Customer Reviews

Investing in Fixed Income Securities: Understanding the Bond Market (Wiley Finance)

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This book started off very well. The first 5 or so chapters were comprehensive, incisive and as easy to understand as the material allows. Later on, the book seemed to lose focus. In defence of the authors, it seems that they took on a monumental project in writing this book so perhaps that was inevitable. I did find in the chapters on very complex topics such as fixed income derivatives, there was not actually enough information in the chapters themselves to fully understand them. This book is also perhaps slightly dated and specific to US investors only. (Although for non-US investors there is much information that will prove useful in their markets as well. All the same, tis is the best book on the topic I could find and I think I am far better off for having read it.

I am not a professional in the financial field but was looking for help in managing the fixed income portion of my portofolio. Thought this book would help me get beyond simple mutual funds or muni bonds. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess?) it became clear upon reading this text that to do so, would be impractical without much more research than I was willing to put into individual bonds, not just for purchase but also their later resale, nor the equipment and programs available to professionals in the field. If you want to move beyond simple buy-and-hold in bonds, it doesn't seem very practical to do so unless you are a trained professional in the field. Hence, this book was informative to me in one sense, and I am sure that those in this field would get much more use, but I cannot recommend this to anyone but trained professionals working in this area.

This book really helped me understand the ins and outs of fixed income securities. I never knew that prices dropped when yields rose and vice versa. Gary Strumeyer is a genius, and i'm sure handsome to boot. I wish there was a picture of him on the cover.