Thursday, January 30, 2020
19th Century American Imperialism & 20th Century War Essay Example for Free
19th Century American Imperialism 20th Century War Essay Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan couldn’t have said it any better, â€Å"No nation had ever become great without control of foreign markets and access to the natural resources of foreign countries†(Kinzer 33). Throughout the years, America has had an astonishing obsession with the idea of global imperialism. One can’t help but ask the following question: what sparked this sudden obsession with global imperialism? Even though there are many different factors that helped spark this sudden movement, the biggest single factor was the industrialization of the world’s major industrialist societies, such as England, United States, Japan, and Germany. The sudden explosion of industrialization sparked a huge consumption of the earth’s natural resources, and initiated the need for expansion. Throughout the late 19th century up until today, America has approached global imperialism in a number of different ways. Methods such as deception, intimidation, fear, and violence have all been used throughout the American conquest in order to expand this imperialistic society. America had to start expanding and had to take over weaker countries. See more: Homelessness as a social problem Essay Americans had to look to faraway countries, weak countries, countries that had large markets and rich resources but had not yet fallen under the sway of any great power†(Kinzer 34). This paper will primarily focus on the reasoning provided by Kinzer’s book Overthrow. America has become the imperialistic society it is today because of the rapid 19th century industrialization and the constant American hunger for natural resources, territory, and global domination. â€Å"Whether they will or no, Americans must now begin to look outward. The growing production of the country demands it†(Kinzer 33). During the late 19th century, America enjoyed a successful conquest of Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines, and Nicaragua. Hawaii, which has always embraced a history of tradition and culture, was faced with the issue of modernization. Throughout the years, Hawaii had slowly started to fall under white control. Hawaii has always been a huge producer of sugar, with one problem. The major market for sugar was in the United States, but the Hawaiians could not export as much as they would like because of the high tariffs imposed on imported sugar in the States. When the reciprocity treaty as signed in the summer of 1876, Americans started installing military and commercial bases in Hawaii. The renewed treaty however was what really displayed that Hawaii was falling under white influence. The renewed treaty gave United States control of Pearl Harbor, an extremely fine natural port. On January 14th 1893, Queen Liliuokalani made a disturbing announcement to her cabinet. She proclaimed a new constitution which stated only Hawaiian citizens had the right to vote. This meant that the Hawaiian population of Americans would no longer be able to vote. This move gave Lorrin Thurston and John Colburn the reason they needed to initiate the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, which would mark America’s first overthrow of a foreign government. The alarmed Thurston quickly wrote a letter to John L. Stevens, requesting military assistance for the overthrow of the queen’s regime. Soon after, on July 4th 1894, the Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed. During the Spanish colonization of Cuba in 1897, William McKinley was sworn in as president of the United States. McKinley did not like the idea of the Spanish in Cuba. However when talking about McKinley, Kinzer states â€Å"William McKinley believed that a self-governed Cuba would pose an extreme threat to the United States, for they might not do Washington’s bidding†(Kinzer 35). After all, the revolutionary leaders in Cuba were already talking about the social reforms and land redistribution they wanted to initiate. This greatly alarmed many American businessmen, for over $50 million was invested primarily in Cuba’s agriculture. McKinley had finally had enough and had decided it was time to use military force to end the Spanish regime in Cuba. On April 25th 1898, the Spanish-American War had officially begun. After the Spanish surrender, America started to kill Cuba’s dream of independence. In the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain gave up all rights to Cuba, surrendered Puerto Rico and Guam, and sold Philippines for $20 million to the United States. The Platt Amendment gave the US some economic and military control of Cuba. McKinley initially only wanted to build a naval base at Manila, Philippines. Later however, he decided he would embark on a journey of Christianizing the country. This was unnecessary however, for most Filipinos were already Catholic. On June 2nd 1899, the official Philippine-American War started. The United States would win the war, and dissolute the First Philippine Republic. At this point, the United States had obtained, by force, full sovereignty over the Philippines. With Cuba, Hawaii, Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico under its belt, America now had access to a wide array of natural resources and an assortment of markets. However, the conquest would not end there. In order for one to understand