Corporate Finance Marketability Risk-free Rate 
Musings on Markets
JULY 31, 2025
If you are leery about trusting ratings agencies, I understand your distrust, and there is an alternative measure of sovereign default risk, at least for about half of all countries, and that is the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) market, which investors can buy protection against country default.
Musings on Markets
AUGUST 15, 2023
In every introductory finance class, you begin with the notion of a risk-free investment, and the rate on that investment becomes the base on which you build, to get to expected returns on risky assets and investments. What is a risk free investment? Why does the risk-free rate matter?
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Brian DeChesare
AUGUST 31, 2022
Convertible Arbitrage Definition: Convertible arbitrage is a relative value strategy in which a hedge fund profits based on the pricing discrepancy between a company’s convertible bonds and its underlying stock; the fund exploits changes in volatility, credit quality, and interest rates to make money while minimizing overall market risk.
Musings on Markets
AUGUST 5, 2023
If you have been reading my posts, you know that I have an obsession with equity risk premiums, which I believe lie at the center of almost every substantive debate in markets and investing. The risk premium that you demand has different names in different markets.
Musings on Markets
JANUARY 30, 2023
If 2022 was an unsettling year for equities, as I noted in my second data post, it was an even more tumultuous year for the bond market. The rise in rates transmitted to corporate bond market rates, with a concurrent rise in default spreads exacerbating the damage to investors.
Musings on Markets
FEBRUARY 8, 2022
In the first few weeks of 2022, we have had repeated reminders from the market that risk never goes away for good, even in the most buoyant markets, and that when it returns, investors still seem to be surprised that it is there.
Musings on Markets
JANUARY 5, 2024
Thus, looking at only the companies in the S&P 500 may give you more reliable data, with fewer missing observations, but your results will reflect what large market cap companies in any sector or industry do, rather than what is typical for that industry.
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