Essays on CFA

Comparative advantage refers to an economic situation to produce a good at the lowest opportunity cost. Here the trade exchange between China and USA shows how the Law of Comparative holds in real world. With the amount of trade taking place between two countries, the law holds that these trading partners are promoting their self interests by producing the goods for which they have low opportunity cost and trading another good for which they have high opportunity cost(CFA Institute 376).

Since USA and China have low opportunity cost to produce agricultural goods and machinery respectively. These countries are involved ...

- Business Summary: Meggitt PLC is one of the foremost companies which engage in the design and manufacture of components and sub-systems for various sectors like aerospace, defense, medical, energy, industrial, automotive and other specialist industries and markets.

- History of the company: The Company was founded in the 1850s in the United Kingdom. It started operations as a machine tool business. The company went public 1947. Over the years the company has expanded its base of operations by acquiring various other businesses and companies. By using this strategy Meggitt has not only been able to increase its presence in ...

In the present era of Corporate Modernization, unlike the traditional activities, it is not the owners which runs the company, infact they hire competent management to work on their behalf. Moreover, every owner(shareholder) consider that the managers so appointed to work on their behalf will act in the best interest of their owners and will assure shareholder’s wealth maximization. Infact, in present complex corporate era, the performance of the company depends upon, how competent the management is adapting the dynamic business environment and related circumstances. Thus, the ability to properly adapt and implement the changes in the ...

Ancient music had very distinct styles, musical instruments and elements were easily distinguishable as the songs progressed. The following is an analysis of five songs in terms of the style, tempo, musical elements and form.

- Analysis of the song “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith and her Jazz group (Recorded August 10 1920) (cfa.arizona.edu)

Several musical instruments as were use in the song. The sound of a trombone comes first then that of a clarinet and violin follow in unison. The sounds produced by these instruments produce a very distinct tune. When the Mamie Smith sings, several elements of music can be noted these are timbre, harmony, pitch and rhythm.

The song is in classical jazz style and I could tell ...

Courtesy, scorching heat and poor weather conditions, US Economy is expected to experience worst drought in half century which is likely to affect prices of food crops.

As declared by the federal government, since drought is affecting 88% of corn crop, it is likely that supply of corn in the market will be low and a shortage will be experienced. On account of low supply in the market and with inelastic demand for corn in market, the prices of corn will rise from its original level and with lower equilibrium quantity, the new equilibrium will be set at the point ...

Response to an RFP on Customer Service Specialist

Response to an RFP on Customer Service Specialist

This paper seeks to provide both strategic and financial that makes a company have strong competitive power using Apple Inc. as an example. Any company in any industry stands a greater chance of competing in its respective industry no matter how large or small it is. The power of competitiveness of any firm in any industry depends on financial state and strategic plans set to facilitate the progressive operation of the firm within the industry. A best example of a firm existing in its industry and being at the top of the industry due to ...

Undoubtedly, the low cost of borrowing and the tax shield provided by the debt sources makes it a lucrative option for the company, and even the eminent finance professors, Modigliani and Miller has postulated that cost of capital is minimized at 100% debt level. In their study, MM Proposition II (With Taxes), the professors proposed that the tax shield provided by the debt funding causes Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) to decline as the leverage increases. Therefore, the value of the firm is minimized at the point where WACC is minimized, which is 100% debt. The figure below shows ...

About the paper

In the words of eminent economist, A.A. Cournot, ‘’ The term market structure refers to the nature and degree of competition in the market for goods and services’’, and this paper is commissioned to discuss various forms of market structure, Perfectly Competitive, Monopoly, Monopolistic and Oligopoly, and how their varied characteristics affect the life of an average consumer and the society as a whole.

Perfectly Competitive Market

In the words of A. Koutsoyiannis’’ Perfect competition is a market structure characterised by a complete absence of rivalry among the individual firms.”

Below discussed in detail are the multiple characteristics of perfectly competitive market:

i) Number and nature of sellers A perfectly competitive market structure is characterized by large number ...

The reason for difference in Net Profit from Operations in the Income Statement and Cash Flow from Operations in Cash Flow Statement is because, both the financial statement follows different accounting principle. While the Net Income of the company is calculated by following accrual basis of accounting, the CFO is calculated by strictly following cash basis of accounting. In other words, if the revenue from a unit sold during December is expected to be received in January, the income statement will record revenue in December itself while no such entry would be posted in Cash flow from Operations. Hence, Income ...

