| Amortized Bond | |
| A financial certificate that has been reduced in value for records on accounting statements. An amortized bond is one that is treated as an asset, with the discount amount being amortized to interest expense over the life of the bond. If a bond is issued at a discount - that is, offered for sale below its par (face value) - the discount must be treated either as an expense or it can be amortized as an asset. |
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Management Concepts – The Four Functions of Management
Any organization, whether new or old, whether small or big need to run smoothly and achieve the goals and objectives which it has set forth. For this they had developed and implemented their own management concepts. There are basically four management concepts that allow any organization to handle the tactical, planned and set decisions. The four basic functions of the management are just to have a controlled plan over the preventive measure.
The four functions of management are:
The base function is to: Plan
It is the foundation area of management. It is the base upon which the all the areas of management should be built. Planning requires administration to assess; where the company is presently set, and where it would be in the upcoming. From there an appropriate course of action is determined and implemented to attain the company’s goals and objectives
Planning is unending course of action. There may be sudden strategies where companies have to face. Sometimes they are uncontrollable. You can say that they are external factors that constantly affect a company both optimistically and pessimistically. Depending on the conditions, a company may have to alter its course of action in accomplishing certain goals. This kind of preparation, arrangement is known as strategic planning. In strategic planning, management analyzes inside and outside factors that may affect the company and so objectives and goals. Here they should have a study of strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For management to do this efficiently, it has to be very practical and ample.
The subsequent function is to: Organize
The second function of the management is getting prepared, getting organized. Management must organize all its resources well before in hand to put into practice the course of action to decide that has been planned in the base function. Through this process, management will now determine the inside directorial configuration; establish and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources.
While determining the inside directorial configuration, management ought to look at the different divisions or departments. They also see to the harmonization of staff, and try to find out the best way to handle the important tasks and expenditure of information within the company. Management determines the division of work according to its need. It also has to decide for suitable departments to hand over authority and responsibilities.
The third function is to: Direct
Directing is the third function of the management. Working under this function helps the management to control and supervise the actions of the staff. This helps them to assist the staff in achieving the company’s goals and also accomplishing their personal or career goals which can be powered by motivation, communication, department dynamics, and department leadership.
Employees those which are highly provoked generally surpass in their job performance and also play important role in achieving the company’s goal. And here lies the reason why managers focus on motivating their employees. They come about with prize and incentive programs based on job performance and geared in the direction of the employees requirements.
It is very important to maintain a productive working environment, building positive interpersonal relationships, and problem solving. And this can be done only with Effective communication. Understanding the communication process and working on area that need improvement, help managers to become more effective communicators. The finest technique of finding the areas that requires improvement is to ask themselves and others at regular intervals, how well they are doing. This leads to better relationship and helps the managers for better directing plans.
The final function is to: Control
Control, the last of four functions of management, includes establishing performance standards which are of course based on the company’s objectives. It also involves evaluating and reporting of actual job performance. When these points are studied by the management then it is necessary to compare both the things. This study on comparision of both decides further corrective and preventive actions.
In an effort of solving performance problems, management should higher standards. They should straightforwardly speak to the employee or department having problem. On the contrary, if there are inadequate resources or disallow other external factors standards from being attained, management had to lower their standards as per requirement. The controlling processes as in comparison with other three, is unending process or say continuous process. With this management can make out any probable problems. It helps them in taking necessary preventive measures against the consequences. Management can also recognize any further developing problems that need corrective actions.
Effective and efficient management leads to success, the success where it attains the objectives and goals of the organizations. Of course for achieving the ultimate goal and aim management need to work creatively in problem solving in all the four functions. Management not only has to see the needs of accomplishing the goals but also has to look in to the process that their way is feasible for the company.
The four functions of management are:
The base function is to: Plan
It is the foundation area of management. It is the base upon which the all the areas of management should be built. Planning requires administration to assess; where the company is presently set, and where it would be in the upcoming. From there an appropriate course of action is determined and implemented to attain the company’s goals and objectives
Planning is unending course of action. There may be sudden strategies where companies have to face. Sometimes they are uncontrollable. You can say that they are external factors that constantly affect a company both optimistically and pessimistically. Depending on the conditions, a company may have to alter its course of action in accomplishing certain goals. This kind of preparation, arrangement is known as strategic planning. In strategic planning, management analyzes inside and outside factors that may affect the company and so objectives and goals. Here they should have a study of strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For management to do this efficiently, it has to be very practical and ample.
The subsequent function is to: Organize
The second function of the management is getting prepared, getting organized. Management must organize all its resources well before in hand to put into practice the course of action to decide that has been planned in the base function. Through this process, management will now determine the inside directorial configuration; establish and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources.
While determining the inside directorial configuration, management ought to look at the different divisions or departments. They also see to the harmonization of staff, and try to find out the best way to handle the important tasks and expenditure of information within the company. Management determines the division of work according to its need. It also has to decide for suitable departments to hand over authority and responsibilities.
The third function is to: Direct
Directing is the third function of the management. Working under this function helps the management to control and supervise the actions of the staff. This helps them to assist the staff in achieving the company’s goals and also accomplishing their personal or career goals which can be powered by motivation, communication, department dynamics, and department leadership.
Employees those which are highly provoked generally surpass in their job performance and also play important role in achieving the company’s goal. And here lies the reason why managers focus on motivating their employees. They come about with prize and incentive programs based on job performance and geared in the direction of the employees requirements.
It is very important to maintain a productive working environment, building positive interpersonal relationships, and problem solving. And this can be done only with Effective communication. Understanding the communication process and working on area that need improvement, help managers to become more effective communicators. The finest technique of finding the areas that requires improvement is to ask themselves and others at regular intervals, how well they are doing. This leads to better relationship and helps the managers for better directing plans.
The final function is to: Control
Control, the last of four functions of management, includes establishing performance standards which are of course based on the company’s objectives. It also involves evaluating and reporting of actual job performance. When these points are studied by the management then it is necessary to compare both the things. This study on comparision of both decides further corrective and preventive actions.
In an effort of solving performance problems, management should higher standards. They should straightforwardly speak to the employee or department having problem. On the contrary, if there are inadequate resources or disallow other external factors standards from being attained, management had to lower their standards as per requirement. The controlling processes as in comparison with other three, is unending process or say continuous process. With this management can make out any probable problems. It helps them in taking necessary preventive measures against the consequences. Management can also recognize any further developing problems that need corrective actions.
Effective and efficient management leads to success, the success where it attains the objectives and goals of the organizations. Of course for achieving the ultimate goal and aim management need to work creatively in problem solving in all the four functions. Management not only has to see the needs of accomplishing the goals but also has to look in to the process that their way is feasible for the company.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Quick Tips to Improve Self Confidence
Here are some quick tips to improve your Self Confidence. If we are committed to have a healthy self confidence there are many things you can do every day to boost your self confidence, each small steps that will help you to reach your goal. The good news is that self-esteem is not fixed and can be improved, try some of the steps below to boost your confidence and self-esteem.
1) Identify your successes. Everyone is good at something, so discover the things at which you excel, then focus on your talents. Give yourself permission to take pride in them. Give yourself credit for your successes. Inferiority is a state of mind in which you've declared yourself a victim. Do not allow yourself to be victimized.
2) Look in the mirror and smile. Studies surrounding what's called the "facial feedback theory" suggest that the expressions on your face can actually encourage your brain to register certain emotions. So by looking in the mirror and smiling every day, you might feel happier with yourself and more confident in the long run.
3) Exercise and eat healthy. Exercise raises adrenaline and makes one feel happier and healthier. It is certainly an easy and effective way to boost your self-confidence.
4) Turn feelings of envy or jealousy into a desire to achieve. Stop wanting what others have just because they have it; seek things simply because you want them, whether anybody else has them or not.
5) When you're feeling superbly insecure, write down a list of things that are good about you. Then read the list back. You'd be surprised at what you can come up with.
6) Don't be afraid to push yourself a bit - a little bit of pressure can actually show just how good you are!
7) You can try taking a martial arts or fitness class/course (or both). This will help build confidence and strength.
8) Invest in some new clothing and donate some of your old clothing to send a message to yourself that you both look sharp and feel sharp.
9) Try to make yourself talk positively at all times. When you hear yourself saying you can't do something, stop and say you can. Unless you try, you will never know whether you are able to or not.
10) Don't get wrapped up in your mistakes and dwell on bad points; they can contrast your good points or even give you something to improve. There's no feeling like being good at something you were really bad at.
11) Don't confuse what you have with who you are. People degrade their self worth when comparing possessions.
12) Surround yourself with nurturing friends, not overly critical individuals who make you feel inadequate or insecure. This could do great harm and damage to your self confidence.
Read more: http://www.funonthenet.in/articles/tips-improve-self-confidence.html#ixzz13SKsagxf
1) Identify your successes. Everyone is good at something, so discover the things at which you excel, then focus on your talents. Give yourself permission to take pride in them. Give yourself credit for your successes. Inferiority is a state of mind in which you've declared yourself a victim. Do not allow yourself to be victimized.
2) Look in the mirror and smile. Studies surrounding what's called the "facial feedback theory" suggest that the expressions on your face can actually encourage your brain to register certain emotions. So by looking in the mirror and smiling every day, you might feel happier with yourself and more confident in the long run.
3) Exercise and eat healthy. Exercise raises adrenaline and makes one feel happier and healthier. It is certainly an easy and effective way to boost your self-confidence.
4) Turn feelings of envy or jealousy into a desire to achieve. Stop wanting what others have just because they have it; seek things simply because you want them, whether anybody else has them or not.
5) When you're feeling superbly insecure, write down a list of things that are good about you. Then read the list back. You'd be surprised at what you can come up with.
6) Don't be afraid to push yourself a bit - a little bit of pressure can actually show just how good you are!
7) You can try taking a martial arts or fitness class/course (or both). This will help build confidence and strength.
8) Invest in some new clothing and donate some of your old clothing to send a message to yourself that you both look sharp and feel sharp.
9) Try to make yourself talk positively at all times. When you hear yourself saying you can't do something, stop and say you can. Unless you try, you will never know whether you are able to or not.
10) Don't get wrapped up in your mistakes and dwell on bad points; they can contrast your good points or even give you something to improve. There's no feeling like being good at something you were really bad at.
11) Don't confuse what you have with who you are. People degrade their self worth when comparing possessions.
12) Surround yourself with nurturing friends, not overly critical individuals who make you feel inadequate or insecure. This could do great harm and damage to your self confidence.
Read more: http://www.funonthenet.in/articles/tips-improve-self-confidence.html#ixzz13SKsagxf
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Definitions of Finance Terms
Daisy Chain
A group of unscrupulous investors who, practicing a kind of fictitious trading or wash selling, artificially inflate the price of a security so that they sell it at a profit. Price manipulation is typically very difficult in stocks with heavy volumes, so the stocks with low liquidity are much more susceptible to daisy chains.
Prop Shop
A proprietary trading group that usually trades electronically at a physical facility. Prop shops supply their traders with the education and capital resources to engage in a large number of deals each day.
Dutch Disease
Negative consequences arising from large increases in a country's income. Dutch disease is primarily associated with a natural resource discovery, but it can result from any large increase in foreign currency, including foreign direct investment, foreign aid or a substantial increase in natural resource prices.
Double Taxation
A taxation principle referring to income taxes that are paid twice on the same source of earned income.
Double taxation occurs because corporations are considered separate legal entities from their shareholders. As such, corporations pay taxes on their annual earnings, just as individuals do. When corporations pay out dividends to shareholders, those dividend payments incur income-tax liabilities for the shareholders who receive them, even though the earnings that provided the cash to pay the dividends were already taxed at the corporate level.
Junior Mortgage
A mortgage that is subordinate to a first or prior (senior) mortgage. A junior mortgage often refers to a second mortgage, but it could also be a third or fourth mortgage. In the case of foreclosure, the senior mortgage will be paid down first.
W-Shaped Recovery
An economic cycle of recession and recovery that resembles a "W" in charting. A W-shaped recovery represents the shape of the chart of certain economic measures such as employment, GDP, industrial output, etc. A W-shaped recovery involves a sharp decline in these metrics followed by a sharp rise back to the previous peak, followed again by a sharp decline and ending with another sharp rise. The middle section of the W can represent a significant bear market rally or a recovery that was stifled by an additional economic crisis.
Reinsurance
The practice of insurers transferring portions of risk portfolios to other parties by some form of agreement in order to reduce the likelihood of having to pay a large obligation resulting from an insurance claim. The intent of reinsurance is for an insurance company to reduce the risks associated with underwritten policies by spreading risks across alternative institutions.
Also known as "insurance for insurers" or "stop-loss insurance".
Teaser
A document circulated to potential buyers of a specific security that may be offered for sale in the future. The document, often prepared by the investment bank representing the company, details information that is designed to entice potential buyers to buy the security.
One-Touch Option
A type of exotic option that gives an investor a payout once the price of the underlying asset reaches or surpasses a predetermined barrier. This type of option allows the investor to set the position of the barrier, the time to expiration and the payout to be received once the barrier is broken.
Dual-Class Ownership
A type of share division in which companies issue shares that have differing rights. In a dual class ownership structure, the company can issue two classes of shares, Class A and Class B. These classes may have different voting rights, but they represent the same underlying ownership in the company.
Dark Pool Liquidity
The trading volume created by institutional orders that are unavailable to the public. The bulk of dark pool liquidity is represented by block trades facilitated away from the central exchanges.
Also referred to as the "upstairs market", or "dark liquidity", or just "dark pool."
