Capital Markets and Investments

Essential Insights and Concepts for Professionals

Siddhartha G. Dastidar

First Edition

Reading Light Publication

New York
First Edition

Copyright © 2017 by Siddhartha Ghosh Dastidar

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About the Author

Siddhartha G. Dastidar
Dr. Siddhartha Ghosh Dastidar is an Associate Professor (adjunct) at Columbia University, and has taught
at the Graduate School of Business and the Department of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research.
He teaches courses on capital markets and investments to full-time graduate and undergraduate students,
and also in the executive education program.
Sid has nearly two decades of experience in the financial services industry, both buy-side and sell-side, across
asset classes and regions. As part of the Quantitative Portfolio Strategy team at Lehman Brothers and Bar-
clays Capital in New York, he has advised large institutional clients on portfolio construction, management
and risk budgeting issues. He was also the chief US equity derivatives strategist at Newedge, part of Société
Générale. He is currently a risk manager in Brigade Capital, a USD18 billion credit alternatives asset manag-
er, where he has been responsible for coming up with portfolio construction, risk and quantitative
frameworks. He has also worked in emerging market private equity for three years.
Sid received a Ph.D. in Finance & Economics from Columbia Business School in New York, a MBA from
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and an undergraduate degree in economics from Presidency
College Kolkata (both in India). He holds the CFA charter and has published in top journals such as the
Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Portfolio Management. He has presented at the National
Bureau of Economic Research in Boston and at top universities globally. He is a member of the Economic
Club of New York.
Reader Comments

Dastidar has put together a concise, very readable book covering the essentials of capital markets and investments. It nicely
covers the big three – fixed income, equities, and options – at a mathematical level that is typically just short of using calculus.
But what really stands out is the very current discussion of the institutional mechanics behind the markets. Automated trading
markets and high-frequency traders get more than a passing mention, and Dastidar details the process of offering new securities
and the role of sell-side investment banks. Well worth adding to your investments bookshelf!
- Charles M. Jones, Robert W. Lear Professor of Finance and Economics
Chair, Finance Sub-division, Columbia Business School, New York

This concise book provides a wide perspective on capital markets ranging from asset pricing, and the anatomy of buy and sell
side firms, to financial statements and macro-economics. It is ideal for anyone needing a rapid introduction or re-introduction to
finance and financial institutions -- students transitioning into a graduate program in financial engineering, or technologist ex-
ploring opportunities, or even finance professional transitioning areas.
- Garud N. Iyengar, Chair and Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations
Research, Columbia University, New York

An excellent survey of financial markets, explaining in concise language everything from the different asset classes to fixed in-
come and equity markets and portfolio theory. A useful and very practical orientation for finance professionals and students
alike.
- David Weisbrod, former CEO of LCH Clearnet LLC (one of the world’s largest clearinghouses)
and Vice Chairman of JPMorgan , New York

Finally, a clear and concise book that uniquely marries sound theoretical constructs with close-up practical insights... an excel-
lent body of knowledge for both students of finance and practitioners in the asset management industry.
- Adri Guha, Chief Investment Officer, Advanced Portfolio Management (institutional fund-of-
funds/ advisory services)

Siddhartha does an excellent job of mixing finance concepts with real life examples, thus helping build a good foundation.
- Ajit Agrawal, Managing Director, Investment Research, UBS Securities LLC

This manuscript is an excellent supplement to the existing textbooks about Investments. It distinguishes itself by concise intro-
duction of the key financial instruments and tools for analyzing them. Big-picture description of the financial system and the role
of financial intermediaries is an invaluable feature.
- Mikhail Chernov, Professor of Finance, Anderson School of Management, UCLA

This book is written with the student in mind. With clear language and sharp focus on essentials, it feels like learning from a
personal tutor.
- Hayong Yun, Associate Professor of Finance, Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State
University
Essential reading for anyone looking for a comprehensive introduction to investment management. This book makes quantita-
tive finance accessible by succinctly blending various key aspects of investment management while also describing the pricing and
mechanics of common financial instruments and important metrics and models most relevant in finance. Qualitative investors
can use it to incorporate quantitative tools into their investment process, and it serves as a helpful refresher for experienced quan-
titative investors. The annexures contain relevant background including an overview of concepts in accounting, economics and
statistics.
- Tarun Gupta, Ph.D., Managing Director at AQR Capital Management

Dastidar's book provides a concise, readable and up-to-date coverage of key capital markets topics. It's perfect for introductory
finance classes, and practitioners looking for quick refreshers.
- John Kiff, Senior Financial Sector Expert, International Monetary Fund

Capital Markets and Investments provides a comprehensive review of today’s capital markets, financial industry structure and
the latest theories underlying asset pricing and portfolio construction. Professor Dastidar, based on his experience in both indus-
try and academia, clearly and succinctly explains important concepts without glossing over those essential details that every
aspiring market professional must know. The book’s logical and topical format lends itself to being used as a handy desk refer-
ence.
- Bruce D. Phelps, Managing Director, Head of Research, PGIM (Prudential Financial’s invest-
ment management arm, with over USD 1 trillion in AUM)

Masterful rendering of a complex subject into an easily digested elixir of finance; students will love the rarely-seen practical per-
spective that Dastidar brings to the topics.
- Nandu Nayar, Hans J. Baer Chair in International Finance and Chair of the Perella Department
of Finance, Lehigh University, PA

The textbook is like a bible for me.

- Anonymous Student, Columbia University, New York
Table of Contents

1. THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM – INTRODUCTION ................................................................

.........................................................................................
......................................................... 16
What is the Financial System? Why does it exist?.............................................................................................................. 16

Key Players in the Financial System ................................................................................................................................... 17

Specialization within the financial system ......................................................................................................................... 18

Principles of pricing financial instruments ......................................................................................................................... 19

Are Financial Markets “Efficient”? ..................................................................................................................................... 22

Efficient Market Hypothesis ................................................................................................................................................. 22
Counterclaims to Market Efficiency...................................................................................................................................... 23

References......................................................................................................................................................................... 25

2. MAJOR ASSET CLASSES AND MARKETS ................................................................

...............................................................................................
............................................................... 26
Major types of instruments ............................................................................................................................................... 26
Bonds (Fixed Income) ........................................................................................................................................................... 27
Loans ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Stocks (Equities) .................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Hybrid Instruments ............................................................................................................................................................... 28
Derivatives/ Synthetic Instruments ...................................................................................................................................... 28

Major asset classes ............................................................................................................................................................ 30

Fixed Income ......................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Equities ................................................................................................................................................................................. 34
Commodities ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Currencies ............................................................................................................................................................................. 34
Emerging Markets ................................................................................................................................................................. 35

Connections between different markets ........................................................................................................................... 35

3. THE ANATOMY OF THE SELL

SELL SIDE ................................................................
................................................................................................
.......................................................................
....................................... 36
Structure of a Bulge Bracket Sell-side Firm ........................................................................................................................ 36
Investment Banking Division ................................................................................................................................................ 36
Capital Markets ..................................................................................................................................................................... 37
Prime Brokerage ................................................................................................................................................................... 40
Support Functions................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Basic Market Microstructure ............................................................................................................................................. 42

How do instruments trade? .................................................................................................................................................. 43
Exchange-Traded Markets .................................................................................................................................................... 43
Over-the-Counter (OTC) Markets ......................................................................................................................................... 44
 Trade Date and Settlement Date.......................................................................................................................................... 46

Further thoughts................................................................................................................................................................ 47

4. OVERVIEW OF BUY SIDE FIRMS ................................................................

................................................................................................
..........................................................................
.......................................... 49
What do buy-side firms do? ............................................................................................................................................... 49

Investment Styles .............................................................................................................................................................. 50

Investment Product Offerings ............................................................................................................................................ 51

Mutual Funds ....................................................................................................................................................................... 52
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) ............................................................................................................................................. 52
Alternative Investments ....................................................................................................................................................... 53
Liquid Alts ............................................................................................................................................................................. 55
Separately Managed Accounts ............................................................................................................................................. 55
High-Frequency Algorithmic Trading Products .................................................................................................................... 55
Sell-side Index Swaps ........................................................................................................................................................... 56

Capital Owners .................................................................................................................................................................. 56

Retail Investors ..................................................................................................................................................................... 56
Institutional allocators ......................................................................................................................................................... 57

Intermediation – Consultants, OCIO, Fund of Funds .......................................................................................................... 59

Process of picking an institutional manager ........................................................................................................................ 59

Working at a buy-side firm ................................................................................................................................................ 60

5. INDICES, BENCHMARKING,
BENCHMARKING, RISK MODELS AND PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
EVALUATION ....................................
.................................... 62
Indices – What are they? Why do we need them? ............................................................................................................. 62
Criteria for a Good Index ...................................................................................................................................................... 62
Index Rebalancing ................................................................................................................................................................ 63
Examples of Popular Indices................................................................................................................................................. 63

Efficiency of index investing .............................................................................................................................................. 63

Benchmark Indices vs Strategy Indices .............................................................................................................................. 64

Index Mechanics and Terminology .................................................................................................................................... 65

