understand and apply their knowledge to international topics in finance.
Summaries of recent business press articles are included in boxes in appropriate chapters. Portions of the narrative that correspond to the boxed material are highlighted in a second color to show relevance of the box to the chapter discussion. The authors consistently tie the material in the narrative to the boxes, which is a fantastic competitive advantage you can now easily demonstrate.

About the Author:

Zvi Bodie is Professor Emeritus at Boston University, where he taught from 1973 to 2016.  Today, he is an independent financial consultant and educator.  His main professional interest is to firmly establish finance as an applied science built on the principles explained in his books and websites.  He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has served on the finance faculty at the Harvard Business School and MIT's Sloan School of Management.  His textbook Financial Economics coauthored by Nobel-Prize winning economist Robert C. Merton has been translated into 9 languages.  In addition to his textbooks, Bodie has coauthored two books for the mass market: Risk Less and Prosper: Your Guide to Safer Investing and Worry-Free Investing A Safe Approach to Achieving Your Lifetime Financial Goals.  In 2007, the Retirement Income Industry Association gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award for applied research.  He has authored and edited many books and articles on pensions and investing for retirement. With the support of the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute, he organized a series of 3 conferences on the theory and practice of life-cycle finance.  Currently he serves as senior advisor to the Investments and Wealth Institute and consults for a number of financial firms including Dimensional Fund Advisors. 

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0256164592
• ISBN 13: 9780256164596
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 640