Since early March, investors have had a bit of a breather from the devastation of 17 months of almost constant bad economic, financial and investment news. If we haven’t yet seen the bottom of this economic cycle, we’ve almost certainly seen the worst of the stockmarket falls.

How much money has been lost? By all Australian investors, hundreds of billions, which it must when the value of a stockmarket halves.
How much have you personally lost? How much dough has your super fund done? How are you sleeping at night? And, more importantly, what are you going to do about it?

guide to investing in fixed interest securities

There is always a sensible argument for investing in cash and fixed income. For investors, it should not be a question of, ‘When do I invest in cash or fixed income?’ but more a question of ,‘How much should I have invested in cash and fixed income at this stage of the cycle?’

With the high level of risk and volatility in the main competing asset classes of equities and property, there is a strong argument for a large allocation to fixed income at the current time, particularly with returns of 6–10% available for relatively low risk.

Investors who’ve primarily purchased equity securities in the past have been looking for more secure investment alternatives; namely, fixed income securities. This book demystifies the sometimes daunting fixed income market, through a user-friendly, sophisticated, yet not overly mathematical format. Investing in Fixed Income Securitiescovers a wide range of topics, including the different types of fixed income securities, their characteristics, the strategies necessary to manage a diversified portfolio, bond pricing concepts, and more, so you can make the most informed investment decisions possible.

As official cash rates and hence term deposit rates fall, the recommendation is to move a portion of funds out of cash and into well researched, select corporate bonds and hybrids, which continue to benefit from high credit spreads despite the fall in the base cash rate

Acknowledgments. = ref:

Chapter 1: An Overview of the Fixed Income Securities Market.

Chapter 2: The Basics of Debt Instruments.

Chapter 3: Bond Pricing Concepts.

Chapter 4: Risks Associated with Bonds.

Chapter 5: Macroeconomics and the Bond Market.

Chapter 6: Using Economic Variables to Forecast Interest Rates and the Bond Market.

Chapter 7: The Yield Curve.

Chapter 8: Money Market Instruments.

Chapter 9: U.S. Treasury and Government Agency Securities.

Chapter 10: Municipal Bonds.

Chapter 11: Corporate Bonds.

Chapter 12: Emerging Markets.

Chapter 13: Distressed Debt Securities.

Chapter 14: Mortgage-Backed Securities.

Chapter 15: Asset-Backed Securities.

Chapter 16: Preferred Stock.

Chapter 17: Fixed Income Derivatives: Products and Applications.

Chapter 18: Managing a Fixed Income Portfolio.