No Fear Finance: An Introduction to Finance and Investment for the Non-Finance Professional

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

No Fear Finance is an accessible guide to the essentials of the finance and investment sectors for individuals who may be approaching the subject for the first time, or who are coming to it from a non-finance background. Covering the fundamentals of finance - including an overview of business finance, the basics of accountancy, financial risk and investment vehicles - the book removes much of the fear experienced by many people when confronted with complex financial issues, and enables them to gain a clear understanding of the basic principles of finance, to which more complicated financial models can then be applied.Online supporting resources for this book include downloadable PDFs of supplemental figures.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 01 Learning about finance (p. 1)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Who will find this book useful? (p. 1)
• What is 'difficult' about learning finance? (p. 2)
• Finance and mathematics (p. 3)
• Open and closed questions - concepts and calculations (p. 4)
• Finance and reality (p. 5)
• Problems with language (p. 6)
• The approach this book will take (p. 6)
• The numbers (p. 7)
• Coping with formulae and calculations (p. 7)
• The rest of the book (p. 10)
• 02 Types of business (p. 13)
• Trading as a sole trader (p. 13)
• Trading as a partnership (p. 16)
• Trading as a company (corporation) (p. 18)
• Other possibilities (p. 20)
• 03 How business is financed (p. 23)
• Equity (p. 23)
• Debt (p. 27)
• The Miller Modigliani Theory (p. 31)
• The Theory of the Efficient Firm (p. 31)
• 04 Accounting basics (1): the balance sheet (p. 35)
• Financial accounting: the basics (p. 35)
• Management accounts: the basics (p. 36)
• Financial accounts (p. 37)
• Balance sheet (p. 39)
• Valuation (p. 44)
• Auditing (p. 45)
• 05 Accounting basics (2): the profit and ioss account (p. 49)
• Turnover (p. 50)
• Profit (or earnings) (p. 50)
• Profit and cash-flow distinguished (p. 54)
• Analysing the P&L (p. 57)
• 06 Working capital and further financial analysis (p. 61)
• The current ratio (p. 61)
• The acid test ratio (p. 63)
• Long-term liquidity (p. 63)
• Working capital (p. 64)
• 07 The time value of money (p. 71)
• Looking down the time tunnel (p. 71)
• Discounting (p. 73)
• Finding the present value of a cash-flow due m more than one year (p. 76)
• Compounding (p. 81)
• 08 Special uses of discounting (p. 85)
• Annuities (p. 85)
• Perpetuities (p. 90)
• The Internal Rate of Return (p. 92)
• Annuities and DC pension schemes (p. 93)
• 09 Risk (p. 99)
• What do we mean by 'risk'? (p. 100)
• What does the world of finance mean by 'risk'? (p. 100)
• Risk (p. 108)
• The Sharpe Ratio (p. 108)
• 10 Return (p. 111)
• Periodic returns (p. 112)
• What can constitute 'return'? (p. 112)
• Annualized returns (p. 114)
• Compound returns (p. 117)
• 11 Bonds (1): basic principles (p. 123)
• How can we classify bonds? (p. 123)
• Bond returns (p. 129)
• 12 Bonds (2): discounting, redemption, pricing and valuation (p. 135)
• The redemption yield (p. 135)
• Bond pricing (p. 138)
• Bond durations (p. 145)
• 13 Equities (p. 151)
• Characteristics of equities: income (p. 152)
• Characteristics of equities: capital (p. 153)
• Measurement of equity returns (p. 154)
• Equity risk (p. 156)
• Measuring effective diversification (p. 159)
• 14 Alpha and beta: active and passive investment (p. 163)
• What is beta? (p. 164)
• What is alpha? (p. 166)
• The arguments in favour of active investment (p. 167)
• The arguments in favour of passive investment (p. 169)
• 15 Derivatives (1): futures and options (p. 173)
• Futures (p. 174)
• Options (p. 177)
• Leverage (p. 182)
• Capital at risk (p. 183)
• 16 Derivatives (2): swaps, futures, options and how to use them (p. 185)
• OTC and exchange traded options (p. 185)
• American and European options (p. 186)
• The Black-Scholes Model (p. 187)
• Swaps (p. 190)
• Hedging (p. 194)
• 17 Capital markets and M&A transactions: events in the corporate life-cycle (p. 199)
• Merger and acquisition (p. 199)
• Flotation (IPO) (p. 204)
• Capital raising: issue of new bonds or shares (stock) (p. 205)
• Insolvency (bankruptcy) (p. 206)
• 18 Asset allocation (p. 211)
• Regulation (p. 212)
• The truth about bonds (p. 213)
• Diversification (p. 214)
• Correlation (p. 216)
• The challenge: matching theory with reality (p. 220)
• Appendix: key formulae (p. 223)
• Glossary of financial terms (p. 229)
• Index (p. 247)