Bonds and Bond Derivatives - Miles Livingston

This book is an introduction to bond markets and bond derivatives for students as well as for executives in commercial businesses and financial institutions. While many topics about debt instruments involve considerable mathematics, this text presents the essential elements in an intuitive and relatively non–mathematical way. For students, the book is designed to be the main text for a debt markets course or as a supplement for investment, money and banking, and institutional finance courses. For practitioners, the book can be used as a training manual and reference source for firms involved in the debt markets.

The book begins with a discussion of the major macroeconomic determinants of interest rates before proceeding to present financial institutions – including the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, brokers, dealers, investment bankers, mutual funds, banks, pension funds, and insurance companies – and their role in the debt markets. Present value calculations for flat and nonflat term structures are carefully described. Several chapters cover specialized instruments such as money market debt, mortgages, international debt, options, futures, and swaps, while the important concept of arbitrage is shown to link many different types of markets.