Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Essay Example for Free

Things Fall Agrammatical constituent by Chinua Achebe EssayIn Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo plays the role of breed to his son, Nwoye, and his daughter, Ezinma. Okonkwos fear of looking weak like his father, which can be interpreted as his tragic flaw, causes him to expect more from both of his children and to act rashly, similar to the demeanour of my father. Although both family relationshipsthe relationship between Okonkwo and his son and the relationship between my father and Iinvolve disagreements between father and son, I constantly aim to reveal eye to eye with my father, just like Okonkwo and Ezinma, whereas Nwoye does not attempt to fulfill his fathers wishes. The relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye is one of disagreement, contretemps, and failure Okonkwos inflexible expectations are not reached which triggers tension. This affair commences at the start of the novel but at this point it masterms minor Okonkwo is merely concerned that his son shows so me characteristics of his lazy father, Unoka. He is stressful to forestall this by all means but it starts to become somewhat undeniable.Okonkwos features being strong, hard-working, and somewhat misogynic conflicts with the impudent, weak, eccentric, and indolent characteristics of Nwoye. Though as the story proceeds, it seems likely that the relationship will be repaired Ikemefunas involvement in Nwoyes growth puts Nwoye on the path sought by Okonkwo. Unfortunately, this period of healing is disturbed by Okonkwo taking part in Ikemefunas death which results in the fear of Okonkwo by Nwoye and the lack of trust between the two. This instability continues through let on the majority, if not the entirety, of the book.Ezinma, the only child of Okonkwos second wife, Ekwefi, has a relationship with Okonkwo that shows understanding and agreement, unlike Nwoyes relationship. Surprisingly enough, this relationship is rather implicit since Okonkwo doesnt speak to Ezinma a great deal of tim es, especially when compared to Nwoye. This may be repayable to the fact that she is a girl and she is generally not involved with masculine tasks that would bring her closer to Okonkwo. Still, Okonkwo believes that she should have been a boy (61) and she continually attempts to carry out masculine duties such as bringing Okonkwos chair to the wrestling match, which is said to be a boys job (45).This form of complement establishes amplification of the bond that is do between Okonkwo and Ezinma.My father and I have a relationship that consists of clashing points of view, similar to the link between Okonkwo and Nwoye. We have frequent arguments, abundance of miscommunication, and we fail to see eye-to-eye. Both my father and Okonkwo seem to possess this stubborn feature which, in turn, results in senseless disputes. In fact, in chapter 5, Okonkwo initiates an argument most a unfounded banana tree which actually is alive he ends up giving Ekwefi a beating because she merely cut off a few leaves to flap some food (39). Another aspect they both share is their large amount of accomplishments my dad being a successful translator who has traveled the macrocosm and Okonkwo being a famous wrestler and a leader of the Umofia clan has lead to higher expectations in their children, specifically Nwoye and I.This causes us distress while trying to reach that expectation and results in disappointment from our fathers when we dont attain it. This kind of pressure is not asserted on Ezinma because she does not have to meet any expectations, similarly doing feminine tasks like cooking, cleaning, etc. Though, Ezinma and I do share the aspect of attempting to see eye-to-eye with our fathers, generally unlike Nwoye Nwoye seems to make an attempt when he starts grumbling about women, building the walls of the obi, and doing other masculine actions but in reality, he just trying to fit in with the patriarchal clan. Therefore, Ezinma is similar to me when it comes to intention, but different to Nwoye and me when it comes to the circumstances.In conclusion, the novel emphasizes the importance of parental influence on the child, whether positive or negative. The analysis of Nwoye and Ezinma has taught me to generally stay on the path made for me by my ancestors and my parents in order to avoid conflict and I believe that I could teach them that although that path may be tough, the end result will be substantial to both them and their parents.Works CitedAchebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York Fawcett, 1985.

The Book a Christmas Carol Essay Example for Free

The Book a Christmas Carol EssayIn the deem A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, the main character, crank, has many experiences with new emotions throughout the book. These new emotions are fear, tragicness and happiness. boor gets scared when Marley, his darkened business partner, who has been dead for seven years, appears as a ghost at his door. skinflint got so frightened the he slammed his door shut and double locked it. tyke was also visited by the ghost of Christmas past and tike is sad to see his childhood. He saw how he was neglected as a child in the past and this contrasted to his new emotional experience. After being visited by iii ghosts, Scrooge becomes a rattling blessed man. He instantly becomes a man of joy and changes the ways that he acts about Christmas. Throughout the book, Scrooge feels many emotions, some new and some old emotions.Scrooge gets scared during multiple occasions throughout the book when he sees Marleys ghost and his next. Mar leys ghost appears at Scrooges door, Scrooge gets rattling frightened and double locks the door shut. Marley says to Scrooge, You will be haunted, resumed the Ghost, by Three Spirits(Page 18). Scrooge cannot believe what he is comprehend and hearing. Marley goes on to say that tomorrow the first spirit will come to visit him. Scrooge meets the ghost of Christmas yet to come and he fears the ghost very much. The ghost submits Scrooge his grave and is very frightened and he also sees how the people react to his death, and nobody cares. Next the ghost shows him how he dies in his future and he is immensely scared of his future. Scrooge is feared by his future that the ghost showed him and he changes his attitude and become a man full of joy.Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas past and he is sad to look stick out on his childhood. Scrooge awakes in a dark and dismissal room and he believes that he has slept through the day. He counts down to minutes andthen he sees a super natural figure with the body of a child unless the heart and hair of a man. Scrooge meets the ghost of Christmas past and the ghost says to Scrooge, Rise And walk with me(Page 24). The ghost of Christmas past wants him to rise up with him and the ghost will show him his past. The ghost shows Scrooge his childhood and he sees how he was neglected as a child by his friends.Scrooge is very sad to look back on his childhood and to see how he was treated. Scrooge remembers a young boy who came caroling to his door and he never made a donation. Scrooge mutters, I wish(Page 28), putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff, but it is too late now(Page 28). Scrooge is very sad that he did not make a donation to the young boy. One more shadow exclaimed the ghost (Page 36). Scrooge cried, No more(Page 36), but the ghost forced him to observe what happened next, scrooge was again saddened about what he had seen and told the spirit he could not ta ke it no longer. The ghost of Christmas past showed Scrooge different parts of his past that made Scrooge feel very sad which was a new emotion to Scrooge.After being visited by the triad ghost of Christmas, Scrooge becomes a very happy man. Scrooge awakes in his bed after he has seen the last spirit and the three spirits are gone. He awakes