Capital Budgeting

Answer 1) Change in Interest Rates: No, finance costs related to one particular project, should not be considered while estimating the incremental cash flows of the project. Hence, all the expenses related to financing, i.e. interest expenses should be ignored. Important to note, if the manufacturer wishes to include debt financing, the cost of the same shall be reflected in the cost of capital/discount rate that is used to discount the cash flows calculated.

Answer 2)

Sunk Cost The cost of studying the golf clubs will be categorized as sunk costs and hence, this cost will not be ...

Part 2:

Introduction The Capital Structure Propositions proposed by Nobel Laureates, Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller has a significant relevance even in the modern day financial theory. The propositions proposed by them are popularly known as MM Propositions which they proved under restrictive set of assumptions to counter the traditional approach of capital theory which states that there is always an optimum mix of capital structure for a firm that assists in attaining maximum value for it. The difference in the traditional approach and MM Propositions will be discussed in detail in the succeeding sections, while now we will explain the propositions ...

Personal finance

Learning is a continuous experience that starts at birth. Although formal learning takes place within learning institutions, much of human learning is a product of experiences from life. Like in other areas of professional development, financially planning is a product of both formal and informal learning experiences. In this respect, multiple experiences throughout my life have shaped my financial planning skills. My learning experience with respect to financial planning is traceable to my days in college. Being in learning institutions calls for self-discipline and control with regard to financial. This offered the first and extremely important lessons with regard to financial planning. ...

Country Research: Equatorial Guinea

General Description Guinea is officially the "Republic of Guinea". It is a nation in West Africa. Its initial name was French Guinea. It is also called " Guinea-Conakry" sometimes to separate it from its neighboring Guinea-Bissau and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. The population of this nation is around ten million living in the area of two hundred forty-six thousand square miles. It has a crescent-like shape, and it curves by its limits from the west near the Atlantic Ocean. The country shares its borders with Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Senegal in the north. The southern border has nations Sierra Leone, Ivory ...

Site-specific installation artworks can promote appreciation of contemporary art

This study seeks to determine how site-specific installation of artworks promotes appreciation of contemporary art. The study will focus on the following artists and their artwork: Richard Serra’s ‘Tilted Arc’, Anish Kapoor’s ‘Cloud Gate’, and Rachel Whiteread’s Judenplatz Vienna 'Holocaust Memorial’. Site-specific installation artworks by Richard Serra, Anish Kapoor, and Rachel Whiteread promote appreciation of contemporary art. This project seeks to showcase some of the artworks of these artists. The artworks under study are the examples of public art. Thus, the public view them and give their feedback on the artworks displayed. Depending on how ...

The affects of such a mistake are very dangerous. Any discrepancy in financial reports can lead to erroneous budgets and financial statements. Hence, all good accountants must be sharp in recognizing any such mistakes and should quickly correct them in order to avoid disastrous and devastating financial effects. An overstatement of Account Receivable would overstate the current or liquid assets of a company. This will increase the assets portion of the company in balance. Due to this error, the equity side of the balance sheet will not agree with the asset side. Similarly, it would also understate the cash flows. Since ...

Oligopoly is a market structure in which only few firms are having control over market supply and since there are high barriers of entry and exit from the oligopoly market, the existing firms enjoy the monopoly kind position.( Parkin, 2011) Following are some of the salient features of Oligopoly Market: 1. Interdependence: Firms operating under oligopoly are interdependent in the decision making process. The reason for the same is that the number of firms operating and competing in the market are very few and any change in price or output level by one firm will have a direct influence ...

Income Statement:

The income statement reports the revenue and expenses of the firm over a period of time. The income statement is sometimes refered to as the statement of operations or Profit and Loss Statement. The income statement relies on the equation:

In other words, Income Statement serves the purpose of providing the investors and other users of financial statements with most appropriate profitability of the entity net of expenses incurred by the company. In an elaborated manner, income statement helps an investor to assess as how the business has performed by giving a summary of how the business incurs its revenue and ...

Personal Statement

As a primary school student, my teachers advised me to wear eye glasses. I had a perfectly clear vision, though. However, I had serious reading and spelling difficulties, which hindered me from performing well. Later on, I developed my own reading strategy, based on crossing texts back and forth, considering a natural way of processing the information. My learning results improved in high school and in college, being able to pass two rigorous six hours tests and examinations for CFA and I am currently preparing for the third one. Recently, at my teacher’s recommendation, concerned about my reading, I made an ...

