Naked Guide to Bonds: What You Need to Know--Stripped Down to the Bare Essentials

Additional Naked Guide to Bonds: What You Need to Know--Stripped Down to the Bare Essentials Information

"Michael Brandes has written a thorough, useful, and highly readable treatise on bonds. Investors seeking a balanced, diversified portfolio are advised to read it."
–Tom Gardner
Co-founder, The Motley Fool

"This book cuts through the jargon and gets right to the point. A bond market primer that not only teaches the basics, but also is enjoyable to read."
–Gregory Peters
Head of Credit Strategy, Morgan Stanley

"The title says it all. The book is to the point and easy to understand. I wish I had Michael’s so easy-to-understand reference to bonds years ago."
–Alan R. Shaw
Managing Director, U.S. Equity Research
Smith Barney (a division of Citigroup)

"Fixed income can be an enormously complex and confusing asset class–even for seasoned investment professionals–with a dizzying array of instruments and strategies. Fortunately, Brandes has done a marvelous job of pulling back the proverbial curtain, to unveil and demystify the bond market by breaking a complicated topic down into simple, manageable, and understandable building blocks."
–Philip J. Orlando, CFA
Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager, Federated Investors

"Everything here about bonds is bite size and easy to digest. Pleasantly so. This book marks a clear path for individual investors to follow, and will fill you with many new insights. An extremely handy guide for anyone who wants to invest in bonds for safety and income."
–John Tracy
author of the bestselling book How to Read a Financial Report

What Customers Say About Naked Guide to Bonds: What You Need to Know--Stripped Down to the Bare Essentials:

Shouldn't that just be 1-(state/local) tax rate since Treasuries are not exempt from federal tax. I have only read chapter 19, on muni bonds, which was of most interest to me. However, on page 119, isn't that an error where when calculating the TEY for the Treasury bond they divide by 1-(federal + state/local) tax rate. It looks like they made a cut and past error, pasting in the denominator from the muni TEY calculation of the same page. The difference is 7.9% vs what I think is the correct 5.2%; a big difference.

Full of useless info (the days of the week on which Treasury auctions take place, for example) larded with annoying attempts at humor. Fidelity and Pimco have the essentials about bonds on their websites, the latter for free, so why buy this.If you're really interested in the fixed-income market, I suggest Patrick Brown's "An Introduction to the Bond Markets". Even if you ignore the math, you'll learn far more, and have a book worth more than a single read.

I highly recommend this book. It gives thorough and strait-forward information on every aspect of fixed-income investment vehicles. This is a great way to learn about this market if one is new to it.

As a former techie who found his way to the wonderful world of supporting a fixed income desk, I found this book to be an excellent overview of the bond market. The author explains complex concepts such as duration and yield in terms that anyone can understand. This is by far the best introductory book to the bond market I have read (and I have read many).

Bond math can be daunting, but while the author includes a few equations for illustrative purposes, he clearly addresses his book to the general run of individual investors. In this very good beginner's guide to the bond market, author Michael V. Brandes addresses all of the fundamental questions clearly and concisely. The book, which has moments of surprising good humor, says right off the bat that bond investing can be dull in comparison to stock investing, not because the stakes are lower, but because the elements of personality and surprise are considerably more muted in the debt market than in the equity markets. We highly recommend this book, even though it is pedantic at times - a risk you take when you venture into the complex realm of bond investing.