What are Investments, Loans, Bonds and US Treasuries?

In the financial world, there are different terminologies to which we as an investor or analyst or finance related person should be familiar. It helps to understand the scenario in a better way, where these terms are used. We will discuss here few financial jargons. Let’s have a look on what the investments, loans, bonds and US Treasuries are.

Investment is basically the amount of money, spent today with the expectation to get a return from it at some future time. In other word, investment is the capital or money presently put in some financial instruments or other class of assets with the expectation of getting the profitable returns over a period. Other class of assets could be property, stock, bond, financial derivatives, etc. The profitable returns could be in terms of income, dividend, coupon payment, income or the capital gain through the appreciation of the value of the instrument invested in. For example, a person buys a stock of $100 with the expectation that the stock price will rise in future and apart from that dividend will be given. If we assume that the person’s expectation comes true, then he gets profitable returns in terms of capital gain (through price appreciation) and dividend. Here the person has made an investment of $100.

 A loan is basically getting money from others with the commitment to pay a predetermined amount of money at the predetermined time. Here, two parties are involved. Those are the borrower and another is the lender. The borrower takes money from lenders. That taken amount is considered as a principal. Now a question is why lenders are interested to provide money to borrowers. The simple answer is to get the returns from them. This return is expressed in terms of interest. Lenders set the interest rate and the time for interest to be paid for extending the loan to borrowers. Borrowers have to pay these interest amounts at the prespecified time. And period is also associated with the loan. At the end of that period, borrowers have to pay the principal amount they have taken earlier. In this way, lenders get their original amount; principal and also the interest amount. This interest amount is the return for them to giving money to borrowers for a period as suggested by, university assignment help.

A bond is a financial instrument in which the bond issuer promises to the bondholder to pay a specified amount during the life of a bond and also pay the face value of the bond at the end of the life of the bond. The bond issuers are the persons who sell the bonds. The bondholders are the persons who buy them. There are 4 components associated with a bond as per taxation assignment help experts.

• One is the current price of a bond. Each one bond has its specific price depending on the market situations and the bond characteristics.
• Second is the coupon payment. It can be viewed as an interest component as in case of loan. The bond has a series of equal coupon payments. These are provided by the bond issuer to the bondholder at a fixed specified time. It can be provided annually till the life of the bond. Or it can be provided twice in a yeartill the life of the bond. Then it is called semiannual coupon payment.
• Face value is the next component. It is the amount, provided at the end of the life of the bond. It is prespecified.
• Last one is the maturity period. It is the life of a bond.


For example, Company ABC has issued a bond at the selling price of $980 with a face value of $1,000 and maturity of 5 years. It has the coupon rate of 10%, paid annually. This is a structure of a bond.Thecoupon rate is always provided relative to face value. So, here the coupon amount will be $100 (=$1,000*0.10). Bondholder has to presently pay $980 and he will get $100 each year as coupon payment for 5 years. Apart from that, he will get the face value of $1,000 at the end of the fifth year.Since bond provides the fixed returns those are prespecified, so bonds are also called fixed income securities. The risk associated with bonds is that the bond issuers can be defaulters and can’t pay/repay the amount that is supposed to be. Then bondholders get nothing. The level of risk depends on who has issued the bond. Bonds can be issued by government, municipality, federal agency and corporations.

US Treasuries are the bonds issued by the US government. The risk of default explained earlier is zero in case of Treasuries. Government never fails to pay on Treasuries as the government can print more dollars if it is with insufficient money. This is the reason for why these US Treasuries are considered as a risk free rate. US government issues Treasury Bills (abbreviated as T-Bills), notes and bonds. These Treasury Bills are of the maturity of less than a year. The Notes are of the maturity between one and ten years. Government bonds are of the maturity of more than ten years.

Delivering and Performing Service

Delivering and Performing Service
Services have various aspects related to them. The ultimate aim of a service is to provide customer value such that it results in customer satisfaction. However, the expectations of customers and the delivery of service are not always in accordance with each other. This is explained in greater detail based on the Gaps Model of Service. Gap 3 of Gaps Model tells us about discrepancies in what is expected by the customer and the service that is actually delivered. Service delivery aims at narrowing this gap by gauging what the customer standards and requirements are and providing them with the same.

It is imperative for us to understand the importance of service employees before understanding service delivery and performance marketing assignments for MBA students,.