very happy on Christmas day full of Christmas spirit. Scrooge runs out to the street and asks a young boy to find him the biggest turkey possible. and so he asked the boy to send it to bobfloat Cratchits house. Later Scrooge sees a man from his accounting house that he refused to make a donation to. Scrooge then makes a donation to the man because of his new joyful attitude.Scrooge goes to visit his nephew Fred, and he knocks on his door and a very nice missy lets him in. Scrooge yelled, Fred/ its I. Your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner, will you let me in, Fred (Page 83-84). After dinner Scrooge went to see Bob Cratchit to raise his sa lary. Scrooge questioned Bob about why he was there at that time of day. Bob thought he was going to get yelled at by Scrooge but Scrooge said to Bob, /I am about to raise your salary(Page 84). Bob was shocked to hear Scrooge say that to him, and Bob was extremely happy. After being visited by the three ghost of Christmas, Scrooge turned out to be an amazing man full of joy and Christmas spirit.In the book A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, the main character, Scrooge, has many experiences throughout the play with new emotions such as fear, sadness and happiness. Scrooge becomes very scared when he sees Marleys ghost, who has been dead for seven years, when he meets the first ghost of Christmas and when the ghost of Christmas yet to come shows him his future. Scrooge was visited by the ghost of Christmas past and Scrooge was extremely sad to look back on his childhood and that he did not make a donation the young boy who was caroling. After being visited by three ghost of Chris tmas, Scrooge becomes a very happy man full of Christmas spirit. Scrooge feels many new emotions throughout the book and they all lead up to one very good emotion, happiness.

Video Games Cause and Effects on Children Essay Example for Free

Video Games Cause and Effects on Children EssayVideo spicys abide come a long way since they were introduced to the mainstream Audience. Video feistys be increasingly using advanced technology, they have come closer to reality than ever before. They are creating the idea that icon games cause violence. When these realistic violent telly games are become popular, these games have caused children and teenagers to become addicted to playing it.These are the causes of video game addictions on children and teenagers. The high score, because the high score is one of the most easily recognizable books. Trying to m the high score, even if the player trying to beat his own score can keep them playing for hours. Beating the game found in nearly every gaming system. The desire to beat the game is keeping the player to level up, or find the next hidden clue. Role playing, allowing players to do more than just play. They get to actually create the characters in the game that matching on an adventure, and the story makes it much harder to stop playing. Discovery, The exploration or discovery tactic is most often used in role playing games. And relationships, this is the primarily an online hook. Online role playing games allow people to build relationships with other online players.There are the effects of video games on children and teenagers. Tend to be more aggressive, kids spending too much time playing video games may exhibit impulsive and attention problems. Failing grades, too much video game playing makes your kid socially isolated. Also, he may spend less time in other activities such as doing homework, reading, sports, and interacting with the family and friends. Violent behavior, any(prenominal) video games teach kids the wrong values. Violent behavior, vengeance and aggression are rewarded. Negotiating and other nonviolent solutions are often not. And also bad health effects, video games may also have bad effects on some children health, including o besity, and postural, muscular and skeletal disorders.

Evaluation of Individual Stock and Sector Level

valuation of Individual Stock and Sector LevelIs there any method of asset apportionment in spite of appearance a stock portfolio that can repeatedly and over time outperform a passive index (buy and hold system)? The objective of this canvass is to compargon strategies that befool been used over the last decades by academics and professionals alike, and to expand on that canvass to create a real-time portfolio at the end of stratum t, to observe the portfolios de sozzledour during the next year (t + 1). This portfolio, unlike those created in previous studies, is not limited to the involve of soulfulness stocks, but instead gives importance to arena entirelyocation. In addition, this study as well as focuses on implementing a long- sententious strategy in those assets with the same overall exposure to the trade, pass on a long-short strategy that depends on pecuniary metrics promenade a better risk-adjusted return than a 100% long strategy? In other words, are mo netary metrics equal of not nevertheless detecting under harbord stocks, but also of detecting those overpriced?Sector allocation is an especially important factor, with previous studies failing to consider domain allocations forward despicable to find the best classified assets within distributively sector rather, they have jumped directly to stock selection. One of the most common strategies for stock picking in the asset management industry today relies on initially choosing sectors that, from a macro perspective, are expected to outperform the market. From this stance, analysts proceed to evaluate specific stocks to carry potential winners. condescension this being the industry standard, only a scarce number of studies exist that use common ratios between sectors to analyse and devise allocation strategies that are first off sector-based and then based on individual stock.The objective of this project, therefore, is to focus on a set of financial metrics, both at indiv idual stock aim and at sector level, to examine if there is a positive relationship between these ratios and alpha creation. In order to achieve this, a portfolio pass on be constructed and rebalanced yearly, according to previous end-of-year entropy. Several traditionally-appraised financial measures, such as P/E ratio, shrive cash coalesce to go-ahead value ratio and book-to-market value ratio go out be employed, as will accredited profitability ratios that include entropy from the income statement, such as gross profit, operate profit and EBITDA. The reasoning behind utilize measures high up within the income statement is due to solely to accounting choices in comparison to interlock income these are less touch by an individual companys accounting process. In fact, revenue and other described measures of profit, are more consistent year to year than net income. Subsequently, this provides the rationale that these measures are better able to predict future cash flow s and, consequently, next age process.Forward-looking measures such as analysts consensus recommendations and forward EPS will also be utilised and tested. Departing from the hypothesis that these individuals conduct an exhaustive analysis of the financial data at year end t to predict the effect during year t+1, the accuracy of the forecasts will be tested against those same financial measures and valuation metrics existing at year end t.Data will be extracted from a set of databases comprised of Compustat, CRSP and I/B/E/S. Fundamental data will be extracted from end-of- pecuniary-year filing, to allow a time retrogress for the data release of a quarter point in time (3 months), before a portfolio is rebalanced. Hence, with a fiscal year ending in December of year t, a lag in the release of data will always exist and portfolios will be rebalanced at the end of the first quarter of year t+1. periodic returns for every stock will be compounded throughout that year over 12 mont hs.Each years universe of discourse of stocks