Lecture Notes in Fixed Income Fundamentals

Written for undergraduates, this book is dedicated to fixed income fundamentals that do not require modeling the dynamics of interest rates. The book concentrates on understanding and explaining the pillars of fixed income markets, using the modern finance approach implied by the "no free lunch" condition. It focuses on conceptual understanding so that novice readers will be familiar with tools needed to analyze bond markets. Institutional information is covered only to the extent that is necessary to obtain full appreciation of concepts.

This volume will equip readers with a solid and intuitive understanding of the No Arbitrage Condition — its link to the existence and estimation of the term structure of interest rates, and to valuation of financial contracts. Using the modern approach of arbitrage arguments, the book addresses positions and contracts that do not require modeling evolution of interest rates. As such, it welcomes readers lacking the technical background for this modeling, and provides them with good intuition for interest rates, no arbitrage condition, bond markets and certain financial contracts.