Current Ratio Essay

1) Current Ratio The ratio is mainly used to give an idea of the company’s ability to pay back its short-term liabilities (debt and payables) with its short-term assets (cash, inventory, receivables). The higher the current ratio, the more capable the company is of paying its obligations. 2) Quick Ratio An indicator of a company’s short-term liquidity. The quick ratio measures a company’s ability to meet its short-term obligations with its most liquid assets. For this reason, the ratio excludes inventories from current assets 3) Asset Turnover Ratio The amount of sales or revenues generated per dollar of assets. The Asset Turnover ratio is an indicator of the efficiency with which a company is deploying its assets. Asset Turnover = Sales or Revenues/Total Assets Generally speaking, the higher the ratio, the better it is, since it implies the company is generating more revenues per dollar of assets. But since this ratio varies widely from one industry to the next, comparisons are only meaningful when they are made for different companies in the same sector. 4) Fixed Turnover Ratio A financial ratio of net sales to fixed assets. The fixed-asset turnover ratio measures a company’s ability to generate net sales from fixed-asset investments – specifically property, plant and equipment (PP&E) – net of depreciation. A higher fixed-asset turnover ratio shows that the company has been more effective in using the investment in fixed assets to generate revenues. The fixed-asset turnover ratio is calculated as: 5) Inventory Turnover Ratio A ratio showing how many times a company’s inventory is sold and replaced over a period. The days in the period can then be divided by the inventory turnover formula to calculate the days it takes to sell the inventory on hand or â€Å"inventory turnover days.† This ratio should be compared against  industry averages. A low turnover implies poor sales and, therefore, excess inventory. A high ratio implies either strong sales or ineffective buying. High inventory levels are unhealthy because they represent an investment with a rate of return of zero. It also opens the company up to trouble should prices begin to fal 6) Debt Ratio A financial ratio that measures the extent of a company’s or consumer’s leverage. The debt ratio is defined as the ratio of total debt to total assets, expressed in percentage, and can be interpreted as the proportion of a company’s assets that are financed by debt. The higher this ratio, the more leveraged the company and the greater its financial risk. Debt ratios vary widely across industries, with capital-intensive businesses such as utilities and pipelines having much higher debt ratios than other industries like technology. In the consumer lending and mortgage businesses, debt ratio is defined as the ratio of total debt service obligations to gross annual income. 7) Debt Equity Ratio A measure of a company’s financial leverage calculated by dividing its total liabilities by stockholders’ equity. It indicates what proportion of equity and debt the company is using to finance its assets. A high debt/equity ratio generally means that a company has been aggressive in financing its growth with debt. This can result in volatile earnings as a result of the additional interest expense. 8) Equity Multiplier The ratio of a company’s total assets to its stockholder’s equity. The equity multiplier is a measurement of a company’s financial leverage. Companies finance the purchase of assets either through equity or debt, so a high equity multiplier indicates that a larger portion of asset financing is being done through debt. The multiplier is a variation of the debt ratio. 9) Net Profit Ratio A ratio of profitability calculated as net income divided by revenues, or net profits divided by sales. It measures how much out of every dollar of sales  a company actually keeps in earnings. Increased earnings are good, but an increase does not mean that the profit margin of a company is improving. For instance, if a company has costs that have increased at a greater rate than sales, it leads to a lower profit margin. This is an indication that costs need to be under better control. 10) Days Inventory A financial measure of a company’s performance that gives investors an idea of how long it takes a company to turn its inventory (including goods that are work in progress, if applicable) into sales. Generally, the lower (shorter) the DSI the better, but it is important to note that the average DSI varies from one industry to another. Here is how the DSI is calculated: Also known as days inventory outstanding (DIO).  This measure is one part of the cash conversion cycle, which represents the process of turning raw materials into cash. The days sales of inventory is the first stage in that process. The other two stages are days sales outstanding and days payable outstanding. The first measures how long it takes a company to receive payment on accounts receivable, while the second measures how long it takes a company to pay off its accounts payable.