will then be rank by the different valuation metrics to construct a portfolio at year end t in order to assess the portfolios performance during t + 1. Three different sets of portfolios will be constructed for from each one financial metric each year and, within each set, devil strategies will be implemented. For a stocks-only portfolio, only those stocks ranking in the upper quintile (top 20%) will be used each year. For the sector-only portfolio, a market capitalisation average of each sector will be calculated, and the portfolio will be formed by the top 20% sectors ranked in any given year. For the sector and stocks portfolio, an carrying out of both criteria will be evaluated. That being said, the portfolio is formed from the top quintile stocks within the top quintile sectors each year. As a whole, this assumes a long strategy, buying in on those stocks on a value- burthen basis each year to constitute a portfolio.In the long -short strategy, the bottom quintile of each respective category will be shorted, and the proceeds used to buy an extra 30% of the top quintile of stocks. Using a long-short strategy will help the looker examine the feasibility of using these ratios in recognising overvalued stocks as well as undervalued companies, and use this information to construct a more profitable portfolio. A 130/30 long short strategy is used, where a 150/50 long short strategy or other proportions could have also been tested. However, the 130/30 strategy is elect following the creation and subsequently popularisation of 130/30 mutual funds and coronation vehicles. This choice stems from an initial study suggesting that 130/30 was the optimum proportion of long-short positions in a portfolio, even though no empirical data has been found that a 130/30 strategy later maximises alpha. Despite this, given its popularisation and position as an industry standard, our analysis proceeds with this strategy.Ultimat ely, performance attribution and portfolio statistics will be calculated, such as average return, arrive payoff, standard deviation, Sharpe ratio and alpha according to the Fama French 3 factor model, correcting for small minus big and high minus low book market value (Fama and French, 1992). This will help in our analysis of the results, to provide a clear and concise indication of which ratios perform best under each strategy and under each level (sector and stock).Literature ReviewRe-emphasising the importance of sector level asset allocation strategies, particularly at a time in the financial industry when performance attribution analysis stresses return on the relative weighting of sectors in portfolios, it is surprising that existing studies underscore the importance of certain ratios or organic data for stocks while omiting the ability to employ a method to discover undervalued sectors. Previous studies from Shiller and Bunn (2014) construct a 140-year regression serial based on the relationship between the earnings of different sectors and their yields, creating a CAPE (Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings) index that identifies sectors with upside potential. Their research indicates that market sectors disposition price mismatches that can be exploited. According to them, the CAPE index is capable of outperforming the market by an average of 4%. Therefore, the objective of this project is to expand on their results by examining a number of other ratios and financial fundamentals, particularly those related to profitability measures, and to investigate whether these, both at individual and sector level, are capable of forming a portfolio that outperforms the broader index and a buy and hold investment strategy. colourise and Vogel (2012) try to depict not only the ratio that is able to predict higher performing stocks, but also those in the lower ranges this implies being able to detect not only what are known in the financial investment world as v alue stocks, but also overvalued growth stocks. According to their research, some measures are more efficient than others in providing insight into which stocks are overpriced. color and Vogel (2012) therefore conclude that EBITDA/EV and GP/EV are the metrics that are best able to identify the overvalued stocks. The results in this dissertation agree that the GP/EV ratio is useful to identify overvalued stocks and is hence a good metric to build long/short strategies, but the results also consider free cash flow/EV as a favourite on a risk-adjusted basis for implementing a long-short strategy at stock level. The results of the following study show that stocks evidenceing a low FCF/EV experience low returns, demonstrating an ability to identify overvalued stocks. Such a contradiction might be explained by the divergency in the universe of stocks used or, more specifically, by the use of lag for data release, which corrects the assumption that results are available to the public a t the end of fiscal year t. This lag is introduced by Hughen and Strauss (2015) in their comparable study of profitability ratios in portfolio allocation.The analysis in this project goes beyond what the Gray and Vogel (2012) study implies and develops a portfolio strategy to buy stocks that exhibit higher ratios, but also a complementing 130/30 strategy, which short sells stocks exhibiting poor ratios, and proportionally buys in excess those that exhibit a healthy ratio. As Miller (2001) shows in his practise, overvaluation of stocks is far more common and of greater absolute value than undervaluation. This supports a rationale for this work. However, finagle should be interpreted when dealing with long-short strategies. As suggested by Michaud (1993), cost stemming from short sales in a portfolio could prove quite momentous. However, Jacobs and Levy (1995) argue that these costs are not much higher than a long-only portfolio, and are well under those charged by active managemen t.Professionals and practitioners alike have historically depended on several fundamental and financial measures to assist them in the portfolio selection process. Perhaps the most famous is the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) along with the ratio between earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and total enterprise value. Fama and French (1992) argue that book to market ratio perhaps most accurately explains the surmount section return of stock, which they later include in their triplet-factor model.In our approach, we include these traditional metrics, while also relying on profitability measures, such as gross profit/EV, introduced by Novy-Marx (2010), and run profit divided by market value, as presented in Fama and Frenchs (2015) 5-factor model. Ball et al. (2015) proves that the suggestions shown in Novy-Marxs (2010) paper, in which he proposes the existence of a very strong cross relation between gross profit and future returns, regardless of t he financial leverage or structure of the sloshed, are true by constructing portfolios based on highly profitable firms as represented by gross profit/enterprise value. Novy-Marx (2010) concluded that because gross profit is the measure of profit less affected by accounting choices in the income statement, it results in a clear and normalised comparison between different companies. However, Ball et al. (2015) argue that gross profit is not importantly superior to net income (earnings) when analysing an extended time period. After analysing other measures of financial data, they conclude that run profit, as a percentage of market value, does offer a significantly higher alpha. Therefore, this project continues with the aforementioned financial metrics, and focuses on sector and stock selection to create an annually-rebalanced real-time portfolio.Hughen and Strauss (2015) attempt to use different financial measures to construct portfolios at sector, stock and combined stock and sect or levels. The following study complements and verifies