This book explores whether foreign direct investment (FDI) can contribute to the competitiveness of industries in Central Europe and to narrowing the gap between these transition economies and countries within the European Union. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia have attracted substantial FDI since the beginning of their transition to a market economy. Using exhaustive empirical data, the authors demonstrate that foreign investment enterprises in Central Europe have higher allocative efficiency, promote macro- and microeconomic restructuring and foster the restructuring of the manufacturing sector in accordance with the host countries' comparative advantages. The case of Austria is used to demonstrate the possible benefits of FDI. On the other hand, high foreign penetration leads to the concentration of production and exports and makes the economy more vulnerable to external shocks. In addition, there may be unwelcome pressures on economic policy in order to maintain the country's position as a frequented investment target. However, the analysis in this book suggests that, on the whole, economies in transition can become more competitive more rapidly and more profoundly with the help of foreign direct investment. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international economics, European studies, economies of transition and international business.

Financial institutions, private and public companies and governments can lose vast amounts of money from even minor changes in interest rates. Because of this, complex financial instruments have been developed to mitigate these exposures. But what happens when organisations hedge themselves to ill-advised and ill-formulated financial management strategies? Based on a proven analytical method, Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy explains, step-by-step, how to set up and run a sound interest rate risk strategy. Influenced by the author's work with leading companies and tested with banks, the book will help readers bring risk under control, raise profits and ensure healthy cash flows. Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy: Shows you how to mitigate interest rate risk using the most advanced risk management techniques Provides you with an analytical method that is proven both academically and in practice Uses examples and real life cases to support the transfer of knowledge and skills Interest rate changes will affect most firms because they will have interest bearing assets or liabilities. As a result, interest rate movements have an unfavourable impact and managing interest rate risk can be highly beneficial for the firm. But high-profile derivative blunders show that this is no easy task. In Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy, Victor Macrae shows you how to avoid the mis-selling of derivatives and derivatives blunders and how to set up an optimal interest rate risk strategy. Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy includes: Past derivatives blunders and how you can learn from them A proven analytical method for strategy formulation Hedging theory Bank financing for non-financial firms How movements in the financial markets may affect the firm Financial statement impact of interest rate risk The working and risks of using swaps, FRA's, caps, floors, collars and swaptions 'This is a wonderful and easy to read tour of interest rate risk and its management, and mismanagement. Anyone who wants to better understand why and how non-financial firms should be dealing with interest rate risk should read this book.' Gordon M. Bodnar, Professor on International Finance, Johns Hopkins University 'Macrae's guide is an excellent cookbook for financial managers. With many cases and examples, this book offers guidance in robust risk management techniques.' Abe de Jong, Professor of Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

The most common way of constructing portfolios is to use traditional asset allocation strategies, which match the client s risk appetite to a weighted allocation strategy of fixed income, equities, and other types of assets. This method focuses on how the money is allocated, rather than on future returns.
The Sortino method presents an innovative change from this traditional approach. Rather than using the client s risk as the main factor, this method uses the client s desired return.
Only book to describe the Sortino method and Desired Target Return in a way that enables portfolio managers to adopt the method
Software to implement the portfolio construction method is included free of charge to book buyers on a password protected Elsevier website. Book buyers can use the software to construct portfolios using this method right away, in real time. They can also load in their current portfolios and measure them against these measures.
The Sortino method has been tested over 20 years at the Pension Research Institute. Portfolio managers can be confident of the success of the method, even returns in the economic crisis, in whichthe method has still beaten all S&P benchmarks."

Why do so many smart professional people make bad investments? Why do they often fail to accumulate significant wealth and sometimes make truly disastrous financial decisions? This book offers some answers to these questions. It then provides specific recommendations to help doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, and many other intelligent people avoid serious financial errors and achieve superior investment results. Sensible self-directed investing with long-term compounding of returns and avoidance of all unnecessary fees can produce remarkable accumulations of capital with limited risk. You can choose to be successful as a largely passive investor or as one more seriously involved in making individual investment decisions. This book tells you how to do it. Buying this short volume and then putting its advice into practice may become the most important financial decisions you have ever made. About the author - Joseph D. Schulman is an internationally known physician, medical research scientist, and biomedical entrepreneur. He is also a successful investor. Dr. Schulman is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and of the Executive M.B.A. (OPM) program at Harvard Business School. He lives with his wife, Dixie, in Oxford, MD and Palm Springs, CA.

Industrial houses have, in recent years, begun to favor green products and financial institutions are funneling investible funds to environmentally friendly industries as a priority. Implementation of green policy to support these changes requires economic as well as political support from various influential countries. Success of green policies will inevitably benefit biodiversity and global environmental health. Economic and Political Implications of Green Trading and Energy Use is a scholarly research publication that presents global perspectives on the impact of green financing and accounting on the health of the environment while highlighting issues related to carbon trading, carbon credit, energy use, and energy efficiency and their impact on economic outputs. This reference features a range of topics including environmental policies and sustainable development and is essential for academicians, environmental scientists, policymakers, political scientists, students, and researchers.