Royalty Income Trust
A type of special-purpose financing created to hold investments or their cash flows in operating companies. These trusts are neither stocks nor bonds but investment trusts (a legal entity). Royalty trusts buy the right to royalties on the production and sale of a natural resource company and pass on the profits to trust unit holders.
Triple Witching
An event that occurs when the contracts for stock index futures, stock index options and stock options all expire on the same day. Triple witching days happen four times a year on the third Friday of March, June, September and December.
This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "freaky Friday".
Dawn Raid
When a firm or investor buys a substantial number of shares in a company first thing in the morning when the stock markets open. Because the bidding company builds a substantial stake in its target at the prevailing stock market price, the takeover costs are likely to be significantly lower than they would be had the acquiring company first made a formal takeover bid.
Shadow Banking System
The financial intermediaries involved in facilitating the creation of credit across the global financial system, but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also refers to unregulated activities by regulated institutions.
Andersen Effect
A reference to auditors performing more careful due diligence when auditing companies in order to prevent accounting errors. This extra level of accounting scrutiny often leads to companies restating earnings even though they have not necessarily intentionally misrepresented material accounting information.
Soccer Mom Indicator
An economic indicator based on the theory that listening to what people are talking about at their children's soccer games (or similar event) is one of the best ways to find out how the economy or investing environment was doing.
Bond Ladder
A strategy for managing fixed-income investments by which the investor builds a ladder by dividing his or her investment dollars evenly among bonds or CDs that mature at regular intervals such as every six months, once a year or every two years.
Organic Growth
The growth rate that a company can achieve by increasing output and enhancing sales. This excludes any profits or growth acquired from takeovers, acquisitions or mergers. Takeovers, acquisitions and mergers do not bring about profits generated within the company, and are therefore not considered organic.
Soft Dollars
A means of paying brokerage firms for their services through commission revenue, as opposed to through normal direct payments (hard dollar fees).
The investing public tends to have a negative perception of soft dollar arrangements because they believe that buy-side firms should pay expenses out of their profits, rather than from investors' pockets. As such, the use of hard dollar compensation is becoming more common.
Bottom Fisher
An investor who looks for bargains among stocks whose prices have recently dropped dramatically. The investor believes that a price drop is temporary or is an overreaction to recent bad news and a recovery is soon to follow.
Contagion
The likelihood that significant economic changes in one country will spread to other countries. Contagion can refer to the spread of either economic booms or economic crises throughout a geographic region.
Squawk Box
An intercom speaker often used on brokers' trading desks in investment banks and stock brokerages. A squawk box allows a firm's analysts and traders to communicate with the firm's brokers.
Double Entry
The fundamental concept underlying present-day bookkeeping and accounting. Double entry accounting is based on the fact that every financial transaction has equal and opposite effects in at least two different accounts. It is used to satisfy the equation Assets = Liabilities + Equity, whereby each entry is recorded so as to maintain the relationship.
Crisis Management
The identification of threats to an organization and its stakeholders, and the methods used by the organization to deal with these threats. Due to the unpredictability of global events, organizations must be able to cope with the potential for drastic changes to the way they conduct business. Crisis management often requires decisions to be made within a short time frame, and often after an event has already taken place. In order to reduce uncertainty in the event of a crisis, organizations often create a crisis management plan.
Venture Capital
Money provided by investors to startup firms and small businesses with perceived long-term growth potential. This is a very important source of funding for startups that do not have access to capital markets. It typically entails high risk for the investor, but it has the potential for above-average returns.
Cost Of Carry
Costs incurred as a result of an investment position. These costs can include financial costs, such as the interest costs on bonds, interest expenses on margin accounts and interest on loans used to purchase a security, and economic costs, such as the opportunity costs associated with taking the initial position.
Recoupling
When returns on asset classes revert back to their historical or traditional patterns of correlation. This is in contrast to decoupling, which occurs when asset classes break away from their traditional correlations. Recoupling occurs after a period in which the asset classes have been generating a return that shows little correlation.
Flight To Quality
The action of investors moving their capital away from riskier investments to the safest possible investment vehicles. This flight is usually caused by uncertainty in the financial or international markets. However, at other times, this move may be an instance of investors cutting back on the more volatile investments for the conservative ones (i.e. diversifying) without much consideration of the international markets.
Capitulation
When investors give up any previous gains in stock price by selling equities in an effort to get out of the market and into less risky investments. True capitulation involves extremely high volume and sharp declines. It usually is indicated by panic selling.
The term is a derived from a military term which refers to surrender.
Earnings Yield
The earnings per share for the most recent 12-month period divided by the current market price per share. The earnings yield (which is the inverse of the P/E ratio) shows the percentage of each dollar invested in the stock that was earned by the company.
The earnings yield is used by many investment managers to determine optimal asset allocations.
Finite Reinsurance
A type of reinsurance that transfers over only a finite or limited amount of risk. Risk is reduced through accounting or financial methods, along with the actual transfer of economic risk. By transferring less risk to the reinsurer, the insurer receives coverage on its potential claims at a lower cost than traditional reinsurance.
Disinflation
A slowing in the rate of price inflation. Disinflation is used to describe instances when the inflation rate has reduced marginally over the short term. Although it is used to describe periods of slowing inflation, disinflation should not be confused with deflation.
Mezzanine Debt
When a hybrid debt issue is subordinated to another debt issue from the same issuer. Mezzanine debt has embedded equity instruments (usually warrants) attached, which increase the value of the subordinated debt and allow for greater flexibility when dealing with bondholders. Mezzanine debt is frequently associated with acquisitions and buyouts, where it may be used to prioritize new owners ahead of existing owners in case of bankruptcy.
Falling Knife
A slang phrase for a security or industry in which the current price or value has dropped significantly in a short period of time. A falling knife security can rebound, or it can lose all of its value, such as in the case of company bankruptcy where equity shares become worthless.
A falling knife situation can occur because of actual business results (such as a big drop in net earnings) or because of increasingly negative investor sentiment.
Time Decay
The ratio of the change in an option's price to the decrease in time to expiration. Since options are wasting assets, their value declines over time. As an option approaches its expiry date without being in the money, its time value declines because the probability of that option being profitable (in the money) is reduced.
Also known as "theta" and "time-value decay".
Gambler's Fallacy
When an individual erroneously believes that the onset of a certain random event is less likely to happen following an event or a series of events. This line of thinking is incorrect because past events do not change the probability that certain events will occur in the future.
Black Swan
An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict. This term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a finance professor and former Wall Street trader.
Rogue Trader
A trader who acts independently of others - and, typically, recklessly - usually to the detriment of both the clients and the institution that employs him or her. In most cases this type of trading is high risk and can create huge losses.
E-Mini
An electronically traded futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that represents a portion of the normal futures contracts. E-mini contracts are available on a wide range of indexes such as the Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and Russell 2000.
Merger Deficit
An accounting term used to describe the situation when the total value of the share capital used to purchase another company is less then the total value of the equity purchased. The merger does not necessarily have to be an all-stock acquisition.
Callable Security
A security with an embedded call provision that allows the issuer to repurchase or redeem the security by a specified date. Since the holder of a callable security is exposed to the risk of the security being repurchased, the callable security is generally less expensive than comparable securities that do not have a call provision.
Tequila Effect
Informal name given to the impact of the 1994 Mexican economic crisis on the South American economy. The Tequila Effect occurred because of a sudden devaluation in the Mexican peso, which then caused other currencies in the region (the Southern Cone and Brazil) to decline. The falling peso was propped up by US$50 billion loan granted by then U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Also referred to as the "Mexican Shock".
Salad Oil Scandal
One of the worst corporate scandals of its time. It occurred when Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Company discovered that banks would make loans secured by its salad oil inventory.
When the ships full of salad oil would arrive in the docks, inspectors would test it and confirm that the ship was full of salad oil. However, the company didn't remind anyone that oil floats on water. They had filled salad oil tanks with water and put a few feet of oil on top, fooling everyone. The company would even transfer oil to different tanks while taking inspectors out to lunch. In 1963, the scam was busted and over $175 million worth of salad oil was missing.
Stalking-Horse Bid
An initial bid on a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer chosen by the bankrupt company. From a pool of bidders, the bankrupt company chooses the stalking horse to make the first bid.
May Day
Refers to May 1, 1975, when brokerages changed from a fixed commission for securities transactions to a negotiated one. Previous to this, commissions were standard from broker to broker.
Counterparty
The other party that participates in a financial transaction. Every transaction must have a counterparty in order for the transaction to go through. More specifically, every buyer of an asset must be paired up with a seller that is willing to sell and vice versa.
Structured Finance
A service that generally involves highly complex financial transactions offered by many large financial institutions for companies with very unique financing needs. These financing needs usually don't match conventional financial products such as a loan.
Short Hedge
An investment strategy that is focused on mitigating a risk that has already been taken. The "short" portion of the term refers to the act of shorting a security, usually a derivatives contract, that hedges against potential losses in an investment that is held long.
If a short hedge is executed well, gains from the long position will be offset by losses in the derivatives position, and vice versa.
Synthetic CDO
A form of collateralized debt obligation (CDO) that invests in credit default swaps (CDSs) or other non-cash assets to gain exposure to a portfolio of fixed income assets. Synthetic CDOs are typically divided into credit tranches based on the level of credit risk assumed. Initial investments into the CDO are made by the lower tranches, while the senior tranches may not have to make an initial investment.
All tranches will receive periodic payments based on the cash flows from the credit default swaps. If a credit event occurs in the fixed income portfolio, the synthetic CDO and its investors become responsible for the losses, starting from the lowest rated tranches and working its way up.
Quant Fund
An investment fund that selects securities based on quantitative analysis. In a quant fund, the managers build computer-based models to determine whether an investment is attractive. In a pure "quant shop" the final decision to buy or sell is made by the model; however, there is a middle ground where the fund manager will use human judgment in addition to a quantitative model.
Bull Call Spread
An options strategy that involves purchasing call options at a specific strike price while also selling the same number of calls of the same asset and expiration date but at a higher strike. A bull call spread is used when a moderate rise in the price of the underlying asset is expected. The maximum profit in this strategy is the difference between the strike prices of the long and short options, less the net cost of options. Most often, bull call spreads are vertical spreads.
Vertical Analysis
A method of financial statement analysis in which each entry for each of the three major categories of accounts (assets, liabilities and equities) in a balance sheet is represented as a proportion of the total account. The main advantages of vertical analysis is that the balance sheets of businesses of all sizes can easily be compared. It also makes it easy to see relative annual changes within one business.
403(b) Plan
A retirement plan for certain employees of public schools, tax-exempt organizations and certain ministers.
Generally, retirement income accounts can invest in either annuities or mutual funds.
Also known as a "tax-sheltered annuity (TSA) plan".
Currency Swap
A swap that involves the exchange of principal and interest in one currency for the same in another currency. It is considered to be a foreign exchange transaction and is not required by law to be shown on a company's balance sheet.
Merger Arbitrage
A hedge fund strategy in which the stocks of two merging companies are simultaneously bought and sold to create a riskless profit. A merger arbitrageur looks at the risk that the merger deal will not close on time, or at all. Because of this slight uncertainty, the target company's stock will typically sell at a discount to the price that the combined company will have when the merger is closed. This discrepancy is the arbitrageur's profit.
Tax Refund
The return of excess amounts of income tax that a taxpayer has paid to the state or federal government throughout the past year. In certain cases, taxpayers may even receive a refund if they owed no taxes, because certain tax credits are fully refundable.
Hidden Taxes
Taxes that are indirectly assessed upon consumer goods without the consumer's knowledge. Hidden taxes are levied upon the goods at some point during the production process and therefore raise the cost of the goods sold. However, this tax is never revealed directly to the consumer, who simply pays a higher price for the good, not knowing that part of that price is due to this tax.
Tax Deferred
Investment earnings such as interest, dividends or capital gains that accumulate tax free until the investor withdraws and takes possession of them. The most common types of tax-deferred investments include those in individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and deferred annuities.
Tax Shield
A reduction in taxable income for an individual or corporation achieved through claiming allowable deductions such as mortgage interest, medical expenses, charitable donations, amortization and depreciation. These deductions reduce taxpayers' taxable income for a given year or defer income taxes into future years.
Tax shields vary from country to country, and their benefits will depend on the taxpayer's overall tax rate and cash flows for the given tax year.
Tax Avoidance
The use of legal methods to modify an individual's financial situation in order to lower the amount of income tax owed. This is generally accomplished by claiming the permissible deductions and credits. This practice differs from tax evasion, which is illegal.
Tiger Economy
A nickname given to the economies of Southeast Asia. Some of the tigers are Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and China.
Parity Price
When the price of an asset is directly linked to another price. Examples of parity price are:
1. Convertibles - the price at which a convertible security equals the value of the underlying stock.
2. Options - when an option is trading at its intrinsic value ("trading at parity").
3. International parity - official rates for a currency in terms of other pegged currencies, typically the U.S. dollar.
Reverse Convertible Note - RCN
A synthetic instrument that shares characteristics with both bonds and stocks. Reverse convertible notes typically provide high coupon payments and final payoffs that depend on the performance of an underlying stock.
Bunny Bond
A type of bond that offers investors the option to reinvest coupon payments into additional bonds with the same coupon and maturity.
Also known as "multiplier bond" or "guaranteed coupon reinvestment bond."
Act Of God Bond
A bond issued by an insurance company, linking principal and interest to a company's losses due to natural disasters. Act of God bonds are issued by insurers to protect against unforeseen events.
Sucker Rally
A temporary rise in a specific stock or the market as a whole. A sucker rally occurs with little fundamental information to back the movement in price. This rally may continue just long enough for the "suckers" to get on board, after which the market or specific stock falls.
