Monday, December 23, 2019

The Battle for Capital of US Equities and Bond Yields

US Equities and Bond Yields: No Longer Positively Correlated The sheer severity of the financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession unleashed savage deflationary forces on the world economy. The Fed’s adoption of quantitative easing was partly aimed at alleviating upward pressure on real interest rates due to declining inflationary expectations. Hitherto, the prospect of rising inflationary expectations has, for the most part, not been a major concern for either the Fed or investors. This may now be changing with the apparent breaking down of the condition known as â€Å"Gibson’s Paradox.† Gibson’s Paradox originally referred to the positive relationship between interest rates and the general price level outlined by Alfred Gibson in The Banker magazine (1923). Gibson’s findings ran counter to the general prevailing views amongst economists, with the notable exception of John Maynard Keynes. Subsequent empirical work by Keynes showed no relationship between the level of interest rates and the rate of change in prices. The concept of Gibson’s Paradox has been applied to explain periods of financial history where equity prices and bond yields have displayed a positive correlation. Since 1997, the correlation between US equity prices and bond yields has been positive, largely reflecting a deflationary economic backdrop. Gibson’s Paradox exhibited signs of breaking down in 2013. The correlation between US equity prices and bond yields has now gone negative. Does this indicateShow MoreRelatedEquity And Bonds Returns : The End Of A Golden Era? Essa y1776 Words   |  8 PagesEquity and Bonds Returns: The End of a Golden Era? Despite numerous periods of global financial excesses, and subsequent corrections, over the past 30 years, the returns on equities and bonds in the US and Europe have been considerably above their long-term averages. The outperformance has been most pronounced in long-dated government bonds. The average annual real return on these instruments between 1985 and 2014 was +5.0% in the US and +5.9% in Europe, compared to long-run returns of +1.7% andRead MoreEquity And Bond Returns : The End Of A Golden Era? Essay1779 Words   |  8 PagesEquity and Bond Returns: The End of a Golden Era? Despite numerous periods of global financial excesses, and subsequent corrections, over the past 30 years, the returns on equities and bonds in the US and Europe have been considerably above their long-term (100 year) averages. The outperformance has been most pronounced in long-dated government bonds. The average annual real return on these instruments between 1985 and 2014 was +5.0% in the US and +5.9% in Europe, compared to long-run returns ofRead MoreImf Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard1323 Words   |  6 Pagesan environment of contracting private sector demand and reduction in debt can result in lower multipliers, as the government cannot fully offset the fall in private economic activity. As the global economy stagnated, weak countries were targeted by bond vigilantes, making it difficult to finance and forcing up their financing costs. Nations were focused to implement austerity programs, cutting spending and increasing taxes to stabilise public finances and reduce debt, trapping them in recessions orRead MoreThe case of Polaroid in 1996.2773 Words   |  12 Pagesits success of the early 1970s, in the mid-1990s the company is found on the verge of bankruptcy. Its new CEO Di Camillo is facing a very large debt, which is due to mature in six years. 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I extended these estimates to 1986. 2 M. C. Jensen 3 1987 managers, employees and others, and mistakes in valuation by inefficient capital markets. Since the benefits are illusory and the costs are real, they argue, takeover activity should be restricted. The controversy has been accompanied by strong pressure on regulators and legislatures to enact restrictions to curb activity in theRead MoreStock Valuation5848 Words   |  24 PagesLECTURE STOCK VALUATION 1. Common stock valuation A share of common stock is more difficult to value in practice than a bond, for at least three reasons. First, with common stock, not even the promised cash flows are known in a advance. Second, the life of the investment is essentially forever, since common stock has no maturity. Third, there is no way to easily observe the rate of return that the market requires. Nonetheless, as we will see, there are cases in which we can come up withRead MoreEssay on Solution Manual-Investment22189 Words   |  89 PagesConcept Questions 1. For both risk and return, increasing order is b, c, a, d. On average, the higher the risk of an investment, the higher is its expected return. 2. Since the price didn’t change, the capital gains yield was zero. If the total return was four percent, then the dividend yield must be four percent. 3. It is impossible to lose more than –100 percent of your investment. Therefore, return distributions are cut off on the lower tail at –100 percent; if returns were truly normally

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Case Closed A short Story Free Essays