1. Service employees are the bearers of customer satisfaction as well as service quality.

2. They help to demonstrate various challenges present in roles that are boundary-spanning.

3. They are primary sources of generating strategies aimed at producing service delivery which is customer-oriented.

4. They help determine how these strategies could support a service culture that provides excellent service.

The Services Triangle:

A framework in services marketing that emphasizes on the importance of people in fulfilling promises of quality and building healthy customer relationships is the Services Triangle. 

It helps us conduct an overall strategic assessment which is fruitful in determining the standards of services offered by organization on all 3 parameters. i.e. internal marketing, external marketing as well as interactive marketing. Thus, it helps the organization to identify its strengths and weaknesses. It is also immensely helpful in specific service implementation which targets promotions and deliveries. It ensures availability of support systems required to deliver a service promised just like marketing assignment help experts.

he Service Profit Chain helps us in understanding the various factors contributing to growth in revenue as well as profitability. The following deductions can be made based on the Service Profit Chain:

1. Internal service quality and employee satisfaction are two of the most important factors that contribute to growth in revenue.

2. Employee satisfaction results in employee retention and enhanced employee productivity, which further help to determine the external service value.

3. A high amount of external service value leads to customer satisfaction and increases customer loyalty. This leads to a significant raise in profitability and revenue growth.

There are several dimensions of service quality, the most important being:

1. Reliability: This aims at delivering a service just the way it is promised. It is often under the control of frontline workers. 

2. Responsiveness: The willingness of workers or employees to assist customers in helping them attain a good customer experience is referred to as responsiveness.

3. Empathy: This quality refers to the ability of being able to understand and pay attention to the needs of the customer.

4. Assurance: This ability aims at instilling in the customer the trust and faith needed to hire a service. 

5. Tangibles: Aspects of services that can be seen or felt are included as tangibles. Eg. Uniform of employees, service facility or décor.

It is the responsibility of service employees to ensure that services of superior quality are delivered to the customer. Frontline service employees are essentially boundary-spanners who are used to interacting directly with the customers they are dealing with. They help establish a link between the external customer and the internal operations in the organization. They communicate information shared by the customer, pertaining to his requirements, to the concerned person in the organization. Boundary spanners are made to interact with both, external as well as internal constituencies of an organization.

Human Resources Department of an organization makes an attempt to attain superior service delivery through its employees by:

1. Hiring the right talent: 

Hiring in accordance with service competencies by being a preferred employer

2. Training people:

Promoting team spirit, empowering employees and training them with required skills

3. Support System:

Developing internal processes and providing all the support needed for measuring internal service quality

4. Retention of good employees:

Rewarding employees for good performance, including their opinion for decision making and treating them well

 Summary:

The article explores numerous facets of service delivery and performance, highlighting the importance of service employees in attaining the same. It also tells about the service triangle and its association with service delivery. The Service Profit Chain tells us how the revenue of an organization is dependent directly or indirectly on the employee satisfaction levels as well as internal service quality. The article defines service employees as boundary spanners and gives cues on how to deliver services of superior quality and enhance performance of employees by hiring the right talent, training them well and ultimately retaining the worthy.

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Citing and Referencing: Identifying Academic Sources and Integrating the Ideas of Published Authors

The source of information used in university assignments is generally from an authority. Authority is an author or a well known writer who has his work published and patent. His work can be published in any book, magazine, journal, web page, newspaper article and can take any form. From such a work one can easily find various theoretical ideas, critical evaluations, views and scholarly opinions easily. The source of information which a reader used can be grouped into two main categories:
• Primary source: This data relates to publicly available data such as historical documents, raw data data from experiments or demographic records.
• Secondary Source : This data draws information from primary data and is produced for public use in the form of a journal article, magazine article or any other printed stuff.

These academic sources of information differ completely from one’s own view or opinion. The conclusion or outcomes of discussion with a friend or a relative also differs a lot from academic source of information.Even magazine or newspaper article opinion does not come into play when one talk about academic source of information.Students draw information from these academic sources as they turn out to be great assignment help tools. One of the major factors of using academic source of information is that they are supported by a very strong literature which forms the basis of assignment help. University management  assignments help to dig this literature and find out points of similarity and points of difference. Assignment help experts always adhere to the referencing guidelines before submitting a write up.
Hence, it is important to quote these authors in the assignment whenever seeking help from such tools. This technique of referring to authors in one’s writing is called citing, documenting, or in-text referencing.
How to cite or referencing?
There are generally different ways to cite or refer the thoughts taken from a particular literature. One of the  ways is APA (American Psychological Association) referencing system. Other citing techniques used are Harvard, MLA, Chicago. APA follows the author-date method to cite a author. To start with the author’s name is written first, followed by the year in which it was published. The author, date can be used in the body of the sentence or is used in brackets at the end of the sentence. By embedding the author’s name within the sentence, body it increases it’s clarity in the mind of the reader. The full reference detail can be found at the end.

