Month: December 2020

Total-debt-to-total-assets is a leverage ratio that defines the total amount of debt relative to assets owned by a company. Using this metric, analysts can compare one company’s leverage with that of other companies in the same industry. This information can reflect how financially stable a company is. The higher the ratio, the higher the degree of leverage (DoL) and, consequently, the higher the risk of investing in that company.

A liquidity trap is a contradictory economic situation in which interest rates are very low and savings rates are high, rendering monetary policy ineffective. First described by economist John Maynard Keynes, during a liquidity trap, consumers choose to avoid bonds and keep their funds in cash savings because of the prevailing belief that interest rates could soon rise (which would push bond prices down). Because bonds have an inverse relationship to interest rates, many consumers do not want to hold an asset with a price that is expected to decline. At the same time, central bank efforts to spur economic activity are hampered as they are unable to lower interest rates further to incentivize investors and consumers. read more

A private equity firm buys all the stock in a troubled public company, thus taking the company private with the intention of revamping its operations and re-selling it at a profit. This process is called repackaging.

A chi-square (χ2) statistic is a test that measures how expectations compare to actual observed data (or model results). The data used in calculating a chi-square statistic must be random, raw, mutually exclusive, drawn from independent variables, and drawn from a large enough sample. For example, the results of tossing a coin 100 times meet these criteria.

Odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is when a country’s government misappropriates money it has borrowed from another country.

An interest rate swap is a forward contract in which one stream of future interest payments is exchanged for another based on a specified principal amount. Interest rate swaps usually involve the exchange of a fixed interest rate for a floating rate, or vice versa, to reduce or increase exposure to fluctuations in interest rates or to obtain a marginally lower interest rate than would have been possible without the swap.

Illiquid refers to the state of a stock, bond, or other assets that cannot easily be sold or exchanged for cash without a substantial loss in value. Illiquid assets may also be hard to sell quickly because of a lack of ready and willing investors or speculators to purchase the asset. Additionally, a company may be illiquid if it is unable to obtain the cash necessary to meet debt obligations. Illiquidity is the opposite of liquidity.

Fundamental analysis (FA) is a method of measuring a security’s intrinsic value by examining related economic and financial factors. Fundamental analysts study anything that can affect the security’s value, from macroeconomic factors such as the state of the economy and industry conditions to microeconomic factors like the effectiveness of the company’s management.

Variable overhead efficiency variance refers to the difference between the true time it takes to manufacture a product and the time budgeted for it, as well as the impact of that difference. It arises from variance in productive efficiency.

Make to order (MTO), or made to order, is a business production strategy that typically allows consumers to purchase products that are customized to their specifications. It is a manufacturing process in which the production of an item begins only after a confirmed customer order is received. It is also known as mass customization.