CommercEducation

StudyChamps to integrate LearnDash LMS

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 07:53:00 +0000

StudyChamps to integrate LearnDash LMS

We at StudyChamps were looking for the right platform to expand our educational website and take it to the next level. I must mention that it was really a very time consuming and difficult task to evaluate various LMS platforms available until we came across LearnDash. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it covers most facilities we were looking for, and we started our journey towards embracing the new platform. Even before we purchased LearnDash, it was very evident that the team was very willing to support and prompt in resolving queries. We are now working on the LearnDash platform backstage now.

StudyChamps is an educational portal which provides free Math, English and Science resources for kids for more than 2 years now. With the increasing popularity and requests for specific content, facility to track progress of kids etc. made it imperative to upgrade the platform to a learning management system. We are quite excited with LearnDash and very soon we will roll out the subject courses for kids specific needs based on LearnDash. We thank all our followers, kids, their parents and teachers for their continued support. We also thank LearnDash team for the support and helping us with the right suggestions and guidance.

Gearing Ratio

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 07:52:00 +0000

Gearing Ratio

Gearing focuses on the capital structure of the business. The gearing ratio is the proportion of a company's debt to its equity. A high gearing ratio represents a high proportion of debt to equity, and a low gearing ratio represents a low proportion of debt to equity. Gearing also known as "leverage" measures the proportion of assets invested in a business that are financed by long-term borrowing.

A high gearing ratio is indicative of a great deal of leverage, where a company is using debt to pay for its continuing operations. The higher the level of borrowing (gearing) the higher are the risks to a business. However, gearing can be a financially sound part of a business's capital structure particularly if the business has strong, predictable cash flows.

A company with high gearing is more vulnerable to downturns in the business cycle because the company must continue to service its debt regardless of how bad sales are. A high gearing ratio is less of a concern where a business is in a monopoly situation and its regulators are likely to approve rate increases that will guarantee its continued survival.

A low gearing ratio is indicative of conservative financial management. It may also mean that a company is located in a highly cyclical industry, and so cannot afford to become overextended in the face of a downturn in sales and profits.

The formula for calculating gearing is:

Long-term debt + Short-term debt + Bank overdrafts
Shareholders' equity

Game Theory

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 07:50:00 +0000

Game Theory

Game theory is a study of strategic decision making. More formally, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers". Game theory is mainly used in economics, political science, and psychology, as well as logic and biology. The subject first addressed zero-sum games, such that one person's gains exactly equal net losses of the other participant(s). Today, however, game theory applies to a wide range of behavioral relations, and has developed into an umbrella term for the logical side of decision science, to include both human and non-humans, like computers.

The games studied in game theory are well-defined mathematical objects. A game consists of a set of players, a set of moves (or strategies) available to those players, and a specification of payoffs for each combination of strategies. Most cooperative games are presented in the characteristic function form, while the extensive and the normal forms are used to define non-cooperative games.

The normal (or strategic form) game is usually represented by a matrix which shows the players, strategies, and pay-offs. More generally it can be represented by any function that associates a payoff for each player with every possible combination of actions.

The extensive form can be used to formalize games with a time sequencing of moves. Games here are played on trees. In this each vertex (or node) represents a point of choice for a player. The player is specified by a number listed by the vertex. The lines out of the vertex represent a possible action for that player. The payoffs are specified at the bottom of the tree. The extensive form can be viewed as a multi-player generalization of a decision tree.

Balanced Scorecard

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 07:49:00 +0000

Balanced Scorecard

Balanced scorecard (BSC) is an approach to performance measurement. It is a strategy performance management tool. A balanced scorecard is a set of performance measures constructed for four dimensions of performance. The four dimensions are:

Financial: encourages the identification of a few relevant high-level financial measures. In particular, designers were encouraged to choose measures that helped inform the answer to the question "How do we look to shareholders?"
Customer: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question "How do customers see us?"
Internal business processes: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question "What must we excel at?"
Learning and growth: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question "How can we continue to improve, create value and innovate?"

The balanced scorecard is ultimately about choosing measures and targets. The various design methods proposed are intended to help in the identification of these measures and targets, usually by a process of abstraction that narrows the search space for a measure.