the conclusions of Hughen and Strauss (2015) regarding the superior indicators of profitability measures versus traditional measures of valuation such as P/E and book to market in all three levels, and extends their research by looking at forward looking measures and a value weighted approach to the sector allocation, rather than the equal weight approach used in their research. The limitations of assuming sectors to be equally weighted across the portfolio, and not a function of the market value of the components of those sectors, contradict the notion of constructing a value-weighted portfolio. Their construction of portfolios at stock level is value-weighted, whilst at sector levels they equally weight each sector within their top quintile. This is a counterintuitive approach and this paper tackles that limitation by weighting the sectors accordingly respective to their components market capitalization, making triennial reb alances within the year unnecessary and increasing operational efficiencies in a real-life practical situation. It should be mentioned that the universe of stocks used in this study pertains to the SP500, which by comment is a market-weighted index. The project finds some discrepancies with respect to Hughen and Strauss paper, in particular surrounding the performance of the free cash flow ratio. A possible explanation for this is that this study states free cash flow as a percentage of total enterprise value, whilst Hughen and Strauss (2015) view it as a percentage of market value. The approach taken within the subsequent study results in a much higher risk-adjusted return for the ratio, as measured by the Sharpe ratio, both for long strategies and to identify overvalued stocks.In their research of different financial ratios, Loughran and Wellman (2011) found that EBITDA over enterprise value offers superior performance to a predefined buy and hold benchmark. Their analysis, whic h comprehends data starting from 1963 to 2009, holds that EBITDA/EV possess a very significant regressive coefficient with future performance. Gray and Vogel (2012) confirm this hypothesis, analysing a time period of 30 years starting in 1980, in their research of different financial metrics. This paper confirms that, at a stocks-only level, EBITDA along with gross profit, both measured as a percentage of enterprise value, offer the highest risk-adjusted returns. For the analysis at both sector and stock level, EBITDA fails to show the same accuracy as the stock-only analysis. Therefore, the following study builds on the findings of previous studies by providing a more thorough examination at sector level.Gray and Vogel (2012) extended their research further by considering periods of economic crisis, in order to identify which financial ratio is most appropriate during high volatility economic downturns. However, they were unable to conclude which ratio is able to identify winners o r losers during periods of financial distress, because none behaves in the same systematic manner during selected periods of extreme economic contraction.In their study of different economic coefficients and measures, Welch and Goyal (2007) conclude that the relationship between sector level performance and macroeconomic industrial data is unstable and at most, follows a random relationship. With that in mind, the focus of this paper is instead on building sector data as a market weighted average of the individual microeconomic company ratios and forecasts. Each individual constituent fundamental metric at year end will be used to position the allocation of each asset for the next year based on a ranked system. This construes that this analysis will be based on each stocks financial information at year end t to later construct sector level ratios and metrics, and is not based on macroeconomic or sector level data that, according to Welch and Goyal (2007), do not provide any signific ant cross-relation with future performance.Theory DevelopmentAlthough the focus of previous literature is in the attribution of portfolio performance to the different ratios and metrics used, the objective of this paper is to examine whether these same metrics, mainly traditional measures, forward looking estimates and profitability ratios, are able to exploit sector and stock level mispricing and generate real-time winner portfolios. effrontery the availability of forward estimates in the I/B/E/S database, a period from 1990 to 2016 will be examined in this paper. The choice of time period is not a random one rather, to have consistency in data across the analysis and throughout all the proteans used, this period is chosen from the start. To natter the limitations of an extended data period, Gray and Vogels (2012) work show an exemplary illustration of such restrictions. They use a period of 30 years, starting in 1980, evaluating which financial metric can predict future performa nce. They complement their analysis on fundamental metrics by looking at analysts estimates and consensus forecasts, succeeding to recognise the lack of certain information in the beginning years of their timeframe, therefore failing toNos interesa saber, al igual que el trabajo de Graham y Dodd (1934), cmo el uso de normalizacin de los diferentes ratios y fundamentos es capaz de cambiar nuestros resultados. Segn sus estudios, la normalizacin o media sobre cierto tiempo de estas mtricas financieras, es capaz de mejorar la prediccin de los resultados comparado con una estimacin anual. Segn su anlisis, la normalizacin debera ser entre 7 y 10 aos. Anderson y Brooks (2006) recientemente confirmaron esto, llevando a cabo un estudio de la mtrica P/E, la cual tambin utilizamos en nuestro anlisis, pero a la inversa (Earnings/ Market Value). Segn su estudio, basado sobre el mercado en U.K., usando el promedio de este ratio de 8 aos en lugar de usar las mtricas del ao anterior, resulta en un crecimiento de las ganancias de un 6%, ya que es capaz de filtrar el ruido de earnings. Siguiendo estos anlisis, nuestro estudio abarcar tambin ratios normalizados durante una serie de aos, concentrndonos en el universo de acciones del SP500, para confirmar que esta hiptesis es apta en nuestro anlisis. Sin embargo,DataV.I Evaluation inflectionThis paper will focus on three different categories of data inputs. There is an abundant choice of methods and variables in the accounting and financial research world, there is a large set of variables and measures to assess a firms valuation. In order to establish the model, an initial differentiation between these variables should be made.Traditional MetricsTo start with, we look at the long standing traditional metrics that long have been appraised by the professionals in the financial industry. This involves the inverse of the P/E ratio, given as Earnings over Market Value of the firm, Book to Market value and Free Cash Flow to Enterprise Value. These ratios, introduced decades back in the origins of value investing by Graham and Dodd (1934), show mixed results according to existing literature. Including this long favourite measures in this research will prove useful when comparing to the other measures.Earnings/Market ValueEarnings will be elaborated following Fama and Frenchs (2001) approachEarnings = Earnings Before Extraordinary Items favored Dividends + Income Statement Deferred TaxesBook value/Market ValueBook Value will again be calculated as Fama and French (2001) propose. quest on its definition,Book Value = Stockholders Equity Preferred StockFree Cash Flow/Enterprise ValueAnalogous to Novy-Marxs (2010) work, we compute free cash flow asFCF = Net Income + dispraise Amortisation Working Capital Change Capital ExpendituresEnterprise Value will also need to be calculated. Following Loughran and Wellman (2011), wecompute it asEV = Market Value + Short-term Debt + Long-term Debt + Preferred Stock Value Cash and Short-term InvestmentsThe enterprise value variable will be used again in multiple