Financial Markets and Investments

This book can be used in a course on financial markets and investments for students who have already had exposure to introductory economics, finance and statistics. The purpose is to make the different topics as practical as possible in the context of a general discussion, while maintaining academic standards of rigorous and literature-based analysis. The selection of topics places the book at the boundary between a basic and an intermediate discussion with a practical purpose. It starts from the fundamentals of asset pricing and risk premia and applies the tools to topics such as portfolio optimization, stock valuation, private assets and sustainability. As such, the book will be of interest to professionals and some chapters may well be used in the context of executive education.