However , there are certain tips on how to cite an author :  Read How to cite)
 Authors can be cited within the body of the sentence or at the end in brackets. It is recommended to use both the methods.
 To remove dependency on similar verbs when citing like “Mc Donalds (1999) states” and “Peterson (2000) states” there are other verbs which can be used like agrees, assert, believe,claims, etc.
 If there are two or more authors with the same surname always include their first name to distinguish their publications.
 If two or more works are published by the author in the same year, then add a and b respectively in the year of publication like 1992a and 1992b.
 For the work with no date, add n.d after the name
Hence, in this way there are various other techniques used while citing or referencing. One must know the basic rules when citing. It is important to put the ideas in own words as this shows that the concept and an idea is integrated well by the learner. Always remember to give credit to the author whose work one is referring to.

The Writing Process: Interpreting the Topic

What is the essay all about? What are you going to talk about in your essay? Is it a question which you have to answer or a statement that you have to justify? Do you need to compare two or more things/point of views or suggest a solution to a problem?
Well, all these questions are answered by the interpretation of the essay topic. This is the first and most important step of essay writing. An essay writer needs to first understand what he/she is expected to do in the essay, before he/she can proceed with the other steps. If you go wrong here, your entire essay will be done wrong, since the reader will be expecting something else, which you did not interpret correctly. Thus, interpretation of the topic is a very crucial step towards essay writing.

In order to interpret the topic correctly, one needs to pay heed to three aspects of a given topic. These three aspects are:
1. Command – what you are supposed to do.
2. Topic – The general field of discussion
3. Focus – What part of the general field of discussion that you need to focus on.
Take the following example:
“Schooling should be made compulsory for all till the age of 18. Discuss”
Now, in this case, the topic is – “schooling for all till the age of 18”.
The focus will be – “should be made compulsory”, and the command is – “discuss”.
Thus, you have to discuss, investigate, present both sides of the argument as to whether schooling should be made compulsory for all till the age of 18 or not, and arrive at a conclusion. Thus, the students can get a clear understanding that they need to come to a decision whether they support the question or not, and provide arguments accordingly by properly understanding the command.

A wiser way of interpreting a topic would be to consider it as a question. “Should schooling be made compulsory for all till the age of 18?”. This way, you have spared yourself the complication of going wrong with your topic, because all you need to do now is answer the given question. This will force you to see both sides of the argument and then arrive at a conclusion.
Essays are some of the most complex assignments that custom essay writers do. In most cases, essay topics are more like debates, asking the essay writer to act like a lawyer, but present both cases – for and against the topic, and then act as a judge too – who would give a judgement as well. Thus, when attempting an essay, professional essay writers always follow suit where they try to persuade the reader to agree to their point of view but also present the opposing points, along with constantly showing the negatives of the points opposing their point of view, in order to prove why they chose to pick this side of the story.By presenting alternative arguments in your essay, you are not just convincing your reader that you have read well but also showing the reader the weaknesses of the alternative arguments, which will make your case stronger and better in front of your readers.

Interpreting the topic looks like a small step. It sounds very easy and nothing that might need much attention. But the fact remains that the topic is the most important aspect that needs utmost care and attention. The custom essay writer can not afford to go wrong here, as all the following steps are based on this one. Just simple understanding and interpretation of the topic itself can give you many ideas about how to go about your essay, what view points to consider and how to form your debate. Thus, do it right in the beginning, to stay on the right path till the end.

Assignment Writing Tips: Procrastination

Procrastination can be defined as delaying some task that one needs to complete within a specified deadline. Procrastination is very common behavioral traits observed in university students while completing their assignments. If you also have the habit of procrastination, then you should take assignment help sydney Well in advance to be able to complete your assignment. Now, there is a widely held notion that procrastination occurs because the student is lazy and not focused. As you also might be knowing that reality is not that simple and procrastination can result from the following causes as well:
• Having set a very high standard of expectation for yourself.
• Not completely clear about how to manage an assignment.
• Imagining challenges that you might be facing while writing.
• Feeling lack of skills to complete the assignment properly.
• Tied up with your part time job and not able to take out enough time for writing.

Don’t feel completely devastated by your habit of procrastination, as with the help of proper strategies you can almost get over it. This article will help you out with strategies to avoid procrastination. However, if you still feel not able to manage the habit, it is recommended that you take assistance with assignment in Sydney.

