A security whose price is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract between two or more parties. Its value is determined by fluctuations in the underlying asset. The most common underlying assets include stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates and market indexes. Most derivatives are characterized by high leverage.
Financial accounting is a specialized branch of accounting that keeps track of a company's financial transactions. Using standardized guidelines, the transactions are recorded, summarized, and presented in a financial report or financial statement such as an income statement or a balance sheet.
Companies issue financial statements on a routine schedule. The statements are considered external because they are given to people outside of the company, with the primary recipients being owners/stockholders, as well as certain lenders. If a corporation's stock is publicly traded, however, its financial statements (and other financial reportings) tend to be widely circulated, and information will likely reach secondary recipients such as competitors, customers, employees, labor organizations, and investment analysts.
It's important to point out that the purpose of financial accounting is not to report the value of a company. Rather, its purpose is to provide enough information for others to assess the value of a company for themselves.
Because external financial statements are used by a variety of people in a variety of ways, financial accounting has common rules known as accounting standards and as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). In the U.S., the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is the organization that develops the accounting standards and principles. Corporations whose stock is publicly traded must also comply with the reporting requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an agency of the U.S. government.
Funds raised by issuing shares in return for cash or other considerations. The amount of share capital a company has can change over time because each time a business sells new shares to the public in exchange for cash, the amount of share capital will increase. Share capital can be composed of both common and preferred shares.
A measure of both a company's efficiency and its short-term financial health. The working capital is calculated as:
The working capital ratio (Current Assets/Current Liabilities) indicates whether a company has enough short term assets to cover its short term debt. Anything below 1 indicates negative W/C (working capital). While anything over 2 means that the company is not investing excess assets. Most believe that a ratio between 1.2 and 2.0 is sufficient.Also known as "net working capital".
A mix of a company's long-term debt, specific short-term debt, common equity and preferred equity. The capital structure is how a firm finances its overall operations and growth by using different sources of funds.
Debt comes in the form of bond issues or long-term notes payable, while equity is classified as common stock, preferred stock or retained earnings. Short-term debt such as working capital requirements is also considered to be part of the capital structure.
For stock investors that favor companies with good fundamentals, a "strong" balance sheet is an important consideration for investing in a company's stock. The strength of a company's balance sheet can be evaluated by three broad categories of investment-quality measurements: working capital adequacy, asset performance and capital structure. In this article, we'll look at evaluating balance sheet strength based on the composition of a company's capital structure.
A company's capitalization (not to be confused with market capitalization) describes the composition of a company's permanent or long-term capital, which consists of a combination of debt and equity. A healthy proportion of equity capital, as opposed to debt capital, in a company's capital structure is an indication of financial fitness
A mutual fund is a type of professionally managed collective investment scheme that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. While there is no legal definition of the term mutual fund, it is most commonly applied only to those collective investment vehicles that are regulated and sold to the general public. They are sometimes referred to as "investment companies" or "registered investment companies". Most mutual funds are open-ended, meaning stockholders can buy or sell shares of the fund at any time by redeeming them from the fund itself, rather than on an exchange. Hedge funds are not considered a type of mutual fund, primarily because they are not sold publicly.
In the United States, mutual funds must be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseen by a board of directors (or board of trustees if organized as a trust rather than a corporation or partnership) and managed by a registered investment adviser. Mutual funds, like other registered investment companies, are also subject to an extensive and detailed regulatory regime set forth in the Investment Company Act of 1940.[3] Mutual funds are not taxed on their income and profits if they comply with certain requirements under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.
Mutual funds have both advantages and disadvantages compared to direct investing in individual securities. They have a long history in the United States. Today they play an important role in household finances, most notably in retirement planning.
There are 3 types of U.S. mutual funds: open-end, unit investment trust, and closed-end. The most common type, the open-end fund, must be willing to buy back shares from investors every business day. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are open-end funds or unit investment trusts that trade on an exchange. Open-end funds are most common, but exchange-traded funds have been gaining in popularity.
Mutual funds are generally classified by their principal investments. The four main categories of funds are money market funds, bond or fixed income funds, stock or equity funds and hybrid funds. Funds may also be categorized as index or actively managed.