Also known as a "dead cat bounce" or a "bull trap".
Sin Tax
A state-sponsored tax that is added to products or services that are seen as vices, such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling. These type of taxes are levied by governments to discourage individuals from partaking in such activities without making the use of the products illegal. These taxes also provide a source of government revenue.
Seasons
The current stage of a proposed business idea or concept. Seasons is a slang term that is generally used among venture capitalists.
The seasons are spring (infancy), summer (adolescence), fall (maturing) and winter (mature).
Michael Milken
As an executive at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. during the 1980s who used high-yield junk bonds for corporate financing and mergers and acquisitions. Michael Milken amassed an enormous personal fortune, but in 1989 he was indicted by a federal grand jury and eventually spent nearly two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of securities fraud. While he is credited with founding the high-yield debt market, he was banned for life from the securities industry.
Silver Thursday
A steep fall in the price of silver that occurred on Thursday March 27, 1980. The sharp drop, on Silver Thursday, was triggered by a failed attempt to corner the silver market and it led to massive panic in other commodities.
Bow Tie Loan
A short-term, variable-rate loan in which unpaid interest charges above a predetermined interest rate are deferred. A variable-rate loan is a loan in which the interest rate fluctuates in response to market interest rates. So, when bow tie loans are issued, a predetermined interest rate is set and whenever the market rate goes up past that rate, interest payments for investors are deferred until the end of the loan's maturity.
Dash To Trash
When investors flock to a class of securities or other assets, bidding up prices to beyond what can be justified by valuation or other fundamental measures. While the dash-to-trash effect can occur within any type of security, the phrase is typically used to describe low-quality stocks and high-yield bonds, both of which can be subject to periods of overbuying in the markets.
China ETF
Exchange-traded funds that invest in and track the equity stakes of China-based companies, either through investment on Chinese stock exchanges or via foreign-listed shares such as American depositary receipts (ADRs). Because of regulations against certain types of foreign investment and the existence of many large state-run companies operating in China, ETFs that represent the nation are limited in their investment choices to companies that have public shares to offer. As with all ETFs, intraday trading is offered for China ETFs, which makes for increased liquidity and flexibility over China-based mutual funds.
Witching Hour
The last hour of stock trading between 3pm (when the bond market closes) and 4pm EST. Witching hour is typically controlled by large professional traders, program traders and large institutional traders, and can be characterized by higher-than-average volatility.
Initial Claims
A measure of the number of jobless claims filed by individuals seeking to receive state jobless benefits. This number is watched closely by financial analysts because it provides insight into the direction of the economy. Higher initial claims correlate with a weakening economy.
Angel Bond
Investment-grade bonds that pay a lower interest rate because of the issuing company's high credit rating. Angel bonds are the opposite of fallen angels, which are bonds that have been given a "junk" rating, and are therefore much more risky.
Leprechaun Leader
A corporate manager or an executive who, like the fabled Irish elf, is a mischievous and elusive creature said to possess buried treasures of money and gold.
Also spelled "Lepre-con Leader".
Cramer Bounce
The sudden overnight appreciation of a stock's price after it has been recommended by Jim Cramer on his CNBC show, "Mad Money". This increase in price can be attributed to investors who buy stocks after seeing Cramer's recommendations.
Dollar Roll
A type of repurchase transaction in the mortgage pass-through securities market in which the buy side trade counterparty of a "to be announced" (TBA) trade agrees to a sell off the same TBA trade in the current month and to a buy back the same trade in a future month at a lower price.
In a dollar roll, the buy side trade counterparty gets to invest the funds that otherwise would have been required to settle the buy trade in the current month until the agreed upon future buy-back. The sell side trade counterparty benefits by not having to deliver the pass-through securities (which they might otherwise have shorted or committed to another trade) in the current month.
Fairway Bond
A type of bond that accrues interest if the embedded index or interest-rate option underlying the bond remains within a specified range. The fairway in golf is like the index or interest rate range. The outlook is positive if the ball lands on the fairway; if a ball lands in the rough, the outlook is negative.
Also known as "corridor bond", "index range note", "range accrual note", or "index floater".
Crack Spread
The spread created in commodity markets by purchasing oil futures and offsetting the position by selling gasoline and heating oil futures. This investment alignment allows the investor to hedge against risk due to the offsetting nature of the securities.
Peak Debt
The point at which a household or economy's interest payments become so high compared to income that a halt in spending must occur. This is followed by a period of debt reduction.
Slumburbs
A slang term for the suburbs of once large and prosperous cities that have become less desirable due to an economic downturn. Slumburbs refer to the neighborhoods and small towns that cannot consistently attract highly educated and entrepreneurial people. As a result, business in these previously hopeful communities diminishes leading to such negative outcomes as unemployment and crime. Slumburbs can also refer to areas in otherwise wealthy cities that experience similar problems.
Muriel Siebert
A pioneer for women in the world of finance. Known as "the first woman of finance", Muriel Siebert is the president and founder of Siebert Financial Corp., a holding company which owns and operates a discount brokerage and investment banking business. Muriel Siebert was also the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and the first woman to serve as superintendent of banks in the state of New York.
Lookback Option
An exotic option that allows investors to "look back" at the underlying prices occurring over the life of the option and then exercise based on the underlying asset's optimal value. This type of option reduces uncertainties associated with the timing of market entry.
Spring Loading
An option-granting practice in which options are granted at a time that precedes a positive news event. Spring loading relies on the fact that positive news typically causes the underlying company's stock to surge in value. Timing an option grant to precede the public news release provides the option holder with an almost instant profit.
Echo Bubble
A post-bubble rally that becomes another, smaller bubble. The echo bubble usually occurs in the sector in which the preceding bubble was most prominent, but the echo is less dramatic.
Discouraged Worker
A person who is eligible for employment and is able to work, but is currently unemployed and has not attempted to find employment in the last four weeks. Discouraged workers have usually given up on searching for a job because they found no suitable employment options and/or were met with lack of success when applying.
Love Money
Seed money or capital given by family or friends to an entrepreneur to start a business. The decision to lend money and the terms of the agreement are usually based on qualitative factors and the relationship between the two parties, rather than on a formulaic risk analysis.
Teaser Rate
An initial rate on an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM). This rate will typically be below the going market rate, and is used by lenders to entice borrowers to choose ARMs over traditional mortgages. The teaser rate will be in effect for only a few months, at which point the rate will gradually climb until it reaches the full indexed rate, which will be a static margin rate plus the floating rate index to which the mortgage is tied (usually the LIBOR index).
Hobby Loss
A non-deductible loss incurred as a result of doing an activity for personal pleasure instead of for profit. A taxpayer cannot deduct the hobby loss as a business loss. A "hobby loss rule" is used to determine whether an activity is a hobby or a business.
Debt-To-Income Ratio - DTI
A personal finance measure that compares an individual's debt payments to the income he or she generates. This measure is important in the lending industry as it gives lenders an idea of how likely it is that the borrower will repay the loan.
Cafeteria Plan
An employee benefit plan that allows staff to choose from a variety of benefits to formulate a plan that best suits their needs. Cafeteria plan options may include health and accident insurance, cash benefits, tax advantages and/or retirement plan contributions.
Also known as "cafeteria employee benefit plan" or "flexible benefit plan".
Double No-Touch Option
A type of exotic option that gives an investor an agreed upon payout if the price of the underlying asset does not reach or surpass one of two predetermined barrier levels. An investor using this type of option pays a premium to his or her broker and in turn receives the right to choose the position of the barriers, the time to expiration, and the payout to be received if the price fails to breach either barrier. With this type of option, the maximum possible loss is just the cost of setting up the option.
A double no-touch option is the opposite of a double one-touch option.
Beacon Score
A number generated by the Equifax Credit Bureau to rank an individual's credit-worthiness. Beacon scores are credit scores, which are determined through a complex algorithm. These numbers tell the lender how likely it is that the borrower will repay the loan. When NextGen FICO scores started being used, the Beacon score was replaced with the Pinnacle score.
Mathematical criteria involved in calculating a Beacon score can include late payments, current debts, length of time an account has been open, types of credit and new applications for credit.
No Documentation Mortgage - No Doc
A type of reduced-documentation-required mortgage program in which income and assets aren't disclosed on the loan application and employment isn't verified. However, a credit check is typically required as lenders are counting on the fact that the borrower has a good credit history. No doc mortgages usually fall into the Alt-A classification, and tend to carry a higher interest rate and require a higher down-payment than a prime mortgage.
Nonpersonal Time Deposit
Time deposit accounts held by corporate bank customers that pay a fixed amount of interest for a specified time period. Money may not be withdrawn without advance notice at the risk of incurring an early withdrawal penalty.
Tax Fairness
A tax platform based on an ideal that aims to create a system of taxation that is fair, clear and equivalent for all taxpayers. Overall, tax fairness looks to limit the amount of tax legislation and rules that benefit one segment of the tax-paying population over another.
Pay Yourself First
A phrase commonly used in personal finance and retirement planning literature that means to automatically route your specified savings contribution from each paycheck at the time it is received.
Because the savings contributions are automatically routed from each paycheck to your investment account, this process is said to be "paying yourself first"; in other words, paying yourself before you begin paying your monthly living expenses and making discretionary purchases.
Hardship Withdrawal
An emergency withdrawal from a retirement plan that may be subject to certain tax or account penalties. In the United States, funds withdrawn prior to the age of 59.5 are typically subject to a 10% Internal Revenue Service (IRS) early withdrawal penalty, as well as standard income taxes.
Pre-Encashable Deposit
A deposit made in a term deposit or CD that allows the account holder to withdraw funds without penalty to the principal. A pre-encashable deposit is a popular investment vehicle for individuals looking for full flexibility while saving in a guaranteed account.
Cramdown
A bankruptcy concept that is often employed to obtain a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan while there are still objections from one or more creditors. Cramdown allows the bankruptcy courts to modify loan terms subject to certain conditions in an attempt to have all parties come out better than they would have without such modifications. The conditions are mainly that the new terms are fair and equitable to all parties involved.
Surrender Period
The amount of time an investor must wait until he or she can withdraw funds from an annuity without facing a penalty. Withdrawing money before the agreed-upon holding period can result in a surrender charge.
McMansion
A slang term that describes a large, opulent house that may be generic in style and represents a good value for a homebuyer in terms of its size. This type of home is built to provide middle and/or upper middle class homeowners with the luxurious housing experience that was previously only available to high-net-worth individuals.
The McMansion term is as a play on McDonald's fast food restaurants, as these homes also represent the pervasiveness and excessive consumption that critics often associate with Mcdonald's.
401(a) Plan
A money-purchase retirement savings plan that is set up by an employer. The 401(a) plan allows for contributions by the employee, the employer, or both. Contribution amounts, whether dollar-based or percentage-based, eligibility, and vesting schedule are all determined by the sponsoring employer.
Funds are withdrawn from a 401(a) plan through lump-sum payment, rollovers to another qualified plan, or through an annuity.
Escrow
A financial instrument held by a third party on behalf of the other two parties in a transaction. The funds are held by the escrow service until it receives the appropriate written or oral instructions or until obligations have been fulfilled. Securities, funds and other assets can be held in escrow.
Frugalista
People who keep up with fashion trends without spending a lot of money. Frugalistas stay fashionable by shopping through alternative outlets, such as online auctions, secondhand stores and classified ads. They also reduce the amount of money spent in other areas of their lives, such as by growing their own food and reducing entertainment expenses. This is a popular term during recessions.
Predatory Lending
Unscrupulous actions carried out by a lender to entice, induce and/or assist a borrower in taking a mortgage that carries high fees, a high interest rate, strips the borrower of equity, or places the borrower in a lower credit rated loan to the benefit of the lender. As with most things of a dishonest nature, new and different predatory lending schemes frequently arise.
Exchange Rate Mechanism - ERM
An exchange rate mechanism is based on the concept of fixed currency exchange rate margins. However, there is variability of the currency exchange rates within the confines of the upper and lower end of the margins. This currency exchange rate mechanism is also commonly called a semi-pegged currency system.
Indemnity Insurance
An insurance policy that aims to protect business owners and employees when they are found to be at fault for a specific event such as misjudgment. Typical examples of indemnity insurance include professional insurance policies such as malpractice insurance, and errors and omissions insurance, which indemnify professionals against claims made in the workplace.
FDIC Problem Bank List
A list of commercial banks in the U.S. that are considered to be in financial difficulty. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issues this problem list quarterly based on liquidity, capital levels and asset quality. Only institutions that are insured by the FDIC through the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) are included on the list. The actual names of the banks are not given, but the total assets are provided.
Freeze Out
An action taken by a firm's majority shareholders that pressures minority holders to sell their stakes in the company. A variety of maneuvers may be considered freeze-out tactics, such as the termination of minority shareholder employees or the refusal to declare dividends.
Also referred to as a "squeeze out".
Headline Inflation
The raw inflation figure as reported through the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that is released monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI calculates the cost to purchase a fixed basket of goods as a way of determining how much inflation is occurring in the broad economy. The CPI uses a base year and indexes current year prices based on the base year's values.
The headline figure is not adjusted for seasonality or for the often volatile elements of food and energy prices, which are removed in the Core CPI. Headline inflation will usually be quoted on an annualized basis, meaning that a monthly headline figure of 4% inflation equates to a monthly rate that, if repeated for 12 months, would create 4% inflation for the year. Comparisons of headline inflation are typically made on a year-over-year basis.
Also known as "top-line inflation".