Plan your time

Generally, in graduate or even undergraduate level a student should spend 2 hours outside class, per hour of class time. That means that if you are taking a 12 credit course, then every week you should attempt to spend at least 24 hours outside class for reading, writing assignment. On an average, 10 to 15 hours outside class-time should be reserved for completing a 1000 to 2000 word assignment. The most efficient way to use this time is to spread it across a few weeks, depending on the deadline of various assignments. As now almost everyone has access to smart phone, you can use free planning application like Google Calendar, with a reminder feature. Make good use of this type of application to spread out the stipulated time for the assignment over a week or multiple weeks.

Time management has four main dimensions: 

• Organization: recognizing the basic routines and systems that work best for you can be extremely useful and can help you remove a lot of worry from your life. Some examples are: where and how to store notes, how much sleep you require, what sort of sleep schedule fits you best, when to work and when to take breaks, etc. Planning out these routines for yourself will maximize your productivity and leave your mind fresh and energetic when it should be. Don’t think that ‘one size fits-all method’should be followed for routines, instead figure out what works best for you. As properly planned routine can easily transform you into a multi-tasker.

•Prioritization: You should not only prioritize between your personal, social and academic life, but also create detailed priority plans for various courses and assignments depending on deadlines,the importance of those assignments, and credit of the courses of those assignments. 

• Pareto principle:This principle advocates that mostly one can get 80% of the results or end product, with a well-placed 20% of the effort or input. Make smart use of this idea while writing assignments.

• Focus: Once all the above components are in place, then you need to get on with it to carry out your plans in the best possible manner.

If you find these strategies are just too much for you to handle, then take help of an essay writing service.. Just keep reminding yourself that even great writers need to start writing before they could create an immaculately written piece. So the main thing is that irrespective of your plans, you can’t complete any assignment unless and until you start writing it.

Basics on Business Report Writing

Business reports are those types of assignments where you are expected to critically analyze a situation, either real life or an imaginary one, with the help of various business theories to come up with novel suggestions for improvement. Assignment help Melbourne help you write business reports for your assignment.


Before writing the business report, it is important to be clear about its purpose. A vital step in understanding the purpose is to identify the targeted audience of your report. You should construct your report as if you were writing it for any real audience (like the CEO of a company or other stakeholder of a business) and not to your professors. Otherwise,the purpose of a business report can be:
• Critically examine available solutions to a problem, issue, or a situation.
• Work out a practical problem through business and management theories
• Showcase your analytical abilities to evaluate various solutions of a problem to choose the best one
• Provide recommendations for further action
• Show concise communication abilities.
Broadly on the basis of the purpose, following types of business report can be listed:
• Justification/ recommendation report:Generally, this type of report captures an idea. This isused to make suggestions to the management.
• Investigative report: These are used to determine the risk involved within a particular decision and to anticipate future consequences.


• Compliance report: This type of report is used by industries to present its compliance of rule and regulations, to the governing body.
• Feasibility report: These reports are based on evaluating the viability of an idea or a new project.
• Research studies report: This Encapsulates the finding of a study directed to solve a very specific problem or issue in a company.
• Periodic report: These reports are written at a fixed intervals, such as weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. to examine profit & loss, efficiency or any other performance metric.
• Situational report: This is written on some specific situations such as a seminar or an emergency situation due to a natural disaster.  
• Yardstick report: These reports evaluate several potential solutions for a particular issue or situationto recommend a particular course of action.
Except the above mentioned types of business report on the basis of purpose, the following two broad types of report can be categorized on the basis of the organization of the sections in the report.
• Inductive Business reports: These are built on the inductive logic. Following the logic, these reports start with a very broad issue in the introduction or the body of the report; and then narrows down to a very specific one in the conclusion or the recommendation. This type of report is ideal for audiences who have adequate time to scan the complete report, or differently in cases where the recommendations are fairly problematic.
• Deductive business report: Contrary to the inductive logic, this type of report is based on deductive reasoning. This report proceeds from the specific to the general issues and therefore, ideal for audiences who don’t have the time to study the report entirely and might study the conclusion and recommendation.

For academic assistance with essay writer  to write these different types of reports you can look for professional providers.
Like other types of report, a business report is likewise comprised of:
• Introduction
• Discussions or Body
• Conclusions
• Recommendations.
Unlike other academic documents, like a journal article or an essay, a business report has a separate section called recommendations after the conclusions. You need to write conclusions and recommendations sections carefully, as often most of your audience might only read these two sections of your report.