the takeover of Nicaragua, one must understand Central America in the late 19th century. The late 19th century proved to be a strong idealistic era for Central America. Ideas of both social and political reforms were sweeping many Central nations, ideas inspired by European philosophers. These ideas were absolutely despised by the American government, for these ideas called for change. These ideas were admired by Central Americans because they all desired change. Jose Santos Zelaya became president of Nicaragua in 1893. He adopted many revolutionary changes, such as importing the automobile and legalizing civil marriage. He also had a very strong emphasis on building and expanding the country’s infrastructure. At first Zelaya and America were on good terms, for there have been talks of building a canal through Nicaragua. Later however, Panama was chosen as the building site, temporarily ending American interest in Nicaragua. As historian John Ellis wrote â€Å"To the State Department, Nicaragua was no longer a country that needed to be coddled or cared for in preparation for future usefulness, rather, it was not a country that needed to be watched carefully and kept in line†(Kinzer 60). A very strong nationalist, Zelaya was giving some of the American business based in his country trouble, which didn’t appeal to the United States secretary of state Philander Knox. What angered Knox even more was that Zelaya went to European banks to borrow money for his railroad project, not American banks. This showed the Taft administration that Nicaragua was trying not to depend on the States as much as they used to, which of course cause congressional panic. After much trouble from Knox, Zelaya finally resigned in 1909. After the brief command of Jose Madriz, Juan Jose Estrada took over the country, and the new conservative government was much admired and supported by the United States. Estrada’s coming to power marks the conquest of Nicaragua, because of America’s strong influence on Estrada’s regime. As demonstrated, the United States has always obtained a hostile approach regarding takeovers and conquest. The first overthrow took place in Hawaii where the queen was relieved of her position. Cuba was later obtained from Spain with the help of brute force and intimidation. Philippines and Puerto Rico were also obtained in the same fashion. Nicaragua’s government fell victim to an American sponsored coup, and their government was taken over by the Americans. It seems like there has always been a recurring pattern throughout American history. If you try to stand up to the US government, you will go down. If you operate your country in a way that doesn’t appeal to the US government, you’re going down. If you just happen to be doing good for your country, there’s still a good chance you’re still going down. America has always been that big bully that beats on the little kids at school, because they are just too weak to defend themselves. America throughout the 19th century was a product of a heavily industrialized society, a society that must rely on domination of other markets and other countries’ resources in order to keep expanding and thriving.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
electronic payment method Essay -- essays research papers
1.     Introduction ABC Company operates telecommunications business. Management prepares to launch a new service to the market. The researchers use data mining techniques to obtain information of market profile. This paper describes how Market Basket Analysis (MBA), Memory Based Reasoning (MBR) and Neural Networks (NN) analyze the data. The data analysis methods generate valuable information for ABC Company constructing the marketing campaign. Management evaluates the business problems, and converts into the data mining problems. Then they select the right data set and inputs into the data mining models. They collect information from data mining and use it to take actions. These actions bring values to the company. Management measures the results as a feedback to the other research projects. 2.     Business Problems Telecommunications is a heavy competitive market. All telecommunications companies offer similar products and services. ABC Company plans to launch a new service - wireless broadband Internet access. The customers access Internet using GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) through their mobile phones. Although ABC Company captures about 40% of total market share, she understands that only delivery innovative service maintains sustainable competitive advantages. The competitors such as Sunday, SmartTone also plan to delivery some new services using broadband wireless communication. ABC Company performs data analysis to capture information of customers' attitudes and market situations. Obviously, a new product delivery is a marketing problem. It is suitable to transform into data analysis problem. Management uses techniques to capture the data. Management has a better understanding to existing market. 3.     Question 1 - Data Analysis by Market Basket Analysis 3.1.     Research Objectives By using MBA, ABC Company selects data from customer database. MBA is developed from the retail business. Researchers collect data of customers to see the joint consumed products. MBA uses information about what customer purchase. MBA gives insights into the merchandise by telling the researcher which products tend to be purchased together and which are most are enable to promotion. MBA provides the information that which product customers like to buy. AB... ...    :     HK$ xxxx     †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã‚     :     †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã‚     †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã‚          †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã‚     †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã‚          †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã‚                                   The researchers create a data set from the customer information database system. They are valuable input into the data analysis. Researchers easily extract information from the system. The researchers first determine which products that customer most desire, they are listed as following, †¢Ã‚     Customers use Internet access †¢Ã‚     Customers use email to transfer the message †¢Ã‚     Customers use call forwarding †¢Ã‚     Customers use WAP phone to browse the Internet †¢Ã‚     Customers are the heavily users
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Choose two characters from the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ Essay
America in the 1930’s was a class-based society where women had no choice. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 meant the ‘Great Depression’ was occurring, people living in poverty because of this but most would travel round to find work. Racism was still a critical problem in this time so this was affecting many lives, only white people could get a decent job, if a black person could it would be living in the same conditions as slaves, even though slavery was abolished in 1865- over 60 years before. Crooks is the stable buck and is black, he is a clever but lonely man who just wants some companionship. Curley’s wife is seen as a ‘tart’, we see that she is also lonely and very misunderstood. In the novel, even though Steinbeck had made the characters an isolated group, they all represent different sides of the society, this allows him to criticise what he sees as problems. Slavery started in America in the 15th century, thousands of slaves arrived looking for a better way of life than what they had left, but infact their ‘new lives’ were worse. Slavery meant big business in America. In the north most Negroes were free but in the south it was the way of life. Slaves were employed as either field workers; they worked long hours, lived in huts and slept on the floor. Then there were the house workers who would cook, clean, run the masters house and bring up the children, they lived a more comfortable life, but caused mistrust between the two. Sometimes a way to solve this was to split up families, selling the children. Slave revolt was common and in 1831 people started to understand the need to abolish slavery, in 1833 it became more widespread but Lincoln and the civil war offered more help to the black society. Finally in 1865 slavery was abolished – â€Å"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the United States.†Crooks was not a slave but was still a victim of racial prejudice. He is lonely and very clever, ‘He reads a lot. Got books I his room’, and we see that he is aware of his rights, ‘a tattered dictionary and a mauled copy of the California Civil code for 1905-98’ this in a way is worse as he knows that he could have a better life. He loves company but hides it, as he is sure this was the best his life would get. The men know that they can be racist towards him and get away with it; this is made clear when George asks ‘give the stable-buck hell?’ Asking why it’s ok, he is given the simple answer from candy that it’s fine because he is a ‘nigger.’ Crooks was still very much treated as a slave. The men tell the stories of how they make him fight for a use of entertainment but ‘on the count of the niggers got a crooked back, Smitty can’t use his feet’ the men think its fine beating Crooks up and that they’re being kind. The group do not realise that Crooks is scared of them and so isolates himself from everyone and everything going on around him – ‘he kept his distance and demanded everyone else kept theirs’ but by doing this he had to live alone in the stables while the men on the ranch lived together, however they did respect he was a human because they did keep away from him. Crooks ‘pain-tightened lips’ show he is suffering and is punishing himself, he tells himself that ‘he ain’t wanted in the bunk-house’ and so other people ‘ain’t wanted in my room’. He says this to Lennie, who doesn’t understand why crooks doesn’t want to talk to someone or why he doesn’t go in the bunk house, Crooks’ response to this is that the men say ‘I stink’- another example of the racial prejudice; he’s black so therefore he must stink. Crooks sees that with Lennie he has someone he can tease and so does, when he tease s him Steinbeck writes that, ‘Crooks pressed forward some kind of private victory.’ Crooks’ victory is that probably all his life he has been teased because of his colour, now he has someone he can pick on that he can beat. There is a sense of war in which black verses white and unusually the black can easily win. Crooks know he can get away with picking on Lennie, his ‘face lighted with pleasure in his torture’, he is enjoying that he can pick on a white person. Crooks is a dreamer, he has one dream of the past; ‘I remember when I was a little kid on my old mans chicken ranch. Had two brothers. They were always near me, always there.’ He dreams of his past because he knows that he has no future, and that the others do have a future, there is a slight sense of jealousy as he cant leave the ranch. This is also another example of Crooks’ need for companionship; he is showing how lonely he is. Lennie then tells Crooks’ of his and Georges dream to own some land, to which he replies, ‘Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody ever gets no land’ he knows what societies like and has seen many men with dreams but none ever come true, but even though he is pessimistic he is right. However even saying this he is still tempted to join the dream, he wants to be around people and is happy when people talk to him. He says ‘I didn’t mean it. Jus’ foolin’. I wouldn’t want to go no place like that.’ He knows he has to support black people and that it wouldn’t happen. Through the character of crooks we see that Steinbeck thought that Crooks’ was treated badly and that he obviously felt sympathy for him and all black people in America. We see examples of Crooks being afraid of all people, including Curley’s wife, in a time where women weren’t listened to, Steinbeck puts the message across that he shouldn’t have to pull back and have to live in fear, worrying about what is going to happen to him and who by. If Crooks had been white he wouldn’t be treated in the way he was. Curley’s wife is another character that is seen as by the men on the ranch as insignificant, like Crooks. There are many similarities between the two; they are outcast, misunderstood, and oppressed. Neither are treated as equals and are trapped in the same life with no future. Even so she does not see these similarities and picks on Crooks for the same reason he picks on Lennie, because she can she knows that he will listen to her and be afraid. Curley’ s wife is all she was ever called, she was not given a name showing that she means nothing and is only a possession to Curley. This suggests that women were on the same level as black people and in some ways the same position. As Negroes were victims of racial prejudice – women were victims of sexism. Curley’s wife has no relationship with her husband and she doesn’t look after the household like she is supposed to, this suggests that she is trapped and is only there so Curley can say he’s mar ried. She doesn’t love him and is only there for his satisfaction. Curley’s wife is lonely and when she looks for companionship within the ranch, the men say that she is too flirty, they think that ‘Curley’s married a tart’ but they don’t understand her and don’t try to. The men don’t trust her and there is a sense of danger when George describes her as ‘jail-bait.’ This also proves what the men think of her. There is a description of her, it goes through that she has, ‘full, rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages’ this is very superficial and shows that in a way she is covering herself and her feelings with a mask. Knowing that her husband is at a whorehouse she says ‘I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella’ this is very simplistic and suggests her interest, it also suggests that Curley does not love her either. She is obviously lonely and only gets a cold reception from the workers, she is isolated from the world and has lost all chance of having friends, and Steinbeck feels pity for her. He gives this message when she says ‘think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in the house alla time? She questions them and gets no response from being kind. We see her lash out on page 111 when she is talking to Crooks, Lennie and Candy, she is angry because of Curley and so takes it out on them; people who she has a sense of power over; ‘Ever’ body out doin’ som’pin. Everybody! An’ what am I doing? Standin’ here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs- a nigger an’ a dum- dum’. This also gains her pity from the reader. Curley’s wife is lonely and frustrated that there is nothing she can do or say make herself feel better but she does try by taking it out on the men, in this case Crooks. She says to him ‘well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny’ although she is being so nasty we still feel sympathy for her, we understand that she is so lonely, we can relate to this. As Crooks does Curley’s wife dreams of the past and what could have been, she says to Lennie ‘I could of went with the shows. Not jus’ one, neither. An’ a guy tol’ me he could put me in the pitchers’. She also talks about her dream later. She says that the only reason she married Curley was that she wanted to leave home. This is because she thought that her mother had stopped her from being an actress by stealing a ‘letter’ from a man who had said he could make her famous. She explains ‘I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she says no. So I married Curley. Met him at the Riverside Dance Palace that same night’ she married him out of spite to her mother and no other reason. This is a tragic picture, she is being very naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ve in thinking that a letter was being sent, she doesn’t realise that the man was playing her for a fool, this gains her sympathy from the reader. When she is dead there is such a sense of calmness and tranquillity, ‘ and the meanness and the planning’s and the discontent and the ache for attention was all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young.’ This is saying that she is now at peace and in a way because her life was such a disaster in which she had no future she is better off dead. It was the only way she could be happy and escape Curley and her loneliness. The 1930s was a class- based society within America. Racism was an ongoing problem and black people were still being treated as slaves, even though slavery was abolished in 1865. The ‘great depression’ was also still a huge problem with 3 million people unemployed in 1930 and 13 million in 1932. People were living in poverty and any jobs going were poorly paid. However life was worst for black people, who were victims of racial prejudice and discrimination and women who were seen as insignificant and ‘possessions’ of their husbands or fathers and were only there to look ‘purty’ and look after the house. In the novel, even though Steinbeck had made the characters an isolated group, they all represent different sides of the society, this allows him to criticise what he sees as problems. Curley’s wife and Crooks are just two characters that illustrate what life was like in America in the 1930’s.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Defaulted Sukuk And Bonds In Malaysian Capital Market Finance Essay - Free Essay Example
Sample details Pages: 11 Words: 3201 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? What are the basic characteristics or features of defaulted sukuk and bonds in Malaysian Capital Market and is there any difference between the characteristics? Question No. 2: Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Defaulted Sukuk And Bonds In Malaysian Capital Market Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Is the financial performance of Sukuk different from the fixed income securities? Question No. 3: Why did the issuers of defaulted sukuk and bonds failed to pay their obligations? Question No. 4: Research Objectives The first objective of this research is to do a comparative study of all defaulted or D rated or suspended sukuk and bonds in the Malaysian market by comparing the characteristics (see Annexure-1) of both types of issuers. The purpose for this comparative study is: to identify why these corporations failed to pay, which sukuk structure defaulted the most in Malaysia and identify the reasons behind it. The author is of the opinion that there may not be any concerns with the approved sukuk structures but there might be other practical characteristics within issuer or company that may be the cause of these defaults. Second objective of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between all the defaulted sukuk and bonds in the Malaysian market by comparing the financial performance of the issuers of these sukuk/bonds to see if there are any differences between the health of the issuers or merely nomenclature, a simple change of name from bond to sukuk. The basic objectives and requirements in structuring a bond or a sukuk transaction are to fulfill the funding needs of an organization. Investors in these transactions are usually concerned with the financial health of the issuers. The health of any corporation can be measured through the analysis of its financial performance. A study of defaulted sukuk and bonds may shed light on meeting both organizational and investor needs. Data Source To achieve above-mentioned objectives, the author will focus on the secondary data available in published papers, books, magazine articles and databases available on Islamic finance, sukuk and bonds via the Internet. The researcher will consider both quantitative and qualitative study to achieve these objectives. The quantitative data will be collected from financial statements of defaulted issuers and SC, IFIS and BPAM websites. These databases give extensive information on Islamic capital markets. The BPAM database is especially designed to cover the bond market in Malaysia, housing all the basic information regarding the bond or sukuk issue available today. The IFIS database is a specialized Islamic finance database; this will be used to compare the Malaysian sukuk market with other issuers in the world. The quantitative data will help the researcher to collect data regarding financial performance and growth of the sukuk and bond issues in Malaysia and compare it with sukuk issued internationally. Qualitative research will help in understanding the approved structures, issues, challenges and criticism regarding these sukuk. Sample Specification This study is mainly on the performance of Sukuk and Bonds in Malaysian capital Market. The sample in this study focuses mainly on all the D Rated or suspended sukuk and bonds in Malaysian market from 1990 till May 2010. A total of 64 issuers of sukuk and bonds were rated D by the rating agencies or were suspended due to non-payment of their obligations. This sample is further subdivided into two categories, first category is of Bond issuers where the total 33 number of bond issuers came in this category and second category is of sukuk issuers where the total 31 number of sukuk issuers came in this category. The list of all the sukuk and bonds in the sample is given in the table 2. Research Methodology This paper is mainly focused to compare the characteristics of defaulted sukuk and bonds issuers in Malaysia. The main purpose of doing this comparative analysis is to understand the theoretical and practical