In recent years, I have noticed a positive trend in financial publishing related to edited collections. Because these compilations combine the expertise of multiple authorities, they have the potential to cover a topic more broadly, and offer more points of view, than a monograph by a single author. In the past, edited collections acquired somewhat of a bad reputation because many failed to achieve their potential. Coverage of topics was sometimes spotty, or authors failed to work together to produce a cohesive whole. Those days seem to be past. Outstanding edited collections are now coming to market. One example is Dischel's (2002) Climate Risk and the Weather Market. This edited collection on investment management is another.

The first thing you will notice is that Harry Markowitz has lent his name to the project. That is a positive indication of things to come. Turning to the table of contents, we find it is COMPREHENSIVE.

In addition to a foreword by Peter Bernstein, there are 30 chapters divided into six sections:

Foundations of Investment Management

Investing in Common Stock

Investing in Fixed-Income Securities

Investment Companies and Exchange-Traded Funds

Investing in Real Estate and Alternative Investments

Asset Allocation

When you delve into some of the chapters, you will find that the book offers tremendous depth. For example, The section on common stock investing opens with an introductory chapter that details the four ways US equities are traded:

listed stocks trading on exchanges;

listed stocks trading OTC;

nonlisted stocks trading OTC; and

alternative trading systems—direct transactions between institutions.

The same chapter describes types of orders, short selling, and margin trading. It takes a detailed look at transaction costs and techniques institutions use for benchmarking their own transaction costs. It explores the murky world of soft dollars and payment for order flow. It describes how institutions trade—the placement of block trades and advantages of program trading. It describes standard market indices and takes a summary look at international equity markets. All of this is covered in just one chapter! Other chapters of the same section cover management styles, tracking error, equity analysis, multi-factor equity models and equity derivatives.

Chapters in the book's opening section focus on portfolio theory and its practical implementation in investment management. Markowitz's influence is evident here, and he contributed to several chapters. The basics of portfolio theory are introduced. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is rejected as a practical tool, but embraced for the concepts it introduces—the risk-free rate, systematic risk, the market portfolio, etc. More sophisticated multi-factor models are presented that are useful in practice.