Forward Rate Agreement - FRA
An over-the-counter contract between parties that determines the rate of interest, or the currency exchange rate, to be paid or received on an obligation beginning at a future start date. The contract will determine the rates to be used along with the termination date and notional value. On this type of agreement, it is only the differential that is paid on the notional amount of the contract.
Also known as a "future rate agreement".
World Economic Outlook - WEO
A report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that contains analysis and projections of the integral elements of the IMF's surveillance of economic developments and policies in its member countries, and of the developments in the global financial markets and economic system. The World Economic Outlook (WEO) is usually prepared twice a year and is used in meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee.
January Barometer
A theory stating that the movement of the S&P 500 during the month of January sets the stock market's direction for the year (as measured by the S&P 500). The January Barometer states that if the S&P 500 was up at the end of January compared to the beginning of the month, proponents would expect the stock market to rise during the rest of the year.
Fiscal Year-End
The completion of a one-year, or 12-month, accounting period. A firm's fiscal year-end does not necessarily need to fall on December 31, and can actually fall on any day throughout the year.
Tax Selling
A type of sale whereby an investor sells an asset with a capital loss in order to lower or eliminate the capital gain realized by other investments. Tax selling allows the investor to avoid paying capital gains tax on recently sold or appreciated assets.
Year Over Year - YOY
A method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one time period with those from another time period (or series of time periods), on an annualized basis. Year-over-year comparisons are a popular way to evaluate the performance of investments. Any measurable events that recur annually can be compared on a year-over-year basis - from annual performance, to quarterly performance, to daily performance.
Santa Claus Rally
A surge in the price of stocks that often occurs in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. There are numerous explanations for the Santa Claus Rally phenomenon, including tax considerations, happiness around Wall Street, people investing their Christmas bonuses and the fact that the pessimists are usually on vacation this week.
Boston Snow Indicator
A market theory that states that a white Christmas in Boston will result in rising stock prices for the following year. For example, in Christmas of 1995, Boston received snow and the following year, the S&P 500 increased by more than 20%.
A group of unscrupulous investors who, practicing a kind of fictitious trading or wash selling, artificially inflate the price of a security so that they sell it at a profit. Price manipulation is typically very difficult in stocks with heavy volumes, so the stocks with low liquidity are much more susceptible to daisy chains.
Prop Shop
A proprietary trading group that usually trades electronically at a physical facility. Prop shops supply their traders with the education and capital resources to engage in a large number of deals each day.
Dutch Disease
Negative consequences arising from large increases in a country's income. Dutch disease is primarily associated with a natural resource discovery, but it can result from any large increase in foreign currency, including foreign direct investment, foreign aid or a substantial increase in natural resource prices.
Double Taxation
A taxation principle referring to income taxes that are paid twice on the same source of earned income.
Double taxation occurs because corporations are considered separate legal entities from their shareholders. As such, corporations pay taxes on their annual earnings, just as individuals do. When corporations pay out dividends to shareholders, those dividend payments incur income-tax liabilities for the shareholders who receive them, even though the earnings that provided the cash to pay the dividends were already taxed at the corporate level.
Junior Mortgage
A mortgage that is subordinate to a first or prior (senior) mortgage. A junior mortgage often refers to a second mortgage, but it could also be a third or fourth mortgage. In the case of foreclosure, the senior mortgage will be paid down first.
W-Shaped Recovery
An economic cycle of recession and recovery that resembles a "W" in charting. A W-shaped recovery represents the shape of the chart of certain economic measures such as employment, GDP, industrial output, etc. A W-shaped recovery involves a sharp decline in these metrics followed by a sharp rise back to the previous peak, followed again by a sharp decline and ending with another sharp rise. The middle section of the W can represent a significant bear market rally or a recovery that was stifled by an additional economic crisis.
Reinsurance
The practice of insurers transferring portions of risk portfolios to other parties by some form of agreement in order to reduce the likelihood of having to pay a large obligation resulting from an insurance claim. The intent of reinsurance is for an insurance company to reduce the risks associated with underwritten policies by spreading risks across alternative institutions.
Also known as "insurance for insurers" or "stop-loss insurance".
Teaser
A document circulated to potential buyers of a specific security that may be offered for sale in the future. The document, often prepared by the investment bank representing the company, details information that is designed to entice potential buyers to buy the security.
One-Touch Option
A type of exotic option that gives an investor a payout once the price of the underlying asset reaches or surpasses a predetermined barrier. This type of option allows the investor to set the position of the barrier, the time to expiration and the payout to be received once the barrier is broken.
Dual-Class Ownership
A type of share division in which companies issue shares that have differing rights. In a dual class ownership structure, the company can issue two classes of shares, Class A and Class B. These classes may have different voting rights, but they represent the same underlying ownership in the company.
Dark Pool Liquidity
The trading volume created by institutional orders that are unavailable to the public. The bulk of dark pool liquidity is represented by block trades facilitated away from the central exchanges.
Also referred to as the "upstairs market", or "dark liquidity", or just "dark pool."
Royalty Income Trust
A type of special-purpose financing created to hold investments or their cash flows in operating companies. These trusts are neither stocks nor bonds but investment trusts (a legal entity). Royalty trusts buy the right to royalties on the production and sale of a natural resource company and pass on the profits to trust unit holders.
Triple Witching
An event that occurs when the contracts for stock index futures, stock index options and stock options all expire on the same day. Triple witching days happen four times a year on the third Friday of March, June, September and December.
This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "freaky Friday".
Dawn Raid
When a firm or investor buys a substantial number of shares in a company first thing in the morning when the stock markets open. Because the bidding company builds a substantial stake in its target at the prevailing stock market price, the takeover costs are likely to be significantly lower than they would be had the acquiring company first made a formal takeover bid.
Shadow Banking System
The financial intermediaries involved in facilitating the creation of credit across the global financial system, but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also refers to unregulated activities by regulated institutions.
Andersen Effect
A reference to auditors performing more careful due diligence when auditing companies in order to prevent accounting errors. This extra level of accounting scrutiny often leads to companies restating earnings even though they have not necessarily intentionally misrepresented material accounting information.
Soccer Mom Indicator
An economic indicator based on the theory that listening to what people are talking about at their children's soccer games (or similar event) is one of the best ways to find out how the economy or investing environment was doing.
Bond Ladder
A strategy for managing fixed-income investments by which the investor builds a ladder by dividing his or her investment dollars evenly among bonds or CDs that mature at regular intervals such as every six months, once a year or every two years.
Organic Growth
The growth rate that a company can achieve by increasing output and enhancing sales. This excludes any profits or growth acquired from takeovers, acquisitions or mergers. Takeovers, acquisitions and mergers do not bring about profits generated within the company, and are therefore not considered organic.
Soft Dollars
A means of paying brokerage firms for their services through commission revenue, as opposed to through normal direct payments (hard dollar fees).
The investing public tends to have a negative perception of soft dollar arrangements because they believe that buy-side firms should pay expenses out of their profits, rather than from investors' pockets. As such, the use of hard dollar compensation is becoming more common.
Bottom Fisher
An investor who looks for bargains among stocks whose prices have recently dropped dramatically. The investor believes that a price drop is temporary or is an overreaction to recent bad news and a recovery is soon to follow.
Contagion
The likelihood that significant economic changes in one country will spread to other countries. Contagion can refer to the spread of either economic booms or economic crises throughout a geographic region.
Squawk Box
An intercom speaker often used on brokers' trading desks in investment banks and stock brokerages. A squawk box allows a firm's analysts and traders to communicate with the firm's brokers.
Double Entry
The fundamental concept underlying present-day bookkeeping and accounting. Double entry accounting is based on the fact that every financial transaction has equal and opposite effects in at least two different accounts. It is used to satisfy the equation Assets = Liabilities + Equity, whereby each entry is recorded so as to maintain the relationship.
Crisis Management
The identification of threats to an organization and its stakeholders, and the methods used by the organization to deal with these threats. Due to the unpredictability of global events, organizations must be able to cope with the potential for drastic changes to the way they conduct business. Crisis management often requires decisions to be made within a short time frame, and often after an event has already taken place. In order to reduce uncertainty in the event of a crisis, organizations often create a crisis management plan.
Venture Capital
Money provided by investors to startup firms and small businesses with perceived long-term growth potential. This is a very important source of funding for startups that do not have access to capital markets. It typically entails high risk for the investor, but it has the potential for above-average returns.
Cost Of Carry
Costs incurred as a result of an investment position. These costs can include financial costs, such as the interest costs on bonds, interest expenses on margin accounts and interest on loans used to purchase a security, and economic costs, such as the opportunity costs associated with taking the initial position.
Recoupling
When returns on asset classes revert back to their historical or traditional patterns of correlation. This is in contrast to decoupling, which occurs when asset classes break away from their traditional correlations. Recoupling occurs after a period in which the asset classes have been generating a return that shows little correlation.
Flight To Quality
The action of investors moving their capital away from riskier investments to the safest possible investment vehicles. This flight is usually caused by uncertainty in the financial or international markets. However, at other times, this move may be an instance of investors cutting back on the more volatile investments for the conservative ones (i.e. diversifying) without much consideration of the international markets.
Capitulation
When investors give up any previous gains in stock price by selling equities in an effort to get out of the market and into less risky investments. True capitulation involves extremely high volume and sharp declines. It usually is indicated by panic selling.
The term is a derived from a military term which refers to surrender.
Earnings Yield
The earnings per share for the most recent 12-month period divided by the current market price per share. The earnings yield (which is the inverse of the P/E ratio) shows the percentage of each dollar invested in the stock that was earned by the company.
The earnings yield is used by many investment managers to determine optimal asset allocations.
Finite Reinsurance
A type of reinsurance that transfers over only a finite or limited amount of risk. Risk is reduced through accounting or financial methods, along with the actual transfer of economic risk. By transferring less risk to the reinsurer, the insurer receives coverage on its potential claims at a lower cost than traditional reinsurance.
Disinflation
A slowing in the rate of price inflation. Disinflation is used to describe instances when the inflation rate has reduced marginally over the short term. Although it is used to describe periods of slowing inflation, disinflation should not be confused with deflation.
Mezzanine Debt
When a hybrid debt issue is subordinated to another debt issue from the same issuer. Mezzanine debt has embedded equity instruments (usually warrants) attached, which increase the value of the subordinated debt and allow for greater flexibility when dealing with bondholders. Mezzanine debt is frequently associated with acquisitions and buyouts, where it may be used to prioritize new owners ahead of existing owners in case of bankruptcy.
Falling Knife
A slang phrase for a security or industry in which the current price or value has dropped significantly in a short period of time. A falling knife security can rebound, or it can lose all of its value, such as in the case of company bankruptcy where equity shares become worthless.
A falling knife situation can occur because of actual business results (such as a big drop in net earnings) or because of increasingly negative investor sentiment.
Time Decay
The ratio of the change in an option's price to the decrease in time to expiration. Since options are wasting assets, their value declines over time. As an option approaches its expiry date without being in the money, its time value declines because the probability of that option being profitable (in the money) is reduced.
Also known as "theta" and "time-value decay".
Gambler's Fallacy
When an individual erroneously believes that the onset of a certain random event is less likely to happen following an event or a series of events. This line of thinking is incorrect because past events do not change the probability that certain events will occur in the future.
Black Swan
An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict. This term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a finance professor and former Wall Street trader.
Rogue Trader
A trader who acts independently of others - and, typically, recklessly - usually to the detriment of both the clients and the institution that employs him or her. In most cases this type of trading is high risk and can create huge losses.
E-Mini
An electronically traded futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that represents a portion of the normal futures contracts. E-mini contracts are available on a wide range of indexes such as the Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and Russell 2000.
Merger Deficit
An accounting term used to describe the situation when the total value of the share capital used to purchase another company is less then the total value of the equity purchased. The merger does not necessarily have to be an all-stock acquisition.
Callable Security
A security with an embedded call provision that allows the issuer to repurchase or redeem the security by a specified date. Since the holder of a callable security is exposed to the risk of the security being repurchased, the callable security is generally less expensive than comparable securities that do not have a call provision.
Tequila Effect
Informal name given to the impact of the 1994 Mexican economic crisis on the South American economy. The Tequila Effect occurred because of a sudden devaluation in the Mexican peso, which then caused other currencies in the region (the Southern Cone and Brazil) to decline. The falling peso was propped up by US$50 billion loan granted by then U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Also referred to as the "Mexican Shock".
Salad Oil Scandal
One of the worst corporate scandals of its time. It occurred when Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Company discovered that banks would make loans secured by its salad oil inventory.
When the ships full of salad oil would arrive in the docks, inspectors would test it and confirm that the ship was full of salad oil. However, the company didn't remind anyone that oil floats on water. They had filled salad oil tanks with water and put a few feet of oil on top, fooling everyone. The company would even transfer oil to different tanks while taking inspectors out to lunch. In 1963, the scam was busted and over $175 million worth of salad oil was missing.
Stalking-Horse Bid
An initial bid on a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer chosen by the bankrupt company. From a pool of bidders, the bankrupt company chooses the stalking horse to make the first bid.
May Day
Refers to May 1, 1975, when brokerages changed from a fixed commission for securities transactions to a negotiated one. Previous to this, commissions were standard from broker to broker.
Counterparty
The other party that participates in a financial transaction. Every transaction must have a counterparty in order for the transaction to go through. More specifically, every buyer of an asset must be paired up with a seller that is willing to sell and vice versa.
Structured Finance
A service that generally involves highly complex financial transactions offered by many large financial institutions for companies with very unique financing needs. These financing needs usually don't match conventional financial products such as a loan.