Financial Accounting and Reporting:

Financial accounting refers to the process of recording, summarizing and reporting of the accounting transactions. The objective of financial accounting and reporting is to provide an accurate image of a company’s financial standing to the users of the financial statements. Important to note, that, all the financial reports made under the financial accounting process are as per relevant accounting standards as US GAAP or IFRS.

Financial reporting is the by-product of the process of financial accounting and includes the following:

- Preparation of the financial statements which includes; Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Cash Flow Statement - Notes to the financial statements - Press Releases and Conference Calls for declaration of quarterly ...

(Professor Name)

Portfolio Management Concepts The concept of portfolio management is a lucrative sword as not only it offers not only returns but the investor also have to face risk associated with it. If the Investor is willing to earn higher return he has to associate higher return with higher risk. For an investor to diversify away the risk he can follow diversification rule. Under diversification, investor can include the assets which are not correlated to each other and thus by including these asset classes he can diversify away the risk. However, in terms of the risk there are ...

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays social and economic development is characterized by the increasing role of the human factor. Today, human capital role takes on a new meaning. In business, it is the main criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of any company in achieving competitive advantage and ensuring qualitative parameters of economic growth, defined as the set of natural innate abilities, talents, creativity, moral, and psychological health; accumulated and improved as a result of investment knowledge and professional experience necessary for purposeful activity in certain sphere of social reproduction, bringing in the income to the owner. Moreover, analyzing human capital it is necessary to pay ...

Scenario II:

Both Microeconomics and Macroeconomics are two branches of economics which deal with two entirely different stream of economic behaviors. Although their concepts are entirely dfferent but they both are highly interdepedendent on each other. Microeconomics is the study of individual people and individual businessess and analysis of their decison making citing scarce available resources and also relating to pricing of goods and services. In particular, microeconomics focuses on the concepts of demand and supply and any other force that determines the price level in the economy. For Example, any rise or fall in price of a commodity in accordance ...

Lease Accounting

Lease is an agreement between two parties whereby the owner of the asset, known as Lessor, allows the lessee to use his asset for contractual time period in return of fixed periodic payments.

In terms of accounting treatment; Leases are of two types:

- Finance Lease - Operating Lease A Finance lease is generally executed with an equal borrowing amount for purchase of an asset. Thus, since the asset is borrowed with a debt, an equal amount is added on asset and liability side of company’s balance sheet. Over the years, for the asset recorded in the balance sheet, company charges depreciation expenses on the asset and ...

1. Factor Analysis Factor analysis is a statistical procedure utilized for data reduction (Bartholomew et al., 2008). This reduction is reflected in lowering a large number of variables that have similar characteristics, into smaller factors (dimensions). Specifically, based on data reduction, factor analysis is conducted to identify the unobservable and underlying structure of a set of variables which are correlated with each other. These variables are coherent but independent of one another. By coherent it implies that the variables are very consistent and relate with each other harmoniously while independent denotes that the outcomes or the results of each variable are ...

Abstract

This dissertation paper is based on the development of the equations used for the design of CFA piles and more specific on granular soils. Tests that may be used in obtaining the required geotechnical parameters used in the designing of the equations are also reviewed. The tests based approaches are to allow contractors and designers to come up the best piles required for a certain project due to the parameters identified. Assumptions and errors resulting in the equation design are also covered. Present. Step-by-step method formulations of equations that are used for designing CFA piles are presented.

Key WordsCFA, drilled displacement piles, CPT, PDT and testing.

Dissertation style research ...

Engineering

Abstract Continuous Flight Augers (CFA) require special expertise to construct but done properly they are economical and very successful for areas with inconsistent load carrying capacities. Examples include using CFA pilings for guard rails, highway reinforcement, highway junction improvements and buildings. The CFA pilings are similar to driven and bored piles but offer different advantages when working in good to marginal soils and in projects where the load capacity needs vary. An auger with a hollow tube is used to bore the hole and then when the auger tip reaches the final depth concrete is added as the auger ...

Part I – CFA Pile Installation

[University]

Abstract

This paper is an investigative report on the use of Continuous Flight Augers or CFA in granular soils. In order to guide us in our investigation, this parts that are interrelated to each other. We will discuss the history of CFA’s and its application. This paper will also touch the common formulas used in its application and how it was derived. By taking a critical look into the formulas, we should be able to determine its effectiveness and should be able to identify flaws if there are any. We should also be able to identify the parameters that ...

