DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMPANY STOCKS

Over the years, stocks have proved their worth and deserve a prominent place in any long-term investment plan, such as a retirement account. Since the year of 1926, stocks have beaten the performance of any other major asset class by a wide margin that has a return nearly 10% per year on average.

Due to the fact that stocks by their nature are volatile, their value rises and falls to invest in them requires great cautions, thus, they should ideally be held to meet medium- and long-term goals. In other words, money invested in stocks should not be the money that you might need in three to five years. Nonetheless, stocks tend to deliver handsome returns in the long run, but volatile markets may not cooperate with your short-term cash needs.

 

1. GROWTH STOCKS

Growth stocks are the shares of companies with the potential to consistently generate above-average revenues and profit growth. These companies tend to reinvest most or all of their earnings in their businesses and pay out little or none of their profits to shareholders in the form of dividends. Owing to the fact that growth companies expand faster than the overall economy, hence, you can occasionally find these companies in mature industries. After all, keep in mind that even fast-growing companies are not necessarily good investments if their shares appear to be overvalued.

 

2. CYCLICAL STOCKS

Cyclical stocks are the shares of companies whose sales and earnings are highly sensitive to the ups and downs of the economy. When the economy is performing well, for instance, cyclical companies tend to shine. A contracting economy typically hammers the sales and profits of these companies and hurts their stocks. Whatever it is, cyclical industries include manufacturers of steel, automobiles and chemicals, airlines and homebuilders.

3. DEFENSIVE STOCKS

Defensive stocks describe the shares of companies whose sales of goods and services tend to hold up well even during the economic downturn. Some of the examples of industries that are substantially isolated from the business cycle are utilities, government contractors and producers of basic consumer products such as food, beverages and pharmaceuticals.

 

4. INCOME STOCKS

Income stocks typically pay out a relatively high ratio of their earnings in the form of dividends. The companies that issue them tend to be mature and have limited chances for reinvesting their profits into more attractive opportunities, for example, the utilities providers. In short, stocks that pay large dividends are usually less volatile because investors regularly receive cash dividends regardless of the market cycles.

5. SMALL-COMPANY STOCKS

Small company stocks have generated better returns over time than stocks of large companies. Although these companies tend to grow faster than their larger brethren, however, there is a trade-off - "small company stocks are much more volatile than the shares of big companies". Perhaps, there are a number of ways of defining what constitutes a small company. One common example or definition is that a small company is usually the one with a stock-market capitalization of $1 billion or less (if you have no clue what market capitalization is about, it is basically a company’s stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding).

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FDI – FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Theoretically, the FDI which stands for "Foreign Direct Investment" refers to an investment in the acquisition of foreign assets with the intent to control and manage them. In fact, such companies can make an FDI in several ways, including purchasing the assets of a foreign company; investing in the company, new property, plants, equipment; or participating in a joint venture with a foreign company which typically involves an investment of capital.

Normally, FDI is primarily a long-term strategy where companies usually expect to benefit from it through an access to local markets and resources, often in exchange for expertise, technical know-how, and capital. Subsequently, a country’s FDI can be both inward and outward where the inward FDI refers to investments coming into the country, and the outward FDI are the investments made by companies from that country into foreign companies in other countries. Thus, the difference between inward and outward investments made is called the net FDI inflow, which can be either positive or negative.

Firstly, there are two main categories of international investment – portfolio investment and foreign direct investment. Portfolio investment refers to the investment in a company’s stocks, bonds, or assets, but not for the purpose of controlling or directing the firm’s operations or management. Typically, investors in this category are looking for a financial rate of return as well as diversifying investment risk through multiple markets.

As for the FDI which stands for "Foreign Direct Investment" in other definitions, it refers to an investment made from a party in one country into a business or corporation in another country with the intention of establishing a long lasting interest. This is what generally differentiates FDI from foreign portfolio investments where investors passively hold securities from a foreign country, and a foreign direct investment in contrast can be done by obtaining a long lasting interest through the expansion of one’s business into a foreign country.

Secondly, there are two forms of FDI in the realm of international business, namely are horizontal and vertical FDI. The horizontal FDI occurs when a company is trying to establish a new market such as a retailer, for example, that builds a store in a new country to sell to the local market. Whereas the Vertical FDI refers to when a company invests internationally to provide input into its core operations, which is usually in its home country.

To illustrate this further, a company may invest in production facilities in another country. When a company brings the goods or components back to its home country (e.g. acting as a supplier), this is known as the backward vertical FDI. However, when a company sells the goods into the local or regional market (e.g. acting as a distributor), this is referred to as forward vertical FDI. In any cases, the largest global companies often engage themselves in both backward and forward vertical FDI depending on their industry.