difference between sukuk and bonds. Two different research methodologies will be adopted to compare the characteristics. These methodologies will compare the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of both types of issuers. Theoretically both sukuk and bonds are different from each other which lead to the difference of performance of issuers. There is no difference between generating funds through issuance of sukuk or bonds it is merely a name of contract, the actual difference is between the purpose of raising funds and the intention of both investors and issuers. Parties involved in issuance of bonds have completely different expectations than the parties involved in issuance of sukuk. The ultimate goal of both the contract is definitely the earning money however the difference is the sharing and holding the responsibility. Following are the two comparative studies to be conducted to understand the difference in characteristics of sukuk and bonds. Comparison of Qualitative characteristics The first comparative study will be conducted on the qualitative characteristics of issuers of D Rated and suspended sukuk and bonds. The research is expected to identify and discuss the qualitative characteristics and to understand the reasons and impact of these characteristics. The comparison will be done on the following characteristics. Term of Issuance Underlying Contract Asset/Equity Ratio Amount of Total Issue to Equity Fixed Assets/Total Assets Ratio Utilization of Funds Collateral/Lien Listed or Non Listed Company Initial Ratings Current Status (Redeemed or Outstanding) Subsidiary/SPV Comparison Quantitative characteristics The main purpose of issuing the sukuk and bonds is to fulfill the financial needs of an institution. This paper will compare the financial performance of all D rated and suspended sukuk issuers with bonds issuers (corporate issues) in Malaysian Capital Market. Financial performance of these sukuk and bonds issuers will be compared with respect to broad categories of financial ratios: coverage, gearing, liquidity, profitability and turnover. The author believes that sukuk and bonds are entirely different in nature and due to their underlying contracts, there should be a substantial difference in their financial performance. These differences will be elaborated upon in detail throughout the dissertation. This financial performance of sukuk and bonds will be analyzed by comparing parametric and non-parametric test of equality of both the samples. The parametric test like Mean and median; and nonparametric test like Wilcoxon/Mann-Whitney ranked test will be used to estimate the equality of different financial ratios of sukuk and bonds. Motivation for choosing the variables The main objective of running any institution or firm is to achieve some predetermined benchmark, and for running any business the main objective is to make it profitable. Profitability of any organization can be maximized by utilizing the best mix of available resources. These resources are basically assets of an organization and the claims against these assets in terms of liabilities and owners equity. Owners equity is not always sufficient for the growth of any firm and these firms have to rely on the external resources. The funding needs can be short term or long term depending on the nature of the project under consideration. Theoretically bonds are always considered debt financing and always come under the umbrella of liabilities; however sukuk is depending on the underlying contract. If it is musharaka, mudaraba financing it is considered equity financing, if it is murabaha or BBA it is treated under liabilities. The main object of issuing both sukuk and bonds is enhancing the profitability of the organization with the best mix of available resources. The comparative analysis is done of the following important financial ratios. Investors can estimate the credit worthiness of a company by analyzing and understanding the effect of these ratios. Financial ratios under observation Following financial ratios are considered as critical for analyzing the performance of any company. In this section we will try to define the concept of financial ratios under discussion and their significance in decision making from investor point of view. Interest coverage ratio (ICov) Operating cashvflow interest coverage ratio (OCFIC) Total gearing (TG) Total Liabilities to Total Assets (TLTA) Cash Ratio (CSHR) Current Ratio (Cr) Interest costs (IC) Profit before Tax Margin (PBTM) Total Asset Turnover (TAT) Non-Current Asset Turnover (NCAT) Interest coverage ratio (ICov) Interest coverage is a ratio to determine how comfortably a company can pay its financing cost on outstanding debt. The interest coverage ratio is computed by dividing a companys earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of one period by the companys interest expenses of the same period:  Interest Coverage Ratio The lower the ratio, the more the company is burdened by debt costs. When interest coverage ratio is 1.5 or below, the ability of firm to meet interest expenses may be questionable. An interest coverage ratio of less than1 indicates the firm is not generating adequate revenues to satisfy financing costs. The coverage characteristic of the ratio specifies how many times the interest expenses could be paid from available earnings. A company that withstands earnings well above its interest requirements is in an