Measuring Returns on IT Investments: Some Tools and Techniques
How can executives measure returns on investments they make in information technology? This complex issue touches everything from decisions about replacing desktop computers with laptop models to investments in complex software systems. Experts from Wharton and Intel, the giant chip maker, suggest some methods that may help executives approach these questions.
Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Finance, IT / Technology / E-Business
Remaking Market Making
Many Wall Street watchers believe that the low-cost electronic trading of securities will destroy market making and brokerage. But this doom-and-gloom prognosis results from a fundamental misunderstanding of the way technology is changing the business. Companies that use the technology right can greatly increase the volume of the trades they process–and boost margins as well.
Content: Article | Authors: Charlotte M. Hogg, Jonathan A. Davidson, Léo M. Grépin | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Finance | Industry: Finance / Banking
Market Making: Not Such a Bad Business After All?
Buyout
This article starts out as a time-sensitive piece about this being a great time for Management Buyouts (MBOs) but then turns into a good overview of the issues involved in the process. The article focuses on the work of Rick Rickertsen, author of Buyout: The Insider’s Guide to Buying Your Own Company (Content: Article | Author: Paul B. Brown | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subject: Finance
Email and Credit Card Payments Market (U.S.)
The Danger of Stock Option Grants
Stock options are a great idea run amok, as evidenced by the massive option packages awarded to some high-profile CEOs. Options are given tax treatment so companies have an incentive to depend on them for more of their employee compensation. But options are not free to current investors, as they dilute present and current earnings per share. Bill Mann offers a shorthand he learned from … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Bill Mann | Source: The Motley Fool | Subject: Finance | Industry: Investment Banking
Getting the Compensation Structure Right in the Mutual Fund Industry
Authors take a look at how money managers get compensated and whether these compensation schemes provide managers with the incentive to act in the investors’ best interests. Their research concludes that certain money managers, due to the generally accepted method of compensation in the mutual fund industry, are likely to increase their portfolio’s risk level in an effort to improve their chances of receiving … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Keith C. Brown, Laura T. Starks | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Finance, Industry Specific | Industry: Investment Banking
Money: What It Is and How It Works
Created by William F. Hummel, a retired jack-of-all-trades, Money: What is and how it works offers the author’s advice on a vast array of issues dealing with money and US monetary policy. Well-written and easy-to-understand, this collection provides information on the basics of understanding money, as well as some more advanced concepts, and monetary policy issues. Hummel has also included articles from famous economists on … [ Read more ]
Content: Online Resource | Author: William F. Hummel | Subjects: Economics, Finance | Industry: Finance / Banking
Trying to Grasp the Intangible
The assets that really count are the ones accountants can’t count–yet. Here’s one way to put a dollar value on corporate knowledge.
Content: Article | Author: Thomas A. Stewart | Source: FORTUNE | Subjects: Accounting, Finance
When Shareholder Groups Complain, Management Would Do Well to Listen
With the annual-meeting season getting underway, corporate executives can once again expect to be publicly targeted by shareholder groups unhappy over recent stock returns. Just how effective are shareholder activists and how constant is the pressure they exert on non-performing managers?
Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Finance
How Employees Value (Often Incorrectly) Their Stock Options
Given recent increases in the use of stock options, one might reasonably expect that employees – the beneficiaries of this perk – understand how options work. But according to recent research by Wharton professors David Larcker and Richard Lambert, employees tend to be relatively uninformed as to the basic economics of stock options, a finding that has important implications for employers, boards of directors and … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Finance, Human Resources
Japan’s Lost Decade: Lessons for America
Very interesting article looks at the decade-long economic woes of Japan, how they might have been avoided or mitigated and lessons for the U.S.
Content: Article | Author: John H. Makin | Source: American Enterprise Institue | Subjects: Economics, Finance
Online Drug Sales Stats
The Art of the Tie-In
From late 1998 through the summer of 2000, Wall Street was an out-of-control beast, and IPOs were its sustenance. The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating a host of questionable issues, including whether investment banks unfairly allotted pre-IPO shares in return for a variety of kickbacks. It is the practice of tie-ins, more than anything else, that has attracted most of the … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Red Herring | Subject: Finance | Industry: Investment Banking
Will Stock Prices Keep Falling? Look Again at the P/E Ratio
Many analysts argue that despite the carnage on Wall Street over the past year, stock prices are still high by historical standards. Is that true? Could stocks fall some more before they reach bottom? Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel, author of Stocks for the Long Run, suggests that benchmarks such as the price-to-earnings ratio present a more hopeful picture than many market observers believe.
Content: Article | Author: Jeremy Siegel | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Finance, Market/Investment | Industry: Investing
Return of the Corporate Raiders: Bring Back the Barbarians
“It’s time to admit the unspeakable: The corporate raiders who laid siege to industry in the late 1980s were actually an investor’s best friends.”
Content: Article | Author: Charles Slack | Source: MBA Jungle | Subjects: Finance, Management
A Fresh Look At Mutual Funds’ Performance Data
For mutual fund analysts, new insights into evaluating a fund’s performance don’t come along every day. Lately, though, financial experts at Wharton and other schools have collaborated on research that challenges some long-held notions about which funds are best for investors. Included in that research is a paper by Lubos Pastor of the University of Chicago and Wharton’s Robert Stambaugh on how to improve standard … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Lubos Pastor, Robert Stambaugh | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Finance | Industry: Investment Banking
ABCs of Figuring Interest
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago created this publication to help users understand the fundamentals of interest. According to the summary at the end of the tutorial, “Although not an exhaustive list, the methods of calculating interest described here are some of the more common methods in use.” The methods include simple interest, add-on interest, bank discount, and compound interest. Each type of interest is … [ Read more ]
Content: Online Resource | Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago | Subject: Finance | Industry: Finance / Banking
Trillion Dollar Bet (PBS Nova)
This is the companion web site to the PBS Nova program that discusses the invention of the Black-Scholes Formula, a mathematical Holy Grail that forever altered the world of finance and earned its creators the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics. Here’s what you’ll find online:
– The Formula That Shook the World
One economist has likened the impact of the discovery of the Black-Scholes … [ Read more ]
Content: Online Resource | Source: PBS | Subject: Finance | Industry: Finance / Banking