The Money Market

Rating:
Summary: One-dimensional, un-technical book
Review: This book has been considered an "industry standard" for some time but is now woefully inadequate. It is written in very un-technical fashion that would make it good only for beginners, and does not cover the latest developments. It is also far too US-centric, for people such as myself who trade non-USD assets out of the US, it is useless.

A much better buy is "The Global Money Markets" by Fabozzi, Mann and Choudhry, at the same price but much better value-for-money and covers more markets. [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: An Introduction but Nothing More
Review: This book provides a comprehensive overview of various money markets.

The reviewers that have written that this book is out of date are absolutely right. However, I had many other problems with the book even when the last edition was relatively new.

If you know nothing about money and financial markets, you will learn something. But if already understand these markets, you will be confounded by the mountains impossible-to-verify anecdotes and the many passages that are extremely vague. Apparently, what collection casual comments from a few people out of thousands of market participants constitutes hard research. At least the data that is easy to come by is in there.

This is fairly easy to read, but at the same time horribly written in places. I felt that the task the author assigned herself was just too overwhelming at times, and her skill and attention frequently faltered. Better to leave parts out, however, than to fill them in with mediocrity and innaccuracy.

If you are completely clueless about this sort of stuff, you probably ought to buy this book. But these days, you will find more than enough -- and more complete -- information by simply doing a web search.

Rating:
Summary: Very poor book on money markets
Review: This is an over-rated book on money markets and I recommend "Business Finance" by Higson instead, much better approach and clarity.