Kasper's book is the first to explain the why, not just the how, in the valuation of privately held businesses, and as such makes a unique contribution to its field. Among its many points, the book makes clear that there is no small stock premium, current valuation practice produces business valuations that are too subjective, and tax precedents and laws do not govern business valuations for other purposes. A truly multidisciplinary approach to the advanced study of valuation theory and practice, the book critically examines the many common practices and assumptions accepted by certain appraisers and finds them wanting. It is thus an in-depth exploration of the foundation of current valuation practice, and the evidence that supposedly supports or refutes traditional wisdom. With easily grasped numerical examples and case studies from Kasper's wide professional experience, this work is an important source of information, knowledge, and applications for professional and academics alike, not only in accounting and related fields, but also in management, investment, and law.

Kasper begins with a discussion of the most quoted authority in business valuation, Revenue Ruling 59-60. For attorneys, this is probably the single richest source of cross examination material available (and the ruling appears in its entirety in the Appendix). Although Kasper concentrates on developing the conceptual foundations of valuation, he also explores more practical matters and their meanings, such as fair market values, valuations for tax purposes, and trial strategy. Kasper points out that some of the conclusions he offers are controversial, but if the logic underlying them is understood, their truth will soon be apparent. He also argues convincingly that theory is not just for academics, but can be a useful tool to understand how the real world works--and why it often fails.

Financial markets are not predictable, let alone controllable. The one thing traders and investors can control is their trading tactics, where some can have higher probability of profitability than others. This book explains, by using phase analysis, why some of the indicators, and trading tactics would work better than others, and why some indicators and trading tactics would perform poorly. Emphasis is placed on Awesome Oscillator and Accelerator Oscillator, which are based on Simple Moving Average, a popular tool employed by traders. They are then compared to Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD) and MACD Histogram (MACDH), which are based on exponential moving averages. By varying the parameters of MACD and MACDH, one can change the phase or time delay, and possibly make a larger profit. This book is for practitioners, and includes all MATLAB programs used in the book.

The vast majority of published literature dealing with the 2008 financial crisis is written by three kinds of specialists: investment gurus with an exceptional investment track record, financial practitioners, and academicians. Books written by investment gurus provide investors with practical tips of managing money, but they lack key theoretical foundations and over generalize performance. Financial practitioners tend to oversimplify investing, presenting investors with advice that contradicts economic theory and financial history. And academics address these deficiencies but are too abstract; ignore the history of markets; and fail to connect effectively with the average investor.Intelligent Investing in Irrational Markets bridges these gaps by offering readers a unique framework through which investing is both a game of economics and psychology. Mourdoukoutas illustrates how solid investing tactics involve the basic principles of economics, which helps investors identify financial goals and constraints, as well as create optimal strategies for asset and portfolio allocation.

Banking and investment in Mexico have changed radically over the past decade, and the economic events that prompted these changes will have a significant impact on Mexico's role in regional and world financial markets. Adams traces the evolution of Mexico's banking and investment activities, reviews current conditions and their implications for future investment opportunities in Mexico, and makes clear that what happens to Mexico's economy and political stability will have major implications for what happens elsewhere in the world. One of the first books to look at banking and investment in Mexico after the peso crash of 1994-1995, with a highly detailed bibliography and notes, Adams's study will be important reading for international business, finance, and investment professionals and for their colleagues with similar interests throughout the academic community.

The fate of both Mexico and the United States is that the two countries are forever tied by geography. The historical evolution of the dual interaction between the peoples of these two nations is and will be significant for the future of both countries. With this in mind, the book is divided into chapters reviewing such themes as the interaction and historical financial events that transpired during the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the expansion of cross-border financial and investment services, as well as a framework and background review of the events leading up to and resulting from the devaluations of the 1970s and 1980s, and more recently the evolution of the peso crisis of 1994-1995. The imperceptible yet gradual economic integration of the two economies has required time in developing, while not always being seamless in its implementation and transition. American macroeconomic policy has long had a direct impact on the economy of Mexico, as is evidenced by the impact of U.S. interest rates on the financial underpinnings of the Mexican treasury and the banking system to assist with the overall economic growth of the nation. An appreciation for the historically sensitive issues and perspectives, be they nationalization of the oil industry, immigration, or market access for foreign financial services, is paramount to a fuller understanding of doing business on both sides of the border.