Measuring Risk – Risk Models............................................................................................................................................ 67

Risk definition ....................................................................................................................................................................... 67
Risk factors – Factor-based Risk Models .............................................................................................................................. 68
Risk Measures ...................................................................................................................................................................... 69
Role of Risk Models in Portfolio Construction...................................................................................................................... 70

Performance Evaluation .................................................................................................................................................... 70

Performance Evaluation Measures ...................................................................................................................................... 71
Performance Attribution ...................................................................................................................................................... 72
Portfolio Management Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 73

References......................................................................................................................................................................... 73

6. TOPICAL ISSUES IN CAPITAL

CAPITAL MARKETS................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................ 74
Market Microstructure ...................................................................................................................................................... 74

Responsible Investing ........................................................................................................................................................ 74

Central Bank Policy ............................................................................................................................................................ 76

Regulation ......................................................................................................................................................................... 77

FinTech .............................................................................................................................................................................. 79
Big Data in Investment Management ................................................................................................................................... 79
Quantitative Investing .......................................................................................................................................................... 82
Factor-based investing .......................................................................................................................................................... 82
Crowdfunding ....................................................................................................................................................................... 83
Marketplace Lending ............................................................................................................................................................ 83
Robo-advisors ....................................................................................................................................................................... 83
Blockchaining ........................................................................................................................................................................ 83
Payment Mechanisms and Cryptocurrencies ....................................................................................................................... 83
Compliance Software ............................................................................................................................................................ 85

References......................................................................................................................................................................... 85

7. INTRODUCTION TO BONDS – TREASURY PRICING AND INSTITUTIONAL DETAILS

DETAILS................................ 88
Treasuries - The Basic Idea ................................................................................................................................................ 88

What is a bond?................................................................................................................................................................. 89

Our first example – a simple bond and its yield ................................................................................................................. 90

U.S. Treasury Auction Mechanics *** ................................................................................................................................ 92

When-issued Market ............................................................................................................................................................ 93

Financing Treasury Purchases – the Repo Market *** ....................................................................................................... 94

Microstructure of the US Treasury Market ***.................................................................................................................. 95

Treasury quoting convention ................................................................................................................................................ 95
Treasury Trading and Execution ........................................................................................................................................... 95

The Simple Example Re-visited – Spot Curve and Accrued Interest.................................................................................... 96

Different discount rates for different payment dates – the spot curve ............................................................................... 96
Bootstrapping – from bond prices/ yields to spot rates ....................................................................................................... 99
Bond prices on non-coupon payment dates – Accrued Interest .......................................................................................... 99

Forward curves ................................................................................................................................................................ 101

Expected patterns in bond price movements .................................................................................................................. 102

 Pull to par ........................................................................................................................................................................... 102
Rolling down the yield curve .............................................................................................................................................. 103

Summary ......................................................................................................................................................................... 104

References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 104

8. FACTORS AFFECTING
AFFECTING TREASURY BOND PRICES
PRICES ................................................................
.................................................................................
................................................. 105
Reviewing Bond Price-Yield Relationship ......................................................................................................................... 105
Price-yield graph................................................................................................................................................................. 105

Choosing between bonds ................................................................................................................................................ 106

Quantifying Interest Rate Risk in Treasuries .................................................................................................................... 108

Macaulay Duration – How long is a bond? ......................................................................................................................... 109
Price Sensitivity (Risk) of Bonds – Modified Duration ........................................................................................................ 110
Price Sensitivity (Risk) of Bonds – DV01 ............................................................................................................................. 111
Interest Rate Risk of Portfolios of Treasury bonds ............................................................................................................. 112

Hedging Interest rate risk – Applications of Duration ...................................................................................................... 113

Immunization ..................................................................................................................................................................... 114
Yield curve movements – parallel versus non-parallel movements................................................................................... 114

Convexity ......................................................................................................................................................................... 116

Further comments ........................................................................................................................................................... 118

References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 118

9. FURTHER TOPICS IN INTEREST

INTEREST RATE MARKETS ................................................................
.................................................................................
................................................. 119
Why do yields / interest rates move? .............................................................................................................................. 119
Central Bank Policy ............................................................................................................................................................. 119
Business Cycle .................................................................................................................................................................... 120
Economic Variables and News Releases............................................................................................................................. 120
Inflation Expectations......................................................................................................................................................... 121

Term Structure of Interest Rates – Theories of the Shapes of yield curve ........................................................................ 121

Interest rate volatility and Interest Rate Models***........................................................................................................ 122

Interest Rate Volatility ....................................................................................................................................................... 122
Interest Rate Models .......................................................................................................................................................... 123

Investing in Treasury Markets - Expressing views using Treasuries *** ........................................................................... 123
Leverage ............................................................................................................................................................................. 124
Carry Trades ....................................................................................................................................................................... 124
Steepeners and Flatteners ................................................................................................................................................. 124
Relative Value Trades ......................................................................................................................................................... 125

Other Instruments Based on the Risk-Free Rate*** ......................................................................................................... 125

 Forward Rate Agreements .................................................................................................................................................. 125
Treasury Futures ................................................................................................................................................................. 126
TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) .................................................................................................................... 128

LIBOR-based instruments ................................................................................................................................................ 129

What is LIBOR? ................................................................................................................................................................... 129
EuroDollar Futures .............................................................................................................................................................. 130
Interest Rate Swaps ............................................................................................................................................................ 130
ETFs related to Treasury Markets ....................................................................................................................................... 133
Options on the above securities ......................................................................................................................................... 133

Topical issues in the Treasury market .............................................................................................................................. 134

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................................... 135

References....................................................................................................................................................................... 136

10. OTHER FIXED INCOME MARKETS

MARKETS ................................................................
................................................................................................
..................................................................
.................................. 137
US Mortgages .................................................................................................................................................................. 138
Prepayments ....................................................................................................................................................................... 139
The TBA Market .................................................................................................................................................................. 140
Valuing MBS ........................................................................................................................................................................ 141
Mortgage Market Liquidity ................................................................................................................................................. 143

Municipal Bonds .............................................................................................................................................................. 143

Municipal Bond Classifications ........................................................................................................................................... 143
High-Yield Munis ................................................................................................................................................................. 144
Primary and Secondary Muni Markets ............................................................................................................................... 145

Corporate Credit .............................................................................................................................................................. 145

Capital Structure ................................................................................................................................................................. 145
Bankruptcy .......................................................................................................................................................................... 146
Quantifying Default Risk ..................................................................................................................................................... 147
Credit Rating Agencies ........................................................................................................................................................ 147
Important Elements of Credit Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 148
Credit Instruments .............................................................................................................................................................. 149
Market Dynamics and Liquidity .......................................................................................................................................... 153
Credit Analytics ................................................................................................................................................................... 155
Quantitative Credit ............................................................................................................................................................. 156
Investing in Credit ............................................................................................................................................................... 157

Securitization .................................................................................................................................................................. 160

Securitization Overview and Motivations ........................................................................................................................... 160
Why does Securitization Work?.......................................................................................................................................... 161
Different Types of Securitization Structures*** ................................................................................................................. 163

Concluding Comments on Fixed Income .......................................................................................................................... 168

References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 168

11. EQUITIES - VALUATION ................................................................

................................................................................................
.................................................................................
................................................. 171
What is equity?................................................................................................................................................................ 171

Equities and the Capital Structure –Role of Leverage for a Corporation........................................................................... 171

Capital structure theories - Tax Benefit of Debt ............................................................................................................... 173

Corporate Governance .................................................................................................................................................... 173

Valuing Equities ............................................................................................................................................................... 174

Setting the Stage ................................................................................................................................................................ 174
Equity Valuation Models .................................................................................................................................................... 175

Equity Valuation in Real Life ............................................................................................................................................ 179

Role of Macro Analysis in Equity Valuation ........................................................................................................................ 179
Fundamental versus Quantitative Investing ...................................................................................................................... 181
Value Investing ................................................................................................................................................................... 182
Non-traditional data sources ............................................................................................................................................. 182
Role of Algorithms .............................................................................................................................................................. 182
Model Robustness .............................................................................................................................................................. 182
Thematic Investing ............................................................................................................................................................. 183
Shorting Equities ................................................................................................................................................................ 183

Equity Instruments .......................................................................................................................................................... 184

Forwards............................................................................................................................................................................. 184
Futures ............................................................................................................................................................................... 186

Equities as an Asset Class - Microstructure of Equities ..................................................................................................... 187

Current Status .................................................................................................................................................................... 190

References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 191

12. PORTFOLIO THEORY, ASSET

ASSET ALLOCATION AND FACTOR
FACTOR MODELS .................................................
................................................. 192
Expected Return and Risk ................................................................................................................................................ 192

Investors’ Risk-Return Tradeoffs – Utility Function and Indifference Curves .................................................................... 192

Diversification – The Core Ideas ....................................................................................................................................... 193

Building on Diversification – Portfolio Theory and Efficient Frontiers .............................................................................. 196

