Archive for September, 2007

Three forms of market efficiency (stock markets)

There are three levels of market efficiency:
Weak form efficiency – the current pricing reflects the historical sequence of prices. In other words, knowledge of the past pricing patterns will not help in forecasting the future price trends.
Semi-strong from efficiency – current pricing fully reflects all information held in the public domain like the annual reports, [...]

Does market efficiency always hold?

Investors and folks who still remember the stock market crash of 1987 are bound to question the efficiency of markets. The stock markets went into a tailspin and lost around 20% of their valuation in a matter of few hours.
The stock prices increase in step by step mode over an extended period of time, but [...]

Systematic Risk and Unsystematic Risk (Finance & Investments)

Systematic risk is due to risk factors that affect the entire market such as investment policy changes, foreign investment policy, change in taxation clauses, shift in socio-economic parameters, global security threats and measures etc.
Unsystematic risk is due to factors specific to an industry or a company like labor unions, product category, research and development, pricing, [...]

Car / Motor Insurance

The premium calculations for car insurance / motor insurance are dependent on a number of factors: 

Personal factors: Age, Gender, Marital Status

Your personal traits never influenced the motor/car insurance rates the way they do now a days. From your age to your marital status, everything counts!
The young age coupled with a [...]

Bonds (investments) and valuation

Bonds and  their pricing (investments)
A bond is the security that pays a pre-stated amount of interest to be investor, till the period, it is retrieved or called back. Such a bond is issued by the state or by a corporation.
A bond has a face value and a coupon rate.

A face value is the stated [...]