Saturday, December 28, 2019

The Rwandan Genocide - 899 Words

In today’s world, it is of the utmost importance to learn from mistakes of the past. Certain events, especially tragedies that could have been avoided, hold within them the lessons and wisdom that should be used to prevent similar disasters. The 1994 Rwandan genocide resulted in over 800, 000 deaths of the Tutsi people, at the hands of the Hutu; the genocide, and the international response to it, is a lesson about the humanitarian responsibilities, successes, and shortcomings of the United Nations. The events leading up to the Rwandan genocide began decades earlier. There has been a long history of â€Å"ethnic† tensions, though it is really a matter of social class. The classification began with the German and Belgian colonizers in the early†¦show more content†¦It is estimated that 200,000 Hutus participated in the brutal massacre. (Genocide in Rwanda) Along with Tutsis, many moderate Hutus were also killed. Any Hutus who attempted to assist or protect Tutsis were also murdered. The international response to the crisis was more of an international denial. The United Nations withdrew their troops from Rwanda, leaving innocent civilians defenseless against the Hutu soldiers. (Genocide in the 20th Century: Rwanda 1994). After ten United Nations soldiers were killed, the United Nations made the decision to pull their troops from the country. By the end of April 1994, only 200 United Nations soldiers remained in Rwanda (Genocide in the 20th Century: Rwanda 1994). The remaining soldiers were given no orders to intervene, and often watched as innocent Tutsis were killed. (Genocide in the 20th Century: Rwanda 1994) In the United States, officials were banned from using the word â€Å"genocide†, as that would require immediate action and intervention. In 2004, reports were released showing that U.S. senior officials identified the situation in Rwanda as genocide within the first sixteen days. These documents, from May 1994, said, â€Å"Be careful, ‘genocide’ finding could commit the U.S. government to actually do something.† (Welsh) These reports prove that President Clinton and his officials were, in fact, aware of the â€Å"final solution to eliminate all Tutsis†. Unlike previous genocides around the world,Show MoreRelatedThe Genocide Of The Rwandan Genocide Essay1711 Words   |  7 PagesThe Rwandan Genocide took place in 1994 and involved members of the Hutu mass killing Tutsi and Tutsi sympathizers who were Hutu. The genocide resulted in the deaths of around 800,000 people, majority Tutsi. The separation of classes came from Belgian internationals creating the two ethnic classes and giving power to the Tutsi who were taller and had lighter skin, and generally appeared more European. In response to this, after the country gained independence from Belgium, Hutu extremists gatheredRead MoreThe Rwandan Genocide And The Genocide1654 Words   |  7 PagesMiranda Shearer Mrs. Sohal/ Mrs. Love Period 3 17 October 2014 The Rwandan Genocide A genocide is defined as the deliberate killing of a group of people, especially of a certain ethnicity. By that definition and almost any other a dictionary could define, the killing of the Tutsis was certainly a genocide.The Rwandan Genocide occurred in 1994, in an African country called Rwanda. A long history of building friction between the Hutus and the Tutsis undeniably caused the mass murder of over 800,000Read MoreThe Genocide Of The Rwandan Genocide1421 Words   |  6 PagesThe Rwanda Genocide was an unfortunate case where thousands of deaths could have been prevented, but because of irresponsibility and selfishness of global governments’ innocent lives were lost. The Genocide began on April 6, 1994 and was, â€Å"initiated by the Hutu political elite and extremists and its military support, their prime targets were the Tutsi, as well as Hutu moderates.† (Hain 2) The Hutu made up majority of the population and government officials and enforced a government-ass isted militaryRead MoreThe Rwandan Genocide Essay959 Words   |  4 PagesThe problems of today can often be traced in the beginnings of yesterday. The Rwandan Genocide was a divisive division of two groups that culminated in the mass murder of nearly 500,000 Rwandans, three-fourths of the population. The tactful subterfuge by the ruling party fueled the separation of two ethnic groups that reminisce the events in Europe 55 years earlier. Naturally, the question becomes, how? Simply speaking it was the indifference of global elites and political demagoguery that incitedRead MoreThe Rwandan Genocide And The Genocide866 Words   |  4 PagesThe Rwandan genocide occurred during the period of April to July of 1994. This genocide was as a result of the Hutu ethnic majority slaughtering the Tutsi minority. During this period as much as 800,000 Tutsis were killed. The genocide was started by Hutu extremists in the capital of Kigali and the genocide soon spread across the country. Despi te all of this there were several survivors of the genocide. Immaculee Ilibagiza is one of those people. Immaculee Ilibagiza was born in 1972. She is theRead MoreThe Rwandan Genocide1335 Words   |  5 PagesRwanda is a country made up of a population with three ethnic communities, the two main communities, the Hutu and Tutsi and an additional community of Twa (or pygmies) who all spoke the same language, Kinyarwanda or Rwandan (Clapham, 1998). There is a stereotype of appearance attributed to these two main communities, with Tutsi being seen as tall and having an aquiline shaped nose, and the Hutu as being short and flat-nosed (Clapham, 1998). In the pre-colonial state of Rwanda, it was the TutsisRead MoreThe Genocide Of The Rwandan Genocide2458 Words   |  10 PagesGenocide has been plaguing the world for hundreds of years. Millions of innocent lives have been taken all for the sake of prejudice. One of the most atrocious aspects of genocide is that a large percentage of them are sponsored by the state in which they are taking place. Over the years scholars have studied just wha t motivates a state to engage in such awful behavior. What motivates them? Why would they do such horrendous things to their own citizens? Is it solely for some economic incentive, orRead MoreThe Genocide Of The Rwandan Genocide Essay2042 Words   |  9 Pagespeople that commit genocide; we are all capable of it. It’s our evolutionary history† (James Lovelock). According to the Oxford dictionary, genocide is defined as â€Å"the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.† Although it may be hard to believe, genocides have occurred all over the world and all throughout time. There have been well documented genocides such as the Holocaust. Additionally, there have also been genocides that have barelyRead MoreThe Rwandan Genocide1188 Words   |  5 PagesRwandan Genocide The Rwandan Genocide began on April 6, 1994 and lasted for about 100 days (History). The two groups involved, the Hutus and Tutsis, were in a massive conflict after their president was killed. The Hutus brutally killed about 800,000 Tutsis and supporters. This tragic genocide was not stopped by other countries during its peak, leaving the world wondering why. As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, it is important to be informed about the tragedy. The wayRead MoreThe Rwandan Genocide And The Genocide1637 Words   |  7 PagesWith over eight hundred thousand to one million deaths, the Rwandan genocide is undoubtedly one of the most sad and shocking examples of the lack of intervention by not only the US and the UN, but by other countries as well. The ongoing tensions between the Hutu, the largest population in Rwanda, and the Tutsi, the smaller and more elite population is what eventually lead to the Rwandan genocide. The killings began quickly after President Habyarimana s plane was shot down. After hundreds of thousands

Friday, December 20, 2019

The Romantic Period and Edgar Allan Poe Essay - 529 Words

The Romantic Period is characterized as an artistic and intellectually stimulating literary movement. Writers of this genre and time are considered to be those who fused the elements of romance in their writings to enhance the human experience. Edgar Allan Poe, known as the father of the modern short story, epitomizes this notion in his writings. In â€Å"Annabel Lee,† and â€Å"The Oval Portrait,† Edgar Allan Poe uses romance to illustrate the essence of death and misery and to illustrate elements in which the reader can actually feel that was is happening in the story is happening to them. In â€Å"The Oval Portrait†, Edgar Allan Poe creates a setting in an abandoned castle where the main character and his valet are forced to take shelter in after†¦show more content†¦In the story, the painter loves his art more than he loves his wife, and while the wife feels that art is a rival that she will never be able to beat, she agrees to let her beloved portray her but the painter is unaware that with each brushstroke he makes, he gives life to the painting and takes away life from his wife and upon placing the painting on the canvas, his wife dies. The irony of the story is that the painter loves his art so much that he doesn’t realize that his wife slowly slips away into oblivion while he makes his masterpiece. This story is saturated with elements which refer to the sensorial world . . . . [and] nonverbal signs . . .(Anspach, Silvia Simone. Poes Pictoric Writing. Estudos Anglo-Americanos 9-11 1985-1987: 17-28.) In â€Å"Annabel Lee†, Edgar Allan Poe, like in many of his stories, describes the death of a beautiful woman. He describes for the reader that the love of him and Annabel Lee was so strong, that the angels in Heaven envied them and this was the cause of her death. It is disputed that the woman named Annabel Lee in this poem, is in real life, Edgar Allen Poe’s wife, Virginia. â€Å"Annabel Lee† is a perfect example of how Edgar Allen Poe used romance to illustrate the essence of death. He describes how the love that he had for her was so strong and it ended up causing envy in the angels and they in return took her away from him. The poem illustrates the misery that can beShow MoreRelatedThe Romantic Period Of Edgar Allan Poe976 Words   |  4 PagesEdgar Allan Poe is an important poet from the Romantic period. His work reflects his life in so many ways. It shows his fears, his ideas and how his life was. His work gives you an idea how the life and the circumsta nces of the time where during the 19th century. Poe used his own imagination, his life and the people around him as an inspiration for his work. The era between 1750 and 1870 is called Romanticism. This movement began in Germany and France and developed over England and whole Europe overRead MoreEssay on The Romantic Side of Edgar Allan Poe 1061 Words   |  5 PagesAnyone who enjoys literature or movies has the Romantics of the 19th century to thank. The romantic ideals are now so engraved in this societies thinking that most don’t even realize that it is romantic thinking at all. Almost every movie or book nowadays has a trace of romanticism in it. Romanticism started around the 1800’s as a contradiction to rationalism. Rationalism was a thinking that attempted to use rational thinking and reason to solve the problems being faces at its time. Romanticism isRead MoreThe Life and Work of Edgar Allan Poe Essay550 Words   |  3 PagesEdgar Allan Poes style of writing is typical of the styles of writing during the Age of Romanticism. His poems and short stories were heavily influenced by his life experiences fr om a young boy to a well renowned writer. He lived his life in poverty, moving from one job to the other and from city to city, yet he is still one of the most widely read American authors today. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Poes home life was very unstable. His father, DavidRead MoreThe Romantic Age Of American Literature1725 Words   |  7 Pages The Romantic Age took place in the middle of the 1800s. During this period the middle class began to rise in society. Many reforms started to take place which included slavery and woman s rights. This age brought about American literature which was free from European influence and ties. The writers during the Romantic Age wrote mainly about the person, they included clear and concise descriptions of people and nature. Many writers like Poe wrote about supernatural events like the devil, evil,Read MoreAnalysis Of Poe s The Falls Of The House Of Usher 1391 Words   |  6 PagesI studied the writings of Poe in 7th grade. We studied a series of his short stories and what intrigued me about his work, is how dark and somber are his stories. After reading an Edgar Allan Poe literature, it lin gers in the back of your mind for days and sometimes longer. I think his stories help me to understand some of my own feelings at that time when I was young. I had lost my grandfather, whom I was so close too and loved very much. When he became ill, I prayed so hard, but he passed awayRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe Research Paper931 Words   |  4 PagesEnglish 10 Honors 13 February 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe was a sick man that went through a troubling life full of tragedies. For Poe to deal with this he drank and poured his feelings into his works. Honestly as horrible it is that he had to go through all of that we should be grateful because without his suffering these masterpieces wouldn’t have been fabricated. While intensifying his philosophy for short stories Edgar Allan Poe wrote â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† reflecting theRead MoreFamous American Authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathanial Hawthorne554 Words   |  3 PagesThe period of the late eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth was cosidered the Romantic era in Europe and in America. This movement was a large scale rebellion against the Englightment period ideas where science and logic ruled the literary arts. Authors took several approaches on how to convey to the readers social and metaphysical opinions through the tone in a series of novels published. Ton e is apparent in much of the American Romantic era writing including that of Ralph Waldo EmersonRead Moreâ€Å"The Falls Of The House Of Usher† Is A Dark Short Story,1239 Words   |  5 Pagesreturn to good health. I enjoyed the descriptions of the house and how he Roderick is so tormented by fear and fear alone. This was written in the romantic period. The Romantic period began in 1785 through 1832. This period was short, but it introduced many new literary visions and some considered this the most important period. During this period, Romanticism stressed self-expression and to be unique and spiritual. Writers borrowed themes from the Middle ages and expanded their imaginations inRead MoreNature s Influence On The Development Of Literature1236 Words   |  5 PagesNature’s Influence on the Development of Literature Romanticism is a movement in the artistic world that originated from the eighteenth century with emphasis on inspiration and naturalness. The Romantic Movement’s beginning may be drawn back to the events of folklore and popular art which emerged as a result of the German Grimm brothers, Jakob and Wilhelm collecting tales and other academic professionals like Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, whose writings catered to clarity, it was time to departRead MoreRomantic Literature Essay872 Words   |  4 PagesRomantic Literature in Modern Day Movie? Many people do not realize that Romantic Literature, even though it is a little over 200 years old, is still relevant in Contemporary Literature today. In the 1990 film Joe Vs. the Volcano, Gothicism is included throughout the movie. Edgar Allan Poe used Gothicism in many of his poems and short shorties, such as The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher. The characteristics of Gothicism would be, dark, depressing, decay of mental or physical being, and