Case 1: Optimal Portfolio with One Risky Asset and the Risk Free Asset ........................................................................... 196
Case 2: Optimal Portfolio with Multiple Risky Assets and One Risk-Free Asset ................................................................. 199
When does adding a new security improve a portfolio’s risk characteristics? .................................................................. 201
Market Frictions - Effect on the Optimal Portfolio ............................................................................................................. 202

Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) ................................................................................................................................ 203

Assumptions of the CAPM .................................................................................................................................................. 203
 Relevance of the CAPM ...................................................................................................................................................... 203
Interpreting the CAPM ........................................................................................................................................................ 203
Estimating Betas (and Alphas) in the CAPM ....................................................................................................................... 204

Introduction to Factor Models ......................................................................................................................................... 206

Arbitrage Pricing Theory Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 206
Multi-Factor Models ........................................................................................................................................................... 207

Risk Management in Equity Portfolios ............................................................................................................................. 209

Portfolio Construction Techniques .................................................................................................................................. 211

Markowitz Mean-Variance Optimization ........................................................................................................................... 212
Black-Litterman Model ....................................................................................................................................................... 212
Risk Parity ........................................................................................................................................................................... 213

References....................................................................................................................................................................... 213

13. INTRODUCTION TO OPTIONS

OPTIONS ................................................................
................................................................................................
.......................................................................
....................................... 215
What is an Option? Basic Terminology ............................................................................................................................ 215

Some Simple Examples – Call and Put options ................................................................................................................. 216

Options trading - Mechanics ............................................................................................................................................ 217

Using Options in Trade Construction ............................................................................................................................... 218

Directional trades with Call and Put options ...................................................................................................................... 218
Volatility Trades with Straddles and Strangles ................................................................................................................... 219
Covered call ........................................................................................................................................................................ 220
Protective Puts .................................................................................................................................................................... 220
Call spread, Put spread, Calendar spread ........................................................................................................................... 221

Put-call parity .................................................................................................................................................................. 221

Exotic Options ................................................................................................................................................................. 222

References....................................................................................................................................................................... 223

14. OPTIONS VALUATION

VALUATION ................................................................
................................................................................................
...................................................................................
................................................... 224
Option Pricing Overview .................................................................................................................................................. 224

Modeling Stock Prices – a Binomial Model ...................................................................................................................... 224

Call Option - Pricing mechanics .......................................................................................................................................... 225
Further details .................................................................................................................................................................... 227
Multi-period models ........................................................................................................................................................... 230
.American Options .............................................................................................................................................................. 231

Black Scholes Formula ..................................................................................................................................................... 233

Graph of Call Option Prices before Expiration – some more Greeks .................................................................................. 234
Implied Volatility and Realized Volatility ............................................................................................................................ 236
 Drawbacks of Black-Scholes - Modifications ...................................................................................................................... 237
Relevance of the Imperfect Black Scholes Formula ........................................................................................................... 238

Volatility-based option trades ......................................................................................................................................... 238

VIX ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 240

Summary ......................................................................................................................................................................... 241

References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 241

ANNEXURES ................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
..............................................................................
.............................................. 242

I. RETURN - CONCEPTS AND CALCULATIONS

CALCULATIONS ................................................................
.......................................................................................
....................................................... 243
Types of return – simple, compound ............................................................................................................................... 243
Compounding single period returns................................................................................................................................... 243
Log-normal prices and normal returns ............................................................................................................................... 244

Time value of money ....................................................................................................................................................... 244

Net Present Value ............................................................................................................................................................ 245

Internal Rate of Return (IRR) ........................................................................................................................................... 247

More details on the IRR methodology ............................................................................................................................... 247

II. INTRODUCTION TO FINANCIAL

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS – CONCEPT OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE
STRUCTURE ......................... 248
Balance Sheet .................................................................................................................................................................. 248
Capital Structure ................................................................................................................................................................ 249

Income Statement ........................................................................................................................................................... 250

Cash Flow Statement ....................................................................................................................................................... 251

Footnotes and disclosures ............................................................................................................................................... 252

Using the information in the Financial Statements .......................................................................................................... 253

Metrics ............................................................................................................................................................................... 253
Modeling, Forecasting ........................................................................................................................................................ 253
Ratio Analysis ..................................................................................................................................................................... 253
Management views ............................................................................................................................................................ 253

III. MACROECONOMICS PRIMER

PRIMER ................................................................
................................................................................................
............................................................................
............................................ 254
What is Macroeconomics? ............................................................................................................................................... 254

Measuring Output (GDP) Growth .................................................................................................................................... 255

The Expenditure Approach to GDP– Drivers of Aggregate Demand .................................................................................. 255
Drawbacks of GDP as a Measure of Economic Activity ...................................................................................................... 256

Macroeconomic Theory and Models................................................................................................................................ 256

 Basic Premises of Economic Modeling ............................................................................................................................... 256
A Simple Aggregate Demand-based Macroeconomic Model of the Goods Market .......................................................... 258
Adding Interest Rates, Money and Financial Assets to this model ..................................................................................... 260
General Equilibrium, Full-Employment and Price Level Adjustments ................................................................................ 262
The Role of Money and the Banking System ...................................................................................................................... 262
Modeling Summary............................................................................................................................................................. 263
Beyond the Static Macro Models ....................................................................................................................................... 264
The Bridgewater (Ray Dalio) Approach to Macroeconomics .............................................................................................. 265

Currency Markets ............................................................................................................................................................ 266

Practical Macroeconomic Considerations for Finance Professionals ................................................................................ 267

Major US Macroeconomic Data Series............................................................................................................................. 268

Data on Overall Economy – Employment and GDP ............................................................................................................ 269
Consumer Data ................................................................................................................................................................... 270
Manufacturing/ Services Data ............................................................................................................................................ 270
Housing Data....................................................................................................................................................................... 271
Federal Reserve Reports ..................................................................................................................................................... 271
Inflation............................................................................................................................................................................... 271

References....................................................................................................................................................................... 272

IV. BASIC STATISTICS AND DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................

............................................................................................
............................................................ 273
Summarizing Data ........................................................................................................................................................... 274
Central Tendency – Mean, Median and Mode ................................................................................................................... 274
Dispersion – Standard Deviation ........................................................................................................................................ 275

Probability – Distribution Types ...................................................................................................................................... 276

Normal Distribution ............................................................................................................................................................ 277
Drawing inferences about the population from sample statistics...................................................................................... 278

Some More Summary Statistics ....................................................................................................................................... 279

Further Comments on Describing Data ............................................................................................................................ 280

Multi-variate Analysis...................................................................................................................................................... 280

Regressions ......................................................................................................................................................................... 281

V. INTRODUCTION TO THE BLOOMBERG SOFTWARE/ TERMINAL ........................................................

........................................................ 285
Basic Orientation ............................................................................................................................................................. 285

Getting Started ................................................................................................................................................................ 286

Functions ......................................................................................................................................................................... 286

Excel integration – FLDS, BDP, BDH, BDS, overrides, XLTP ............................................................................................... 287
About this Book

