Bloomberg Press

Bonds; the unbeaten path to secure investment growth, rev. ed.

Bonds may be boringly predictable compared to stocks, but in this case, boring is said to be good. In this revised edition of The Money-Making Guide to Bonds (2002) a couple who are financial advisers promote the all-bond portfolio. After debunking myths about stocks being good long-term investments, the Richelsons explain bond basics and investing strategies. The guide includes case studies of how bonds can help meet financial goals and Web resources. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Credit derivative strategies; new thinking on managing risk and return.

Credit derivatives are financial contracts whose value is derived primarily from an underlying asset or market quote that incorporates credit risk. In this work, Douglas (founder and CEO of Quantifi Inc., a "provider of pricing models and risk analysis tools for structured credit") presents 11 chapters that give advice on investment, risk management, and pricing strategies involving credit derivatives. Topics addressed include distressed debt strategies, synthetic collateralized debt obligation trading strategies, integrating credit hedge funds into a portfolio of investments, risk management of credit derivatives, risk management for multistrategy funds, integrating event risk in portfolio construction, pricing models, and valuation. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Family; the compact among generations.

Building on his previous book Family Wealth, Hughes describes a set of practices that families can use to flourish financially and therefore continue on through generations. He notes that the preservation of family wealth is a question of human behavior, a group process, and involves assets that are its individual members and their human and intellectual capital. Furthermore, members must form a social compact and create a system of governance to preserve their wealth. He draws from ancient wisdom and history, psychology, modern organizational and management science, and other disciplines to explain the application of these principles. Hughes is a retired counselor-at-law and the author of articles on family governance and wealth preservation and the book Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Guide to economic indicators; making sense of economics, 6th ed.

As Mark Twain once said, "there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." This observation is perhaps at its most accurate when applied to economic indicators in the hands of politicians and other interested parties. This volume from The Economist aims to give an audience with no prior knowledge of economics and statistics an understanding of global economic indicators and how to interpret them. The indicators they discuss cover the economy and economic growth, population and employment, government fiscal policies, consumers, investment and savings, industry and commerce, external flows, exchange rates, money and interest rates, and prices and wages. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)