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Compansation Management free essay sample

But he decided to stay on as he had promised several things to the management in the interview. He wanted to please and change the attitude of management through his diligent performance, firm commitment and dedication. He started maximizing his contributions and the management got the impression that Mr. Sashidhar had settled down and will remain in the company. After some time, the superiors started riding rough- shod over Mr. Sashidhar. He was over- loaded with multifarious jobs. His freedom in deciding and executing was cut down. He was ill- treated on a number of occasions before his subordinates. His colleagues also started assigning their responsibilities to Mr. Sashidhar. Consequently there were imbalances in his family life, social life and organizational life. But he seemed to be calm and contented. Management felt that Mr. Sashidhar had the potential to bear with many more organizational responsibilities. So the General Manager was quite surprised to see the resignation letter of Mr. Sashidhar along with a cheque equivalent to a month’s salary one fine morning on 18th January, 2004. The General Manager failed to convince Mr. Sashidhar to withdraw his resignation. The General Manager relieved him on 25th January, 2004. The General Manager wanted to appoint a committee to go into the matter immediately, but dropped the idea later. Questions: 1. What prevented the General Manager from appointing a committee? 2. What is wrong with the recruitment policy of the company? IIBM Institute of Business Management 3 Examination Paper: Personnel Management Caselet 2 When Adite Technologies Ltd (ATL) moved one of their divisions to Bangalore, the branch manager in Mumbai decided to transfer those employees who did not wish to go to Bangalore to other local divisions. Ten of the thirty chose to stay and to be transferred to another division. Madhuri was one of those. She was assigned to the computer moving-head division. When Madhuri reported to the new job, Narender Kumar, her new supervisor told her he did not know whether or not he would have a permanent position for her. For three days Madhuri sat and watched other employees do their work. One Friday, Narender announced that their division had received another big contract and he would brief Madhuri on her new assignment on Monday. Madhuri arrived at 9:00 am Monday morning and waited anxiously to learn about the new job. Narender did not arrive until 10:30. He was being briefed on the new contract; he said and would not be able to meet Madhuri before lunch. At 1:30 pm Narender returned to show Madhuri the operation, ‘we are reworking model 10-D and it only requires changing two spot welds. With this jig, you can turn one out in about three to five minutes’. Narender added,’ By the way will be the quality control supervisor on this job. Just double Madhuri was given no idea how important the checks might be. ‘Please watch me’, said Narender Madhuri, taking up the welding torch. ‘Any one can do it easily’. He repeated the operation five or six times. Madhuri tried it and experienced no difficulty. Neither of them checked their reworked pieces with the blue print to see if they would pass the quality check and as a result, Madhuri never checked any pieces after that demonstration. Narender did not see again until Friday. During the week several things happened. More than half the motors did not work correctly by the time they reached the final assembly. It could not be determined whether the faulty motors were the result of Madhuri’s work or the result of a lack of quality checks. A box of 20 parts had been approved by Madhuri since her initials were on the inspection card, but she had not made the necessary alterations. That was when Narender found time to talk to Madhuri again. Questions: 1. What incidents showed that Narender was not performing a good job as a trainer? 2. How do you think Madhuri feels about Narender and about her new job? END OF SECTION B IIBM Institute of Business Management 4 Examination Paper: Personnel Management Section C: Applied Theory (30 Marks) †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ This section consists of Applied Theory Questions. Answer all the questions. Each question carries 15 marks. Detailed information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 200 to 250 Words) 1. What do you understand by the term ‘Performance Appraisal’? Discuss the various methods of performance appraisal in detail. 2. What is Training? Why is training necessary for organization performance and success? END OF SECTION C IIBM Institute of Business Management 5 Examination Paper: Personnel Management IIBM Institute of Business Management Examination Paper Compensation Management Section A: Objective Type (30 marks) †¢ †¢ †¢ This section consists of Multiple Choice questions short note questions. Answer all the questions. Part one questions carry 1 mark each Part Two questions carry 5 marks each. MM. 100 Part One: Multiple Choices 1. A ________ is a hierarchy of jobs to which wage rates have been attached. a. Wage Level b. Wage Structure Page 7 c. Wage Index d. Wage Policy 2. It is the wage which is above the minimum wage but below the living wage. a. Basic wage b. Overtime page 40 c. Fair wage d. Compensation 3. It is the process of minimizing the physical and perceptual loads imposed on people engaged in any type of work. a. Motion Economy page 149 b. Human Engineering c. Value Analysis d. Task Identity 4. It is the method which lists frequency of critical behaviors in an employee. a. Performance Appraisal b. Performance Matrix Page 210 c. 360 degree feedback d. Management by Objectives 5. A map to illustrate behavioral parameters requires in competent performance is: a. Competency Mapping b. Balanced Score Card c. Behavioral Observation Scale d. Key Results Areas Page 210 IIBM Institute of Business Management 6 Examination Paper: Personnel Management 6. In this type of team, team members are temporarily assigned some tasks to accomplish: a. Cross functional Team b. Hybrid team c. Process Team Page 224 d. Parallel Team 7. The practice of comparing compensation with other competing to offer a competitive pay package to employees, is refer as: a. Broadband Policy b. Bench Marking Page 253 c. Retention Policy d. None of the above 8. Any wage cost not directly connected with the employees’ productive effort, performance service, is called: a. Allowances Page 267 b. Incentives c. Fringe Benefits d. Bonus 9. It is a company’s expenditure spent directly on employees excluding the cost of infrastructure: a. Basic Salary b. Cost to company Page 343 c. Allowances d. Bonus 10. Strategy that provides overall guidelines for the organization is refer as: a. HR Strategy b. Functional strategy c. Corporate strategy Page 366 d. Operational strategy Part Two: 1. Discuss the terms ‘wages’ and ‘salary’. What factors determine the wage structure in an industrial enterprise? 2. Define job design. Briefly explain various technique of job design. 3. What is a balanced Score Card.? What are its different perspectives? 4. Write a short note on 360-degree performance feedback. END OF SECTION A IIBM Institute of Business Management 7 Examination Paper: Personnel Management Section B: Caselets (40 Marks) †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ This section consists of Caselets. Answer all the questions. Each Caselet carries 20 marks. Detailed information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 150 to 200 words). Caselet 1 page 344 In 2001, a Chennai- based two- wheeler major introduced a bonus scheme for its employees. Employees covered under this bonus scheme are evaluated through a three-tier process- (1) meeting production schedules, 2) maintaining machines, and (3) reducing overtime, scrap and shipping errors. In 2002, productivity surged, and some employees even added as much as 15 per cent to their paychecks. The two- wheeler company started facing competition from international players and also was riddled in patent issues. A court order forced them to stop production of many models, causing significant manpower restricting successive drop in sales, the company was forced to withdraw the bonus scheme, and asked employees to be prepared for a financial structure, which would mean a reduction in their benefits and perks. This message had a highly demoralizing effect on the employees and many efficient designers and engineers left their jobs to join the competitors. The trade unions also took up the matter as the workers only faced pay- cut while the senior management remuneration remained unchanged. A portion of the employee compensation is paid as variable pay, of which bonus is a major part. Other variable incentives are based on allocated weight age on group target achievement. To rationalize the compensation cost, the company decided to further switch over to individual performance track record. A formal announcement to this effect made the workers furious and led to workers protest, resulting in production loss an a regular basis. The company made it clear to the employees that their behavior would lead to the closure of the company, which would put them in financial and went on an indefinite strike. A few months later, the company obtained clearance from the court and the production of all the premium high- selling brands, which was stopped earlier, could be resumed, as the patent issue was found to be untenable. The company feels that the whole issue was masterminded by competitors to poach valuable employees from the company. Question: 1. Study the case and provide an alternative compensation design, which would redress the problem faced by the two- wheeler major in Chennai. Caselet 2 You are a Manager, the Financial Analysis department of Mendelssohn’s Insurance. Your assistant, Denzil Worsnip, has worked for you two years. He is 24 years of age and joined Mendelssohn’s as an ‘A’ level entrant. He progressed through the support functions, from junior clerk to section head. He showed such promise that the company sponsored him at evening classes to study for the accounting technicians exams. He is over half way through this at the moment and is due to take his final exams in 9 months time. His aim in joining your team was to use the job as a stepping tone to one of the sales teams. You were not bothered that Denzil looked on the job in this way a you are all in favor of encouraging people to get on. IIBM Institute of Business Management 8 Examination Paper: Personnel Management In nay case, you know it is exceptionally difficult to get onto one of these sales teams, particularly these days with the company placing so much emphasis on its graduate recruitment. You know he was put out recently when the Unit Trust team hired a graduate trainee, as he had put a lot of effort into chatting them up. Nevertheless, Denzil does not accept that the new recruit had an advantage in that he is a qualified actuary. Until a few months ago, Denzil had been an above average employee. He was always cheerful, enthusiastic and willing. He also picked things up quickly. You used to have regular weekly team meetings. You used to use these meetings to get suggestions on your new procedures. Denzil used to make an excellent contribution to these meetings; he was always full of ideas. It is a shame that there is now so little time for these meetings. You often used to give Denzil some one-off projects to do. He always handled them well and he was always able to squeeze in the extra work. He was also quite prepared to work late time for these meetings. You often used to give Denzil some one-off projects to do. He always handled them well and he was always able to squeeze in the extra work. He was also quite prepared to work late without overtime pay. In the last few months, he seems to have really changed. The other day, he refused to take on a job you wanted him to do. You remember that about four months ago, a similar thing happened. He complained that he had enough to do and could not take on any more and that he was fed up of working every day until 8’o clock. You were annoyed at this because you felt Denzil could take on the extra work, he would just have to assess his priorities better. Anyway, it was only additional routine work you wanted him to do. You knew he was too busy to do ant projects so you were doing this yourself to keep the pressure off Denzil. As for all the overtime, partly, Denzil does go in for long lunch breaks. Networking he calls it. The loss of one person has put additional pressure on the team, but you feel you should most of it. The others just need to find more efficient working practices. Denzil has also recently taken to being very off-handed to people. You have overheard him several times being rude, both on the ‘phone and in person’ to people from the business teams who ask him for information or help. He has been very rude to you too and obviously completely fails to appreciate the extreme pressure you are under. Last week, for instance, you got your team together to tell them about the new procedure, you are implementing, Denzil sat there fuming and then started carrying on at you for having drawn up this new procedure in secret and also claimed the procedure to be unworkable and pointed out some faults.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Mexican War of Independence free essay sample

