Chapters 3 & 4 explain how bonds and stocks are valued. Helpful material and data on bond markets are available on: www.finpipe.com (good explanations of bond markets from a Canadian site perspective) www.investinginbonds.com (the Bond Market Association's website contains useful bond data and links to related sites) www.investorguide.com (good explanations of bond and equity markets) http://finance.yahoo.com http://money.cnn.com/markets/bondcenter (market commentary) www.federalreserve.gov (the research section contains historical data on interest rates) www.stls.frb.org (the site of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis ) www.ustreas.gov (website of the U.S. Treasury includes current bond prices and yields)
Helpful material on bond valuation can be found at: www.fintools.com (has a somewhat more advanced bond calculator) www.loanpricing.com (includes data on bond issuance volumes)
Chapter 7 provides an overview of long-term returns on stocks and bonds. You can find long-term securities' price data on: www.globalfinancialdata www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller (Robert Shiller's home page)
In Chapter 8 we explain why risk can be measured by "beta." Equity betas for individual stocks can be found on Yahoo (or you can download the stock prices from Yahoo and calculate your own measures): http://finance.yahoo.com Chapter 8 looks at Campbell Harvey 's home page includes software to calculate efficient frontiers for portfolios of two or three assets: www.duke.edu/~charvey
The Corporate Library is a very useful source of information on executive compensation. Business Week and Forbes produce regular repor ts on remuneration , and the website of Towers Perrin, the human resource consultancy, provides some extracts from its database: www.thecorporatelibrary.com www.towersperrin.com www.businessweek.com www.forbes.com
Chapter 12 describes how performance may be measured by EVA. Stern Stewart's site provides articles and data on EVA: www.sternstewart.com
Dividend policy and leverage decisions may be influenced by tax rates. Here are some sites with information on tax rates: www.taxsites.com (includes links to sites providing tax rates for a variety of countries) http://finance.yahoo.com (information on personal tax rates) www.quicken.com (information on personal tax rates)
For material on the estimation of default probabilities, see: www.moodyskmv.com (the website of Moody's KMV) www.riskmetrics.com (includes a detailed description of Creditmetrics risk analysis)
A site that focuses on project finance: www.people.hbs.edu/besty/projfinportal (maintained by Benjamin Esty with excellent links including links to specific large projects)
The following sites contain material on leasing, which is covered in Chapter 26: www.elfaonline.com (website of the Equipment Leasing Association) www.chooseleasing.org
PART 8 WEBSITES
Chapter 26 discusses futures markets. The major futures exchanges have useful sites that provide data and explain how futures markets work: www.cbot.com (Chicago Board of Trade) www.cme.com (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) www.nymex.com (New York Mercantile Exchange) www.lme.com (London Metal Exchange) www.eurexchange.com (Eurex) www.euronext.com (London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange)
The site for the Bank for International Settlements includes periodic surveys of derivative and currency markets: www.bis.org
Commodity and futures quotes and comment are available on: www.commoditytrader.net ISDA is the trade association for swap dealers: www.isda.org
There are numerous sites with spot currency rates. They include official sites and more user friendly commercial ones: www.federalreserve.gov www.stls.frb.org www.ny.frb.org (the New York Fed's website also includes a good description of the foreign exchange market) www.oecd.org (the OECD's website also includes "effective" or "real" exchange rates) www.bankofengland.co.uk (includes "effective" or "real" exchange rates and, for sterling only, forward exchange rates) www.ecb.int (the website of the European Central Bank includes nominal and "effective" or "real" exchange rates for the euro) www.oanda.com www.x-rates.com www.economist.com/markets/currency/map.cfm (map of the world allowing you to find cross-rates between two countries and change in rate) www.globalfinancialdata.com (this marvelous site includes some very long-term exchange rate data)
The OECD website is a good source of short- and long-term interest rates by country: www.oecd.org
The following sites provide useful financial information for a variety of countries: www.corporateinformation.com (company data and links to finance-related sites for each country) www.emgmkts.com (data and commentary on emerging markets) www.securities.com (news on emerging markets)
For sample rankings of countries by political risk see: www.prsgroup.com
The Web site of the Bank of International Settlements and the central banks provide material on payment systems: www.bis.org www.federalreserve.gov www.ecb.int (for material on the European Central Bank's "Target" payments system)
The Web sites of most major banks provide information on cash management services. See, for example: www.chase.com www.bankofamerica.com
GE's Web site contains information on sources and costs of short-term finance: www.gecfosolutions.com
Central bank Web sites, such as those for The Federal Reserve and regional Feds, are generally good sources of reference for short-term interest rates. www.federalreserve.gov (also contains results of the quarterly survey of the terms of business lending by banks) www.ny.frb.org www.stls.frb.org www.oecd.org (the OECD Web site contains interest rate series for different countries)
Dun and Bradstreet and the three main credit-reporting agencies have useful Web sites: www.dnb.com (examples of Dun and Bradstreet credit reports, articles on credit management, and an introductory guide to understanding financial statements) www.equifax.com www.experian.com www.transunion.com
Some other sources concerned with credit management: www.creditworthy.com www.nacm.org (includes links to sites on credit-related issues)
PART 10 WEBSITES
Most websites that provide market commentary (see list at start of Part One) also contain material on recent mergers. Other sites concerned with mergers include: www.mergernetwork.com (information on businesses for sale) www.mergerstat.com (some data on merger activity)