In Just 18 Months, Nicolas Darvas Turned $25,000 into Over $2 Million...
This is How He Did It...
...and How You Can Do it Too
With just fifty pounds sterling to his name, at the age of 23, Nicolas Darvas fled his native Hungary using a forged exit visa, to escape the Nazis. A dancer by trade, he toured nightclubs and other venues, making a living as a performer.
While on tour in 1952, a Toronto nightclub offered Darvas $3000 worth of stock in a Canadian mining company, instead of his normal cash payment. He accepted the offer, and within two months, made an $8000 profit.
When this happened, Darvas became very interested in the stock market.
Seeing the potential for easy money in the stock market, but realizing that his initial success was based on luck, over the next several years, Darvas became committed to conquering Wall Street. He read as much as he possibly could about the stock market. He analyzed company balance sheets, studied analyst forecasts, and read dozens of investment newsletters.
This book is the result of that study, including how Darvas used his system to take a $25,000 investment and turn it into a $2.25 million fortune in just 18 months.
Nicolas Darvas wasn't a professional stock trader. He was a dancer. Yet, his unique approach to stock trading, which allowed him to make money regardless of whether the market rose or fell, enabled him to make a fortune.
Will this system work for you? Yes
Unlike most stock trading systems, Darvas' unique strategies work, regardless of the economy or other market conditions. In fact, thanks to modern day analysis tools, his system works as well today as it ever has.
Every day, people make money in the stock market. You can too

Many highly paid investment gurus will insist that successful investing is a function of painfully collected experience, expansive research, skillful market timing, and sophisticated analysis. Others emphasize fundamental research about companies, industries, and markets.

Based on thirty years in the investment industry, I say the ingredients for a successful investment portfolio are stubborn belief in the quality, diversification, growth, and long-term principles from Investments and Management 101. Unlike MBA textbooks, which tend to be more theoretical, Investment Discipline provides more practical insight into what works and what does not, based on my own errors and success and includes recommendations of what to repeat and what to avoid.

Investment Discipline contains no secrets and no magic equations. It discusses the most common mistakes and provides advice on how to avoid these errors in order to become a successful investor. It will guide you in your decisions, from setting up your investment objectives, conducting research, and buying/selling securities to adjusting your portfolio to achieve long-term returns that match your personal objectives.

You will learn how to:

- Define your investment profile and your specific objectives;

- Establish a sustainable investment process based on your objectives;

- Analyze information and perform your own research; and

- Make sound investment decisions.

Famous investment professionals, such as Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, have made mistakes, but they did not repeat them. They held on stubbornly to their investment approach and showed discipline over a long time period, resulting in superior returns. Obviously they were lucky as well; however, they played the numbers right, and over time their performance was better than the performance of their peers.

In Investment Discipline, you will learn how to become a successful, disciplined investor.

Now it can be told! The secrets and insider knowledge of high finance-as the industry stood in 1878-are all revealed here in this curious and now entirely historical work of post-Civil War financial journalism. Discover. . how the New York Stock Exchange operated before the telephone! . what kept the "machinery of speculation" greased . the scheming of 19th-century stockbrokers . the "habits and humors" of the Street at the time . and more!

Neil Woodford was the UK's most celebrated fund manager. Savers who invested GBP1,000 with him in 1988 saw their money increase to GBP25,000 over 25 years. At the peak of his career he was managing GBP33 billion for hundreds of thousands of investors. When he started his own fund management company in 2014, within just a few weeks it had attracted GBP5bn from his loyal fan base, including some of the City of London's biggest hitters. Life was good. Away from work he was collecting high-performance supercars and chunky designer watches; he was rarely out of the saddle of his favourite horse. The BBC called him the "man who can't stop making money". And then it all came to a sudden stop. This book tells the dramatic untold story behind Woodford's stunning rise and fall, and reveals why his multi-billion-pound investment empire really collapsed in such an abrupt and catastrophic manner. In a fast-moving and compelling narrative, reporter David Ricketts takes readers inside the rooms where extraordinary sums of other people's money were wagered, trapped and, ultimately, lost, in a scandal still sending shockwaves through the world of finance. Thanks to unique and unprecedented access to the most important players, we meet an eccentric cast of characters and go inside the institutions involved, from Woodford's own firm to those that made huge sums endorsing him - as well as those who failed to raise the alarm before it was too late.

Foreign Direct Investment in Japan is the first serious and comprehensive examination of why the direct participation of foreign firms in the economy of Japan is lower than in any other advanced industrial nation. An internationally acclaimed group of scholars and practitioners addresses this problem and considers what policy actions, if any, the Japanese government can take to increase direct investment. Foreign exchange controls banned direct investment into Japan until the late 1970s and this is still partially responsible for the low penetration of foreign firms. A fundamental question addressed by the book is whether or not ownership advantages in technology and management know-how possessed by foreign firms are strong enough to overcome the extra costs of doing business in Japan. Such extra costs or locational disadvantages include very high land and labour costs as well as business practices unique to Japan, characterized by the long-term customized transaction relationship among assemblers, component suppliers, distributors and financial institutions and the long-time employment system. Although the Government of Japan desires to invite more foreign firms, this book demonstrates that there are many areas where direct investment has been adversely affected by internal regulation. Foreign Direct Investment in Japan explores this participation of foreign firms in this economy from the perspectives of economic theory, history, and the practical experiences of non-Japanese firms that have attempted to do business directly in Japan.