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Finances
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of financial economics bridges the two). Finance activities take place in financial systems at various scopes, thus the field can be roughly divided into personal, corporate, and public finance. In a financial system, assets are bought, sold, or traded as financial instruments, such as currencies, loans, bonds, shares, stocks, options, futures, etc. Assets can also be banked, invested, and insured to maximize value and minimize loss. In practice, risks are always present in any financial action and entities. A broad range of subfields within finance exist due to its wide scope. Asset, money, risk and investment management aim to maximize value and minimize volatility. Financial analysis is viability, stability, and profitability assessmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Finance
Personal finance is the financial management which an individual or a family unit performs to budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events. When planning personal finances, the individual would consider the suitability to his or her needs of a range of banking products ( checking, savings accounts, credit cards and consumer loans) or investment in private equity, ( companies' shares, bonds, mutual funds) and insurance (life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance) products or participation and monitoring of and- or employer-sponsored retirement plans, social security benefits, and income tax management. History Before a specialty in personal finance was developed, various disciplines which are closely related to it, such as family economics, and consumer economics were taught in various colleges as part of home economics for over 100 years. The earliest known research in personal financ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Finance
Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the Value investing, value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to Shareholder value, maximize or increase valuation (finance), shareholder value. Correspondingly, corporate finance comprises two main sub-disciplines. Capital budgeting is concerned with the setting of criteria about which value-adding projects should receive investment funding, and whether to finance that investment with ownership equity, equity or debt capital. Working capital management is the management of the company's monetary funds that deal with the short-term business operations, operating balance of current assets and Current liability, current liabilities; the focus here is on managing cash, inventory, inventories, and short-term borrowing an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment. Money was historically an emergent market phenomenon that possess intrinsic value as a commodity; nearly all contemporary money systems are based on unbacked fiat money without use value. Its value is consequently derived by social convention, having been declared by a government or regulatory entity to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private", in the case of the United States dollar. Contexts which erode public confidence, such as the circulation of counterfeit money or domestic hyperinflation, can cause good money to lose its value. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss. An entity which provides insurance is known as an insurer, insurance company, insurance carrier, or underwriter. A person or entity who buys insurance is known as a policyholder, while a person or entity covered under the policy is called an insured. The insurance transaction involves the policyholder assuming a guaranteed, known, and relatively small loss in the form of a payment to the insurer (a premium) in exchange for the insurer's promise to compensate the insured in the event of a covered loss. The loss may or may not be financial, but it must be reducible to financial terms. Furthermore, it usually involves something in which the insured has an insurable interest established by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords. Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company is divided, or these shares considered together" "When a company issues shares or stocks ''especially AmE'', it makes them available for people to buy for the first time." (Especially in American English, the word "stocks" is also used to refer to shares.) A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets (after discharge of all senior claims such as secured and unsecured debt), or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Analysis
Financial analysis (also known as financial statement analysis, accounting analysis, or analysis of finance) refers to an assessment of the viability, stability, and profitability of a business, sub-business or project. It is performed by professionals who prepare reports using ratios and other techniques, that make use of information taken from financial statements and other reports. These reports are usually presented to top management as one of their bases in making business decisions. Financial analysis may determine if a business will: *Continue or discontinue its main operation or part of its business; *Make or purchase certain materials in the manufacture of its product; *Acquire or rent/lease certain machineries and equipment in the production of its goods; *Issue shares or negotiate for a bank loan to increase its working capital; *Make decisions regarding investing or lending capital; *Make other decisions that allow management to make an informed selection on vario ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volatility (finance)
In finance, volatility (usually denoted by ''σ'') is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time, usually measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns. Historic volatility measures a time series of past market prices. Implied volatility looks forward in time, being derived from the market price of a market-traded derivative (in particular, an option). Volatility terminology Volatility as described here refers to the actual volatility, more specifically: * actual current volatility of a financial instrument for a specified period (for example 30 days or 90 days), based on historical prices over the specified period with the last observation the most recent price. * actual historical volatility which refers to the volatility of a financial instrument over a specified period but with the last observation on a date in the past **near synonymous is realized volatility, the square root of the realized variance, in turn calculated using the sum of squ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Investment Management
Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts or, more commonly, via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or REITs. The term asset management is often used to refer to the management of investment funds, while the more generic term fund management may refer to all forms of institutional investment, as well as investment management for private investors. Investment managers who specialize in ''advisory'' or ''discretionary'' management on behalf of (normally wealthy) private investors may often refer to their services as money management or portfolio management within the context of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Risk Management
Financial risk management is the practice of protecting economic value in a firm by using financial instruments to manage exposure to financial risk - principally operational risk, credit risk and market risk, with more specific variants as listed aside. As for risk management more generally, financial risk management requires identifying its sources, measuring it, and the plans to address them. See for an overview. Financial risk management as a "science" can be said to have been born with modern portfolio theory, particularly as initiated by Professor Harry Markowitz in 1952 with his article, "Portfolio Selection"; see . Financial risk management can be qualitative and quantitative. As a specialization of risk management, financial risk management focuses on when and how to hedge using financial instruments to manage costly exposures to risk. *In the banking sector worldwide, the Basel Accords are generally adopted by internationally active banks for tracking, reporting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Money Management
Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts or, more commonly, via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or REITs. The term asset management is often used to refer to the management of investment funds, while the more generic term fund management may refer to all forms of institutional investment, as well as investment management for private investors. Investment managers who specialize in ''advisory'' or ''discretionary'' management on behalf of (normally wealthy) private investors may often refer to their services as money management or portfolio management within the context of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asset Management
Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings or equipment) and to intangible assets (such as human capital, intellectual property, goodwill or financial assets). Asset management is a systematic process of developing, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets in the most cost-effective manner (including all costs, risks, and performance attributes). The term is commonly used in the financial sector to describe people and companies who manage investments on behalf of others. Those include, for example, investment managers that manage the assets of a pension fund. It is also increasingly used in both the business world and public infrastructure sectors to ensure a coordinated approach to the optimization of costs, risks, service/performance, and sustainability. IS ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
