Media – Whitepapers
January 5, 2005
Corporate treasury managers are frequently confronted with the task of picking the right benchmarks for their cash portfolios. Unlike stocks and long bonds, a market-based index is often too long or too risky for cash investments. Some treasurers resort to comparing “yield” earned on investments on the assumption that it
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December 7, 2004
On the day Merck announced the withdrawal of its arthritis drug Vioxx, its stock price closed down 27% from the previous day. By the time Moody’s downgraded Merck’s debt to Aa2 40 days later, the formerly AAA-rated company had lost 42%, or $58 billion of its equity value. Is it
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November 19, 2004
Executive Summary Empirical data support the view that AAA-rated asset-backed securities provide comparable investment returns while incurring less credit risk and return volatility than AAA-rated corporate securities. The annual return advantage of ABS was 5 basis points (bps) over corporate securities in the last six years. The return pickup shot
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May 11, 2004
Last April, when Google Inc. unveiled its plan to use a Dutch style auction in its initial public offering, it brought the popularity of this peculiar way of setting securities prices to a new height. Meanwhile, a sea change has been taking place for several years that promises to redefine
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April 14, 2004
Executive Summary A portfolio of laddered maturities may have better yield advantage over money market funds in a rising rate environment. Market Cycle Comparison Since 1993, the average net-of-fees yield advantage of 1-year A-rated corporate bonds over the Lipper institutional Money Market Average was 86 basis points annually. In the
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