Finance Details, Meaning Finance Article and Explanation Guide

Finance Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Finance is the application of the principles of financial economics to an inter-related set of monetary problems. Its aim is in the optimal use of financial instruments. In the case of a company, this generally involves balancing risk and profitability and is typically called managerial finance or corporate finance. Investment management is concerned with the identification of an optimal portfolio of assets, given a set of objectives and constraints, as well as with the valuation of assets. Finance can also be used by individuals (called personal finance), and by governments (called public finance), as well as by a wide variety of organizations including schools and non-profit organizations. In general, the goals of each of the above disciplines are achieved through the use of appropriate financial instruments, with consideration to their institutional setting.

Table of contents

1 Finance involves:
2 Finding Finance Articles
3 Finding related topics
4 External links

Finance involves:

Financial institutions and regulation

Financial markets and instruments
- Commodities - topics
- Stocks - topics
- Bonds - topics
- Money market instruments- topics
- Derivative securities- topics

Valuation
- Determination of the fair value of an asset
  - How risky is the asset? (identification of the asset appropriate discount rate)
  - What cash flows will it produce? (discounting of relevant cash flows)
  - How does the market price compare to similar assets? (relative valuation)
  - Are the cash flows dependent on some other asset or event? (derivatives, contingent claim valuation)

Corporate and Managerial finance
- Capital investment decisions - generally relating to a corporation's long term (fixed) assets and capital structure
- Working capital management - relating to current assets and short term financing

Investment management
- Identify relevant objectives and constraints: institution or individual - goals - time horizon - risk aversion - tax considerations
- Identify the appropriate portfolio: what to invest in - how much to invest - when to invest
- Identify the appropriate strategy: active vs passive - hedging strategy
- Measure the portfolio performance

Wealth management and personal finance
- How much money will be needed by an individual (or a family) at various points in the future?
- How is that need to be funded?

Public finance
- Identification of required expenditure of a public sector entity
- Source(s) of that entity's revenue
- The budgeting process

Finding Finance Articles

There are over 250 finance articles in Wikipedia. See list of finance topics or List of finance topics (alphabetical).

Finding related topics

External links

For an in-depth finance glossary, see Glyn A. Holton's riskglossary
For a Hypertextual Finance Glossary, see Prof. Campbell R. Harvey
For material covering three areas in finance - corporate finance, valuation and investment management, see Prof. Aswath Damodaran
For an an interactive corporate finance environment, see Prof. Rock Mathis
For links to finance web sites, grouped by topic see Web Sites for Discerning Finance Students, Prof. John M. Wachowicz
For articles on current corporate finance and investment issues, visit Oaktree Research, a financial education portal
The introductory finance web site at the University of Arizona, studyfinance.com
For illustrative (simpler) worked examples covering several of these topics see teachmefinance
For introductory articles covering mathematical finance see quantnotes

This is an Article on Finance. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Finance

Finance Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Finance involves:

Finding Finance Articles

Finding related topics

External links

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