Short Hedge
An investment strategy that is focused on mitigating a risk that has already been taken. The "short" portion of the term refers to the act of shorting a security, usually a derivatives contract, that hedges against potential losses in an investment that is held long.
If a short hedge is executed well, gains from the long position will be offset by losses in the derivatives position, and vice versa.
Synthetic CDO
A form of collateralized debt obligation (CDO) that invests in credit default swaps (CDSs) or other non-cash assets to gain exposure to a portfolio of fixed income assets. Synthetic CDOs are typically divided into credit tranches based on the level of credit risk assumed. Initial investments into the CDO are made by the lower tranches, while the senior tranches may not have to make an initial investment.
All tranches will receive periodic payments based on the cash flows from the credit default swaps. If a credit event occurs in the fixed income portfolio, the synthetic CDO and its investors become responsible for the losses, starting from the lowest rated tranches and working its way up.
Quant Fund
An investment fund that selects securities based on quantitative analysis. In a quant fund, the managers build computer-based models to determine whether an investment is attractive. In a pure "quant shop" the final decision to buy or sell is made by the model; however, there is a middle ground where the fund manager will use human judgment in addition to a quantitative model.
Bull Call Spread
An options strategy that involves purchasing call options at a specific strike price while also selling the same number of calls of the same asset and expiration date but at a higher strike. A bull call spread is used when a moderate rise in the price of the underlying asset is expected. The maximum profit in this strategy is the difference between the strike prices of the long and short options, less the net cost of options. Most often, bull call spreads are vertical spreads.
Vertical Analysis
A method of financial statement analysis in which each entry for each of the three major categories of accounts (assets, liabilities and equities) in a balance sheet is represented as a proportion of the total account. The main advantages of vertical analysis is that the balance sheets of businesses of all sizes can easily be compared. It also makes it easy to see relative annual changes within one business.
403(b) Plan
A retirement plan for certain employees of public schools, tax-exempt organizations and certain ministers.
Generally, retirement income accounts can invest in either annuities or mutual funds.
Also known as a "tax-sheltered annuity (TSA) plan".
Currency Swap
A swap that involves the exchange of principal and interest in one currency for the same in another currency. It is considered to be a foreign exchange transaction and is not required by law to be shown on a company's balance sheet.
Merger Arbitrage
A hedge fund strategy in which the stocks of two merging companies are simultaneously bought and sold to create a riskless profit. A merger arbitrageur looks at the risk that the merger deal will not close on time, or at all. Because of this slight uncertainty, the target company's stock will typically sell at a discount to the price that the combined company will have when the merger is closed. This discrepancy is the arbitrageur's profit.
Tax Refund
The return of excess amounts of income tax that a taxpayer has paid to the state or federal government throughout the past year. In certain cases, taxpayers may even receive a refund if they owed no taxes, because certain tax credits are fully refundable.
Hidden Taxes
Taxes that are indirectly assessed upon consumer goods without the consumer's knowledge. Hidden taxes are levied upon the goods at some point during the production process and therefore raise the cost of the goods sold. However, this tax is never revealed directly to the consumer, who simply pays a higher price for the good, not knowing that part of that price is due to this tax.
Tax Deferred
Investment earnings such as interest, dividends or capital gains that accumulate tax free until the investor withdraws and takes possession of them. The most common types of tax-deferred investments include those in individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and deferred annuities.
Tax Shield
A reduction in taxable income for an individual or corporation achieved through claiming allowable deductions such as mortgage interest, medical expenses, charitable donations, amortization and depreciation. These deductions reduce taxpayers' taxable income for a given year or defer income taxes into future years.
Tax shields vary from country to country, and their benefits will depend on the taxpayer's overall tax rate and cash flows for the given tax year.
Tax Avoidance
The use of legal methods to modify an individual's financial situation in order to lower the amount of income tax owed. This is generally accomplished by claiming the permissible deductions and credits. This practice differs from tax evasion, which is illegal.
Tiger Economy
A nickname given to the economies of Southeast Asia. Some of the tigers are Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and China.
Parity Price
When the price of an asset is directly linked to another price. Examples of parity price are:
1. Convertibles - the price at which a convertible security equals the value of the underlying stock.
2. Options - when an option is trading at its intrinsic value ("trading at parity").
3. International parity - official rates for a currency in terms of other pegged currencies, typically the U.S. dollar.
Reverse Convertible Note - RCN
A synthetic instrument that shares characteristics with both bonds and stocks. Reverse convertible notes typically provide high coupon payments and final payoffs that depend on the performance of an underlying stock.
Bunny Bond
A type of bond that offers investors the option to reinvest coupon payments into additional bonds with the same coupon and maturity.
Also known as "multiplier bond" or "guaranteed coupon reinvestment bond."
Act Of God Bond
A bond issued by an insurance company, linking principal and interest to a company's losses due to natural disasters. Act of God bonds are issued by insurers to protect against unforeseen events.
Sucker Rally
A temporary rise in a specific stock or the market as a whole. A sucker rally occurs with little fundamental information to back the movement in price. This rally may continue just long enough for the "suckers" to get on board, after which the market or specific stock falls.
Also known as a "dead cat bounce" or a "bull trap".
Sin Tax
A state-sponsored tax that is added to products or services that are seen as vices, such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling. These type of taxes are levied by governments to discourage individuals from partaking in such activities without making the use of the products illegal. These taxes also provide a source of government revenue.
Seasons
The current stage of a proposed business idea or concept. Seasons is a slang term that is generally used among venture capitalists.
The seasons are spring (infancy), summer (adolescence), fall (maturing) and winter (mature).
Michael Milken
As an executive at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. during the 1980s who used high-yield junk bonds for corporate financing and mergers and acquisitions. Michael Milken amassed an enormous personal fortune, but in 1989 he was indicted by a federal grand jury and eventually spent nearly two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of securities fraud. While he is credited with founding the high-yield debt market, he was banned for life from the securities industry.
Silver Thursday
A steep fall in the price of silver that occurred on Thursday March 27, 1980. The sharp drop, on Silver Thursday, was triggered by a failed attempt to corner the silver market and it led to massive panic in other commodities.
Bow Tie Loan
A short-term, variable-rate loan in which unpaid interest charges above a predetermined interest rate are deferred. A variable-rate loan is a loan in which the interest rate fluctuates in response to market interest rates. So, when bow tie loans are issued, a predetermined interest rate is set and whenever the market rate goes up past that rate, interest payments for investors are deferred until the end of the loan's maturity.
Dash To Trash
When investors flock to a class of securities or other assets, bidding up prices to beyond what can be justified by valuation or other fundamental measures. While the dash-to-trash effect can occur within any type of security, the phrase is typically used to describe low-quality stocks and high-yield bonds, both of which can be subject to periods of overbuying in the markets.
China ETF
Exchange-traded funds that invest in and track the equity stakes of China-based companies, either through investment on Chinese stock exchanges or via foreign-listed shares such as American depositary receipts (ADRs). Because of regulations against certain types of foreign investment and the existence of many large state-run companies operating in China, ETFs that represent the nation are limited in their investment choices to companies that have public shares to offer. As with all ETFs, intraday trading is offered for China ETFs, which makes for increased liquidity and flexibility over China-based mutual funds.
Witching Hour
The last hour of stock trading between 3pm (when the bond market closes) and 4pm EST. Witching hour is typically controlled by large professional traders, program traders and large institutional traders, and can be characterized by higher-than-average volatility.
Initial Claims
A measure of the number of jobless claims filed by individuals seeking to receive state jobless benefits. This number is watched closely by financial analysts because it provides insight into the direction of the economy. Higher initial claims correlate with a weakening economy.
Angel Bond
Investment-grade bonds that pay a lower interest rate because of the issuing company's high credit rating. Angel bonds are the opposite of fallen angels, which are bonds that have been given a "junk" rating, and are therefore much more risky.
Leprechaun Leader
A corporate manager or an executive who, like the fabled Irish elf, is a mischievous and elusive creature said to possess buried treasures of money and gold.
Also spelled "Lepre-con Leader".
Cramer Bounce
The sudden overnight appreciation of a stock's price after it has been recommended by Jim Cramer on his CNBC show, "Mad Money". This increase in price can be attributed to investors who buy stocks after seeing Cramer's recommendations.
Dollar Roll
A type of repurchase transaction in the mortgage pass-through securities market in which the buy side trade counterparty of a "to be announced" (TBA) trade agrees to a sell off the same TBA trade in the current month and to a buy back the same trade in a future month at a lower price.
In a dollar roll, the buy side trade counterparty gets to invest the funds that otherwise would have been required to settle the buy trade in the current month until the agreed upon future buy-back. The sell side trade counterparty benefits by not having to deliver the pass-through securities (which they might otherwise have shorted or committed to another trade) in the current month.
Fairway Bond
A type of bond that accrues interest if the embedded index or interest-rate option underlying the bond remains within a specified range. The fairway in golf is like the index or interest rate range. The outlook is positive if the ball lands on the fairway; if a ball lands in the rough, the outlook is negative.
Also known as "corridor bond", "index range note", "range accrual note", or "index floater".
Crack Spread
The spread created in commodity markets by purchasing oil futures and offsetting the position by selling gasoline and heating oil futures. This investment alignment allows the investor to hedge against risk due to the offsetting nature of the securities.
Peak Debt
The point at which a household or economy's interest payments become so high compared to income that a halt in spending must occur. This is followed by a period of debt reduction.
Slumburbs
A slang term for the suburbs of once large and prosperous cities that have become less desirable due to an economic downturn. Slumburbs refer to the neighborhoods and small towns that cannot consistently attract highly educated and entrepreneurial people. As a result, business in these previously hopeful communities diminishes leading to such negative outcomes as unemployment and crime. Slumburbs can also refer to areas in otherwise wealthy cities that experience similar problems.
Muriel Siebert
A pioneer for women in the world of finance. Known as "the first woman of finance", Muriel Siebert is the president and founder of Siebert Financial Corp., a holding company which owns and operates a discount brokerage and investment banking business. Muriel Siebert was also the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and the first woman to serve as superintendent of banks in the state of New York.
Lookback Option
An exotic option that allows investors to "look back" at the underlying prices occurring over the life of the option and then exercise based on the underlying asset's optimal value. This type of option reduces uncertainties associated with the timing of market entry.
Spring Loading
An option-granting practice in which options are granted at a time that precedes a positive news event. Spring loading relies on the fact that positive news typically causes the underlying company's stock to surge in value. Timing an option grant to precede the public news release provides the option holder with an almost instant profit.
Echo Bubble
A post-bubble rally that becomes another, smaller bubble. The echo bubble usually occurs in the sector in which the preceding bubble was most prominent, but the echo is less dramatic.
Discouraged Worker
A person who is eligible for employment and is able to work, but is currently unemployed and has not attempted to find employment in the last four weeks. Discouraged workers have usually given up on searching for a job because they found no suitable employment options and/or were met with lack of success when applying.
Love Money
Seed money or capital given by family or friends to an entrepreneur to start a business. The decision to lend money and the terms of the agreement are usually based on qualitative factors and the relationship between the two parties, rather than on a formulaic risk analysis.
Teaser Rate
An initial rate on an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM). This rate will typically be below the going market rate, and is used by lenders to entice borrowers to choose ARMs over traditional mortgages. The teaser rate will be in effect for only a few months, at which point the rate will gradually climb until it reaches the full indexed rate, which will be a static margin rate plus the floating rate index to which the mortgage is tied (usually the LIBOR index).
Hobby Loss
A non-deductible loss incurred as a result of doing an activity for personal pleasure instead of for profit. A taxpayer cannot deduct the hobby loss as a business loss. A "hobby loss rule" is used to determine whether an activity is a hobby or a business.
Debt-To-Income Ratio - DTI
A personal finance measure that compares an individual's debt payments to the income he or she generates. This measure is important in the lending industry as it gives lenders an idea of how likely it is that the borrower will repay the loan.
Cafeteria Plan
An employee benefit plan that allows staff to choose from a variety of benefits to formulate a plan that best suits their needs. Cafeteria plan options may include health and accident insurance, cash benefits, tax advantages and/or retirement plan contributions.
Also known as "cafeteria employee benefit plan" or "flexible benefit plan".
Double No-Touch Option
A type of exotic option that gives an investor an agreed upon payout if the price of the underlying asset does not reach or surpass one of two predetermined barrier levels. An investor using this type of option pays a premium to his or her broker and in turn receives the right to choose the position of the barriers, the time to expiration, and the payout to be received if the price fails to breach either barrier. With this type of option, the maximum possible loss is just the cost of setting up the option.
A double no-touch option is the opposite of a double one-touch option.
Beacon Score
A number generated by the Equifax Credit Bureau to rank an individual's credit-worthiness. Beacon scores are credit scores, which are determined through a complex algorithm. These numbers tell the lender how likely it is that the borrower will repay the loan. When NextGen FICO scores started being used, the Beacon score was replaced with the Pinnacle score.
Mathematical criteria involved in calculating a Beacon score can include late payments, current debts, length of time an account has been open, types of credit and new applications for credit.
No Documentation Mortgage - No Doc
A type of reduced-documentation-required mortgage program in which income and assets aren't disclosed on the loan application and employment isn't verified. However, a credit check is typically required as lenders are counting on the fact that the borrower has a good credit history. No doc mortgages usually fall into the Alt-A classification, and tend to carry a higher interest rate and require a higher down-payment than a prime mortgage.
Nonpersonal Time Deposit
Time deposit accounts held by corporate bank customers that pay a fixed amount of interest for a specified time period. Money may not be withdrawn without advance notice at the risk of incurring an early withdrawal penalty.
