Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    International Money and Finance
    International Money and Finance
    International Money and Finance
    Ebook563 pages6 hours

    International Money and Finance

    By Michael Melvin

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Its high-level perspective on the global economy differentiates this introduction to international finance from other textbooks. Melvin and Norrbin provide essential information for those who seek employment in multinational industries, while competitors focus on standard economic tools and financial management skills. Readers learn how to reach their own conclusions about trends and new developments, not simply function within an organization. The 8th edition, newly updated and expanded, offers concise descriptions, current case studies, and new pedagogical materials to help readers make sense of global finance.

    • Introduces international finance to readers with diverse backgrounds who want jobs in international investment, international banking, and multinational corporations
    • Describes a nuanced view of international finance by drawing on material from the fields of theoretical finance and international macro-finance
    • Features 100% revised chapters, new pedagogical content, and online supplementary materials
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAcademic Press
    Release dateNov 23, 2012
    ISBN9780123852489
    International Money and Finance
    Author

    Michael Melvin

    Michael Melvin is with the Rady School of Management at UCSD where he coordinates and teaches in the Master of Finance program. Prior roles include Managing Director and Head of Currency and Fixed Income Research at BlackRock, Adjunct Professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, Co-editor of the Journal of International Money & Finance, and Professor of Economics at Arizona State University.

    Related to International Money and Finance

    Related ebooks

    Economics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Taking Stock Of The Market

      Mar 23, 2023

      Brendan Ahern is chief investment officer at KraneShares, a U.S. exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider. He is an expert in global financial markets with a particular focus on China and actively maintains daily contact with an extensive local research n

      4 min read

    • Article

      Best Funds To Beat Inflation

      Sep 1, 2022

      Best Funds To Beat Inflation
      6 min read

    • Article

      Best Funds To Beat Inflation

      Oct 4, 2022

      Best Funds To Beat Inflation
      6 min read

    • Article

      It’s Time To Rethink Fixed Income With ETFs

      May 14, 2021

      the role of fixed income in multi-asset portfolios is evolving with the unprecedented levels of market volatility we have seen this year, and it is hard to think of a better time to rethink fixed income. In today’s fixed-income markets, investors fac

      2 min read

    • Article

      Best UK funds

      Sep 1, 2022

      Best UK funds
      6 min read

    • Article

      Best UK funds

      Aug 17, 2022

      Best UK funds
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘Talk Shops’ Without Any Developmental Impacts

      Apr 14, 2024

      At the height of Thatcherism in the late 1980s, the slogan “There is No Alternative” (Tina) was the clarion call by the Global North. In a post-Covid climate crisis era, it seems the song remains the same. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and W

      4 min read

    • Article

      The World 10 Years Apart

      Sep 15, 2023

      About ten years ago, MoneyWeek’s editorial team put together a simple asset-allocation portfolio, implemented solely with index trackers – either exchange-traded funds or unit trusts/open-ended investment companies. The aim of this portfolio was to s

      2 min read

    • Article

      Best UK funds

      Oct 5, 2022

      Best UK funds
      6 min read

    • Article

      China’s Treasury Bonds Lure International Capital

      Nov 19, 2020

      China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) issued $6 billion worth of sovereign bonds into Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on October 14, with subscriptions by international investors reaching 4.7 times the volume issued by the time the dollar-denomin

      3 min read

    • Article

      5 Exciting Emerging Markets Funds to Buy

      Jul 5, 2022

      Inflation has been the dominant theme in investing across 2022 – and that goes well beyond domestic equities. Consumer prices have rapidly risen around the world, and even Wall Street's best emerging markets funds have felt the pinch. "Many emerging

      1 min read

    • Article

      Best UK funds

      Jan 6, 2023

      Best UK funds
      6 min read

    • Article

      Best UK funds

      Nov 14, 2022

      Best UK funds
      6 min read

    • Article

      Best Bond Funds

      Sep 14, 2022

      Best Bond Funds
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tracking A Formidable Market Operator

      Sep 4, 2020

      little is generally known about the Sasfin BCI Global Equity Feeder Fund, but one of its greatest attributes is that its underlying offshore fund is managed by Bruce Ackerman, one of the global asset management industry’s most experienced and success

      3 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor...

      Oct 13, 2023

      From The Editor...
      2 min read

    • Article

      China's Yuan Internationalisation Faces Coronavirus, Geopolitical Threats Despite Record Cross-border Use

      Aug 25, 2021

      Geopolitical tensions and the coronavirus are expected to challenge Beijing's bid to further increase the global use of the yuan even after its share of China's cross-border payments hit a record high last year. China's cross-border settlements denom

      3 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor...

