Investment Trusts

Small shareholders who do not have enough money to invest in a wide-range portfolio buy shares in investment trusts.

Investment trust is a public corporate body which invests funds in a wide range of stocks and shares, thus "spreading the risk" more effectively than could be achieved by an individual investor with much smaller funds. The capital of the investment trust is derived mainly from public issues of debentures, preference shares and ordinary shares, which are quoted on the stock exchanges.

Investment trusts can be of two types. Open-end investment fund is an investment fund that is open in the sense that it issues new shares every time that it receives new money from investors – unlike a closed-end investment fund, which issues a limited number of shares that are then traded only in a secondary market. Closed-end investment companies do not stand ready to purchase their own shares whenever one of their owners decides to sell them. Instead their shares are traded either on an organized exchange or in the over-the-counter market.

Most closed-end funds have unlimited lives. Dividends and interest received by a closed-end fund from the securities in its portfolio are paid out to its shareholders.

However, most funds allow the reinvestment of such payments.

Besides, there are so called Real Estate Investment Funds. REIFs have existed for over 30 years. They are essentially (although not legally) closed-end investment companies that invest in real estate instead of financial assets. Similar to true investment companies, as long as 95% of their income is distributed to shareholders, it is free from taxation. Further, at least 75% of their assets and income must be derived from real estate equity or mortgages. REIFs must also have at least 100 shareholders. Their portfolios must be diversified, and no more than 30% of their income may come from selling properties held for less than four years. (This last requirement is designed to prevent REIFs from becoming vehicles for real estate speculation.)

REIFs engage in a common financial intermediation process known as securitization. A REIF manager converts (securitizes) properties into financial assets by purchasing properties for the REIF. In order to finance the purchases the REIF manager issues freely tradable ownership shares.

Words you may need:

derive v получать, извлекать

real estate investment fund учреждение, специализирующееся на инвестициях в недвижимость

securitization n «секьюритизация» (процесс повышения роли различных видов ценных бумаг как формы заимствований)

Unit 11. Foreign exchange market. Global financial markets a. Text trading in the foreign exchange market

Any one country's currency is a legal tender only within its national boundaries. To trade beyond these boundaries involves exchange of monies. Exchange of currencies is possible if national currencies are interchangeable. The terms on which one currency will exchange against another are referred to as rate of exchange. The rate of exchange is the value of one unit of the foreign currency expressed in the other currency concerned.

Currencies can be bought or sold in the Foreign Exchange Market. The Foreign Exchange Market is the oldest financial market in existence. It is also the largest international financial market in the world.

The Market performs two major functions: it facilitates the foreign exchange needs of exporters and importers, and it enables individuals, corporations and governments to obtain a desired currency mix of their portfolios.

Trading in the Market occurs 24 hours a day in various centres around the world. Deals are concluded bilaterally over telecommunications networks by different counterparties, some of whom serve as market makers or dealers.

The exchange market is global in character, it does not have one centralized location; trading is heavily concentrated in a handful of centres: London, New York, Tokyo, etc. The great majority of foreign exchange trading takes place in the interbank market between traders or market makers who represent large commercial banks or other financial institutions. Foreign exchange departments of large commercial banks are linked across the world through a sophisticated network of communication systems. The market consists of three major sectors: the spot market, the forward and futures markets and the currency options market.

Somewhat more than half of all transactions are spot deals. In other words, they are transactions which call for the delivery of the two currencies exchanged within two business days. The remainder of the deals can be classified as outright forwards, swaps, futures and options.

Such transactions are performed by customers who do not know when they will need foreign currency to overcome the growing exposure to currency risks in the conditions of foreign exchange rate volatility.

The cost of transacting in the wholesale market is reflected in the bid-ask (or bid-offer) spread. Prices in the market depend on the volume of transactions, exchange rate volatility, the availability of relevant information and the strength of competition in the Market.

As prices are different in different markets, professional dealers take advantage of it buying, say, US dollars for Yen in Singapore and selling them in London for sterling and then back into Yen in New York – all for a profit. The operation is called currency arbitrage.

The delivery of the individual currencies involved in a foreign exchange transaction typically takes place through the payment systems of the two countries whose currencies are traded.

The reliance on the domestic currency payment system of individual countries for the clearing and settlement of foreign exchange transactions means that the stability and integrity of the global foreign exchange market depends on both the soundness of the individual counterparties and the robustness of national payment systems.