Electronic Signatures Essay Example for Free

Electronic Signatures Essay As compared to paper based signatures there is an increased dependability on electronic signatures for an increased protection of documents and patient records in healthcare facilities. Thereby this paper will discuss an importance of electronic signatures in addition to the advantages that they have in order to be implemented in healthcare, business and e-commerce. Introduction Signature is more known as a script that has been designed by an individual and is associated with that very individual. Signatures in some cases have been associated with seals used for protection. In general, signatures are an evidence of the fact that all intentions made in a certain document have been approved by the individual signing it. Purposes of signatures are the same as that of normal and usual signatures as all intentions made in an electronic document are approved by an individual who undersigns a document with an electronic signature (Brazell, 2004, p. 23). Many definitions have been given in relation to the electronic signature. All in all these definitions highlight the fact that as compared to hand written signatures, electronic signatures are more protective and sealed thereby there is an increased reliability associated with electronic signatures. Defining Electronic Signatures First definition that needs a mention here is given by US Code. It defines an electronic signature as an electronic sound, or a symbol that represents documents in a unique way as these symbols are associated with these documents in a legal manner. According to this definition symbols are adopted and chosen by an individual who wishes to sign, seal and protect a document thereby making sure that all intentions are accepted by that very individual. The US code argues that the signatures can be embedded in transmissions of electronic documents observed during transmission of facsimiles. The electronic signature can also take the form of Morse code in case of electronic message transmission as the signs are embedded inside the message. Realizing an importance of the protective and sealing protection offered by electronic signatures, there is an increased use of encrypted electronic messages in fields that are more sensitive about integrity of documents thereby e-commerce, healthcare, government office are observed to frequently adopt the technology of electronic signatures (Schellekens, 2004, p. 56). Legal standing of these electronic signatures has been well established thereby the laws of EU and US recognize electronic signatures holding the same legal importance as ordinary signatures on documents. Legal issues and consequences that are associated with electronic signatures are same as normal and usual signatures. Historical Perspective of Electronic Signatures Electronic signatures have been known to exist since before the American Civil War. Electronic signatures date back to 1860s when electronically encrypted messages were being used by the help of Morse codes in telegraphy. Telegraphy in those days was used to send messages that were more secret and in agreements to terms that were presented in certain kinds of enforceable contracts. Legal standing of these electronic messages dates back to 1869 when an importance of these telegraphically encrypted documents was enforced by the New Hampshire Supreme Court (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, 2002, p. 78). In order to ensure protection, and time sensitive delivery of protected documents to safer places, in 1980s, many organizations started working on electronic signatures in order to encrypt documents. For encrypting highly sensitive documents, fax machines were used. Nevertheless in this case it has been seen that although original signatures used to be on the paper, but images of signatures and transmission used to be in an electronic format thereby ensuring increased protection. Recently it has been seen that various legal interventions have been made in order to enhance protection offered by electronic signatures. It has been added by the US courts that documents that can be protected and sealed by electronic signatures can include emails, PIN codes that are used for ATM transactions in banks, credit or debit sllip that needs to be protected by signing it with a digital pen pad device, installing kinds of software that comes with a clickwrap software license agreement along with documents that are often signed online that need enhanced protection. It has been recorded that the first document signed in an electronic way was between two sovereign nations, United States and Ireland in a communique that jointly recognized an importance of electronic signatures in trading and e-commerce (Katsikas, Lopez, and Pernul, 2005, p. 78). Enforcing Electronic Signatures United States has defined electronic signatures in legal ways and a set of requirements have been set that help in qualifying an electronic signatures as authentic. These requirements and qualifications of electronic signatures were designed by National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in 1999 when this US based government organization released Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA). UETA has defined electronic signatures as electronic symbols that are associated with a certain document in relation to which all intention have been accepted by the individual who owns and signs the particular document. There are many laws that echo core concepts of electronic signatures and these are also observed to be the same in U. S. ESign Act that was presented and implemented in the year of 2000. Many states in United States have been working on the laws and jurisdiction in relation to the electronic signatures and more than 47 states in United States along with the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands have enacted and have been using UETA in an active manner. Only three states as New York, Illinois and Washington have not enacted UETA. New York has designed its own rule that recognizes electronic signatures as legal and the law that represents these signatures is