National Debt

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 07:48:00 +0000

National Debt

National debt is the total amount owed by central government which has accumulated over time. It is the total amount of borrowing accumulated by the government that is still outstanding. It is the total amount that the government owes to individuals and institutions.

K percent rule

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:12:00 +0000

According to K percent rule the money supply should be increased at a constant percentage rate year in and year out, irrespective of cyclical changes in national income.

According to Milton Friedman "The stock of money [should be] increased at a fixed rate year-in and year-out without any variation in the rate of increase to meet cyclical needs." (Friedman 1960) Giving governments any flexibility in setting money growth will lead to inflation according to Friedman. The main policy to be avoided is countercyclical monetary policy, the standard Keynesian policy recommendation at the time. For this reason, the central bank should be forced to expand the money supply at a constant rate, equivalent to the rate of growth of real GDP.

Derivative instruments

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:09:00 +0000

A derivative is a financial instrument whose value depends on underlying variables. The most common derivatives are futures, options, and swaps but may also include other tradable assets such as a stock or commodity. A derivative is essentially a contract whose payoff depends on the behavior of a benchmark.

Derivatives are broadly categorized by the relationship between the underlying asset and the derivative (e.g., forward, option, swap); the type of underlying asset (e.g., equity derivatives, foreign exchange derivatives, interest rate derivatives, commodity derivatives or credit derivatives); the market in which they trade (e.g., exchange-traded or over-the-counter); and their pay-off profile.

Derivatives can be used for speculating purposes ("bets") or to hedge ("insurance"). Very commonly, companies buy currency forwards in order to limit losses due to fluctuations in the exchange rate of two currencies.

Arms index

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:28:00 +0000

The Arms Index, also known as TRIN, an acronym for TRading INdex, was developed in 1967 by Richard Arms. It is a volume-based indicator, which determines market strength and breadth by analysing the relationship between advancing and declining issues and their respective volume; it is used to measure intra-day market supply and demand, and it can be applied over short or longer time periods.

The index is calculated using the following formula:

Arms index or TRIN= (number of advancing issues)/ (number of declining issues) (Total up volume)/ (total down volume).

An index value of 1.0 indicates that the ratio of up volume to down volume is equal to the ratio of advancing issues to the declining issues. The market is said to be in a neutral state when the index equals 1.0 since the up volume is evenly distributed over the advancing issues and the down volume is evenly distributed over the declining issues.

Market conversion price

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:27:00 +0000

Market conversion price is the price that an investor effectively pays for common stock by purchasing a convertible security and then exercising the conversion option. This price is equal to the market price of the convertible security divided by the conversion ratio.

Conversion ratio is the number of shares of common stock one receives by exercising the conversion option. In order for the exercise of the option to be worthwhile, the market conversion price must be lower than the market price of common stock. It is also called the conversion parity price and the conversion value.

Deadweight loss

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:02:00 +0000

In economics, a deadweight loss is a loss of economic efficiency that can occur when equilibrium for a good or service is not Pareto optimal. In other words, either people who would have more marginal benefit than marginal cost are not buying the product, or people who have more marginal cost than marginal benefit are buying the product. Deadweight loss can be beneficial when there is a negative externality, in which case it can be considered a deadweight gain, as it would help those that the negative externality was hurting.

Causes of deadweight loss can include monopoly pricing, externalities, taxes or subsidies, and binding price ceilings or floors. The term deadweight loss may also be referred to as the "excess burden" of monopoly or taxation.

Free Riding

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:47:00 +0000

Free Riding means getting the benefit of a good or service without paying for it. This may be possible because certain types of goods and services are actually hard to charge for--a firework display, for instance. Free riders are those who consume a resource without paying for it, or pay less than the full cost of its production. However, there can sometimes be a free-rider problem, if the number of people willing to pay for the good or service is not enough to cover the cost of providing it. In this case, the good or service might not be produced, even though it would be beneficial for the economy as a whole to have it. Free riding is usually considered to be an economic "problem" only when it leads to the non-production or under-production of a public good, or when it leads to the excessive use of a common property resource. Public goods are often at risk of free riding. The free rider problem is the question of how to limit free riding (or its negative effects) in these situations. The problem can be overcome by financing the good by imposing a tax on the entire population.

