Risk Management Policies In Financial Services: Hedge Funds

Many financial services make use of a well-structured risk management policy to manage their day-to-day exposure to risk, including exclusive investment entities such as hedge funds. For many years hedge funds were considered the high-stakes bad boys of the investing world; an image that the industry despised and rejected in the public eye, yet celebrated behind the closed doors of their high-rise offices and their swanky exclusive nightclubs. Over the past 36 months the hedge fund community has stepped up their efforts to shed the negativity and weariness that is often associated with them. Of course in some ways this “risky market gambler” perception was always unfounded, especially considering hedge funds use complex strategies and investment vehicles to hedge away systemic and market risk.Due to their size and unique capital structure, hedge funds were previously allowed to operate outside the stringent oversight of investment regulators, but this has changed over the past decade. While hedge funds continue to abstain from using the comprehensive risk management ‘best-practices’ of other financial services such as banks and large fund managers, they have certainly increased their use of risk management policies. These processes have evolved to monitor not only how their range of investments mitigate inherent market risk for their investors, but also how they conduct their business in general.The organizational risk philosophy at any particular hedge fund typically reflects the interest-level and commitment of that fund’s top traders and officials. The greater these managers believe in not chasing greater return at the expense of risk compliance, the stronger the fund’s risk policy is embedded throughout the entire fund’s other personnel. Many hedge funds now employ a Chief Risk Officer and have doubled their expenditures on risk management processes and risk compliance. They are increasingly seeking individuals who have obtained at least one risk management certification, focusing on credit and financial risk. These changes are the result of not only clearer minds within the hedge fund management community, but also from changing investor expectations. While hedge fund have always used complex quantitative risk management models to quell investor fears, most managers will tell you that in the past few investors know, or cared to know, how they worked. While this sentiment has not dramatically changed during these past few months, there are changing expectations from investors, especially large institutional money managers, in regards to transparency, risk analysis processes, and how business is conducted. Fund managers typically benefit from long investment time-horizons and leeway from their investors, but even traditionally ‘sticky’ investors are demonstrating a willingness to pull assets out of hedge funds if managers do not comply with the changing risk expectations.As a consequence of the 2008 financial upheaval the fund community has witnesses the creation of a series of private oversight groups, such as the ‘Hedge Fund Standards Board’. These self-regulatory bodies are creating industry benchmarks and best-practices in risk management, and from which the community can develop their own risk policies.Hedge funds of all sizes have developed and incorporated risk management policies into their operational and trading strategies. These processes include limits on acceptable losses per trader, controls and limits on the types of investments made, and formal communication and internal policing procedures. These funds offer limited transparency on how they conduct business to anyone outside their inner circle of investors, and thus individual firms are expected to internally police themselves. An predominant precursor of risk in this business is the overuse of leverage, and risk management in this area has become a hot-button issue within the fund community. Many fund managers use borrowed money (funds borrowed against the assets provided by their investors) to maximize the return on their positions, and achieve the above-market gains the industry is famous for. However, this practice leaves the firm and its investors assets exposed to unforeseen market risks. The majority of funds now have risk assessment policies in place that monitor their liabilities-to-assets ratios and prevent individual traders from exceeding leverage limits.Due diligence in many aspects of the hedge fund business has increased since the 2008 financial crisis. Fund managers are now acutely mindful of their brokerage trading connections, as well as the structure of asset-custody with transaction partners. Since the 2008 financial crisis hedge funds have learned the hard way that counter-party risks certainly do exist in the financial services sector, and the domino effect resulting from the collapse of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that even the best and brightest can be left exposed.