Electronic Signatures and Records Act (ESRA) (Boss, and Kilian, 2008, p. 67). Other countries that have started assigning legal values to electronic signatures include Canada. The definition of electronic signatures given by Canadian legal authorities is generic and different from the one given by the US authorities. Generic definition of signature given by the Canadian Department Of Justice says that an electronic signature contains a chain of letters, symbols, and numbers encrypted in a digital format associated with a certain electronic document that belongs to an individual or a certain organization (Snijders, and Weatherill, 2003, p. 45). After this Canadian Department Of Justice has defined an electronic signature by arguing that electronic signature in contrast to normal signatures possess some distinct properties that define these signatures. Canadian law that talks about the digital signatures in accordance to the protection of electronic documents is PIPEDA. PIPEDAs secure electronic signature regulations argue that electronic signatures are those that are designed, applied and verified in a specific manner. European Union has also given its rules and regulations in accordance to the use of electronic signatures in document protection systems. These laws have been published in the EC Official Journal. These laws are referred to as the Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council while officially these are more often referred as the EU Directive on Electronic Signatures or the EU Electronic Signatures Directive. These were published on 13th December 1999 (Adams, and Lloyd, 2003, p. 78). Maintaining Legal Nature of Electronic Signatures Various laws and jurisdictions have been defined that help e-commerce and trade to incorporate the advantages of electronic signatures in daily business deals that can help in increased document protection. It has been realized that at a local and an international level there is a need to incorporate certain document protection systems that can help in easy working and trustworthy document sharing within different parties. 1. Definitions of PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) An electronic signature can be defined as being safe when a. It is unique to an individual b. Technology that is being used in order to generate signatures are under the control and only being used by the person who creates the signature thereby adding to the level of uniqueness. c. The technology being used to create signatures should be able to represent an individual who has created the signatures. d. The electronic signatures are to be linked with an electronic document in various ways. One way that has been defined by Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act argues that the electronic document should be able to identify, by the help of electronic signatures associated with it, if any changes have been made to this document after signatures were associated with the document originally (Kehal, and Singh, 2005, p. 78). 2. The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act This law was passed by the US congress in relation to the electronic signatures and this law has defined and authorized the electronic signatures in three steps. a. The term ‘electronic’ in electronic signatures has been highlighted as something that possesses digital, symbolic, magnetic, wireless, electromagnetic, electric properties. b. Electronic record on the other hand has been defined as a document, contract that has been generated, created, shared, discussed, and sent by using electronic means. c. Electronic signatures have been defined by The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act as an electronic sound, symbol or a process that is legally and authoritatively associated with a document created by an individual holding rights to create, sign and decrypt the document in any manner thereby ‘patenting’ the document (Pathak, 2007, p. 34). Other similar definitions have been given by the following acts that relate to the use of electronic signatures. a. Government Paperwork Elimination Act, US b. Federal Reserve 12 CFR 202 c. UETA d. Commodity Futures Trading Commission 17 CFR Part 1 Sec. 1. 3. Creation of Electronic Signatures: Public Key Infrastructures (PKI) Importance of electronic signatures has been realized since long as it has been seen that these are more important in protecting the legal status of documents in a comparative manner. Thereby secure and much complex ways have been identified that can define electronic signatures in ways that ensure their legal status in order to protect records. Creation of electronic signatures depends on asymmetrical cryptographic method. This method ensures that the kinds of protection status being encrypted in the document are only approachable by the person who creates the signatures on the document. Thereby two kinds of keys are used in this case and these are referred to as public and private cryptographic keys. The theoretical fundamentals and practicalities of the asymmetric cryptographic key were laid down in 1976 (Doukidis, Mylonopoulos, and Pouloudi, 2004, p. 79). In accordance to the theory and recent ways that have been developed for electronically signing a document, a number is calculated that represents the length of a document and this number is referred to as the checksum of a particular document. This checksum is calculated by using a hash function. This is the case where a private key is used which is more representative of the person signing the document. Thereby signature is represented by private key which in the end is attached to a document. This private key is thereby a signature of the document. Role of Public Key Another key that plays an important role in this case is a public key. An important that is played by a public key is that the signature’s and relevant document can be checked by the public key. Public key as the name indicates is freely and easily available to any individual within the public. Decryption of the electronic key is performed by the help of an electronic signature. Integrity Check An integrity check is an important part of electronic