Mexico still remains a society of divisions that were never addressed through Mexico’s independence because the final leader of the war of independence avoided it. * In the 300 years of Spanish reign, they instilled a social hierarchy and economic ideal, which became impossible to overcome with the passing of time. Since the Conquista, the Spanish based their relationship with the native Indians on brutality, exploitation, and prejudice. This became the basis of the society. The Spanish inability to integrate the Indians into society became the start of the Spanish down fall, and a reason that Mexico still suffers today. Mexico was divided into three social groups: at the bottom were the native Indians, blacks, and the castes; then came the creoles (Mexican-born Spaniards), and then at the top where the peninsulares, the Spaniards. Creoles, although economically equal to the peninsulares, were discriminated against for being white Europeans born in the new world, and therefore they were deprived of positions of power in New Spain. The social barriers were immense between the races making the culture and the economy rely mostly on the work of the poor. While Indians were made to pay tribute but the whites were not expected to. Henderson describes the system as â€Å"intended to perpetuate inequality, in accordance with the Spanish conviction that God designed human society along hierarchical lines. † The Indians were mistreated and deprived in all aspects of life by the governing Spanish, although they were still educated by Catholic missionaries, who came to the New World to convert the Indians, teaching them a loose version of the Catholic Bible and Spanish ideals. While badly mistreated, according to Henderson, the Indians â€Å"may have despised the Spaniards in general, but they revered the distant king, a figure no less abstract or perennially popular than god†. The peninsulares were the royalty of New Spain, but with the decline of Spanish power the peninsular population diminished. With fewer peninsulares the creoles came to power in New Spain, buying their way into powerful positions. As Spain itself was declining rapidly, under both Charles III and his son Charles IV, Spain ended up in the hands of Ferdinand VII. Under Charles III, Spain learned how underutilized its colonies were and implanted the Bourbon reforms to raise the Royal revenues substantially in Spanish America. The reforms only deepened the social prejudices by kicking out the Jesuits (depriving education to the creoles), raising taxes only on the Indians then including the creoles, not allowing Mexicans to dress like Spanish, and finally taking away from the poor entertainment (bullfighting) and cheap alcohol (pulque). The Bourbon reforms ended up most importantly lowering the creoles to minority status. Then Charles IV, who became hated by Spain and her colonies, only enforced the Bourbon reforms; he raised the taxes on the Mexican aristocracy because he would not tax the Spanish. He then decreed the Law of Consolidation of 1804, which ordered the Mexican church to sell its land and give its earnings to the crown also call in most loans it had with creoles and Indians. Napoleon made Charles IV abdicate, and instated Charles’ son Ferdinand VII, and then quickly replaced Ferdinand VII with his brother Joseph. All of Spain and Mexico was in agreement that â€Å"Ferdinand VII was their rightful King and that they would reject any decree or representative from the French usurper†. Which shows the loyalty Spain and its colonies had to their king. With the social injustices occurring and their constant change in governmental authorities, the people showed they disapproval. Rallies of rebels (mostly creoles) would cry, â€Å"Long live the King! Death to bad government! † Which represents the support for the king but they were disgusted towards the local authorities that controlled them on a daily basis. With many failed conspiracies only the conspiracy of Queretaro turned the corner to the start of a revolution. The Conspiracy was built to appeal to the Indians by making it a war against their local Spanish overlords as opposed to â€Å"their (creoles) true motivation†¦ to put political power in the hands of creoles like themselves. They also knew that few of those Indians and castes would fight in the name of independence from Spain: the poor, while they hated Spaniards, had great reverence for King and church†. The creoles promised the Indians that they would get rid of their insanely high tribute payments and they would fight in the name of the King Ferdinand VII. The creoles knew that alone that would not be able to beat the Spanish armies in Mexico, they would need the masses of Indians and poor to fight with them. The Conspiracy was to be led by a rebel priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. Hidalgo was a man who â€Å"seemed to offer something for everyone†, born a wealthy creole but none a less as a priest appealed to the Indians and the fellow conspirators. Miguel Hidalgo and his fellow conspirators were fighting under one common cause to â€Å"denounce the policies that seemed to perpetuate the glaring and growing divisions in class. The crises unfolding in both Spain and Mexico seemed to offer them a brilliant opportunity to correct those divisions by making a revolution†. At Dolores, early in the morning on September 16, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo, fearing the conspiracy to rebel would be discovered, quickly acted by ordering the church bells to ring calling for a crowd to gather, where he then gave his historic speech of El Grito de Dolores. As Henderson states, â€Å"that he (Hidalgo) told the people of Mexico that the Mexico city junta was actively planning to surrender Mexico to the French, and they must rise up to defend church and king; most likely he promised the Indians an end to tribute payments; and he probably assured that all who joined the cause would be paid wages. He closed his oration with the cry, ‘Long live Fernando VII! Long live America! Long live religion, and death to bad government! ’† So the revolution had begun. * With the poor behind Hidalgo, a charismatic leader he, was â€Å"woefully deficient as a military leader†. Once his army of creoles, castes, and Indians, reached San Miguel, his army ransacked all Spanish stores for â€Å"food and vengeance†. Without enough funding Hidalgo said â€Å"sacking and plundering, were the rights of war and unless the common folk were permitted to do such things they would have no incentive to support the rebellion. † Ignacio Allende, Hidalgo’s second in command, disagreed, for Allende knew that without more discipline was needed. Yet â€Å"Hidalgo defended the mayhem on the grounds that Spaniards had abused the Indians for centuries†. After a rather easy unorganized victory in San Miguel Hidalgo was therefore to be known as Captain General of America and headed for Guanajuato. Guanajuato ended up being a blood bath in which almost all the creoles and Spaniards protecting the treasury were killed without mercy, â€Å"revealing the burning hatred and mutual incomprehension that prevailed between rich and poor†. Hidalgo’s lack of control over his army, as described by Aleman, a famous Mexican historian, depicts Guanajuato as being â€Å"the most lamentable aspect of disorder, ruin and desolation (on the part of Father Hidalgo). † Even though Hidalgo was shocked, he did nothing to stop the looting. The mass savagery performed at Guanajuato became * â€Å"a Pyrrhic victory†¦ not only did the rebels lose many men in the siege, but the sacking of Guanajuato soon became†¦ a cautionary tale that, to moderate and conservative creoles, revealed the horrors that would ensue should they place their fate in the hands of the unwashed masses†. * Henderson 81-82 * After Guanajuato, Hidalgo gave so many military commissions that it became army run by criminals. His newly appointed officers would carry out 350 executions of Spanish prisoners by beheading and mutilating them. With the appointments of unworthy officers and mob-like behavior of his growing army, Hidalgo started to lose creole supporters. * Despite the brutality and the haphazard military direction, his army’s successes improved his fortunes, which allowed him to start produce propaganda to attract Indians and reflect his sympathy for the oppressed. In El Despertador Americano, Miguel Hidalgo claimed that the Spanish â€Å"trampled the rights of the Mexican people†¦desecrating their religion†¦ and he threatened to put to the sword any Spaniard or Mexican who spoke against or opposed the rebellion, refused to free his slaves or gave shelter to a Spaniard. † The propaganda was a realization that he had lost creole support and had to rely on the poor to finish the war. * With a disastrous defeat at Guadalajara, Allende â€Å"was incensed that he had lost every debate over military tactics, even though Hidalgo’s plans had proved consistently catastrophic. Allende then took over the army. He failed to acquire the United States support to fight against the Spanish, and both Hidalgo and Allende were captured by the Royalist army, the tried, executed and were displayed on spikes at the treasury of Guanajuato which the previously plundered. In anyway one looks at Hidalgo’s rebellion, one can not blame him for the huge differences in the social classes, but can be held accountable for his poor military leadership and loss of control over his army, which devastated the land, increased hatreds between Mexicans and Europeans, and delayed Mexico’s independence from Spain. Jose Maria Morelos, a general under Hidalgo, became his successor in 1811. Morelos was a much more capable military leader than Hidalgo having early success in the revolution, and became the â€Å"rebellions most successful general†. Yet, he still failed through major military blunders and a movement that was still unorganized without a unifying ideology. While he is successful in southern Mexico, his first mistake was not taking Puebla, which would have led him to Mexico City. Instead he was stuck in Cuautla, where he was outnumbered, two to one, by royalist forces that laid siege on the town for several months. In desperation he sacrificed all 3000 of his troops for a chance to escape. â€Å"The carnage inflicted upon the insurgents was so terrible that even some Royalist officers were sickened by it†. Morelos denies military advice to attack Mexico City at its vulnerable, and instead insists on taking Acapulco, a port that was no longer significant to the Spanish. While the rebel armies had control over most southern Mexico and portions of central and north Mexico, the rebels declared Independence from Spain in September 1813 and producing a â€Å"viable constitution†. The Declaration of Independence was short sited, â€Å"it declared Mexico Independent, but beyond that it gave little hint as to what the new nation would be like†. It did not take into consideration the difference between classes and would not address it, making the whole war fought for just a change in ruling party. During this time, the royalist army rebuilt itself from being in a demoralized state, with the declaration of Independence, Morelos set his sights on recapturing Valladolid. The Royalist army led by Colonel Agustin Iturbide, a pivotal figure in the war, beat Morelos at Valladolid. Once captured and traded several times between the government and the church then finally trialed and sentenced to death. * With the death of Morelos, the rebellion was slowed down and disorganized with out a prominent leader with a cause. The period during 1816 to 1820, the revolution â€Å"merely became dispersed and disorganized, the domain not of prominent commanders†¦ but rather of freelancers leading small bands of raiders†. It became a war â€Å"more for the lust for booty or vengeance than a desire to free Mexico from foreign domination and create a just society†. Meanwhile in Spain itself was going through her own revolution, trying to push Ferdinand VII back off the throne and bring back the Constitution of 1812 which very much more liberal. * With the situation in Spain developing Colonel Agustin Iturbide, a creole royalist military commander, saw an opportunity, in which would not only benefit him but Mexico as a its own independent country with out anymore bloodshed. Iturbide although Mexican born believed in the Spanish ideals, but * Iturbide had grown favorable to the idea of Mexican independence, though the reasons for his conversion (to the rebel forces) are a bit murky. Some on the grounds might well been cynical an self serving†¦ he had no doubt that leading a successful movement for independence could bring new financial prospects. And he felt that his service to the Spanish crown had been insufficiently appreciated. * Henderson 165 * Iturbide thought the Spain was not deserving of his support and he changed his alliance to his birth land of Mexico. Iturbide wrote, â€Å"my country was about to be drenched in blood; I was led to believe that I had the power to save her, I did not hesitate to undertake so sacred a duty. He then though a matter of dealings with Vicente Guerrero, the rebellions most fit leader, united forces. Iturbide suggested the Plan of Iguala, and as Henderson suggest â€Å"it was ingenious, albeit highly imperfect; neither liberal or revolutionary nor counterrevolutionary; and in the end it said much about the condition of Mexico’s fractured society†. Iturbide now the new leader of the rebel army, brought wit h him a new cause to push for the end of the war, although it being different principles from what they fought for. The Plan of Iguala offered three main ideas/cause to fight for, first that Mexico would only accept the Roman Catholic Church as it’s main religion, second that Mexico would be it’s own independent country, and third that Mexico would be a constitutional monarchy (hopefully still run by Ferdinand VII or a European Royalty). The plan satisfied all the people involved and making no one party the main beneficiary, supplying everyone with a short term result, but creating the same problems they were trying to break away from for down the road. The plan still ensured â€Å"poisonous division in race, class, region, culture, abd ideology were part of the wrap an woof of Mexican society and a mere statement that such divisions were no longer acceptable was unlikely to about the needed transformation. † But Iturbide ideals were inclined to see â€Å"legal equality more as a means of protecting the rights of European Spaniards than elevating the dark skinned masses†. * With no suitable heir to take the Mexican throne, Iturbide becomes the first Mexican Emperor. With the power Iturbide had, he became more and more tyrannical until he was finally exiled then he returned where then he was killed. * Hatred of European Spaniards had fueled the Hidalgo rebellion and much of the popular violence of the revolutionary decade; the superficial paean to fellowship in the Plan of Iguala did nothing at all to diminish that hatred, which was in fact a key element in the Mexico’s incipient nationalism. Henderson, 188 * This is where Iturbide failed by not even trying to change the social trenches that affect Mexico today. The Mexican Wars for Independence by Timothy J. Henderson gives a rather dull view on what pride an entire nation today. The war for independence ended up being a just a change in government performing no other need social change that would fix the issues that still affect Mexico to this day. Hidalgo, although starting out with the right ideals, eventually only supported the poor’s causes, trying to hard to inflict change. U nder Morelos, he was lacking one unified nations state with equality for everyone. Iturbide unlike his predecessors wanted independence from Spain but did not want to take away the prejudice in the social groups, he in the end tried to change the least with the immense opportunity he had in front of him. None of them were able to correct or address the social division created by 300 years of Spanish rule. By doing too little or doing too much. But it was ridiculous to even conceive that 10 years of war could undo 300 years of Spanish colonial rule. * * * * * Bibliography. Timothy J. Henderson, The Mexican Wars of Independence.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Producing Marisol Essays - Marisol, Jos Rivera,

