unemployment(第五章)

这章最有意思的观点莫过于失业率和油价成正比。。70年代、80年代初、2007～2010是三个失业高峰，而在同一时期油价都曾上涨到历史性的高度。90年代的油价相对稳定，失业率也很低。

1.  structural unemployment:

Workers are unemployed not because they are ac- tively searching for the jobs that best suit their individual skills but because, at the going wage, the supply of labor exceeds the demand. These workers are simply waiting for jobs to become available.

If the real wage is stuck above the equilibrium level, then the supply of labor exceeds the demand. The result is unemployment.

2。 工会

美国和法国是工会控制力最弱得，只控制了16%与11%的员工。日本工会的影响力甚至要超过美国...而欧洲的工会力量最强大，不知道这是不是造成政府高赤字的一个原因。另外，欧洲的福利制度也造成了高失业率。

3. efficiency wage theory:

1)  在次发达国家，efficiency wage由食物价格决定；

2)  发达国家，工资由employee turnover决定：工资低，员工流失率高，rehiring成本增高，最终会有一个动态平衡。

3)  由star employee决定。By paying a wage above the equilibrium level, the firm may reduce adverse selection, improve the average quality of its workforce

4）工资高-->员工勤奋工作；成本上升-->降低工资--> morale hazard --> 加工资，最后产生一个动平衡。

4.  高失业率的几个原因：

1)  baby boomer。

2)  油价。These large changes in oil prices may have required reallocating labor between more-energy-intensive and less-energy-intensive sectors.

3)  productivity。我觉得这个应该是从durable goods order数据可以看出。

5。几种不同的失业率统计方法：也就是算不算上因为工作太难找而不愿意找工作的，和最近暂时不想找工作的。

U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percentage of the civilian labor force (includes only very long term unemployed)

U-2 Job losers and persons who have completed temporary jobs, as a percentage of the civilian labor force (excludes job leavers)

U-3 Total unemployed, as a percentage of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)

U-4 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, as a percentage of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers

U-5 Total unemployed plus all marginally attached workers, as a percentage of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers

Note: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.

公司运营状况分析方法

转贴的。

有几个主要得指数：

Return ratios:

首先让我们从最直接的一个ratio开始谈起：ROE—return on equity (Net income 除以equity)。没学过会计的人可以把它当银行利率来考虑：你投到银行的钱到年底给你多少回报？无非就是你的年利息率。同样道理，投资人投给公司的钱回报是多少呢？就是ROE。注意这里equity用的是book value不是市场价。我一般用年初和年末的equity平均值而不是年末值来做分母。个人喜好而已。


那么似乎一定是ROE越高越好了？ROE主要是由ROA和leverage共同作用的结果。这就跟大家炒股一样：你上了margin上对了你的回报就比不用margin要好。这是leverage的作用。ROA (return on asset) 反应的是公司运营回报。大致可以理解成公司利用它所拥有的资产而得到的回报率。这是个更重要的数据。
那么回到ROE值高低好坏的问题。首先要在同行业中比较，如果拿manufacturing 公司和银行比你一定喜欢银行因为他们通常ROE高。但是银行的leverage往往比manufacturing高好多，他的风险就高。所以还是在同一行业中比较更靠谱。光看ROE大小不够，同一行业中个人认为还是ROA高的更好些，因为使用leverage并非难事。

可惜只有ROA一个值仍不够。当你看到一个公司的ROA比他竞争者高时你要想：为啥这个公司的ROA高呢？他能不能一直这样高呢？往下再深层看时，你要去看profit margin和asset turnover.

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Profit ratios:

Profit margin反应的是公司的profitability 而asset turnover反应的是公司的运营效率。

Profit margin就是用net profit 去除sales. 也就是公司产品买了的钱最后剩下了多少。当然这个比例越大越好。Asset turnover就是用sales除以total asset (年初年底平均值)。 也是越大越好，公司运营效率越高。你想啊，asset turnover 越大就相当于用同样的资产产生的sales越高，当然好。当你把这几个ratio从最近的报表弄出来时，你就要想那去年什么样啊。自然而然一个time series就出来了。 一个公司的出来了那你当然可以再算他的竞争者的ratios。最后你就得到了一个纵比和横比的matrix.

Next is profitability ratios. Profitability ratio可以包括很多。 第一个就是gross margin (sales-cost of goods sold)/sales：公司卖了很多产品从用户那收了好多钱，那产品也是要成本的。刨掉成本后剩多少就是从gross margin 反应的。去年Intel第一次亏钱时他的gross margin 也降了很多令analyst都很惊讶。是一个重要的指标。在我的model里，我间接用的cost of goods sold/sales. 不难看出吧：1－Cogs/sales=gross margin. 

第二个是SGA/Sales (selling, general , administrative/sales)。反映的是市场销售花销，人员花销等等。当然是越少越好如果不影响公司运营。

还有interest/sales,对高负债的公司你一定要看这个。比率越低越好。如果挣钱不多还要多给银行交利息那不是很惨。再有的公司重视或靠的是R&D的，你可以自己单做一个R&D/sales ratio。但我认为这体现的是公司的investment strategy而且R&D的效用是延迟的虽然他的确影响accounting的profitability.最终的这个主要ratio就是我们谈过的profit margin.他其实就是从sales里把所有杂七杂八的消费都去掉后剩下来的。（税也去了）

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Efficiency Ratios:

financial ratio analysis的efficiency ratios (turnover ratios). 涉及到的ratios 有asset turnover, fix asset turnover, A/R turnover, inventory turnover, 和working capital invested time (这些属于investing的范围). 鉴于要讨论working capital, 我把A/P turnover 也放这一起讨论。(AP 属于financing里)

