The Role of Unethical Decisions

The Great Recession was caused by a massive movement of the whole banking industry disregarding ethical behavior and leaving the philosophy of sound investing strategies for a philosophy of profits. In evaluating the role of unethical decisions in causing the financial crisis, we will start by defining ethics. Ethics can be defined as rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad. In every profession, each person has to abide by codes of ethical standards for that profession. So with regards to the financial crisis individuals acted in an unethical manner which eventually aided in the great recession.
In analyzing the sources of the problem in the financial crisis, such as poor risk controls, too much leverage and an almost willful blindness to the bubble-like conditions in the housing market, we can strongly say that ethics did play a major role. Financial firms became unmoored from its ethical base and were free to behave in ways that were in their, top executives, short-term interest without any concern about the longer term impact on the industry’s customers or the broader U.S economy. Integrity and a sense of responsibility to the industry’s customers are at the core of what a financial industry must be all about; otherwise it is just a big Ponzi scheme. The ethical failures in the subprime lending played a major role in the financial as mortgage brokers did not care about the credit worthiness of the borrowers as they were getting paid for the number of transactions that they had conducted. Immelt’s comment was in regards to Banks’ actions that approved mortgages but they had no intention of holding on to the paper because they wanted to build leverage into their balance sheet. Thus, this paper was sold into mortgage pools that were in turn sold to unsuspecting investors. Economical market’s regulations were not clearly ready for the sudden expansion of financial instruments and that gaps were taken as an advantage for a few in order to get own benefits, not bearing in mind that some of the counterparties’ failure would generate globalized consequences since all markets are currently closely interrelated. That is where ethics may play an important role as a “regulatory” code meanwhile laws are updated, but unfortunately, that failed too.
Jeffrey Immelt’s comment was also immoderate; if “the richest people” is supposed to be representative of the banking industry then he made a good point. The industry drove the bubble of bad credit to expand and burst, yet the same institutions received massive bailouts while the individual investors, that trusted these institutions, were left to suffer the consequences. This leaves the open question, are emergent programs really well designed?
In order to avoid another economic crisis like the Great Recession, ethics has to be imbedded within the industry. Ethics can be enhanced through regulations, but not all unethical behavior will be eliminated. Specific laws have to be put in place that will penalize institutions and their top executives for unethical behavior. Institutions have to believe that behaving ethically is in their best interest and in the best interest of their clients and the economy as a whole, where a failure of one affects in exponential measure to all parties. A cultural change is now arising not from the perspective of ethics based on a good or bad behavior judgment, but from the new consciousness that in a Global Financial and Banking market as it is now, one mistake from a party affects all in an immediate way. Thus, new regulations has to be oriented to that.

“Too Big to Fail”

The “too big to fail” theory asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions are so large (in terms of operations, variety of financial products or services) and so interconnected among other financial entities that their failure would be disastrous to the greater economic system. Therefore must be supported by government when they face potential failure. We need very large financial institutions given the scale of the global capital markets and of necessity some of them may be “too big to fail” because of systemic risks.

“Too big to fail” financial institutions can be regulated in a way that at least partially offsets the risks they pose to the rest of the financial system by virtue of their potential “too big to fail” status. Capital standards for large banks should be raised progressively as they increase in size, products and services. In addition, governmental financial regulators should have the ability to prevent a financial merger on the grounds that it would unduly increase systemic risk. In other words, Government as a regulatory entity should have a view ahead financial trends in order to control that kind of expansions. There are many factors to be considered when a government is bailing out a large firm. Whether financial institutions should be bailed out or not depends on the peoples’ particular philosophy and the importance of that institution to the economy, whether it be locally or globally.

