Managed by the Markets

Managed by the Markets

Author: Gerald F. Davis

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2009-03-26

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0191607584

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The current economic crisis reveals just how central finance has become to American life. Problems with obscure securities created on Wall Street radiated outward to threaten the retirement security of pensioners in Florida and Arizona, the homes and college savings of families in Detroit and Southern California, and ultimately the global economy itself. The American government took on vast new debt to bail out the financial system, while the government-owned investment funds of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, and China bought up much of what was left of Wall Street. How did we get into this mess, and what does it all mean? Managed by the Markets explains how finance replaced manufacturing at the center of the American economy and how its influence has seeped into daily life. From corporations operated to create shareholder value, to banks that became portals to financial markets, to governments seeking to regulate or profit from footloose capital, to households with savings, pensions, and mortgages that rise and fall with the market, life in post-industrial America is tied to finance to an unprecedented degree. Managed by the Markets provides a guide to how we got here and unpacks the consequences of linking the well-being of society too closely to financial markets.


Managing Downside Risk in Financial Markets

Managing Downside Risk in Financial Markets

Author: Frank A. Sortino

Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann

Published: 2001-10-02

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780750648639

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Quantitative methods have revolutionized the area of trading, regulation, risk management, portfolio construction, asset pricing and treasury activities, and governmental activity such as central banking to name but some of the applications. Downside-risk, as a quantitative method, is an accurate measurement of investment risk, because it captures the risk of not accomplishing the investor's goal. 'Downside Risk in Financial Markets' demonstrates how downside-risk can produce better results in performance measurement and asset allocation than variance modelling. Theory, as well as the practical issues involved in its implementation, is covered and the arguments put forward emphatically show the superiority of downside risk models to variance models in terms of risk measurement and decision making. Variance considers all uncertainty to be risky. Downside-risk only considers returns below that needed to accomplish the investor's goal, to be risky. Risk is one of the biggest issues facing the financial markets today. 'Downside Risk in Financial Markets' outlines the major issues for Investment Managers and focuses on "downside-risk" as a key activity in managing risk in investment/portfolio management. Managing risk is now THE paramount topic within the financial sector and recurring losses through the 1990s has shocked financial institutions into placing much greater emphasis on risk management and control. Free Software Enclosed To help you implement the knowledge you will gain from reading this book, a CD is enclosed that contains free software programs that were previously only available to institutional investors under special licensing agreement to The pension Research Institute. This is our contribution to the advancement of professionalism in portfolio management. The Forsey-Sortino model is an executable program that: 1. Runs on any PC without the need of any additional software. 2. Uses the bootstrap procedure developed by Dr. Bradley Effron at Stanford University to uncover what could have happened, instead of relying only on what did happen in the past. This is the best procedure we know of for describing the nature of uncertainty in financial markets. 3. Fits a three parameter lognormal distribution to the bootstrapped data to allow downside risk to be calculated from a continuous distribution. This improves the efficacy of the downside risk estimates. 4. Calculates upside potential and downside risk from monthly returns on any portfolio manager. 5. Calculates upside potential and downside risk from any user defined distribution. Forsey-Sortino Source Code: 1. The source code, written in Visual Basic 5.0, is provided for institutional investors who want to add these calculations to their existing financial services. 2. No royalties are required for this source code, providing institutions inform clients of the source of these calculations. A growing number of services are now calculating downside risk in a manner that we are not comfortable with. Therefore, we want investors to know when downside risk and upside potential are calculated in accordance with the methodology described in this book. Riddles Spreadsheet: 1. Neil Riddles, former Senior Vice President and Director of Performance Analysis at Templeton Global Advisors, now COO at Hansberger Global Advisors Inc., offers a free spreadsheet in excel format. 2. The spreadsheet calculates downside risk and upside potential relative to the returns on an index Brings together a range of relevant material, not currently available in a single volume source. Provides practical information on how financial organisations can use downside risk techniques and technological developments to effectively manage risk in their portfolio management. Provides a rigorous theoretical underpinning for the use of downside risk techniques. This is important for the long-run acceptance of the methodology, since such arguments justify consultant's recommendations to pension funds and other plan sponsors.


