Standard & Poor's Fundamentals of Corporate Credit Analysis

(by Blaise Ganguin, John Bilardello)

An authoritative, in-depth guide to all aspects of credit analysis from the experts at Standard & Poor's

Credit analysis--gauging an issuer's ability to repay interest and principal on a bond issue--plays an essential role in determining how bond issues are rated and priced. Fundamentals of Corporate Credit Analysis provides both analysts and investors with the practical, up-to-date information they need, backed by Standard & Poor's research, data, and experience, to properly assess the credit risk of virtually any entity.

Whether used as a handy all-in-one guide or as a comprehensive training tool, it will give anyone the knowledge and tools needed to dig beneath standard ratings and determine an organization's true creditworthiness.

Inside the House of Money:
Top Hedge Fund Traders on Profiting in the Global Markets

(by Steven Drobny)

Inside the House of Money lifts the veil on the typically opaque world of hedge funds, offering a rare glimpse at how today's highest paid money managers approach their craft. Author Steven Drobny demystifies how these star traders make billions for well-heeled investors, revealing their theories, strategies and approaches to markets. Drobny, cofounder of Drobny Global Advisors, an international macroeconomic research and advisory firm, has tapped into his network and beyond in order assemble this collection of thirteen interviews with the industry's best minds. Along the way, you'll get an inside look at firsthand trading experiences through some of the major world financial crises of the last few decades. Whether Russian bonds, Pakistani stocks, Southeast Asian currencies or stakes in African brewing companies, no market or instrument is out of bounds for these elite global macro hedge fund managers. Highly accessible and filled with in-depth expert opinion, Inside the House of Money is a must-read for financial professionals and anyone else interested in understanding the complexities at stake in world financial markets.

"The ruminations of supposedly hush-hush hedge fund operators are richly illuminating." --New York Times

The Little Book That Beats the Market

(by Joel Greenblatt)

Contrary to efficient-market naysayers, this engaging investment primer contends that ordinary stock-market investors can indeed get better-than-market returns over the long haul. Greenblatt (You Can Be a Stock Market Genius), a Columbia Business School adjunct professor, touts a "value-oriented" approach that looks for bargain stocks whose share price is cheap relative to the company's profitability. His version is a "magic formula" that ranks stocks on the basis of two variables—the earnings yield and the business's return on capital. His Web site, magicformulainvesting.com, virtually automates the procedure for novices. Greenblatt offers lots of statistical proof of the formula's success, but emphasizes the importance of faith in seeing the investor through inevitable short-term downturns: "It will be your belief in the overwhelming logic of the magic formula that will make the formula work for you in the long run." He conveys his ideas through a lucid if rudimentary and rather corny explanation of basic investment concepts about risk, return, interest and business valuation. Although the fabulous returns he touts seem too good to be true, Greenblatt's formula is a reasonable variant of mainstream value-investing methods. Investors seeking a little more hands-on excitement than the average mutual fund offers won't go too far wrong following his advice. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Financial Modeling - 2nd Edition:
Includes CD

(by Simon Benninga)

Too often, finance courses stop short of making a connection between textbook finance and the problems of real-world business. Financial Modeling bridges this gap between theory and practice by providing a nuts-and-bolts guide to solving common financial models with spreadsheets. Simon Benninga takes the reader step by step through each model, showing how it can be solved using Microsoft Excel®. In this sense, this is a finance "cookbook," providing recipes with lists of ingredients and instructions.

Areas covered include computation of corporate finance problems, standard portfolio problems, option pricing and applications, and duration and immunization. The second edition contains six new chapters covering financial calculations, cost of capital, value at risk (VaR), real options, early exercise boundaries, and term structure modeling. A new technical chapter contains a potpourri of tips for using Excel®.

Although the reader should know enough about Excel™ to set up a simple spreadsheet, the author explains advanced Excel® techniques used in the book. The book includes chapters dealing with random number generation, data tables, matrix manipulation, and VBA programming. It also comes with a CD-ROM containing Excel® worksheets and solutions to end-of-chapter exercises.

Value at Risk, 3rd Ed.

(by Philippe Jorion)

Since its original publication, Value at Risk has become the industry standard in risk management. Now in its Third Edition, this international bestseller addresses the fundamental changes in the field that have occurred across the globe in recent years. Philippe Jorion provides the most current information needed to understand and implement VAR-as well as manage newer dimensions of financial risk. Featured updates include:

• An increased emphasis on operational risk
• Using VAR for integrated risk management and to measure economic capital
• Applications of VAR to risk budgeting in investment management
• Discussion of new risk-management techniques, including extreme value theory, principal components, and copulas
• Extensive coverage of the recently finalized Basel II capital adequacy rules for commercial banks, integrated throughout the book

  A major new feature of the Third Edition is the addition of short questions and exercises at the end of each chapter, making it even easier to check progress. Detailed answers are posted on the companion web site www.pjorion.com/var/. The web site contains other materials, including additional questions that course instructors can assign to their students.

  Jorion leaves no stone unturned, addressing the building blocks of VAR from computing and backtesting models to forecasting risk and correlations. He outlines the use of VAR to measure and control risk for trading, for investment management, and for enterprise-wide risk management. He also points out key pitfalls to watch out for in risk-management systems.

  The value-at-risk approach continues to improve worldwide standards for managing numerous types of risk. Now more than ever, professionals can depend on Value at Risk for comprehensive, authoritative counsel on VAR, its application, and its results-and to keep ahead of the curve.

Advanced Financial Risk Management:
Tools & Techniques for Integrated Credit Risk and Interest Rate Risk Managements

(by Donald R. Van Deventer, Kenji Imai, Mark Mesler )

An in-depth look at financial risk management
Advanced Financial Risk Management integrates interest rate risk, credit risk, foreign exchange risk, and capital allocation using a consistent risk management approach. It explains, in detailed, yet understandable terms, the analytics of these issues from A to Z. Written by experienced risk managers, this book bridges the gap between the idealized assumptions used for valuation and the realities that must be reflected in management actions. It covers everything from the basics of present value, forward rates, and interest rate compounding to the wide variety of alternative term structure models.
Donald R. Van Deventer (Hawaii) founded the Kamakura Corporation in April 1990 and is currently President. In 2003, he was voted into the Risk Hall of Fame for having made a profound contribution to the field of risk management. Kenji Imai (Hawaii) heads Software Development for Kamakura and participates in selected Japan-related financial advisory assignments. Mark Mesler (Hawaii) heads the information production for Kamakura Risk Information Services.

Financial Risk Management: A Practitioner's Guide to Managing Market and Credit Risk:
with CD-ROM

(by Steve L. Allen)

An insider's view of financial risk management
This complete guide covers the strategies, principles, and measurement techniques necessary to measure and manage financial risk. With a focus on management perspective, this book explores real-world issues such as model validation, risk measurement, valuation methodologies, and much more. Self-contained Excel spreadsheets are included on the companion CD-ROM.
Steve Allen (New York, NY) is Managing Director of Market Risk Management at J.P. Morgan Chase. He has been a key architect of Chase's Value-at-Risk and Stress Testing systems. Allen also serves as Co-Chairman of the Market and Credit Risk Committee of the Bond Market Association and is coauthor of Valuing Fixed Income Investments and Derivative Securities.