College Is Exensive Essay

With a college degree being as needed as it is, it is incredibly expensive to get one. Studies show that many high school graduates that do attend college, attend that following year bringing the colleges plenty of money. After doing some math, the numbers suggest that in general most colleges are bringing in plenty of extra money with an average 5. 3 million dollars of profit. This is something that majorly hurts students financially who are just trying to get a college degree, which will be in turn used to essentially get themselves a well-paying career so they can pay back what they spent to  get their college degree in the first place. Living in today’s society, graduating from high school is simply not enough. Many employers will no longer look for just a high school diploma when considering hiring somebody, but they instead look for a college degree. A college education is almost as necessary for today’s youth as having a place to live, especially because it’s incredibly difficult for many people to afford a home without the financial stability that comes with a job provided by a college education. Our society is extremely dependent on colleges; but, are we in some way harming ourselves by sacrificing huge portions of our annual income to these institutions? Colleges may be too expensive to call for every high school graduate in the United States attending one. In a study by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it was found that 66 percent, or two of every three high school graduates attend college right out of high school (â€Å"College,† 2014). We estimate that for the 2013-2014 school year there will be 3. 3 million high school graduates (â€Å"What,† n. d. ) , and we know that about. 2,178,000 or two-thirds of the graduates will go on to attend college right away. Now taking an average cost of college at about $20,000 (â€Å"What’s,† n. d. ), we find that colleges across the U. S. bring in around an estimated total of $44,425,000,000 per year. That’s 44. 4 billion dollars towards U. S. colleges every year from the students alone. When we consider that there is a rough 6,700 colleges in the U. S. , it can be reasoned that, if every college received the same amount of money, the average income per college per year would be about $6,600,000. Now consider the fact that an average college can be kept  running on around $1,300,000 (Agron, 2009) (this price varies between colleges, given a more prestigious college will use more money to pay for better teachers and academic opportunities). This means that on average, colleges gain an annual profit of around $5,300,000 per year. College is extremely expensive, and the amount of money that they seem to keep each year is far too much. We don’t just pay only for our education when we pay for college, but also to the board members most likely using the extra money brought in for comfort, providing a nicer lifestyle for themselves. While I do understand that colleges  need to bring in large amounts of money to stay in the black, I do not support the need to charge the incredibly costly amounts that they do. References Agron, J. (2009, April 1). 38th Annual Maintenance & Operations Cost Study for Colleges. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://asumag. com/Maintenance/university-maintenance- operations-cost-study- 200904? page=15 College Enrollment and Work Activity of 2013 High School Graduates. (2014, April 22). Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www. bls. gov/news. release/hsgec. nr0. htm What are the new Back to School statistics for 2014? (n. d. ). Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://nces. ed. gov/fastfacts/display. asp? id=372 What’s the Price Tag for a College Education? (n. d. ). Retrieved March 10, 2015, from https://www. collegedata. com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl. jhtml? articleId 10064.

Innovative Culture and Innovative Competencies Assignment

Innovative Culture and Innovative Competencies - Assignment Example Alliances are, thus, useful avenues of not only gaining access to the skills and capabilities of partners, but also serve to strengthen the core competencies within organizations. Indeed with the globalized competition, it is no longer possible to compete in the traditional sense of self-sufficiency, which, in a sense, is untenable as markets increasingly become highly volatile, rapidly rendering techniques and products obsolete almost as fast as they are invented. Though innovation has been pushed to the center of production dynamics, the hurdles to its realization have more than doubled, complicating its management and making it even more elusive. As such, firms committed to breaking new grounds begin from the very foundation of harnessing the requisite competencies, with speed given precedence both in terms of resources and organizational support (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990). It is more of a common knowledge that entrepreneurship is but an adventure that carries with it several unknow ns that demands creativity to achieve the preset objectives. Noteworthy, the link between innovation and growth has long been a subject of theoretical research right from the days of Adam Smith (1776). In his â€Å"Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,† Smith (1776) articulates gains in productivity as a factor of specialization, division of labor as well as the technological advances in capital equipments and processes employed. Besides the role of Research and Development being a key determinant of competitive advantage, Smith also recognizes Technological Transfer via a web of network that incorporates suppliers and product end-users in that very analysis: â€Å"All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade; and some by that of thos e who are called philosophers or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do anything, but to observe everything; and who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects. In the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens†¦ and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it † (Smith, 1776). Buoyed by the assumption that there is no heterogeneous formula of acquiring innovation capability, structured theories have been proposed to explain the differences between the nearly excellent and the poor innovators. The Resource-Based Approach (RBA), for instance, explains the differences as a reflection of the capacity [resources and capabilities] within a given organization to confront challenges; resources and capabilities which are somehow unique and very difficult to reproduce and/or substitute by other players in the market (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994). Teece & Pisano’s (1994) dynamic capabilities theory deviates from the RBA, explaining

