There has been increasing discussion with respect to the accounting treatment of trade payable programs and whether the obligations of the entity that owes the receivable (the “company”) under these programs should continue to be treated as trade payables on their balance sheet or, instead, be reflected as short-term debt obligations. These trade payables programs - also known as supply chain finance programs, structured payables programs and reverse factoring arrangements, among other labels - have grown in popularity since the 2008-10 financial crisis and have recently drawn more attention from auditors and ratings agencies. The question of whether a payables program is treated as trade payables or short-term debt is critical not only for the purpose of financial disclosures, but also because of knock-on effects in many areas, including loan agreement covenants, executive compensation and rating agency and investor analysis. The 2018 bankruptcy of Carillion plc in the United Kingdom cast a spotlight on the trade payable financing products, with critics arguing that Carillion’s use of the product obscured the ability of investors and other third-parties to assess the financial health of the company. In the fall of 2019, this issue was pushed to the forefront as the “Big Four” accounting firms submitted a joint letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) asking that FASB clarify the financial statement disclosure requirements for trade payable programs. In its Report on Activities for Fiscal Year 2019, the Office of the Investor Advocate of the SEC reiterated the call for FASB to provide clarity on the issue. Rating agencies and industry groups have also been actively focused on this issue, especially since the advent of “fintechs” and artificial intelligence has led to a proliferation of novel structures and approaches in this product area. While the supply chain and receivables finance industry awaits clarification from FASB, the general consensus seems to be that the core question for determining whether a trade payable financing program obligation constitutes a trade payable or a short-term debt obligation is whether the program changes the fundamental character of the payment obligations. As this is largely a facts and circumstances determination, a review of all the features of a trade payables program is important. Discuss your opinion on this issue, providing examples of your prior experience or current experience on the matter as necessary to support your arguments. What key factors should be included in the discussion? Conclude with supporting arguments and research if necessary, on the issue. .

Suppose that you are part of the Management team at Porsche. Suppose that it is the end of December

2019 and a novel coronavirus that causes a respiratory illness was identified in Wuhan City, Hubei

Province, China. The illness was reported to the World Health Organization and there is heightened

uncertainty around the Globe.

You (as part of the management team) are reviewing Porsche’s hedging strategy for the cash flows it

expects to obtain from vehicle sales in North America during the calendar year 2020. Assume that

Porsche’s management entertains three scenarios:

Scenario 1 (Expected): The expected volume of North American sales in 2020 is 35,000 vehicles.

Scenario 2 (Pandemic): The low-sales scenario is 50% lower than the expected sales volume.

Scenario 3 (High Growth): The high-sales scenario is 20% higher than the expected sales volume.

Assume, in each scenario, that the average sales price per vehicle is $85,000 and that all sales are

realised at the end of December 2020. All variable costs incurred by producing an additional vehicle to

be sold in North America in 2020 are billed in euros (€) and amount to €55,000 per vehicle. Shipping

an additional vehicle to be sold in North America in 2020 are billed in € and amount to €3,000 per

vehicle.

The current spot exchange rate is (bid-ask) $1.11/€ - $1.12/€ and forward bid-ask is $1.18/€ - $1.185/€.

The option premium is 2.5% of US$ strike price, and option strike price is $1.085/€. Your finance team

made the following forecasts about the exchange rates at the end of December 2020:

• bid-ask will be $1.45/€ - $1.465/€ if the investors (and speculators) consider the euro (€) a safe

haven currency during the pandemic.

• bid-ask will be $0.88/€-$0.90/€ if the investors (and speculators) consider the U.S. dollar ($) a

safe haven currency during the pandemic

1. As the CFO, you decided to hedge using option contracts. Assuming expected final sales

volume is 35,000, what are your total revenue and the percentage revenue from hedging

(compared to no hedging) (do not use any variable costs to calculate in this question)

a) if the exchange rate (bid-ask) remains at $1.11/€ - $1.12/€?

b) if the investors consider the U.S. dollar a safe haven currency during the pandemic?

2. Assume that the Scenario 2 (Pandemic) took place in 2020 and the euro became a safe haven

currency during the pandemic. What are your euro cash flows if you did not hedge, hedged

using forward contracts, and hedged using option contracts?

