ISBF Newsletter

Glossary for the Infographic

CAREERS IN INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
Mutual Funds: This enables finance graduates to plan on how to mobilize resources from a pool of investors and allocate funds across various schemes for generating returns to potential investors and enhancing scope for appreciation of asset values.
Portfolio Management: This is a rather interesting avenue - where finance graduates are given the responsibility of constructing and managing an efficient portfolio of investments comprising, debt, equities, etc for a group of prospective investors and maximizing portfolio returns.
Stock Broking: This is highly popular in locations where the capital/ financial markets are buoyant and finance professionals are engaged in analyzing variation of equity prices. The stock brokers are intermediaries engaged in buying and selling of shares and bonds, and in the process charging commission for the services rendered.  

CAREERS IN CORPORATE FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING
Fund Raising: Organizations require capital for expanding and diversifying their business operations and the finance team estimates the requirements of funds and explores options for mobilizing resources. It is important to assess the financial viability of projects and work out strategies to secure resources.
Capital Structuring: This is where the finance graduates have to identify the various avenues of raising capital and need to evaluate the optimal capital structuring of firms and the proportion of funds to be raised through the equity or debt route.
Fund Flow Analysis: The corporate finance team of an enterprise makes a forecast of the expected inflow and outflow of funds to ascertain the financial position of the firm during a particular time frame.
Financial Accounting: The Accounts and Finance Department of any organization is responsible for preparing the Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement and Cash Flow analysis and this is a statutory requirement for revealing the financial performance of the firm to all stakeholders. 
Management Accounting: This is the expertise of the Accounts and Finance team to provide specific financial records in a particular format which are confidential and for internal use only. It is referred to by the departmental heads for making crucial business decisions.

CAREERS IN INSURANCE
Sales: This involves sales and distribution of insurance products and schemes - where finance graduates need to identify potential investors and advise them based on their insurance needs. The candidate needs to have persuasive and convincing skills to revive interest among potential investors and this calls for sound communication/ negotiation skills. 
Underwriting: Insurance underwriters are professionals who evaluate the risks of insuring people, assets and establish pricing for accepted insurable risks.  Underwriters help price life insurance, health insurance, commercial liability insurance, homeowners insurance, etc.
Actuarial Science: Underwriters use computer programs, mathematics, statistical tools and actuarial data to calculate insurance premiums and determine the likelihood and magnitude of claim payouts over the life of the policy.

CAREERS IN BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES
Risk Management: This involves the risk profiling team in banks and lending institutions to analyze and ascertain the degree of risk associated with any lending or investment proposal and accordingly work out strategies to dilute the intensity of risks.
Credit Rating: This is a very specialized function, where in all lending institutions a credit rating committee is constituted for reviewing the financial statements and performance of a firm and awarding a credit ratingon the basis of which a loan is sanctioned. The credit rating indicates the capability of a firm to meet its debt obligations. 
Leasing and Hire Purchase: Non-Banking Finance Companies and banks facilitate the  procurement of an asset to a lessee on lease or hire purchase basis, but prior to entering into any commercial deal the financial institutions have to analyze the credit worthiness of the client.
Corporate Banking: Corporate banking, also known as business banking, refers to the aspect of banking that deals with corporate customers.
Retail Banking: This refers to the division of a bank that deals directly with retail customers. Also termed as consumer banking or personal banking, retail banking is the visible face of banking to the general public, with bank branches located in abundance in most major cities. This has gathered prominence in India as increasing number of consumers look for personal loans, housing loans and car loans. 
Treasury and Forex management: This is a specialized field, where the treasury department assists corporates in structuring a financial deal which will enable corporates with foreign exchange exposures to dilute and hedge risks associated with currency market volatility.
Private Banking and Wealth Management: This is based on relationship building with high net worth individuals and prominent customers. It involves advising clients on how to accumulate/ allocate funds across a range of financial instruments for maximizing client's wealth value.  
Micro Finance: This is an emergent and growing field, with banking processes aligned to that of corporate or retail banking. The only exception is that focus is on setting up small scale and micro enterprises and funding the credit needs of micro units. As the spirit of entrepreneurship is rising in emerging nations like India - venture capital is one of the preferred options for securing capital for facilitating a start- up venture. 

