Money and Financial Lifestyle

For students in my Financial Management class (FINM2401) - Alan Kohler has written an editorial on the current short sale restrictions here in Australia ( The Blind Leading the Naked , on Business Spectator ). In a nutshell: Short selling is an important part of price discovery in markets, but the securities lending business in Australia should be more transparent

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More on Short Selling

The ongoing saga of BrisConnections is coming to a head. There’s a good background piece in the Sydney Morning Herald ( here ). BrisConnections is a highly leveraged business, established to build a toll road out to Brisbane Airport

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How NOT to make an IPO

I was catching up on podcasts this morning and my mp3 player served up this gem from NPR’s Business Story of the Day podcast : Despite Losses, Star Investor Trusts In Stocks David Swensen, manager of Yale University’s endowment, says that individuals should be investing in index funds: … because most so-called actively managed mutual funds — the ones that pay managers to pick stocks — charge such high fees that the fees more than eat up the added returns they’re able to achieve, he says.

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Index Funds 1, Active Managers 0

Currently there’s a big debate on whether financial advisors should be compensated using a fee-for-service model or a commission model. The Sydney Morning Herald chimes in with an article by Simon Hoyle

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The cost of financial advice

Peter Wallison has an opinion piece about valuing bank assets in the Wall Street Journal. A quick summary: Both taxpayers and banks could come out well — and so would our economy — if the government were to buy the assets at their “net realizable value,” which is based on an assessment of their current cash flows, discounted by their expected credit losses over time.

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Asset Pricing 101

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Next week marks the beginning of a new academic year here at UQ . I’m teaching two courses this semester — an introductory finance course for business majors (over 850 students), and a personal finance course with no pre-requisites (over 100 students). If any of my students find their way here, do say hello in the comments

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Getting Ready

Haven’t posted lately.

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Understanding the Financial Crisis

I had a very interesting question from a student today. We’re covering portfolio theory in Financial Management, and she was looking at some of her own personal investments from this “new” point of view

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Risk Disclosures

Alan Kohler is one of my favorite Aussie finance commentators. Unfortunately, Business Spectator, where he writes regular columns, is available only through an email list and not through an rss feed.

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Short Selling