      Oct 14, 2022

      From The Editor...
      2 min read

    • Article

      Forex Cartel: Charting The Way Forward From The Rand Manipulation

      Nov 29, 2023

      THE recent cartel rand manipulation leaves South Africans frustrated and disadvantaged. The economy finds itself in a downward spiral due to these actions, which adversely affect South Africa’s credit ratings as financial monopolies become richer an

      2 min read

    • Article

      Investing Off The Beaten Path

      Jul 1, 2022

      Investing Off The Beaten Path
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for International Money and Finance

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      International Money and Finance - Michael Melvin

      SECTION 1

      The International Monetary Environment

      Chapter 1 The Foreign Exchange Market

      Chapter 2 International Monetary Arrangements

      Chapter 3 The Balance of Payments

      Chapter 1

      The Foreign Exchange Market

      Foreign exchange trading refers to trading one country’s money for that of another country. The need for such trade arises because of tourism, the buying and selling of goods internationally, or investment occurring across international boundaries. The kind of money specifically traded takes the form of bank deposits or bank transfers of deposits denominated in foreign currency. The foreign exchange market, as we usually think of it, refers to large commercial banks in financial centers, such as New York or London, that trade foreign-currency-denominated deposits with each other. Actual bank notes like dollar bills are relatively unimportant insofar as they rarely physically cross international borders. In general, only tourism or illegal activities would lead to the international movement of bank notes.

      Foreign Exchange Trading Volume

      The foreign exchange market is the largest financial market in the world. In April 2010, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) conducted a survey of trading volume around the world and found that the average amount of currency traded each business day was $3,981 billion. In 2001 the trading volume of foreign exchange was $1,239 billion. Thus, the amount of foreign exchange traded has recently grown tremendously. The U.S. dollar is by far the most important currency, and has remained so in the last decade, even with the introduction of the euro. The dollar is involved in 85 percent of all trades. Since foreign exchange trading involves pairs of currencies, it is useful to know which currency pairs dominate the market.

      Table 1.1 reports the share of market activity taken by different currencies. The largest volume occurs in dollar/euro trading, accounting for almost 30 percent of the total. The next closest currency pair, the dollar/yen, involves roughly half as much spot trading as the dollar/euro. After these two currency pairs, the volume drops off dramatically. Thus, the currency markets are dominated by dollar trading.

      Table 1.1 Top Ten Currency Pairs by Share of Foreign Exchange Trading Volume

      Source: Table created from data found in Bank for International Settlements, Triennial Central Bank Survey; Report on Global Foreign Exchange Market Activity in 2010, Basel, December, 2010.

      Geographic Foreign Exchange Rate Activity

      The foreign exchange market is a 24-hour market. Currencies are quoted continuously across the world. Figure 1.1 illustrates the 24-hour dimension of the foreign exchange market. We can determine the local hours of major trading activity in each location by the country bars at the top of the figure. Time is measured as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) at the bottom of the figure. For instance, in New York 7 A.M. is 1200 GMT and 3 P.M. is 2000 GMT. Since London trading has ended by 4 P.M. London time, or 1600 GMT (11 A.M. in New York), active arbitrage involving comparisons of New York and London exchange rate quotes would end around 1600 GMT. Figure 1.1 shows that there is a small overlap between European trading and Asian trading, and there is no overlap between New York trading and Asian trading.

      Figure 1.1 The world of foreign exchange dealing.

      Dealers in foreign exchange publicize their willingness to deal at certain prices by posting quotes on news services such as Reuters. When a dealer at a bank posts a quote on a news service, that quote then appears on computer monitors sitting on the desks of other foreign exchange market participants worldwide. This posted quote is like an advertisement, telling the rest of the market the prices at which the quoting dealer is ready to deal.

      The actual prices at which transactions are carried out will have narrower spreads than the bid and offer prices quoted on the news service screens. These transaction prices are proprietary information and are known only by the two participants in a transaction. The quotes on the news service screens are the best publicly available information on the current prices in the market.

      In terms of the geographic pattern of foreign exchange trading, a small number of locations account for the majority of trading. Table 1.2 reports the average daily volume of foreign exchange trading in different countries. The United Kingdom and the United States account for half of total world trading. The United Kingdom has long been the leader in foreign exchange trading. In 2010, it accounted for 37 percent of total world trading volume. While it is true that foreign exchange trading is a round-the-clock business, with trading taking place somewhere in the world at any point in time, the peak activity occurs during business hours in London, New York, and Tokyo.

