Welcome to Mastering Investment, the FT's essential guide to the principles and practice of investment. The series will be published in the Financial Times every Monday for the next 10 weeks, and will cover all aspects of portfolio investment, from financial markets, investment strategies and valuation to portfolio management and global investing.

The series begins with core areas such as equities and bonds, before addressing more focused issues such as hedge funds and investment behaviour. Market regulation, ethical investment and other related issues appear towards the end of the series. Throughout the series, readers will find signposts in the margins directing them to related articles, and weblinks that lead to relevant background reading. Summaries of each article will also be posted here as the series progresses.

Mastering Investment is not written for complete beginners in the field. It is concerned with professional investment, and therefore from time to time authors assume some knowledge of fundamental concepts, such as bid-ask spreads or the yield curve. However, in each issue readers will find different styles and levels of writing, some technical, others narrative or historical. Throughout the series we aim to offer enough variety to attract specialists and casual readers alike.

The bulk of the series has been written by leading academics from four business schools renowned for their investment expertise: Chicago Graduate School of Business, London Business School, Columbia Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Together they have produced an invaluable survey of the subject, marshalling fundamental principles, investment practice and cutting-edge thinking.

We hope you will enjoy Mastering Investment and find the latest ideas in investment useful and interesting. If you have any comments about the series, please email mastering@ft.com.