Thirdly, many companies engage in the backward vertical FDI. The auto, oil, and infrastructure which include industries related to enhancing the infrastructure of a country such as energy, communications, and transportation are good examples of the backward vertical FDI.

Companies from these industries invest in production or plant facilities in a country in order to supply raw materials, parts, or finished products to their home country. In recent years, these same industries have also started to carry out forward FDI by supplying raw materials, parts of components, or finished products to newly emerging local or regional markets.

Meanwhile, there are different kinds of FDI – two of which the "Greenfield and Brownfield" are increasingly applicable to global companies. The Greenfield FDI occurs when multinational corporations enter into developing countries to build new factories or stores. These new facilities, in addition, are built from scratch which is usually in an area where no previous facilities existed.

As the name originates from the idea of building a facility on a green field, such as farmland or a forested area, companies build new facilities which can best meet their needs as well as create new long-term jobs in the foreign country by hiring new employees. Bottom line, many foreign countries tend to offer prospective companies tax breaks, subsidies, and other incentives to set up the so-called Greenfield investments.

On the other hand, the Brownfield FDI takes place when a company or government entity purchases or leases existing production facilities to launch a new production activity. One application of this strategy is where a commercial site used for an "unclean" business purpose, such as a steel mill or oil refinery to be cleaned up and used for a less polluting purpose, or a commercial office space and a residential area.

Usually, the Brownfield investment is less expensive and can be implemented faster, yet, a company may have to deal with many challenges including existing employees, outdated equipment, entrenched processes, and cultural differences.

As we know, many governments encourage FDI in their countries as a way to create jobs, expand domestic technical expertise, and increase their overall economic standards. Such countries as Hong Kong and Singapore long time ago realized that both global trade and FDI would help them grow exponentially and improve their citizens’ standard of living. As a result, Hong Kong (prior to its return to China), was one of the easiest places to set up a new company where the guidelines were clearly available and businesses could set up a new office within days.

This is also similar to Singapore albeit the country was a bit more discriminatory on the size and type of business, however, its government offered foreign companies a clear streamlined process for setting up a new firm.

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WEBSITE ANALYTICS TOOL – MANGOOLS

In the realm of digital marketing, it is not uncommon to notice that many website owners utilize certain analytics tools to help them implementing the best SEO practices for the sake of increasing the visibility of their websites in order to drive more traffic and boost product conversions.

Aside from the utilization of business analytics tools that they often use, they also employ the so-called web analytics tools in order to gather data pertaining to their website visitors so that they can have a thorough overview of what parts of their website and product interest users and potential customers the most. Obviously, there are many popular web analytics tools offered on the internet. Yet, out of those web analytics tools that I find incredibly powerful and user friendly on a personal basis is none other than Mangools.

First of all, comprehending the use of web analytics on a first-hand basis is essential if you have been navigating your company’s website or personal blog. Web analytics by theory is basically the process of analyzing the behavior of visitors to your website by tracking, reviewing and reporting the data generated through the use of  your website and its components such as webpages, images and videos. The goal is to provide actionable insights which can help the website owners to be able to better optimize their website’s user engagement and meet business objectives such as increased traffic, conversions or sales.

The utilization of web analytics, in addition, can benefit any business or individual that owns a website or web application and needs some solutions on how to understand and better optimize its performance. Through a series of data collection and analysis stemmed from the use of web analytics, those businesses or individuals that own a website or web application can come up with effective strategies to attract more visitors, retain more existing customers and even boost their monthly revenues.

That is why web analytics is essential because firstly, it provides tangible data that can facilitate decisions and actions regarding a web asset. Secondly, it can serve as a business metric for promoting specific products to the customers who are keen to buy them by identifying which products a specific customer is most likely to purchase. As a result, this can help improve the ratio of revenue to marketing costs and boost the overall revenues, profitability and return on investment (ROI).

Furthermore, when it comes to discussing what Mangools can offer to help website owners to achieve the above business objectives, its service technically provides a toolset for smart SEO practices which is highly suitable for bloggers, affiliate marketers, SEO agencies, SMEs, and so on.

Compared to other web analytics tools which are relatively costly and difficult to navigate, Mangools is becoming notably popular because of its user friendly design and ease of use, including the key features such as keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink analysis, rank tracking and SERP analysis.

Given as an example, Mangools has a keyword toolset which helps website owners to see their competitors' rankings for the top keywords, and the toolset will then assist them to discover some of the keyword ideas through historical search volumes and trends. This includes search results for more than 50,000 locations thus marketers can effectively optimize the content on their websites accordingly and get more organic traffic.