Steps taken to cure the Crisis

The Dodd – Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer protection Act was introduced while the country was going through some of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. The law is commonly known as “Dodd – Frank” and its main purpose was to protect consumers, end the ‘too big to fail’ bailouts, create a better financial warning system that would create a special council to properly identify and address systemic risk posed by large, and complex financial companies. The law would also cause for more transparency and accountability; closing down the loopholes that would essentially allow for more risky and abusive practices and enforce the law on the books. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to essentially educate the consumer and let the government have more control over what should be right or wrong. One of the characteristics that strike out the most is that not everything the law intended to do is actually being implemented. For example; the law would discourage “excessive growth and complexity” but what we have noticed is that banks are three to four times as big now as they were before the Great Recession. Banks are no longer “too big to fail” but rather “too big to manage.” Banks are lending more now than ever before to subprime people, just like they did the financial crisis, all while interest rates are kept at historical lows.
The Great Depression can be summarized as too much government intervention that prevented the economy to revive itself. For example, the Smooth – Hawley Taffic (reducing exports and imports by almost half), tax increases, big pro – labor legislation and more government intervention caused for the prolong economic conditions of the Great Depression. The Federal Reserve didn’t have the proper tools to pump excessive cash like the Federal Reserve did during the Financial Crisis (Quantitative Easing, which the central bank bought government securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and thus increase the money supply in order to stimulate the economy and hopefully create economic growth).
Unlike the Great Depression, the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980’s was cause by further government intervention in financial policies. The savings and loan industry had a major problem; the rise of inflation and rising interest rates. The government set the interest rates these S&L companies could pay on deposits (these laws were in effect since the Great Depression). In most cases, the rate on deposits were lower than what was offered elsewhere, causing savers to withdraw their funds from S&L companies. Another setback to the crisis was the fact that S&L made long – term fixed rate mortgages. When interest rates rose, the mortgages lost a substantial value, essentially wiping out the industry’s net worth. The solution was the passage of the Depository Institution Deregulatory and Monetary Control Act of 1980. The idea was the deregulation of financial institutions and to control the monetary policy by the Federal Reserve (this later gave pathway to the crisis of 2008).
Designing an optimal and feasible plan of regulatory reforms is not an easy task since that needs very local and global regulations that are not still agreed among countries. But is agreed that key for having a feasible regulatory plan is the information obtained at the right time and that is a failure on current financial system. Thus, some proposal are done on that direction: * Investment and Development of an Innovation Regulatory Department with international jurisdiction as a dependency of the Financial Regulatory Institutions. That may have the objective of analyzing trending and audit financial instruments, institutions, banking services and revenues in order to propose updated regulations and monitor activities all along different countries. * Use of standardized systems on non-regulated institutions may facilitate the Entity regulators the information and transactions audit, so they can easily monitor current situations rather than past situations. * Proposal of a globalized credit bureau where financial information of people and institutions can easily be consulted. That may also help on creating standardized loan origination rules that can be implemented internationally.

The Greek Depression versus the USA Crisis Compared

| Greek Depression | USA Crisis | Causes | * A decade of long pre-existence of overly high structural deficits and debt-to-GDP levels on public accounts. * Increment on Debt levels between 1999 and 2007 for maintaining their economics, especially for affording Olympic Games. * Income hit by tax evasion. * Sought to meet 3% of GDP on borrowing, that is required of members of the euro. | * Creation of Securitized Mortgage-backed security, credit default swap, and collateralized debt obligation sub-sectors financial instruments which was easily transferred without any record on accounting books or regulatory penalties. Thus CDOs received latest risk not knowing about it. * Rely on credit default swaps heading against default created a complex web counterparty relationships that created a huge systemic damage when they failed. * Dependence from US on capital inflows to maintain low interest rates but risking possible capital outflows. * Commodity prices with possible declines affecting international imbalances and exchange rates. * Derivatives such as CDS were not correctly regulated by the US government including the hedge of these operations. | Effects | * When this negative news package was received by credit rating agencies, in particular the onset of a third ongoing recession in 2009, causing a further rise of the debt-to-GDP ratio to 127% in 2009 and 146% in 2010, they responded by downgrading the Greek government debt to junk bond status (below investment grade), and the traded bond yields rose so high that private capital markets were practically no longer available for Greece as a funding source. | * Incremental of deficit and debts indicators. * Between 1 January and 11 October 2008, owners of stocks in U.S. corporations suffered about $8 trillion in losses, as their holdings declined in value from $20 trillion to $12 trillion. * From September 2008 to September 2012, there were approximately 4 million completed foreclosures in the U.S. * More than a third of the private credit markets became unavailable as a source of funds | Actions Taken for raising from the Crisis | * In May 2010, the European Union and IMF provided €110 billion euros of bailout loans to Greece to help the government pay its creditors. * A second €130bn-euro bailout was agreed earlier that year. * The vast majority of Greece's private-sector creditors agreed to write off about three-quarters of the debts. Also agreed to replace existing loans with new loans at a lower rate of interest. * Another bailout in February 2012, of €240 billion to be transferred between May 2010 and December 2014. * Troika accepted in December 2012 to provide Greece with significant debt relief measures, while IMF extended its support with an extra €8.2billion of loans between January 2015 and March 2016. * The Euro group recently granted a two-month technical extension of its final bailout program to Greece, expected to be published by the Troika in February 2015. | * New Fiscal measures economic and stimulus packages adoption such as increasing government spending on infrastructure projects TARP loans. * Interest rates reduction and governments to implement. * Taxes reduction, statutory interest rates incrementing bonds purchasing. * Issue of interest-bearing deposit certificates for preventing inflation after the excess on reserves. * New regulatory policies issued for credit origination and provisioning. * The questioning of more globalized capital flow regulations, creation of more expanded roles on policing, new regulations on transparency and accounting. | Common Features | * This led to a crisis of confidence, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and the cost of risk insurance on credit default swaps. * Lack of regulations from Europe group for regulate countries debt’s level. * Irresponsible thinking from the Greek government of transferring the risk of debt to the economical European union knowing they are all part of same economical group. | * Crisis on the secondary market relating derivatives instruments which intrinsic value failed due non loan debtors repayment, leaving the instruments with no support * Lack of regulations that prevented the massive non-payable loans and the derivatives hedge operations. * Irresponsible decisions from financial institutions and the related directors and brokers, of transferring the risk to final instrument’s owners by the short term view of achieving their goals, bonus and profits. | Conclusions | 1. Being part of globalized markets makes the components of it to gain and share profits but also implies a closer approach to other counterparties risks and failures since all operations are interrelated. 2. Lack of international regulations of economic and financial operations and lack of global supervising effective policies causes poor decisions taken from counterparties are done and not prevented. 3. In a Globalized market and economy, in both cases shown above, caused poor long term decisions since entities dismissed the collateral effects of transferring the risk of short term benefits. This finally ended up on affecting in an exponential magnitude the whole economic scenario where every entity was affected. 4. While the Great Recession in the United States was caused by private debt, and a bursting of the housing bubble that was running on faulty mortgages, the Greek is one of government fiscal responsibility. Many of the questionable ethics characteristics come into to play with the Greek and US crisis whether law makers were behaving ethically every time they raised the countries deficit and acquired more debt in case of Greece or achieved the secondary market expected profits in case of US. After the terrible consequences of the crisis, the actions of that law makers were point of discussion. |