Information coefficient

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:58:00 +0000

Information coefficient is the correlation between predicted and actual stock returns, sometimes used to measure the value of a financial analyst. It is a measure of the correlation between expected and actual returns. The IC is used internally within a firm to judge the performance of individual financial forecasters. The IC is measured on a scale between 0 to 1, with 1 indicating no difference between expected and actual returns. An IC of 1.0 indicates a perfect linear relationship between predicted and actual returns, while an IC of 0.0 indicates no linear relationship.

Omnibus account

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:28:00 +0000

Omnibus account is an account carried by one futures commission merchant with another futures commission merchant in which the transactions of two or more persons are combined and carried in the name of the originating broker, rather than designated separately. It is an account between two futures merchants (brokers). It involves the transaction of individual accounts which are combined in this type of account, allowing for easier management by the futures merchant.

Debt swap

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:02:00 +0000

Debt swap is a set of transactions in which a firm buys a country's dollar bank debt at a discount and swaps this debt with the central bank for local currency that it can use to acquire local equity.

A company can undergo some financial restructuring for long term success. One possible way to achieve this goal is to issue a debt/equity or an equity/debt swap. In the case of an equity/debt swap, all specified shareholders are given the right to exchange their stock for a predetermined amount of debt (i.e. bonds) in the same company. A debt/equity swap works the opposite way: debt is exchanged for a predetermined amount of equity (or stock). The value of the swap is determined usually at current market rates, but management may offer higher exchange values to entice share and debt holders to participate in the swap. After the swap takes place, the preceding asset class is cancelled for the newly acquired asset class.

Extrapolative statistical models

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:26:00 +0000

Extrapolative statistical models are models that attempts to use past trends in data in order to predict future trends. This may be used in any number of business or non-business situations. They are the models that apply a formula to historical data and project results for a future period. Such models include the simple linear trend model, the simple exponential model, and the simple autoregressive model.

The technical analysts commonly use extrapolative statistical models in order to predict future prices of securities. This can be quite important in the futures and option markets.

Variable-rate mortgage

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:18:00 +0000

A variable-rate mortgage or adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) is a mortgage loan with the interest rate on the note periodically adjusted based on an index which reflects the cost to the lender of borrowing on the credit markets. The loan may be offered at the lender's standard variable rate/base rate. There may be a direct and legally defined link to the underlying index, but where the lender offers no specific link to the underlying market of index they can choose to increase or decrease at their discretion. The term "variable-rate mortgage" is most common outside the United States, whilst in the United States, "adjustable-rate mortgage" is most common, and implies a mortgage regulated by the Federal government, with limitations on charges ("caps"). In many countries, adjustable rate mortgages are the norm, and in such places, may simply be referred to as mortgages.

Adjustable rate mortgage is a mortgage that features predetermined adjustments of the loan interest rate at regular intervals based on an established index. The interest rate is adjusted at each interval to a rate equivalent to the index value plus a predetermined spread, or margin, over the index, usually subject to per-interval and to life-of-loan interest rate and/or payment rate caps.

Holding period return

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:18:00 +0000

Holding period return (HPR) is the total return on an asset or portfolio over the period during which it was held. It is one of the simplest measures of investment performance.

HPR is the percentage by which the value of a portfolio (or asset) has grown for a particular period. It is the sum of income and capital gains divided by the initial period value (asset value at the beginning of the period).

HPR = ((Present Value, or face Value, End-Of-Period Value) + (Any Intermediate Gains eg. Dividends) - (Initial Value)) /(Initial Value)

HPR_n= Income + (P_n+1 – P_n)/ P_n

Annualized holding period return is the annual rate of return that when compounded t times, would have given the same t-period holding return as actually occurred from period 1 to period t.

Quality spread

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:50:00 +0000

Quality spread is, the spread between Treasury securities and non-Treasury securities that are identical in all respects except for quality rating. For instance, the difference between yields on Treasuries and those on single A-rated industrial bonds. It is also called credit spread.

