MBA or CFA?

Monster.com has two interesting articles that will especially interest students.On is on getting an MBA.How an MBA can help you: "Credibility. Confidence. A big-picture perspective. Appreciation for other points of view. That's what MBAs say when asked what the degree has done for them.'It gave me a broad perspective of the business world. How the economy works [and] how my industry works,' says

SSRN-Control Rights and Capital Structure: an Empirical Investigation by Michael Roberts, Amir Sufi

SSRN-Control Rights and Capital Structure: an Empirical Investigation by Michael Roberts, Amir Sufi:Roberts and Sufi show that "financing decisions of solvent firms are dictated by creditors...."More specifically they show that following a covenant violation, creditors exercise some of their power and limit further debt issuances. (Of course this is not surprising, but still always good to see

A Brief History of Derivatives

Prepping for class I stumbled upon this. It is grear! LOL...A Brief History of Derivatives: "To start we need to go back to the Bible. In Genesis Chapter 29, believed to be about the year 1700 B.C., Jacob purchased an option costing him seven years of labor that granted him the right to marry Laban's daughter Rachel. His prospective father-in-law, however, reneged, perhaps making this not only

Islamic Finance

Business Times: "Malik said the 21st century is seeing so much political conflict between Islam and the West, yet in the field of Islamic finance, the West has embraced it with open arms.The UK, for instance, recently introduced new legislation to promote Islamic finance, particularly Islamic bonds or sukuk."

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive: "Which approach is best, active or passive investing, is a never-ending debate on Wall Street, where passive indexers such as DFA and Vanguard Group Inc. are the antithesis of celebrity stock pickers. If there's any criticism of indexing, it's that as goes the market, so go the indexes, which can lead to losses unless an investor also invests in active funds to mitigate

SSRN-Operating Under a Liquidity Crunch: The Impact of LBOs on Product Availability in the Supermarket Industry by David Matsa

SSRN-Operating Under a Liquidity Crunch: The Impact of LBOs on Product Availability in the Supermarket Industry by David Matsa: "The structure of financing can impact a firm's operations in important ways. This paper examines how leveraged buyouts affect a supermarket's provision of product availability -- an important dimension of quality in the retail sector. Using U.S. consumer price index

What a great way to spend some free time!

Damodaran Online: Home Page for Aswath Damodaran-Of course I have seen this site before but just adopted his book for a fall class (SIMM for those of you at SBU) and got playing around on his site. It is even better than I remember! GREAT STUFF!!

Are Hedge Funds out of Control? - Knowledge@Wharton

Here is a great podcast interview with Andrew Metrick of Wharton. You can either risten or read it as the transcript is available. The first part of the interview is about his book and valuation (my favorite line, which fits perfectly with our classes):"I think, actually, a lot of that is more the art of being a great venture capitalist than it is the science"The latter part of the interview

A MUST READ ON EMH!!

Massey News Article - New take on predicting stock market returns: "...a study by finance Professor Ben Jacobsen, has spread rapidly around the finance community. Professor Jacobsen, and his associates, have reported that conclusions on stock market return predictability vary drastically when the timeframes of observation are altered.They say forecasts will vary, for example, if they are based on

Wal-Mart pulls bank application | Reuters.co.uk

Well that did not last very long!Wal-Mart pulls bank application | Reuters.co.uk: "Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Friday it has withdrawn its request to open a specialty bank after immense opposition from politicians, consumer groups and community banks hampered its application with U.S. bank regulators.'Since the approval process is now likely to take years rather

Wal-Mart blasted by congressman

Wal-Mart blasted by congressman: "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may be eyeing a larger role in banking than it has previously disclosed, according to lease details made public Thursday by a congressman who accused the world's largest retailer of hiding plans to become a retail bank."I have a tough time being surprised by this.

Short-term CFOs Equal Short-term Planning - - CFO.com

Managers and shareholders often disagree about the timing 0f projects. We have long argued that managers are much more myopic than are shareholders. This supports that:Short-term CFOs Equal Short-term Planning - - CFO.com: "An overwhelming majority — 87.6 percent — of finance chiefs reported that companies have shortened the payoff horizons of their investment decisions to coincide with the

The SEC Is Eyeing Insider Stock Sales

The SEC Is Eyeing Insider Stock Sales: "The SEC's goal in creating automatic trading plans was to allow executives to sell shares without triggering insider trading charges. To gain that legal 'safe harbor,' however, executives must meet certain conditions. They must set up a trading plan when they don't know of any significant nonpublic information, lay out the dates or prices at which trades

Bats

With spring training well underway, what better time to bring up bats?From the Buffalo News:"Bats Trading, an upstart electronic trading system hundreds of miles away in Kansas City, said it handled the volatility with none of the glitches that others did. Bats has quickly become the third-largest stock trader by volume, trailing only the NYSE and Nasdaq Stock Market, thanks to its technology and

Backdating takes another "victim"

from CFO.com"Cirrus Logic, a maker of audio and video chips, announced that David D. French has resigned as president and chief executive officer and as a director after an internal review determined that he was aware of possible backdating of stock option grants...."