Valuing Walmart’s Stock

In calculating the price of Walmart’s Stock (Po) we used the two approaches to the Dividend discount model. The first approach, the use of dividend and a terminal value. The rate of return was first calculated using CAPM. The risk free rate of return for Treasury Bonds for 2010, 3.68% and the historical market risk premium of 5.05% was used in calculating the required rate of return. The rate of return was then calculated by multiplying the beta of 0.66 by the market risk premium and adding the result to the risk free rate of return for an expected rate of return by investors of 7.013%.
CAPM
Substituting referred data on CAPM for obtaining Rs:
Rs = Rrf + (Rm – Rrf) β = 3.68% + (5.05) 0.66 = 7.013%

Where:
D1 = Dividend for 2011
D2 = Dividend for 2012
D3 = Dividend for 2013
D4 = Dividend for 2014 D2 = D1 (1+g) = 1.21 (1 + 0.05) = 1.271 D3 = 1.271 (1 + 0.05) = 1.335 P0 = _D1_ + _D2__ + __D3__ + __P̂s__ (1+Rs) (1+Rs)2 (1+Rs)3 (1+Rs)3

P̂s = _D4_ = 1.335(1+0.05) = 1.4018_ = 69.64 (r - g) (7.013% - 5%) 0.02013

P0 = __1.21___ + ___1.271 + ____1.335_ + ___69.64___ (1 + 0.07013) (1 + 0.07013)2 (1 + 0.07013)3 (1 + 0.07013)3 P0 = 1.1307 + 1.1099 + 1.0894 + 56.826
P0 = $60.16

The second approach of the Dividend discount model, dividends in perpetuity, in calculating the intrinsic value is as follows:

P0 = __D1__ = _____1.21____ = $60.11 (Rs – g) (0.07013 – 0.05)

In calculating the intrinsic value of Walmart stock on a per share basis using the price-earnings approach, the future earnings per share (EPS) is multiplied by the forward looking price-earnings multiple. We estimated the future EPS by multiplying the current EPS of 3.72 by one plus the expected growth in earnings of 10.40%. The forward looking P/E multiple of 13.40, the ratio at which Walmart was traded at was used in the calculation.

P0 = EPS x Forward looking P/E multiple
P0 = (3.72 x 1.1040) x 13.40
P0 = $55.03

As an equity analyst, the recommendation we would make to an investor seeking to acquire Walmart’s stock is that for diversification purposes, it would be a good buy. Walmart is currently considered to be a mature company growing at a constant rate. Therefore, earnings are also growing. Walmart’s payout ratio is also kept at a constant rate which suggest that the company is re-investing in new projects/products which will overall increase earnings and maximize shareholder wealth.

In reconciling the difference in the valuation assessment based on the different methods, the differences are based on rounding of the figures. Future estimates and price play a crucial role in the valuation process. However, the price of the stock falls around the same ball park using different methods. In assessing whether the view of Walmart’s stock has changed a projection was made for the price to year 2015 using a constant growth rate of 5%. Below is the projected price of the stock at 2015.

Pn = P0 (1 + g)n = 60.16 (1 + 0.05)5 = $76.78

As indicated by the current market price of Walmart’s stock of $83.80, on February 26, 2015 taken from NYSE, the view has not changed. Walmart is a mature company growing at a constant rate and the price of the stock will likely be increasing in the future. This is evidenced by the re-investment in projects/products and also the expansion and increasing number of stores. Walmart stock would be recommended for anyone looking to purchase and also for anyone who wants to have diversification in their portfolio.

Corporate Finance

The Great Recession 2007-2010
&
Valuing Wal-Mart’s Stock

Presented by:
Peter Isern 4636159
Erwin Escalante 3122918
Jodi-Ann McLeish-Grant 3279209
Tanya Miranda 5599105

Date: February 27, 2015
Professor: Dr. Suchi Mishra

Sources:

* http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13798000 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis * The Great Recession, 2007-2010: Causes and Consequences, Richard Ivey School of Business, Danielle Cadiex, David Conklin, Version (A) 2010-01-15. * www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/wmt