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Risk-free Interest Rate
The risk-free rate of return, usually shortened to the risk-free rate, is the rate of return of a hypothetical investment with scheduled payments over a fixed period of time that is assumed to meet all payment obligations. Since the risk-free rate can be obtained with no risk, any other investment having some risk will have to have a higher rate of return in order to induce any investors to hold it. In practice, to infer the risk-free interest rate in a particular currency, market participants often choose the yield to maturity on a risk-free bond issued by a government of the same currency whose risks of default are so low as to be negligible. For example, the rate of return on T-bills is sometimes seen as the risk-free rate of return in US dollars. Theoretical measurement As stated by Malcolm Kemp in chapter five of his book ''Market Consistency: Model Calibration in Imperfect Markets'', the risk-free rate means different things to different people and there is no consensus on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rate Of Return
In finance, return is a profit on an investment. It comprises any change in value of the investment, and/or cash flows (or securities, or other investments) which the investor receives from that investment, such as interest payments, coupons, cash dividends, stock dividends or the payoff from a derivative or structured product. It may be measured either in absolute terms (e.g., dollars) or as a percentage of the amount invested. The latter is also called the holding period return. A loss instead of a profit is described as a '' negative return'', assuming the amount invested is greater than zero. To compare returns over time periods of different lengths on an equal basis, it is useful to convert each return into a return over a period of time of a standard length. The result of the conversion is called the rate of return. Typically, the period of time is a year, in which case the rate of return is also called the annualized return, and the conversion process, described below, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consol (bond)
Consols (originally short for consolidated annuities, but subsequently taken to mean consolidated stock) were government debt issues in the form of perpetual bonds, redeemable at the option of the government. They were issued by the Bank of England and the U.S. Government. The first British consols were issued in 1751. They have now been fully redeemed. The United States government issued consols from 1877 to 1930, which have likewise been redeemed. History In 1752 the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister Sir Henry Pelham converted all outstanding issues of redeemable government stock into one bond, Consolidated 3.5% Annuities, in order to reduce the coupon (interest rate) paid on the government debt. In 1757, the annual interest rate on the stock was reduced to 3%, leaving the stock as consolidated 3% annuities. The coupon rate remained at 3% until 1888. In 1888, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Joachim Goschen, converted the consolidated 3% annuities, along ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beta (finance)
In finance, the beta (β or market beta or beta coefficient) is a measure of how an individual asset moves (on average) when the overall stock market increases or decreases. Thus, beta is a useful measure of the contribution of an individual asset to the risk of the market portfolio when it is added in small quantity. Thus, beta is referred to as an asset's non-diversifiable risk, its systematic risk, market risk, or hedge ratio. Beta is ''not'' a measure of idiosyncratic risk. Interpretation of values By definition, the value-weighted average of all market-betas of all investable assets with respect to the value-weighted market index is 1. If an asset has a beta above (below) 1, it indicates that its return moves more (less) than 1-to-1 with the return of the market-portfolio, on average. In practice, few stocks have negative betas (tending to go up when the market goes down). Most stocks have betas between 0 and 3. Treasury bills (like most fixed income instrument ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Asset Pricing Model
In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a well-diversified portfolio. The model takes into account the asset's sensitivity to non-diversifiable risk (also known as systematic risk or market risk), often represented by the quantity beta (β) in the financial industry, as well as the expected return of the market and the expected return of a theoretical risk-free asset. CAPM assumes a particular form of utility functions (in which only first and second moments matter, that is risk is measured by variance, for example a quadratic utility) or alternatively asset returns whose probability distributions are completely described by the first two moments (for example, the normal distribution) and zero transaction costs (necessary for diversification to get rid of all idiosyncratic risk). Under these conditions, CAPM shows that the cos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short-rate Model
A short-rate model, in the context of interest rate derivatives, is a mathematical model that describes the future evolution of interest rates by describing the future evolution of the short rate, usually written r_t \,. The short rate Under a short rate model, the stochastic state variable is taken to be the instantaneous spot rate. The short rate, r_t \,, then, is the ( continuously compounded, annualized) interest rate at which an entity can borrow money for an infinitesimally short period of time from time t. Specifying the current short rate does not specify the entire yield curve. However, no-arbitrage arguments show that, under some fairly relaxed technical conditions, if we model the evolution of r_t \, as a stochastic process under a risk-neutral measure Q, then the price at time t of a zero-coupon bond maturing at time T with a payoff of 1 is given by : P(t,T) = \operatorname^Q\left \mathcal_t \right where \mathcal is the natural filtration for the process. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cost Of Capital
