10th Edition, Investments

The book itself is a great overview of finance (rating refers to the content of the book).

DO NOT BUY THE E-BOOK (negative stars?). This was my first attempt at buying a textbook in digital form, and I could not be more disappointed. I tried to save some money, but ended up buying a physical copy of the book, wasting $70, I love reading on the kindle app of my computer, but I find it an incredibly poor medium for textbooks. Unless I hear about a revolutionary update for the kindle apps regarding textbooks, I will exclusively use my account for fiction / non-fiction reading.

This book contains lots of information on the financial markets and products. Unfortunately, the publisher races through some topics or isn't very clear and there is no supplemental study guide to help. The problems at the end of each chapter are also really poorly written and don't seem very helpful in supplementing the material covered.

Too much reliance on modern finance and efficient market hypothesis. This book teaches you investments in the sense of asset correlation optimization and volatility, but does not teach you at all how to do security valuation, analyze the firm's strategic position and management. It is just a book of Excel and security descriptions.

For example the academic staff at one of the top 50 business schools had remarked to me that they are teaching the stuff, but it really doesn't hold up I real life. But that they don't have a good substitute, so they continue to teach it.

It is very interesting to see how far we have come from the 1950’s through the 1990s with the dogmatic and unquestioned following of Markowitz, Sharpe, Modigliani, Miller, French & Fama......

This book was marketed as being new. However, when it arrived, that was not the case. The corners and the rest of the hard cover are beat up pretty good. There are many typos in the book which make me question how it was produced. However, all of the material appears to be there and it was cheaper than a used book at the bookstore, so it will work.

This is the best book of financial investments in the market. It has a great teaching method with demonstrations and examples. This new edition includes some topics about the financial crisis as well.

This is the best book of financial investments in the market. It has a great teaching method with demonstrations and examples. This new edition includes some topics about the financial crisis as well.

To prepare for the new semester, I ordered the book and ended up receiving a much earlier version. Due to the so called dynamic inventory management, I was informed I could not exchange it for the correct version and could only get refund. Then I checked the items on the store and saw the price had been set higher than the one at which I placed my original order. unethical profiteer!

Incredibly weak book.

I missed one class, which happened to be over Chapter 7. I had to reach out the professor multiple times due to a lack of proper examples. This is the first time in a long, long time I have been unable to work through a chapter on my own. Instead of helping students through concepts, one is inundated with pointless finance theory, with little in the way of giving the student actual problems to illustrate said theory. Then you're pushed into the 'chapter end' questions without a leg to stand on.

This is, in my opinion, done on purpose to make the student reach out to the solutions manual (purchased separately). This book loves and loves theory, and provides basically zero examples. I've pressed my graduate department to dump it and re-evaluate.

This book seems like the university standard for financial economics or investment geared classes, typically focusing on asset pricing. Seeing the stars on the store I was quite excited when my professor assigned this book as the primary book for the course work.

Well that joy turned to despair after the first set of homework assignments. The book does a decent, not great, but decent job explaining complex topics of investment. But the problems in the end of the chapters don't reflect the material IN the chapter preceding it. That's to say they ask questions that they never explained, described, or even mentioned in the chapter or, matter of fact, the entire book on certain questions. So the answers will be complicated steps or procedures that were not mentioned anywhere - very, very frustrating. I thought the concept of a textbook was to teach students, not have them grab solutions from thin air. Of course not 100% of the problems are like that but I would say a good 70% are, which is much larger compared to other textbooks who ask questions not mentioned in the chapter. (Seriously, way too many problems are like that.) If they're going to charge this much for a text book at least use it to teach tangible financial calculations on asset pricing.

I gave it two stars because the book covers a wide range of investment topics in an almost encyclopedic manner so it's good for reference to get an overall understanding about a topic.

So final tip: you want theoretical and general explanations on investment topics, then you're good to go with Investments; you want a textbook that explains and shows you how to calculate problems and gives examples to illustrate and teach you, definitely go with something else.

This book is incredibly obtuse, and Awkward writing style. It is hard to believe that the Authors have very high teaching credentials, when this book was so Poorly-written. The Professor Actually laughed out loud when he was reading some of the canned answers the Authors gave to homework questions. They were incredibly wordy and written by somebody before the Prehistoric Times. Even more awkward than the Text. There were a few places where the book didn't give adequate information for the Assignment Questions. One or two Chapters, in particular, although I don't recall which ones, off the top of my head. Some of the Chapters just went on-and-on explaining something, and, at the end of it, you were left asking yourself "Did I really learn *Anything* about it?" I then raced online, and within less than 10 minutes... I gained a much better understanding off of a couple well-known finance website, in just a sentence or two, or at the most a Paragraph...than I learned (or, didn't learn) from several paragraphs in this book.
One of the other Students was Shocked, when she was telling me this book doesn't even have a Glossary, and it is the Only book she has ever had throughout her entire Degree Program, that didn't include any Glossary.