Investors in a mutual fund pay the fund’s expenses, which reduce the fund's returns and performance. There is controversy about the level of these expenses. A single mutual fund may give investors a choice of different combinations of expenses (which may include sales commissions or loads) by offering several different types of share classes.
An investor or investment fund that is from or registered in a country outside of the one in which it is currently investing. Institutional investors include hedge funds, insurance companies, pension funds and mutual funds. The term is used most commonly in India to refer to outside companies investing in the financial markets of India. International institutional investors must register with the Securities and Exchange Board of India to participate in the market. One of the major market regulations pertaining to FIIs involves placing limits on FII ownership in Indian companies.
MUMBAI: Boosted by strong foreign fund buying, BSE sensexand NSE nifty both hit record highs on Wednesday and also closed at new peaks on optimism that the forthcoming Budget on July 10 will aim at fiscal consolidation as the fiscal deficit and inflation are still at higher levels than warranted.
Sensex closed 325 points higher at 25,841 while nifty closed 90 points higher at 7,725, each above their earlier life highs hit about three weeks ago. Buying by foreign funds also helped the rally, dealers said. The day's rally also lifted investors' wealth, measured in terms of BSE's market capitalization to a record peak at Rs 92.2 lakh crore
The government is set to clear a higher limit of foreign direct investment (FDI) in railways and defence but a plan to allow foreign investment in e-commerce has been put on the backburner.
According to the plan, FDI up to 100 per cent would be allowed under the automatic route in railway infrastructure projects. This would also include projects such as high-speed train systems, suburban corridors and dedicated freight line that are executed under public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
"A higher FDI cap of 49 per cent, when read along with the relaxed industrial licensing policy for defence production would give a big fillip to domestic production of defence equipment,” said another official, pointing out that currently, nearly 70 per cent of the country’s defence requirements are imported.
“The proposals for enhancing the FDI cap in railways and defence are likely to be taken up by the Cabinet in the next fortnight or even earlier. The department of industrial policy and promotion is finalising these,” said the official
With data on over 60,000 companies covering 300 years, GFD offers a unique source to analyze the twists and turns of the global economy. Those who use Global Financial Data will take the experiences of the past to minimize the uncertainty of the future.
Markets reflect the fundamentals of the economy and how investors interpret this information in their investment decisions. No other company can provide the rich, diverse history that GFD offers its users. With financial markets all over the world going through unprecedented changes, can you afford to ignore the past?
To understand what financial markets are doing today and where they may go in the future, you have to understand how financial markets have changed over the past 300 years. During the 1600s, Europe began exploring the world and put its finances on a sounder footing. To do this, they established corporations whose stock traded in the world’s three financial centers. GFD has data from London (Bank of England, South Sea Company), Amsterdam (East Indies Company) and Paris (Mississippi Company) from the 1700s including the Great Bubble of 1720.
After the 1720 crash, stocks were quiescent for the next 100 years, but after the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815, the capital used to fund the wars was allocated to canals, railroads and to governments in Europe and South America. Meanwhile, the United States was funding the growth of its economy now that it had gained its independence.
GFD tracks the growth of the European, US and global economies in the 1800s and 1900s for both developing and emerging markets. Starting with canals in the 1810s, railroads in the 1840s, and the global economy in the 1870s, you can study how the bond market and stock markets grew, funding the development of the global economy.
GFD charts the changes in financial markets and the economy in the 1900s as the world went through two world wars, the Great Depression, recovery from World War II, stagflation, the emergence of Asian markets and the internet bubble in the 1990s. The past few years have shown that without a full understanding of the past, you cannot understand how markets behave.
Corporate finance is the area of financedealing with the sources of funding and thecapital structureof corporations and the actions that managers take to increase the valueof the firm to the shareholders, as well as the tools andanalysisused to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is tomaximizeor increaseshareholder value.Although it is in principle different frommanagerial financewhich studies the financial management of all firms, rather thancorporationalone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms.
Investment analysis (or capital budgeting) is concerned with the setting of criteria about which value-adding projects should receive investment funding, and whether to finance that investment with equity or debtcapital.working capitalmanagement is the management of the company's monetary funds that deal with the short-termoperatingbalance ofcurrent assertsand current
liabilites; the focus here is on managing cash, inventories, and short-term borrowing and lending (such as the terms on credit extended to customers).