      Table 1.2 Top Ten Foreign Exchange Markets by Trading Volume (daily averages)

      Source: Table created from data found in Bank for International Settlements, Triennial Central Bank Survey; Report on Global Foreign Exchange Market Activity in 2010, Basel, December 2010.

      Figure 1.2 provides another view of the 24-hour nature of the foreign exchange market. This figure shows the average number of quotes on the Japanese yen/U.S. dollar posted to the Reuters news service screen devoted to foreign exchange. Figure 1.2 reports the hourly average number of quotes over the business week. Weekends are excluded since there is little trading outside of normal business hours. The vertical axis measures the average number of quotes per hour, and the horizontal axis shows the hours of each weekday measured in GMT. A clear pattern emerges in the figure—every business day tends to look the same. Trading in the yen starts each business day in Asian markets with a little more than 20 quotes per hour being entered on the Reuters screen. Quoting activity rises and falls through the Asian morning until reaching a daily low at lunch time in Tokyo (0230–0330 GMT).

      Figure 1.2 Average hourly weekday quotes, Japanese yen per U.S. dollar.

      The lull in trading during the Tokyo lunch hour was initially the result of a Japanese regulation prohibiting trading during this time. Since December 22, 1994, trading has been permitted in Tokyo during lunchtime, but there still is a pronounced drop in activity because many traders take a lunch break. Following the Tokyo lunch break, market activity picks up in the Asian afternoon and rises substantially as European trading begins around 0700 GMT. There is another decrease in trading activity associated with lunchtime in Europe, 1200 to 1300 GMT. Trading rises again when North American trading begins, around 1300 GMT, and hits a daily peak when London and New York trading overlap. Trading drops substantially with the close of European trading, and then rises again with the opening of Asian trading the next day.

      Note that every weekday has this same pattern, as the pace of the activity in the foreign exchange market follows the opening and closing of business hours around the world. While it is true that the foreign exchange market is a 24-hour market with continuous trading possible, the amount of trading follows predictable patterns. This is not to say that there are not days that differ substantially from this average daily number of quotes. If some surprising event occurs that stimulates trading, some days may have a much different pattern. Later in the text we consider the determinants of exchange rates and study what sorts of news would be especially relevant to the foreign exchange market.

      Spot Exchange Rates

      A spot exchange rate is the price of one money in terms of another that is delivered today. Table 1.3 shows spot foreign exchange rate quotations for a particular day. In the table we see that on Tuesday, April 26, 2011, the U.S. dollar sold for 0.8795 Swiss francs. Note that this exchange rate is quoted at a specific time, 4 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time, since rates will change throughout the day as supply and demand for the currencies change. Notice also that these exchange rates are quotes based on large trades ($1 million or more), in what is essentially a wholesale market. For instance, if you were a U.S. importer buying watches from Switzerland at the dollar price of $10 million, a bank would sell $10 million worth of Swiss francs to you for 0.8795 Swiss franc per dollar. You would receive SF 8.795 million to settle the account with the Swiss exporter.

      Table 1.3 Selected Currency Trading Exchange Rates

      The London foreign exchange mid-range rates above apply to trading among banks in amounts of $1 million and more, as quoted at 4 P.M. GMT by Reuters. The quotes are in foreign currency per dollar, except for the U.K. pound and the euro that are quoted as dollar per foreign currency.

      Source: Table is based on data from Financial Times, Currency Markets: Dollar Spot Forward against the Dollar and Dollar against Other Currencies on April 26, 2011. See: http://markets.ft.com/RESEARCH/markets

      If the amount traded was less than $1 million the cost of foreign exchange would be higher. The smaller the quantity of foreign exchange purchased, the higher the price. Therefore if you travel to a foreign country the exchange rate will be much less favorable for you as a tourist.

      In the previous example, the U.S. importer found that $10 million was equivalent in value to SF8.795 million. We calculated this by multiplying the total dollar value of the purchase by the Swiss franc price of a dollar price. If we need to convert Swiss francs into dollars, then we will divide the Swiss franc amount by the exchange rate, or multiply the Swiss franc amount by the reciprocal of the exchange rate. If a U.S. manufacturer is exporting cars to Switzerland and receives SF12 million then we divide by the exchange rate SF12/0.8795=$13.644 million. We could also have multiplied the SF12 by the reciprocal 1/0.8795=1.137 to reach the same amount. It will always be true that when we know the dollar price of the franc ($/SF), we can find the Swiss franc price of the dollar by taking the reciprocal

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1