Monday, April 20, 2009
Covered Call
In conclusion, the potential profits of covered calls are limited, but the potential losses of covered calls are in unlimited. I think most of financial derivatives also make limited profits and unlimited losses
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/04/021104.asp
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/06/options-income-portfolio-personal-finance-investing-ideas-covered-calls.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covered_call
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Opinion in " to invest or not to invest"
Most of people who want to invest now do not know where to invest. In addition, some investors would recommend investing in gold. When the stock market is unstable, people tend to invest into commodities, such as gold, oranges, and apples. In addition, as we all know gold is limited, so people think the price of gold would never go down. People simply buy actual gold, and re-sell them when the price of gold is higher. Or people buy mutual funds that are related to gold mining companies. However, I want to notice that the gold investments also have risks. First, if people try to buy actual gold, it contains additional 10% of fees to buy actual gold. The cost is a high compared to buy stocks. Next, a volatility of gold price is high. In March 2008, the price of gold per ounce was $1000, but the price fall down to $700 in October 2008. The 30% of gold price was gone down in 7 months. Thus, people should notice that price of gold could be down. Last, the returns in the mutual funds that are related to gold mining companies are also affected by foreign currencies. The reason is that the size of mutual funds is relatively small, so the most of brokers of that funds also invest internationally. Therefore, I would recommend to people to consider seriously before they invest in gold.
http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2008/10/24/invest-without-the-stress.aspx
http://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html
http://uniquebl0gs.blogspot.com/2009/04/to-invest-or-not-to-invest.html
Friday, April 10, 2009
Short Selling
Personally, I do not like the way of investment like short selling. The reason is that the profit is limited and the loss is unlimited. If an investor buys a stock with his or her money, the investor could estimate how much would the investor loses on his or her investment if the stock defaults. However, if an investor invests through short selling, he or she cannot estimate the loss of worst cases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Opinion in CEO Compensation
As of 2004, when CEOs got their total compensations, only 15% of the compensations was their salaries, a 23% was their bonuses, and a 62% was the long-term incentives such as stock options, restricted stock, and performance units/shares. Thus, basically, if CEOs do not perform their job well or their companies’ shares go down, the 62%, which is the long-term incentive, of their total compensations could be reduced. However, there were some exceptions. Some CEOs’ compensations were increased while their companies’ shares were decreasing. For example, the CEO of Merrill Lynch, Stanely O’Neal, had more than $160 million of total compensation while the company was dropping down 40% of its share value, and imposed huge debts. I think only a few CEOs get their compensations like the way Stanely O’Neal had gotten. In addition, those CEOs cause normal people to think that CEOs’ compensations are too high. Some CEOs got underpaid, for example, Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, raised GE’s assets from about $14 billion to $500 billion before he retired, but he got the compensations relatively lower with his achievements.
Most of CEOs are having too much stress on their heavy works and pressures, the most of CEOs work around 60 hours per week, and they bring their work to home. Even though their pays are about 160 times of the average workers’ salary, I think they deserve it.
http://dwang9.blogspot.com/2009/04/ceos-compensation.html
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental-analysis/08/executive-compensation.asp
http://equityprivate.typepad.com/ep/2006/03/yesterday_finan.html
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/09/reich-ceos-dese.html
http://www.blnz.com/news/2009/03/23/Executive_Isnt_That_Excessive_Some_5335.html
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Arbitrage
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/07/statistical-arbitrage.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_arbitrage
http://cafe.daum.net/hedgemanagement/6d8t/2?docid=1GKJ2%7C6d8t%7C2%7C20081223163550&q=statistical%20arbitrage&srchid=CCB1GKJ2%7C6d8t%7C2%7C20081223163550
Friday, April 3, 2009
Opinion in "McDonald’s first quarter revenue drop "
The main idea of Tewodros' article is that even though McDonald's sales increase, thier profits decrease due to foreign currency flcutuation and company’s raw materials such as ingredients of burgers and salads costs go up. Tewodros suggested that McDonald should hedge with third party to exchange McDonald’s foreign currencies into close the value of current U.S dollar. In addition, by making forward contract, McDonald could buy their raw material with fixed cost in contracted period. I agree with hedging against the raw material part, but I disagree with the way Tewodros suggested to McDonald to overcome the foreign currency fluctuation.