In an interest rate swap quality spread differential is the difference between the interest rates of debt obligations offered by two parties of different creditworthiness that engage in the swap. A swap transaction is considered beneficial to both parties only when the QSD is positive.

J-curve

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:48:00 +0000

The term J-curve is used in several different fields to refer to a variety of unrelated J-shaped diagrams where a curve initially falls, but then rises to higher than the starting point.

In private equity, the J curve is used to illustrate the historical tendency of private equity funds to deliver negative returns in early years and investment gains in the outlying years as the portfolios of companies mature.

In economics, the 'J curve' refers to the trend of a country’s trade balance following a devaluation or depreciation under a certain set of assumptions. A devalued currency means imports are more expensive, and on the assumption that the volume of imports and exports change little immediately, this causes a depreciation of the current account (a bigger deficit or smaller surplus). After some time, though, the volume of exports may start to rise because of their lower more competitive prices to foreign buyers, and domestic consumers may buy fewer of the costlier imports. Eventually, if this happens, the trade balance may improve on what it was before the devaluation. If there is a currency revaluation or appreciation the same reasoning leads to an inverted J-curve.

Decile rank

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:23:00 +0000

Decile rank is a rating of performance over time. It is rated on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is best and 10 is worst. For performance of mutual funds, 1 indicates that a mutual fund's return was in the top 10% of funds being compared, while 3 means the return was in the top 30%.

General ledger

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:16:00 +0000

The general ledger is where financial information from all aspects of your business is consolidated. Each General Ledger is divided into debits and credits sections. The general ledger is a collection of the group of accounts that supports the value items shown in the major financial statements. It is built up by posting transactions recorded in the sales daybook, purchases daybook, cash book and general journals daybook. The general ledger can be supported by one or more subsidiary ledgers that provide details for accounts in the general ledger. For instance, an accounts receivable subsidiary ledger would contain a separate account for each credit customer, tracking that customer's balance separately. This subsidiary ledger would then be totaled and compared with its controlling account (in this case, Accounts Receivable) to ensure accuracy as part of the process of preparing a trial balance.

There basic categories in which all accounts are grouped are:

Assets
Liability
Owner's equity
Revenue
Expense
(Gains)
(Loss)

The balance sheet and the income statement are both derived from the general ledger.

Earnings per share

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:58:00 +0000

Earnings per share (EPS) is calculated by dividing company’s profit by its number of outstanding shares. If a company earned $2 million in one year had 2 million shares of stock outstanding, its EPS would be $1 per share.

The portion of a company's profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock. Earnings per share serve as an indicator of a company's profitability.

The company often uses a weighted average of shares outstanding over the reporting term. When calculating, it is more accurate to use a weighted average number of shares outstanding over the reporting term, because the number of shares outstanding can change over time. However, data sources sometimes simplify the calculation by using the number of shares outstanding at the end of the period.

Global Internet body to unleash domain names

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The regulatory body that oversees Internet domain names voted on Monday to revamp the domain naming system for websites, allowing them to end with words like "apple" and "orange" instead of suffixes such as ".com" or ".gov."

"ICANN has opened the Internet's naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today's decision respects the rights of groups to create new top level domains in any language or script," the regulatory body said after a board meeting in Singapore.

Complete news.

Statistical hypothesis test

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:29:00 +0000

A one-sided test is a statistical hypothesis test in which the values for which we can reject the null hypothesis, H0 are located entirely in one tail of the probability distribution. In other words, the critical region for a one-sided test is the set of values less than the critical value of the test, or the set of values greater than the critical value of the test.

A two-sided test is a statistical hypothesis test in which the values for which we can reject the null hypothesis, H0, are located in both tails of the probability distribution.

Law of diminishing returns

noreply@blogger.com (CommercEducation) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:46:00 +0000

In economics, diminishing returns (also called diminishing marginal returns) refers to progressive decrease in the marginal (per-unit) output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is increased, while holding the amounts of all other factors of production constant.

The law of diminishing returns states that in all productive processes, adding more of one factor of production, while holding all others constant, will at some point yield lower per-unit returns. The law of diminishing returns does not imply that adding more of a factor will decrease the total production, a condition known as negative returns, though in fact this is common.