Tax Fairness
A tax platform based on an ideal that aims to create a system of taxation that is fair, clear and equivalent for all taxpayers. Overall, tax fairness looks to limit the amount of tax legislation and rules that benefit one segment of the tax-paying population over another.
Pay Yourself First
A phrase commonly used in personal finance and retirement planning literature that means to automatically route your specified savings contribution from each paycheck at the time it is received.
Because the savings contributions are automatically routed from each paycheck to your investment account, this process is said to be "paying yourself first"; in other words, paying yourself before you begin paying your monthly living expenses and making discretionary purchases.
Hardship Withdrawal
An emergency withdrawal from a retirement plan that may be subject to certain tax or account penalties. In the United States, funds withdrawn prior to the age of 59.5 are typically subject to a 10% Internal Revenue Service (IRS) early withdrawal penalty, as well as standard income taxes.
Pre-Encashable Deposit
A deposit made in a term deposit or CD that allows the account holder to withdraw funds without penalty to the principal. A pre-encashable deposit is a popular investment vehicle for individuals looking for full flexibility while saving in a guaranteed account.
Cramdown
A bankruptcy concept that is often employed to obtain a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan while there are still objections from one or more creditors. Cramdown allows the bankruptcy courts to modify loan terms subject to certain conditions in an attempt to have all parties come out better than they would have without such modifications. The conditions are mainly that the new terms are fair and equitable to all parties involved.
Surrender Period
The amount of time an investor must wait until he or she can withdraw funds from an annuity without facing a penalty. Withdrawing money before the agreed-upon holding period can result in a surrender charge.
McMansion
A slang term that describes a large, opulent house that may be generic in style and represents a good value for a homebuyer in terms of its size. This type of home is built to provide middle and/or upper middle class homeowners with the luxurious housing experience that was previously only available to high-net-worth individuals.
The McMansion term is as a play on McDonald's fast food restaurants, as these homes also represent the pervasiveness and excessive consumption that critics often associate with Mcdonald's.
401(a) Plan
A money-purchase retirement savings plan that is set up by an employer. The 401(a) plan allows for contributions by the employee, the employer, or both. Contribution amounts, whether dollar-based or percentage-based, eligibility, and vesting schedule are all determined by the sponsoring employer.
Funds are withdrawn from a 401(a) plan through lump-sum payment, rollovers to another qualified plan, or through an annuity.
Escrow
A financial instrument held by a third party on behalf of the other two parties in a transaction. The funds are held by the escrow service until it receives the appropriate written or oral instructions or until obligations have been fulfilled. Securities, funds and other assets can be held in escrow.
Frugalista
People who keep up with fashion trends without spending a lot of money. Frugalistas stay fashionable by shopping through alternative outlets, such as online auctions, secondhand stores and classified ads. They also reduce the amount of money spent in other areas of their lives, such as by growing their own food and reducing entertainment expenses. This is a popular term during recessions.
Predatory Lending
Unscrupulous actions carried out by a lender to entice, induce and/or assist a borrower in taking a mortgage that carries high fees, a high interest rate, strips the borrower of equity, or places the borrower in a lower credit rated loan to the benefit of the lender. As with most things of a dishonest nature, new and different predatory lending schemes frequently arise.
Exchange Rate Mechanism - ERM
An exchange rate mechanism is based on the concept of fixed currency exchange rate margins. However, there is variability of the currency exchange rates within the confines of the upper and lower end of the margins. This currency exchange rate mechanism is also commonly called a semi-pegged currency system.
Indemnity Insurance
An insurance policy that aims to protect business owners and employees when they are found to be at fault for a specific event such as misjudgment. Typical examples of indemnity insurance include professional insurance policies such as malpractice insurance, and errors and omissions insurance, which indemnify professionals against claims made in the workplace.
FDIC Problem Bank List
A list of commercial banks in the U.S. that are considered to be in financial difficulty. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issues this problem list quarterly based on liquidity, capital levels and asset quality. Only institutions that are insured by the FDIC through the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) are included on the list. The actual names of the banks are not given, but the total assets are provided.
Freeze Out
An action taken by a firm's majority shareholders that pressures minority holders to sell their stakes in the company. A variety of maneuvers may be considered freeze-out tactics, such as the termination of minority shareholder employees or the refusal to declare dividends.
Also referred to as a "squeeze out".
Headline Inflation
The raw inflation figure as reported through the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that is released monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI calculates the cost to purchase a fixed basket of goods as a way of determining how much inflation is occurring in the broad economy. The CPI uses a base year and indexes current year prices based on the base year's values.
The headline figure is not adjusted for seasonality or for the often volatile elements of food and energy prices, which are removed in the Core CPI. Headline inflation will usually be quoted on an annualized basis, meaning that a monthly headline figure of 4% inflation equates to a monthly rate that, if repeated for 12 months, would create 4% inflation for the year. Comparisons of headline inflation are typically made on a year-over-year basis.
Also known as "top-line inflation".
Forward Rate Agreement - FRA
An over-the-counter contract between parties that determines the rate of interest, or the currency exchange rate, to be paid or received on an obligation beginning at a future start date. The contract will determine the rates to be used along with the termination date and notional value. On this type of agreement, it is only the differential that is paid on the notional amount of the contract.
Also known as a "future rate agreement".
World Economic Outlook - WEO
A report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that contains analysis and projections of the integral elements of the IMF's surveillance of economic developments and policies in its member countries, and of the developments in the global financial markets and economic system. The World Economic Outlook (WEO) is usually prepared twice a year and is used in meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee.
January Barometer
A theory stating that the movement of the S&P 500 during the month of January sets the stock market's direction for the year (as measured by the S&P 500). The January Barometer states that if the S&P 500 was up at the end of January compared to the beginning of the month, proponents would expect the stock market to rise during the rest of the year.
Fiscal Year-End
The completion of a one-year, or 12-month, accounting period. A firm's fiscal year-end does not necessarily need to fall on December 31, and can actually fall on any day throughout the year.
Tax Selling
A type of sale whereby an investor sells an asset with a capital loss in order to lower or eliminate the capital gain realized by other investments. Tax selling allows the investor to avoid paying capital gains tax on recently sold or appreciated assets.
Year Over Year - YOY
A method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one time period with those from another time period (or series of time periods), on an annualized basis. Year-over-year comparisons are a popular way to evaluate the performance of investments. Any measurable events that recur annually can be compared on a year-over-year basis - from annual performance, to quarterly performance, to daily performance.
Santa Claus Rally
A surge in the price of stocks that often occurs in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. There are numerous explanations for the Santa Claus Rally phenomenon, including tax considerations, happiness around Wall Street, people investing their Christmas bonuses and the fact that the pessimists are usually on vacation this week.
Boston Snow Indicator
A market theory that states that a white Christmas in Boston will result in rising stock prices for the following year. For example, in Christmas of 1995, Boston received snow and the following year, the S&P 500 increased by more than 20%.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a broadly recognized, widely-implemented strategy for managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Once simply a label for a category of software tools, today, it generally denotes a company-wide business strategy embracing all client-facing departments and even beyond. When an implementation is effective, people, processes, and technology work in synergy to increase profitability, and reduce operational costs.
Benefits
These tools have been shown to help companies attain these objectives:
Streamlined sales and marketing processes
Higher sales productivity
Added cross-selling and up-selling
Improved service, loyalty, and retention
Increased call center efficiency
Higher close rates
Better profiling and targeting
Reduced expenses
Increased market share
Higher overall profitability
Marginal costing
Related Trends
What trends are affecting CRM tools? Perhaps the most notable trend has been the growth of tools delivered via the Web, also known as cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS). In contrast with traditional on-premises software, cloud-computing applications are sold by subscription, accessed via a secure Internet connection, and displayed on a Web browser. Companies don’t incur the initial capital expense of purchasing software; nor must they buy and maintain IT hardware to run it on.
Challenges
Despite the benefits, many companies are still not fully leveraging these tools and services to align marketing, sales, and service to best serve the enterprise.[3]
Tools and workflows can be complex to implement, especially for large enterprises. Previously these tools were generally limited to contact management: monitoring and recording interactions and communications. Software solutions then expanded to embrace deal tracking, territories, opportunities, and at the sales pipeline itself. Next came the advent of tools for other client-facing business functions, as described below. These technologies have been, and still are, offered as on-premises software that companies purchase and run on their own IT infrastructure.
Often, implementations are fragmented; isolated initiatives by individual departments to address their own needs. Systems that start disunited usually stay that way: siloed thinking and decision processes frequently lead to separate and incompatible systems, and dysfunctional processes.
Types/variations
Sales force automation
The sales force automation (SFA) system provides an array of capabilities to streamline all phases of the sales process, minimizing the time that sales representatives need to spend on manual data entry and administration. This allows them to successfully pursue more clients in a shorter amount of time than would otherwise be possible. At the heart of SFA is a contact management system for tracking and recording every stage in the sales process for each prospective client, from initial contact to final disposition. Many SFA applications also include insights into opportunities, territories, sales forecasts and workflow automation, quote generation, and product knowledge. Newly-emerged priorities are modules for Web 2.0 e-commerce and pricing.
Marketing
Systems for marketing (also known as marketing automation) help the enterprise identify and target its best clients and generate qualified leads for the sales team. A key marketing capability is tracking and measuring multichannel campaigns, including email, search, social media, and direct mail. Metrics monitored include clicks, responses, leads, deals, and revenue.
Customer Service and Support
Recognizing that service is an important differentiator, organizations are increasingly turning to technology platforms to help them improve their clients’ experience while aiming to increase efficiency and minimize costs. Even so, a 2009 study revealed that only 39% of corporate executives believe their employees have the right tools and authority to solve client problems.“. The core for these applications has been and still is comprehensive call center solutions, including such features as intelligent call routing, computer telephone integration (CTI), and escalation capabilities.
Analytics
Relevant analytics capabilities are often interwoven into applications for sales, marketing, and service. These features can be complemented and augmented with links to separate, purpose-built applications for analytics and business intelligence. Sales analytics let companies monitor and understand client actions and preferences, through sales forecasting, data quality, and dashboards that graphically display
Marketing applications generally come with predictive analytics to improve segmentation and targeting, and features for measuring the effectiveness of online, offline, and search marketing campaign. Web analytics have evolved significantly from their starting point of merely tracking mouse clicks on Web sites. By evaluating “buy signals,” marketers can see which prospects are most likely to transact and also identify those who are bogged down in a sales process and need assistance. Marketing and finance personnel also use analytics to assess the value of multi-faceted programs as a whole.
These types of analytics are increasing in popularity as companies demand greater visibility into the performance of call centers and other support channels, in order to correct problems before they affect satisfaction levels. Support-focused applications typically include dashboards similar to those for sales, plus capabilities to measure and analyze response times, service quality, agent performance, and the frequency of various issues.
Integrated/Collaborative
Departments within enterprises—especially large enterprises—tend to function in their own little worlds. Traditionally, inter-departmental interaction and collaboration have been infrequent and rivalries not uncommon. More recently, the development and adoption of the tools and services has fostered greater fluidity and cooperation among sales, service, and marketing. This finds expression in the concept of collaborative systems which uses technology to build bridges between departments.
For example, feedback from a technical support center can enlighten marketers about specific services and product features clients are asking for. Reps, in their turn, want to be able to pursue these opportunities without the time-wasting burden of re-entering records and contact data into a separate SFA system. Conversely, lack of integration can have negative consequences: system isn’t adopted and integrated among all departments, several sources might contact the same clients for an identical purpose.[citation needed] Owing to these factors, many of the top-rated and most popular products come as integrated suites.
Small Business
Basic client service can be accomplished by a contact manager system, an integrated solution that lets organizations and individuals efficiently track and record interactions, including emails, documents, jobs, faxes, scheduling, and more. This kind of solution is gaining traction with even very small businesses, thanks to the ease and time savings of handling client contact through a centralized application rather than several different pieces of software, each with its own data collection system.[citation needed] In contrast these tools usually focus on accounts rather than individual contacts. They also generally include opportunity insight for tracking sales pipelines plus added functionality for marketing and service. As with larger enterprises, small businesses are finding value in online solutions, especially for mobile and telecommuting workers.
Social Media
Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are greatly amplifying the voice of people in the marketplace and are predicted to have profound and far-reaching effects on the ways companies manage their clients. This is because people are using these social media sites to share opinions and experiences on companies, products, and services. As social media isn’t moderated or censored, individuals can say anything they want about a company or brand, whether pro or con.
Increasingly, companies are looking to gain access to these conversations and take part in the dialogue. More than a few systems are now integrating to social networking sites. Social media promoters cite a number of business advantages, such as using online communities as a source of high-quality leads and a vehicle for crowd sourcing solutions to client-support problems. Companies can also leverage client stated habits and preferences to personalize and even “hyper-target” their sales and marketing communications.
Some analysts take the view that business-to-business marketers should proceed cautiously when weaving social media into their business processes. These observers recommend careful market research to determine if and where the phenomenon can provide measurable benefits for client interactions, sales, and support.
Non-profit and Membership-based
Systems for non-profit and membership-based organizations help track constituents and their involvement in the organization. Capabilities typically include tracking the following: fund-raising, demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communications with individuals.
Many include tools for identifying potential donors based on previous donations and participation. In light of the growth of social networking tools, there may be some overlap between social/community driven tools and non-profit/membership tools.
