Crib sheets
The atlas is a reference you read on a screen. These are the other thing a reference is for: one page per asset class and one per deal desk, dense enough to be useful and short enough to print, fold and take into a room where this site is not open.
Not one line of them is written. The shelf comes from the product pages, the difficulty marks from the same table the atlas uses, the drivers and the calendar from the same place the category pages read, and the failure-mode counts from the same profiles each product prints. A crib sheet is the format people trust without re-checking, so the one thing it must never be is a summary that has quietly drifted from what it summarises. There is no second copy to drift.
The first sheet is cut the other way. An asset class is the right unit for learning a market and the wrong one for anybody working through a dozen instruments across four of them, which is what a saved list looks like after a fortnight — so your own shelf is the same sheet with the shelf replaced by what you saved or marked as learned. It is built in your browser from what your browser remembers, so it is empty on a device you have not used.
And all of them at once, plus the whole interview bank, as one document. Every sheet in it starts a fresh page, so a range in the print dialogue gets you exactly one market or one desk — which is the reason to have one document rather than eighteen addresses. It is assembled from the sheets below rather than derived again, so it cannot say anything they do not.
YoursYour own shelfEverything you saved or marked as learned, on one page, built in this browser.Open the sheet →EquitiesCash EquitiesDirect ownership instruments — shares and the funds that wrap them. The simplest claim on a company's future.Open the sheet →Eq. DerivativesEquity DerivativesContracts whose value derives from stocks and indices — options, swaps and structured payoffs on equity risk.Open the sheet →Fixed IncomeFixed IncomeDebt instruments that pay interest and return principal — from government bonds to securitised credit.Open the sheet →RatesRates DerivativesThe largest derivatives market on earth: instruments that transfer interest-rate risk between counterparties.Open the sheet →CreditCredit DerivativesInstruments that isolate and transfer default risk — insurance-like payoffs on whether a borrower survives.Open the sheet →FXForeign ExchangeThe deepest market in the world: exchanging one currency for another, today or at a date in the future.Open the sheet →FX DerivativesFX DerivativesOptionality on currency pairs — vanilla calls and puts, barriers and digitals on exchange rates.Open the sheet →Money MarketsMoney MarketsShort-term funding instruments — where banks, corporates and governments borrow for days to a year.Open the sheet →CommoditiesCommoditiesRaw materials as an asset class — energy, metals and agriculture, traded mostly through futures.Open the sheet →AlternativesAlternatives & Private MarketsBeyond public markets: private equity, venture, private credit, hedge funds and insurance-linked securities.Open the sheet →DigitalDigital AssetsCryptoassets and their derivatives — spot coins, perpetual futures and exchange-traded wrappers.Open the sheet →M&AMergers & AcquisitionsCompanies changing hands — bought, sold, merged, split apart. The deal everybody has heard of, and the one with the most ways to fail.Open the sheet →ECMEquity Capital MarketsSelling shares — a company's first sale to the public, its next one, and the days somebody places a large block of an existing holding.Open the sheet →DCMDebt Capital MarketsBorrowing in public: a company or a government sells a bond to hundreds of investors in an afternoon, and does it again next year.Open the sheet →LevFinLeveraged FinanceDebt raised against a company's own cash flows in order to buy it — the financing behind private equity, and what decides whether a buyout happens at all.Open the sheet →RestructuringRestructuringWhat happens when the debt cannot be paid: the negotiation, the court, and who ends up owning what.Open the sheet →StructuredStructured & Asset FinanceMoney lent against a defined pool or a single asset rather than against a company — receivables, aircraft, power stations, buildings.Open the sheet →ValuationValuation & Deal AnalysisThe arithmetic underneath all six: what a business is worth, what a buyer can pay, and which of those two numbers a deal is actually priced off.Open the sheet →
How to use one
- Print it. The site's navigation, footer and page furniture are dropped from the printed version; what is left is the sheet.
- Read the shelf first. It is ordered by how much each instrument assumes, so the top of each class is the part that needs nothing beyond everyday words.
- The failure-mode table is not a rating. It counts which of five things decides the outcome across the class. There is deliberately no total, and a market where one mode decides nearly everything is not riskier than one where three share the work — it is differently shaped.
- A desk sheet counts blockers instead. Nothing on a transaction desk loses money in a drawdown; it fails to happen, so the five things counted are the reasons it did not. The two tables have the same shape and answer different questions.
- The "it reaches" list on a desk sheet points both ways. Each entry is marked as a desk or as a market, because a printed sheet cannot be hovered to find out which half a link goes to.
Information and education only. Every line on every sheet is derived from pages that explain mechanisms in general terms using simplified models. Nothing on them is advice, a recommendation, or a valuation to rely on. Conventions differ by market and jurisdiction and change over time. See the full disclaimer.