The Exchange-Traded Funds Manual, Second Edition

Preface

Authors try to accomplish a variety of things in prefaces. My objective here is to help you get what you want to get from this book. Of course, you are free to chart your own path.

The individual chapters cover specific topics and they are roughly in the order someone new to exchange-traded funds might approach the topic, but there is no need to read all of them or to read them in order. In most chapters you will find footnotes and text references to other spots in the book and to other publications and Internet material that will give you more detail on the subject covered in the chapter or in a section of the chapter. If you are looking for detailed coverage of a particular topic you will probably choose a chapter and follow it where it leads you. A reader looking for an overview will probably read straight through with little attention to footnotes and citations.

If none of the chapter headings seems specific enough, I suggest you look for your topic in the index. The index has an unusually large number of cross-references by design. When you look up terms and topics in the index they will frequently lead you to other references that may help you explore more efficiently.

There are plenty of footnotes. I hope they provide supplementary information at the right time and suggest new paths—always at your option. Also, an interest in one topic will often be linked to an interest in a related topic. The bibliography is confined to works mentioned in the text or in footnotes. ...