excellent situation to weather possible financial storms. However a firm that barely manages its financing costs can easily suffer bankruptcy for even single month. Operating Cash flow interest coverage (OCFIC) Operating cash flow interest coverage ratio (OCFIC), measures the capacity of a company to generate cash flow from its operations to pay its financing costs. Companies with positive cash flow generate more cash flows than required to pay its interest costs. There are two other resources to generate the cash flows, i.e. investment or financing activities. However the companies with healthy cash flows generated from its operations are considered safe. Companies with poor cash flows from operation have to rely either on disposal of some of its investments or they have to rely on external source of financing to meet its obligations. Formula for OCFIC is OCFIC = Net Cash generated from operational activities/ Financing Costs Total Gearing (TG) What Does Gearing Mean? An analysis ratio of a companys level of long-term debt compared to its equity financing. Gearing is expressed in percentage form. Companies with high gearing (more long-term liabilities than shareholder equity) are considered speculative. Gearing is simply how company finances its business; it is through debt or outside financing or through equity financing. Total Gearing = (Total liabilities + Contingent Liabilities)/ (Shareholders Equity + Minority Interest) Debt financing is not always free, increase in gearing will increase the cost of financing and will reduce the PBTM. Total Liabilities to Total Asset Ratio (TLTA) Total Liabilities to Total Asset Ratio measures the firms financial risk which will help to understand how much of the companys assets are been financed by external financing. Total liabilities include both Current and Non-Current liabilities and then divided by the companys total assets. TLTA = (Current Liabilities + Non-Current Liabilities) /Total Assets This ratio is very simple to calculate with a broad impact of companys performance. The ratio is actually the percentage of how much assets are funded by external financing. The lower the ratio of the company the more are the assets financed by equity. Cash Ratio (CSHR) The cash ratio specifies the cash portion of current assets which includes the cash, cash equivalents or invested funds. Cash ratio provides the capability of a company to meet its current assets with highly liquid assets. It is value of cash and marketable securities divided by current. Cash Ratio = (Cash + Cash Equivalents) / Current Liabilities Cash ratio (CSHR) is also called the most conservative ratio of all liquidity ratios. CSHR is indicator of a companys ability to meet its current liabilities that need immediate payments. It is noticed from the analysis of both the samples that there are some companies whose current ratio was very healthy but they defaulted. One of major reason for their default is very small portion of cash and cash equivalents. Current Ratio (Cr) Current Ratio is a liquidity ratio that measures a companys ability to pay short-term obligations. If the Current ratio of a company is more than 1.0 which means companys short term assets exceed its short term liabilities and the firm can meet its short term obligation. Short-term obligations mean payments to be done in a year or less. The Current Ratio formula is: Current Ratio  Also known as liquidity ratio, cash asset ratio and cash ratio. Interest costs Ratio (IC) IC is the total expense incurred on the entire credit financing from external sources. Interest costs or financing costs have both positive and negative impact on the PBTM. It depends on the proportion of interest cost on the revenues. Companies with conservative approach of taking external financing have very small proportion of interest cost. However at the same time their revenues are proportionally very small which gives smaller PBTM than the companies with mixed financing. Interest Cost = Interest cost/ Revenues Profit before Tax Margin (PBTM) The dependent variable in our model is PBTM. The bottom line of every business activity is profitability which is considered as the main motivation of every business transaction. Managers use different tools and resources to enhance the profitability of the business. PBTM is considered as bottom line of all the financial ratios. PBTM is the ratio of net income before taxes to net sales. PBTM = (PBT/ Revenues) It is dependent of how the resources are utilized which includes proper utilization of assets (Current and Noncurrent), Managing financial resources (Debt and Equity) and cost (Interest and others) are managed. Total Asset Turnover (TAT) The total asset turnover helps in determining the relationship between available resources of a company and revenues generated with those assets. Essentially, TAT is used to make sure that the company is realizing a sufficient return on the investment made. Periodic calculation of the TAT can help a company to identify and built new processes and procedures which can be helpful to increase the return. The practice of calculating the TAT is simply to generate the better revenues while making the best use of available company resources. Total Asset Turnover ratio = Revenue / Total Assets PBTM and Non-Current Asset Turnover Ratio (NCAT) Non-current Ratio (NCAT) or Fixed asset ratio is the ratio of net revenues to fixed assets. NCAT ratio measures a companys capability