Bond-rating firms

To assess credit risk, individual investors are made aware of the issuer s creditworthiness by agencies such as Standard Poor s, Moody s, Fitch, and other bond-rating firms. Often, to make an issue more attractive, an issuer— usually a company or a municipality—will seek the stellar reputation of an underwriter (Salomon Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, etc.) and now, as additional strength, will include a layer of insurance in the deal—all to reassure investors that credit risk is minimal. 

Market professionals include the banks and specialist financial intermediaries mentioned above, firms that one would not automatically classify as investors, although they will also have an investment objective. Their time horizon will range from one day to the very long term. They include the proprietary trading desks of investment banks, as well as bond market makers in securities houses and banks who are providing a service to their customers. Proprietary traders will actively position themselves in the market in order to gain trading profit, for example, in response to their view on where they think interest rate levels are headed. These participants will trade direct with other market professionals and investors, or via brokers. Market makers or traders (also called dealers in the United States) are wholesalers in the bond markets they make two-way prices in selected bonds. Firms will not necessarily be active market makers in all types of bonds smaller firms often specialise in certain sectors. 

The cables designed for use at voltages over 49 kV require that the conductor and insulation shields be firmly bonded to the insulation in order to avoid any possibiUty of generating corona at interfaces strippable insulation shields are not accepted. The A ETC specifications for cables rated for 59—138 kV require a volume resistivity of one order of magnitude lower than for the medium voltage cables. 

MelMider points out that unless hydrogen is firmly attached by a covalent bond Mid cmi change its position (as in tautomerism), heavy isotopes react more slowly. The influence of heavy water on the rate of neutralization of a pseudo-acid such as nitroethMie, as observed by Wynne-Jones [89], may be cited as an example. According to him the rate of the reaction involving deuterium loss was about ten times lower than when the proton was lost. 

The discount rate is a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and takes into account the capital structure of firms, cost of equity and debt, and income taxes. The capital structure of firms is assumed to be 30% equity and 70% debt. The cost of equity capital is 10%, the cost of debt is 7%, and the effective income tax rate is 39%. The debt instrument is assumed to be a 20 year, 7% coupon bond. The calculation of the discount rate is... 

At the time when the Ase2 mechanism of the acid-catalyzed hydration of aUcenes was firmly established , the reaction of conjugated dienes was also investigated. It was shown that the same mechanism also applied to dienes (equation 2). The first step is generally reversible but, under well-chosen reaction conditions, the formation of an allylic carbocation by proton addition to one of the two double bonds is rate-limiting. The fast trapping of the carbocation by water in the second step affords the two allylic alcohols corresponding either to a 1,2-addition or to a 1,4-addition. Several pieces of evidence supported this mechanism. 

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