Jackie dropped her blue fountain pen and relaxed her aching wrist. She had been reading and adding to the notes of her client’s case for the last two hours. It was taking place the next day and she hadn’t even read halfway through yet. We will write a custom essay sample on Case Closed: A short Story or any similar topic only for you Order Now Laying back in the comfy black office chair she let out a long yawn and stretched out her legs under the desk. Her neck and back were as stiff as a board and she let out a low moan as she turned her head from side to side. Jackie loved her job as a lawyer. Eating, sleeping and drinking her work she would often receive criticism telling her that there was more to life than just work and that you where supposed to work to live not live to work. She was so bored of hearing it. That’s why she lived alone, she was able to get on with extra work and block people out. She knew that they just didn’t understand how passionate she was about her job. Well for most aspects of it. She hated doing all the written work and the notes on the cases. After hours of relentless writing, her skinny arm felt as if it was about to drop off. She slowly unhinged her sore arms and stretched up towards the ceiling letting out another deep yawn. She new she would need motivation if she was going to continue with her work. She rose from her warm, moulded seat and dragged herself over to her immaculate, open plan kitchen. Although Jackie’s job took up most of her life she had always been a bit of a clean freak. She couldn’t bear the sight of untidiness and she always found herself putting things away and cleaning up. Her indolent arms reached up to the wooden shelf and she grabbed a wine glass. Filling the glass up to the brim Jackie took a long gulp and returned back to her study. As she sat back down in her cosy chair she was disturbed by the irritating ring of her telephone. Sighing and reluctantly getting up again, she walked across the room to the phone and clearing her sore throat she picked it up. â€Å"Hello?† No answer. â€Å"Hello?† she repeated herself rolling her exhausted eyes. Still silence. Slamming the phone down she returned back to her desk feeling annoyed that someone had disturbed her. She took another sip of her wine and unwillingly picked up her fountain pen again. Jackie sat in her warm office in deep concentration. She had no longer sat down that she was bothered again. But this time it wasn’t her annoying telephone. The noise that filled her ears made her jump out of her skin. It sounded like a lost soul shrieking from the depths of hell. It was her car alarm. Jackie strided through the narrow hallway and wrenched open the front door causing a gust of icy wind to hit her and enter the house. She cautiously walked down the footpath, biting her dry lips, her once warm feet slapping against the smooth glacial pavement. Pushing her tangled curly hair out of her face she bent down and checked underneath her car. Nothing. She glanced across the drive and not wanting to catch a cold for her big day tomorrow she hopped back up the footpath and back into her heated house. Turning the heating up on the wall she returned back to her work filled desk. She picked up her glass and stopped. The glass that she had left on the desk to go and investigate her car alarm going off had been half full. Now it was empty. She stood up, heart racing and stared around the room. She looked back at the glass suspiciously and rubbed her weary eyes. â€Å"I’m going mad† she muttered to herself. Jackie tried to dismiss that somebody had drank from her glass but she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact she was sure she hadn’t drank it all. She glided over to the front door and pulled across the top lock. She felt slightly easier and safer now. Positioning herself in her chair she went to begin her work. Again she stopped. Her fountain pen that she always kept on top of the mountainous piles of work had gone. Puzzled, Jackie began moving her papers out of the way and searching the whole desk work top for the pen. Giving up and becoming very stressed out because of all her disturbances she furiously got up again and went in search of another pen. She stomped in to the kitchen opened the white sliding draw looking for a biro or something of that sort that she could carry on scrawling her notes with. With no look she slammed the drawer shut and spun back around to have a look in the sitting room. She froze. There was her fountain pen propped up against her porcelain vase on the corner table. The hairs on the back of Jackie’s neck stood up. She was positive she hadn’t even been in the sitting room all night. She attentively moved across the room towards the pen. When she got there she stopped for a moment and just looked at it, it had been balanced against the vase. She was so bewildered that her heart started to race. She heard a deep breathing sound coming behind her. She couldn’t move as her legs had gone numb with terror. Slowly she turned her head but before she could catch sight of her intruder she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. Jackie fell forward knocking over the vase and hitting her face against the solid wall. She fell to the floor in a state of shock. The stranger dragged Jackie up by her long, blood-soaked hair. Without thinking she grabbed the man’s thick, hairy arm and sunk her teeth deep into his flesh. His grip loosened on her hair and she stumbled across the room falling against her desk. Hitting the floor again Jackie began to crawl towards the door in hope to get away from the attacker. She lunged for the handle and tried to turn it. It didn’t move. She remembered she had locked it minutes before. Frantically trying to unlock it she could hear him breathing behind her. The lock clicked open but it was too late. She felt another piercing blow to her head, then darkness. Jackie woke up with a start. The pain in her head was unbearable. She was trying to catch her breath but she couldn’t, her lungs felt as if they were about to explode. She attempted to sit up, but hit her head on what seemed like a wooden surface that was inches in front of her face. She was terrified; she needed to know where she was. She hated not being in control of situations. She tried to move her arms. They were pressed tightly to her sides. She was in some sort of box. She let out a long, high pitched scream. Little did she know that there was no chance any living person would ever hear her. How to cite Case Closed: A short Story, Papers

