A convertible bond is a hybrid financial instrument that incorporates features of a bond (fixed income security) and an equity claim (usually common stock). In most instances the convertible can be exchanged, at the holder's option, for the common shares of the corporation issuing the convertible. The conversion value, or stock value, is the market value of the common shares for which the convertible can be exchanged. The bond value or floor price is the market value of an equivalent bond that does not include a conversion feature. The market price of a convertible will be the conversion value or the bond value, whichever is higher, plus a premium. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model which estimates the premium. The premium estimated is defined as the difference between the market price of the convertible and the bond value or conversion value, whichever is larger. No consideration will be given to convertible preferreds.

Single-period portfolio selection deals with the allocation of an investor's initial wealth to a finite number of risky assets according to his preferences over random final wealth. The purpose of this paper is to study chance-constrained portfolio selection from the point of view of utility theory.

One of the phenomena on Wall Street during the sixties was the new issues market. During the decade new issues became a popular investment alternative, particularly in the bull markets of 1962, 1966, and 1968. The height of enthusiasm occurred in the hot new issues market of the fiscal year 1968–1969 when 2,171 issues were offered to the public. This interest in new issues was followed by studies such as Reilly and Hatfield [12], McDonald and Fisher [9], the SEC [13], and others, all of which show that there is a downward bias in the issue price of new issues. Why this downward bias is present was treated later by Logue [5]. Although these studies also suggest that there is a difference in the pricing behavior by individual underwriters, none of the previous studies has addressed itself specifically to this point.

The results obtained for accounts payable contrast with those for accounts receivable. With receivables, it appears that the level is determined more or less automatically by sales, linear trend, and season of the year. In the case of payables, it seems that trend and season are unimportant, and that the level of payables is determined instead by not only the level of purchases, but by capital requirements. Further, the current obligation on bank term-loans plays an important role in determining the response of payables to the need for working capital.

However, it was shown that fairly simple models are sufficient to account for most of the variance in accounts payable. Although it was anticipated that monetary variables would be significant for accounts payable, this was not borne out. As for accounts receivable, most of the variance in accounts payable for the Lumber and Wood Products Industry can be associated with microeconomic (i.e., industry variables) and time variables alone.

Several tentative conclusions concerning trade credit in the Lumber and Wood Products Industry may be listed:

1. Receivables can be accounted for almost entirely by sales, trend, or season.

2. Payables are not directly influenced by trend or season.

3. The direct influences of money supply and interest rates on accounts payable are not significant.

4. The effect of working capital on payables is adequately captured by treating current assets and current liabilities as separate independent variables.

5. The current obligation on long-term bank loans is more important in determining the level of payables than are short-term bank loans or the level of long-term debt.

This paper examines the validity of two widely used methods for forming conditional predicted portfolio returns. The first method relies on a one-period, mean-variance theory of equilibrium expected return, sometimes referred to as the “capital asset pricing model” (CAPM). The second method is based upon a proposal by Markowitz [14] and is called the [market model] (MM).

A relationship between money supply and stock prices is fairly well recognized in the literature. More recently the studies of Hamburger and Kochin [7], Modigliani [12], Keran [9], and Homa and Jaffee [8] have attempted to specify the short- and long-run nature and the direct and indirect nature of these relationships. Also, these studies have focused on determining the transition variables through which the money-supply effect is transmitted to stock prices. A more pragmatic approach is that of Sprinkel [17 and 18] and Palmer [14] who have attempted to analyze the money-supply and stock-market relationships to see if the former can be a predictor of the latter. More reliable forecasts of future market movements, if available, could be extremely useful for individual and institutional investors. At one extreme, information could be used to time the investment in and out of the market portfolio. Alternatively, the investor could more profitably use the B information on market volatility of stocks available from the capital-asset pricing model, relating expected rate of return on a security, E(Ri), with that on the market portfolio, E(Rm). Accordingly, the prediction of the market would indicate when to shift the composition of the portfolio from relatively low to high or from relatively high to low β stocks and cash.

The financial management area has come a long way since Fred Weston in 1954 (Journal of Finance) called for more research in and application of financial theory. Now, Neuberger and Hammond advance investment theory by empirical studies in an area which has received little direct attention. Their researching of new issues' price behavior provides application of observed facts to substantiate policy recommendations framed within a certain investment psychology structure.

Capital adequacy is an important and controversial issue in banking. Bank regulators consider the evaluation of capital adequacy one of their major responsibilities and place special attention on the role of capital in preventing bank failures.

In the past most of the studies whose aim was to explain earnings-to-price ratios (or alternatively, price-earnings ratios) of common stocks attempted to answer the much-debated question raised in both investment and academic circles: Why does a given common stock consistently command a higher price relative to its earnings vis-a-vis other stocks? Success in answering this question has been limited, largely due to (1) researchers' inability to incorporate expected earnings (E) correctly into the empirical measurement of earnings-to-price ratio and/or (2) inadequate treatment of risk variables to explain variability of earnings-to-price ratio.

