Capital Markets

A site for those who have an interest in how the capital markets operate, the financial institutions (from banks to hedge funds and all points in between) that operate in them and the financial instruments that are changing them. It is not a site for stock pickers or stock market advice or stock chatter. That, though, is not to exclude comments about books on stock market behavior or market analysis (e.g., books by Martin J. Pring or John. J. Murphy).

Welcome here are insider views (such as Bookstaber, "A Demon of Our Own Design") as well as those with a more academic bent (by way of contrast, Steinherr, "Derivatives: The Wild Beast of Finance").

This is not intended as a site for a political debate about capitalism (pro or con), but rather for the ways in which the capital markets function, financial instruments and institutions. Discussion about the implications of capitalism (such as globalization) is welcome but, please, exchanges of ideas not rants. Respect opinions no matter how wrong you believe them to be.

For those with a financial engineering bent, please remember that many of us know little beyond "alpha," "beta" and "delta," with "gamma" being obvious by its absence.