1173 Posts Found

The A.T. Kearney Assessment of Excellence in Procurement is the most comprehensive global study of supply management best practices. In the May/June issue of Supply Chain Management Review, Editorial Director, Frank Quinn interviewed A.T. Kearney Partner and AEP co-leader Randy Watson. In the interview, Watson highlights the traits of supply management excellence that differentiate leading companies from followers. There are three important factors: a clear … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Randy Watson | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Finance, Operations

The most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States;
Its from a PBS documentary. This particular part is from episode 5 of the series titled Cosmopolis. [Hat tip to FinanceProfessor.com]

Content: Multimedia Content | Source: PBS | Subjects: Economics, Finance, History

Credit default swaps (CDSs) have been identified in media accounts and by various commentators as sources of risk for the institutions that use them, as potential contributors to systemic risk, and as the underlying reason for the bailouts of Bear Stearns and AIG. These assessments are seriously wide of the mark. They seem to reflect a misunderstanding of how CDSs work and how they contribute … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Peter J. Wallison | Source: RGE monitor | Subject: Finance

The U.S. system of security law was designed more than 70 years ago to regain investors’ trust after a major financial crisis. Today we face a similar problem. But while in the 1930s the prevailing perception was that investors had been defrauded by offerings of dubious quality securities, in the new millennium, investors’ perception is that they have been defrauded by managers who are not … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Luigi Zingales | Source: Social Science Research Network (SSRN) | Subjects: Economics, Finance

Some tips for doing these key calculations; and introducing “modified” internal rate of return.

Content: Article | Authors: Jan Bell, Richard Block | Source: CFO Publishing | Subject: Finance

We study how the degree of organizational complexity of a firm relates to its corporate financial policies. We measure complexity as the number of layers in the firm’s subsidiary structure, and focus on a sample of US firms over the period 1996-2006. We argue that organizational complexity makes the firm opaque and increases the asymmetry of information between it and the market. We show that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alberto Manconi, Massimo Massa | Source: Social Science Research Network (SSRN) | Subjects: Finance, Organizational Behavior

The geometry that describes the shape of coastlines and the patterns of galaxies also elucidates how stock prices soar and plummet. [Hat tip to FinanceProfessor.com]

Content: Article | Author: Benoit B. Mandelbrot | Source: Scientific American | Subject: Finance

Mark-to-market accounting rules require toxic assets to be carried on companies’ books at fire-sale prices, based on recent trades of similar assets for far less than they would command in normal times. Many big banks say the crisis has been made worse by these rules. Not everyone agrees.

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

While most people have never heard of them, search funds are attracting increasing attention as a way for small businesses to beat the usual odds of success, even in the midst of a deepening recession.

Content: Article | Author: Brent Bowers | Source: The New York Times | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Finance

The typical manager of financial assets generates returns based on the systematic risk he takes – the so-called beta risk – and the value his abilities contribute to the investment process – his so-called alpha. Shareholders in asset management firms, such as commercial banks, investment banks and private equity or insurance companies are unlikely to pay the manager much for returns from beta risk. What … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Raghuram G. Rajan | Source: Financial Times | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Finance

The ever-popular coffee-table book, filled with striking pictures or slick graphics, tends to exalt travel or cooking. But Finch, the best-selling author of The Art of Walt Disney and Highways to Heaven, tries for something different. He takes on the history of humankind as seen through the dealings of people in different marketplaces, whether it is the Athenian “agora” or the New York Stock Exchange. … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Christopher Finch | Subjects: Finance, History

Money: everyone wants it, dreams of it and schemes for it. Find out how U.S. currency is made, faked and protected, and meet the mastermind behind one of the biggest counterfeit operations in U.S. history. [Hat tip to FinanceProfessor.com]

Content: Multimedia Content | Source: National Geographic Channel | Subjects: Economics, Finance

Marketplace Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch gives a bubbly explanation of the intricacies of collateralized debt obligations – those financial instruments that got us into this financial mess. [Hat tip to FinanceProfessor.com]

Also included is an excellent video presentation by Jonathan Jarvis which explains the credit crisis.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Paddy Hirsch | Source: Marketplace | Subject: Finance

The era that defined Wall Street is finally, officially over. Michael Lewis, who chronicled its excess in Liar’s Poker, returns to his old haunt to figure out what went wrong.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Lewis | Source: Portfolio | Subjects: Economics, Finance, History

Yale has made Robert Shiller’s Spring 2008 Financial Markets Course at Yale available to the Public as video and audio (mp3).

About the Course:
Financial institutions are a pillar of civilized society, supporting people in their productive ventures and managing the economic risks they take on. The workings of these institutions are important to comprehend if we are to predict their actions today and their evolution … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Author: Robert J. Shiller | Source: Yale School of Management | Subjects: Courses / Tutorials, Finance

Studying for a test? Want to test yourself on a finance? This hopefully will be a way to do that. Created by Jim Mahar of FinanceProfessor.com fame, it is a wiki-page that will allow anyone to post questions and answers to share with others. This will allow professors to have more test questions for their tests and students the opportunity to study by quizzing themselves. … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Author: James Mahar Jr. | Subject: Finance

Contrarians act against the market mood. “Buy when others are fearful, sell when they are greedy,” Warren Buffett has advised. The historical evidence for buying on the dips, however, is rather mixed.

Content: Article | Authors: Elroy Dimson, Mike Staunton, Paul Marsh | Source: The Economist | Subjects: Economics, Finance

Last year, on the 100th anniversary of their book’s subject, Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr published The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm (John Wiley & Sons). A year later, as we weather a far greater financial storm, the book’s lessons are more relevant than ever. From their analysis of one of the worst banking panics in U.S. history, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Edward Teach, Robert F. Bruner | Source: CFO Publishing | Subjects: Economics, Finance, History

Many women say, “I have enough money.” I rarely hear a man say that. And it’s because money is different to men and women. I think, for men, money is often a symbol of their power; it’s not for what can they buy. For women, money is not usually how they measure their success. It’s not that they don’t want it; but they want it … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Myra M. Hart | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Money, Women in Business

Brands are dead. Advertising no longer works. Weaned on TiVo, the Internet, and other emerging technologies, the short-attention-span generation has become immune to marketing. Consumers are “in control.” Or so we’re told.
In Buying In, New York Times Magazine “Consumed” columnist Rob Walker argues that this accepted wisdom misses a much more important and lasting cultural shift. As technology has created avenues for advertising anywhere and … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Rob Walker | Subject: Market/Investment