I have intentionally placed this section after the Table of Contents, because I hope readers will spend a few
minutes reading this.
Who is this book for?
This book is meant to help practitioners and students understand the essentials of capital markets, quickly. It
requires no specific prerequisites, except possibly some fluency in high school/ undergraduate math. Basic
information on financial statements and statistics are included in self-contained annexures at the end. The
annexures can help bridge any gaps in background that readers may have to understand the content in the
body of the book thoroughly and build on it.
Over the years, more people need a rapid orientation in finance:
• Finance professionals need a quick refresher on a market that they do not deal with regularly.
• Professionals with qualifications in other disciplines continue to look to switch careers into finance.
• Students with prior background in another discipline often join a Masters degree program, specializ-
ing in finance (MBA, quantitative finance, etc.)
• Advanced undergraduate students want to decide whether finance is right for them.
• Mid-career professionals in another industry, serving financial services clients, need to understand
the basics of financial markets better. For example, Fintech professionals with a technology back-
ground are looking to connect more with mainstream finance companies.
• Or, it may be a curious individual who simply wants to understand the financial periodicals better,
and possibly make more sensible investment decisions!
Practitioners currently employed in the finance profession will find this book useful in refreshing basic con-
cepts in a part of the market they do not deal with regularly. Students of finance will find the book useful in
teaching them preliminary/ intermediate ideas, putting facts in context and “connecting the dots”.
Because of the book’s introductory nature, it is heavy on principles, mechanics, details, etc. and light on perspective.
This book gives readers the tools to formulate opinions and evaluate the opinions of others, but it does not
offer opinions on a platter. The best way to form opinions on the market is to read and assess commonly
offered opinions, and assimilate them yourself. This book helps, but the hard work has to be yours.
What makes this book different?
This book scratches the surface of several potentially interesting areas within finance, allowing the reader an
informed choice regarding which topics to go deeper. I would recommend most students read this book in
its entirety (even if they only care about a few topics) as I consider most of this information essential
knowledge for aspiring finance professionals. The first section, in particular, describes the operations of
large financial organizations; this is less relevant for finance professionals but will help beginner students
(even in interviews!).
As the emphasis is on quick learning, the book aims to be concise, at the cost of being cryptic at times. The book
avoids detailed explanations and examples of concepts, expecting readers to look that up elsewhere if neces-
sary (many people may not need it), once they have an idea what to look for. At the same time, the book
delves into institutional detail not commonly found in textbooks, instead of being merely conceptual, be-
cause these details often drive the market dynamics. This book is heavy on jargon, as the biggest hurdles in
finance are not the concepts but the vocabulary. Because of the emphasis on brevity, most concepts are in-
troduced but not explained comprehensively.
I wrote this book because I wanted an inexpensive book to introduce motivated readers without a prior
background quickly (in a one-semester course for students) to the essential elements of capital markets,
while not skipping important (albeit dry) practical details. Finance (and most other fields, from my experi-
ence) is much more about gory details than lofty ideas, a perspective lost in most introductory books.
Market plumbing matters a lot!
This book will be regularly updated, as the industry is in a state of constant flux. A necessary step in keeping
the price low was to publish to book personally, without a large publisher. Hopefully, the content and price
more than makes up for the lack of “features” and look-and-feel.
How, practically, to use the book
Readers need to be active participants in the reading and learning process. By itself, the book is unlikely to teach much,
because it is cryptic and does not reinforce concepts (a fallout of brevity). This book will especially help par-
ticipants get a quick overview of a topic before diving deep into it (using some other source). Alternatively,
it will help synthesize concepts and reinforce the broad idea after having studied the painstaking details
elsewhere.
So, introductory readers would do well to:
• Read unfamiliar material slowly and with deliberation – many sentences are dense and introduce
multiple concepts. Re-read; subsequent readings will get easier.
• Take copious notes in the book or elsewhere (and jot down questions for later clarification) while
reading the book.
• Have access to the Internet or other references (most concepts are common and easy to find exam-
ples and information on) to get more details on any topic that the student finds interesting or
relevant. Many topics which the book covers in a sentence or a paragraph need a book to do justice,
but that would defeat the objective of being concise and quick, and may be of marginal importance
to many readers (and of primary importance to others).
• The index is detailed. If a term is unfamiliar, please consider looking it up at the back to check for
another section of the book that explains it in more detail.
• The reference section at the end of every chapter have lists of sources with more details; this may be
easier for readers who do not want to search the Internet continually for supplementary information.
Organization and Formatting
Most of the information in the different sections of the book – Institutional Overview, Bond Markets, Equi-
ty Markets, Options Markets and Annexures – is independent. I would suggest instructors (and students)
sequence the sections whichever order they please, and refer liberally to the relevant Annexures for back-
ground detail. There are a few sections on institutional detail in most chapters; this can be skipped in an
introductory class, or a first reading. The first section on Institutional Overview can also be treated like a
(very large) annexure; while advanced readers can skip it and use it as a reference, introductory readers
would do well to go through that material, to understand the building blocks.
I use the male pronoun “he” almost exclusively; I’m not biased against women capital markets professionals,
but it’s just easier to use one pronoun.
Within a chapter, the headers are organized in the following manner:
SECTION HEADING
Sub-Section Heading
Topic Heading within Sub-Section
Some words in the text are italicized, either for emphasis or to indicate (the first few times) that it is financial
market terminology. They mean something precise and are used in a specific context, and may (or may not) be
discussed in a later section in the book. Internet searches (or a different part of the book, navigated with the
index) can help here to understand the concept better. Sometimes, words are in “quotes”, when the mean-
ing is markedly different from regular usage. Keywords, often discussed in nearby pages, are highlighted and
italicized. Of course, the headings will also contain some keywords, which we will not format distinctively.
This book has a significant amount of material that can be skipped on a first reading or treated like the Ap-
pendix. Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 are totally optional. Most chapters also have sections with details that can
be glossed over initially. These optional chapters and sections have been marked with “***” in the relevant
headers.
While the book is certainly suitable for a global audience, certain examples and details have taken on a more
US-centric tone. Usually, these sections are fairly apparent and disjoint, like the discussion of the US bank-
ruptcy code, and can be easily skipped.
Suggested Teaching Plan
The independent reader can pick and choose which chapters and sections he wants to read. I’ve made an
effort to keep various parts of the book self-contained, while focusing on central themes. Since several pro-
fessors and students will use this as a textbook, I am taking the liberty of proposing a tangible teaching plan
for instructors who wish to cover most of this material in one semester.
This book can probably not replace an extensive textbook with many solved examples and exercises with
lots of illustrations, so most instructors who have a workflow that they are happy with will find it easiest to
assign this book as a supplementary text. But, for
Instructors can either assign Chapter 1 and 2 (and Annexure I) as prior background reading, or cover them
in an introductory session. Students should be required to go through the annexures on their own, at least to
be familiar with the concepts so that they can return to the back when necessary. Classes with a more quan-
titative background can begin with fixed income (Chapters 7, 8 and parts of 9), where the concepts are more
tangible, before transitioning to equities (Chapters 11 and 12) and ending with options (Chapters 13 and 14).
Classes where the emphasis is predominantly on qualitative insights will find it more natural to cover the
equities section first, before fixed income and finally options.
Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 are completely optional; one can visualize them as an extension of the Appendix
section. Further, many chapters (especially Chapter 9) have a few sections which can easily be skipped, add-
ing to the “list” of optional topics. These sections have been marked with “***” in the respective headers.
 1. The Financial System – Introduction

WHAT IS THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM? WHY DOES IT EXIST?

The financial system exists to “match the forces of thrift and productivity”. Innovative entrepreneurs, grow-
ing companies, and other “producers” of goods and services need “capital” to achieve their goals (i.e.
“projects”); these projects, if successful, will generate positive cash flows (i.e. revenues, net of costs) in fu-
ture. The producers themselves sometimes invest part of this capital, but the vast majority of this capital is
sourced from external sources – banks, equity markets, bond issuances, etc. This capital eventually comes
from private savers (or, sometimes from government incentive schemes). These investors (i.e. savers) have
more capital than they currently need and invest in the projects promoted by the producers, in the hope of
achieving a return (hopefully large, and at least positive!). The investors are promised a portion of the pro-
ject’s future cash flows and get paid back if and when the project does well. In a broad sense, the
“producers” are also investors; they invest primarily by providing their time, skills and effort, and they too
share in the returns of the project. As we start thinking generically, these distinctions between external in-
vestors, the project sponsor, employees, etc. begin to blur, and we refer to all of them as stakeholders.
These projects have uncertain outcomes – some will succeed beyond their wildest expectation (think Face-
book or Google), and others will fail. The returns that the investors expect (or demand) to earn depends
critically on the risks that they perceive in the project or company that they are investing in. Of course, the
return that investors end up earning can be very different, depending on how well the project performs;
there is no absolute guarantee. What happens when there is too much capital for all the available projects/
investments? In that situation, the producers will be able to raise their target capital by promising a lower
share of the project proceeds than they would normally need to, and external investors will be forced to ac-
cept a lower rate of return.
For the financial system to function, several agents have to play important roles, and act as facilitators. For
example, the investors and the producers have to find each other. In a simple world, we can think of a mas-
sive database where they are all listed, and people find each other. In fact, in many ways, we are coming full
circle, with platforms such as Kickstarter and LendingTree trying to do exactly that (or at least part of it,
where projects are listed and investors scan them); in finance terminology, this is an example of disintermedia-
tion (regular middle-men/ firms are being eliminated because of market changes). But, it’s apparent that this
cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution, as many projects are complex, require large sums of money, significant
amounts of fact checking, etc. This requires several intermediaries. Further, if different investors have cash
flow needs at different times, certain other intermediaries facilitate transfer of the rights to the project cash
flows to a new investor by paying out the earlier investor.

The Financial System comprises:

Entrepreneurs/ Project Owners who have ideas but need capital to produce future cash flows

Investors with capital to invest, who expect to earn returns (receive future cash flows)

Intermediaries that help
- investors and producers transact with one another (invest capital today for future cash flows)
- transfer risk from one investor to another, after the initial transaction with the producer.

