Feb 5 2013

LOS 47.a: Describe a security market index

A security market index is used to represent the performance of an asset class, security market, or segment of a market. They are usually created as portfolios of individual securities, which are referred to as the constituent securities of the index. 

LOS 47.b: Calculate and interpret the value, price return, and total return of an index.

Price Index : A rate of return that is calculated based on a price index is referred to as 

                     a price return

Return Index: A rate of return that is calculated based on a return index is called a 

                       total  return

LOS 47.c:

target market

LOS 47.d:

Price-weighted index 

• an arithmetic average of the prices of the securities included in the index
• advantage of a price-weighted index is that its computation is simple
• higher priced stocks have more weight in the calculation of a price-weighted index
• Two major price-weighted indexes are the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the Nikkei Dow Jones Stock Average.

Equal-weighted index

• the arithmetic average return of the index stocks and, for a given time period, would be matched by the returns on a portfolio that had equal dollar amounts invested in each index stock
• The Value Line Composite Average and the Financial Times Ordinary Share Index are well-known examples of equal-weighted indexes

Market capitalization-weighted index

• A firm's market float is the total value of the shares that are actually available to the investing public and excludes the value of shares held by controlling stockholders because they are unlikely to sell their shares
• Sometimes the market float calculation excludes shares that are not available to foreign buyers and is then referred to as the free float

Float-adjusted market capitalization-weighted index

• The advantage of market capitalization-weighted indexes of either type is that index
  security weights represent proportions of total market value
• that stocks that are possibly overvalued are given disproportionately high weights in the index and stocks that are possibly undervalued are given disproportionately low weights
• The Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) Index Composite is an example of a market
  capitalization-weighted index.

Fundamental weighting

LOS 4 7 .e

Price weighted Index = sum of stock prices / number of stocks in index adjusted for splits

LOS 47.f:

Rebalancing

reconstitution

LOS 47.g:

Security market indexes have several uses:

• Reflection of market sentiment
• Benchmark of manager performance
• Measure of market return and risk.
• Measure of beta and risk-adjusted return
• Model portfolio for index funds

 LOS 47.h:

Investors can use a variety of equity market indexes. These equity indexes can be
classified as follows:

• Broad market index
• Multi-market index
• Multi-market index with fundamental weighting
• Sector index
• Style index

LOS 4 7 .i:

types of fixed-income indices

• Large universe of securities
• Dealer markets and infrequent trading

LOS 47.j:

Indices representing alternative investments.

Three of the most widely held alternative assets are commodities, real estate,
and hedge funds

Commodity indexes

The issues in commodity indexes relevant for investors are as follows

• Weighting method.
• Futures vs. actual.

Real estate

Jan 30 2013

Costa Book Awards

Author Hilary Mantel wins the Costa Book of the Year award for her Booker Prize-winning novel Bring Up the Bodies.

United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP)

 The United Nations has played an important role in maintaining peace and order in Jammu and Kashmir since the transfer of Power to India and independence to Pakistan in 1947. Immediately after the freedom a dispute erupted between India and the successor nation-state of Pakistan on the question of the very basis of accession of Jammu and Kashmir by the ruler. New Delhi took this matter to the United Nation and the Security Council passed resolution 39 (1948) and established the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate and mediate the issues .

Jan 24 2013

UNCLOS

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), which took place from 1973 through 1982.

Representation of the People Act 1951

According to Section 8 clause 4 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, Chautalas have protection from disqualification from the Assembly.

Supply-side

Supply-side economics is a school of macroeconomic thought that argues that economic growth can be most effectively created by lowering barriers for people to produce (supply) goods and services, such as lowering income tax and capital gains tax rates, and by allowing greater flexibility by reducing regulation. According to supply-side economics, consumers will then benefit from a greater supply of goods and services at lower prices. Typical policy recommendations of supply-side economists are lower marginal tax rates and less regulation

Demand - Side

 

Keynesian economics

 Keynesian economics are the group of macroeconomic schools of thought based on the ideas of 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesian economists believe that, in the short run, productive activity is influenced by aggregate demand (total spending in the economy), and that aggregate demand does not necessarily equal aggregate supply (the total productive capacity of the economy). Instead, it is influenced by a host of factors and sometimes behaves erratically, affecting production, employment, and inflation.

 

Block Trade

Alternative trading systems

Alternative trading systems (ATS), are United States Securities and Exchange Commission approved non-exchange trading venues specifically designed to match buyers and sellers to find counterparties for transactions, instead of trading large blocks of shares on the normal exchange, a practice that can skew the market price in a particular direction, depending on a security's market capitalization and trading volume.
ATS have to be distinguished from electronic communication networks (ECNs), that are a "fully electronic subset of ATSs that automatically and anonymously match orders".^[1] The equivalent term of ECN under European legislation is a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF). These venues play an important role in public markets for allowing alternative means of accessing liquidity.

broker-dealer

Jan 23 2013

Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 was brought into force by the Indian government from October 26, 2006. The Act was passed by the Parliament in August 2005 and assented to by the President on 13 September 2005. As of November 2007, it has been ratified by four of twenty-eight state governments in India; namely Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. Of about 8,000 criminal cases registered all over India under this act, Rajasthan had 3440 cases, Kerala had 1,028 cases, while Punjab had 172 cases registered

Abdelmalek Sellal

Jan 15 2013

Guinnes World Record

Nagaland today entered the Guinness World Record of the Largest Electric Guitar Ensemble surpassing England, with 368 musicians performing at Agri-Expo in Dimapur on 12/01/2013.

Soumyajit Ghosh becomes youngest national table tennis champ

Index of Economic Freedom

The Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation publishes its Index of Economic Freedom in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. The ranking measures countries' freedom in terms of property rights and freedom from government regulation, averaging 10 factors that include government corruption, international

trade barriers, income tax and enforcement. Hong Kong has been ranked number one for 19 years running, although its score was lower this year than last year. It was followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Canada. The United States was ranked 10th. India has been ranked as the 119th freest country. Among the BRIC economies China, Russia were ranked below India in the index, while Brazil was above India.

Jan 11 2013

La pulga is the nickname of MESSI

Jan 10 2013

BAFTA

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in cinema, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.

Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and success; therefore, the prize is of great significance for the book trade.

The 2012 winner, announced on 16 October, was Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Kathryn Ann Bigelow

Kathryn Ann Bigelow (born November 27, 1951)^[1] is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and television director. Her films includeNear Dark (1987), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), The Weight of Water (2000), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), The Hurt Locker (2008) andZero Dark Thirty (2012). The Hurt Locker won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture, won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and was nominated for the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Drama.

With The Hurt Locker, Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director,^[2] the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing,^[3] the BAFTA Award for Best Direction,^[4] and the Critics' Choice Award for Best Director.^[5] She also became the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director in 1995 for Strange Days.

In April 2010, Bigelow was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people of the year.