Rating: 
Summary: Well begun is half done!!
Review: Anyone embarking upon a study of investments should begin with this book. From an explanation of market structure to intuitive analyses of all core concepts in investments (like Markowitz Theory, CAPM, Black-Scholes, Fixed Income concepts), this book has everything. Newer editions of the book also have very good instructions on how to implement the tools in MS-Excel. Obviously, this book is not meant for those pursuing a PhD. Rather it is meant for MBAs and aspiring CFAs who want to learn and implement investment tools and analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Investments + S&P Card + Powerweb + StockTrak discount coupo
Review: Bodie/Kane/Marcus is the leading textbook in the graduate investments market. It is recognized as the best blend of practical and theoretical coverage, while maintaining an appropriate rigor and clear writing style. Its unifying theme is that security markets are nearly efficient, meaning that most securities are usually priced appropriately given their risk and return attributes. The text places greater emphasis on asset allocation, and offers a much broader and deeper treatment of futures, options, and other derivative security markets than most investment texts.
Table of Contents: Part 1: Introduction 1. The Investment Environment 2. Markets and Instruments 3. How Securities are Traded 4. Mutual Funds and Other Investment Companies 5. History of Interest Rates and Risk Premiums Part 2: Portfolio Theory 6. Risk and Risk Aversion 7. Capital Allocation Between the Risky Asset and the Risk-Free Asset 8. Optimal Risky Portfolios Part 3: Equilibrium in Capital Markets 9. The Capital Asset Pricing Model 10. Single-Index and Multifactor Models 11. Arbitrage Pricing Theory 12. Market Efficiency 13. Empirical Evidence on Security Returns Part 4: Fixed-Income Securities 14. Bond Prices and Yields 15. The Term Structure of Interest Rates 16. Fixed-Income Portfolio Management Part 5: Security Analysis 17. Macroeconomic and Industry Analysis 18. Equity Valuation Models 19. Financial Statement Analysis Part 6: Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives 20. Options Markets: Introduction 21. Option Valuation 22. Futures Markets 23. Futures and Swaps: A Closer Look Part 7: Applied Portfolio Management 24. Portfolio Performance Evaluation 25. International Diversification 26. The Process of Portfolio Management 27. The Theory of Active Portfolio Management Appendix A. Quantitative Review Appendix B. CFA Citations
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introductury Investments Book
Review: Great book for undergraduate Investments courses and great to review for the PROFESSIONAL RISK MANAGER CERTIFICATION
Rating:
Summary: Excellent text book on investments & basic portfolio theory
Review: I am a lecturer in Finance for a university in the UK. I evaluated this book for use in an Executive MBA course in portfolio management after previously using "Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management" by Reilly and Brown. The Reilly book takes a more quantitative approach to the valuation of various assets and is more comprehensive than "Investments" in terms of its coverage of securities and markets but I ultimately opted for "Investments" due to its clarity, organization, and quality writing style. The authors do an excellent job of communicating fairly complex concepts to a student with little or no background in finance.If you are studying for the CFA or need a more advanced text, I can recommmend the Reilly book. If you are a practitioner or looking for a very mathematically rigorous text in portfolio management, I can recommend "Active Portfolio Management" by Grinold. But for an undergraduate or graduate student looking for an excellent primer on stocks, bonds, options, futures and the workings of the markets they are traded on, look no further than "Investments". One note: we were able to obtain a paperback copy of the text at much reduced cost.
Rating: 
Summary: Good
Review: I find this to be a good book. It's big, thick and it just waits for you to pick it up. It does a good job explaining things to a beginner but as noted here before me I also found it to be a little broad and with a lack of dept, which is a trade-off that the authors presumably kept in mind. However I also find it a little thin and what could be the reason to put the cumulative normal distribution table on pages 712-713 and not in the appendices as expected? I recomend you to buy it bundled with Hull's book on futures as it is also a good buy, to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: Basic book on investments
Review: I've owned an edition of this book since 1993 when I took an Investments class as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout my career, my return to graduate school, and my pursuit of my CFA charter, I have used and seen others using this book, This book is an introductory textbook on investments. To get a deeper understanding about the research that developed the theories and the ongoing debates in academia (e.g. APT, efficient markets hypothesis, behavioral finance), I would suggest reading some of the authors/researchers referenced in the book. Despite this limitation, this is an excellent starting point. The book begins with basic introduction of financial markets and instruments, develops the basic finance toolbox (e.g. basic statistical tools - mean, variance; discounted cash flow), and applies them in a portfolio setting. From this base, it goes on to introduce the most basic financial concepts such as beta, CAPM, diversification, efficient frontier, CAL, etc. These are all the basic tools that are used in portfolio contruction and management. The book extends itself by introducing additional concepts such as derivatives (e.g. futures, options, swaps) which can alter the charateristics of portfolios. As other reviewers have noted and I will agree, these topics are only in a cursory fashion, and I recommend further study on these topics through other texts or papers. Overall, this is a must read (at least as a starting point) for anyone interested in developing knowledge about portfolio theory. For example, this book would be very helpful for anyone who would like to understand with a more critical eye what the commentators/analysts on CNBC or at the brokerage firms are trying to recommend for their own portfolios.
Rating: 
Summary: Full of statistics jargon
Review: It is of course a comprehansive book about investments and covers many topics but is only for those who already are familiar with statistics. If you re not related with statistics will find very difficult to cope with many of examples. I think that should be more descriptive in statistic (theory). For someone who are not familiar with statistics it is difficult to understand i.e the meaning of covariance.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, student-friendly, and extremely helpful
Review: The book by Bodie et al is unquestionably, the best introduction to Investment Theory available today. Please note that there is an emphasis on the word introduction, because there is much that can be covered after the book ends. This book provides a springboard from which the student can take off in different directions viz. Derivatives, Risk Management, Portfolio Management etc. The language is simple, and there are no mathematical demons in the book. The Concept Check questions are extremely valuable and should be attempted before the reader delves into the equally challenging exercises at the end of the chapters. The book starts with an introduction to the different types of markets and financial instruments present today, and then moves into investments, risk etc. The book touches upon a number of topics including bonds, financial statement analysis, security valuation, derivatives and hedging. Like other multipurpose book, it does not go in-depth into any of these, but provides the reader a brief introduction to each of them for help in further studies. It does dwell a lot on portfolio theories which are described in detail, with numerous examples. The chapter-ending exercises are graded with easier questions in the beginning, and extremely challenging ones in the end. All in all, a great book!
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: The book is good. But if you can solve all the problems (buy the solutions manual) then you will be able to extract all the value from it.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent introductory book on financial economics
Review: This is the best book in financial economics at a graduate level program. It covers the basics and some advanced topics in finance with the right balance of theories and applications. For beginners who want to discover the world of finance, Statistics is a must. I recommend : Basic Business Statistics by Levine et all. If you are excited to explore in depth this domain, you need to look at the following areas:
- Multivariate analysis
- Stochastic processes & Calculus
- Probability theories
- Ordinary and partial differential equations
- Some knowledge in programming language (basic, C++....)
| 