16
Capital Markets and Investments

KEY PLAYERS IN THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM

The most important part of the financial system is, arguably the commercial banks, who accept deposits
from savers, and use these deposits to make loans to businesses and individuals. The fractional reserve sys-
tem (banks need to hold only a small fraction of the money they raise through deposits, and can lend the
remaining) allows banks to lend out many multiples of the deposits they receive, effectively increasing the
money supply if there is demand for loans. With commercial banks, both the provider of capital (i.e. the
saver) and the borrower of capital face the bank (and are exposed only to the risk of the bank not honoring
its obligation). In many markets, especially the US, the capital markets supplement the role of banks as a
distributor of capital, where investment banks serve mainly as a facilitator and the provider and user of capi-
tal face each other. We will not focus on commercial banks in this book.
The market for raising capital, where money flows to the producer from the investor, is referred to as the
primary market. Some intermediaries are responsible for getting these projects/ ideas/ companies in front of
the investor audience for the first time. These are the origination/ investment banking/ corporate finance/
M&A divisions of investment banks; they may be parts of large “bulge-bracket” houses or smaller “bou-
tique” shops (part of the sell-side). We will discuss them (and all the other players we mention here) in later
chapters, but it should be apparent that these divisions need to have deep relationships with both the pro-
ducers (i.e. entrepreneurs and companies who engage them to raise money for their projects) and the
investor community who rely on them to get opportunities to invest in these projects.
Along with the investment bankers, several other players play an important facilitating role. Accounting firms
vet the books and records of the firms that are trying to raise capital, regulators check to make sure that ap-
propriate information is disclosed to every party at the same time, all investors are treated fairly, etc. Lawyers
are involved in drafting legal agreements between various parties (e.g. investors and entrepreneurs/ compa-
nies) and making sure that all documents are filed properly with regulators, etc. Of course, the specifics of
the role of the investment banks and the other players depend crucially on the exact type of project, and the
instrument for raising money/ paying back investors later – is it a start-up raising venture capital, a large
company filing for its IPO, an organization doing a bond issuance for a M&A, whether the investment is
open both to large investors and retail accounts, etc. Rating agencies assess the risk of the projects/ companies
and express the risks on a scale relative to other available investment opportunities.
The investors (i.e. the buy-side) are responsible for investing capital judiciously by taking measured risks. At any
time, they are expected to compare the risk-return tradeoffs of alternative investment prospects to choose
the investments that appear most attractive in their investment universe. Most of the book deals with this
issue and discusses some standard frameworks that investors follow, to map investment opportunities on
the risk-reward spectrum. Given the plethora of opportunities, much of this analysis is often initially re-
duced to a set of metrics. For the potential opportunities that pass this initial screen, a deep-dive may be
conducted, depending on the investment philosophy of the investing firm.
As alluded above, if too many investors show interest in a certain investment proposal, the project company
has the luxury of changing the terms of the investment (of course, before money changes hands and terms
are agreed to), to either part with a smaller proportion of future cash flows to external investors, or raise
more money than originally planned for the same cash flow proportion as earlier. As a result, the original
return (i.e. expected future cash flows, suitably adjusted for the delayed gratification of receiving money lat-
er, as a proportion of current investment) gets reduced, and some investors drop out of the bidding process,
until the supply of capital to the project at the current terms matches what the producers want the raise at
the same terms. But, on several occasions, the sponsors of a “hot” investment will change terms only slight-
ly, allowing the deal to remain “oversubscribed”, with only some of the interested investors eventually to get

17
The Financial System - Introduction

an “allocation” (i.e. “participate in the deal). This scarcity of the opportunity to invest in the proposal creates
buzz, which also allows the secondary market (described below) in the name to do well.
The primary market facilitates the allocation of risk capital to (potentially) future cash flow generating pro-
jects. But, if this were the only market, then the investors would need to part with their capital for the
duration/ time horizon of the project, or until all promised cash flows are paid back, which may take dec-
ades. Meanwhile, the risk characteristics of the project may change because of market conditions. Also, since
most projects take several years to mature, investors with short-term capital (e.g. available for six months to
three years) would find it difficult to invest.
The secondary market addresses this issue; in this market, risk is transferred from one investor to another; the
producers or the project sponsors do not usually participate in this market. After an instrument is issued,
current holders of the security who want to sell it are matched with prospective buyers in the secondary
market. Depending on the trading mechanism of the particular instrument, brokers can play an active role
here, by finding buyers and sellers, and providing a layer of anonymity. An active secondary market allows
investors to have a flexible time horizon, and allows them to exit a position based on liquidity needs or cur-
rent attractive valuations. It also allows speculators to participate, providing another source of liquidity.

Investors and Corporations/Project Owners transact in the primary capital markets.

Investors trade (i.e. exchange these claims to future uncertain cash flows for certain cash today)
with other investors in the secondary market.

SPECIALIZATION WITHIN THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM

In case it hasn’t been clear, the investment world is very specialized (we have an entire chapter on this).
There are various kinds of contractual terms/ structures that project companies typically use to raise capital
(most obviously debt and equity, but there are many sub-classifications too). Each of these financing struc-
tures requires different risk appetite, and different analytical skill-sets, even if the underlying project proposal
is the same. Even for investment firms that want to invest across the risk spectrum, analyzing investments in
different industry sectors or geography require domain knowledge in every sector or region, providing a
natural reason to specialize. Since the investment banking world depends on relationships, this specialization
effectively partitions the sell-side too.
Additionally, the risk appetite is often driven by the exact source of the investment firm’s capital. For exam-
ple, a fund that is capitalized by 401K money (i.e. individual retirement plan money) is likely to have a
conservative mindset, but also have a long investment horizon. High-net-worth individuals often invest
through Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and are very sensitive to tax rates. A pension fund of a
state/ corporate has fairly well-defined future liabilities because of defined benefit pension plans of its em-
ployees, and needs to invest with that in mind. An insurance company has a long-horizon perspective,
makes money primarily from its insurance underwriting business and has more of a “preservation of capital”
mindset. A corporate treasury may have specific time-sensitive needs and invest accordingly. The source of
capital drives investment philosophy, risk tolerance and defines the investment universe.
Within the buy-side too, there is a layer of intermediation. There are institutions and individuals that have
capital to invest, and there are investment managers who are skilled in the profession of investing capital in
the financial markets. A capital owner would ideally like the most capable investment manager to invest on
his behalf. For most investment firms, it is easier to claim expertise in a focused niche, than broad-based

18
Capital Markets and Investments

superiority. Since capital owners can easily use multiple investors to invest in different markets, the best-of-
breed specialization has become dominant among investment managers.
As we discuss specialization within the financial system, it is important to recognize that many of these
businesses do not need massive investments in physical capital, decades to build, and armies of people. A
handful of smart seasoned people, focused on the specific market, can play a meaningful role in this chain
of value-creation. Formally, these specialized individuals may be a separate stand-alone firm, or work within
the boundaries of a larger firm, so a larger broad-based firm will often have smaller dedicated teams, often
working in silos (which could easily fit into another firm instead). The performance of these focused teams
is relatively easy to isolate; both these issues lead to the apparently large compensation bonuses that the
press reports.
The current financial system is a loosely connected set of silos. Sometimes these silos occur within a large
organization, and sometimes they are stand-alone. Each of these set-ups has its own costs and benefits.
While assessing these systems, it is important to understand how each of these agents gets compensated,
because that ultimately points to the biases of these players.

The financial system is extremely specialized:

Different contractual structures allocate risk differently between company and investor

Different capital owners have different risk tolerances

Investment managers specialize by skill sets and the part of the financial markets they focus on

Many financial services businesses have low capital intensity, and can be set up in a lean format
- Silos can be are often spun out as separate businesses

PRINCIPLES OF PRICING FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS

This book is about the financial capital markets, which primarily deals with how instruments are traded and
priced. We will get into lots of details, mechanics and conventions in the later chapters, but there are a few
basic considerations that are worth introducing early.
• The Time Value of Money is based on the idea that the same dollar amount paid out at different times in
the future has different values today, since money received earlier can be re-invested to earn interest for
a longer period. More formally, cash flows to be received at different (future) points in time can be dis-
counted to an equivalent present value (or discounted to any other future period), by applying the
principles of compound interest. Algebraically, a cash flow of C dollars paid out after i periods from
C
now is worth P today, where P = , and r is the interest rate (per period) that an investor can
(1 + r ) i
earn by investing money today for i periods. P dollars can be invested today and compounded at r% per
period (often a year) to result in C dollars at the end of i periods, so P dollars today is equivalent to C
dollars i periods later, if the market interest rate is r. Importantly, in addition to the time valute of mon-
ey, the rate r should also reflect the risk (uncertainty) of receiving the cash flow C; the greater the risk,
the higher should be the interest rate used to discount the cash flows. Net Present Value (NPV) and Inter-
nal Rate of Return (IRR) are important concepts based on this idea; readers should refer to Annexure 1 for
further information.
• Investors can either take long or short positions in securities. Buying a security is often referred to as
going long the security. Investors get long a security when they expect its price to go up (i.e. feel “bull-
19
The Financial System - Introduction

