Managed by the Markets

Managed by the Markets
Author: Gerald F. Davis
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009-03-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191607584

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.

Can Financial Markets be Controlled?

Can Financial Markets be Controlled?
Author: Howard Davies
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2015-03-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745688322

The Global Financial Crisis overturned decades of received wisdomon how financial markets work, and how best to keep them in check.Since then a wave of reform and re-regulation has crashed overbanks and markets. Financial firms are regulated as neverbefore. But have these measures been successful, and do they go farenough? In this smart new polemic, former central banker andfinancial regulator, Howard Davies, responds with a resounding‘no’. The problems at the heart of the financial crisisremain. There is still no effective co-ordination of internationalmonetary policy. The financial sector is still too big and,far from protecting the economy and the tax payer, recentgovernment legislation is exposing both to even greater risk. To address these key challenges, Davies offers a radicalalternative manifesto of reforms to restore market discipline andcreate a safer economic future for us all.

Managing Downside Risk in Financial Markets

Managing Downside Risk in Financial Markets
Author: Frank A. Sortino
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2001-10-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780750648639

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
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2018-07-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1541742516

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
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2009-03-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199216614

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.

Money, Markets, and Sovereignty

Money, Markets, and Sovereignty
Author: Benn Steil
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2009-04-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300156146

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.

Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share

Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share
Author: Hermann Simon
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781591395263

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.

Managing Financial Institutions

Managing Financial Institutions
Author: Elizabeth Cooperman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 495
Release: 2016-12-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317480147

This book goes beyond traditional financial institutions textbooks, which tend to focus on mathematical models for risk management and the technical aspects of measuring and managing risk. It focuses on the role of financial institutions in promoting social and economic goals for the communities in which they operate for the greater good, while also meeting financial and competitive challenges, and managing risks. Cooperman divides the text into seven easily teachable modules that examine the real issues and challenges that managers of financial institutions face. These include the transformative changes presented by social unrest, climate change and resource challenges, as well as the changes in how financial institutions operate in light of the opportunities that rapid innovations and disruptive technologies offer. The book features: Up-to-date coverage of new regulations affecting financial institutions, such as Dodd Frank and new SEC regulations. Material on project financing and new forms of financing, including crowd funding and new methods of payment for financial institutions. New sustainable finance models and strategies that incorporate environmental, social, and corporate governance considerations. A new chapter on sustainable financial institutions, social activism, the greening of finance, and socially responsible investing. Practical cases focusing on sustainability give readers insight into the socioeconomic risks associated with climate change. Streamlined and accessible, Managing Financial Institutions will appeal to students of financial institutions and markets, risk management, and banking. A companion website, featuring PowerPoint slides, an Instructor’s Manual, and additional cases, is also available.

Capital Markets, Fifth Edition

Capital Markets, Fifth Edition
Author: Frank J. Fabozzi
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 1087
Release: 2015-10-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262029480

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.