valuation measures.Profitability MetricsProfitability measures as reported in the income statement will also be used as valuation methods. The focus will be Gross Profit, EBITDA and operating(a) Profit. EBITDA and Gross Profit will be computed as a percentage of Total Enterprise value, as suggested by the work of Gray and Vogel (2012), whilst Operating Profit will be looked at as a percentage of Market Value. From here on, well expand on this and compute an average of this three profitability measures, in order to analyse if a complicated metric is able to detect the cross relation between fundamentals and future returns.The reasoning behind using an average of these three different measures stems from the work of Hughen and Strauss (2015), as they find that the composite measure are less sensitive to changes in the firms structure across different sectors and within sectors, as well as pro viding more information than just a single variable. This implies that the average measure is less affected by differences in financial leverage across sectors, which results in a more standardised comparison between firms in different sectors.Gross Profit/Enterprise ValueOnce again following Novy-Marx (2010), we compute every years gross profit asGross Profit = Revenue Cost of Goods SoldOperating Profit/Market ValueOperating Profit, as define in the income statement will be used for this metric.EBITDA/Enterprise ValueEBITDA, defined as Earnings Before Interest, Tax and Depreciation Amortisation is calculated by the simple sum of operating and non-operating incomeEBITDA = Operating Income before Depreciation + Non-Operating IncomeProfitability AverageEqually weighted average of the three profitability ratios.The reason for selecting profitability measures higher up the income statement, and not focusing solely on the inverse P/E ratio, Earnings/MV or expectations of forward earnin gs, is because the higher up the income statement we go, the more consistent data proves to be year on year that is, figures are more normalized and suffer less variations, which could explain why they result in being better predictive models, filtering out excessive noise. According to Dichev et al. (2013), profitability metrics are more grim than earnings and forecast future performance more accurately than net income. Earnings data is affected by accounting choices, whereas gross profit and operating income suffer fewer distortions from this.Forward EstimatesAnalysing a set of fundamental past data wont be the only proxy used to rebalance our portfolio analysts stock recommendations will also be evaluated.Two different sets of forward data will be used. In the first place, an average of the consensus forecast of next fiscal years EPS divided by the current market value of each firm will be used. This forecast will be an average of the estimates of each analyst throughout the fo urth quarter of year t for year t+1.The consensus mean recommendations from analysts from the fourth quarter of the year t for year t+1 will also be employed. These recommendations are a ranking from 1 to 5, with 1 signalling a strong buy and 5 a strong sell. This is the mean of the different analysts recommendation existing at that time for each individual stock.V.II Data Criteria and UniverseTo ensure a minimum amount of liquidity in our analysis, we pick the historical constituents of the SP500 Index as our universe of stocks. This results in our analysis not being driven by the performance of smaller capitalisation firms, for which data might not be quick available. As our analysis involves implementing a long/short strategy, the ability to do so with large capitalisation stocks in practice results much easier. Therefore, every year, the appropriate constituents in our portfolio are updated, reflecting the changes in the overall index. This implies that our universe of stocks closely replicate the SP 500 Index on a yearly basis. The constituents as of 1990 will first be extracted, and updated every year thereafter.The analysis is then limited to those companies with a positive market capitalization as of December of year t, as well as to those companies with at least 2 years of data, in order to perform all the analysis in a consistent universe of stocks.In order to conduct the analysis across sectors in a more uniform manner, certain companies were removed from the universe of stocks. This includes REITs, utility and financial firms, as denominated by CRSP.From this, a benchmark is constructed with our new universe of stocks that is, all those fulfilling the preceding(prenominal) criteria. This benchmark is a value weighted portfolio of all the stocks for a given year, rebalanced yearly at the end of each previous year (December 31st). Therefore, being a market value weighted portfolio comprising most SP500 stocks, it should closely resemble the SP500 Index. Comparing the quarterly performance of both our benchmark and the index for the period to analyse between 1990 and 2015, and running a corresponding regression, it is found that they correspond with a coefficient of 99.17%. As seen by this observation, our universe of stocks bears similarities with the index, although the payoff at the end of the period differs. The benchmark provides a payoff of $11.13 for a $1 investment (or a 1113%) at the start of the period, in 1990. The SP500 index returns a payoff of $8.86 (886%) at the end of the period. This figures assume complete reinvestment of capital and a compounded growth rate.V.V rideWe represent year t+1 to be the year for which the portfolios performance will be monitored, and year t to be the year in which the fundamental data which will estimate performance will be extracted. As most US companies have a fiscal year corresponding to the schedule year, our model will retrieve end of year fundamental data for these compan ies, corresponding to December year t, allow for a data release lag, and compute the portfolio. The lag in data release is introduced as companies dont disclose their annual financial statements until the quarter after their fiscal year end. This usually happens within two months, as observed from historical data. Taking this factor into account, the model will allow for a lag of one quarter, therefore allowing for information to be readily available to the public at each point in time. Denoting t.(x) as the xth quarter of year t, and t+1.(x) as the xth quarter of year t+1, the above implies extracting fundamental data as of t.(4), allowing for a lag in data release during t+1.(1) in order to construct the portfolio at t+1.(2). The performance will then be measured during one year from then.This model so far deals only with the companies which disclose their end of year information by the end of the calendar year, so a provision must be made for the proportionally low, but still sig nificant, number of companies whose annual results are released at a different date. Hughen and Strauss (2015) tackled this issue by rebalancing quarterly their portfolio, but they recognized the limitations of using quarterly results rather than normalizing their ratios and profitability measures by using annual ones. Gray and Vogels (2012) work consists of an annually rebalanced portfolio as of June 30 every year. Their approach is to use, for firms with fiscal year ending within the last quarter of the previous year, or the first quarter of the year, those fundamentals. For companies with fiscal years ending after March 30, previous years fundamentals will be used. This implies that, no matter when the end of fiscal year is, the latest annual filling will always be employed to construct their portfolio, even when this filling is from the second quarter of the previous year. In the following model, the approach will be somewhat different,Therefore, first, a differentiation between the two strategies implemented should be made. Value weighted These buy-and-hold portfolios are personable not only because they minimize trading costs, but because they are simple to implement from an operational perspective.Mention sector allocation using SICS merge Compustat and CRSP databases.Delisting returns.ReferencesBall, R., Gerakos, J., Linnainmaa, J. and Nikolaev, V. (2015). Deflating profitability. journal of monetary Economics, 117(2), pp.225-248.Bunn, O. and Shiller, R. (2014). Changing times, changing values. 