ish”); a buyer’s aim is often to buy the security at a low price, and sell it at higher price, while collecting
any interim cash flows that the security pays while he owns the security. Conversely, an investor takes a
short a position in a security when he feels that the security is likely to go down in price (i.e. feel “bear-
ish”). This position has diametrically opposite risks to the long investor; the investor benefits from a
short position when the price goes down, and loses when it goes up. This is mechanically achieved by
selling a security without owning it first, by borrowing the security from a securities lending program and then
selling it. The short “seller” receives cash flows from this initial sale (in reality, these proceeds effectively
serve as collateral to the lender of the security, and may earn a small interest), and plans to buy back (i.e.
cover) the security hopefully at a lower price, to earn the difference between the initial sale price and the
later covering (i.e. purchase) price. During this time, the short seller needs to pay the security’s original
owner any cash flows that the security pays during this period, and also a per-period security borrowing
cost (and receives a small interest payment on the collateral), so it is costly to be short for an extended
period, since there is a recurring cost every day. If the security’s price goes up after the short, it is terrible
for the short since now the security has to be bought back at a higher price. Further, if the seller chooses
to stay in the position, the earlier collateral is now inadequate and needs to be replenished, since a more
expensive asset needs to be secured.1
As we will learn later, most of the world’s financial assets are managed through long-only accounts such as
mutual funds, so the concept of shorting securities is only directly relevant to a small investor base. But, it is
an important mechanism to keep asset prices fair, as some (large) investors can definitely short if prices get
too high. If no investor was allowed to short securities, prices could theoretically get higher from fair value
and remain high, driven by either speculators betting on even higher prices, or by investors with different
opinions about future prospects. We discuss shorting in more detail, in the section on prime brokerage in
Chapter 3.
• The principle of no-arbitrage emphasizes that if a security A has the same cash flows as security B in every
possible future period (or state), they will have the same price today. Otherwise, an investor could short
the more expensive security (based on today’s price) and buy the cheaper security simultaneously and
lock in a profit upfront, with all subsequent cash-flows offsetting each other. This principle is also im-
portant in pricing securities – if a security’s cash flows can be replicated using a portfolio of other
securities with known prices, this security’s fair price can be calculated using those known prices.
More formally, an arbitrage is said to exist when an investor receives some (positive) cash inflow today,
with zero probability of having to pay more than that amount (adjusted for time value of money) in fu-
ture. Alternatively, the investor enters the position today at zero cost, with at least some probability of
getting a positive cash inflow in future, and zero probability of a cash outflow in future.
To build on the topic about pricing securities using replication/ no arbitrage, let us consider the fol-
lowing example:
Let us consider a world with three time periods – 0 (today), 1 and 2. The payoffs of instruments A, B
and C are given below. The prices of B and C are known, the price of A is to be determined. Figure
1.1 shows these prices and payoffs.

1 This long/short terminology gets more confusing for unfunded positions since no cash is exchanged upfront; the convention is to look at the

direction of risk exposure to determine the long or the short side.

20
Capital Markets and Investments

Figure 1.1 Prices and Payoffs of Instruments A, B and C

Asset Price Today Payoff Period 1 Payoff Period 2
A ?? 250 250
B 450 500 0
C 410 0 500
It is apparent, from the table above, that two units of instrument A will pay off exactly the same
amount in each period as the total of one unit of B and one unit of C. So, two units of A should cost
(today) the same as a portfolio comprising one unit of B and one unit of C (since they provide exact-
ly the same cash flows in future), or one unit of A should cost 430 [i.e. 0.5*(450+410)] today. If the
market price of A is anything else, there will be a potential arbitrage opportunity.
To elaborate, suppose, for example, the market price of A is 460 and the other values are as above.
In this situation, an investor would sell (short) 2 units of A, receive 920 in sales proceeds and spend
860 of that to buy one unit of each of B and C. The investor collects 60 today, and his future liabili-
ties (by selling A) are exactly matched by cash inflows from B and C2. This seems like a way to make
money for free without taking any risk; such opportunities should not exist in an efficient market.
Such situations are rare in the real world. When they do occur, it usually either represents hidden
(cash flow) risk or because transaction costs are high/ the security to be shorted is in limited sup-
ply, driving up the borrow cost, so the arbitrage may not be compelling after considering all costs
fully.
• The example above discussed securities whose cash flows were known with certainty. To extend this
principle to instruments with uncertain cash flows, we introduce the concept of risk-adjusted returns,
which formalizes the notion that securities with higher risk (uncertainty of future return) should earn
higher returns (as we discussed above). How exactly to measure the risk and how to translate the extra
risk into additional expected return is more an art than a science; models/ frameworks can help with the
initial steps. Investors should principally be keen to invest in the securities with high risk-adjusted re-
turns (if they believe in the risk adjustment methodology), because that’s where they are supposedly
getting the best deal beyond being compensated for taking on the risk.
• Stated simply, the underlying goal of all investing is to buy securities that are likely to gain in value, and
sell/ short securities that are more likely to lose value. Now, today’s market valuation reflects the future
outlook of securities, so it is often not enough to simply assess whether the underlying company’s/
country’s future prospects are positive or not. It is essential to form an opinion on the future outlook
relative to the market’s view of the same company/ country, so it is crucial to figure out what outlook is
priced into current market prices. Often the outlook priced in is a (probability-weighted) average of the secu-
rity prices in various scenarios; if the investor feels differently about the likelihood various scenarios that
could possibly play out, that insight is sometimes adequate to put on a trade.

2In reality, the investor would need to borrow A from a securities lending program through his broker, pay a borrow cost, and put up collateral,
maybe including the assets B and C that he purchased, reducing the profits from the trade. There is also usually a bid-offer spread which we will
discuss later. There are some popular examples of such trades not working out, such as the Palm spin-off from 3Com in 2000 and the VW-
Porsche deal in 2008.

21
The Financial System - Introduction

Some Basic Principles and Terminology:

The Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) concepts to evaluate invest-
ments are based on Time Value of Money, which requires project cash flows to be discounted to
adjust cash flow dollars paid at different times to make them equivalent and comparable.

Investors who are optimistic go long (or buy) a security; pessimists go short (or sell). A short
seller needs to locate a security to borrow and pay the borrow cost, and pay any intermediate
cash flows (e.g. coupon or dividend). The short position is eventually closed out by covering.

No-arbitrage principles suggest that asset markets should be efficient and it should not be possi-
ble to make money without taking risk. Risk-adjusted returns indicate a security’s performance
after adjusting for the risk the investor takes to invest in it.

ARE FINANCIAL MARKETS “EFFICIENT”?

How well do the principles described in the last section (no arbitrage, short selling, risk-adjusting returns,
etc.) apply in practice? How accurately do current market prices of financial securities reflect their future
potential returns? The Efficient Market Hypothesis says that security prices immediately adjust to incorporate
new information, which arrives randomly. To be clear, this is merely a hypothesis; staunch believers will feel that
there is no point trying to pick securities in the market (because price movements are random); arbitrage
opportunities will exist if the market is not efficient. Securities are all fairly valued, and holding the entire
market index is the best bet. We discuss the Random Walk model in the section on option pricing, which is
based on this fundamental idea. At the other end of the spectrum, non-believers insist that the market is in-
efficient because of various reasons (illiquidity, regulatory constraints, capital/ position-based limits to
arbitrage, too much information and being able to sort it all out, behavioral biases, entry barriers in terms of
deep domain knowledge, etc.), so price movements can be predicted with some degree of success. This fun-
damental question is not addressed in this book, but the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Efficient Market Hypothesis
There are a few “versions” of the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which we are touching on mainly to intro-
duce terminology. It’s a matter of choice what readers choose to believe; but be aware that believing in the
strongest form of the statement is inconsistent with being an ardent bottom-up stock picker.
The Weak Form Efficiency is the weakest form of the hypothesis, which says that historical prices and volume
data are not useful in predicting returns. The implication of this is that technical analysis should not work.
Momentum has been one of the strongest predictors of returns over the past several decades (before it got
too common and algorithmic over the last few years), so even the simplest form of efficiency has some evi-
dence against it. Studies on serial correlation of securities have demonstrated some short term persistence,
but transaction costs are too great to profit from it. Further, for every theory like momentum, there is an
opposite theory like Mean Reversion. One of these is always going to be true, tautologically. Analysts often say
that mean reversion is a longer term phenomenon, whereas momentum is shorter term, but the horizon is
tricky to define. With the advent of technology, these time horizons are likely getting shorter and more ran-
dom.
Semi-strong form Efficiency implies that prices incorporate all publicly available information, not just historical
prices and volume. So, this implies that none of the fundamental and technical analysts add incremental val-
ue. It is possible that the same information may be interpreted differently by different analysts, or there may