Reflective report , on Do organizations align the recruitment and Dissertation

Reflective report , on Do organizations align the recruitment and selection of talent with their corporate strategy - Dissertation Example Corporate strategies mirror lasting personnel strategy and direct the employment and choice policy. Introduction In modern day, the task of human resource is no longer a back office function as it was back in the days (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). For a long time, scholars have embarked on intensive research on better methods of improving the practice of human resource management. The success of any given organization is highly dependent on the ability and talent adopted by a company. Unlike long ago where recruitment of new talent was depended on the traditional approach, it now has undergone transformations and has incorporated new ideas such as career orientation from time to time. The general idea behind recruitment of new talent is generally to align personnel practices to the overall business strategy. Thoughts In fact, the responsibility of human resourcing is viewed as a form of strategic business function. Every organization seeks to create a business impact in every form t hrough development of talent management skills. The reason for this is that organizations bear in mind that performance is largely dependent on the type of labor and skills employed. I tend to think that organizations hire for varying reasons. ... Incorporation of talent management into a company’s corporate structure is a big step towards adopting a capability driven team (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). The different organizations have varying forms of acquiring new staff. There a number of processes involved when it comes to the process of constructing a strong human resource arm of an organization. To most organizations, the main aim of hiring new staff is mainly aid accurate and objective decision making in a bid to get the most qualified staff only. Every company aims projects to have only the best in the market at the right place in the organization. Some companies have gone ahead, and even adopted Softwares that are meant to efficiently monitor systematic recruitment process (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). An example of this system is the SAAS, which stands for software as a recruit service. The software conducts simple recruitment functions such as attracting, selecting, and sourcing and even better yet, inducting new staff. Another such like software used in hiring is the PageUp people system (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). This system is flexible, very accurate, easy to work with and quick. The software is said to provide the efficiency in recording performance of the many applicants concerned. Feelings I strongly feel that strategic human resource management is crucial in organizations as it determines how well the investment function will be carried out. It is the responsibility of the human resource manager to conducts strategizing comprehensive efforts to only source for the best talent. The process of talent management in organizations entails a series of activities, which include talent identification, internal and external development as well as motivation, and talent

The trade relations between China and the U.S Essay

The trade relations between China and the U.S - Essay Example (Morrison 4). Currently, China’s market for U.S products is estimated to be worth $300 billion judging from the exports from U.S to China and the total sales of U.S firms based in China (Morrison 8). As such, U.S-China trade ties have defied all the odds to remain strong with prospects of increase in trade despite the differences between the two trading partners. One aspect that makes trade between China and U.S interesting phenomena is the growing trade ties despite the complex relationships marked by major tensions. One of the major challenges that results in these tensions, in the trade is the difference in the market economies of the two countries, which though significant has been overlooked in the developing trade ties between the two countries. While U.S is a capitalist country that favors free economy policies, China has adamantly resisted the move to shift to a free economy market despite the growing pressure from the global markets (Morrison 26). As such, the country still imposes policies that lead to distortion of trade and investments. Some of the areas that have resulted in trade tensions include China’s poor policies in the management of intellectual property rights (Morrison 28). Others as Morrison explains are an increasing tendency where some Chinese firms are involved in cyber espionage against many U.S firms, a mov e that had threatened relations between the two countries. As such, the growing trade between the two countries has defied such tensions, which may suggest the two counties hold resources of strategic impotence in international trade, which overshadows the existing tensions. Government intervention in the Chinese market is another concept that affects the trade ties between the two countries, and impacts negatively on U.S. Some of the political factors include the reluctance of China to meet its obligations as set out by the World Trade Organization, use of market policies that force foreign firms to transfer technology