signature allocation. It has been seen that integrity of a document can be checked by recalculating the checksum number that was allocated to the document originally. As was done during the calculation of checksum, the recalculation of checksum is also done with the help of hash functions. Integrity of the document can be validated if the checksums are identical ensuring that the integrity of the document is intact (Rice, and American Bar Association, Section of Litigation, 2005, p. 78). Role of Certificates Public keys and cryptographic keys are the most important part of the electronic signature creation thereby there is a need of a system that can authorize the genuine nature of these keys. Both of these keys are authorized by a certificate. Certificates are specially created electronic documents that associate and connect the public key with the key holder’s identification data that in this case has to be unique. On the other hand in order to provide increased protection it has been observed that to ensure increased protection, certificates are also electronically signed by the certification providers that are also authorized. All these links and methodologies designed to sign the documents make sure that document is signed, encrypted and decrypted by using the public key only by the person who has created the document. Certification service providers play important roles as Trusted Third Party offering services other than certificates for protection of electronic documents. Certification service providers are known to provide a set of directory services that are also related to electronic documents. These are the services that bring the protection provided by the electronic signatures a step ahead. Directory services provide additional measures by which the certificates can be checked for authentication time by time. Advantages of Electronic Signatures These days there is a need to exchange business in a fast manner that requires and demands exchange of information including documents in a secure manner. It has been realized that exchanging information on a regular basis is more secure in an electronic manner rather on paper. 1. Electronic information takes lesser time to travel as compared to the paper based information thereby there is no time wasted (Mann, Eckert, and Knight, 2000, p. 67). 2. The cost of electronic signature based documents is only needed in the beginning of this setup and there are no additional costs required after its implementation. 3. Because of the electronic nature of documents, there is lesser involvement of human beings other than the ones that are directly involved ensuring security in case of these documents. 4. Because of an electronic nature of these documents there is a lesser chance of interruption and interference in electronic documents that increasingly ensures the protection of these documents. In terms of protection it has been observed that electronic signature based documents are more secure and protected as compared to paper based signatures. 1. In this case it has been argued that the electronic signatures are not able to be copied as compared to the normal paper based signatures and electronic signatures are implemented on the complete document rather than the last page. 2. In this case it has been observed that as electronic signatures are implemented on whole document thereby there are no chances of any text being maliciously changed in any part of the document. 3. Time stamping is the proof of transmission time of the document thereby transmission dates can be cross checked in order to check the legal status of the document. 4. Additional restrictions can be imposed on the message content in electronically signed documents. It has been observed that with the consent of the document holder and creator, reader can read and verify the contents of the document (Katsikas, Lopez, and Pernul, 2005, p. 45). Other than these, additional advantages that are offered by the electronically signed documents include streamlining businesses and trade globally and on a local scale. Business chains are better connected when paper documents are removed having a much better control on business with the help of electronic documents. 1. Increased cost are associated with typing documents and sending these through courier and these costs are reduced in case of electronic documents that take lesser time to be emailed and fixed. 2. In case of signing the contracts an important issue used to deal with signing the contracts which is resolved by electronic signature based reinforce bale contracts that are signed anywhere. Electronic Signatures Usage in Medial Healthcare Records Healthcare in the modern days is recognized by an increase in the specialization of medical specialization. In order to ensure that patient care process is optimized there is an increased cooperation and data exchange between different healthcare institutions. Thereby it has been observed that in order to ensure timely, cost effective and economic patient care, often known as shared care, there is a need to increasingly exchange information with healthcare institutions and medical facilities. The kinds of patient record systems that are adopted these days are increasingly dependent upon the data exchange. On the other hand it has been realized that there are many shortcomings associated with paper based documents that have been also held responsible for a decreased efficiency of healthcare institutions, thereby there is an increased adoption of electronic signatures on the documents (Boss, and Kilian, 2008, p. 38). In order to ensure that all heath care operations undergo in a proper, streamlined and a secure manner there is a need to implement the technology of electronic signatures to the field of healthcare. Paper based signatures are time consuming and are less protecting as compared to electronic signatures thereby in the field of healthcare, document authenticity is a critical business operation. There is a set of documents that are in a need to be protected in face of infringements and these documents include patient records, physician diagnosis, order, bills and payments. Thereby