22
Capital Markets and Investments

be some information that most analysts haven’t chanced upon; this version of efficiency does not allow for
that too. Most analysts will believe that this version of efficiency does not always hold.
Strong-form Efficiency insists that even with private information, it is not possible to predict security returns;
this is probably a stretch.
The core argument justifying market efficiency is that there are millions of investors and analysts following
financial markets, several hundred track any particular focus area. If a security’s price were obviously wrong,
capital would flow in / out of that security until the price reflects fair value. In particular, investors could
put on arbitrage strategies and lock in profits if prices are not aligned with the economic reality.
Whichever version one chooses to believe in, it is indeed true that new public information is getting dissem-
inated and incorporated in prices very rapidly, so the edge to analyzing information may be going down; in
fact speed may even lead to misinterpretation and present an opportunity. Further, many pricing anomalies
may appear to exist or investment opportunities appear lucrative, but they are either transient, or may not be
thoroughly researched or may reflect (incorrectly assessed) investment risk. So, in a sense, recognizing that
the market may plausibly be somewhat efficient overall should cause the investor to ask why the other per-
son wants to sell when the investor wants to buy (or vice versa) and convince himself that he is not missing
anything.
Counterclaims to Market Efficiency
Theories of Asymmetric Information - Agency Theories
Efficient market theories are based on frictionless markets, with all players having the same information
(among other assumptions), consistent with perfect competition. In both the retail and the institutional in-
vestment world, professional investment managers manage most of the financial capital on behalf of their
clients (who own the capital), as we elaborate in Chapter 4. In the real world, the entity owning the capital
(principal) cannot precisely observe if the manager deploying the capital (agent) is doing an earnest job to
create value, or doing “just enough” to maintain a good impression or taking excessive risk to get paid in-
centive fees3. So, the capital owner often decides on the performance of the agent based on returns over a
certain pre-specified time horizon. This also motivates the creation of investment guidelines, which restricts
the agent’s investment universe to his stated expertise. This leads to the frictions discussed in the justifica-
tion for limits to arbitrage, below.
Limits to Arbitrage
The first line of skepticism to market efficient arguments is that it is not easy to implement arbitrages as the
textbooks will have readers believe. This is because of investor guidelines (limiting which assets investors
can invest in), short selling constraints, lack of borrow availability/ cost of borrow, prices deviating even
more from fundamentals in the short run, high transaction costs, short investment horizons aligned with
investor performance evaluation cycles, etc. The counter to this argument is that, for arbitrage to disappear,
not all investors need to be adept at implementing arbitrage trades; one large investor with the capital and
flexibility should be able to drive out mispricing and profit from it. Said differently, if prices reflect a
weighted-average of trader beliefs, an arbitrageur, because of reasons above, may not be in a position to
build a large enough position to influence prices significantly, leading to the persistence of a potential arbi-
trage opportunity.

3 This line of thinking was pioneered by Michael Spence, George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz in the early 1970s, for which they won the Nobel
Prize for Economics in 2001. This (asymmetric information) problem can be mitigated by signaling (where the informed party takes a costly
action to credibly disclose private information) or screening (where the uninformed party presents the informed party with a menu of choices;
the pick from the menu reveals the private information).

23
The Financial System - Introduction

Further, most mispricings do not show up as textbook arbitrages (where one makes certain money, or has a
zero probability of losing and a non-zero chance of making money) but show up as lucrative trades in an
expected value framework (high positive expected values). So, while putting on such trades, there remains a
non-zero chance of losing (potentially large amounts of) money; investors may be reluctant to allocate mas-
sive amounts of capital to such trades, and invest only in small size in a risk-controlled manner. And, if new
capital flows to investors with views divergent from the arbitrageur, the arbitrageur will find himself on the
wrong side of the trade, in the short term.
Principal-agent issues also make risk-control issues especially important. This is because the capital owner
cannot precisely monitor the investment manager’s actions, so needs to come up with a contract to create a
suitable incentive structure. Now, such contracts can also lead to perverse incentives, so the contract usually
also contains guidelines to restrict the manager’s actions. Even in the absence of such contracts, the manag-
er may choose to “play it safe” instead of putting on (potentially risky and contrarian) arbitrage trades, which
may lead to large losses and stick out, leading to the capital owner firing the manager.
Behavioral Biases of Investors
All the arguments put forward in this chapter (and in most of the book) assume that investors behave ra-
tionally, based on the information at their disposal. Studies have shown that this is not always true4.
Individual (and institutional) cognitive biases lead to non-rational judgments and decisions, which affect
trading dynamics and market prices. These biases can broadly be classified as either related to overconfi-
dence, or limited cognitive processing5 (e.g. simplifying decision-making by using quick heuristics, feelings
short-circuiting well thought-out decision frameworks).
Overconfidence leads to investors believing that their estimates are much more precise than reality, their
ability is higher than that of their peers; they selectively pick facts to reinforce these biases. This causes in-
vestors to trade aggressively, invest actively instead of indexing (Chapters 4, 5). Overconfidence also leads to
over-reaction in prices which eventually corrects, leading to short-term momentum but longer term mean-
reversion (Chapter 12). This may also show up in large investment allocations to local assets or own-
company stock.
Limited focus and mind space to absorb/ analyze information also causes people to ignore information for
pricing financial assets. For example, investors overreact to salient or recent information, and de-emphasize
less salient information. Investors’ subjective probabilities of events are influenced by how easily they can
think of examples. Investors often frame the decision problem narrowly, leading them to ignore relevant
investment aspects such as employer 401k matches, tax implications or diversifying characteristics to overall
portfolios. Investors have been shown to usually simply default to an equally weighted average of securities
in their portfolio, without due consideration to risk. Reference points seem to matter to investors, be it the
price at which they acquired a security in the past and their aversion to sell losers, their anchoring to initial
ideas and premises, mentally compartmentalizing using quick heuristics to get to an answer rather than de-
liberating fully on the problem. These biases slow down the incorporation of information into market
prices.
To summarize, it’s probably fair to say that most of the market behaves in a (more or less) efficient manner
most of the time. But, for the other times (and parts of the market), behavioral biases become important in

4While several researchers, beginning with Savage and Ellsberg have documented investor irrationality in various forms, Daniel Kahneman and
Amos Tversky provided the Prospect Theory to explain some of these behavioral patterns, for which Kahneman shared the Nobel Prize in 2002
5 A strand of academic literature in microeconomic theory refers to this phenomenon as bounded rationality.

24
Capital Markets and Investments

determining/ explaining the final outcome. And, these effect of these biases may linger, because of agency
effect and the resulting limits to arbitrage. Reinforcing behavioral actions by groups of investors (rather than
individuals) can also affect prices. Some investors may be in a position to exploit these inefficiencies at the
margin, at least temporarily.

Are Markets Efficient?

Yes: Efficient Markets Hypothesis
- Many analysts continuously analyzing information, to find money-making opportunities

No: Limits to Arbitrage, Agency Theories and Behavioral Biases
- Delegating to outside managers, investment rules and risk budgets allow arbitrages to persist.
- Investors have common behavioral traits such as overconfidence and limited attention, which
make them vulnerable to biases.

REFERENCES
• Akerlof, George A., O. Blanchard, D. Romer and J. E. Stiglitz (ed., 2014). What Have We Learned? MIT
Press.
• Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard (2003). A Survey of Behavioral Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M.
Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18,
pages 1053-1128 Elsevier.
• Hirshleifer, David A (Aug, 2014). Behavioral Finance. Retrieved from SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2480892
• Kahneman, Daniel (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

25
Capital Markets and Investments

Index

Buyer’s curse, 94
1 Buy-side, 17, 50

1-by-2 put/ call spread, 241

C
A Calendar Spread, 223
Call option, 217
Accrued Interest, 101 Call Spread, 223
Activism, 175 Capital Allocation Line (CAL), 199
Agency Bonds, 32 Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), 203
Agency brokerage, 37 Capital Introductions Group, 40
Agency Theory, 23 Capital Market Line (CML), 202
Allocator, 50 Capital Markets Division, 37
Alpha, 69, 73, 206 Capital Structure, 26, 173, 251
Alternative Investments, 54 Carry Trades, 125
Alternative Trading Systems (ATS), 44 Cash Flow Statement
American option, 217, 234 Cash Flow from Operations, Investments, Financing, 253
Arbitrage Pricing Theory, 208 Central Bank, 77, 120
Asset Allocation, 73 Central Tendency
Asset Backed Securities (ABS), 167 Mean, Median, Mode, 276
Asset class, 30 Clean Price, 101
Asset manager, 50 Clearing, 37
Asset-Liability Mismatch (ALM), 114 Clearing and settlement, 40
Asymmetric Information, 23 Clearing house, 40
Closed-end fund, 53
B Collar, 221
Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLO), 168
Backward induction - Option, 232 Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (CMO), 165
Backwardation, 242 Commercial bank, 36
Balance Sheet Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS), 167
Current Assets/ Liabilities, Owners’ Equity, Fixed Assets, Commingled fund, 56
Accumulated Depreciation, Book Value, 250 Commodities, 34
Bearish/ Bullish, 20 Company Filings
Behavioral Finance, 24 10Q, 10K, 8K, 250
Benchmark indices, 65 Compliance Division, 42
Beta, 69, 73, 206 Consultants, 50, 60
Bid price, 37 Contango, 242
Bid-Cover Ratio, 94 Conversion Factor, 127
Bids wanted in competition (BWIC), 46 Convertible Bond Arbitrage, 159
Binomial Distribution, 281 Convertible bonds, 28
Binomial Model, 226 Corporate bonds, 32
Bitcoin, 85 Corporate Credit
Black Scholes Model, 235 Analytics, 156
Black-Litterman Model, 214 Bankruptcy, 148
Blockchaining, 84 Bonds, 151
Bloomberg terminal, 287 Capital Structure, 146
Bonds, 27, 90 Credit Default Swaps, 154
Bootstrapping, 100 Default Risk, 148
Bottom-up investment, 52 Electronic Trading, 156
Breakeven - Inflation, 129 Fundamental Analysis, 149
Business Cycle, 121 Liquidity, 155
289
Index