Undertakings for the Collective Investment of Transferable Securities (UCITS) involve collective investment funds, which are authorized to market their units among countries within the European Union. The objective of the original UCITS directive was to allow for open-ended funds investing in transferable securities to be subject to the same regulation in every Member State. It was hoped that once such legislative uniformity was established throughout Europe, funds authorized in one Member State could be sold to the public in each Member State without further authorization, thereby furthering the EU's goal of a single market for financial services in Europe. Unfortunately, the reality differed somewhat from the expectation. This insightful work examines the taxation of UCITS in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It analyzes the tax consequences of the cross-border trade in units of UCITS for unitholders residing in the countries examined. It also features recommendations to remove the tax advantages and disadvantages that occur in cross-border trading.

Volatility is very much with us in today's equity markets. Day-to-day price swings are often large and intra-day volatility elevated, especially at market openings and closings. What explains this? What does this say about the quality of our markets? Can short-period volatility be controlled by better market design and a more effective use of electronic technology? Featuring insights from an international array of prominent academics, financial markets experts, policymakers and journalists, the book addresses these and other questions concerning this timely topic. In so doing, we seek deeper knowledge of the dynamic process of price formation, and of the market structure and regulatory environment within which our markets function.

The Zicklin School of Business Financial Markets Series presents the insights emerging from a sequence of conferences hosted by the Zicklin School at Baruch College for industry professionals, regulators, and scholars. Much more than historical documents, the transcripts from the conferences are edited for clarity, perspective and context; material and comments from subsequent interviews with the panelists and speakers are integrated for a complete thematic presentation. Each book is focused on a well delineated topic, but all deliver broader insights into the quality and efficiency of the U.S. equity markets and the dynamic forces changing them.

The book covers topics related to banking regulation and credit risk modelling. The proposed rules are presented and key issues regarding implementation of the accord identified. The model used to calibrate the capital requirements under Basel 2 is analyzed and projected forward to present what could be key new elements in the future Basel 3 regulation. A CD-ROM is included to illustrate regulator models.

This book introduces the reader to the 'world of finance', more exactly to one core activity: investment banking. Analysing the practices of traders, analysts, brokers and bankers it reveals how their contrasting perspectives on shares are put to use and the consequences this has for investment banks, corporations, investors and the stock markets.

Practitioners in risk management are familiar with the use of the FHS (filtered historical simulation) to finding realistic simulations of security returns. This approach has become increasingly popular over the last fifteen years, as it is both flexible and reliable, and is now being accepted in the academic community. Simulating Security Returns is a useful guide for researchers, students, and practitioners. It uses the FHS approach to help simulate the returns of large portfolios of securities. While other simulation methods use the covariance matrix of security returns, which suffers the curse of dimensionality even for modest portfolios, Barone Adesi demonstrates how FHS can accurately adjust to current market conditions.

This book presents 20 peer-reviewed chapters on current aspects of derivatives markets and derivative pricing. The contributions, written by leading researchers in the field as well as experienced authors from the financial industry, present the state of the art in: * Modeling counterparty credit risk: credit valuation adjustment, debit valuation adjustment, funding valuation adjustment, and wrong way risk. * Pricing and hedging in fixed-income markets and multi-curve interest-rate modeling. * Recent developments concerning contingent convertible bonds, the measuring of basis spreads, and the modeling of implied correlations. The recent financial crisis has cast tremendous doubts on the classical view on derivative pricing. Now, counterparty credit risk and liquidity issues are integral aspects of a prudent valuation procedure and the reference interest rates are represented by a multitude of curves according to their different periods and maturities. A panel discussion included in the book (featuring Damiano Brigo, Christian Fries, John Hull, and Daniel Sommer) on the foundations of modeling and pricing in the presence of counterparty credit risk provides intriguing insights on the debate.

