An Introductory Guide to the Investment Industry for IT Practitioners

Contents
 
Introduction
 
Acknowledgements
 
PART ONE
 
1 An Introduction to Financial Instruments
 
2 Equities
 
3 Debt Instruments
 
4 Cash
 
5 Derivatives
 
6 Common Attributes of Financial Instruments
 
7 Market Participants
 
8 How Investment Firms are Regulated
 
9 Straight-Through-Processing
 
10 The Role of Accurate Static Data in the STP Process
 
11 Communications Between Industry Participants
 
12 The Trade Agreement and Settlement Processes
 
13 Failed Trades - Causes, Consequences and Resolution
 
14 An Overview of Investment Accounting
 
15 The Stock Record -Using the double-entry Convention to Control Positions and Security Quantities
 
16 Example STP Flows of Equity Agency Trades - When Execution Venue the London Stock Exchange
 
17 The STP Flow of Debt Instrument Trades
 
18 The STP Flow of Foreign Exchange and Money Market Trades
 
19 The STP Flow of Futures and Options Transactions
 
20 The STP Flow of SWAP and other OTC Derivative Trades
 
21 Stock Lending, Repos and Funding
 
22 The Impact of Islamic Finance
 
23 The Management of Positions
 
24 The Management of Risk
 
PART TWO
 
25 The Role of the IT Department in Daily Operations
 
26 The Role of the IT Department in Managing Business Change
 
27 Package and Vendor Selection, Outsourcing and Offshoring
 
Appendix 1 Bond Market Price Calculations
 
Straight bond calculations
 
Simple yield to maturity
 
Gross redemption yield
 
FRN calculations
 
Simple margin
 
Discounted margin
 
Valuation methodologies for other types of debt instrument
 
Appendix 2 Summary of Contractual Documents
 
Appendix 3 Further Reading
 
Glossary of Terms
 
Index

Andrew Bradford (Cheshunt, UK) is a Consultant and an Associate of the Securities and Investment Institute with expertise and background in back office operations, and systems analysis. He has contributed articles to a wide range of financial industry periodicals published in the UK, Europe and the United States including STP Magazine, Derivatives Report, Funds Europe, Journal of Securities Operations, Wall Street and Technology, Trading Technology Week and Futures & Options World. Andrew is the author of the SII IAQ Workbook IT in Investment Operations published in May 2007. Currently a freelance consultant, he has held positions in IT, Operations and Marketing for Merrill Lynch, ABN Amro, Sanwa Bank and ACT Financial Systems.