to generate net revenues from Non-current asset investments like; property, plant and equipment. A higher NCAT ratio shows the company has been efficient in utilizing fixed assets investments to generate revenues. NAT = Revenues/ Fixed Assets Companies with better NAT ratio can better manage their long term borrowing than the companies with more emphasis on current assets investments. It is very important for a firm to invest in its fixed asset to generate the long term cash-flows which is necessary to meet long term obligations. Testable hypothesis Following hypothesis were tested in our analysis in this paper. Testing the equality of Means: Testing the equality of Medians: Testing the equality of Variances: The null hypothesis Ho designed here show that there is no significant difference between two test groups and the alternate hypothesis designed here to justify the difference between the two groups. Above hypothesis were tested on 95% confidence level and the test is said to be two tailed or non-directional. Test of Equality of financial Ratios This paper will determine the differences of distributions across populations or we will focus on the differences of two distribution-characteristics: First on moment or mean and second on central moment or Variance. These are the two characteristics, which describe the location and spread of distribution. F-test We will start with the testing for equality of variances (F-test) because the equality of variances is a common assumption in mean equality T-test. F-test is used to test if the variances of two populations are equal. F test can be a one-tailed or two-tailed test. The two-tailed version tests against the alternative that the variances are not equal. The one-tailed version only tests in one direction of the sample. That is the variance from the first population is either greater than () or less than (), but not both, the variance of second population. The significance of the F-ratio is obtained by referring to a table of the F distribution, using degree of freedom {df1, df2}, where df1 and df2 are the degrees of freedom from the regression mean square and residual mean square. How to reject or accept F-test (for overall significance) ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±=0.05 Decision: Reject Ho if the f-stat falls in the rejection area (p values Ho: ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±=.05) T-Test: The two-series t-test is used to indicate if two sample means are equal. A common use of this t-test is to analyze the performance of new procedure or treatment to a current procedure or treatment. The hypotheses to compare the means of two independent samples are: (Means are equal) (Means are not equal)             The test statistic is a students t-test with N2 degrees of freedom (df), where N is the total number of observations. A low pvalue gives evidence to reject the null hypothesis against the alternative. In other words we can write that, there is evidence that the means are not equal. Decision: Reject the null hypothesis if the test statistics for each sample falls in the rejection region (p values .05) Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test (WMW) Wilcoxon signed rank test (WMW) is used to test whether the median of a symmetric population is 0 or not. First, the data are ranked without looking to sign of each observation. Second, the sign of the each observation is attached to its corresponding rank. Finally, the one sample z statistic (standard error of the mean /mean) is calculated from the signed ranks. For all small samples under observations, the statistic is compared to likely results and if each rank was equally likely to have a +or -sign affixed. For large samples, the z- statistic is compared to percentiles of the standard normal distribution. The Wilcoxon rank sum test (also known as the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test)[1]is used to test whether two samples are taken from the same population. It is appropriate if the likely alternative is that the two populations are moved with respect to each other. The test is performed by ranking the combined data set, dividing the ranks into two sets according the group membership of the original observations, and calculating a two sample z statistic, using the pooled variance estimate. For large samples, the statistic is compared to percentiles of the standard normal distribution. For small samples, the statistic is compared to what would result if the data were combined into a single data set and assigned at random to two groups having the same number of observations as the original samples. Skewness and Kurtosis[2] A basic task in many statistical studies is to characterize the location and variability of a set of a data. Further the data is classified into skewness and kurtosis. Skewness is an indicator of symmetry, or more precisely we can say the lack of symmetry. A data set under observation is called symmetric if it looks the same to the both sides of the center point. Kurtosis is an indicator of the data whether it is peaked or flat as compare to a normal distribution. That is, data sets with high kurtosis tend to have a distinct peak near the mean, decline rather rapidly, and have heavy tails. Data sets with low kurtosis tend to have a flat top near the mean rather than a sharp peak. A uniform distribution would be the extreme case.
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