I would suggest McDonald to use "triangle arbitrage" between different markets to make profits. For example, McDonald makes profits in German with M 100,000(mark), and McDonald could exchange M 100,000 into $(U.S) 100,000 in the past. However, McDonald would exchange M 100,000 into $(U.S) 95,000 in current period due to currency fluctuation. Tewodros said McDonald should find third party entities to hedge the exchange process, but I think in the real situation McDonald would be hard to find third party entities to exchange Mark currency into U.S dollar at close value of current U.S dollar. I suggest McDonald to make profits from “triangle arbitrage”, and this is let’s suppose M 100,000 is equal to $ 95,000 and 1,000,000 Japanese yen in London since 1,000,000 Japanese yen is equal to M 105,000 and $ 100,000 in Japan. McDonald could make $ 5000 profits using “triangle arbitrage”. In order to make profits from “triangle arbitrage”, McDonald should fully understand how the one currency affects to the other currencies.
Tewodros suggested McDonald to grow own raw material such as lettuce, tomato, pickles, and etc in the long-term. However, I suggest that before McDonald grows their own agricultural products, they should calculate Net Present Vale and Risk Adjusted Return on Capital to whether they would make profits from that project.
http://kasmo83.blogspot.com/2009/03/mcdonalds-first-quarter-revenue-drop.html
http://www.gocurrency.com/import-risk.htm
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Opinion in public education system
I read Dwayne’s and Amber’s article that it says U.S has poor education system, and the U.S should spend money on education system to boost, and this will not let the U.S have this kind of financial crisis. Before the U.S spends their money on education system, the U.S needs to know what the main problem the U. S is having, and how they will solve them. Both Dwayne and Amber mentioned lots of thing about problems in education system, but I do not agree with that the lack of concern for student at a college is also one of the problems in the education system, but I think the U.S should concern about K-12 first, then it is not late to solve the problem in the university education system. Thus, I think the U.S should focus on K-12 first.
According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), it tests math, science, and readings to 15 year-old students, and 57 countries participate for this. The U.S is ranked 30th in science 34th in math out of 57 countries, and the U.S had problem with collecting data for reading section, so their ranks are omitted. As we see that data, the U.S education is below the average. Finland is ranked 1st in overall, so the U.S tried to benchmark the Finland’s education systems. Finland primarily focuses on readings, the 61% of elementary student in Finland read newspapers, and these could be school newspaper, or regular newspaper. In addition, the school provides more chance to debate with classmates. Thus, it makes each student has his or her own thought on the topics. Second, Finland spends lots of money on teacher’s salaries. It does not mean that the teacher’s salary is just high. To be a teacher in Finland, the teacher should be qualified for their high standard of requirements, so the every teacher is well trained. Third, the school provides classes for each student’s level, so if a student A is not good at math, the school provides lower level of math class for student A, and similar students. If a student B is good at science, the school provides advanced science class for student B. However, interest thing is most students in Finland are not embarrassed even though they get into lower level classes.
In conclusion, if the U.S spends money for the qualified teacher, more libraries, variety levels of classes, the U.S’s education system will be improving fast. Even though the U.S spends more money on education system, the result would not come out immediately, but the great result would come out after ten years from now. Thus, I think the spending money on education is the one of the U.S government’s long-term risk management.
http://dwang9.blogspot.com/2009/03/public-education-system.html
http://rmi4350.blogspot.com/2009/03/problems-with-public-education-system.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/175894
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_32252351_32236191_39718850_1_1_1_1,00.html