1st ed. Cambridge, Mass.Dichev, I., Graham, J., Harvey, C. and Rajgopal, S. (n.d.). Earnings Quality Evidence from the Field. SSRN Electronic Journal.Fama, E. and French, K. (1992). The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns. The Journal of Finance, 47(2), p.427.Fama, E. and French, K. (2006). Disappearing dividends changing firm characteristics or lower propensity to pay?. 1st ed.Fama, E. and French, K. (2015). A five-factor asset pricing model. Journal of Financial Economics, 116(1), pp.1-22.Gray, W. and Vogel, J. (2012). Analyzing Valuation Measures A Performance Horse-Race over the Past 40 Years. SSRN Electronic Journal.Hughen, J. and Strauss, J. (2015). Portfolio Allocations Using Fundamental Ratios Are Profitability Measures Effective in Selecting Firms and Sectors?. SSRN Electronic Journal.Jacobs, B. and Levy, K. (1993). Long/Short Equity Investing. The Journal of Portfolio Management, 20(1), pp.52-63.Loughran, T. and Wellman, J. (2011). naked as a jaybird Evidence on the Relation between the Enterprise Multiple and Average Stock Returns. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 46(06), pp.1629-1650.Michaud, R. (1993). Are Long-Short Equity Strategies Superior?. Financial Analysts Journal, 49(6), pp.44-49.Miller, E. (2001). Why the Low Returns to Beta and Other Forms of Risk. The Journal of Portfolio Management, 27(2), pp.40-55.Novy-Marx, R. (2010). The other side of value. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA National Bureau of Econo mic Research.Welch, I. and Goyal, A. (2007). A Comprehensive notion at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction. Review of Financial Studies, 21(4), pp.1455-1508.

Analysis of Obamas Speeches

Analysis of Obamas SpeechesAbstractPresident Obama is known to shift sort during his dustupes through his tenure. The appearance-shift of the President Obama spoken language suffer de noned to the sense of hearing. As played in the research, President Obama does deliberately use the Afri understructure the States mutual slope variant in the speech enchantment speaking to the Black earreach. save the African America Vernacular side of meat variants can alike be sighted in his speech in take c atomic number 18 of the non-black audition which can denote to his speaking way. One can also deduce that President Obama make style-shift to affiliate himself with the audience retentivity his individual identity intact. At the very(prenominal) time, he chooses a certain style-shift in order for the audience to down the stairsstand and relate to his speech.IntroductionFor a ample time, the impression of style adopted by a person in speech has been a topic of debate among th e sociolinguistics. Researches stir tried to pin phase merely what is the constitution of style and why do people use a specific style in a gathering. Style has many meaning for the sociolinguistics. For some, it operator the choice of speech an individual makes when communicating with other. However, every i is agreed on the point that an individual changes his/her speaking style based on the audience and the topic under discussion. In this context, one can also define style as a code chosen for a specific discussion. The code includes the tone of an individual, the condition chosen and the structure of the sentences etc. (Bell, p.145-147)However, style is also dependent on the dialect of the speaker. It can be regiolect or sociolect. The idea is that every person speaks in a diverse style which is based on who they are and where they belong from. However, within in specific dialectal style, a speaker can chose divergent style to speak based on the audience, environment and topic etc. This places the complexity of the concept behind style. On the other hand, there is another concept known as style shifting which is closely related to style. For example when a speaker jump-starts to talk in the local language, he/she is trying to take a crap closeness with the audience. (Bell, p.145-147)In United States, the style-shift in President Obamas speeches is under great debates. People choose generally noticed that there is noticeable different in the pronunciation of President Obama in different speeches. The variation in the pronunciation is a debate-topic between both analysts and academics. It has been interpreted as the indexical of African America Vernacular English. It can be said that President Obama has the ability to shift elegantly and comfortably from standard American English (white) to black language. This make-up evaluates the hypothesis raised publicly and academically for Obamas speech i.e. president engages in style shifting. The followi ng sections pull up stakes describe the methods and utilise for evaluating the hypothesis. Furthermore, the write up leave alone also discuss the result and discuss the outcomes in a separate section.MethodsIn order to evaluate the style shifting in Obamas speech, the penning go out use quad speeches of President Obama between January 2008 and September 2011. The speeches which will be evaluated are Congressional Black Caucus Foundation which will be referred as blood profile speech at Hampton University which will be referred as Hampton University Kings perform speech and A More Perfect Union. The speeches chosen for the analysis cover the same topic therefore to make sure that be of external pointor affecting the speech are minimized while making audience as the only governing factor of the speeches. The number of speeches for analysis is kept four as to keep the limited scope of the paper in mind. As the purpose of the paper is to identify the possible linguistic featu res employ by President Obama therefore there are terms used throughout the paper AAVE which denotes to the ethnolect called African America Vernacular English and GAm which denotes to General (standard) English which is non-ethically marked variant of American English. (Detert, Rasmussen and Kristensen, p.7)The first step in to start the analysis of the fours speeches to find a result for the hypothesis. This includes analyzing and marking the speech for the phonetic variables which can reveal variables that can be identified as indexical of African American Vernacular English. For the purpose, a computer software known as ELAN is used. ELAN is sound processing software. It dishs in marking utterances in a speech and annotating the utterances with different values. However the system is not able to detect the phonetic varietys in the speech. Therefore the phonetic difference will be evaluated by the listeners. (Detert, Rasmussen and Kristensen, p.7)The ELAN software has been use to mark and annotate all the variables in the question (see Appendix A). Each variable has been assumption a value. The variables have also been marked within the categories i.e. General American English or African America Vernacular English. For example, if there is an annotation with an (ING) variable in the speech, the categorical annotation marks the annotation as either GAm or African America Vernacular English. The marks give us the ratio that helps refer between the two categories. The ratios will give us a statistical view of the number of occurrences of the variables in the speech. Furthermore, the paper also investigates the vowel used in the speech in a limited scope. (Detert, Rasmussen and Kristensen, p.8)ResultsThe research is focused on finding whether the variants indexical of African America Vernacular English is due to inbred flow or is triggered intentionally. The aim was to determine whether there