Graduation Speech :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

When I was in elementary school, I loved to read. I was a total nerd back then ... okay maybe I still am, but one thing has changed. Now I don't so much like reading. My favorite poet was Shel Silverstein, who wrote "Where the Sidewalk Ends." He seemed like he was a total hippie, but that's cool because I like hippies. My grandma is a recovering hippie. I like her too. Anyway, Shel Silverstein wrote about the coolest things. He wrote about magical erasers, eating whales and a boy with long hair flying away from people who were taunting him. He captured all of the things that I loved without knowing that I actually loved them. Now you may ask, how does this hippie relate to our graduation? Well, he wrote a poem entitled "Traffic Light" and this is how it goes: "The traffic light simply would not turn green So the people stopped to wait As the traffic rolled and the wind blew cold And the hour grew dark and late "Zoom-varuum, trucks, trailers, Bikes and limousines, Clatterin' by - me oh my! Won't that light turn green? "But the days turned weeks, and the weeks turned months And there on that corner they stood, Twiddlin' their thumbs till the changin' comes The way good people should. "And if you walk by that corner now, You may think it's rather strange To see them there as they hopefully gaze With the very same smile on their very same face As they patiently stand in the very same place And wait for the light to change." Last year I took Ms. Gilbert. A good chunk of you have as well. For those of you who didn't , if you looked around and saw pathetic-looking, sleep-deprived zombies, those were Ms. Abbott's victims ... I mean students. As a direct result of her class, I cannot do anything without finding symbolism in it. Darn her for making me find meaning in life. What a concept! The poem "Traffic Light" is dripping with symbolism. We, the class of 2003, have been standing at a traffic light.

Imprint

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be, but when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way. Some people come into our lives and quickly go, while others move our souls to dance. They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for awhile, leave Imprints in our hearts,  and we are never, ever the same. These are the people who enter our lives with a unique lesson to teach us. And it is only through these lessons that we learn about life, people, relationships, and ourselves. So appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Look beyond the masks people wear if you want to know their heart, and remove your own masks to let people know yours. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself; it will be hard for others to believe in you. Everything is possible with heart and dedication. Try every thing once, there are times when we must quit something, but call it â€Å"letting go of loose ends. Communication is key, love with all your heart. Live the life that makes you feel complete, makes you happy, and makes you wake up every morning with a smile. There's always something to learn, someone to meet, and something extraordinary to tell. It's about finding a meaning and sharing a story. Create the person you want to be in this world and in this life, and share the experiences and lessons with others. Because you know, it’s never too late to have a life, and it’s never too late to change one.

Measuring and managing interest rate risks - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 1046 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Critically evaluate the re-pricing model, maturity model and duration model that are used by financial institutions for measuring and managing interest rate risk. Your answer should also indicate the method preferred by the BIS and the reasons why this is the case. Interest risk is the possibility of unexpected adverse changes in interest revenues and expenses. It can be shown that interest rate changes are unpredictable almost 100%. They depend on monetary policy; supply and demand, inflation etc. These in turn depend on many other factors. So how do financial institutions manage the risk of fluctuating interest rates give that they cannot predict it? The immunization of a portfolio against interest rate risk means that the portfolio will neither gain nor lose value if interest rates change. In this essay we will look at some of the different models used by financial institutions for managing interest rate risk. They are the re-pricing model, the maturit y model and the duration model. We will describe them and evaluate the comparative advantages and disadvantages each model assumes. Firstly we consider the re-pricing model. It is a balance sheet where assets and liabilities are grouped according to the time periods in which the different assets and liabilities are rate sensitive. Assets or liabilities are rate sensitive within a given time period if the values of each are subject to receiving a different interest rate should market rates change. These groupings are referred to as ‘maturity buckets’. Then ‘Gap analysis’ is conducted where the rate sensitive liabilities are subtracted from rate sensitive assets for each maturity bucket. This is called the GAP. It can be shown that GAP * interest change = net interest income (or profit) change or the interest margin. We can also calculate the cumulative gap(CGAP) by adding up the gaps in the brackets over a period of time, for example 1 year. As long as CG APlt;0, there exists a net negative effect of a rate increase on net interest income. For each moment in time CGAP * interest change indicates how much higher or lower at that moment the net interest income is. The idea is that the risk can be managed by reducing gaps in individual maturity ‘buckets’ towards zero by using different combinations of assets and liabilities of different maturities. The advantage of this model is that is simple to use. The disadvantages are that it is static. That is, it only uses current balances without taking into account possible growth or changes in activities. It captures a specific moment in time as if nothing else would change, but there will be a change because interest rate fluctuation continues. In addition the model assumes that all rate sensitive assets and liabilities follow the change in market interest rates 100% at their moment of re-pricing which is not always the case. Short-term assets may change faster than long-te rm assets and some financial contracts limit rate adjustment. If the chosen maturity buckets are too long, the re-pricing model may produce inaccurate results because there may be large differences in the time to re-pricing for different securities within each maturity bucket. Similarly, the maturity gap for a bank is the average maturity of the assets minus the average maturity of the liabilities within each maturity bracket. For a given change in interest rates, fixed-rate assets with longer-term maturities will have greater changes in price than assets with shorter maturities. We can immunise the balance sheet by matching the maturities of assets and liabilities. From the standpoint of the maturity model, if the average maturity of assets is 1.5 years and the average maturity of liabilities is 1.5 years, and then the FI has no interest rate risk exposure. A major shortcoming of the maturity and the re-pricing model is its neglect of reinvestment income on interim cash fl ows and the timing of the cash flows is likely to differ between the assets and liabilities. A duration model uses the maturity or re-pricing schedule but applies sensitivity weights to each time band. Such weights are based on estimates of the duration of the assets and liabilities that fall into each time band. Duration is a measure of the percentage change in the economic value of a position that will occur given a small change in the level of interest rates under the simplifying assumptions that changes in value are proportional to changes in the level of interest rates and that the timing of payments is fixed. An average duration is assumed for the assets and liabilities within each maturity bracket. The average durations are then multiplied by an assumed change in interest rates to construct a weight for each time band. The weighted gaps are aggregated across time bands to produce an estimate of the change in net interest income for the bank. The BIS, an international or ganisation for central banks and other agencies in pursuit of monetary and financial stability, regularly publishes reviews and guidelines for financial institutions. It advises that estimates derived from a standard duration approach may provide an good approximation of a banks exposure to in interest rates for relatively non-complex banks. However, for more complex banks it advises modified models that relax some assumptions of the standard duration model such as the linearity between percentage changes in value and percentage change in market interest rate and the assumption that cash flows are fixed, which is an important limitation of standard duration models. Foe example an institution could estimate the effect of changing market rates by calculating the precise duration of each asset and liability and then deriving the net interest income for the bank. The answer is the based on more accurate duration measures. More complex models are available, such as various simulations based on predicting the future interest rate movement using Monte Carlo simulations and which take into account various other factor such as consumer behavior, for example, and attempts to model it. The BIS warns that these models, while more comprehensive require more care and are only as good as the assumptions used. They advise effective management and frequent re-assessment of assumptions underlying the model. Sources. https://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2004/el2004-26.html https://www.few.eur.nl/few/people/smant/a1609/notes/c4_fininst2-riskintr.pdf https://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs108.pdf Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Measuring and managing interest rate risks" essay for you Create order