based on the set of advantages that have been highlighted in the previous sections healthcare facilities in different countries have started to implement electronic signatures. Recently there are many changes in United States health departments in order to implement electronic signatures based documents. It has been recently reported that regulations have been passed and implemented by the Drug Enforcement Agency in order to implement electronic signatures on medical prescriptions that are of electronic nature in order to ensure that original prescriptions are checked on the counters of pharmacies rather than cooked ones. Another law that has been passed by the Veteran’s Health Administration relates to the consent forms that are signed by the patients. In order to protect these forms, protection is being ensured by the implementation of electronic signatures on these forms. In healthcare administration various standards have been defined that link important records and documents with encrypted signatures. Recently a standard has been defined that helps in an authentication of medical records of the patients, an ASTM standard. In order to electronically sign the radiological images, DICOM standard have been used and are in practice. Most of the documents in medical centers and healthcare institutions are related to signatures, including signatures from families, patients and physicians. Thereby after the creation of these documents it is important that these documents are protected and sealed by the help of electronic signatures. Successes of document security solution lies in the fact of creating documents that are electronically signed thereby are digitally protected. These protection measures have also been considered important in the case of offline and online business, e-commerce (Adams, and Lloyd, 2003, p. 24). Conclusion Internationally accepted standards have been defined that can help in securing the documents in a better manner. In case of healthcare it has been seen that there is an increased dependency on a long term archiving of patient records as soon as these are created and passed on to the other facilities. International standards have been used to define the signatures in accordance to the advantages that they ensure, as DICOM, XML, and HL7. In addition to this it has been argued that there is an increased integration of PKIs in healthcare services as these are designed in accordance to the legislations that have been designed in order to ensure document protection. References Adams, C. , and Lloyd, S. (2003). Understanding PKI: concepts, standards, and deployment; considerations, Technology series. Edition 2. Addison-Wesley. Boss, H. A. , and Kilian, W. (2008). The United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts. Kluwer Law International. Brazell, L. (2004). Electronic signatures law and regulation. Sweet Maxwell. Doukidis, I. G. , Mylonopoulos, N. , and Pouloudi, N. (2004). Social and economic transformation in the digital era. Idea Group Inc (IGI). Katsikas, K. S. , Lopez, J. ,and Pernul, G. (2005). Trust, privacy, and security in digital business: second international conference, TrustBus 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 22-26, 2005:proceedings, Lecture notes in computer science, Springer eBook collection. Birkhauser. Kehal, S. H. , and Singh, P. V. (2005). Digital economy: impacts, influences, and challenges. Idea Group Inc (IGI). Mann, L. C. , Eckert, E. S. , and Knight, C. S. (2000). Global electronic commerce: a policy primer. Peterson Institute. Pathak. (2007). Legal Aspects Of Business. Edition 3. Tata McGraw-Hill. Rice, R. P. , and American Bar Association. Section of Litigation. (2005). Electronic evidence: law and practice. American Bar Association. Schellekens, M. (2004). Electronic signatures: authentication technology fro

Slavery :: Slavery Essays

Slavery is an issue we may never be free of, we may think this is bad but the Romans including people such as Hammurabi and Aristotle believed that slavery was essential to life and would have thought that this wouldn't matter. This especially didn't matter since slaves were only seen as objects or tools. Although there are still people who probably believe in what the Romans did, but now we now classify all people as equal. Anyone could have become a slave if they either: 1. Committed a crime 2. Were a prisoner of war 3. Not have roman citizenship 4. Sold into slavery These were the most obvious reasons for becoming a slave in roman times and yet only one of these points are still popular for today and that is number 4, because most slaves of today come from poor families. It is the poorer class of people today that are the target mainly because they would be so desperate that they would sell their children into slavery for a small profit. Nowadays slavery is restricted to jobs in more remote locations for obvious reasons so you wouldn't find slaves working for or around the city, But rather in and around households in the country. Slaves back in roman times however were forced to work in the city and for anyone they were sold to. They had a huge range of jobs stretching from household slaves to field slaves and mining slaves to gladiators (Gladiators were created solely for the purpose of entertainment due to a lot more slaves). This was normal for Romans since they depended on slaves to do everything that they didn't want to do. Today some of them are given the very worst jobs like prostitution, work in factories, sugar cane fields and even private forms of work. As I stated before, it is mainly poor families that are somewhat involved in either been taken or sold into slave labor but it can also be people from several different racial backgrounds. Many come from places like China, Africa, Russia, South Africa and Egypt. In ancient times war was a popular place for capturing people to be sold into slavery this gave the army a lot of its money and power, what I am saying is that Romans captured merciless people and sent them back to their country. Hammurabi had a basis of discipline on the slave and also one on its master that the master be fair to his slave.