Read the article below and answer the questions (article should be 1 page, 11-point font). The article is provided via the link below

https://web.natur.cuni.cz/zoologie/biodiversity/prednasky/EvolucniGenetika/clanky_2016/Transgenerational-epig-inheritance-Science-2016.pdf

Primary Paper HW assignment guideline

Your primary paper consists of three parts:

1. In your own words, state the essential take-home message of the paper assigned.

--Here you should briefly mention what was known about this topic before this paper was published

--Then state what the aim/goal/purpose of this published study was. In other words, what did the authors set out to do?

--Also describe why this research is important (if you think it is important)/ what are the researchers hoping to contribute to the existing knowledge.

2. State how the authors demonstrated the essential point of the paper: what experiments and what methods they used to prove the point

--In this section, you should link how a particular approach/method was used to obtain a particular result and why it would be important/relevant. For example:

--Authors used method A to get/show result B. Result B is important because (it supports their original hypothesis in the following way/describe how/ or it provides novel findings regarding mechanism X

--Continue the bulleted list to correlate specific method with the specific result and how it supports the claims made in the paper.

3. Discuss the strengths and significance of the paper and also the weaknesses and indicate additional lines of investigation that you think would be worth pursuing that were opened up by the paper.

--Here I want you to critique the experimental approach and author’s conclusions, not their writing style or format of the paper. Also, keep in mind that these are primary research articles published in scientific journals, so they are intended for a scientific, not general audience. Hence the language could be a bit dense.

--I want you to be very specific here. Do not write general and vague statements. Instead, refer to specific data in the paper (in figure X, or table Y) and indicate any possible flaws or limitations of the experiment.

--Propose possible future directions or follow up studies. You can look up papers that cited this research or follow up on the last author’s subsequent research.

--Explain if this paper contributed anything new to the field and if it enables a better understanding of the subject.

Read the article (link is below) and answer the questions that follow in a paper format. (Paper has to be 1-page, 11-inch font- single-spaced). COPY THE BELOW LINK AND PASTE IN YOUR BROWSER.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1097276513001329

Primary Paper HW assignment guidelines

Your primary paper consists of three parts:

1. In your own words, state the essential take home message of the paper assigned.

-Here you should briefly mention what was known about this topic before this paper was published

-Then state what the aim/goal/purpose of this published study was. In other words, what did the authors set out to do?

-Also describe why this research is important (if you think it is important)/ what are the researchers hoping to contribute to the existing knowledge.

2. State how the authors demonstrated the essential point of the paper: what experiments and what methods they used to prove the point

-In this section you should link how a particular approach/method was used to obtain a particular result and why it would be important/relevant. For example:

-Authors used method A to get/show result B. Result B is important because (it supports their original hypothesis in the following way/describe how/ or it provides novel findings regarding mechanism X

-Continue the bulleted list to correlate specific method with specific result and how it supports the claims made in the paper.

3. Discuss the strengths and significance of the paper and also the weaknesses and indicate additional lines of investigation that you think would be worth pursuing that were opened up by the paper.

-Here I want you to critique the experimental approach and author’s conclusions, not their writing style or format of the paper. Also, keep in mind that these are primary research articles published in scientific journals, so they are intended for a scientific, not general audience. Hence the language could be a bit dense.

-I want you to be very specific here. Do not write general and vague statements. Instead, refer to specific data in the paper (in figure X, or table Y) and indicate any possible flaws or limitations of the experiment.

-Propose possible future directions or follow up studies. You can look up papers that cited this research or follow up on the last author’s subsequent research.

-Explain if this paper contributed anything new to the field and if it enabled better understanding of the subject

The Research and Development Clinic at your organazation has decided to open one weekend a month to accomidate more test subjects. This has caused a Work-Family Conflict on the team you manage.

Use one of the strategies to resolve it....

Accommodating – This is when you cooperate to a high-degree, and it may be at your own expense, and actually work against your own goals, objectives, and desired outcomes. This approach is effective when the other party is the expert or has a better solution. It can also be effective for preserving future relations with the other party.

Avoiding – This is when you simply avoid the issue. You aren’t helping the other party reach their goals, and you aren’t assertively pursuing your own. This works when the issue is trivial or when you have no chance of winning.   It can also be effective when the issue would be very costly. It’s also very effective when the atmosphere is emotionally charged and you need to create some space. Sometimes issues will resolve themselves, but “hope is not a strategy”, and, in general, avoiding is not a good long term strategy.