CAREERS IN INVESTMENT BANKING
Equity Analysis: Financial Analysts in demand for analyzing balance sheets, profit and loss statements, cash flows, critical financial ratios and then making recommendations on stocks to buy, hold or sell.
Debt Market Research: The process is the same as equity analysis- with the only exception that it predicts the likely returns accruing to a saver investing in bonds, debentures and debt instruments.  
Derivatives: This is a complicated, specialized task and highly qualified finance professionals are required to carry out trade in the forwards and futures market, where deals are decided on spot - but executed or rolled over at a future date. 
Mergers and Acquisitions: With the spate of mergers and acquisitions increasing - valuation of firms is extremely critical. For this function highly qualified finance professionals are hired for using financial concepts, mathematical tools for valuing enterprises and structuring a merger or acquisition deal.
Lead Managers:  This involves investment banks promote the existence of a company planning to raise capital in the primary market. The investment bankers are responsible for documentation, conducting roadshows, and helping firms mobilize capital under various options through efficient distribution of the offer.

CAREERS IN KNOWLEDGE PROCESS OUTSOURING
Several finance graduates are recruited every year to carry out back-end financial research assignments on behalf of leading clients and typically investment banks or corporates are out-sourcing the financial analysis, research driven projects, information related work through the KPOs offering high end services. 

CAREERS IN CONSULTANCY PRACTICES
Financial Consultancy: This constitutes an integral component of the management consultancy assignment, which refers to financial modelling and working out methods of how firms can re-engineer capital structure, cut capital costs, reduce expenditures and improve profits/ cash flows.
Financial Feasibility Studies: Having a degree in finance provides a cutting edge as the finance team is entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating the financial viability of new projects starting from fund raising, projecting future cash flows, and preparing detailed financial reports. 

With this narrow trading range for nearly a month many people have been exasperated at how "dead" the market is.

I am thinking that we could see bitcoin move much higher and most other cryptos go much lower, here's why.

Why All ICOs—Including Ethereum—Could Plummet.

Suppose The US government will be going after ICOs very heavily in the coming year.

They will be using the "anti-money laundering" scheme to go after many people who have done ICOs in the last few years.This being the case the question is "who", "when" and how the market will react.

We all know that bureau-rats are slow, but they seem very focused on "cracking down" on peaceful, voluntary transactions this year. And they told us they will aggressively go after some to make "an example" of them.

Since the beginning of the year, Ethereum has sold off versus bitcoin... is the market already getting ahead of this news?

Bitcoin Could Spike Higher In Panic

If news were to come out that, say, Ethereum was under investigation and a subpoena had been issued to people like Vitalik Buterin, I think it is safe to say that Ethereum and all the ERC20 tokens would have a massive selloff. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-80% in a panic.

If so, would investors shun all cryptocurrencies? That is a possibility. If so, we'd see bitcoin also fall.

Or, we could see bitcoin become the "safe haven" of cryptos and have everyone rushing into it. If so, we'd see bitcoin skyrocket.

But, again, what is the timing?

I am still INCREDIBLY bearish on bitcoin becoming a widely used digital cash. We have already written here why the Lightning Network is a travesty due to the economic structure of it. Rick Falkvinge just released a video showing why the Lightning Network is also a travesty from a technical perspective.

My Best Guess!

If I had to guess right now I'd say that the globalists are more comfortable now that bitcoin is becoming "digital gold" and not "digital cash" and may look to allow bitcoin to continue to grow with less hinderance now and try to demonize most of the other crypto space.

If so, and if we continue to see nearly billion dollar buy orders coming in from large funds we could see bitcoin go much higher this year.Especially now that a lot of the "dumb money" who were all retail buyers buying at $15,000+ have been washed out of the market (and likely sold under $8,000).

So, What To Do?

Move the capital from Ethereum sales into about 40% US dollars/INR, 40% bitcoin and the remainder buy Monero (XMR).(we've been seeing and you'll see for yourself). Plus, Monero Ledger Nano hardware wallet code was just merged.

And, Monero developer notes from today also had a lot of good news.

If we see the US government and SEC attack ICOs soon and it takes down the entire crypto space... then it will likely take down Monero with it.

However, if we see a "flight to safety," Monero could be one of the benefactors of that along with bitcoin.

Conclusion

Between a potential panic in the cryptocurrencies and a potential stock and economic crash this year along with all of the false flags/hoaxes and propaganda of wars and rumors of wars I expect 2018 to NOT be boring.