Producing Marisol Marisol, a play written by Jose Rivera, is the play I enjoyed reading the most this semester. Rivera, one of the leading contemporary Latin American playwrights, writes with an image. After reading Marisol, I came away with a very specific picture of what Rivera had in mind. He easily combines the realistic moments of life, the dangers of the Bronx, dealing with an emotionally unstable young man, Lenny, and the friendships developed with those we work with, with his world on the verge of apocalypse where the mundanities of life we take for granted have changed. Marisol has elements of pure theology where Rivera's own possible musings are written in to his characters. These elements include the appearance of Marisol's guardian angel in Marisol's dreams, the threat to Marisol's life in the form of a woman turned to a pile of salt and the smoke from a fire in Ohio blocking the sun in New York City. These all occur in the first act before the War of the Heavens begins. This play was written in the early nineties, copyright 1992, 1994, and revised and copyrighted 1999. Rivera was very specific in his stage directions and overall views of the design and production of the play in order to facilitate his image. These stage directions and other designs should be followed by the people producing his play in order to produce the image the play means to impart to the audience. He poises a gold crown, suspended in the air over the set, over the actors, over all of his creation, signifying God. But this crown, this God, remains motionless, remains detached from all the proceedings. To support his unnervingly imminently apocalyptic world, the mundanities that we would take for granted that are missing from Marisol's world, like the moon and the extinction of coffee, are dropped to the audience in a conversation between June, a co-worker and Marisol's best friend, and Marisol at work(Rivera 22-23). To accomplish the subtlety of unnerving the audience, Rivera gives a perfect office building; two desks, a radio, books, papers, the New York Post (Rivera 20) contrasting perfectly with the utter absurdity of facts pouring out of their mouths. This show should be done in a small theatre, and for design explanations, I will use the Studio Theatre at Towson University. This will allow the action to be closest to the audience, including them in the show. The set would consist of three brick walls painted directly onto the walls of the theatre. The wall behind the center rows of seats would remain black due to seat proximity. The back wall of the staging area (backing the scene shop) would be painted to the rafters , leaving the balcony itself black but the wall behind the upper balcony painted. The wall would have faux windows with iron gates on them running horizontally at about four feet above the floor. The two side walls would also have brick running up above the balcony. The two side walls would be completely masked by a black dropcloth for the first act. There would be two wagons used in Act One, neither bigger than 8 feet (which I am guessing to be the width of the scene shop door). The graffiti'd poem, "The moon carri es the souls of dead people to heaven./The new moon is dark and empty./It fills up every month/with glowing new souls/and carries its silent burden to God./Wake Up." (Rivera, 9) will be painted on the scene shop door which will remain closed. All entrances and exits will be from the four studio doors. The exterior door of the studio will be Marisol' s apartment door and have a series of locks she will lock behind her. It will only be used once. There will be a ladder from the balcony to the floor that the angel will use for her entrances. It will lock onto the bars for support. On one of the wagons will be June's kitchen, and the other will be Marisol's apartment, including bed, table, lamp, and clock (Rivera 12). The office will be downstage with the two desks, chairs and props wheeled in from opposing house doors and meeting in the middle.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Hegelian Dialectics

Hegelian Dialectics Introduction Hegel formulated a method that would be used in resolving conflicts among members of society. He suggested that a conflict would be resolved in three stages.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Hegelian Dialectics specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In his analysis, a thesis would generate a reaction that he referred to as the antithesis. The two would always be in conflict for quite some time before forging a common position, something he termed as a synthesis. In the phenomenology of spirit, Hegel presented the science of experience of consciousness whereby he described the process through which people’s consciousness develops over time. People’s minds go through a number of stages as regards to consciousness. The development of the mind starts with the lower levels and ends with the high levels. This article analyzes how Hegel used the idea of the master and the slave to bring out the conflicts that usually exist among various groups in society. The article situates the reasoning of Hegel in two articles, one being the Second Sex by Simone and the other is the modern woman as a subject by Fanon. Hegel’s Dialectics In his works on phenomenology, Hegel discussed the idea of independent and dependent self-consciousness whereby he talked about lordship and bondage in detail. He also discussed two critical issues related to life and desire. Hegel employed several concepts in analyzing how self-consciousness forms. Through self-awareness, a group of people develop certain knowledge, spirit, and sciences meaning that what people know are always held as true (Hegel 112). Knowledge develops when one consciousness recognizes the existence of another consciousness meaning that conflicts among groups will never take place without each group developing a sense of belonging. Knowledge development, according to Hegel, does not follow the basic rules of science, but instead it dev elops through a phenomenological construct, which has a clear history. This entails a group demanding for freedom after realizing that another group interferes with its interests. Regarding master-slave dialectic, the views of Hegel were that the relationship between the owners of the means of production and the proletariat could be understood through an internal analysis or process, particularly when it occurs in one individual. Moreover, the same could be comprehended through an external process, particularly when it takes place between two people or two groups. Based on his view, whatever takes place in the mind of an individual would be the same thing that would take place in an individual’s life. This means that if an individual feels oppressed in his or her reasoning, there is a high likelihood that such an individual would indeed be oppressed even in normal life.Advertising Looking for essay on philosophy? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Hegel was of the view that the objective suppression and objective sense of inferiority would gel to become one thing. The two levels of consciousness are never in harmony and they can even be in conflict to an extent that they fail to agree. The self at this moment is viewed as a foreign object whose existence interferes with proper reasoning. The two types of consciousness would as well perceive each other as animated objects as opposed to equal subjects. Based on this, Hegel concluded that the self does not appreciate the existence of another self. One self views the other self as an ordinary object with an autonomous shape. Due to this, a contradiction emerges, but the self tries to resolve the conflict through negating the other self, using a dialectical method. Since an agreement will not be readily reached, the two will be engaged in constant process of convincing each other. This struggle persists until death, even though no self-conscious ness would want death to take place since it would have fuelled a natural negation. The two forms of self-consciousness try as much as possible to avoid death. Therefore, the two tend to strike a deal to cooperate through constant communication and acceptance of subordination. The master would be willing to negotiate since she understands that life without self-awareness is useless. The slave accepts slavery because of the fear of death. The slave allows he master to control his life. Application of Hegel’s Ideas The second sex is the writing of Simone, which talks about the position of women in history. The scholar observed that women have never been given an opportunity to express themselves socially, politically, and economically due to the presence of men. Men are like masters who understand that life would never be enjoyable without self-consciousness. On their part, women accept their position as slaves since they fear death. Women have always engaged men in several fro nts in order to realize their dreams in society. In her works on history, she notes that reproduction is considered slavery to women because it denies them an opportunity to engage in economic and political development. Men have different views, which are perceived as the thesis since they control the affairs of society while the views of women are believed to be the antithesis because they oppose the position of men. Since the two forms of self-consciousness fear destruction, they will agree to form a working formula, which would result to a synthesis. Under the new arrangement, women would be given adequate chances to participate in economic and political development. Their physical weaknesses would not be used to undermine their positions in society. In the second part of her works, she opposes the idea of marriage since it undermines the position of women in society. Women are mainly relegated to the private domain of the home since their role in marriage is related to performin g domestic chores. Fanon suggested that the white race is always perceived as a superior race because of its physical qualities and skin colour. The black race is viewed as an inferior race, whose major role is to serve the black race.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Hegelian Dialectics specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Since time in memorial, the black race has never occupied its position in society, just like women (Fanon 191). During colonialism, the white race misused the labour of the black race to benefit itself while the black race was simply languishing in poverty. In this regard, the views of the white race are perceived as the thesis since they dictate all forms of life in society. The black race is always in constant conflicts with the white race hence its views are believed to be antithesis. The conflicts between the two races will persist for years until the time when the black race will rise up to chall enge the position of the white race. Since the white race is aware that life without self-awareness is useless, it will decide to engage the black race in talks in order to resolve the conflicts. A relationship would be established, with new ideas referred to as the synthesis. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2008. Print. Hegel, Georg. Phenomenology of Spirit. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998. Print.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Financial and Mortgage Services Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Financial and Mortgage Services Industry - Essay Example Furthermore it will give us an external environment overview of the strategic tools used to understand market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations. The Basel II Regulations are expected to reshape the entire financial services industry by creating new classes of competitors based on their risk-measurement and value-measurement technologies. These guidelines pose serious threats to both real estate lending by commercial banks and the viability of the entire industry since higher capital charges could reduce available capital for commercial real estate. [5] Sarbanes-Oxley developed a private, nonprofit corporation, to ensure that financial statements are audited according to independent standards. It also holds chief executives and chief financial officers directly responsible for the accuracy of financial statements. The law seeks to rule out conflicts that would make securities analysts less than objective and gives board audit committees rather than CEOs or chief financial officers full control of auditors. [3] The new regulations for mutual funds to have 75% independents in the board of directors and have an independent mutual fund chairman of the board represent one of the most drastic changes. These rules will require the search and hiring of new members to meet the regulations as a result, a shortage of potential candidates may be experienced. These regulations can be good or bad for a company depending on the quality of decisions taken at the time of appointing new directors and chairperson. [7] Hedge Funds Regulations With the increasing growth of hedge funds in the market, the regulations to monitor them are becoming more practical in the near future. [6] Regulations for New Entrants Some regulations regarding the minimum capital requirements for a company act as a barrier to new firms trying to enter the industry. Along with this investment and technological input costs are difficult to meet for these new entrants. [6] Economic Forces Federal Interest Rate Hikes The changing of the fund rate has the most impact on short-term rates. The raising or lowering of this rate will affect interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, and home equity lines of credit. When the target rate is raised, consumers pay more interest. When the rate is lowered, they pay less. These rate hikes will also affect credit cards since credit card interest rates are tied to the prime rate, which is subject to the actions of the Fed. As the rate increases tend move slowly to credit cards because issuers re-price cards once a quarter, the rate increase will be seen in the near future. [8] Declining Personal Savings Rate In September 2005, the personal saving rate as a percentage of disposable income was negative implying US consumers spent more than 100% of their monthly post-tax income. This decline in savings can be bad for the economy as there will be lesser investment and the financial sector can suffer. [4] Compliance Costs for Small Firms U.S. businesses

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Business improvement and change for Cadbury plc UK Essay

Business improvement and change for Cadbury plc UK - Essay Example The main aim of conducting an external analysis of a company is to recognize the environment in which the organisation functions and appraise the organisation’s placement in that environment. Internal analysis is carried out to find out what additional measures can be taken to bring the company out of any problems which it might face then. These measures are first compared to the present existing plans and outlays and later on the implement process takes place. Cadbury Schweppes had plans to break up its business into two separate entities out of which one would focus on its key chocolate and confectionery market while the other on its US drinks business. Michael Porter introduced the Five Forces of Analysis which is conceived as the structural assessment of an industry. The five forces are: competitive rivalry, barriers of entry, threats of substitutes, power of buyers, and power of suppliers.