Why Your Business Needs Digital Marketing Services

Modern world screams technology from every angle, people are well occupied with their busy and demanding schedules, and don’t have time to look out for different brands, products and upcoming projects through the means of offline marketing, such as: paper-based newspapers, books, communication methods and traditional TV and radio broadcasts. In the current scenario internet and mobile phones are the most picked method to share any information, so when the term Digital Marketing is discussed, customers can access the information any time and any place as per their convenience. Internet and globalization have shrunk the world to an axis point, where people from all over the globe can access the information via computers, tablets or mobiles. Digital marketing is indeed a blessing for the business owners, where they can influence the image of their companies via digital marketing and can reach up to a larger chunk of customers globally.You Should Do Digital MarketingIn the era of technology, where Smartphone rules our life, we feel bound to access the product details online only through, mobiles, computers or tablets. A business turns does not mean the huge traffic on the product website, but that traffic converting to leads or boosting the sales. Online Marketing, is a tool which works on your customer’s psychology with the attractive content, ads followed by various other marketing tactics, Digital Marketing tools and techniques provide business owners the best chances for competition, survival and even for the business boost.Asking Price The first and the foremost reason to opt for digital marketing is, but obviously the cost-factor, which is quite economical, being compared to traditional offline marketing methods. To illustrate the fact a TV ad or newspaper advertisement can cost huge and with no guarantee of being noticed by everybody, on the contrary an email or social media campaign, can reach out to a mass population globally. Reliable Customer’s FeedbackAnother benefit, which really suits the need of the business, is the real-time and reliable customer feedback and reviews to upgrade the services with time. With digital marketing pattern business owners don’t need to spend excessively on surveys and customers’ feedback, but the unbiased information can be attained through internet marketing and ultimately win the customer’s trust. The better revenue growth expectancy of either small or medium enterprises can extend to 4 times much better by using digital marketing techniques, since it lets the product available to go larger and farther reaching markets both locally and abroad.Brand RecognitionOnline Marketing proves beneficial for the brand reputation, with satisfied customers and their real-time feedback, business owners can reach to other potential set of customers. This helps the business owners to make the brand reputation go viral as expected, further opening new doors of opportunities for reaching bigger markets and attain business growth.Conversion OptimizationSince the current era is turning more digital, than people do have the access over their gadgets at every time and business owners can remain available with their product, regardless of their time-zone restrictions and ultimately a larger reach to the consumers would lead to conversion, because the consumer would get what they are looking for a per their convenience. Without conversion, all the traffic would mean nothing and all the other marketing efforts would end in despair. This is the sole reason, why business owners put more efforts towards the digital marketing campaigns.Key Digital Marketing ToolsDigital Marketing can be done in various ways, below mentioned are a few of the major keys, although with the upcoming innovative technology methods, more would be added to this list.

Websites and SEO content

Blogs

Internet banner ads

Online video content

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

Email marketing

Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

Mobile marketing (SMS, MMS, etc.)
When a customer walks into a shop, the first step he/she follows is to inspect the product and then might leave without buying anything. Undeniably a larger number only come and go and very small groups make a buy. Even if the product website receives tons of website visitors daily or weekly, but none of them ever convert, then it’s alarming, because it leads to clear indication that the business will also cease to exist. Digital Marketing helps the business owners to utilize the tried and tested marketing tactics, which not just attract the superfluous traffic, but highly potential target traffic and would ensure the survival of the business.

The Attributes You Need to Have a Successful Home Based Business

Even though it seems as if almost everyone dreams of running a home based business, not everyone has what it takes to succeed with a home based business. There are certain attributes that you should have if you want to have a higher opportunity for success with a home based business.There is no doubt about the fact that you need to be a hard worker if you are going to succeed with your work from home business. A lot of people see a work from home business as a way to get out of the 9 to 5 job work frame. The truth is you will have times when you are up very early and working very late to make your business a success. You will find that there are times when you need to work on weekends and perhaps even on holidays. You cannot be intimidated by hard work if you want to run a home based business.It is important to be a highly motivated individual if you are going to run a home based business. You need to keep yourself on task no matter what line of work you select for your business. There will no longer be a boss telling you what to do and what to do it. You will need to be able to keep yourself motivated to succeed as well as anyone you might have working for you.Determination and optimism are important if you want to work from home. Many businesses will fail and those that don’t will have times when business is not good at all. You need to use determination and optimism to ride through the bad patches so that your business can excel. Do not give up hope the first time things do not go your way with the new business. If you believe in yourself and your business, you have more opportunity for success.People skills are important if you are going to operate a home based business. Anyone who is going to run a home based business must be able to have the best possible communication skills. If you have people working for you, you want to be able to motivate and inspire them. It will also be necessary to communicate well with your clients. As a business owner, you will want to have the people skills you need to keep customers satisfied even when things go wrong.Although not all home based business owners are organized, it is beneficial if you are. Being organized will make it less likely to make billing errors and other errors in your business paperwork. You are less likely to miss deadlines or to misplace items you need to provide clients with the intended products or services. If you are organized you will be able to stay on task and to make plants for the future of your business.Creativity is also an important attribute if you have a home based business. You want to have the creativity necessary to offer products and services that stand out from products and services offered by your competitors. You want to find creative ways to attract customers.The attributes listed above are very helpful if you want to have a successful home based business. If you have some or all of these attributes, you could be well on your way to success.