Finance

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Finance is the application of the principles of financial economics to an inter-related set of monetary problems. In the case of a company, this generally involves balancing risk and profitability and is typically called managerial finance or corporate finance. Investment theory is concerned with the identification of an optimal portfolio of assets, given a set of objectives and constraints, as well as with the valuation of assets. Finance can also be used by individuals (called personal finance), and by governments (called public finance).

Finance involves:

Investment management and valuation
- Financial markets, financial instruments, and financial institutions
- The risk-return framework and the identification of the asset appropriate discount rate
- Valuation of assets - discounting of relevant cash flows; relative valuation; contingent claim valuation
- The optimum allocation of funds - What to invest in - How much to invest - When to invest
Corporate and Managerial finance
- Cash flow budgeting and working capital management
- Comparing alternative proposals
- Forecasting and risk analysis
- Obtaining funds - debt or equity sources - long term or short term - optimum capital structure
- Allocation of funds to long term capital investments, vs optimize short term cash flow
- Dividend policy
Wealth management and personal finance
- How much money will be needed by an individual (or a family) at various points in the future?
- How is that need to be funded?
Public finance
- Identification of required expenditure of a public sector entity
- Source(s) of that entity's revenue
- The budgeting process

Finding Finance Articles

There are over 250 finance articles in Wikipedia. They are listed below.

Financial supervision and accreditation

Economics and Finance

Mathematics and Finance

Constraint finance

Personal finance

Personal finance

Public finance

Public finance

The History of Finance

Tulipomania 1620s
South Sea Bubble 1710s
Panic of 1837
Railway mania 1840s
Long Depression 1873 to 1896
Post-WWI hyperinflation
Wall Street Crash 1929
Great Depression 1930s
Oil Shock 1973
1979 Energy Crisis
Black Monday 1987
Asian financial crisis 1990s
Stock market downturn of 2002 2002

Financial tools

Finance Software
- Quantitative Analysis Software
  - Fundamental Analysis Software
  - Technical Analysis Software

Finding related topics

External links

For an in-depth finance glossary, see Glyn A. Holton's: http://www.riskglossary.com
For a Hypertextual Finance Glossary, see Prof. Campbell R. Harvey: http://www.duke.edu/~charvey/Classes/wpg/glossary.htm
For material covering three areas in finance - corporate finance, valuation and investment management, see Prof. Aswath Damodaran: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/
For articles on current corporate finance and investment issues, visit Oaktree Research, a financial education portal: http://www.oaktree-research.com
For illustrative (simpler) worked examples covering several of these topics: http://www.teachmefinance.com
For introductory articles covering mathematical finance: http://www.quantnotes.com/fundamentals/