On the other hand, the SERP analytics tool is another powerful feature that Mangools can offer to help marketers to figure out how competitive it is to rank on the first page thanks to the details of SERP preview with authority metrics that influence the click-through rate. The rank tracking tool offered by Mangools comes with daily rankings and aggregate metrics that show the overall progress through interactive shareable ranking reports.

In a nutshell, if a user does not wish to subscribe and use its web application, this website analytics tool renders an alternative way which is a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that employs the key data from its SEO toolset.

Link sign up:

1. https://mangools.com#a66a7bcd96aee0837faa50f55 👈

2. https://mangools.com/kwfinder#a66a7bcd96aee0837faa50f55 👈

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MONETIZING A WEBSITE WITH GOOGLE ADSENSE

If you happen to notice several ads appear on your screen while browsing through this website of mine – Breaking the Habit, or perhaps if you come across reading any articles from multiple sources as you observe that there are plenty of ads popping up on your screen as well while you are trying to look for specific information on the Google search engine, believe it or not, that is precisely how Google AdSense works with its chosen publishers including myself.

Unfortunately, far too many website owners or blog publishers out there have been rejected countless times by Google AdSense to be among its networking partners simply because they do not adhere to the policy content guidelines set in the first place. Needless to say, one thing that I realize in order to be easily approved by Google AdSense, a person needs to read very carefully and completely understand over those criteria set forth prior to submitting "become a publisher" application.

First of all, there is no way we can deny the fact that Google AdSense is still perceived as the most popular tool to generate income online in today’s digital era. Using Google AdSense to monetize your website or application traffic with its interactive unit ads is one of the simplest and the most effective monetization methods; yet, relatively challenging I would say to be eligibly qualified to become among its publishers.

With its vast network of advertisers, one thing you should know that Google AdSense strictly ensures a steady flow of targeted ads displayed on its networking partners’ websites – usually the ones that often possess great quality with their content which allow them to monetize every page view effectively.

Therefore, if your website is still under construction and lacking quality with its content, it is best for you to fix them and make any necessary improvements before sending your application to become one of its publishers.

Second of all, focusing on developing original and engaging content which resonates with your audience will not only drive more traffic, but also will cause them to stay longer on your website which can increase the likelihood of ad clicks triggered once you have been officially approved as a partner. And, to be able to effectively monetize or earn money with Google AdSense, it is crucial to blend quality content on every page with smart SEO practices (in case if you have no idea what SEO is all about, kindly refer to my articles which I have already posted under the category of digital marketing).

Bottom line, you need to keep in mind as well that aside from adhering to its policy content guidelines, make sure that your ads should be integrated in a way that they are visible and capture attentions, but not the other way round which are intrusive or distracting at the expense of user experience.

Finally, when talking about how Google AdSense technically works, it is when publishers have been approved and they start displaying ads on their website pages. Google AdSense, broadly speaking, is an ad network that connects its publishers with its advertisers.

When the publishers begin to display ads on their web pages, and there happens to be a random visitor who has viewed or clicked on one of those ads shown, the publishers in this stage will get paid from a specific portion of the advertiser’s bid for the ads that are being viewed or clicked.

Overall, Google AdSense in many circumstances tends to perform well on smaller websites because of their quality content which provides a more straightforward information that a user is looking for compared to the larger ones.

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FOUR TYPES OF BUSINESS FIRMS

Broadly speaking, the term business in general refers to an entity that operates for commercial, industrial, or professional reasons. If judging from the organizational context, a business entity is basically an establishment intended to carry out commercial activities by producing goods or services and meet the people’ needs. As we know, most of the organizations have their own standard such as social structure, purpose goals, utilization of resources, rules and regulations, and so on.

Although the fundamental purpose of a business organization revolves around facilitating efficient operations, optimizing resource utilizations, managing risks, and ultimately driving profitability and growth, however, determining the legal structure of the business is an important factor to consider since business owners may need to secure permits and licenses and follow registration requirements to begin their legal operations.

1. SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP

This is the traditional and popular form of business organization and has the least complex type of business due to the minimal government regulation. A sole proprietorship is a business owned and run by one person. It is usually very small with a few numbers of employees.

Although they do not account for much sales revenue in the economy, however, they are the most common type of firm in the world. Due to the fact that the entity is incorporated between the owner and the business, still, the sole business owner is not free from liabilities associated with the business. After all, a local grocery store is the most common example of sole proprietorship where the scale of its business is relatively small.

2. PARTNERSHIPS

A partnership is identical to a sole proprietorship, except it has more than one owner. If two or more persons agree to do business together, a partnership is formed. Doing business as a partnership is a common-law right since there is no specific statute is needed to form a partnership.

