The Economist Guide to Financial Markets: Why They Exist and How They Work (Economist Books) Paperback – January 28, 2014

As described.

This is an excellent way to gain familiarity with financial markets -- the terms, financial structures, how certain structures might be used. This is not a heavy-duty book aimed at quants; it's aimed at intelligent investors looking for concise reference material. It is also remarkable non-judgemental in that is doesn't adopt any particular investing bias (e.g., efficient market vs value investing approaches, etc). I recommend it for those looking for a good starting point in understanding how markets work.

This book is the probably the best introductory resource to a complex topic. Each chapter focusses on a particular kind of financial market, and they are written in a manner that enables the reader to choose how deeply they want to explore the market. For example, I wanted a simple working knowledge, and the first 5-6 pages of each chapter were sufficient to gain a high level understanding.

If you have money that is invested, and you want to learn more about the basics of the different financial markets then this is the book. It covers nearly all the different financial markets and gives a good amount of detail to how they work, what common used words mean and important history about that market.A must read for all Beginning-Intermediate investors or speculators interested in finance/investing.

Definitely liked the fact that every market has been covered in the book. Doesn’t leave you wondering about things like, “what’s a derivative?” Or “what is a futures market?” when you read them. It is however a bit complex for beginners.

Really tells you a lot of the workings of the various financial markets, especially conditions and changes after the crisis. As a young professional just getting my feet wet in studying financial markets (and with a more theoretical economics background) this has been pretty useful.

A very well-written,informative, and affordable (appropriately) introduction to financial markets. Covers stocks, bonds, options, derivatives. and other key financial concepts. He avoids writing in an overly technical style, but still gets the concepts across. Useful for both novies and those with some background in finance. There are 9 total chapters in the book, 275 pages total.

I needed this as a textbook for a graduate course, so it wasn't something I just picked up to read for fun. That said, it is a well laid-out approach to learning about financial markets. It has many clear examples and plenty of statistics to back up its points.