International Law Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

International Law Assignment - Essay Example The region had always been witness to ethnic battles, and the twentieth century saw the most bloody episodes in the unfolding saga of the Balkans. Countries such as the U. S., U. K. and a majority of the European Union are in favour of the declaration and have formally recognized Kosovo as a state. To these countries, Kosovo is officially known as the Republic of Kosovo. The topic of this essay is to determine the legality or otherwise of Kosovo’s declaration of independence. The essay will also deal with the issue of recognition of Kosovo as a state according to the relevant theories. Lastly, it will also examine whether the declaration of Kosovo as a state is proper according to the Montevideo Convention. Kosovo was a part of the nation of Serbia, which succeeded Yugoslavia after its dissolution. It is a Balkan region given to ethnic strife since antiquity. To the Serbs, it is an integral part of Serbia, as the area covers the Kosovo Polje (Blackbird Field). This place is ‘sacred territory for the Serbs as the place where Serbs were ‘defeated and subjugated by the Turks’.1 is where The Kosovo problem is one step in the still to be completed Balkan saga. The area now comprising Kosovo was first defined as an area of a state in 1945 as the autonomous Kosovo-Metohian Area.As a part of Yugoslavia, Kosovo gained limited internal autonomy ihn the later part of the sixties. In the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia, Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo was given more powers. A President and prime Minister were formally recognised for the Area. It was also represented in the Federal Presidency. It was thus that Kosovo became a republic in the Federation. The Parliament of the un-recognized Republic of Kosovo approved a resolution supporting the "Independence and Sovereignty of Kosovo" in September 1991.   Put to a clandestinely organized and held referendum in Bosnia the resolution was approved overwhelmingly.2 The Dayton Peace Agreement had

To What Extent are Stock Market Anomalies Evidence of Market Essay

To What Extent are Stock Market Anomalies Evidence of Market Inefficiency - Essay Example Eugene Fama has taken the specific asset pricing model such as the APT (Asset Pricing Theory and the CAPM (Capital Asset Prising Model) as the standard paradigm. Since the stock prices of different firm over the markets is different, i.e. the market value for the riskier stocks are low providing higher rate of return and vice-versa but in a cross section market the inverse will be applicable. Thus based on the evaluation made by Fama we can analyse the factors responsible for the stock markets anomalies resulting from market inefficiency (Keim & Ziemba, 2000, pp.92-94) Momentum and Overreaction anomalies Through momentum of anomalies the short-term pattern of share pricing of the companies. According to the theory lead by Werner DeBondht and Richard Thaler the over reaction of investors to the public information is completely unnecessary as the stock prices are evaluated according to the past performance of the stock market which may not portray the true picture of the market informa tion. Thus the stock prices with inflated or depressed pricing may result in realising good or bad information which cannot be depended upon. Through the implementation of the overreaction strategy the investors were suggested to buy the â€Å"loser† portfolios while selling off the â€Å"winner† portfolios. But again a contradiction arises related to the weak-form of efficiency of the securities tends to earn high returns not only in the short-term but also in the subsequent periods. However the existence of the momentum is rational not contradicting the market efficiency due to the fact that that the presence of shocks in the growth rates of the cash flows of the shareholders which is induced to the serial correlation that is not only short lived but also rational (McMillan, et al., 2011, p.contents). Inferences from long term returns According to the inferences drawn by Fama is that the market efficiency of the market is based on the joint model testing for the expe cted normal returns. The problem that arises with the expected normal return whose description provided for the systematic pattern is incomplete related to the average returns during the testing period resulting in a bad-model problem. A bad model problem results in spurious average abnormal return which tends to become the CARs (Cumulative Abnormal Returns) because of the mean associated with the CAR increases summing to the standard error. Constant pricing errors can be seen in the ARRs (Average of monthly abnormal returns) with the respective standard error. Bad modelling problems are the main reason behind the long-term buy and hold abnormal returns which results in the multiplication of the expected return problem related to the short-term return explanation. Problems related to modelling The problems related to the modelling of the bad-model are of two types; the first is that the asset pricing model of any kind does not completely describe the expected return from the market. In a particular market is tilted towards the small stocks then in the calculation of the CAPM the risk adjustments made can project false returns. Even in the case of the true model where the deviation from the model are predicted a situation of spurious anomaly can arise after the risk adjustmen