Stock Track Simulation Sample

PART1-Investment Policy Statement Purpose of Policy Statement The purpose of the Policy Statement is to create an agreement between XXXX, YYY, and ZZZ to collectively manage a mock $1,000,000 portfolio during the 2011 fall semester. It will define the investment objectives, strategies, and risks associated with this portfolio. Investment Objectives The objective of our team is to seek capital appreciation of portfolio in three months.Moreover, given the little risk tolerance of the team, our nominal return should exceeds the rate of inflation over some period of the time through capital gains, and increase the purchase power of our group. The chosen benchmark to beat is the S&P index. Investment Strategies Our investment strategies are somewhere in between to maximize expected returns and to minimize risks. We use Market timing as one of our strategies to maximum our returns. The market timing strategy is to making buy or sell decisions of financial assets by attempting to predict fu ture market price movements.The prediction is based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis. Also we another strategy is to analysis base on performance of a particular financial asset. The start-up fund was divided into six parts: 10% cash, 5% mutual funds, 55% stocks, 30% bonds, and may vary by+/-5%. Given the short time frame, liquidity is a concern and as such long-term speculative investments such as real estate, art and antiques, and collectibles will be avoided.Only those investments than can be traded on a short-term notice will be used. Taxes and trading costs will not be considered since this is a simulation. Investment Risk On the grounds of strong risk aversion expressed within the team, risk bearing in excess of general market risk is not tolerated. Moreover, the team strives to mitigate the inevitable share of market risk as much as possible. As to the weight assigned to each stock that is central to risk control, there is a cap of 25% of the fund that is available to each stock.No extra use of fund is allowed on single stock basis. PART2-Methodology 1. Well-Diversified & Best Risk-Return Trade-off Portfolios After we established the investment policy that specified our investment objectives, risk tolerance, allocation of different types of securities in details, we then sought for the best selections of securities. Generally, our first methodology was very simple but useful: maintain an appropriate level of portfolio diversification, and maximize the total return on our investment meanwhile limit the total risk.According to this basic approach, firstly, we divided our bond investment into four portions equally in Treasury Bonds and different corporate bonds, which enjoyed good credits, rated above A, and operated stable and profitable in the long-run: |Table1 Bond Selections | | |Coupon Rate/Maturity |Rating | |T-Note |3. 75%/15-Feb-2013 |AAA | |MetLife Inc. |5. 000%/15-Jun-2015 |A | |Morg an Stanley |5. 250%/02-Feb-2012 |A | |Merck & Co Inc. |4. 000%/30-Jun-2015 |AA | Secondly, with respect to the reserved attitude for mutual funds, our team decided to only invest in two of them, taking up 5% of our whole portfolio value totally.The following table provides summary information on these two funds: |Table2 Mutual Fund Selections | | |Blackrock Aggressive Prepared P (BCAPX) |Goldman Sachs Trust Equity Growth (GAPAX) | |Category |Large Blend |World Stock | |YTD Return |-3. 94% |-5. 30% | |Morningstar Overall Rating | | |Beta |1. 01 |0. 96 | |Mean Annual Return |1. 02 |1. 00 | |R-squared |96. 63 |95. 10 | |Standard Deviation |20. 05 |22. 64 | |Sharp Ratio |0. 0 |0. 52 | |Treynor Ratio |10. 53 |10. 21 | |Source: www. yahoo. com/finance | |www. reuters. com/finance | |All information are based on 3 years performance of the mutual funds |Finally, we would invest into two major kinds of stocks with different risk-return trade-offs. We would buy and hold value stocks from well-known, high-credited and strong firms with the attempt to diversify our portfolio and gain a stable growth. On the other hand, we would also choose some other growth stocks, which were generally characterized as higher-risky, non-US and more volatile, aiming at buying them low and selling them high to â€Å"speculate† or â€Å"gamble† the extraordinary gains in a relatively short period.Due to the complex and crucial features for stock selection, we thereafter developed a comprehensive procedure particularly, called a blend of â€Å"Specific Analysis† and â€Å"Overall Analysis† by our own, to help us select our portfolio wisely. 2. Specific Fundamental Analysis When choosing the value stocks, we primarily applied the fundamental analysis including different kinds of analyses for sectors, firm’s specific potentials, cash flows, earnings, and dividends. This procedure had approximate four steps: To begin with, we would view the sector and firm ’s overall ability because we were buying a business, not a stock.Generally, corporates in prosperous industries and growing stages would likely take our prior consideration. An important indicator to show whether a corporate has potential ability was the historical prices of its stock. Therefore, a long-run descend stock price usually implied the decline of the firm, which largely against our favor. Then we needed more fundamental analysis for a firm’s earning ability in depth, such as earning per share that shows how well earning support its shareholders’ benefits and the P/E ratio that indicates how investors expect its future earning power.General speaking, we preferred earning growth at least 7% annually and P/E ratios at the lowest 10% of all equity securities when selecting the growth stocks. After viewing a