The Federal Fund holds reserves for various financial institutions.The Federal Reserve, like many Central Banks, requires banks to maintain a cash reserve ratio, which is a percentage of the amount of deposit liabilities that commercial banks owe to its customers. An amount stays in cash with the commercial bank and the rest of the requirement […]
Economics
What is Real Interest Rate
The table below is the real interest rates in 1961 and 2015 for the various countries of the world. This data is made available thanks to IMF, International Financial Statistics and World Bank. Investors make investment decisions based on interest rates. Countries estimate interest rates in the coming years. Interest rates can be nominal and […]
Historically Low Interest Rates: Causes and Explanation
Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman at Economic Club of New York (October 2016) regarding historically low-interest rates. This article is a summary of his speech regarding the same. Fischer notes that with the exception of December 2015, the Federal Fund Rate has been low. The policy rates of most major central banks known for their conservative […]
Puerto Rico Debt: $70 Billion and Counting
Puerto Rico, that beautiful archipelago in the Caribbean, ceded by the Spanish to the Americans in 1898, is engulfed in debt. Living it’s life as a commonwealth of the United States but without voting rights to elect the President of USA, this beautiful island is unable to make basic payments like fuel for its police […]
Indicators That A Global Recession Is Just Around The Bend
The 2008 Financial Crisis was attributed to easy credit to improperly assessed individuals, high debt leveraging, bad loans and a systemic crisis. Government bailouts and reducing the cost of money by the government were the emergency techniques used to prevent the world from going into a sinkhole from which it would never come back. Recently […]
What the Fed Interest Rate Hike Means for Everyone
Is America recovering from its economic recession? The increase in Federal interest rates seems to indicate so. The Fed in its press release noted that all economic indicators (household consumption, business expenditure, inflation) are improving and it seems time to increase the interest rates for the first time after the 2008 financial crisis and resulting […]
Lowering Oil Prices: Another Drop in The Growing Woe of a Global Recession
Oil prices have been falling and how. The recession in China, the second largest economy in the world, has meant the demand for crude has been low. On the other hand an increased supply of oil, particularly from Iran has meant crude prices have been steadily falling. Observers had anticipated that the recent political stand-off […]
China Records Lowest Growth in a Quarter A Century: Is This the Beginning of a Slowdown?
At best conjectures and deductions with no affirmations can be expected from the world’s second largest economy China. An economy with the staggering size of $10 trillion, China recorded a growth of 6.9%, its slowest in 25 years. Of course one can argue that this is commendable for an economy of this size. However, there […]
How to Download Stock Prices into Google Spreadsheets
This post provides an alternative to downloading stock prices in excel, for those who prefer to manage their portfolio in Google Spreadsheets. Google Spreadsheets have become quite powerful and can be used to perform complex calculations and create dynamic dashboards. Just like in excel, you can import data from external sources into google spreadsheets. Let’s […]
Accounting Profit Vs. Economic Profit
Accounting Profit We generally look at profits from accounting perspective. From the perspective of an accountant, profit is the difference between total revenue and total actual expenses incurred by the firm’s actors of production. These are the explicit costs incurred by the firm. Explicit costs are the monetary payments to resource owners. Accounting Profits = […]