This book is a simple and concise text on the subject of security analysis and portfolio management. It is targeted towards those who do not have prior background in finance, and hence the text veers away from rather complicated formulations and discussions. The course 'Security Analysis and Portfolio Management' is usually taught as an elective for students specialising in financial management, and the authors have an experience of teaching this course for more than two decades. The book contains real empirical evidence and examples in terms of returns, risk and price multiples from the Indian equity markets (over the past two decades) that are a result of the analysis undertaken by the authors themselves. This empirical evidence and analysis help the reader in understanding basic concepts through real data of the Indian stock market. To drive home concepts, each chapter has many illustrations and case-lets citing real-life examples and sections called 'points to ponder' to encourage independent thinking and critical examination. For practice, each chapter has many numericals, questions, and assignments

In light of recent financial crises, the role of investment funds is a recurring subject for discussion. In the past, crises used to be limited to singular markets or specific asset classes. In today's crises, many different asset classes are affected simultaneously and globally. Given this new context, our traditional methods must be adapted with the overall objective to strengthen the scientific knowledge of investment funds. The aim of this book is to provide new insights, ideas and empirical evidence that will improve tools and methods at our disposal for fund performance analysis. This book proposes a number of topics that are current of interest: two portfolio optimization models with a multi-fractal approach and a dynamic approach using risk aversion signals; an alternative benchmark for mutual funds, a fuzzy approach to estimate performance measures, a symbolic data approach to compare fund rating systems and various risk management aspects of investment funds linked to risk performance indicators.

Getting organizations going is one thing. Stopping them is another. This book examines how and why organizations become trapped in disastrous decisions. The focal point is Project Taurus, an IT venture commissioned by the London Stock Exchange and supported by numerous City Institutions. Taurus was intended to transform London's antiquated manual share settlement procedures into a state of the art electronic system that would be the envy of the world. The project collapsed after three year's intensive work and investments totalling almost GBP500 million. This book is an in depth study of escalation in decision making. The author has interviewed a number of people who played a key role and presents a most readable account of what actually happened. At the same time she sets the case in the broader literature of decision making.

Securitization is widely used around the world, and structured products are one of the largest fixed-income asset classes. This textbook guides readers through the complexity of this financial technique and first introduces them to the mechanics of securitization and makes the key concepts, techniques and logic of this field accessible for teachers and students alike. Further, the textbook presents a systematic economic analysis of securitization, asking and answering why it exists, how it works, why it has failed, how complex structures operate, why they are so complex, and many other related questions. The author offers a unique approach, and combines detailed discussions of theoretical economics models with advanced empirical research in order to confront them to the perspective of an experienced practitioner in this market.

This innovative book analyses the role and importance of investment in knowledge and fixed capital as two distinct sources of technological change. It provides a balance to most of the recent literature on technological change, which focuses almost exclusively on R&D and intangible investment in innovation and technological assets. The author shows how innovative investment in fixed capital still represents a central part of innovation in firms. The book begins by reviewing the major economic approaches to technology and innovation. It discusses the progressive shift from capital (embodied) investment to disembodied investment including R&D and design. Using one of the most extensive data sources, Rinaldo Evangelista empirically tests whether disembodied technological activities are more important than traditional investment in productive capital. Perhaps surprisingly, the evidence suggests that fixed productive capital emerges as the most relevant and widespread source of investment in innovation across firms and industrial sectors. The author concludes that even in high-tech industries embodied and disembodied technological activities are complementary rather than substitutive. This book will be welcomed by those interested in technological and innovation studies, industrial organization and business strategy.

