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Finance is a term for matters regarding the management, creation, and study of money and investments. Specifically, it deals with the questions of how and why an individual, company or government acquires the money needed – called capital in the company context – and how they spend or invest that money. Finance is then often split per the following major categories: corporate finance, personal finance and public finance.
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms.
Within economics, the concept of utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or satisfaction within the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The term has been adapted and reapplied within neoclassical economics, which dominates modern economic theory, as a utility function that represents a consumer's preference ordering over a choice set. Utility has thus become a more abstract concept that is not necessarily solely based on the satisfaction or pleasure received.
Financial economics is a branch of economics which concerns trade in which some type of money appears on both sides of the transaction, as opposed to situations in which money is traded for a good or service. Its concern is thus the interrelation of financial variables, such as prices, interest rates and shares, as opposed to those concerning the real economy. It has two main areas of focus: asset pricing and corporate finance; the first being the perspective of providers of capital, i.e. investors, and the second of users of capital. It thus provides the theoretical underpinning for much of finance.
In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a well-diversified portfolio.
The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information.
Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversification in investing, the idea that owning different kinds of financial assets is less risky than owning only one type. Its key insight is that an asset's risk and return should not be assessed by itself, but by how it contributes to a portfolio's overall risk and return. It uses the variance of asset prices as a proxy for risk.
Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets.
A stock trader or equity trader or share trader is a person or company involved in trading equity securities. Stock traders may be an agent, hedger, arbitrageur, speculator, stockbroker. Such equity trading in large publicly traded companies may be through a stock exchange. Stock shares in smaller public companies may be bought and sold in over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
The disposition effect is an anomaly discovered in behavioral finance. It relates to the tendency of investors to sell assets that have increased in value, while keeping assets that have dropped in value.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:
Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by proponents.
Post-modern portfolio theory is an extension of the traditional modern portfolio theory. Both theories propose how rational investors should use diversification to optimize their portfolios, and how a risky asset should be priced.
Hersh Shefrin is a Canadian economist best known for his pioneering work in behavioral finance.
A portfolio manager is a professional responsible for making investment decisions and carrying out investment activities on behalf of vested individuals or institutions. The investors invest their money into the portfolio manager's investment policy for future fund growth such as a retirement fund, endowment fund, education fund, or for other purposes. Portfolio managers work with a team of analysts and researchers, and are responsible for establishing an investment strategy, selecting appropriate investments, and allocating each investment properly towards an investment fund or asset management vehicle.
Financial innovation is the act of creating new financial instruments as well as new financial technologies, institutions, and markets. Recent financial innovations include hedge funds, private equity, weather derivatives, retail-structured products, exchange-traded funds, multi-family offices, and Islamic bonds (Sukuk). The shadow banking system has spawned an array of financial innovations including mortgage-backed securities products and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
A stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current price levels with past prices to calculate market performance. It is computed from the prices of selected stocks.
Goals-Based Investing or Goal-Driven Investing is the use of financial markets to fund goals within a specified period of time. Traditional portfolio construction balances expected portfolio variance with return and uses a risk aversion metric to select the optimal mix of investments. By contrast, GBI optimizes an investment mix to minimize the probability of failing to achieve a minimum wealth level within a set period of time.
Maslowian portfolio theory (MaPT) creates a normative portfolio theory based on human needs as described by Abraham Maslow. It is in general agreement with behavioral portfolio theory, and is explained in Maslowian Portfolio Theory: An alternative formulation of the Behavioural Portfolio Theory, and was first observed in Behavioural Finance and Decision Making in Financial Markets.
Portfolio optimization is the process of selecting the best portfolio, out of the set of all portfolios being considered, according to some objective. The objective typically maximizes factors such as expected return, and minimizes costs like financial risk. Factors being considered may range from tangible to intangible.
References
- ↑ SHEFRIN, H., AND M. STATMAN (2000): "Behavioral Portfolio Theory," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 35(2), 127–151.
- ↑ Bank, Eric (18 February 2011). "Behavioral Portfolio Theory 1 – Safety First" . Retrieved 7 September 2011.