Reddit mentions of An Introduction to Global Financial Markets

If you want an introduction to the Financial Markets and banking in general I can recommend you:

• Mishkin: Economics of Money, Banking and Financial Markets.
  This was one of the mandatory books at the Amsterdam University when studying banking. It is an excellent book dealing with most of the the issues you mentioned. It starts of with very simple and general questions like "What is money?" and goes all the way to complex issues like investment theories and transferring mechanism of central banks. The author really takes the time explain things with lots of comparisons and metaphors. I'd recommend this book to everyone looking to understand the financial markets and institutions.
  
  
• If you want and introduction to financial instruments and derivatives I'd recommend: Valdez: An Introduction to Global Financial Markets. Don't let the name fool you. This book assumes you already have some basic knowledge of the financial markets. It tries to explain instruments and fluctuations in text and mathematical theories rather than in big images and examples like Mishkin does so some math skills would be advantage. The books focuses more on instruments and the theories behind them.
  
  Also http://www.investopedia.com/ is a great place to learn more about investments economics and banking.