Each individual in a partnership business partners is liable for the firm’s debt owing to the fact that they share equally in the distributions of income and they have equal rights to manage the partnership. Regardless of whether the business is making profits or losses, it is usually advisable to have a written partnership agreement which will set forth the following details:

- Names and addresses of the partners.

- Relative rights to management and profits of each partner.

- The nature of the partnership business.

- Length or duration of the partnership.

- Requirements for admission and withdrawal of partners.

- Provisions concerning the dissolution of the partnership and any other provisions where the partners wish to govern their relationship as well as the entire operations of the business.

3. LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES (LLC)

A limited liability company (LLC) is a limited partnership without a general partner. It is neither a partnership nor a corporation, but a "hybrid" entity with some of the characteristics of each. In this type of business, the LLC may be solely owned or it may have several owners. The owners are called members like limited partners or shareholders, but they are not liable for the company's debts based upon their status as owners. Because the members have the right to manage the company's business and affairs, they may also elect to have the LLC to be run by one or more managers if they do not want to run it themselves.

4. CORPORATIONS

This is the most complex form of business structures because they are established under the laws of each state and also are subjected to all the corporate income tax. Besides, all the profits issued to shareholders as dividends are taxed as per the individual tax rates on their private annual tax returns. The distinguishing feature of a corporation is that it is a legally defined and artificially being separated from its owners.

Because a corporation is a legal entity separate and distinct from its owners, it is solely responsible for its own obligations. That being said, the owners of a corporation or its employees, customers, etc. are not liable for any obligations the corporation enters into. Similarly, the corporation is not liable for any personal obligations of its owners, employees, customers, and so forth.

Perhaps, one of the unique features of a corporation is that there is no limitation on who can own its stock. That is, an owner of a corporation, do not need to have any special expertise or qualification. As the feature allows free trade in the shares of the corporation and provides one of the most important advantages of organizing a firm as a corporation rather than being a sole proprietorship, partnership, or LLC, the ability to raise substantial amounts of capital is greater because those who own the ownership shares can sell them to outside investors.

Bottom line, corporation is also the most expensive to form and is subjected to double taxation where the business pays a tax on its income when earned, and its shareholders pay a tax on the income when it is distributed to them in the form of dividends, or the distributions upon the corporation's liquidation when bankrupted.

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THE CASE OF A JUNIOR MEDICAL DOCTOR WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE

While I was scrolling down and trying to keep abreast of the latest newsfeed on social media, I accidentally came across reading one intriguing article which literally piqued my interest and it sort of evoked my instant recollections of the two prominent musicians (Chris Cornell of Audioslave & Chester Bennington of Linkin Park) who had a prolonged history of struggling with chronic depression throughout their lives. It was about the ongoing case of a junior medical doctor who worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham (England) named "Dr. Vaishnavi Kumar" where she was reported to have committed suicide in June 2022 due to the severe effect of toxicity at her workplace, and her father has been relentlessly demanding an utter justice for her daughter’s untimely death since then.

To certain people out there, addressing the so-called "Mental Health Disorder" may still appear to be something taboo and inconvenient to be discussed openly, yet, many of us often times possess a tendency to underestimate or even dismiss the crucial impact of the role that mental health plays in our lives, especially from the aspects of dealing with our day-to-day routines. Besides, one of the most contributing factors which tend to escalate such a high degree of employee turnover in any industries is associated with the amount of conduciveness inflicted by a work environment. In other words, the more toxic the cultivation of corporate culture manifested in an organization, the more frequent the replacement of hiring new recruits will take place in a matter of days.

To begin with, the aforementioned case of a young medical doctor’s sudden death and its aftermath was among a series of solemn issues subject to the six-week rapid review led by Professor Mike Bewick following a perpetual sequence of damning allegations which was aired on BBC Newsnight in June 2022. According to one particular source of information retrieved, it was stated that the female Indian doctor decided to take her own life after feeling "belittled" at her workplace, which was perceived as the type of bullying case for us to be concerned with since it could trigger a never-ending episode of mental health struggles to the point where the victim would end up committing suicide.

In reference to the additional details of her impromptu demise, it was further revealed that when she felt overwhelmingly distressed by the unpleasant work ambiance at a hospital she worked, a lethal cocktail of medication was identified to be the primary cause which was something she consumed and eventually, a group of ambulance team failed to rescue her as she took her last breath at City Hospital on June 22^nd 2022.

