fainancial

A good introduction to neural nets and their applicability tothe futures markets. Provides mathematical/theoretical basis fortechniques involved in neural net training, testing, chaos and touches on nonlinear systems in general. Also provides interesting benchmarks of several nets against several time series. Great bibliography. Includes Fortran source code for running trained nets but not for training a net.

A must read for all who have an investment license!

I haven't worked my way through this book completely yet, but I've already decided that it's a good addition to my finance library. Very readable and interesting, with a wide array of financial instruments covered - and explained in simple terms. A good book for the finance student and professional.

Otero and Rhyne have done an admirable job of documenting recent advances in the field of microfinance. They combine a succinct and accessible writing style with lively case studies to (a) challenge pre-existing economic notions regarding microfinance, (b) present a model for evaluating microfinance programs, (c) discuss the legal environment for microfinance programs, and, (d) elaborate on alternative program design and delivery mechanisms to effectively reach poor clients. I found the case studies very helpful. Both laymen and specialists will benefit from the balanced, informed and painstaking research that has gone into writing this book. A must-read for development enthusiasts in general and microfinance fanatics in particular!

The best way to know how the creative word is doing is to have a look to this book. From mine point of view is priority when you work in advertising. Is a way you look how your competitors and aother industrial cathegories are facing the advertising goals.

Nobody's Fool: A Skeptic's Guide to Prosperity by experienced entrepreneur A. B. Jacobs is a practical, "user friendly" guide to financial ways and means written expressly for the benefit of non-specialist general readers. Individual chapters address the truth about Social Security, effective approaches to maintaining one's health, need-to-know information on mutual funds, and much, much more. Nobody's Fool is recommended as being a highly useful guide to the diverse pitfalls of the modern financial world.

Simon Benninga's book on Numerical Techniques is a good collection on application of quantitative techniques in Finance, it has covered most of theoritical concepts of Modern Finance and put them in an algorithmic form ready to be used with the help of Excel or Lotus. This excellent book not only shows an algorithmic approach to the modern financial principles but as a bonus adds to the users spreadsheets skills. Sujeet

Is there anything better than Madonna in denim? Don't be ridiculous! But "Officially Supported Export Credits" comes darn close. The editors here are like Kafka and William S. Burroughs rolled into one. The prose reads like a cross between "Metamorphosis" and "Naked Lunch." What power! What bugs! It's exportalicious!

This is a review from the Financial Times in London. JRB Copyright 1994 The Financial Times Limited; Financial Times (London) November 2, 1994, Wednesday By CHRISTOPHER HOWE 'OPENING JAPAN'S FINANCIAL MARKETS' By J. Robert Brown Jr. Routledge, Pounds 45, 272 pages ... The Japanese began systematic preparations to penetrate the western economies about 130 years ago. Serious, large-scale efforts to reverse the process date only from the rise of the Japanese trade surplus in the early 1980s. Given the linguistic, psychological, institutional and other barriers between the parties, it is not surprising that the balance of economic advantage in recent years has seemed to be so much in Japan's favour. Furthermore, although the west is beginning to catch up, at least in consciousness of the problem, the problem itself gets more difficult. For whereas the main challenge used to be how to penetrate the markets for goods, there is now increasing concern with the markets for services and with the obstacles to making a success of direct investment in Japan. J. Robert Brown's book is one of the most interesting accounts of these subjects yet to appear. Based on careful study of the literature and on more than 100 detailed interviews, it throws new light not only on the banking sector, but on the wider issue of how public and private sectors can interact in the process of market opening. A small number of western banks had established themselves in Japan before the Pacific War, including the old British Far Eastern banks, and Citibank, representing America. These mainly supported foreign trade and the banking needs of foreign companies in Japan. In the case of Citibank, at least, care was taken not to compete with domestic banks, on whom it relied for advice on local creditworthiness. During the post-war occupation, foreign banks had a new opportunity to re-enter the market and three prominent American Banks did so. Again, however, the foreigners were sidelined rather than integrated into the mainstream of the financial system, focusing on trade finance and short- to medium-term dollar lending. After the occupation, the Japanese government and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) resumed control. No new foreign entrants were allowed in for many years and a highly regulated financial system was established. In this system, Japanese institutions were assigned designated, highly specialized roles and the volume, direction and price of credit flows were each tightly controlled by an MOF with enormous legal and discretionary authority. The only way in which foreigners could be fitted into the picture was to restrict them to specific classes of business, such as foreign exchange, trade and dollar lending. Foreign banks acquiesced in these arrangements through much of the 1960s and early 1970s partly because their niches were exceptionally profitable. So much so, that in the early 1960s Citibank's profits from only four branches were larger than those of Fuji Bank, the largest of the Japanese City Banks. The other reason for acquiescence was that in the Japanese system, since banks rather than security markets were the main source of industrial finance, they were called upon to provide what was in reality a form of risk-sharing, equity finance, and were also expected by the authorities to provide both leadership and, when necessary, bail-outs for large companies. At the time, western bankers, with their short term, balance sheet approach to lending, found these practices unacceptable and hence were unwilling to undertake a lead role in company lending, even had they been encouraged to do so. All this began to collapse after the oil shock of the 1970s and the rise of US-Japan trade frictions in the 1980s. What Brown brings out so clearly is that liberalisation and market opening occurred because it was in the interests of both the western banks and the Japanese City Banks. Both sides wanted new instruments and avenues to funds and both wanted abolition of the old division between banking and securities business. The government had ultimately to agree to change, and all that this entailed, because of its need for large-scale bond financing to cover its budgetary deficit. Brown also shows that, although driven by these underlying factors, the occasion of the big breakthrough was the Reagan-Nakasone summit of 1983, when an embarrassing absence of business allowed the Americans to put the financial services issue on an unexpectedly high-level agenda. In spite of all the change and the formal steps towards liberalisation that have taken place, the longer term results remain disappointing. On the positive side, examples such as Citibank have shown that by taking a long view and making a careful analysis of the market, by a shrewd combination of conformity and innovation, and by good training and personnel policies, it is possible to make a success of business in Japan. On the other hand, the overall profitability and market shares of western banks as a group, remain very low. A fundamental reason for this is that there remain strong traditional elements in both the relationships between the financial system and the MOF, and between the institutions and their customers. Whether the political economy of the post-'Bubble' era will change this, or whether western companies will adapt even more flexibly to Japanese ways, remain fascinating questions for the future.

The book is a must for anyone who is serious about living without debt, yet with prosperity