firm’s possible return, we next looked into another important factor-the risks along with the firm. Basically we would like to know the firmâ €™s Beta that measures how much the systematic risk affects the firm’s stock and the leverage ratio that discloses its financial stability and stress. Thus we were looking for firms having low Beta and D/E ratio of no more than 1.Finally, we would use the discounted cash flow model to find out the reasonable market value for the firm’s stock and to see whether it is incorrectly undervalued by the market. The following table provided the summary of our holding-oriented equity securities: |Table3 Stock Selections | | | |Google Inc. (GOOG) | |New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. EDU) | 3. Overall Performance Analysis After well knowing the firms and their stocks we chosen from the comprehensive selection procedure, we took one more step to mix then together and see how much our portfolio’s overall proposition fits our objectives and expectations. We decided to combine all equity securities, bonds and mutual funds, which we would like to hold for a rel atively long time span and calculate the overall expected rate of return and risk using Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). 4.Tracking and Monitoring Process While the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) claimed that the stock prices were reflecting all relevant news and information and always showing the inherent value of the company, valuing a stock was just a vain attempt. Our team members, however, were more inclined to believe that the EMH was honestly set up in the academic wonderland. Thus, beside the stock valuation analysis addressed above, we also made the agreement that paying attention to both whole market and firm specific news on daily basis and making appropriate adjustments according to the news in time.In addition, we would keep tracking and recording our portfolio’s overall performance and rating on a week basis meanwhile monitoring the growth stock’s specific performance on daily basis because day-time monitoring and trading could enable us to avoid th e big loss due to the high volatility of them and grab the best time to gain the extraordinary profits. PART3-Microanalysis of the Market During this stock simulation, our group has learned that it’s quite instrumental to analyze and, if possible, follow the market trend for the sake of wise investment.Hence, microanalysis of the market is equally, and sometimes more important as the number analysis. Since the stock simulation only lasted for three months, out group mainly did the short-term analysis. Depending on our analysis, world’s financial market has become more volatile and unpredictable for the short run, primarily because the global economy grows sluggishly and involves more risky events. Several reasons are illustrated as follows. The euro zone debt crisis is the number one big headache. The debt problem in Europe has become persistent and pervasive. Greece experienced the most serious situation.Simply, Greece has borrowed much more money than they can pay ba ck. Italy is in better financial shape, but still risky since investors continued demand high interest rate of its bond. Other countries, such as Spain and even France, the second largest euro zone economy, have also been under pressure as investors question the creditworthiness of every euro zone government. Consequently, the global stocks, especially European and American Stocks have caught the euro zone flu. Investors have become super sensitive about each piece of information associated with the term, euro zone.Our group has recorded that the Dow Jones Industry Average index fluctuated mostly following the euro zone policy changes. It soared rapidly when European Union announced the Greek rescue plan and plumped immediately when the Greek government announced the Greek referendum the next day. â€Å"Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions. † said Bob Janjuah, fixed income analyst at Nomura Securities (‘The eurozone†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, 2011). † In additi on, the future of U. S. economy is ambiguous. U. S. has been through a tough time since the subprime mortgage crisis. Analysts share different point of views about whether U.S. is experiencing a recovery or recession. First, the macroeconomic data tells an unclear story. The growth rate of real GDP (As illustrated by the figure below) in the third quarter is 2. 0%, higher than the previous two quarters. While compared to the previous year, we can see the U. S. economy has slowed down. Though the U. S. economy has jumped out of the mire in 2008, it remains unstable. While we focusing on the recent year data, we can see no big signal of an up-coming boom or bust. As showed below, the unemployment rate has remained above 9 percent.New jobs are created, but not sufficient. Average Hourly Earnings remains the same. CPI and PPI both declined on October, primarily due to the decline of energy price. In addition, the 2011 U. S. fiscal policy remains neutral. The market is unlikely to get fu rther stimulus. Also we can forecast an increase in the rate of fiscal tightening at the federal level over the next period of time. Overall, U. S. economy still remains unsustainable and U. S. financial market is highly sensitive, which can be immediately shocked by each piece of up-coming information, whether positive or negative. Table4 United States – Monthly Data | |Data Series | | |Our Value |Rank |S&P500 |Comparison with peers | | | | | |Google |Kraft |BRK-B |BP | |09/13/2011 |529. 2 |34. 23 |68. 85 |36. 45 | |09/20/2011 |546. 63 |34. 52 |69. 72 |38. 77 | |09/27/2011 |539. 34 |34. 93 |72. 