Guide to Financial Markets

Guide to Financial Markets

Author: Marc Levinson

Publisher: The Economist

Published: 2018-07-24

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1541742516

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The revised and updated 7th edition of this highly regarded book brings the reader right up to speed with the latest financial market developments, and provides a clear and incisive guide to a complex world that even those who work in it often find hard to understand. In chapters on the markets that deal with money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options and other derivatives, the book examines why these markets exist, how they work, and who trades in them, and gives a run-down of the factors that affect prices and rates. Business history is littered with disasters that occurred because people involved their firms with financial instruments they didn't properly understand. If they had had this book they might have avoided their mistakes. For anyone wishing to understand financial markets, there is no better guide.


Managed by the Markets

Managed by the Markets

Author: Gerald F. Davis

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-03-26

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0199216614

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The turbulence of the stock market and the housing market in the early years of the 21st century have demonstrated the dangers of tying society too closely to financial markets. Managed by the Markets provides a guide to how we got here and unpacks the consequences of linking the well-being of society too closely to financial markets.


Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share

Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share

Author: Hermann Simon

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781591395263

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How do companies in mature markets--where savings from cost-cutting have been exhausted and breakthrough innovations are hard to come by--achieve sustainable increases in profits? For decades, managers have been told the answer lies in pursuing high market share. But Hermann Simon, Frank F. Bilstein, and Frank Luby argue that this misguided advice has destroyed, rather than created, an additional profit potential. In Manage for Profit, Not for Share, the authors contend that companies can extract a profit potential of 1%-3 % of revenue by pursuing a profit, rather than a market share, orientation. Based on their extensive consulting work, the authors lay out a practical, proven program for making significantly more money by reconfiguring the marketing mix to sell existing products and services in different ways. The book offers practical strategies managers can use to differentiate mature products, raise prices effectively, time promotional activities properly, better understand consumer preferences, and more. A convincing counterargument to the reigning market share dogma, this book outlines the new mind-set and tools managers will need to bring their companies closer to peak profit performance.


Money, Markets, and Sovereignty

Money, Markets, and Sovereignty

Author: Benn Steil

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2009-04-01

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0300156146

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Winner of the 2010 Hayek Book Prize given by the Manhattan Institute "Money, Markets and Sovereignty is a surprisingly easy read, given the complicated issues covered. In it, Mr. Steil and Mr. Hinds consistently challenge today's statist nostrums."—Doug Bandow, The Washington Times In this keenly argued book, Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds offer the most powerful defense of economic liberalism since F. A. Hayek published The Road to Serfdom more than sixty years ago. The authors present a fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present and explore why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization. Steil and Hinds describe the current state of international economic relations as both unusual and precarious. Eras of economic protectionism have historically coincided with monetary nationalism, while eras of liberal trade have been accompanied by a universal monetary standard. But today, the authors show, an unprecedentedly liberal global trade regime operates side by side with the most extreme doctrine of monetary nationalism ever contrived—a situation bound to trigger periodic crises. Steil and Hinds call for a revival of the political and economic thinking that underlay earlier great periods of globalization, thinking that is increasingly under threat by more recent ideas about what sovereignty means.


Capital Markets, Fifth Edition

Capital Markets, Fifth Edition

Author: Frank J. Fabozzi

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2015-10-23

Total Pages: 1087

ISBN-13: 0262029480

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The substantially revised fifth edition of a textbook covering the wide range of instruments available in financial markets, with a new emphasis on risk management. Over the last fifty years, an extensive array of instruments for financing, investing, and controlling risk has become available in financial markets, with demand for these innovations driven by the needs of investors and borrowers. The recent financial crisis offered painful lessons on the consequences of ignoring the risks associated with new financial products and strategies. This substantially revised fifth edition of a widely used text covers financial product innovation with a new emphasis on risk management and regulatory reform. Chapters from the previous edition have been updated, and new chapters cover material that reflects recent developments in financial markets. The book begins with an introduction to financial markets, offering a new chapter that provides an overview of risk—including the key elements of financial risk management and the identification and quantification of risk. The book then covers market participants, including a new chapter on collective investment products managed by asset management firms; the basics of cash and derivatives markets, with new coverage of financial derivatives and securitization; theories of risk and return, with a new chapter on return distributions and risk measures; the structure of interest rates and the pricing of debt obligations; equity markets; debt markets, including chapters on money market instruments, municipal securities, and credit sensitive securitized products; and advanced coverage of derivative markets. Each chapter ends with a review of key points and questions based on the material covered.