Strategy
Choosing and implementing a system is a major undertaking. For enterprises of any appreciable size, a complete and detailed plan is required to obtain the funding, resources, and company-wide support that can make the initiative successful. Benefits must be defined, risks assessed, and cost quantified in three general areas:
Processes: Though these systems have many technological components, business processes lie at its core. It can be seen as a more client-centric way of doing business, enabled by technology that consolidates and intelligently distributes pertinent information about clients, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness, and market trends. Therefore, before choosing a technology platform, a company needs to analyze its business workflows and processes; some will likely need re-engineering to better serve the overall goal of winning and satisfying clients. Moreover, planners need to determine the types of client information that are most relevant, and how best to employ them.
People: For an initiative to be effective, an organization must convince its staff that change is good and that the new technology and workflows will benefit employees as well as clients. Senior executives need to be strong and visible advocates who can clearly state and support the case for change. Collaboration, teamwork, and two-way communication should be encouraged across hierarchical boundaries, especially with respect to process improvement.
Technology: In evaluating technology, key factors include alignment with the company’s business process strategy and goals; the ability to deliver the right data to the right employees; and sufficient ease of use that users won’t balk. Platform selection is best undertaken by a carefully chosen group of executives who understand the business processes to be automated as well as the various software issues. Depending upon the size of the company and the breadth of data, choosing an application can take anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more.
Implementation
Implementation Issues
Dramatic increases in revenue, higher rates of client satisfaction, and significant savings in operating costs are some of the benefits to an enterprise. Proponents emphasize that technology should be implemented only in the context of careful strategic and operational planning. Implementations almost invariably fall short when one or more facets of this prescription are ignored:
Poor planning: Initiatives can easily fail when efforts are limited to choosing and deploying software, without an accompanying rationale, context, and support for the workforce. In other instances, enterprises simply automate flawed client-facing processes rather than redesign them according to best practices.
Poor integration: For many companies, integrations are piecemeal initiatives that address a glaring need: improving a particular client-facing process or two or automating a favored sales or client support channel. Such “point solutions” offer little or no integration or alignment with a company’s overall strategy. They offer a less than complete client view and often lead to unsatisfactory user experiences.
Toward a solution: overcoming siloed thinking. Experts advise organizations to recognize the immense value of integrating their client-facing operations. In this view, internally-focused, department-centric views should be discarded in favor of reorienting processes toward information-sharing across marketing, sales, and service. For example, sales representatives need to know about current issues and relevant marketing promotions before attempting to cross-sell to a specific client. Marketing staff should be able to leverage client information from sales and service to better target campaigns and offers. And support agents require quick and complete access to a client’s sales and service history.
Adoption Issues
Historically, the landscape is littered with instances of low adoption rates. In 2003, a Gartner report estimated that more than $1 billion had been spent on software that wasn’t being used. More recent research indicates that the problem, while perhaps less severe, is a long way from being solved. According to CSO Insights, less than 40 percent of 1,275 participating companies had end-user adoption rates above 90 percent.
In a 2007 survey from the U.K., four-fifths of senior executives reported that their biggest challenge is getting their staff to use the systems they’d installed. Further, 43 percent of respondents said they use less than half the functionality of their existing system; 72 percent indicated they’d trade functionality for ease of use; 51 percent cited data synchronization as a major issue; and 67 percent said that finding time to evaluate systems was a major problem. With expenditures expected to exceed $11 billion in 2010, enterprises need to address and overcome persistent adoption challenges. Specialists offer these recommendations for boosting adoptions rates and coaxing users to blend these tools into their daily workflow:
Choose a system that’s easy to use: All solutions are not created equal. Some vendors offer more user-friendly applications than others, and simplicity should be as important a decision factor as functionality.
Choose the right capabilities: Employees need to know that time invested in learning and usage will yield personal advantages. If not, they will work around or ignore the system.
Provide training: Changing the way people work is no small task, and help is usually a requirement. Even with today’s more usable systems, many staffers still need assistance with learning and adoption.
Privacy and data security system
One of the primary functions of these tools is to collect information about clients, thus a company must consider the desire for privacy and data security, as well as the legislative and cultural norms. Some clients prefer assurances that their data will not be shared with third parties without their prior consent and that safeguards are in place to prevent illegal access by third parties.
Market structures
This market grew by 12.5 percent in 2008, from revenue of $8.13 billion in 2007 to $9.15 billion in 2008. The following table lists the top vendors in 2006-2008 (figures in millions of US dollars) published in Gartner studies.
Benefits
These tools have been shown to help companies attain these objectives:
Streamlined sales and marketing processes
Higher sales productivity
Added cross-selling and up-selling
Improved service, loyalty, and retention
Increased call center efficiency
Higher close rates
Better profiling and targeting
Reduced expenses
Increased market share
Higher overall profitability
Marginal costing
Related Trends
What trends are affecting CRM tools? Perhaps the most notable trend has been the growth of tools delivered via the Web, also known as cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS). In contrast with traditional on-premises software, cloud-computing applications are sold by subscription, accessed via a secure Internet connection, and displayed on a Web browser. Companies don’t incur the initial capital expense of purchasing software; nor must they buy and maintain IT hardware to run it on.
Challenges
Despite the benefits, many companies are still not fully leveraging these tools and services to align marketing, sales, and service to best serve the enterprise.[3]
Tools and workflows can be complex to implement, especially for large enterprises. Previously these tools were generally limited to contact management: monitoring and recording interactions and communications. Software solutions then expanded to embrace deal tracking, territories, opportunities, and at the sales pipeline itself. Next came the advent of tools for other client-facing business functions, as described below. These technologies have been, and still are, offered as on-premises software that companies purchase and run on their own IT infrastructure.
Often, implementations are fragmented; isolated initiatives by individual departments to address their own needs. Systems that start disunited usually stay that way: siloed thinking and decision processes frequently lead to separate and incompatible systems, and dysfunctional processes.
Types/variations
Sales force automation
The sales force automation (SFA) system provides an array of capabilities to streamline all phases of the sales process, minimizing the time that sales representatives need to spend on manual data entry and administration. This allows them to successfully pursue more clients in a shorter amount of time than would otherwise be possible. At the heart of SFA is a contact management system for tracking and recording every stage in the sales process for each prospective client, from initial contact to final disposition. Many SFA applications also include insights into opportunities, territories, sales forecasts and workflow automation, quote generation, and product knowledge. Newly-emerged priorities are modules for Web 2.0 e-commerce and pricing.
Marketing
Systems for marketing (also known as marketing automation) help the enterprise identify and target its best clients and generate qualified leads for the sales team. A key marketing capability is tracking and measuring multichannel campaigns, including email, search, social media, and direct mail. Metrics monitored include clicks, responses, leads, deals, and revenue.
Customer Service and Support
Recognizing that service is an important differentiator, organizations are increasingly turning to technology platforms to help them improve their clients’ experience while aiming to increase efficiency and minimize costs. Even so, a 2009 study revealed that only 39% of corporate executives believe their employees have the right tools and authority to solve client problems.“. The core for these applications has been and still is comprehensive call center solutions, including such features as intelligent call routing, computer telephone integration (CTI), and escalation capabilities.
Analytics
Relevant analytics capabilities are often interwoven into applications for sales, marketing, and service. These features can be complemented and augmented with links to separate, purpose-built applications for analytics and business intelligence. Sales analytics let companies monitor and understand client actions and preferences, through sales forecasting, data quality, and dashboards that graphically display
Marketing applications generally come with predictive analytics to improve segmentation and targeting, and features for measuring the effectiveness of online, offline, and search marketing campaign. Web analytics have evolved significantly from their starting point of merely tracking mouse clicks on Web sites. By evaluating “buy signals,” marketers can see which prospects are most likely to transact and also identify those who are bogged down in a sales process and need assistance. Marketing and finance personnel also use analytics to assess the value of multi-faceted programs as a whole.
These types of analytics are increasing in popularity as companies demand greater visibility into the performance of call centers and other support channels, in order to correct problems before they affect satisfaction levels. Support-focused applications typically include dashboards similar to those for sales, plus capabilities to measure and analyze response times, service quality, agent performance, and the frequency of various issues.
Integrated/Collaborative
Departments within enterprises—especially large enterprises—tend to function in their own little worlds. Traditionally, inter-departmental interaction and collaboration have been infrequent and rivalries not uncommon. More recently, the development and adoption of the tools and services has fostered greater fluidity and cooperation among sales, service, and marketing. This finds expression in the concept of collaborative systems which uses technology to build bridges between departments.
For example, feedback from a technical support center can enlighten marketers about specific services and product features clients are asking for. Reps, in their turn, want to be able to pursue these opportunities without the time-wasting burden of re-entering records and contact data into a separate SFA system. Conversely, lack of integration can have negative consequences: system isn’t adopted and integrated among all departments, several sources might contact the same clients for an identical purpose.[citation needed] Owing to these factors, many of the top-rated and most popular products come as integrated suites.
Small Business
Basic client service can be accomplished by a contact manager system, an integrated solution that lets organizations and individuals efficiently track and record interactions, including emails, documents, jobs, faxes, scheduling, and more. This kind of solution is gaining traction with even very small businesses, thanks to the ease and time savings of handling client contact through a centralized application rather than several different pieces of software, each with its own data collection system.[citation needed] In contrast these tools usually focus on accounts rather than individual contacts. They also generally include opportunity insight for tracking sales pipelines plus added functionality for marketing and service. As with larger enterprises, small businesses are finding value in online solutions, especially for mobile and telecommuting workers.
Social Media
Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are greatly amplifying the voice of people in the marketplace and are predicted to have profound and far-reaching effects on the ways companies manage their clients. This is because people are using these social media sites to share opinions and experiences on companies, products, and services. As social media isn’t moderated or censored, individuals can say anything they want about a company or brand, whether pro or con.
Increasingly, companies are looking to gain access to these conversations and take part in the dialogue. More than a few systems are now integrating to social networking sites. Social media promoters cite a number of business advantages, such as using online communities as a source of high-quality leads and a vehicle for crowd sourcing solutions to client-support problems. Companies can also leverage client stated habits and preferences to personalize and even “hyper-target” their sales and marketing communications.
Some analysts take the view that business-to-business marketers should proceed cautiously when weaving social media into their business processes. These observers recommend careful market research to determine if and where the phenomenon can provide measurable benefits for client interactions, sales, and support.
Non-profit and Membership-based
Systems for non-profit and membership-based organizations help track constituents and their involvement in the organization. Capabilities typically include tracking the following: fund-raising, demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communications with individuals.
Many include tools for identifying potential donors based on previous donations and participation. In light of the growth of social networking tools, there may be some overlap between social/community driven tools and non-profit/membership tools.
Strategy
Choosing and implementing a system is a major undertaking. For enterprises of any appreciable size, a complete and detailed plan is required to obtain the funding, resources, and company-wide support that can make the initiative successful. Benefits must be defined, risks assessed, and cost quantified in three general areas:
Processes: Though these systems have many technological components, business processes lie at its core. It can be seen as a more client-centric way of doing business, enabled by technology that consolidates and intelligently distributes pertinent information about clients, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness, and market trends. Therefore, before choosing a technology platform, a company needs to analyze its business workflows and processes; some will likely need re-engineering to better serve the overall goal of winning and satisfying clients. Moreover, planners need to determine the types of client information that are most relevant, and how best to employ them.
People: For an initiative to be effective, an organization must convince its staff that change is good and that the new technology and workflows will benefit employees as well as clients. Senior executives need to be strong and visible advocates who can clearly state and support the case for change. Collaboration, teamwork, and two-way communication should be encouraged across hierarchical boundaries, especially with respect to process improvement.
Technology: In evaluating technology, key factors include alignment with the company’s business process strategy and goals; the ability to deliver the right data to the right employees; and sufficient ease of use that users won’t balk. Platform selection is best undertaken by a carefully chosen group of executives who understand the business processes to be automated as well as the various software issues. Depending upon the size of the company and the breadth of data, choosing an application can take anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more.
Implementation
Implementation Issues
Dramatic increases in revenue, higher rates of client satisfaction, and significant savings in operating costs are some of the benefits to an enterprise. Proponents emphasize that technology should be implemented only in the context of careful strategic and operational planning. Implementations almost invariably fall short when one or more facets of this prescription are ignored:
Poor planning: Initiatives can easily fail when efforts are limited to choosing and deploying software, without an accompanying rationale, context, and support for the workforce. In other instances, enterprises simply automate flawed client-facing processes rather than redesign them according to best practices.
Poor integration: For many companies, integrations are piecemeal initiatives that address a glaring need: improving a particular client-facing process or two or automating a favored sales or client support channel. Such “point solutions” offer little or no integration or alignment with a company’s overall strategy. They offer a less than complete client view and often lead to unsatisfactory user experiences.
Toward a solution: overcoming siloed thinking. Experts advise organizations to recognize the immense value of integrating their client-facing operations. In this view, internally-focused, department-centric views should be discarded in favor of reorienting processes toward information-sharing across marketing, sales, and service. For example, sales representatives need to know about current issues and relevant marketing promotions before attempting to cross-sell to a specific client. Marketing staff should be able to leverage client information from sales and service to better target campaigns and offers. And support agents require quick and complete access to a client’s sales and service history.
Adoption Issues
Historically, the landscape is littered with instances of low adoption rates. In 2003, a Gartner report estimated that more than $1 billion had been spent on software that wasn’t being used. More recent research indicates that the problem, while perhaps less severe, is a long way from being solved. According to CSO Insights, less than 40 percent of 1,275 participating companies had end-user adoption rates above 90 percent.