Monday, November 18, 2019

Export Managing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Export Managing - Assignment Example Description in promotion and internalization" of Sheep artisan cheese as a "Niche original product" is based on less import limitations of USFDA in such Diary products. Also, an environmental analysis of the Importer of Artisan cheeses on US Diary market (competitors) will be explored through available official data base from State resources, National Chambers and Foundations as ought to relevant publications. Therefore this "Paper" would try with theoretical conclusion to find out the most acceptable marketing strategy as a part of export management to increase import of FYROM's Artisan Cheese to the USA. Introduction The current market status of the firm would be checked and a thorough screening shall be done for any potential that there exists for the firm to penetrate deeper into the U.S economy because this is the strategic goal of the countries consortium. This goal was also supported by the U.S because it was in their long term interest that the farming sector be given a boost and also some NGO's came forward to support the cause but these NGO's were heavily funded by the USAID. Although the first shipment (2004) was very figurative it was a sign that still a small country as FYROM is, can be able to develop export on a very specific, but for the country, agro-industrial important segment. Also, aware of the experience of our neighbors, (Greece and Bulgaria) it was an argument for an opportunity to have and outcome in export for the traditional part of agribusiness of the country. The "case" will include a presentation of a theory how a consortium can go "international" if it apply a good marketing plan and...Description in promotion and internalization" of Sheep artisan cheese as a "Niche original product" is based on less import limitations of USFDA in such Diary products. Also, an environmental analysis of the Importer of Artisan cheeses on US Diary market (competitors) will be explored through available official data base from State resources, National Chambers and Foundations as ought to relevant publications. The current market status of the firm would be checked and a thorough screening shall be done for any potential that there exists for the firm to penetrate deeper into the U.S economy because this is the strategic goal of the countries consortium. This goal was also supported by the U.S because it was in their long term interest that the farming sector be given a boost and also some NGO's came forward to support the cause but these NGO's were heavily funded by the USAID. Although the first shipment (2004) was very figurative it was a sign that still a small country as FYROM is, can be able to develop export on a very specific, but for the country, agro-industrial important segment. Also, aware of the experience of our neighbors, (Greece and Bulgaria) it was an argument for an opportunity to have and outcome in export for the traditional part of agribusiness of the country. The "case" will include a presentation of a theory how a consortium can go "international" if it apply a good marketing plan and export ma

