| Study Tip #47: Don’t Overlook the Balance Multiplier |
| This calculation, which is a spin-off
calculation of Collected Balances Required (CBR), is an important bank
relationship management tool that can be used where you are compensating your
banks for services with balances rather than with fees.
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5/9/2012
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| Study Tip #46: How's Business? |
A common question that comes up in the daily
banter between business professionals is “How’s Business?”. One of the ways
this question can be answered in a more sophisticated manner is to use
financial ratio analysis to develop a more informed judgment as to the
financial performance of your company.
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5/2/2012
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| Study Tip # 45: Some Thoughts about Profit Margins |
| I thought it might be useful to discuss each of
the four profit margin ratios to help prepare you to answer potential exam
questions that are designed to test your understanding of their definitions and
more importantly, how each is differentiated from the others.
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4/25/2012
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| Study Tip #44: Some Tips for Studying Yield Equations |
| I’ll be suggesting some study tips to help
you prepare for exam questions where you will be required to recall and solve
yield equations.
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4/18/2012
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| Study Tip #43: The Ins and Outs of Options Pricing |
| You will most likely be faced with having to answer exam
questions that require an understanding of both "option-eze” (e.g. In-the-Money, Out-of-the-Money,
etc.) and the factors that determine the
value of an option.
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4/11/2012
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| Study Tip # 42: Doing the Seller's Discount Two Step |
| A short cut procedure for calculating, in two steps, the benefit to a seller for offering a cash discount to its customers
for making early payment.
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4/4/2012
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| Study Tip # 41: Currency Futures: What's the Value of My Margin Account? |
| The following three calculation steps can
enable you to calculate the value of a margin account at the end of any day.
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3/28/2012
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| Study Tip #38: Add This to Your CTP Exam Toolbox |
| Here's some hints on using the on-screen calculator at the testing site.
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3/7/2012
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| Study Tip #25: Some Tips for Studying Financial Ratios |
| Hhere’s a couple of tips on how to prepare to answer financial ratio questions.
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4/19/2011
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| Study Tip#24: Keeping it Simple, Again. |
| So, in keeping with this practice of reducing equations, where possible, to their simplest terms, here is a similar discussion of the Exponential Smoothing equation.
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4/11/2011
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| Study Tip #23: Keeping it Simple |
| Today, I’m going to give you an equation from the BOK that I’ve restated in less complicated terms.
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4/5/2011
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| Study Tip #21: Foreign Exchange Conversions: An Alternative Method |
| So, some years ago I introduced an alternative method for solving $/FX conversion questions that utilizes a little bit of “off-the-shelf” math that is based on the concept of “proportional relationships”.
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3/22/2011
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| Study Tip #20: Some Tips for Studying Short-Term Investing and Borrowing Equations |
| ...whether you’re calculating the interest earned on a short-term investment or the interest expense of a short-term borrowing arrangement, these equations are all a variation of the same underlying theme...
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3/14/2011
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| Study Tip #19: Capital Budgeting Redux |
| ....using triage as a metaphor for capital budgeting helps build a better understanding of why senior management must employ a triage-like process when allocating the company’s, sometimes limited, resources to fund capital investment proposals....
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3/8/2011
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| Study Tip #17: No Calculation Left Behind |
| ...I’d like suggest a strategy that might increase your chances of answering this type of calculation correctly
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2/23/2011
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| Study Tip# 16: The Peggy Sue Conjecture |
| An understanding of a couple of basic algebraic “tricks” can help you to prepare for CTP exam calculations in two ways.
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2/14/2011
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| Study Tip# 9: Working with FX Dealers |
| Test your understanding of the Bid-Offer Spread concept and how it is used when working with FX dealers
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10/12/2010
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| Study Tip #8: When “Crunching the Numbers” is not Required |
| You could be asked a conceptual question about a
given calculation rather than being asked to just do the calculation
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10/5/2010
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| Study Tip #2: Quickly Determining Funds Availability |
| Understanding how to determine when a check becomes available (ie: collected or “ usable funds”) is necessary to answer exam questions that test your knowledge of the US payments system.
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8/17/2010
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| Study Tip #1: The Search for the Operational Context |
| Over the years of training CTP candidates to take the certification examination, I’ve found that there’s a lot of anxiety regarding the calculations. One technique I’ve used to help reduce “calculation anxiety” is to present the calculations in their operational context. This approach answers the two questions regarding any calculation which are; “So what?” and “Who cares?” In other words, why is it important and how does it support day-to-day decision making. I believe that this preparation technique can help you learn how to “crunch” the numbers as well as answer conceptual questions concerning a given calculation.
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7/28/2010
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