Financing FAQ

Posted on Sunday, 26th June 2011 by Emily Smith

When setting up a professional practice as a doctor, dentist, or veterinarian, there are many contingencies that merit serious consideration. To illustrate, what if you or a chief partner in business fell ill or disabled for a brief time period-could your practice survive? Many professionals choose to engage a substitute, or locum, to work in their place until they’re able to return. Following are some frequently asked questions or FAQ’s in regards to practice cover for covering the expense of hiring a locum.

Q. What benefits can be anticipated from locum practice cover?

A. Usually, locum benefits will be paid out weekly for as much as 52 weeks or they will stop when the absent person returns to their job. Many locum policies also pay a lump sum amount, typically £5,000, if the insured person dies, sustains a catastrophic injury, or becomes totally and permanently disabled. Furthermore, workers in the non-medical category who are an essential part of the practice can be included too. In this event, a certain percentage of their gross wages per week, typically 75%, will be paid.

Q. What

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Posted on Sunday, 26th June 2011 by Emily Smith

Exchange traded funds that invest in the stocks and currencies of individual countries are gaining in popularity as investors turn to ETFs for specific trades or to hedge risk in their portfolios.

There are 139 ETFs specializing in non-U.S. equity markets or currency of a single country. That represents 11% of all ETFs, or $77.4 billion in assets, says Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group.

These single-country funds “fulfill a key role in giving investors options for targeted exposure to a specific economy and/or currency while preserving the transparency and fee structures that make ETFs popular with institutional and retail investors,” he wrote in a recent note.

“And, in the context of trying to understand investor money flows, they give a very granular perspective on where investors think they have found winning trades,” Colas added.

Single-country funds are growing “far faster” than the average ETF in 2011. “Essentiall

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Tags: Currency Etfs, Etfs
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Posted on Friday, 24th June 2011 by Emily Smith

Only one-third saving for pension, says research Under 40% of men and just over one-quarter of women are paying money into a pension, figures from the Office for National Statistics have shown. Read more…

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Posted on Friday, 24th June 2011 by Emily Smith

JPMORGAN sent its corporate clients an interesting note this week with the title “It’s déjà vu all over again”. On a range of indicators from volatility to the spread between investment and high-yield debt, conditions in capital markets today bear a striking resemblance to the peak of the credit boom in 2007.

Of course these indicators mainly reflect the low-interest-rate environment in developed world markets. They are not an indication of general economic health. Except in the corporate sector. Among European and American companies debt as a proportion of profits (measured by EBITDA) has returned to 2007 levels, and the proportion of debt that is short term has declined. The basis of this corporate recovery is well known. In response to the financial crisis, corporations cut costs and acquisitions and hoarded cash. What are corporations to do with this cash pile?

Today’s bid by SABMiller for Australia’s biggest beermaker, Foster’s, reflects a trend—a return to acquisitions. In 2010, a steep rise in corporate M&A followed on the heels of the financial crisis slump. That has acceler

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Posted on Thursday, 23rd June 2011 by Emily Smith

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On today’s Planet Money, we visit an underground vault that’s full of money nobody wants.

The money — bags and bags of dollar coins — is the result of a 2005 law that requires the U.S. Mint to print a series of coins bearing the likeness of each U.S. president.

The problem is, people don’t really like dollar coins. And there aren’t enough people who are fired up about, say, Rutherford B. Hayes, to make much of a difference.

So more than 1 billion dollar coins are now sitting, unwanted, in Federal Reserve vaults around the country. By the time the program wraps up in 2016, the Fed will be sitting on 2 billion unwanted coins, according to the Fed’s own estimates.

The total cost to manufacture those unwanted coins: $600 million.

Subscribe to the podcast. Music: Aloe Blacc’s “I Need A Dollar.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

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Posted on Thursday, 23rd June 2011 by Emily Smith

CHICAGO – An American Medical Society vote yesterday to continue a policy supporting individual responsibility for health insurance and assistance for those who cannot afford it, drew immediate opposition from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

“The AMA’s policy supporting individual responsibility has bipartisan roots, helps Americans get the care they need when they need it and ends cost shifting from those who are uninsured to those who are insured,” said AMA President Cecil B. Wilson, MD. “Important insurance market reforms, such as an end to coverage denials based on pre-existing conditions, are only possible by having broad participation in the health insurance market.”

But the 326-165 vote by AMA members, at its annual meeting here, came under fire from the AAPS, noting that individual responsibility is nothing more than an insurance mandate that strips individual states of their rights to decide whether or not to enforce the requirement that everyone have health insurance.

“The AMA has turned 180 degrees since the 1950s, when it held that ‘the voluntary way is the American way,’” said Jane Orient, MD, executive director of AAPS. “Now

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Tags: Health Insurance, Individual Responsibility, Insurance
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