Friday, November 15, 2019

Performance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UK

Performance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UK 1.1- Introduction: Hedge funds are actively managed portfolios that hold positions in publicly traded securities. Gaurav S. Amin and Harry M. Kat (2000) stated on their report that A hedge fund is typically defined as a pooled investment vehicle that is privately organized, administrated by professional investment managers, and not widely available to the public. It charges both a performance fee and a management fee. It allows a flexible investment for a small number of large investors (usually the minimum investment is $1 million) can use high risk techniques. 1Now days it is very clear that in the matter of alternative investment mutual fund is not performing well. As a high absolute returns and typically have features such as hurdle rates and incentive fees with high watermark provision hedge fund gives a better align to the interests of managers and investors. 2Moreover mutual funds typically use a long-only buy-and-hold type strategy on standard asset classes, which help to capture risk premia as sociate with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk etc. However, they are not very helpful in capturing risk premia associate with dynamic trading strategies. That is why hedge fund comes into the picture. In the year of 2009, this takes the greatest history of the world in the following century. In the year of 2008 the world saw the greatest fall down of the world economy. Lots of people missing their jobs, lots of company were stopped. The world economy faced the highest losses in the history. These all factors are showing only one way to makeover from that greatest downfall that is hedging. 3The last couple of decades have witnessed a rapidly growing in the hedge funds. Relative to traditional investment portfolios hedge funds exhibit some unique characteristics; they are flexible with respect to the types of securities they hold and the type of the position they take. 1 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2000). Multi-period performance persistence analysis of hedge fund s. The journal of financial and quantitative analysis. Vol. 35, No,3. PP-327. 2 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004). Risks and portfolio decisions involving hedge funds. The review of financial studies, Vol. 17, No.1. PP-64. 3 Journal of banking and finance 32(2008) 741-753- Hedge Fund Pricing and Model Uncertainty by Spyridan D. Vrontos, Ioannis D. Vrontos, Daniel Giomouridies. Since the early 1990s, hedge funds have become an increasingly popular asset class. The amount invested globally in hedge funds rose from approximately $50 billion in 1990 to approximately $1 trillion by the end of 2004. And because these funds characteristically use stantial leverage, they play a far more important role in the global securities markets than the size of their net assets indicates. Moreover, investments in hedge funds have become an important part of the asset mix of institutions and ever wealthy individual investors (Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005). 4The number of FOHFs increase by 40% between 2001 and 2003, and now comprised almost two third of the $650 billion invested in the USAs hedge fund market. Due to its nature it is difficult to estimate the current size of hedge fund industry. 5Van Hedge Fund Advisors estimates that by the end of 1998 there were 5380 hedge fund managing $311 in capital, with between $800 billion and $1 trillion in total assets, which indicates the higher number of recent new entries. So far, hedge fund is based on American phenomena. About 90% hedge fund managers are based in the US, 9% in Europe and 1% in Asia and elsewhere. Now a days around 5883 hedge funds are trading around the world. (*Barclay Hedge database). Chart 1: Assets of Hedge fund industry from 1997 to 2009. Source: http://www.barclayhedge.com/research/indices/ghs/mum/Hedge_Fund.html According to the Barclay hedge database the asset of hedge fund industry is $1205.6 billion dollar. 4 Financial times, 29th October, 2003. www.vanhedge.com http://www.barclayhedge.com/products/hedge-fund-directory.html 1.2- Research questions: Specifically in this paper, I want to address two main questions. First one is what is the performance of hedge fund and FTSE100 over the period of 2001 to 2008? To evaluate the performance I use three traditional risk adjusted performance measurement model. To give a better idea and matter of easily understand I use the Sharp ratio, the Treynor ratio, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). However, the equity market index is not necessarily the right benchmark for hedge funds, therefore, market betas and abnormal returns may not be the appropriate measures for risks and profits. To mitigate this problem, I calculate sharp ratios, which are defined as the ratio of the average excess fund returns over the standard deviation. Second question is does hedge funds gives better return from UK equity market (FTSE100)? To make this comparison I use regression analysis where the correlation will show how the hedge funds act against the FTSE 100. 1.3- Objective of the study: The main objective of this study is to find out the performance of Hedge fund relatively with the UK equity market FTSE 100. In addition, I address in this paper four major hedge funds performance correlation with FTSE100. As a result an individual investor can easily understand which portfolio will give better return at their investment perspective. This study focuses on UK investors perspective only. In the past several years, lots of studies had been done on this area like Park and Staum (1998), Brown et al. (1999), Agarwal and Naik (2000), Herzberg and Mozes (2003), Capocci and Hubner (2004), and Malkiel and Saha (2005) analysis the hedge fund performance. Most of the statistical methodology is on the regression with equity markets and rest of all are in the cross product ratio. Above all they tried to find out the return of different types of hedge fund depending on the market risk and market return. So finally, the purpose of this paper is clearly established, that is to understand hedge fund performance over the UK equity market (FTSE100). 1.5- Overview of the methodology: In this section I would like to describe an overview of my methodology. To find out the hedge fund performance and the FTSE100 markets performance I use three traditional risk-adjusted performance measurement models. First one is the Sharpe ratio, secondly, the Treynor ratio and finally, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). I address the Sharpe ratio and the Treynor ratio because these two gives better easy view for an investor to evaluate the hedge fund performance by themselves. However, the Sharpe ratio and the Treyneo ratio measure the excess return of per unit of risk for an investment asset. These two are used to understand how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. When comparing two assets each with the expected return of fund against the same benchmark with risk free return, the asset with the higher Sharpe ratio gives more return for the same risk. As a result investor can easily understand where to invest. In this paper I use total 287 funds including different types of hedge funds like- Event driven (31), Hedge fund (54), Global macro (37) and Market neutral (165). As a benchmark I use FTSE100 and for the risk free rate I use UK 10 year Treasury bond. All data were collected from the DataStream which is run by Thomson Reuters the worlds leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals (http://thomsonreuters.com/). 1.6- Definition of the key terms: Hedge fund: In the early study by Francis C.C. Koh, Winston T.H. Koh , David K.C. Lee, Kok Fai Phoon (2004) stated in their report that Hedge Funds are innovative investment structures that were first created more than 50 years ago by Alfred Winslow Jones. He established a fund with the following features: (a) He set up hedges by investing in securities that he determined as undervalued and funding these positions partly by taking short positions in overvalued securities, creating a market neutral position; (b) He also designed an incentive fee compensation arrangement in which he was paid a percentage of the profits realized from his clients assets; and (c) He invested his own investment capital in the fund, ensuring that his incentives and those of his investors were aligned and forming an investment partnership. Most modern hedge funds possess the above listed features, and are set up as limited partnerships with a lucrative incentive-fee structure. In most hedge funds, managers also often have a significant portion of their own capital invested in the partnerships. The term hedge fund has been generalized to describe investment strategies that range from the original market-neutral style of Jones to many other strategies and opportunistic situations, including global/macro investing. On the other report by Liang, B. (1999) stated on his report that there are two major types of hedge funds, one is inshore and another is offshore. Onshore funds are limited partnerships of no more than 500 investors. Offshore funds are limited liability corporations or partnerships established in the tax neutral jurisdictions that allow investors an opportunity to invest outside their own country and minimize their tax liabilities. Due to the large variety of hedge fund investing strategies, there is no standard method to classify hedge funds smartly. There are at least 8 major databases set up by data vendors and fund advisors. I follow the classification used by Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998), which relied on the MAR/Hedge database. Under this classification, there are 8 categories of hedge funds with 7 differentiated styles and a fund-of-funds category. For my paper I chose three different categories, which are as follows: (a) Event driven funds. These are funds that take positions on corporate events, such as taking an arbitraged position when companies are undergoing re-structuring or mergers. For example, hedge funds would purchase bank debt or high yield corporate bonds of companies undergoing re-organization (often referred to as distressed securities). Another event-driven strategy is merger arbitrage. These funds seize the opportunity to invest just after a takeover has been announced. They purchase the shares of the target companies and short the shares of the acquiring companies. (c) Global/Macro funds refer to funds that rely on macroeconomic analysis to take bets on major risk factors, such as currencies, interest rates, stock indices and commodities. Opportunistic trading manager that makes profits from changes in global economies typically based in major interest rate shifts. To make profits managers uses leverage and derivatives. (d) Market neutral funds refer to funds that bet on relative price movements utilizing strategies such as long-short equity, stock index arbitrage, convertible bond arbitrage and fixed income arbitrage. Long-short equity funds use the strategy of Jones by taking long positions in selective stocks and going short on other stocks to limit their exposure to the stock market. Stock index arbitrage funds trade on the spread between index futures contracts and the underlying basket of equities. Convertible bond arbitrage funds typically capitalize on the embedded option in these bonds by purchasing them and shorting the equities. Fixed income arbitrage bet on the convergence of prices of bonds from the same issuer but with different maturities over time. This is the second largest grouping of hedge funds after the Global category. Source Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998). 2.1.2- Current scenario of hedge funds: Chapter two Literature review: 2.1- History of hedge fund Despite the increasing interest and recent development, few studies have been carried out on hedge funds comparing to other investment tools like mutual funds. An analysis of Hedge Fund performance 1984-2000 by Capocci Daniel using one of the greatest hedge fund database ever used on his working paper (2796 individual funds including 801 dissolved), to investigate hedge funds performance using various asset-pricing models, including an extension from of Carharts (1997) model combined with Fama and French (1998), Agarwal and Naik (2000) models that take into account the fact that some hedge funds invest in emerging market bond. At the end they found that their model does a better job describing hedge funds behaviour. That appears particularly good for the Event Driven, Global Macro, US Opportunistic, Equity non-Hedge and Sector funds. Since the early 1990s, when around 2000 hedge funds were managing assets totalling capital of $60 billion, the subsequent growth in the number and asset base of hedge funds has never really been refuted. The industry only suffered from a relative slowdown in 1998, but since then has enjoyed a renewed vitality with an estimated total of 10,000funds managing more than a trillion US dollars by the end of 2006. The growing trend of the sector remained remarkably sustained during the stock market collapse that started in March 2000, when the NASDAQ composite Index reached an all-time high of 5,132 and finished three years later with a floor level of 1,253. In the meantime, the global met asset value (NAV) of hedge funds continued to grow at a steady rate of 10.6% (Van Hedge Funds Advisors International, 2002), contrasting with a decrease of 2.7% in the worldwide mutual fund industry ( Investment Company Institute, 2003). In 2001, Capocci and Hubner(2004) estimated that there were 6,000 he dge fund managing around $400 billion. In 2007, Capocci, Duquenne and Hubner (2007) estimated that there were 10,000 hedge funds managing around $1 trillion. This is a growth of 11% in the number of funds and 26% in assets over six years (6PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci). Other studies from practitioners Hennessee (1994), and Oberuc (1994) also showed an evidence of superior performance in the case of hedge funds. Ackernann and Al. (1999) and Liang (1999) who compared the performance of hedge funds to mutual funds and several indices, found that hedge funds constantly obtained better performance than mutual funds. Their performance was not better than the performance of the market indices considered. They also indicated that the returns in hedge funds were more unstable than both the returns of mutual funds and those of market indices. According to Brown and Al. (1997) hedge funds showing good performance in the first part of the year reduce the volatility of their portfolio in the second half of the year (Capocci Daniel- An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984-2000). Taking all these results into account hedge funds seems a good investment tool. 6 PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci. Electronic copy available at: http//ssrn.com/abstract=1008319. 2.1.1- Facts and finding of development in hedge funds: As a result of flexible investment strategies, a better manager inventive alignment, sophisticated investors, and limited SEC regulations hedge funds have gained incredible popularity. In the report of Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004) stated that it is well accepted that the world of financial securities is a multifactor world consisting of different risk factors, each associated with its own factor risk premium, and that no single investment strategy can span the entire risk factor space. Therefore investors wishing to earn risk premia associated with different risk factors need to employ different kinds of investment strategies. Sophisticated investors, like endowments and pension funds, seem to have recognized this fact as their portfolios consist of mutual funds as well as hedge funds.1 Mutual funds typically employ a long-only buy-and-hold-type strategy on standard asset classes, and help capture risk premia associated with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk, etc. Howe ver, they are not very helpful in capturing risk premia associated with dynamic trading strategies or spread-based strategies. This is where hedge funds come into the picture. Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are not evaluated against a passive benchmark and therefore can follow more dynamic trading strategies. Moreover, they can take long as well as short positions in securities, and therefore can bet on capitalization spreads or value-growth spreads. As a result, hedge funds can offer exposure to risk factors that traditional long-only strategies cannot. However, investor can create exposure like hedge funds by trading on their own account, in practice they encounter many frictions due to incompleteness of markets like the publicly traded derivatives market and the financing market. Moreover, the derivatives market for standardized contracts has grown a great deal in recent years, still it is very costly for an investor to create a customized payoff on individual securities. The same is true for the financing market as well, where investors encounter difficulties shorting securities and obtaining leverage. These frictions make it difficult for investors to create hedge fund-like payoffs by trading on their own accounts. According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) in 1990, the entire hedge fund industry was estimated at about US$20 billion. At of 2004, there are close to 7000 hedge funds worldwide, managing more than US$830 billion. Additionally, about US$200-300 billion is estimated to be in privately managed accounts. While high net worth individuals remain the main source of capital, hedge funds are becoming more popular among institutional and retail investors. Funds of hedge funds and other hedge fund-linked products are increasingly being marketed to the retail market. While hedge funds are well established in the United States and Europe, they have only begun to grow aggressively in Asia. According to Asia Hedge magazine, there are more than 300 hedge funds operating in Asia (including those in Japan and Australia), of which 30 were established in year 2000 and 20 in 2001. In 2003, 90 new hedge funds were started in Asia, compared with 66 in 2002, according to an estimate by th e Bank of Bermuda. In 2004 more than US$15 billion, hedge fund investments in Asia are expected to grow rapidly. Several factors support this view. Asian hedge funds currently account for a tiny slice of the global hedge fund pie and a mere trickle of the total financial wealth of high net worth individuals in Asia. Hedge funds have posted attractive returns. From 1987 to 2001, the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index posted annualised returns of 18%, higher than the SPs 13.5%. Hedge funds are seen as a natural hedge for controlling downside risk because they employ exotic investment strategies believed to generate returns that are uncorrelated to traditional asset classes. Hedge funds vary in their strategies. So-called macro funds, such as Quantum Fund, generally take a directional view by betting on a particular bond market, say, or a currency movement. Other funds specialize in corporate events, such as mergers or bankruptcies, or simply look for pricing anomalies the stock markets. Hedge funds vary widely in both their investment strategies and the amount of financial leverage. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) There are a number of factors behind the meteoric rise in demand for hedge funds. The unprecedented bull-run in the US equity markets during the 1990s expanded investment portfolios. This led an increased awareness on the need for diversification. The bursting of the technology and Internet bubbles, the string of corporate scandals that hit corporate America and the uncertainties in the US economy have led to a general decline in stock markets worldwide. This in turn provided fresh impetus for hedge funds as investors searched for absolute returns. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) Unlike registered investment companies, hedge funds are not required to publicly disclose performance and holdings information that might be construed as solicitation materials. Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing interest in the use of hedge funds amongst both institutional and high net worth individuals. Due to their private nature, it is difficult to obtain adequate information about the operations of individual hedge funds and reliable summary statistics about the industry as a whole. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) Hedge funds are known to be growing in size and diversity. As at the end of 1997, the MAR/Hedge database recorded more than 700 hedge fund managing assets of US$90 billion. This is only a partial picture of the industry, as many funds are not listed with MAR/Hedge. In practical terms, it is not easy to estimate the current size of the hedge fund industry unless all funds are regulated or obligated to register their operations with a common authority. Brooks and Kat (2001) estimated that, as at April 2001, there are around 6000 hedge funds with an estimated US $400 billion in capital under management and US $1 trillion in total assets. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) three interesting features differentiate hedge funds from other forms of managed funds. Most hedge funds are small and organized around a few experienced investment professionals. In fact, more than half of U.S Hedge Funds manage amounts of less than US$25 million. Further, most hedge funds are leveraged. It is estimated that 70 per cent of hedge funds use leverage and about 18% borrowed more than one dollar for every dollar of capital. (See Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998). Another peculiar feature is the short life span of hedge funds. Hedge funds have an average life span of about 3.5 years (See Stefano Lavinio (2000) pp 128). Very few have a track record of more than 10 years. These features lead many to view hedge funds, as risky and opportunistic. In the early study by Fung and Hsieh (2001), they use option like payoffs to view the risks of trend following hedge funds. They saw that the trend followers are typically commodity trading advisors (CTAs) who attempt to profit from trends in commodity prices using technical indicators. According to Fung and Hsieh (2001) trend followers are particularly interesting in that not only are their returns uncorrelated with the standard equity, bond, currency, and commodity indices, but their returns tend to exhibit option like features. They tend to be large and positive during the best and worst performing months of world equity indices. They cite evidence by Fung and Hsieh (1997) who show that if one divided up the states of the world into five states based on the return on the MSCI equity world index, trend followers tend to outperform when the MSCI equity return is at its lowest and highest. The relationship between trend followers and the equity market is non-linear and U-shaped. Alth ough returns of trend following funds have a low beta against equities on average, the state-dependent betas tend to be positive in up-markets and negative in down markets. As a result, Fung and Hsieh (2001) assume that the simplest trend following strategy has the same payout as a structured option known as the look back straddle. The owner of a look back call option has the right to buy the underlying asset at the lowest price over the life of the option. Similarly, a look back put option allows the owner to sell at the highest price. The combination of these two options is the look back straddle, which delivers the ex-post maximum payout of any trend following strategy. Fung and Hsieh (2001) then demonstrate empirically that look back straddle returns resemble the returns of trend following hedge funds. Building on this pioneer work, Fung and Hsieh (2004) propose seven factors that explain aggregate hedge fund returns. These seven factors include the excess return on the SP 500 index, the Wilshire small cap minus large cap index return, the term spread, the credit spread, and trend following factors for bonds, currencies, and commodities. They show that their seven factor model well explains variation in aggregate hedge fund returns. In addition, they find that equity long/short hedge funds tend to load positively on the SP 500 index factor and the small cap minus large cap factor. These results are consistent with the observation that equity long/short hedge funds typically have a small positive exposure to stocks and tend to be long small stocks and short large stocks. Fung and Hsieh (2004) also find that fixed income funds on the other hand tend to load negatively on the change in the credit spread, where the credit spread is measured as the difference between the yield on Moodys Baa bonds and the yield on the 10-year constant maturity Treasury bond. The reason is that fixed income funds typically buy bonds with lower credit ratings and/or less liquidity and then hedge the interest rate risk by shorting US Treasury bonds, which have the highest credit rating and are more liquid. However, Agarwal and Naik (2004) also propose a multi-factor model to explain hedge fund risks. They find that non-linear option like payoffs are not restricted to trend followers and risk arbitrageurs, but are an integral feature of payoffs for a wide range of hedge fund strategies. In particular they observe that the payoffs on a large number of hedge fund strategies look like those from writing a put option on the equity index. These strategies include risk arbitrage, distressed debt, convertible arbitrage, and relative value arbitrage. Consistent with the exposure of these strategies to the risks borne by sellers of equity index put options, Agarwal and Naik (2004) find that these hedge funds suffer from significant left tail risk which tends to coincide with severe market downturns. The performance of hedge fund in 2008 was very shocking like more than ten years ago. Teo, M (2009) stated that in the month of August 1998 alone LTCM lost 45% of its capital in the wake of the massive liquidity event triggered by the Russian rubble default. Lots of academic literature has shown that the year 2007 and 2008 was the worst performance of hedge fund. As we know that hedge fund managers make portfolio by taking position in equity market and another fund, but unfortunately the world equity market goes downside. As a result investors who wish to weather future financial maelstroms should take note of the non-linear relationship between hedge fund returns and the equity market. 2.3- Limitations (previous) With respect to lightly regulated investment vehicles with great treading flexibility, hedge funds often pursue highly sophisticated investment strategies. Hedge funds promise absolute returns to their investor leading to a belief that they hold factor-neutral portfolios. With this in mind, hedge funds have some limitations. In the early studies many researchers discussed and explain that obstacles. First of all if we consider the measurement model of hedge funds performance, most of the researcher use traditional performance measure model like, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen alpha which are not adequate for the performance evaluation of hedge funds. Fung and Hsieh (2000) and Roy (2003) stated that is incorrect to use these performance measures t evaluate the hedge funds strategies. Brooks and Kat (2002), Kat (2003), Mahdavi (2004) and Murguia and Umemoto (2004) also mentioned that the Sharpe ratio does not represent the true performance of hedge funds because it does not take into consideration the asymmetry returns of these funds. As a result Perello (2007) propose to use the downside risk framework like Sortino ratio, the upside potential ratio and Omega measure as alternative performance measure. Moreover, Chung, Rosenberg and Tomeo (2004) and Scherer (2004) showed that Sortino ratio makes it possible to the investors to evaluate the risk and the performance of the h edge funds more sustainably than Sharpe ratio. Secondly, according to Ackermann et al. (1999) and to Fung and Hsieh (2000), two upward biases exist in the case of hedge funds. They do not exist in the case of mutual funds, and they both have an opposite impact to the survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is an important issue in hedge funds performance studies (see Carhart and al. 2000). This bias is present when a database contains only funds that have data for the whole period studies. In this case, there is a risk of overestimating the mean performance because the funds that would have ceased to exist because of their bad performance would not be taken into account. The two upward biases exist because, since hedge funds are not allowed to advertise, they consider inclusion in a database primarily as a marketing tool. The first phenomenon stressed by Ackermann and al. (1999) and called the self-selection bias is present because funds that realize good performance have less incentive to report their performance to data providers in order to attract new investors. Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005) stated in their report that Databases available at any point in time tend to reflect the returns earned by currently existing hedge funds but they do not include the returns from hedge funds that existed at some time in the past but are presently not in existence (i.e., the truly dead funds) or exist but no longer report their results (the defunct funds). Unsuccessful hedge funds have difficulties obtaining new assets. Hence, they tend to close, leaving only the more successful funds in the database. But some funds stop reporting not because they are unsuccessful but because they do not want to attract new investment. The second point called instant history bias or backfilled bias (Fung and Hsieh 2000) occurs because after inclusion a funds performance history is backfilled. This may cause an upward bias because funds with less satisfactory performance history are less likely to apply for inclusion than funds with good performance history (Capocci Daniel 2001, An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984- 2000). Performance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UK Performance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UK 1.1- Introduction: Hedge funds are actively managed portfolios that hold positions in publicly traded securities. Gaurav S. Amin and Harry M. Kat (2000) stated on their report that A hedge fund is typically defined as a pooled investment vehicle that is privately organized, administrated by professional investment managers, and not widely available to the public. It charges both a performance fee and a management fee. It allows a flexible investment for a small number of large investors (usually the minimum investment is $1 million) can use high risk techniques. 1Now days it is very clear that in the matter of alternative investment mutual fund is not performing well. As a high absolute returns and typically have features such as hurdle rates and incentive fees with high watermark provision hedge fund gives a better align to the interests of managers and investors. 2Moreover mutual funds typically use a long-only buy-and-hold type strategy on standard asset classes, which help to capture risk premia as sociate with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk etc. However, they are not very helpful in capturing risk premia associate with dynamic trading strategies. That is why hedge fund comes into the picture. In the year of 2009, this takes the greatest history of the world in the following century. In the year of 2008 the world saw the greatest fall down of the world economy. Lots of people missing their jobs, lots of company were stopped. The world economy faced the highest losses in the history. These all factors are showing only one way to makeover from that greatest downfall that is hedging. 3The last couple of decades have witnessed a rapidly growing in the hedge funds. Relative to traditional investment portfolios hedge funds exhibit some unique characteristics; they are flexible with respect to the types of securities they hold and the type of the position they take. 1 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2000). Multi-period performance persistence analysis of hedge fund s. The journal of financial and quantitative analysis. Vol. 35, No,3. PP-327. 2 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004). Risks and portfolio decisions involving hedge funds. The review of financial studies, Vol. 17, No.1. PP-64. 3 Journal of banking and finance 32(2008) 741-753- Hedge Fund Pricing and Model Uncertainty by Spyridan D. Vrontos, Ioannis D. Vrontos, Daniel Giomouridies. Since the early 1990s, hedge funds have become an increasingly popular asset class. The amount invested globally in hedge funds rose from approximately $50 billion in 1990 to approximately $1 trillion by the end of 2004. And because these funds characteristically use stantial leverage, they play a far more important role in the global securities markets than the size of their net assets indicates. Moreover, investments in hedge funds have become an important part of the asset mix of institutions and ever wealthy individual investors (Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005). 4The number of FOHFs increase by 40% between 2001 and 2003, and now comprised almost two third of the $650 billion invested in the USAs hedge fund market. Due to its nature it is difficult to estimate the current size of hedge fund industry. 5Van Hedge Fund Advisors estimates that by the end of 1998 there were 5380 hedge fund managing $311 in capital, with between $800 billion and $1 trillion in total assets, which indicates the higher number of recent new entries. So far, hedge fund is based on American phenomena. About 90% hedge fund managers are based in the US, 9% in Europe and 1% in Asia and elsewhere. Now a days around 5883 hedge funds are trading around the world. (*Barclay Hedge database). Chart 1: Assets of Hedge fund industry from 1997 to 2009. Source: http://www.barclayhedge.com/research/indices/ghs/mum/Hedge_Fund.html According to the Barclay hedge database the asset of hedge fund industry is $1205.6 billion dollar. 4 Financial times, 29th October, 2003. www.vanhedge.com http://www.barclayhedge.com/products/hedge-fund-directory.html 1.2- Research questions: Specifically in this paper, I want to address two main questions. First one is what is the performance of hedge fund and FTSE100 over the period of 2001 to 2008? To evaluate the performance I use three traditional risk adjusted performance measurement model. To give a better idea and matter of easily understand I use the Sharp ratio, the Treynor ratio, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). However, the equity market index is not necessarily the right benchmark for hedge funds, therefore, market betas and abnormal returns may not be the appropriate measures for risks and profits. To mitigate this problem, I calculate sharp ratios, which are defined as the ratio of the average excess fund returns over the standard deviation. Second question is does hedge funds gives better return from UK equity market (FTSE100)? To make this comparison I use regression analysis where the correlation will show how the hedge funds act against the FTSE 100. 1.3- Objective of the study: The main objective of this study is to find out the performance of Hedge fund relatively with the UK equity market FTSE 100. In addition, I address in this paper four major hedge funds performance correlation with FTSE100. As a result an individual investor can easily understand which portfolio will give better return at their investment perspective. This study focuses on UK investors perspective only. In the past several years, lots of studies had been done on this area like Park and Staum (1998), Brown et al. (1999), Agarwal and Naik (2000), Herzberg and Mozes (2003), Capocci and Hubner (2004), and Malkiel and Saha (2005) analysis the hedge fund performance. Most of the statistical methodology is on the regression with equity markets and rest of all are in the cross product ratio. Above all they tried to find out the return of different types of hedge fund depending on the market risk and market return. So finally, the purpose of this paper is clearly established, that is to understand hedge fund performance over the UK equity market (FTSE100). 1.5- Overview of the methodology: In this section I would like to describe an overview of my methodology. To find out the hedge fund performance and the FTSE100 markets performance I use three traditional risk-adjusted performance measurement models. First one is the Sharpe ratio, secondly, the Treynor ratio and finally, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). I address the Sharpe ratio and the Treynor ratio because these two gives better easy view for an investor to evaluate the hedge fund performance by themselves. However, the Sharpe ratio and the Treyneo ratio measure the excess return of per unit of risk for an investment asset. These two are used to understand how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. When comparing two assets each with the expected return of fund against the same benchmark with risk free return, the asset with the higher Sharpe ratio gives more return for the same risk. As a result investor can easily understand where to invest. In this paper I use total 287 funds including different types of hedge funds like- Event driven (31), Hedge fund (54), Global macro (37) and Market neutral (165). As a benchmark I use FTSE100 and for the risk free rate I use UK 10 year Treasury bond. All data were collected from the DataStream which is run by Thomson Reuters the worlds leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals (http://thomsonreuters.com/). 1.6- Definition of the key terms: Hedge fund: In the early study by Francis C.C. Koh, Winston T.H. Koh , David K.C. Lee, Kok Fai Phoon (2004) stated in their report that Hedge Funds are innovative investment structures that were first created more than 50 years ago by Alfred Winslow Jones. He established a fund with the following features: (a) He set up hedges by investing in securities that he determined as undervalued and funding these positions partly by taking short positions in overvalued securities, creating a market neutral position; (b) He also designed an incentive fee compensation arrangement in which he was paid a percentage of the profits realized from his clients assets; and (c) He invested his own investment capital in the fund, ensuring that his incentives and those of his investors were aligned and forming an investment partnership. Most modern hedge funds possess the above listed features, and are set up as limited partnerships with a lucrative incentive-fee structure. In most hedge funds, managers also often have a significant portion of their own capital invested in the partnerships. The term hedge fund has been generalized to describe investment strategies that range from the original market-neutral style of Jones to many other strategies and opportunistic situations, including global/macro investing. On the other report by Liang, B. (1999) stated on his report that there are two major types of hedge funds, one is inshore and another is offshore. Onshore funds are limited partnerships of no more than 500 investors. Offshore funds are limited liability corporations or partnerships established in the tax neutral jurisdictions that allow investors an opportunity to invest outside their own country and minimize their tax liabilities. Due to the large variety of hedge fund investing strategies, there is no standard method to classify hedge funds smartly. There are at least 8 major databases set up by data vendors and fund advisors. I follow the classification used by Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998), which relied on the MAR/Hedge database. Under this classification, there are 8 categories of hedge funds with 7 differentiated styles and a fund-of-funds category. For my paper I chose three different categories, which are as follows: (a) Event driven funds. These are funds that take positions on corporate events, such as taking an arbitraged position when companies are undergoing re-structuring or mergers. For example, hedge funds would purchase bank debt or high yield corporate bonds of companies undergoing re-organization (often referred to as distressed securities). Another event-driven strategy is merger arbitrage. These funds seize the opportunity to invest just after a takeover has been announced. They purchase the shares of the target companies and short the shares of the acquiring companies. (c) Global/Macro funds refer to funds that rely on macroeconomic analysis to take bets on major risk factors, such as currencies, interest rates, stock indices and commodities. Opportunistic trading manager that makes profits from changes in global economies typically based in major interest rate shifts. To make profits managers uses leverage and derivatives. (d) Market neutral funds refer to funds that bet on relative price movements utilizing strategies such as long-short equity, stock index arbitrage, convertible bond arbitrage and fixed income arbitrage. Long-short equity funds use the strategy of Jones by taking long positions in selective stocks and going short on other stocks to limit their exposure to the stock market. Stock index arbitrage funds trade on the spread between index futures contracts and the underlying basket of equities. Convertible bond arbitrage funds typically capitalize on the embedded option in these bonds by purchasing them and shorting the equities. Fixed income arbitrage bet on the convergence of prices of bonds from the same issuer but with different maturities over time. This is the second largest grouping of hedge funds after the Global category. Source Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998). 