An aggressive marketing strategy:

Solution: Now since the market is competitive and Digital Labs in order to improve their sales and profit figures, if adopt for an agressive marketing campaign, apart from financial issues relating to increased fixed cost and commission cost, company have to consider the marketing strategy of their competitors and also if they are losing on product quality and innovation factors, even a $15 million budget on advertisement will not help the company. Thus, considering their product quality and what kind of innovative techniques their competitors are offering to the customers, is indeed an important consideration.

Option 2)

A 5% reduction ...

Financial Innovation- the term which was in limelight during global crisis of 2008 refers to advances and developments over time in financial products and the borrowing-lending process. The advances and developments can be in the form of risk diversification, financial technology and fund raising procedure. Thus financial innovation in recent half of the past decade has provided the banks and financial institutions new innovative methods of rasing less costly capital along with less risky hedging of their investments. As financial innovation in the form of Adjsuted Rates Mortgage (AMR’s) were the primary reason behind global financial credit ...

Answer a)

i) Comparing the expected return and standard deviation of various assets in the portfolio, we have analyzed the following characteristics: a) Australia Shares on account of total risk of almost 22% is capable of providing return of 16% b) Australian Bonds with risk accounting to 7% provides return of 11.5% to the investor. c) Cash being the most liquid asset and least risky asset with risk factor of only 4.4%, provides return of 9.25%. d) As for international shares, despite the high risk factor of 22.62% and relatively low return of 14.88% as compared to asutralians shares, the ...

Answer a)

T-Bills are independent from state of economy on account of having back up faith of US Treasury. In other words, T-Bills are risk free from default probability because the return of 5.5% will be realized irrespective of state of economy. US Treasury will have to redeem the T-Bills in any economic state. However, the rate of 5.5% is composed of Risk Free Rate(2.5%) + Inflation premium(3%) and since there is uncertainty about level of inflation in the future, T-Bills are not purely risk free in terms of purchasing power. For Example if Inflation averaged to be 3.5% ...

As disclosed in the annual crop report, 2013, the crop of soybean and corn were quite low iin production during 2012 on account of drought in Midwestern areas of USA. With low production/supply and continued demand in the market, prices of these food crops suffered a high shock and were at high levels because of shortage in the market. However, this year the condition seem favorable with corn production expected to be record high with the increase of 28%, while production of soybean is expected to be more than 8%, as compared to last year . Now with the production ...

Affiliated Institution:

Career Field and Specific Jobs Currently, I am not working in any job industry. However, my most recent job was in the non-profit industry where I worked as a Finance Officer. This job position had attractive qualities and traits. As a Finance Officer, I was responsible for maintaining administrative, accounting, financial, and personnel services for my former employer in order to ensure that the organization met legal requirements and achieved its goals and objectives. Major responsibilities that came with these job functions were: to assist in budget preparation; monitor cash reserves and investments; establish and maintain supplier accounts; implement financial ...

When scientific methods are used in the process of preserving, collecting, validation, identification, analysis, interpretation, documentation, and presentation of digital evidence from digital sources, then the process is called digital investigation. The evidence may be used to facilitate the construction of events deemed to be criminal or are in contrast with the laid down procedures. Digital investigations for an organization differ to digital investigation for law enforcement because of the procedure adopted. Different models of operation have been suggested depending on the complexity of the situation. Digital investigations arise as a result of an occurrence suspected, attempted or ...

In the United States, Federation of Accounting Standard Bodies sets Generally Accepted Accounting Principles(GAAP) and outside United States,International Accounting Standards Board, sets the International Financial Reporting Standards(IFRS). The approach carried out in IFRS and GAAP accounting standards is different. There are many accounting treatments for various transaction that differ under both of the accounting standards.

LIFO Inventory accounting is not allowed under IFRS. However, US Firms following GAAP accounting standards are required to dislcose LIFO reserve in the footnotes of financial statements. LIFO Reserve = COGS LIFO - COGS FIFO

This adjustment enhances the comparability between US GAAP and IFRS firms.

Treatment of Interest and Dividends ...

Insider trading is a phenomenon of an imperfect market and arises due to information asymmetry, which means that some market participants have more information than others. This access to additional information can help them gain more profits than other market participants, and defy the principle of equitable trade. The paper attempts to describe the concept insider trading, how it works and the potential problems caused by it. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section describes insider trading. The second section discusses how insider trading works. The third section identifies the problems associated with it and the fourth ...