In a 2007 survey from the U.K., four-fifths of senior executives reported that their biggest challenge is getting their staff to use the systems they’d installed. Further, 43 percent of respondents said they use less than half the functionality of their existing system; 72 percent indicated they’d trade functionality for ease of use; 51 percent cited data synchronization as a major issue; and 67 percent said that finding time to evaluate systems was a major problem. With expenditures expected to exceed $11 billion in 2010, enterprises need to address and overcome persistent adoption challenges. Specialists offer these recommendations for boosting adoptions rates and coaxing users to blend these tools into their daily workflow:
Choose a system that’s easy to use: All solutions are not created equal. Some vendors offer more user-friendly applications than others, and simplicity should be as important a decision factor as functionality.
Choose the right capabilities: Employees need to know that time invested in learning and usage will yield personal advantages. If not, they will work around or ignore the system.
Provide training: Changing the way people work is no small task, and help is usually a requirement. Even with today’s more usable systems, many staffers still need assistance with learning and adoption.
Privacy and data security system
One of the primary functions of these tools is to collect information about clients, thus a company must consider the desire for privacy and data security, as well as the legislative and cultural norms. Some clients prefer assurances that their data will not be shared with third parties without their prior consent and that safeguards are in place to prevent illegal access by third parties.
Market structures
This market grew by 12.5 percent in 2008, from revenue of $8.13 billion in 2007 to $9.15 billion in 2008. The following table lists the top vendors in 2006-2008 (figures in millions of US dollars) published in Gartner studies.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Indian Financial System
Economic growth and development of any country depends upon a well-knit financial system. Financial system comprises, a set of sub-systems of financial institutions financial markets, financial instruments and services which help in the formation of capital. Thus a financial system provides a mechanism by which savings are transformed into investments and it can be said that financial system play an significant role in economic growth of the country by mobilizing surplus funds and utilizing them effectively for productive purpose.
The financial system is characterized by the presence of integrated, organized and regulated financial markets, and institutions that meet the short term and long term financial needs of both the household and corporate sector. Both financial markets and financial institutions play an important role in the financial system by rendering various financial services to the community. They operate in close combination with each other.
Financial System
The word "system", in the term "financial system", implies a set of complex and closely connected or interlined institutions, agents, practices, markets, transactions, claims, and liabilities in the economy. The financial system is concerned about money, credit and finance-the three terms are intimately related yet are somewhat different from each other. Indian financial system consists of financial market, financial instruments and financial intermediation
Role/ Functions of Financial System:
A financial system performs the following functions:
* It serves as a link between savers and investors. It helps in utilizing the mobilized savings of scattered savers in more efficient and effective manner. It channelises flow of saving into productive investment.
* It assists in the selection of the projects to be financed and also reviews the performance of such projects periodically.
* It provides payment mechanism for exchange of goods and services.
* It provides a mechanism for the transfer of resources across geographic boundaries.
* It provides a mechanism for managing and controlling the risk involved in mobilizing savings and allocating credit.
* It promotes the process of capital formation by bringing together the supply of saving and the demand for investible funds.
* It helps in lowering the cost of transaction and increase returns. Reduce cost motives people to save more.
* It provides you detailed information to the operators/ players in the market such as individuals, business houses, Governments etc.
Components/ Constituents of Indian Financial system:
The following are the four main components of Indian Financial system
1. Financial institutions
2. Financial Markets
3. Financial Instruments/Assets/Securities
4. Financial Services.
Financial institutions:
Financial institutions are the intermediaries who facilitates smooth functioning of the financial system by making investors and borrowers meet. They mobilize savings of the surplus units and allocate them in productive activities promising a better rate of return. Financial institutions also provide services to entities seeking advises on various issues ranging from restructuring to diversification plans. They provide whole range of services to the entities who want to raise funds from the markets elsewhere. Financial institutions act as financial intermediaries because they act as middlemen between savers and borrowers. Were these financial institutions may be of Banking or Non-Banking institutions.
Financial Markets:
Finance is a prerequisite for modern business and financial institutions play a vital role in economic system. It's through financial markets the financial system of an economy works. The main functions of financial markets are:
1. to facilitate creation and allocation of credit and liquidity;
2. to serve as intermediaries for mobilization of savings;
3. to assist process of balanced economic growth;
4. to provide financial convenience
Financial Instruments
Another important constituent of financial system is financial instruments. They represent a claim against the future income and wealth of others. It will be a claim against a person or an institutions, for the payment of the some of the money at a specified future date.
Financial Services:
Efficiency of emerging financial system largely depends upon the quality and variety of financial services provided by financial intermediaries. The term financial services can be defined as "activites, benefits and satisfaction connected with sale of money, that offers to users and customers, financial related value".
Pre-reforms Phase
Until the early 1990s, the role of the financial system in India was primarily restricted to the function of channeling resources from the surplus to deficit sectors. Whereas the financial system performed this role reasonably well, its operations came to be marked by some serious deficiencies over the years. The banking sector suffered from lack of competition, low capital base, low Productivity and high intermediation cost. After the nationalization of large banks in 1969 and 1980, the Government-owned banks dominated the banking sector. The role of technology was minimal and the quality of service was not given adequate importance. Banks also did not follow proper risk management systems and the prudential standards were weak. All these resulted in poor asset quality and low profitability. Among non-banking financial intermediaries, development finance institutions (DFIs) operated in an over-protected environment with most of the funding coming from assured sources at concessional terms. In the insurance sector, there was little competition. The mutual fund industry also suffered from lack of competition and was dominated for long by one institution, viz., the Unit Trust of India. Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) grew rapidly, but there was no regulation of their asset side. Financial markets were characterized by control over pricing of financial assets, barriers to entry, high transaction costs and restrictions on movement of funds/participants between the market segments. This apart from inhibiting the development of the markets also affected their efficiency.
Financial Sector Reforms in India
It was in this backdrop that wide-ranging financial sector reforms in India were introduced as an integral part of the economic reforms initiated in the early 1990s with a view to improving the macroeconomic performance of the economy. The reforms in the financial sector focused on creating efficient and stable financial institutions and markets. The approach to financial sector reforms in India was one of gradual and non-disruptive progress through a consultative process. The Reserve Bank has been consistently working towards setting an enabling regulatory framework with prompt and effective supervision, development of technological and institutional infrastructure, as well as changing the interface with the market participants through a consultative process. Persistent efforts have been made towards adoption of international benchmarks as appropriate to Indian conditions. While certain changes in the legal infrastructure are yet to be effected, the developments so far have brought the Indian financial system closer to global standards.
The reform of the interest regime constitutes an integral part of the financial sector reform. With the onset of financial sector reforms, the interest rate regime has been largely deregulated with a view towards better price discovery and efficient resource allocation. Initially, steps were taken to develop the domestic money market and freeing of the money market rates. The interest rates offered on Government securities were progressively raised so that the Government borrowing could be carried out at market-related rates. In respect of banks, a major effort was undertaken to simplify the administered structure of interest rates. Banks now have sufficient flexibility to decide their deposit and lending rate structures and manage their assets and liabilities accordingly. At present, apart from savings account and NRE deposit on the deposit side and export credit and small loans on the lending side, all other interest rates are deregulated. Indian banking system operated for a long time with high reserve requirements both in the form of Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR). This was a consequence of the high fiscal deficit and a high degree of monetisation of fiscal deficit. The efforts in the recent period have been to lower both the CRR and SLR. The statutory minimum of 25 per cent for SLR has already been reached, and while the Reserve Bank continues to pursue its medium-term objective of reducing the CRR to the statutory minimum level of 3.0 per cent, the CRR of SCBs is currently placed at 5.0 per cent of NDTL.
As part of the reforms programme, due attention has been given to diversification of ownership leading to greater market accountability and improved efficiency. Initially, there was infusion of capital by the Government in public sector banks, which was followed by expanding the capital base with equity participation by the private investors. This was followed by a reduction in the Government shareholding in public sector banks to 51 per cent. Consequently, the share of the public sector banks in the aggregate assets of the banking sector has come down from 90 per cent in 1991 to around 75 per cent in2004. With a view to enhancing efficiency and productivity through competition, guidelines were laid down for establishment of new banks in the private sector and the foreign banks have been allowed more liberal entry. Since 1993, twelve new private sector banks have been set up. As a major step towards enhancing competition in the banking sector, foreign direct investment in the private sector banks is now allowed up to 74 per cent, subject to conformity with the guidelines issued from time to time.
Conclusion: The Indian financial system has undergone structural transformation over the past decade. The financial sector has acquired strength, efficiency and stability by the combined effect of competition, regulatory measures, and policy environment. While competition, consolidation and convergence have been recognized as the key drivers of the banking sector in the coming years
Refernce:
1. Indian Financial System by M.Y.Khan.1980.
2. The Financial System of India by Gyan Chand.2000
3. http://www.agii.gr/repository/upload/Indian%20Capital%20markets%20and%20financial%20system.pdf
4. http://www.bizresearchpapers.com
Capital Budgeting
Capital budgeting (or investment appraisal) is the planning process used to determine whether a firm's long term investments such as new machinery, replacement machinery, new plants, new products, and research development projects are worth pursuing. It is budget for major capital, or investment, expenditures.[1]
Many formal methods are used in capital budgeting, including the techniques such as
These methods use the incremental cash flows from each potential investment, or project Techniques based on accounting earnings and accounting rules are sometimes used - though economists consider this to be improper - such as the accounting rate of return, and "return on investment." Simplified and hybrid methods are used as well, such as payback period and discounted payback period.
Net present value
Main article: Net Present Value
Each potential project's value should be estimated using a discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation, to find its net present value (NPV). (First applied to Corporate Finance by Joel Dean in 1951; see also Fisher separation theorem, John Burr Williams: Theory.) This valuation requires estimating the size and timing of all of the incremental cash flows from the project. These future cash flows are then discounted to determine theirpresent value. These present values are then summed, to get the NPV. See also Time value of money. The NPV decision rule is to accept all positive NPV projects in an unconstrained environment, or if projects are mutually exclusive, accept the one with the highest NPV(GE)
The NPV is greatly affected by the discount rate, so selecting the proper rate - sometimes called the hurdle rate - is critical to making the right decision. The hurdle rate is the minimum acceptable return on an investment. It should reflect the riskiness of the investment, typically measured by the volatility of cash flows, and must take into account the financing mix. Managers may use models such as the CAPM or the APT to estimate a discount rate appropriate for each particular project, and use the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) to reflect the financing mix selected. A common practice in choosing a discount rate for a project is to apply a WACC that applies to the entire firm, but a higher discount rate may be more appropriate when a project's risk is higher than the risk of the firm as a whole.
Internal rate of return
The internal rate of return (IRR) is defined as the discount rate that gives a net present value (NPV) of zero. It is a commonly used measure of investment efficiency.
The IRR method will result in the same decision as the NPV method for (non-mutually exclusive) projects in an unconstrained environment, in the usual cases where a negative cash flow occurs at the start of the project, followed by all positive cash flows. In most realistic cases, all independent projects that have an IRR higher than the hurdle rate should be accepted. Nevertheless, for mutually exclusive projects, the decision rule of taking the project with the highest IRR - which is often used - may select a project with a lower NPV.
In some cases, several zero NPV discount rates may exist, so there is no unique IRR. The IRR exists and is unique if one or more years of net investment (negative cash flow) are followed by years of net revenues. But if the signs of the cash flows change more than once, there may be several IRRs. The IRR equation generally cannot be solved analytically but only via iterations.
One shortcoming of the IRR method is that it is commonly misunderstood to convey the actual annual profitability of an investment. However, this is not the case because intermediate cash flows are almost never reinvested at the project's IRR; and, therefore, the actual rate of return is almost certainly going to be lower. Accordingly, a measure called Modified Internal Rate of Return (MIRR) is often used.
Despite a strong academic preference for NPV, surveys indicate that executives prefer IRR over NPV[citation needed], although they should be used in concert. In a budget-constrained environment, efficiency measures should be used to maximize the overall NPV of the firm. Some managers find it intuitively more appealing to evaluate investments in terms of percentage rates of return than dollars of NPV.
Equivalent annuity method
The equivalent annuity method expresses the NPV as an annualized cash flow by dividing it by the present value of the annuity factor. It is often used when assessing only the costs of specific projects that have the same cash inflows. In this form it is known as the equivalent annual cost(EAC) method and is the cost per year of owning and operating an asset over its entire lifespan.
It is often used when comparing investment projects of unequal lifespans. For example if project A has an expected lifetime of 7 years, and project B has an expected lifetime of 11 years it would be improper to simply compare the net present values (NPVs) of the two projects, unless the projects could not be repeated.
The use of the EAC method implies that the project will be replaced by an identical project.
Alternatively the chain method can be used with the NPV method under the assumption that the projects will be replaced with the same cash flows each time. To compare projects of unequal length, say 3 years and 4 years, the projects are chained together, i.e. four repetitions of the 3 year project are compare to three repetitions of the 4 year project. The chain method and the EAC method give mathematically equivalent answers.
The assumption of the same cash flows for each link in the chain is essentially an assumption of zero inflation, so a real interest rate rather than a nominal interest rate is commonly used in the calculations.
Real options
Real options analysis has become important since the 1970s as option pricing models have gotten more sophisticated. The discounted cash flow methods essentially value projects as if they were risky bonds, with the promised cash flows known. But managers will have many choices of how to increase future cash inflows, or to decrease future cash outflows. In other words, managers get to manage the projects - not simply accept or reject them. Real options analysis try to value the choices - the option value - that the managers will have in the future and adds these values to the NPV.
Ranked Projects
The real value of capital budgeting is to rank projects. Most organizations have many projects that could potentially be financially rewarding. Once it has been determined that a particular project has exceeded its hurdle, then it should be ranked against peer projects (e.g. - highestProfitability index to lowest Profitability index). The highest ranking projects should be implemented until the budgeted capital has been expended.
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