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Effects of Temperature on Cell Membranes free essay sample

Cut each core into 2 cm sections until you have enough for one core for each temperature of water bath that you will be using. Put your 2 cm sections into a test tube with plenty of distilled water. b. Label a set of test tubes (one for each temperature of water bath) with the temperature and your initials. Add exactly 5 cm3 of distilled water to each test tube and place your tubes, one in each water bath, for 5 minutes to equilibrate to the temperature of the water bath. c. Remove your beetroot cores from the distilled water and blot gently on a paper towel. Decide whether forceps or mounted needles are best for handling the tissue and what damage this might cause to the cores. d. Place one 2 cm beetroot core into each of your test tubes and leave in the water bath for 30 minutes. e. After 30 minutes, shake the test tubes gently to make sure any pigment is well-mixed into the water, then remove the beetroot cores. We will write a custom essay sample on Effects of Temperature on Cell Membranes or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page f. Describe the depth of colour in each test tube. A piece of white card behind the tubes will make this easier to see. Arrange the tubes in order of temperature of the water bath. Describe any relationship between the amount of pigment released from the beetroot and the temperature. g. If you have access to a colorimeter, set it to respond to a blue/ green filter (or wavelength of 530 nm) and note whether you are measuring absorbance or transmission. Check the colorimeter reading for distilled water. h. Note the results for each tube and plot a graph of absorbance (or transmission) against temperature. Describe any trends or patterns in your results. QUESTIONS 1. Describe what happens when you trim the beetroot cores and place the 2 cm sections in distilled water. Use what you know of plant tissue structure to explain this observation. What does it tell you about where the pigment is located in the plant cells? Make a hypothesis about the effect of temperature on the plant cells and predict the amount of betalain that will leak from the cells at different temperatures. 2. Evaluate the method for this investigation. Think about which factors have been controlled to make it a fair test. Consider whether any factor other than temperature could be responsible for the colour leaking from the beetroot cores. Do you think this experiment will give you valid results? Describe how you could improve the experiment to give more reliable (or more valid) results. 3. What is the relationship between the amount of pigment released from the beetroot and the temperature? 4. Plan an investigation to investigate why handling raw red cabbage does not stain your fingers very much, but handling pickled cabbage does. ANSWERS 1. Dark purple pigment leaks from the cut ends of the beetroot for a while and then stops. Plant cells are surrounded by cellulose cell walls. When you cut through a piece of plant tissue, you cut through some of the cell walls and rupture the cell contents. The pigment then leaks out. The fact that it does not continue to leak suggests that further cells are not being damaged. If the beetroot tissue is treated with increasing temperatures, as the temperature rises, the phospholipid bilayer of the cell-surface membrane and the vacuole membrane will be disrupted. This means that the vacuole contents will more readily leak into the water in the test tube. The higher the temperature, the greater the disruption to the plasma membranes and the more pigment will leak out in 30 minutes. 2. The factors controlled in this test are the ones that are the same from one group to another – the size of the beetroot cores (their surface area and volume), the advance treatment of the beetroot cores, the volume of water in the test tubes, the pre-heating (or chilling) of the water in the test tubes using the water baths, the length of time the cores spend in the water baths, the treatment of the cores after heating. The experiment could be made more reliable by using more samples of beetroot, and by maintaining the temperature with thermostatically-controlled water baths. 3. The higher the temperature, the greater the amount of pigment released from the tissues.