Loans, 152 Excess return, 72

Quantitative Models, 158 Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), 54, 134
Recovery Rate, 148 Exchange traded market, 43
Corporate Governance, 175 Exotic option
Corporate treasury departments, 59 Digital, Barrier, Contingent, Bermudian, Asian, 224
Covariance, 283 Expectations Hypothesis, 123
Covered call, 222 Expected Return on Equity, 175
Credit Default Swaps (CDS), 154 Expected Shortfall, 70, 213
Credit Rating Agencies, 149 Expiration Date, 29
Cross Sectional Data, 275
Crowdfunding, 84 F
Cryptocurrencies, 85
Currencies, 34, 268 Factor covariance matrix, 211
Current Yield, 107 Factor Mimicking Portfolio, 209
CUSIP, 27 Factor model
Custody, 41 factor structure, factor exposure, factor loading, factor
sensitivity, factor returns, 208
D Fama-French Model, 209
Family office, 58
Dark pool, 44, 190 Fed Funds, 120
Data Analysis Tools, 275 Fiduciary standard, 58
Day Count Convention, 95, 102 Financial Statement Footnotes
Delivery Option Earnings Quality, 254
Cheapest To Deliver (CTD), 127 Financial Statements, 250
Delta - Option, 230 FinTech, 80
Derivatives, 28 Fisher Equation, 122
Desk strategist, 38 Fixed Income, 31
Dirty Price, 101 Flattener, 125
Discount Factor, 100 Flight to Quality, 125
Discount Rate, 98, 175 fly trade - option, 241
Discounted Cash Flow Forward curve
DCF, 176 Forward Rate Agreement (FRA), 103
Disintermediation, 16 Forward rate, 127
Dispersion, 277 Forwards, 29
Diversification, 195 Foundations, 58
Dividend Discount Model, 177 Frequency Distribution, 276
Duration, 110 Fund of funds, 59
Duration-based Hedging, 118 Fundamental Investing, 52, 181
DV01, 111 Futures, 29, 127

E G
Economic data, 121 Gaussian Distribution, 279
Efficient Market Hypothesis, 22 General Collateral (GC), 96
Electronic Communications Network (ECN), 44 Geometric Brownian Motion, 235
Emerging Markets, 35, 121 Gordon Growth Formula
Empirical Distribution, 279 Dividend Discount Model with Growth, 178
Endowments, 58 Government Bonds, 31
Enterprise Value, 172 Graham-Dodd Valuation, 177
Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), 76 Greeks – options
Equities, 27, 172 Delta, Gamma (Convexity), Vega, Theta, 237
Equity Multiples Gross Basis, 128
P/E, EV/EBITDA, 179 Guidelines, 51
Eurodollar Futures, 131
European option, 217

290
Capital Markets and Investments

H M
Haircut, 96 Macaulay Duration, 111
Hedge funds, 55 Macro Investing, 182
Heteroskedasticity, 286 maker/taker model, 45
High Frequency Trading, 57, 97, 190 Margin investment, 41
Hybrid instruments, 28 Market maker, 37
Market microstructure, 43, 75, 97, 189
I Market portfolio, 201
Marketplace Lending, 84
IEX, 191 Mean-Variance Efficient (MVE) Portfolio, 200
Immunization, 115, 116 Mean-Variance Efficient Frontier, 200
Implied volatility, 238 Mean-variance Optimization, 198
Income Statement MiFID II, 79
Cost of Goods Sold, SG&A, EBITDA, Depreciation, Interest Minimum variance portfolio, 196
Expense, Net Income, 252 Model Robustness, 183
Index, 63 Modified Duration, 111
Index Rebalancing, 64 Modigliani-Miller, 174
Index Rules, 63, 67 Mortgages, 32
Index swaps, 57 MBS, 139
Index Value OAS, 143
Total Return Index Value, 66 Prepayment Risk, 140
Indifference Curve, 194 TBA, 141
Inflation, 122, 129 Multicollinearity, 286
Information Technology Division, 42 Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF), 189
Insurance companies, 59 Municipal bonds, 32
Inter dealer broker, 38, 97 Municipal Bonds, 144
Interest Rate Risk, 109 Mutual fund, 53
Interest Rate Swaps, 31, 131
Internal Rate of Return (IRR), 92 N
Investment bank, 36
Investment Banking Division, 36 NBBO, 189
ISIN, 27 Net Basis, 128
Net Present Value (NPV), 92
J No-Arbitrage, 20
Nominal interest rates, 122
Jump Process – Option pricing, 240 Normal Distribution, 278

K O
Key-Rate Duration, 116 Offer price, 37
Kurtosis, 281 Off-The-Run, 95
Omitted Variable Bias, 286
L On-the-Run, 95
Open Interest, 128
Leverage, 41, 125, 173 Open-end fund, 53
LIBOR, 130 Option
Limited liability, 27 Strike, Underlying, Expiration, Writer, Premium, Exercise, In/
Limits to Arbitrage, 23 Out-of-the-money, Moneyness, Intrinsic Value, Time
Liquid alts, 56 Value, Multiplier, 217
Liquidity, 97 Options, 29
Lit market, 44 Order management system (OMS), 45
Long, 20 Outsourced CIO (OCIO), 61
Long-only fund, 20, 53 Overconfidence, 24
Long-short fund, 53 Over-the-counter (OTC), 45

291
Index

P Risk model, 69
Risk Neutrality
Paid-in Kind (PIK), 90 Probability, Pricing, 231
Partial Duration, 116 Risk Parity, 215
Passive management, 52 Risk Premium, 197
Pension plans, 58 Risk Reversal, 221
Pension Plans Risk-adjusted returns, 21
Funding Status, 115 Robo-Advisor, 51, 57, 84
Performance Attribution, 73 Rolldown, 104
Brinson-Fachler, 73
Performance Evaluation, 71
S
Physical Settlement, 127
Poisson Distribution, 281 Sales & Trading, 37
Preferred Habitat Theory, 122 Scenario Analysis, 71, 211
Preferred stock, 28 Secondary market, 18
Price-Yield Relation, 106 Securities lending, 20, 41
Primary Dealer, 97 Securitization, 161
Primary market, 17 ABS, 167
Prime Brokerage, 40 CDX, CDO, 169
Principal-Agent Problem, 24 CLO, 168
private equity, 55 CMBS/ CMBX, 167
Private Wealth Management, 57 CMO, 164
Probability Risk Retention, 170
Distribution, Density, Cumulative Distribution, 278 Securitized Products, 33
Proprietary trading, 38, 60 Security Market Line, 205
Protective Put, 222 Security Selection, 73
Pull-to-par, 103 Sell-side, 17
Put option, 217 Separately Managed Account, 56
Put Spread, 223 Sequential pay, 33
Put-Call Parity, 223 Serial Correlation, 286
Settlement
Q Physical and Cash, 29
Settlement date, 47
Quantitative Easing, 121 Sharpe Ratio, 72, 191, 198, 201, 203
Quantitative Investing, 51, 83, 182 Short, 20, 41
SIP, 189
R Skew - option, 241
Skewness, 281
Rating Agencies, 17 Smart-beta, 51, 69
Rational Expectations, 123 Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), 76
Real interest rates, 122 Spot Rate, 100
Realized volatility, 238 Standard Deviation, 277
Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), 58 Standard Error, 280
Regression, 209, 283 Standard Normal Distribution, 279
Reinvestment Risk, 108 Statistics, 275
Replicating Portfolio - Option, 227 Steepener, 126
Repo, 95 Stochastic Volatility – Option pricing, 240
Residual value, 28 Stock Replacement, 221
Returns Stocks, 27
Total, Price, Annualized, Holding Period, Simple, Stop-out Yield, 94
Compounded, Log, 245 Straddle, 222
Reverse Repo, 96 Strangle, 222
Risk factor, 69 Strategy Index
Risk management - Equity, 211 Custom Index, 65
Risk management – sell side, 40 Stratified Sampling, 65

292
Capital Markets and Investments

Stress Tests, 78 U
STRIPS, 99
Structured credit, 33 Underlying, 28
Structuring, 39 Utility Function, 194
Style drift, 50
Swaps, 29 V
Swaptions, 31, 135, 219, 288
Synthetic Credit Indices (CDX), 169 Value Investing, 183
Vanilla option, 224
VaR, 70, 211, 212
T
Variance swap, 242
Tax shield of Debt, 174 venture capital, 55
T-Bills, 95 VIX
TED Spreads, 131 VIX futures, Options on VIX futures, 242
Term Structure of Interest Rates, 98, 123 Volatility, 277
Term structure of option volatility, 241 Vol-of-vol, 242
TEV
Tracking Error Volatility, 65, 73 W
Time Series Data, 275
Time Value of Money, 19 Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC), 176
TIPS, 129 When-issued market, 94
Top-down investment, 52
Total Return Swaps (TRS), 66 Y
Trade date, 47
Tranche, 33 Yale Model, 59
Treasuries, 31 Yield Curve, 98
Treasury Auction, 94 Yield to Maturity (YTM), 93
Treasury Bonds, 89
Trinomial model, 233 Z
Two-fund separation, 65, 201, 209
Zero Coupon Bonds, 99
Zero Interest Rate, 77
Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP), 77, 121

293