2.1.2- Current scenario of hedge funds: Chapter two Literature review: 2.1- History of hedge fund Despite the increasing interest and recent development, few studies have been carried out on hedge funds comparing to other investment tools like mutual funds. An analysis of Hedge Fund performance 1984-2000 by Capocci Daniel using one of the greatest hedge fund database ever used on his working paper (2796 individual funds including 801 dissolved), to investigate hedge funds performance using various asset-pricing models, including an extension from of Carharts (1997) model combined with Fama and French (1998), Agarwal and Naik (2000) models that take into account the fact that some hedge funds invest in emerging market bond. At the end they found that their model does a better job describing hedge funds behaviour. That appears particularly good for the Event Driven, Global Macro, US Opportunistic, Equity non-Hedge and Sector funds. Since the early 1990s, when around 2000 hedge funds were managing assets totalling capital of $60 billion, the subsequent growth in the number and asset base of hedge funds has never really been refuted. The industry only suffered from a relative slowdown in 1998, but since then has enjoyed a renewed vitality with an estimated total of 10,000funds managing more than a trillion US dollars by the end of 2006. The growing trend of the sector remained remarkably sustained during the stock market collapse that started in March 2000, when the NASDAQ composite Index reached an all-time high of 5,132 and finished three years later with a floor level of 1,253. In the meantime, the global met asset value (NAV) of hedge funds continued to grow at a steady rate of 10.6% (Van Hedge Funds Advisors International, 2002), contrasting with a decrease of 2.7% in the worldwide mutual fund industry ( Investment Company Institute, 2003). In 2001, Capocci and Hubner(2004) estimated that there were 6,000 he dge fund managing around $400 billion. In 2007, Capocci, Duquenne and Hubner (2007) estimated that there were 10,000 hedge funds managing around $1 trillion. This is a growth of 11% in the number of funds and 26% in assets over six years (6PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci). Other studies from practitioners Hennessee (1994), and Oberuc (1994) also showed an evidence of superior performance in the case of hedge funds. Ackernann and Al. (1999) and Liang (1999) who compared the performance of hedge funds to mutual funds and several indices, found that hedge funds constantly obtained better performance than mutual funds. Their performance was not better than the performance of the market indices considered. They also indicated that the returns in hedge funds were more unstable than both the returns of mutual funds and those of market indices. According to Brown and Al. (1997) hedge funds showing good performance in the first part of the year reduce the volatility of their portfolio in the second half of the year (Capocci Daniel- An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984-2000). Taking all these results into account hedge funds seems a good investment tool. 6 PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci. Electronic copy available at: http//ssrn.com/abstract=1008319. 2.1.1- Facts and finding of development in hedge funds: As a result of flexible investment strategies, a better manager inventive alignment, sophisticated investors, and limited SEC regulations hedge funds have gained incredible popularity. In the report of Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004) stated that it is well accepted that the world of financial securities is a multifactor world consisting of different risk factors, each associated with its own factor risk premium, and that no single investment strategy can span the entire risk factor space. Therefore investors wishing to earn risk premia associated with different risk factors need to employ different kinds of investment strategies. Sophisticated investors, like endowments and pension funds, seem to have recognized this fact as their portfolios consist of mutual funds as well as hedge funds.1 Mutual funds typically employ a long-only buy-and-hold-type strategy on standard asset classes, and help capture risk premia associated with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk, etc. Howe ver, they are not very helpful in capturing risk premia associated with dynamic trading strategies or spread-based strategies. This is where hedge funds come into the picture. Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are not evaluated against a passive benchmark and therefore can follow more dynamic trading strategies. Moreover, they can take long as well as short positions in securities, and therefore can bet on capitalization spreads or value-growth spreads. As a result, hedge funds can offer exposure to risk factors that traditional long-only strategies cannot. However, investor can create exposure like hedge funds by trading on their own account, in practice they encounter many frictions due to incompleteness of markets like the publicly traded derivatives market and the financing market. Moreover, the derivatives market for standardized contracts has grown a great deal in recent years, still it is very costly for an investor to create a customized payoff on individual securities. The same is true for the financing market as well, where investors encounter difficulties shorting securities and obtaining leverage. These frictions make it difficult for investors to create hedge fund-like payoffs by trading on their own accounts. According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) in 1990, the entire hedge fund industry was estimated at about US$20 billion. At of 2004, there are close to 7000 hedge funds worldwide, managing more than US$830 billion. Additionally, about US$200-300 billion is estimated to be in privately managed accounts. While high net worth individuals remain the main source of capital, hedge funds are becoming more popular among institutional and retail investors. Funds of hedge funds and other hedge fund-linked products are increasingly being marketed to the retail market. While hedge funds are well established in the United States and Europe, they have only begun to grow aggressively in Asia. According to Asia Hedge magazine, there are more than 300 hedge funds operating in Asia (including those in Japan and Australia), of which 30 were established in year 2000 and 20 in 2001. In 2003, 90 new hedge funds were started in Asia, compared with 66 in 2002, according to an estimate by th e Bank of Bermuda. In 2004 more than US$15 billion, hedge fund investments in Asia are expected to grow rapidly. Several factors support this view. Asian hedge funds currently account for a tiny slice of the global hedge fund pie and a mere trickle of the total financial wealth of high net worth individuals in Asia. Hedge funds have posted attractive returns. From 1987 to 2001, the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index posted annualised returns of 18%, higher than the SPs 13.5%. Hedge funds are seen as a natural hedge for controlling downside risk because they employ exotic investment strategies believed to generate returns that are uncorrelated to traditional asset classes. Hedge funds vary in their strategies. So-called macro funds, such as Quantum Fund, generally take a directional view by betting on a particular bond market, say, or a currency movement. Other funds specialize in corporate events, such as mergers or bankruptcies, or simply look for pricing anomalies the stock markets. Hedge funds vary widely in both their investment strategies and the amount of financial leverage. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) There are a number of factors behind the meteoric rise in demand for hedge funds. The unprecedented bull-run in the US equity markets during the 1990s expanded investment portfolios. This led an increased awareness on the need for diversification. The bursting of the technology and Internet bubbles, the string of corporate scandals that hit corporate America and the uncertainties in the US economy have led to a general decline in stock markets worldwide. This in turn provided fresh impetus for hedge funds as investors searched for absolute returns. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) Unlike registered investment companies, hedge funds are not required to publicly disclose performance and holdings information that might be construed as solicitation materials. Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing interest in the use of hedge funds amongst both institutional and high net worth individuals. Due to their private nature, it is difficult to obtain adequate information about the operations of individual hedge funds and reliable summary statistics about the industry as a whole. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) Hedge funds are known to be growing in size and diversity. As at the end of 1997, the MAR/Hedge database recorded more than 700 hedge fund managing assets of US$90 billion. This is only a partial picture of the industry, as many funds are not listed with MAR/Hedge. In practical terms, it is not easy to estimate the current size of the hedge fund industry unless all funds are regulated or obligated to register their operations with a common authority. Brooks and Kat (2001) estimated that, as at April 2001, there are around 6000 hedge funds with an estimated US $400 billion in capital under management and US $1 trillion in total assets. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) three interesting features differentiate hedge funds from other forms of managed funds. Most hedge funds are small and organized around a few experienced investment professionals. In fact, more than half of U.S Hedge Funds manage amounts of less than US$25 million. Further, most hedge funds are leveraged. It is estimated that 70 per cent of hedge funds use leverage and about 18% borrowed more than one dollar for every dollar of capital. (See Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998). Another peculiar feature is the short life span of hedge funds. Hedge funds have an average life span of about 3.5 years (See Stefano Lavinio (2000) pp 128). Very few have a track record of more than 10 years. These features lead many to view hedge funds, as risky and opportunistic. In the early study by Fung and Hsieh (2001), they use option like payoffs to view the risks of trend following hedge funds. They saw that the trend followers are typically commodity trading advisors (CTAs) who attempt to profit from trends in commodity prices using technical indicators. According to Fung and Hsieh (2001) trend followers are particularly interesting in that not only are their returns uncorrelated with the standard equity, bond, currency, and commodity indices, but their returns tend to exhibit option like features. They tend to be large and positive during the best and worst performing months of world equity indices. They cite evidence by Fung and Hsieh (1997) who show that if one divided up the states of the world into five states based on the return on the MSCI equity world index, trend followers tend to outperform when the MSCI equity return is at its lowest and highest. The relationship between trend followers and the equity market is non-linear and U-shaped. Alth ough returns of trend following funds have a low beta against equities on average, the state-dependent betas tend to be positive in up-markets and negative in down markets. As a result, Fung and Hsieh (2001) assume that the simplest trend following strategy has the same payout as a structured option known as the look back straddle. The owner of a look back call option has the right to buy the underlying asset at the lowest price over the life of the option. Similarly, a look back put option allows the owner to sell at the highest price. The combination of these two options is the look back straddle, which delivers the ex-post maximum payout of any trend following strategy. Fung and Hsieh (2001) then demonstrate empirically that look back straddle returns resemble the returns of trend following hedge funds. Building on this pioneer work, Fung and Hsieh (2004) propose seven factors that explain aggregate hedge fund returns. These seven factors include the excess return on the SP 500 index, the Wilshire small cap minus large cap index return, the term spread, the credit spread, and trend following factors for bonds, currencies, and commodities. They show that their seven factor model well explains variation in aggregate hedge fund returns. In addition, they find that equity long/short hedge funds tend to load positively on the SP 500 index factor and the small cap minus large cap factor. These results are consistent with the observation that equity long/short hedge funds typically have a small positive exposure to stocks and tend to be long small stocks and short large stocks. Fung and Hsieh (2004) also find that fixed income funds on the other hand tend to load negatively on the change in the credit spread, where the credit spread is measured as the difference between the yield on Moodys Baa bonds and the yield on the 10-year constant maturity Treasury bond. The reason is that fixed income funds typically buy bonds with lower credit ratings and/or less liquidity and then hedge the interest rate risk by shorting US Treasury bonds, which have the highest credit rating and are more liquid. However, Agarwal and Naik (2004) also propose a multi-factor model to explain hedge fund risks. They find that non-linear option like payoffs are not restricted to trend followers and risk arbitrageurs, but are an integral feature of payoffs for a wide range of hedge fund strategies. In particular they observe that the payoffs on a large number of hedge fund strategies look like those from writing a put option on the equity index. These strategies include risk arbitrage, distressed debt, convertible arbitrage, and relative value arbitrage. Consistent with the exposure of these strategies to the risks borne by sellers of equity index put options, Agarwal and Naik (2004) find that these hedge funds suffer from significant left tail risk which tends to coincide with severe market downturns. The performance of hedge fund in 2008 was very shocking like more than ten years ago. Teo, M (2009) stated that in the month of August 1998 alone LTCM lost 45% of its capital in the wake of the massive liquidity event triggered by the Russian rubble default. Lots of academic literature has shown that the year 2007 and 2008 was the worst performance of hedge fund. As we know that hedge fund managers make portfolio by taking position in equity market and another fund, but unfortunately the world equity market goes downside. As a result investors who wish to weather future financial maelstroms should take note of the non-linear relationship between hedge fund returns and the equity market. 2.3- Limitations (previous) With respect to lightly regulated investment vehicles with great treading flexibility, hedge funds often pursue highly sophisticated investment strategies. Hedge funds promise absolute returns to their investor leading to a belief that they hold factor-neutral portfolios. With this in mind, hedge funds have some limitations. In the early studies many researchers discussed and explain that obstacles. First of all if we consider the measurement model of hedge funds performance, most of the researcher use traditional performance measure model like, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen alpha which are not adequate for the performance evaluation of hedge funds. Fung and Hsieh (2000) and Roy (2003) stated that is incorrect to use these performance measures t evaluate the hedge funds strategies. Brooks and Kat (2002), Kat (2003), Mahdavi (2004) and Murguia and Umemoto (2004) also mentioned that the Sharpe ratio does not represent the true performance of hedge funds because it does not take into consideration the asymmetry returns of these funds. As a result Perello (2007) propose to use the downside risk framework like Sortino ratio, the upside potential ratio and Omega measure as alternative performance measure. Moreover, Chung, Rosenberg and Tomeo (2004) and Scherer (2004) showed that Sortino ratio makes it possible to the investors to evaluate the risk and the performance of the h edge funds more sustainably than Sharpe ratio. Secondly, according to Ackermann et al. (1999) and to Fung and Hsieh (2000), two upward biases exist in the case of hedge funds. They do not exist in the case of mutual funds, and they both have an opposite impact to the survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is an important issue in hedge funds performance studies (see Carhart and al. 2000). This bias is present when a database contains only funds that have data for the whole period studies. In this case, there is a risk of overestimating the mean performance because the funds that would have ceased to exist because of their bad performance would not be taken into account. The two upward biases exist because, since hedge funds are not allowed to advertise, they consider inclusion in a database primarily as a marketing tool. The first phenomenon stressed by Ackermann and al. (1999) and called the self-selection bias is present because funds that realize good performance have less incentive to report their performance to data providers in order to attract new investors. Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005) stated in their report that Databases available at any point in time tend to reflect the returns earned by currently existing hedge funds but they do not include the returns from hedge funds that existed at some time in the past but are presently not in existence (i.e., the truly dead funds) or exist but no longer report their results (the defunct funds). Unsuccessful hedge funds have difficulties obtaining new assets. Hence, they tend to close, leaving only the more successful funds in the database. But some funds stop reporting not because they are unsuccessful but because they do not want to attract new investment. The second point called instant history bias or backfilled bias (Fung and Hsieh 2000) occurs because after inclusion a funds performance history is backfilled. This may cause an upward bias because funds with less satisfactory performance history are less likely to apply for inclusion than funds with good performance history (Capocci Daniel 2001, An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984- 2000).