The FINSIM model provides a fundamental and analytical basis for security evaluation. The methodology presented includes the relevant economic and firm variables in an efficient computational scheme and is useful for:

1. reducing the analysts' judgments about the future to a specific stock price (the model described does not replace the analyst, rather it provides the analyst with a vehicle to determine the implications of his critical assumptions);

2. testing the probable impact of changed expectations concerning the firm and/or the level of the market on stock value;

3. getting at what “the markets” expectations must be to justify the current price;

4. determining the value of additional information (are results changed significantly to pay for the expense of refined estimates?);

5. determining the impact of alternative growth horizons on value; and

6. determining what the actual growth rate of total earnings must be to overcome the dilution effects of financing with external equity.

While the security analyst still faces the problems associated with decision making under uncertainty, the methodology presented facilitates the use of sensitivity analysis to study the implications of uncertain knowledge of parameters.

Industry analysis has long been a cornerstone in both the academic and professional segments of the investment community. Concepts such as “an industry providing downside protection” or “another is certain to outperform the market” have been prevalent throughout the profession. The importance of industry analysis in terms of stock price changes has been suggested by King, while the influence of the industry factor on corporate earnings changes has been documented by Brown and Ball. These studies and others have indicated that industry analysis has been an important part of security valuation.

The objective of this paper is to determine upper bounds of the potential savings that can be realized by the application of cash management optimization models. These upper bounds are found by simulation as the difference between the performance of a deterministic optimization model--which finds the optimal policy in hindsight--and the simulated performance of a hypothetical treasurer who uses simple heuristic cash management rules as informally practiced by many treasurers, based on prediction of random cash flows. The results of this analysis leave serious doubts as to profitability of cash management optimization models.

This paper examines a conceptual framework for normative models of financial management in commercial banks. Since the bank is viewed as a financial intermediary, it is argued that the appropriate conceptual framework for bank financial management models is one that focuses on imperfections in the markets in which the bank operates.

The purpose of this paper is to examine various measures of the structure of banking markets and to relate these measures to selected indices of bank prices. To this point most studies in the field (and court rulings as well) have relied almost exclusively on concentration ratios and the number of banks as measures of market structure. However, these simple measures have important deficiencies which may lead to erroneous conclusions.

The traditional valuation framework is unsuited to the task of valuing a growth stock when the capitalization rate is specified in terms of market leverage, simply because it is impossible to maintain a constant ratio of book to market leverage over the growth horizon. This severely limits the usefulness of the traditional model in analyzing the valuation problem. We have proposed a more general form of the model which allows us to show the consistency between M-M's Propositions I and II under growth.

The large amount of foreign direct investment by U. S. firms in recent years suggests that such firms had a high internal rate of return on investment abroad. In this paper we attempt to explain this high rate of return. We conclude that direct investors tend to be in research-intensive industries and that their profitability is associated with research and development, rather than with direct investment itself. By investing abroad, or exporting, they increase the expected return to research activity. Thus, the internal rate of return on foreign direct investment exceeds average rates of return observed in foreign economies. Since direct investors in manufacturing are typically research-intensive, this result suggests why capital may flow from countries with high rates of return to those with lower observed rates of return.

The purpose of this paper is to survey monetary policy as it unfolded from the beginning of 1973 to the spring of 1974. This is, on the whole, a relatively uncomplicated period to discuss since there was, I would judge, rather less controversy about the aims and appropriateness of monetary policy over most of this period than is often the case. In brief, monetary policy focused primarily on producing a moderate degree of restraint, one that would relieve the excess demand pressures clearly evident during at least the first part of the period. The aim in doing so was to create a climate in which inflation could gradually be brought under control. This objective suffered serious competition only briefly, when, during the early stages of the oil boycott, the potential of that situation for creating economic weakness was still very unclear.

Robert J. Saunders [4] has demonstrated that, because of the high degree of linear interdependence among many of the variables commonly used in banking studies, it may be necessary to interpret explanatory variables in a cross-sectional regression equation, not as representing individual influences but as representing more general factors. He attempted to demonstrate how principal component analysis might be used to isolate and identify some of these general factors.

The Markowitz model for the efficient diversification of investments [12] has, over the years since its original formulation, provided the basis for many investigations into the question of portfolio selection. Amongst the more notable contributions to the theory are the works of Fama [6] and Mandelbrot [11], Smith [17], Latané [10], Arditti [1], and Blume [2].

Dr. Severn and Professor Laurence present an analysis of the relationships between direct investment, research and development (R & D), and profitability. Early in the paper it is stated that the goal is to provide an explanation for the assumed high internal rate of return on investment abroad. Later it is restated that the paper studies “the profitability of the firm as a whole, rather than its reported profit on foreign assets alone.” Consequently, no evidence is presented of a high return on investment abroad. Indeed, the references to rates of return in the first few pages should be preceded by the word “expected” because these are ex ante returns, whereas the returns analyzed elsewhere in the paper are ex post returns.