Securities activities can be risky, leading to enormous losses. Such losses could threaten the integrity of deposits. In turn, the Government insures deposits and could be required to pay large sums if depository institutions were to collapse as the result of securities losses. 4. Depository institutions are supposed to be managed to limit risk.
“Because and swaps—are instruments for speculation as well as hedges bonuses on Wall Street are tied to transaction volume, this creagainst a drop in an asset’s value. They can be used to bet ates an obvious problem.” that the price of an asset will go up or down. Derivatives also One fear is that losses in the trading department of a large can have more of an effect on a portfolio than simply buying bank, say, could cause a meltdown of the financial system, a or selling a stock or bond because of the leverage involved. scenario that has sometimes prompted calls for stricter regulaLast November, for instance, an investor could buy nearly $1 tion. Critics of government meddling note that these dire million in futures contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 In- warnings have never
Other things equal they prefer to pay more for stocks that are more risky and have uncertain cash flows. • Investors are risk averse. Other things equal they prefer to pay more for stocks that are less risky and that have relatively certain cash flows than other stocks. When determining the value of a firm, which of the following statements is ture? • A financial asset is considered to have value if it has the ability to generate positive cash flows.
In both the Great Depression and today’s economy, the causes deal with faulty loans, cheap credit and stock market crashes. Before the Great Depression, greedy and competitive bankers
Since, the FED set the interest rate in which the banks borrow from, Edgars’ ability to borrow enough money or establish a line of credit to start his business will be affected by inflation, interest rate and financial policies. However, in some situations, an unanticipated inflation can benefit Edgar, as this type of situation whenever inflation rates are underestimated for the life of a loan, the bank loses and Edgar will
The accounting practices created a scandal in which the companies were able to hide information from investors. This allowed the stock prices to remain high even when the company was struggling. When the companies collapsed, investors became worried about the overall securities markets. The Sarbanes-Oxley act is a response to the corruption with the attempt to improve business accounting regulations. The act is considered the most extensive increase in regulations since the Security and Exchange Act of 1934.
Deficit spending - Definition Like other institutions, governments operate on a budget -- or try to do so. When the expenditures of a government (its purchases of goods and services, plus its tranfers (grants) to individuals and corporations) are greater than its tax revenues, it creates a deficit in the government budget. When tax revenues exceed government purchases and transfer payments, the government has a budget surplus (as in the late 1990s in the United States). Following John Maynard Keynes, many economists recommend deficit spending in order to moderate or end a recession, especially a severe one. When the economy has high unemployment, an increase in government purchases create a market for business output, creating income and
Name at least two risks banks face. (1.0 points) When the bank puts money into an investment, it can be difficult to get that money back out right away. It's possible that a bank could make so many bad investments that it loses money. Lesson 2 (3.0 points) 1. List the three main types of transactions.
There are numerous circumstances that experts point to as issues responsible for the economic downturn our nation is experiencing. These include the credit crisis; sky-high foreclosure rates that in many cases resulted from sub-prime lending; near double-digit unemployment figures; and personal debt that has skyrocketed out of many families’ financial control. It is important to understand the causes of our nation’s current economic crisis so that steps may be taken to overcome it and prevent another similar situation in the future. For many economists, the
The main misconception of The Great Depression is that it was a sudden and consistent collapse in the stock market. However,