is a relative progression in the use of African America Vernacu lar English variants in the speeches as it would reject the hypothesis i.e. to use African America Vernacular English for achieving strategic goals by President Obama. To analyze the fractures, each speech was divide into a ten minute intervals. Unfortunately the proficiency did not provide an accurate evidence of the relative progression i.e. highlighting the (HAPPY) tokens by retrieving only the orthographic y words did not draw any significant progression in variants. Furthermore, the retrieval of (HAPPY) vowels at the end of an utterance which is followed by a piteous pause did not draw an significant result too. Despite the fact that each speech and each ten minute interval has been closely analyze for number of possibilities, the author could not find any relative progression of the use of African America Vernacular English in the speeches. Therefore the technique will not be pursued any further.Any other important factor that influences the use of variants indexical of Afri can America Vernacular English is the topic of the speech. In order to find out the influence of the topic on the ratio of the African America Vernacular English to Gam variants, the research dissever the dataset into five different topics. The five categories in which the topics were divided are African Americans references from Bible The United States of America personal thoughts and experience of President Obama and the category accord to the theme of the speech.It is easy to evaluate and analyze the hypothesis when the speech has the same topic of discussion while the audience is different. One can easily point out whether a topic can trigger the use of variants of the two variations in question. It is also the aim of the analysis to connect the overall findings of different to help make it possible the retrieval of the two variants based on the topic and the evaluation of whether certain topics cause the use of high or lower number of variants indexical of African America Ver nacular English. Unfortunately, the evaluation reveals that no topic provoked any significant use of variants indexical of African America Vernacular English. Just like the previous retrieval of the (HAPPY) vowels in orthographic revealed a higher(prenominal) number of African America Vernacular English variants, analyzing (HAPPY) vowels for the topics also revealed higher number of African America Vernacular English variants. This analysis did not image any significant results.In the end, it can be said that for the present research the topics were divided very broadly. However in future, detailed division of the topics can produce better results. However the hypothesis of the use of higher frequence of African America Vernacular English variants can be impacted by the topic of the speech will not be pursued further. In the following section, the author will present the number of the analysis and the ratios provided for the results.DiscussionThis section presents the yields on th e evaluation of the four speeches of President Obama. The analysis done will be to answer the question whether Obama shift style based on the audience and whether Obama uses the African America Vernacular English style in front of the Black audience or not. In the discussion, we will try to connect the internal finding of the speeches with the external context. It is said that the speech is greatly influenced by the hearty context of the speaker or the speech. Therefore for the evaluation the audience of the speech in taken into consideration and President Obamas personal background can also help in providing insight into whether Obama uses African America Vernacular English variants when delivering speech in front of the African Americans. (Bell, p.141)If one tries to evaluated President Obamas speech against the list of unique phonological African America Vernacular English characteristic, one can find out that the above analysis will not be able to provide proof to term Obamas s peech style an African American Vernacular English. By using a list of phonological African America Vernacular English characteristic to measure Obamas speech will ignore the fact that style wrench is a process of bricolage. (Eckert, p.4) The idea is to construct and give a unique and distinct identity of an individual through the speech while at the same time the speech should also be able to relate to the audience. One can understand Obamas speech style and style shift, if one understands that style is formed by clustering linguistics with a social meaning. Therefore in Obamas speech, the author has detected multiple linguistic variants which can be associated with African America Vernacular English. (Bell, 141)However it can also be said that the analysis noticed that the variants can also be associated with the Southern washrag vascular English (SWVE). However it should be not that style can be defined as the way an individual speaker speaks in congenator to the audience. The refore one can safely assume that it would be irrelevant and meaningless for President Obama to apply style shift toward Southern gabardine vascular English in the context of the four speeches. As mentioned before, style of the speech has the potential to portray many social meaning using it indexical field. It would be inaccurate to consider President Obama use Southern White vascular English in the context of four speeches having a dominant black audience as it should be clear to the President Obama that the audience does not share the social meanings presented by the Southern White vascular English variants. In unforesightful it can be said that the linguistic characteristic of African America Vernacular English are different from indexical fields of Southern White vascular English. Therefore there is no reason to believe that President Obama employed deliberately the use of Southern White vascular English variants in the four speeches.Now, we shall discuss the combination of t he (HAPPY) variable and (ING) variable noticed in the speeches in the social context. The audience of the four Obama speeches was mostly back therefore one can place the variants in the indexical cluster of African America Vernacular English rather than AWVE. When the three speeches in front of the black audience were evaluated, the in variants in gerunds showed similar ratios i.e. 22%, 30.5% and 38.5%. However, the speech delivered by President Obama in front of the mixed audience did not show any in variant. There was a significant use of the (ING) variable followed by an alveolar stop (t and d) in the three speeches delivered in front of the black audience i.e. 38.5%, 26.3% and 75%. Again the speech delivered in front of the mixed audience shows interestingly result. There were nine moments through the speech where in variant could have been used however the (ING) variants is used instead and has a 100% occurrence. The finding proves that President Obama is aware not to speak in a non-ethically marked speech in the mixed audience. On the other hand, the reason for the absence of the in variant can be due to a more formal setting. The speech was given as a response to the pressure of President Obama and his candidacy. In such situation, the President has to make a very clear and precise statement as not to draw any controversial messages out of the speech.Furthermore, the research has also shown the continuous lowering of the (HAPPY) vowel in the four speeches. Kings Church speech (19.7%) and Hampton University Speech (29.1%) show high frequency in low usage of the (HAPPY) vowel while the Perfect Union (17.9%) and CBC speech (4.2%) show low frequency. After noticing the occurrence of the lowered (HAPPY vowel), one has to look for the syntactic context of the orthographic y words. The ratio has the same pattern for the four speeches as for the (HAPPY) vowel. The percentage of the ratio for Hampton University and Kings Church