07 |37. 94 | |10/4/2011 |501. 90 |32. 86 |73. 17 |35. 42 | |10/11/2011 |543. 8 |34. 40 |73. 41 |38. 36 | |10/18/2011 |590. 51 |35. 24 |75. 07 |41. 11 | |10/25/2011 |583. 16 |34. 93 |75. 74 |43. 52 | |11/1/2011 |578. 65 |34. 56 |75. 52 |42. 72 | |11/8/2011 |612. 4 |35. 48 |78. 16 |44. 70 | |11/15/2011 |616. 56 |35. 48 |75. 93 |43. 70 | |11/18/2011 |594. 88 |34. 77 |75. 37 |42. 48 | |To tal Return |12. 34% |1. 58% |9. 47% |16. 54% | Source: www. google. com/financeFrom the table and graph above, we could clearly see that the best performer in our portfolio was BP with a 16. 54% total return, while the worst one was Kraft with a total return of 1. 58% during the holding period. Among all of the four holding-oriented securities, the only one underperformed than the benchmark, namely S&P500, was Kraft. All other three stocks had much better return than the S&P500 of 3. 64%. Overall, these observe actually proved that our selection approach for holding-oriented stocks was successful. PART5-Conclusion What we did successfully:Generally speaking, the first class we learned from this three-month stock simulation is how to select stocks and establish a portfolio wisely and systematically. From initially setting up the investment policy, we explored how to select and allocate the individual securities, how to diversify our portfolio to minimize the risks, and how to find th e best return-risk trade-off for our portfolio. Through this procedure, we really needed to use all financial knowledge we have learned before, including fundamental analysis, ratio analysis, technical analysis, free cash flow analysis and so on.Another significant difference is that we did pay a lot attention to follow macroeconomic and financial news, as well as particular news about our securities. It brought us more quickly and sensitive observe ability to what happened all over the world than before. In addition, we did well on diversifying our portfolio and minimize the systematic risks. Since we established an investment policy in details that we strictly implemented, we had everything under control and didn’t expose to any extraordinary risks out of our expectation.What we would improve in the future: Unfortunately, we did beat the benchmark performance finally, although we once did well and ranked better during the trading period. Firstly, we had to admit that someti mes we have delayed trading and tracking our portfolio, resulting in great losses on some particular stocks. Besides, we had limited experience on daytime trading and using on-time information, so we sometimes encounter unexpected results. For example, we sold Apple’s stocks immediately after we got the news about its CEO, Steven Jobs’s death.However, as we all know, the Apple’s price wasn’t affected a lot in the next trading date. In the way that was expected, unlike our holding-oriented stocks, our gambling-oriented stocks general performances were typically unsatisfied. Therefore, we concluded that wisely selecting stocks according to the macroeconomics and fundamental analysis and then holding them for a relatively long period would be the best way to gain profit from security market.Interestingly, we also found that people might not that know themselves on risk tolerance. Whatever from our investment policy or our trading strategy and results, our po rtfolio is somewhat risk-averse, so we well diversified our investment and always holding a relatively high level of bonds and mutual funds, as well as some excess cash. Interesting finding is that, however, our group members got all high-risk-tolerance ranking in the survey that we finished on class. Appendix1 Ratio Calculation Spreadsheet pic] Appendix2 Class Ratings [pic] References â€Å"The eurozone debt crisis just won't quit†, retrospect from: http://finance. yahoo. com/news/eurozone-debt-crisis-just-wont-211300837. html â€Å"StanChart warns on China’s local-government debt†, retrospect from: http://www. marketwatch. com/story/stanchart-warns-on-chinas-local-government-debt-2011-09-20 Data, retrospect from www. yahoo. com/finance Data, retrospect from www. reuters. com/finance Data, retrospect from www. google. com/finance

Abortion Is Morally Permissible - 1675 Words

Abortion is defined as â€Å"The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.† (Oxford Dictionary). Nearly three out of ten women in the U.S. have an abortion by the time they are 45-years-old (Planned Parenthood). Abortion is morally permissible because an abortion prevents a woman and the potential child’s suffering. Abortion is moral because it is a fundamental right of competent adults to make their own decisions on the course of their medical treatment, can alleviate further suffering in immoral cases, such as rape and is protected by rule of law. I believe abortions are morally permissible. It is a procedure that will occur whether legal or not and I have no moral or legal imperative to prevent a woman from receiving safe medical intervention if she makes that decision. There are no comparable medical procedures where people feel they have a right to prevent a competent adult from exercising their options. Individuals that believe that abortion is immoral have no authority to offer opinions on medical treatment for anyone but themselves. If they are offended by abortion they should not have one. Suffering is defined as the â€Å"state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship† (Oxford Dictionaries). From this definition one can determine that abortion is ethical as there is no suffering for the fetus or the mother. While there may be some emotional indecision, the American Psychological Association sees no longShow MoreRelatedIs Abortion Morally Permissible?966 Words   |  4 