Collaborating – This is where you partner or pair up with the other party to achieve both of your goals. This is how you break free of the “win-lose” paradigm and seek the “win-win.” This can be effective for complex scenarios where you need to find a novel solution. This can also mean re-framing the challenge to create a bigger space and room for everybody’s ideas. The downside is that it requires a high-degree of trust and reaching a consensus can require a lot of time and effort to get everybody on board and to synthesize all the ideas.

Competing – This is the “win-lose” approach. You act in a very assertive way to achieve your goals, without seeking to cooperate with the other party, and it may be at the expense of the other party.    This approach may be appropriate for emergencies when time is of the essence, or when you need quick, decisive action, and people are aware of and support the approach.

Compromising – This is the “lose-lose” scenario where neither party really achieves what they want. This requires a moderate level of assertiveness and cooperation. It may be appropriate for scenarios where you need a temporary solution, or where both sides have equally important goals.   The trap is to fall into compromising as an easy way out, when collaborating would produce a better solution.

What strategies and styles will you use to ensure you have the right leadership to guide the organization?

Exercise 1:

Write an XML document describing the exercises in this document: the root element is <exercises>. The root has an attribute number that has value 1. The root element has three child elements; <date> that contains as text the date of the exercise, and two <item> elements for the first two exercises (1--2). Write some text in the <item> elements.

Exercise 2:

Write an XML document describing a person: name, occupation, address and hobbies. Please do not use your own information, you can use fake data. Decide on suitable element names and nesting. Check your document for well-formedness.

Exercise 3:

Draw a tree that represents the XML document you created in task 2.

Exercise 4:

This is the books.xml file

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!-- This file represents a fragment of a book store inventory database -->
<bookstore>

<book genre="autobiography" publicationdate="1981" ISBN="1-861003-11-0">

<title>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin</title>
<author>

<first-name>Benjamin</first-name>
<last-name>Franklin</last-name>

</author>

<price>8.99</price>

</book>

<book genre="novel" publicationdate="1967" ISBN="0-201-63361-2">

<title>The Confidence Man</title>

<author>

<first-name>Herman</first-name>
<last-name>Melville</last-name>

</author>

<price>11.99</price>

</book>

<book genre="philosophy" publicationdate="1991" ISBN="1-861001-57-6">

<title>The Gorgias</title>
<author>

<name>Plato</name>

</author>

<price>9.99</price>

</book>

</bookstore>

Using books.xml as a model, create a small xml file for a student's program of study form called programOfStudy.xml. It should capture the following data:

• In the Fall 2008 semester the student plans to take two classes to satisfy her General Education requirements, PHIL 101 to satisfy Goal 8 and ECON 201 to satisfy Goal 11. She also has to take one core course, MGT 217, and two major courses, CIS 120 and CIS 403.
• In the Spring 2009 semester she plans to take two additional core courses, MGT 261 and MKTG 325, as well as three major courses, CIS 220, CIS 407, and CIS 490.

Jordan is a construction contract company involved in building commercial properties. Its current policy for determining the percentage of completion of its contracts is based on the proportion of cost incurred to date compared to the total expected cost of the contract.
One of Jordan’s contracts has an agreed price of $250 million and estimated total costs of $200 million.

The cumulative progress of this contract is:
Year ended: 30 September 2011 30 September 2012
$million $million
Costs incurred 80 145
Work certified and billed 75 160
Billings received 70 150

Based on the above, Jordan prepared and published its financial statements for the year ended 30 September 2011. Relevant extracts are:

Statement of Profit and Loss
$million
Revenue (balance) 100
Cost of sales (80)
––––
Profit (50 x 80/200) 20
––––
Statement of financial position
$million
Current assets
Amounts due from customers
Contract costs to date 80
Profit recognised 20
––––
100
Progress billings (75)
––––
25
––––
Contract receivables (75 – 70) 5

Jordan has received some adverse publicity in the financial press for taking its profit too early in the contract process, leading to disappointing profits in the later stages of contracts. Most of Jordan’s competitors take profit based on the percentage of completion as determined by the work certified compared to the contract price.
Required:
(i)   Assuming Jordan changes its method of determining the percentage of completion of contracts to that used by its competitors, and that this would represent a change in an accounting estimate, calculate equivalent extracts to the above for the year ended 30 September 2012 (5marks)

(ii)   Explain the Criteria for Recognising Revenue from contract with customers. .

