It is not uncommon to meet professionals in financial services who have only a vague idea of what their colleagues actually do. The root cause is specialization and the subsequent development of jargon that makes communication between common specialists faster and more precise but is virtually impenetrable to everybody else. The Bank Analyst's Handbook provides a modern introduction to financial markets and intermediation. Individual subject areas are covered in a thorough but clear and succinct manner. The breadth of the author's experience as a sell-side bank analyst is exploited to good effect to pull together these threads and create a coherent framework for the analysis of financial markets, whether these are in advanced economies or developing markets. The Handbook is well-written and highly accessible. It builds on orthodox financial theory (with all of its flaws and controversies) but also highlights many of the real problems involved with...