PagesA Defense of Abortion, she argues that abortion is permissible because an individual’s right over their own body outweighs a fetus’s right to life. In this paper I will focus on whether or not abortion is always permissible. First, I will present Thomson’s argument which says that abortion is sometimes permissible. I will do so by describing her â€Å"famous violinist† thought experiment. Next, I will object to Thomson’s claim and expand the scope of her argument by arguing that abortion is in fact, alwaysRead MoreAbortion Is Morally Permissible?1817 Wor ds   |  8 PagesAbortion is the willful and deliberate termination of pregnancy before the fetus comes to term; meaning the death of a fetus. Not having access to safe and legal abortions can cause more pain than positive it can lead women to be injured or infertile or even dead. Also, the denial of access to safe and legal abortion is said to be depriving women of the right to control their own body. However, the above point does not persuade people who are against abortion because they believe that fetuses areRead MoreIs Abortion Morally Permissible?1977 Words   |  8 PagesThe question of whether or not abortion is morally permissible is widely disputed amongst those who are pro-life or pro-choice. While in some societies abortion has been outlawed, others either entirely allow for it or consider abortion permissible on a case-by-case basis. Many pro-lifers classify abortion as immoral, some even considering it murder. Abortion is typically defined as terminating a pregnancy before the fetus is able to survive outside of the womb. A crucial factor in determining whetherRead MoreIs Abortion Morally Permissible?1879 Words   |  8 PagesAbortion is morally permissible in all cases; regardless of how the pregnancy came about. The question of whether the fetus is granted personhood at conception or anytime during its development is entirely irrelevant. The right to control your own body often trumps someone’s right to life. Even if you declare personhood to the fetus, it does not determine the morality of abortion. Whether it is â€Å"killing an innocent child† or not does not take away the fact that this country has time and time againRead MoreThesis: Is Abortion Morally Permissible?851 Words   |  4 PagesAbortion Thesis: Abortion is morally permissible in which a fetus is not a person which deprives the fetus to its right to life, circular reasoning is an ineffective to oppose abortion, abortion only risks the fetus not society, and deprivation from a fetuss future and suffering of a loved one has no affect on the argument towards anti-abortion. Mary Anne Warren in On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion stated the characteristics which are central to the concept of personhood which are â€Å"sentienceRead MoreEssay about Is Abortion Morally Permissible or Not?1322 Words   |  6 Pagesthe morality of abortion with specific reference to the writings of Don Marquis, Judith Jarvis Thompson, Peter Singer and Mary Anne Warren. I will begin by assessing the strength of the argument provided by Marquis which claims that abortion is impermissible because it deprives a being of a potential â€Å"future like ours,† and then go on to consider the writings of Singer, Thomson and Warren to both refute Marquis claims and support my assertion that abortion is morally permissible primarily becauseRead MoreEssay about Abortion: Morally Permissible or Impermissible?2524 Words   |  11 PagesAbortion: Morally Permissible or Impermissible? Abortion can be defined as a means of terminating a pregnancy by removing or expelling a fetus from the uterus before viability. Abortion has been, and will always be, a controversial issue in today’s society and in the future. People have always struggled to determine whether it is ethical to abort a fetus; morally permissible (acceptable) or morally impermissible (unacceptable). The polarizing views that are associated with abortion makes thisRead MoreWhy Should Sex Selection Abortions Are Morally Permissible?923 Words   |  4 Pagessex-selection abortions are morally permissible?† No, I do not think they are morally permissible. Not so much because of the utilitarian’s belief, which I will get into later, but because I do think a fetus is a person. And like Kantians who believe fetuses are persons, the fetus has all the rights and due all the respect that any other person has. To abort that fetus because it’s a girl (or a boy) does not give any righ ts to the fetus. With that said however, that doesn’t mean I think abortions themselvesRead MoreMarquis vs. Warren in the Case Against Abortion1298 Words   |  6 Pagesdetermining if abortion is morally permissible, or wrong including; sentience of the fetus, the fetuses right to life, the difference between adult human beings and fetuses, the autonomy of the pregnant woman, and the legality of abortion. Don Marquis argues that abortion is always morally wrong, excluding cases in which the woman is threatened by pregnancy, or abortion after rape, because fetuses have a valuable future. Mary Anne Warren contends that late term abortions are morally permissible becauseRead MoreA Defense Of Abortion By Judith Thomson1678 Words   |  7 PagesWhat takes precedence; an unborn fetus’ life or its mother’s right to her body? Anti-abortionist argue that the life of an unborn fetus has priority, and thus abortion is morally impermissible as it violates the fetus’ right to life. I n her article â€Å"A Defense of Abortion†, Judith Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible under the certain conditions where the rights of the fetus fail to surpass a mother’s right of choice. For the sake of her argument, Thomson allows the assumption that