speech was 55.1% and 60.4% respect ively while ratio for CBC and Perfect Union Speech was 26.8%.Analysis was also on orthographic y words followed by a consonant which showed a relative distribution. The Kings Church speech and Hampton University Speech show high percentage distribution the y words followed by consonant i.e. 40% and 45.6% respectively while the Perfect Union speech show 8.1% of distribution. Interestingly, the CBC speech did not show any lowering of the (HAPPY) vowel under the circumstance. The overall result of the analysis of the (HAPPY) vowel shows that kings church speech and Hampton University speech had higher number of black audience which could be related to the lowering of the (HAPPY) vowel. President Obama lowers the (HAPPY) vowel in his speech in the black audience. but the pattern is also detected in the speech of President Obama in front of the non-black audience. Therefore one can deduce that this shift style in the President speech can be denote to his natural style of speaking.In sho rt, the paper would point out that the small dataset and two variables used in the research cannot be able to deduce the style shift in the President Obama speech properly. One cannot prove that Obama uses style shift toward African America Vernacular English deliberately or unintentionally. However, the small dataset that was used in the research shows relevance towards the use of African America Vernacular English which can be used to assume that it is Obamas natural way of speaking. One is also able to deduce the President Obama style shift will not be a basilectal style. But one can enunciate that President Obama speech style can be taken as the most reputable standard for African America Vernacular English. But one has to evaluate more speeches in the future to come to a more substantial conclusion.However, the speeches have shown different ratios of the variants indexical of African America Vernacular English and Gam. The Kings Church speech and the Hampton University Speech was delivered in front of the black audience show a high percentage of the African America Vernacular English variants while the Perfect Union speech was delivered in front a mixed audience showed lower percentage as compared to the other two speeches. But the research also detected African America Vernacular English variants in the Perfect Union speech. However the results of the CBC speech were striking and different. Therefore one is safe to say that the research did detect a difference in the speeches in front of the black and mixed audience which points out that President Obama deliberately use specific variants in the speech.ConclusionThere are multiple feature and characteristics that impact the way an individual speak. In short, each individual has their own style of speaking. Furthermore, during conversations many individual deliberately and unintentionally style shift in their speech depending on the audience. In United States, the style shift of President Obama is under g reat debate. One can safely say that the President knows the talent of comfortably shift style during his speeches. His speech style depends greatly on the topic of the speech, audience, and his own speaking style. In the research, the author evaluated four speeches of President Obama to find out whether he style shift during the speech in front of the black audience or not. The research was able to externalize based on four speeches that President Obama does use the African America Vernacular English variant deliberately in front of the black audience. However there was also high percentage of African America Vernacular English variants use in front of the non-black audience which can denote to the fact that President Black himself in black. Therefore the African America Vernacular English variant is part of his speaking style.BibliographyBell, A. (1984). Style as Audience Design.Detert, A. C., Rasmussen, D. S., Kristensen, K. R. (2013). Barack Obama and the blk kmjunt-A study of style-shifting. Diss.Eckert, P. (1996). Vowels and Nail Polish The Emergence of Linguistic Style in the Preadolescent and Heterosexual Marketplace.Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the Indexical Field. journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4) , 453-476.Fisk, J. (1982). Introduction to Communication Studies. London Routledge.

acupuncture :: essays research papers

AcupunctureAn estimated two thousand years ago, the Jin dynasty introduced a new medical behave to their culture. The practice, know as acupuncture, covers many common ailments using needles on certain areas of the body in order to enhance the persist of energy or qi. Since its birth, millions of sight over centuries have relied on the benefits of acupuncture, which include everything from relieving stress to promoting good health. Although there has been much scientific dispute over the benefits of acupuncture, countless testimonials of satisfied acupuncture patients over the centuries have remained passionate advocates for the practice of promoting harmonious anatomical energy. Beginning around the time of the Jin Dynasty, acupunctures procedure remains similar to its original practice that it did in the beginning of its use. By placing a small needle onto one of the approximate 500 acupuncture points of the body, the needle can help stimulate the fall of energy to the part of the body being deprived of a healthy flow. This function is to help promote a healthy, harmonious balance between the opponent forces of yin and yang within the body. The Chinese recognize that the body contains 14 pathways or meridians through which qi travels. When the body begins to become stressed or the immune system begins to weaken, the flow of qi becomes conflicted and restrained. Additionally, the procedures benefits have also remained the same since acupunctures birth. Acupuncture, known as a yang-therapy due to its exterior-to-interior approach is used to treat high blood pressure, muscle pain, asthma, gingivitis, and headaches to name just a few. Acupuncture, based on the Daoist philosophy of harmonious balance stimulates an even flow between qi and the immune system. Rather than directly acting as a direct cure for a disease, acupuncture partners with the immune system in fighting polish off disease.

Kubla Kahn :: Author, Literary Analysis

Samuel Taylor Coleridges poem Kubla Kahn is an example of imaginative poetry due to an opium addiction. This poem creates its own kingdom and paradise while Colridge expresses his ideas of Heaven and Hell with his own drug induced thoughts and opinions.Coleridge paints the picture of a kingdom, Xanadu, and the surrounding scenery is described with a heavenly, dreamlike vividness that can only result from sess a little too much opium. This kingdom has a pleasure dome that was created by Kubla Kahn. The paradise-like kingdom consists of ten miles of fertile ground and is surrounded by walls that are securely girdled around the property. The gardens are blossoming with many an incense baring tree and are watered by a wandering stream. there is a river, and it gives life to Kubla Kahns creations and runs through caverns measureless to man. The landscape is described in an interesting fashion with contrasting adjectives. It is described as savage, but it is sacred and enchanted. The enchantment is compared to a woman wailing for her demon lover. This image of sexuality leaves the impression that the Earth is anxiously mourning for a fulfillment of evil. The chasem below Kubla Kahns paradise pleasure dome is beset with ceaseless turmoil and chaos. It is described as breathing in fast pants and there is a tidy eruption, resulting in rock fragments bursting out and being flung from the river. The same river that sustained life for the pleasure dome floods the land. Additional to the noises of the chaos are ancestral voiced prophesying warfare and these voices of war are a reminder that the