It's not hard to understand why options trading continues to grow in popularity, especially among sophisticated investors with large stock portfolios. Options are a cheaper and therefore, inherently less risky way of speculating on the price movements of stocks or other under-lying goods, yet, due to their volatility, they provide more price action per dollar than do stocks. And, when traded in conjunction with stock portfolios, options can significantly enhance an investor's ability to manipulate the risk and return characteristics of their entire investment. Yet, despite these and other advantages of options, many investors shy away from this highly lucrative type of speculation because of the seeming impenetrability of many of its underlying concepts and technical principles.
Now in a book that demystifies options for financial professionals, Professor Robert W. Kolb, one of the nation's leading authorities on the subject, provides readers with a solid grounding in the principles and practices of options trading. An excellent resource for investors who need to quickly get up to speed in options, Understanding Options offers a balanced presentation that builds swiftly from the most basic concepts and terms to advanced trading strategies and techniques. Written in plain English and filled with real-life examples and case studies, it schools readers in:
* All essential terms, concepts, principles, and practices
* Popular trading techniques and their payoffs
* Option strategies
* Option hedging
* Formal trading models, including the Binomial and Merton models
* Options on stock indexes, foreign currency, and futures
* Option pricing in both the American and European markets
* The options approach to corporate securities
* And much more

Concise yet comprehensive, authoritative yet highly accessible, Understanding Options gives you everything you need to feel right at home in the lucrative world of options.
Comprehensive, practical, authoritative--the fastest, most accessible route to the lucrative world of options
From the basics of what an option is to advanced techniques for profiting from options in a variety of markets, Understanding Options covers all the bases. Written by a leading international authority on options trading, this practical, hands-on guide offers detailed, step-by-step coverage of option trading techniques and their payoffs, option strategies, European and American option pricing, option hedging, and much more. It also explores options on stock indexes, foreign currency, and futures, and takes a close look at the options approach to corporate securities.
A concise, yet comprehensive, introduction to options for financial professionals
* Gets you quickly up and running with all the essential knowledge you need to break into the options markets
* Featuring a balanced presentation that moves swiftly from basic terms and concepts to advanced trading models
* Packed with easy-to-follow examples and case studies that lucidly illustrate all points covered

Financial education offers definite and profitable rewards.

Numerous readers of "GOLD AHEAD" have reported unexpected and valuable results from things learned which they had the opportunity to use at once to their financial betterment.

Such results are important. They show that the clearer our insight, the better we take advantage of our opportunities. But, after all, far greater results will come later. Such knowledge can be carried through life always available to help promote the owner's financial welfare.

Plans of study recommended for self development groups, school and college classes, families and individuals follow. A detailed study of each tale with the questions prepared for this purpose is recommended.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's) are a relatively new open- ended investment vehicle. Launched in 1993, their appeal as an important and unique financial product has compelled institutional and retail investors to look anew at their almost endless possibilities. This has led to their dramatic expansion. Meziani draws from his academic and corporate expertise to straddle both theory and practice. Using this book, practitioners, academics and students alike will find a thorough explanation of the theoretical ideas underlying ETF's, along with their detailed analysis, communicated in practical and clear terms.

With the fast pace of communications and change in today's global marketplace, investing in equities has become increasingly complex. Communicating a clear, concise, meaningful message to investors is critical. Dr. Higgins and his contributing authors provide a broad set of perspectives, lessons learned, and best practices in global investor relations. They examine the fundamentals of investor relations from a theoretical and practical perspective. They explore individual company strategies and challenges for investor relations in unique and meaningful situations--all from their own vantages and experiences at six topflight corporations with world-class investor relations organizations: AT&T, Schering-Plough, BASF, Reuters, Sony, and Toyota. Readers will get detailed pragmatic insights into the way IR is done in these important, highly visible corporations, plus the results of a unique five-year study of global strategy communications, complete with ideas and concepts they can use immediately in developing and influencing investor relations in their own organizations.

But Higgins' book is more than a collection of company studies. Impinging upon the strategic and financial communications of virtually every global corporation are institutional, market, and technological forces that are shaping the current practice of investor relations. The book examines these forces and their impact on strategic financial communications. It also explores the theoretical and empirical foundations underlying the practice of investor relations and presents a conceptual model--a strategic perspective--for viewing and analyzing best practices. In addition, the book presents the results of a recent survey of global investor relations practices in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Japan, plus two new studies of the latest communication technologies in U.S. companies.