In economics and accounting, the cost of capital is the cost of a company's funds (both debt and equity), or from an investor's point of view is "the required rate of return on a portfolio company's existing securities". It is used to evaluate new projects of a company. It is the minimum return that investors expect for providing capital to the company, thus setting a benchmark that a new project has to meet. Basic concept For an investment to be worthwhile, the expected return on capital has to be higher than the cost of capital. Given a number of competing investment opportunities, investors are expected to put their capital to work in order to maximize the return. In other words, the cost of capital is the rate of return that capital could be expected to earn in the best alternative investment of equivalent risk; this is the opportunity cost of capital. If a project is of similar risk to a company's average business activities it is reasonable to use the company's average cos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Access To Finance
Access to finance is the ability of individuals or enterprises to obtain financial services, including credit, deposit, payment, insurance, and other risk management services.Demirgüç-Kunt, A., Beck, T., & Honohan, P. (2008). ''Finance for All?: Policies and Pitfalls in Expanding Access.'' Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. Retrieved March 21, 2008, from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTFINFORALL/Resources/4099583-1194373512632/FFA_book.pdf Those who involuntarily have no or only limited access to financial services are referred to as the ''unbanked'' or ''underbanked,'' respectively.Richardson, B. (2008, July 15). Enhancing Customer Segmentation Processes and Optimising Adoption Techniques to Support Efforts to "Bank the Unbanked." Presentation given during the ''Mobile Banking & Financial Services Africa'' conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Accumulated evidence has shown that financial access promotes growth for enterprises through the provision of credit to both ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sharpe Ratio
In finance, the Sharpe ratio (also known as the Sharpe index, the Sharpe measure, and the reward-to-variability ratio) measures the performance of an investment such as a security or portfolio compared to a risk-free asset, after adjusting for its risk. It is defined as the difference between the returns of the investment and the risk-free return, divided by the standard deviation of the investment returns. It represents the additional amount of return that an investor receives per unit of increase in risk. It was named after William F. Sharpe, who developed it in 1966. Definition Since its revision by the original author, William Sharpe, in 1994, the ''ex-ante'' Sharpe ratio is defined as: : S_a = \frac = \frac, where R_a is the asset return, R_b is the risk-free return (such as a U.S. Treasury security). E _a-R_b/math> is the expected value of the excess of the asset return over the benchmark return, and is the standard deviation of the asset excess return. The ''ex-post'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stock Option
In finance, an option is a contract which conveys to its owner, the ''holder'', the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a specific quantity of an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified date, depending on the style of the option. Options are typically acquired by purchase, as a form of compensation, or as part of a complex financial transaction. Thus, they are also a form of asset and have a valuation that may depend on a complex relationship between underlying asset price, time until expiration, market volatility, the risk-free rate of interest, and the strike price of the option. Options may be traded between private parties in ''over-the-counter'' (OTC) transactions, or they may be exchange-traded in live, public markets in the form of standardized contracts. Definition and application An option is a contract that allows the holder the right to buy or sell an underlying asset or financial instrument at a specified st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert J
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and '' berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Portfolio Theory
Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversification in investing, the idea that owning different kinds of financial assets is less risky than owning only one type. Its key insight is that an asset's risk and return should not be assessed by itself, but by how it contributes to a portfolio's overall risk and return. It uses the variance of asset prices as a proxy for risk. Economist Harry Markowitz introduced MPT in a 1952 essay, for which he was later awarded a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; see Markowitz model. Mathematical model Risk and expected return MPT assumes that investors are risk averse, meaning that given two portfolios that offer the same expected return, investors will prefer the less risky one. Thus, an investor will take on increased risk only if compen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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