Kind of Sad, for Such an Expensive Book!

This book has a tremendous amount of valuable information for those of us who want to understand what investments are actually about. There is a lot more to it than the simple bromides peddled in the popular press and media. Yet, when you get some basic concepts down, they become easier to understand and evaluate. The popular press is misleading in its oversimplification and silly statements (like "no one is buying today").
I want to praise this edition's organization. Since it is a text designed for use by students, the fifth edition I used is organized most helpfully. Each chapter has an overview and there are concept check questions at key points of the text that help you assess if you really understood the information you just read. The main points are restated in a concise summary at the end of each chapter and you can review the key terms to make sure you are absorbing the vocabulary.
There are valuable websites listed along the way for additional and related information. The authors and publisher also provide a website with materials including spreadsheets directly related to this book. The part of the site with online quizzes has a few typos and scoring errors, and that should be fixed, but the online materials are generally ok.
The chapter problems are another matter. Some are really projects and should be separated, I feel, from the study questions. They are good to do if you have the time and will certainly help your learning, but they can take some time to work through.
Some of the questions are very simple and are really a quick concept check and they seem out of place when placed along side the "projects". One VERY NICE feature of the questions is the inclusion of sample CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exam questions. This is very useful for those of us thinking about preparing for that process.
It is also worth getting the Solutions Manual. ISBN 0-07-233921-7. Don't by a mismatched solutions manual! As you work through the problems, especially the "projects" it is nice to see how these problems are handled by the authors.

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!

The book is written by several authors so the difference in style is evident. One of them writes quite fluidly. Another writes in a scholarly esoteric fashion. The book is a must-have for graduate business students.

The book has a good section on portfolio theory and diversification. The Markowitz model and Single index model are explained in good detail. However, the chapters on Futures and options, and Bonds could be explained better. I relied on my professor's notes to understand these concepts. The wording of the book is confusing at times and to understand something you need to read it 3 or 4 times at the least to get a good grasp of what the author is saying. Be prepared to read 12 to 15 hours per chapter to fully understand the material, sometimes more.

The solutions manual tends to have very short and concise answers that do not go into enough detail for the student to give the student a more full understanding of why a certain answer is chosen. Im not sure why the authors don't go into more detail with some of the solutions to make it easier to understand how they came to that solution. For example some of the questions asked in the book problems are not topics covered in the chapter, or are topics covered very briefly, which makes it nearly impossible to solve the problem on your own. There is little to no reference in the chapter to understand how to solve these problems. A more detailed and explanatory solutions manual would greatly enhance learning outcomes for students that are not experts in Finance as of yet.

The seller sent the book to me extra quickly, especially considering that it was during the holiday season. He communicated with me and delivered as promised. The condition of the book was exactly as he described it. Great seller!

This book is well written and contains gainful insights into the study of investments. It also provides a glossary that is very helpful, when certain words are needing more clarifications when reading pertinent issues of financial importance.

While this book is supposedly the best on investments, it lacks in a few key areas, namely fixed income. CFA supplemented bonds and fixed income readings were far superior to this book's.

However, it has plenty of practice problems and seems to provide a solid overview of key investment methodologies. This is ideal for asset managers or research analysts.

An excellent graduate book on investments with plenty of examples, CFA level material and questions as well as a supporting website that offers Excel spreadsheets, chapter summaries and supporting quizzes. This book will stay on my shelf and will be referenced frequently for many years to come. 100% worth the price.

Every professor at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business uses this text for the beginning level finance course - Investments. I found the book to be very readable, with excellent examples. It does a good job explaining the pros and cons of various financial models - Portfolio Theory, CAPM, Multi-Factor Asset Pricing, No Arbitrage Bond Pricing, Black-Scholes, etc. You cannot go wrong with the content in this book.

I use this book for my Investments course at Dartmouth, and I find it to be a very useful companion text. It is extremely comprehensive, with sections on pretty much everything you would want within this sphere. it is also relatively readable, with a logical layout and good explanations for most of the main points.

The downsides is that it is very expensive, although no ore so that other similar texts. Overall, it comes very recommended for those who wish to develop a strong understanding of capital markets and investing.

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++....)

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.

I AM A STUDENT IN BANKING AND FINANCE DEPARTMENT OF BILKENT UNIVERSITY. FOR INVESTMENT COURSE, ACTUALLY, WE ARE USING THIS BOOK. I THINK THAT THIS BOOK COVERS SUBJECTS VERY WELL. IT IS EASY TO READ AND UNDERSTAND. I STRONGLY RECOMMED YOU THIS BOOK.