(iii)   Explain the difference between Revenue Recognition from construction contracts when The contract is profit making and when losses are probable.

Now the president is starting to get on your nerves. But, whaddayagonnado? He is the president. You just wish he wasn’t so demanding. Nevertheless, you press on. He has informed you that you need to aid in a decision regarding a new facility. There are 3 mutually exclusive locations being considered each with it’s own startup cost and projected cash flows as shown below:

The president has asked for a thorough analysis. Keeping in mind DWOTT’s cost of capital (use WACC above)(8.42%), what decision should be made regarding the projects above using each of the following tools:

What is each project's payback period and which would you choose?

Timbuktu:

Neverland:

Middle Earth:

Choice & Why?

What is each project's discounted payback period and which would you choose?

Timbuktu:

Neverland:

Middle Earth:

Choice & Why?

What is each project's net present value and which would you choose?

Timbuktu:

Neverland:

Middle Earth:

Choice & Why?

What is each project's internal rate of return and which would you choose?

Timbuktu:

Neverland:

Middle Earth:

Choice & Why?

What is each project’s modified internal rate of return and which would you choose?

Timbuktu:

Neverland:

Middle Earth:

Choice & Why?  

Considering the WACC and given the calculations above, which project do you prefer, and why?

10.I buy a limited-edition Jordan brand sneaker. What marketing technique am I probably responding to?

a. Stimulus

b. Authority

c. Scarcity

d. Internalization

e. None of the Above

11.If I used Listerine mouth wash every day, (unless I loved the taste), this would be an example of?

a. Ego- Defensive function

b. Conformity

c. Cooptation

d. Instrumental Conditioning

e. None of the Above

12. Max does not like Bud beer, but now he has changed his attitude. He now tells everyone that it is his favorite beer, which is just as well as his Fraternity brothers, who he admires greatly, have just announced Bud beer as being their “official” beer for 2020? This is most likely an example of?

a. Compensatory Decision Making

b. Vectoring

c. Internalization

d. Cooptation

e. None of the above

13. Max joins an Axe Throwing club rather than attacking his annoying neighbor with an axe. This is an example of?

a. Consumption Motive

b. Trait

c. Self -Actualization

d. Cognitive Dissonance

e. None of the Above

14. In the MultiAttribute Attitude model one of the key factors Marketers are trying to assess is?

a. How brand specific is the attitude hierarchy

b. If a consumer believes an attribute does not exist- how important do they rate it to be

c. The attribute advantages of the evoked set

d. Does an attribute also affect a subset of the model

e. None of the above

15. The Wall Street Journal tells me that I should buy gold right now, as much as I can. The tabloid press says absolutely not- to buy bitcoin instead. I am likely to believe one over the other based on what concept?

a. Reciprocity

b. Internalization

c. Instrumental Conditioning

d. Authority

e. None of the above

A researcher wants to investigate the usefulness of hypnotism for reducing levels of anxiety in individuals experiencing stress. He identifies 30 people at random from a group of 100 who have "high stress" jobs. The 30 people are divided into two separate groups. One group of 15 receive the hypnotism. The other group of 15 acts as the control group - they receive no hypnotism. The subjects in each group are then given an anxiety inventory. The results are in the table below, where a higher score means more anxiety.

Please answer all parts to the question

a. Calculate the degrees of freedom.

b. Calculate the difference between the means (M_Hypnotism - M_{No Hypnotism}).

c. Calculate Σχ for the Hypnotism Group.

d. Compute Σχ² for the Hypnotism Group.

e. Calculate Σχ for the No Hypnotism Group.

f. Calculate Σχ² for the No Hypnotism Group.

g. Calculate the Standard Error for this test. Round to two decimal places.

S(χ₁ – χ₂) = ?

f.Calculate the t observed value for this test. Round to two decimal places.

t = ?

g.What is the probability (p) of getting the difference between sample means if the null hypothesis were true? Use Oak Software (NOTE: make sure you input the correct df, select t to p, select the correct area for a left-tailed test, input the correct t value, then press Calculate.

p = ?

h. Based on the results of your analysis, what is your decision regarding the Null hypothesis?

I. Write you conclusion in terms of the effect of hypnotism on anxiety.