1）    Asset turnover: 就是以前谈的sales/(average total assets).反映的是公司运用asset的效率。Ratio越高，效率越高。
2）    Fixed Asset turnover: sales/(average fixed assets).反映的是公司运用fixed asset的效率。Ratio越高，效率越高。Fixed asset 可以用PPE(plants,property, equipments一项)或图简单就用non-current assets。
3）    A/R turnover：Sales / average accounts receivable. A/R是account receivable，意思是公司顾客欠的钱还没到手的部分。你卖了东西当然希望钱越快进账越好, 所以AR相对小是好事。也就是说AR turnover越大越好。得到了这个比率，用365除一下就得到了天数。如果AR turnover=4,那转换成天数就是365/4～=91天。也就是说平均起来公司大致要等91天才得到付款。
4）    Inventory turnover：Cost of goods sold / average inventory。也是越大越好。尽可能的减少生产线上的inventory是好事(前提是不影响sales).
5）    A/P turnover：Cost of goods sold / average accounts payable。 
Accounts payable指的是公司欠它的supplier的钱。如果suppliers不拖货的话当然是
越晚交钱越好了。所以AP相对大是好事，也就是AP turnover 越小越好。
6）    Working capital invested： 这一项很重要联系到资金运转。算法是这样的：（用转化成天数的参数计算）AR turnover+Inventor turnover-AP turnover.
E.g. 如果AR turnover =91, inventory turnover=40, AP turnover=100那working capital invested=91+40-100=31 (天)。这是什么概念呢？就是公司的用来生产的运营资金要等31天才能流动出来。你当然希望它越小越好。公司的运营效率就越高。

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Solvency ratio and leverage ratios:

Solvency ratios include:
1)    Current ratio: Current assets / current liabilities. It shows a company’s capability to cover its debt within a year. The higher the better, meaning the company is solvent if the ratio is higher than 1 in general.

2)    Quick ratio: (Cash + short-term investments + A/R) / current liabilities.
Take out the inventory and get the most liquid items within current asset to see if these items can still cover the current liabilities. Again, the higher the better. The logic of taking out inventory should be straight forward here. If a company is serious threaten by competitors or its products were detected with bad flaws, it’s likely the inventories the company is holding might not worth much at all. Therefore, a creditor would like to see if the most liquid asset excluding inventory can cover the current liabilities which will help 
them to determine the possibility of bankruptcy. 

3)    AP turnover (talked about in previous discussion 3)

Leverage ratios include:
1)    Capital structure leverage: Average total assets / average shareholders’ equity. It is briefly discussed in discussion 1. 
2)    Long-term debt ratio: Long-term liabilities / total assets. Again, it’s an indicator of leverage. So, it’s a short one and these ratios are particular important when you investigate companies in stress, such as Zales, etc.

10/26学习笔记 (曼昆第四章 －money and inflation)

1.  The primary way in which the Fed controls the supply of money is through open-market operations—the purchase and sale of government bonds.


原来一直是通过买卖bonds。。
2.  A second type of asset used for transactions is demand deposits, the funds people hold in their checking accounts.


3. 

C Currency 

M1 Currency plus demand deposits, traveler’s checks, and other checkable deposits 

M2 M1 plus retail money market mutual fund balances, saving deposits (including money market deposit accounts), and small time deposits

M3 M2 plus large time deposits, repurchase agreements, Eurodollars, and institution-only money market mutual fund balances

4.  quantity equation:

the quantity of money in the economy is related to the number of dollars exchanged in transactions.

Money × Velocity = Price × Transactions

M × V = P × T

T is the number of times in a year that goods or ser- vices are exchanged for money.

P is the price of a typical transaction—the number of dollars exchanged.

velocity tells us the number of times a dollar bill changes hands in a given period of time.

Money is the total money in market

V,T应该基本是定值吧。

5. 这个公示有一个非常重要的推广:

Money × Velocity = Price × Output 

M × V = P × Y.

Y is real GDP, P is the GDP deflator, and PY is nominal GDP.  P times Y is national income

1) 当money supply增长的时候，名义GDP也会同比例增长么。所以每年8%的GDP增长。。。当然，8%也许是实际GDP。

2) 这个公示主要的目的是计算V。比如QE2 500billion出去之后，算上已经发行的M2,整个M实际上增加7%～8%，名义GDP如果保持过去几个季度的不超过3%的增长， 那么qe2推出后未来半年的通胀可能差不多会到5%。似乎并没有想像中的那么高。

参考87页的历史数据：1970～80美国的money supply增长是10%，平均的inflation是8%；

中国过去20年的M2增长似乎是20倍，GDP算每年8%的话，折算下来过去20年，平均每年有14%的通胀了。。

4. 接下来是讨论interest rate和M2的关系。

有两种interest rate: 实际利率(r)和名义利率(i)。

i = r + pi

(Fisher equation)

另外，有的时候对未来通胀的预期会改变当前的商品价格。

5.凯恩斯坚定的反对通胀，并认为通胀是政府掠夺公众财务的手段，政府支出大的国家总是倾向于滥发货币刺激通胀。但是曼昆似乎倾向于适度通胀：通胀变相的降低了员工工资，避免了企业通过裁员来减少成本。当然通胀显然不可能增加就业机会。

还有个笑话很有意思：According to one report, when patrons entered a pub during the German hyperinflation, they would often buy two pitchers of beer.Although the second pitcher would lose value by getting warm over time, it would lose value less rapidly than the money left sitting in the pa- tron’s wallet.

6.  Hyperinflation一般是指每天的通胀接近1%，每年接近100倍。

7.  有一个网站详细讲了美国09年之后的通胀：http://www.ciovaccocapital.com/sys-tmpl/fivemajorinvestmentthemesmain/