I would probably call the selection of topics "finance basics that no one in industry uses any more".
It may be suitable as a beginner's guide if the quality of the exposition is good enough, but my suspicion is that you would be better off getting a copy of "Python for Data Analysis" and a decent quant finance textbook.
Fama and French are still industry leaders, and they use the three factor model as the foundation of all of their portfolio management at Dimensional Fund Advisors, hands down the most successful mutual fund in existence. http://us.dimensional.com/process/multifactor.aspx
They continue to out-perform active fund managers, and they power a boat load of the investments for many American Corporations. And those American Corporations love to watch their money grow.
What makes you think these models don't still power successful financial products today?
The concepts of the three factor model are important to learn but implementing one in practice is rarely done. These core factors are too crowded these days as all the quant funds are looking at the same factors.
The very example you gave to support your point actually detracts from it.
The goal of this book is clearly not going to be to teach you finance but rather to provide you with enough of the basics and beyond so you basically have all the tools needed to move forward.
Was very pleasantly surprised to see some of the stuff in the table of contents (ie. Pastor and Stambaugh's liquidity measure).
Will order this as I think it'll be a great reference.
But there are attempts at it. Most notable are:
- "An Introduction to the Mathematics of Financial Derivatives", by Neftci
- Wilmott books aren't bad.
- Brigo's "Interest Rate Models" is... flaky. It is a lot of material and seems to be quite rigorous, until some point most crucial for understanding, which gets skipped over. The interviews with traders at the end are good.
- Only buy Choudhry books, if you want to talk good about finance.
http://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Derivatives-DerivaGem-...