Framing Finance

Framing Finance

Author: Alex Preda

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0226679330

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As the banking crisis and its effects on the world economy have made plain, the stock market is of colossal importance to our livelihoods. In Framing Finance, Alex Preda looks at the history of the market to figure out how we arrived at a point where investing is not only commonplace, but critical, as market fluctuations threaten our plans to send our children to college or retire comfortably. As Preda discovers through extensive research, the public was once much more skeptical. For investing to become accepted, a deep-seated prejudice against speculation had to be overcome, and Preda reveals that over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries groups associated with stock exchanges in New York, London, and Paris managed to redefine finance as a scientific pursuit grounded in observational technology. But Preda also notes that as the financial data in which they trafficked became ever more difficult to understand, charismatic speculators emerged whose manipulations of the market undermined the benefits of widespread investment. And so, Framing Finance ends with an eye on the future, proposing a system of public financial education to counter the irrational elements that still animate the appeal of finance.


Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets

Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets

Author: Investor's Business Daily

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 1996-10-22

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9780471154822

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From the Foreword by Charles Schwab "The Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets is. . .clear,concise, innovative, and authoritative, giving you the informationyou need to make important investment decisions with confidence.Whether you're a new or experienced investor, you'll learn a greatdeal from this book. What a pleasure it is to discover a book thattells it like it is with no hidden agendas. It's sure to pay youdividends and capital gains again and again in the yearsahead." "Before investing in the markets, you should invest in this book."--Alice Kane Executive Vice President, New York Life InsuranceCompany "Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets is thequintessential guide for anyone interested in gaining insight andhelpful information about the financial markets." --Louis G.Navellier, President, Navellier & Associates Inc., Editor, MPTReview. "A great book for people who want to understand the markets. Don'tmiss this comprehensive roundup--the mutual funds chapter alone isworth the price of the book." --James M. Benham, Chairman of theBoard, Benham Funds. "Developing an investment portfolio is like building a house: youmust start with a solid foundation. This book gives you theinvestment foundation you need. Buy it before you put anotherdollar in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds."--Ted Allrich. author,The Online Investor "The On-line Investor" (America Online). "Bill O'Neil, for years the unheralded hero of institutionalinvestors worldwide, began offering his expertise to the individualinvestor over ten years ago through Investor's Business Dailynewspaper. Now his Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Marketstakes the next step for investors by putting basic financialinformation into meaningful terms and useful strategies. This is a'must read' for all investors --big and small." --Richard W.Perkins, CFA, President and Portfolio Manager, Perkins CapitalManagement, Inc.


Financial Markets Operations Management

Financial Markets Operations Management

Author: Keith Dickinson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-01-20

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 1118843908

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A comprehensive text on financial market operations management Financial Market Operations Management offers anyone involved with administering, maintaining, and improving the IT systems within financial institutions a comprehensive text that covers all the essential information for managing operations. Written by Keith Dickinson—an expert on the topic—the book is comprehensive, practical, and covers the five essential areas of operations and management including participation and infrastructure, trade life cycle, asset servicing, technology, and the regulatory environment. This comprehensive guide also covers the limitations and boundaries of operational systems and focuses on their interaction with external parties including clients, counterparties, exchanges, and more. This essential resource reviews the key aspects of operations management in detail, including an examination of the entire trade life cycle, new issue distribution of bonds and equities, securities financing, as well as corporate actions, accounting, and reconciliations. The author highlights specific operational processes and challenges and includes vital formulae, spreadsheet applications, and exhibits. Offers a comprehensive resource for operational staff in financial services Covers the key aspects of operations management Highlights operational processes and challenges Includes an instructors manual, a test bank, and a solution manual This vital resource contains the information, processes, and illustrative examples needed for a clear understanding of financial market operations.