The terms corporate finance and corporate financier are also associated with investment banking. The typical role of an investment bank is to evaluate the company's financial needs and raise the appropriate type of capital that best fits those needs. Thus, the terms “corporate finance” and “corporate financier” may be associated with transactions in which capital is raised in order to create, develop, grow or acquire businesses.
1.It is a protection against unforeseen personal events, as well as in the wider economy. 2.Transference of family across generation 3.Effects of tax policies on management of personal finance 4.Effect of credit on individual financial standards 5.Planning a secure financial future in an environment of economic stability 6.Personal finance may involve paying for education. 7.It may also involve paying for loans, or debt obligations.
There are six key areas of personal finance:- 1.Financial position 2.Adequate protection 3.Tax planning 4.Investment and accumulation goals 5.Retirement planning 6.Estate planning
Finance is a field is closely related to accounting that deals with the allocation of asserts and liabilities over time under conditions of certainity and uncertainity.
Financial also applies and uses the theories of economics at some level.
"09/07/14 - Around one in seven students in the 13 OECD countries and economies that took part in the first OECD PISA international assessment of financial literacy are unable to make even simple decisions about everyday spending, and only one in ten can solve complex financial tasks.
Some 29,000 15 year-olds in 18 countries and economies took part in the test, which assessed the knowledge and skills of teenagers in dealing with financial issues, such as understanding a bank statement, the long-term cost of a loan or knowing how insurance works." - OECD
The United States ranked 8th out of 17 countries [9th out of 18 if you include the province of Shanghai], just behind Latvia. So what does that really mean?
The PISA Financial Literacy Assessment Framework was released some time ago. A matter of fact, we used it as a resource when finalizing the Ohio Department of Education Financial Literacy Standards. Standards in Ohio exist and are required to be implemented, as they are in 34 additional states. However, Ohio's financial education policy reflects a complex challenge in the United States... standards may exist and are required to be taught, but per Jump$tart, at least 45 states do not mandate a personal finance class to graduate high school. Further, I have yet to find any states who require and pay for teachers to receive financial education content certification.
The PISA financial literacy assessment was administered to a nationally representative sample of students in schools across the United States. Financial education efforts mandated in the United States are broad ranging, if they exist at all. Take for example the financial literacy requirements in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida per the Council for Economic EducationSurvey of the States.
Connecticut - Personal finance standards are not required to be taught; Personal finance is not required to be offered; Personal finance is not required to be taken to graduate; Personal finance testing not required
Massachusetts - Personal finance standards are not required to be taught; Personal finance is not required to be offered; Personal finance is not required to be taken to graduate; Personal finance testing not required
Florida - Personal finance are standards required to be taught; Personal finance is not required to be offered; Personal finance is not required to be taken to graduate; Personal finance testing not required
At the time of testing, Florida, like Ohio, required personal finance standards be taught. However, if standards are not taught by a trained teacher, are not taught as a semester course, and are not tested while other subjects are tested... the commitment schools make to teaching the coursework varies and is usually minimal.
Sadly, students who needed a helping hand the most appear to be our most underserved. As with other PISA assessed subjects, socioeconomics seemed to be one of the key contributing factors. Further, the questions used in the financial literacy assessment are practical and financially consequential. Problems were presented in real life context. PISA assessed students’ ability to apply their knowledge and skills to real-life situations involving financial issues and decisions. For example, students were asked to respond to questions about billing invoices and debt products.
At a time when high stakes standardizing testing is at the forefront of education policymaking, we have to ask ourselves what could be more high stakes for our students than making bad choices that could lead to losing thousands of dollars.
Much is to be considered... How can we adopt legislation that ensures every student receives sufficient financial education instruction? How do we better train our teachers and provide evidence based results? How do we bring parents into the circle? How do we fully utilize synergies between the public and private sectors? How do we look at our standards through the eyes of a behavioral economist and build strong bridges between what students are learning, and how students are behaving? How can we better focus on concepts that yield evidence based results? How can we bring to scale successful in-school banking programs?
One thing is certain, the implementation of financial literacy in our schools is in its infancy stages and there are a lot of passionate educators and leaders who want to do more.
Clearly the expert to follow to learn much more is Annamaria Lusardi (Twitter: @A_Lusardi).
