Financial markets and investments / Andrea Beltratti

Cover --
Description --
Biography --
Title --
Copyright --
Table of Contents --
Introduction --
1 Financial markets --
2 Asset returns --
3 Rational financial choices and the utility function --
4 Behavioral finance --
5 Sovereign bonds --
6 Risk and management of bond portfolios --
7 The expected return/risk trade-off and the benefits of diversification --
8 The efficient frontier and the optimal portfolio --
9 The capital asset pricing model --
10 Picking stocks and investing with style --
11 Theory and practice of multifactor models --
12 Prices and values --
13 Market efficiency --
14 Private assets --
15 Sustainability and ESG investing --
Bibliography.

This book can be used in a course on financial markets and investments for students who have already had exposure to introductory economics, finance and statistics. The purpose is to make the different topics as practical as possible in the context of a general discussion, while maintaining academic standards of rigorous and literature-based analysis. The selection of topics places the book at the boundary between a basic and an intermediate discussion with a practical purpose. It starts from the fundamentals of asset pricing and risk premia and applies the tools to topics such as portfolio optimization, stock valuation, private assets and sustainability. As such, the book will be of interest to professionals and some chapters may well be used in the context of executive education.