Obviously, the above incident pertaining to a mental health problem could immediately prompt our eye brows to start questioning how such an impact of toxic workplace in the most extreme case can inflict a profound severity on a person’s mental health condition; resulting in an innocent soul to be in a dire state of suffering from suicidal thoughts.

Nevertheless, following the audacity of decision to end her life in June 2022, the junior medical doctor was also found to have left pieces of final words on a note she wrote, in which she went saying that "she was sorry to her dearest beloved mother, and she could blame the whole thing on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham" (an exact location where her dead body was discovered following her drug prescriptions with an excessive amount of alcohol consumed as the ultimate consequence of her mental health struggle, which stemmed from the adverse effect of her workplace toxicity).

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TYPES OF ESTATES IN REAL PROPERTY

By definition, an estate in real property is an interest in the property sufficient to give the owner of the estate the right to possession of the property. It is imperative to understand the difference between the right of possession and the right of use. The owner of an estate in land, firstly, has the right of possession of the land in addition to the right to use it. Secondly, an easement owner on the other side has the use of the land but not the right to possess it and therefore, the easement is a non-possessory interest in land.

Basically, the Latin translation for the word estate is defined as "status" which indicates the relationship of the estate owner with reference to rights in the property. This establishes the degree, quantity, nature, and extent of interest a person has in real property. Estates in land, in addition to this, are divided into two groups: estates of freehold and estates of less than freehold (also called leasehold estates and non-freehold estates).

The two estates can exist simultaneously in land where the owner (lessor) of a property has a freehold estate. Hence, if let say the owner leases the property, the tenant (lessee) has a leasehold estate.

A. ESTATES OF INHERITANCE

Freehold is defined as an interest in land of at least a lifetime and therefore generally is identified with the concept of title or ownership. Freehold estates may be fee simple estates or life estates. Although fee simple estates are practically inheritable, however, most of the life estates are not.

I. Fee Simple Estates

The fee simple estates provide the greatest form of ownership available in real property. The typical ownership in fee simple absolute gives certain legal rights which are usually described as a bundle of rights. The owner in fee simple absolute, in this case, may convey a life estate to another; may pledge the property as security for a mortgage debt; may convey a leasehold estate to another; may grant an easement in the land to another; and may give a license to conduct some activity on the property to another.

For example, if the owner conveyed a lease or an easement to another, the owner’s remaining rights would be a fee simple subject to the lease or easement. The fee simple ownership should not be confused with the quality of title. Ownership in fee means that the grantee owns it forever, not that it is free of title defects. And of course, an owner cannot expect to live forever and therefore the ownership consists of two periods of time, which are from the receipt of title until the owner dies and the period of time after the owner dies. In any case, the owner has the rights of ownership and use during his lifetime and then the ownership shall convey to his heirs (either by will or by the law).

II. Fee Simple Subject To a Condition Subsequent

The fee simple subject to a condition subsequent can continue for an infinite period, as in the case with the fee simple absolute. The fee simple subject to a condition subsequent also can be defeated and therefore is a defeasible (revocable) title. The fee simple subject to a condition subsequent is created by the grantor (the one conveying title) who restricts the future use of the property in some way.

For example, a grantor may convey property with the condition that it can never be used as a landfill. As long as the property is never used for this purpose, the title will continue indefinitely in the name of the initial grantee or any subsequent grantee. Any use of the property for a landfill will violate the covenant (the agreement) in the deed and the original grantor or her heirs may reenter the property and take possession or go to court and sue to regain possession. By doing so, the titleholder’s estate is terminated.

Another example of fee simple subject to a condition subsequent is that a grantor may want to convey a title in the case of the landfill where the owner may be protecting the property he owns that is close to the landfill. This is similar to the case of the college where the grantor may be highly committed to education, but may not want to give up ownership of the property for any other reasons.

Perhaps, you may notice that in the case of a fee simple determinable, the estate in the grantee automatically terminates in the event where the designated use of the property is not continued or a prohibited use is undertaken. This is contrasted with the fee simple subject to a condition subsequent, in which the termination is not automatic.

B. ESTATES NOT OF INHERITANCE

Estates not of inheritance are good only for the life of the tenant (freehold) and do not pass on to his heirs, but rather are disposed of by some other method. In addition to being created by an intentional conveyance, life estates also can be created by operation of law. When life estates are created by act of the parties, they are called conventional life estates whereas when they are created by operation of law, they are referred to as marital life estates.

I. Conventional Life Estates (Estate for Tenant’s Own Life)

A life estate is a non-inheritable freehold estate which is created only for the life of the named life tenant (one who holds a life estate). And, questioning what will happen to the estate at the death of the life tenant, well, if nothing else is specified in the conveyance of the life estate, it will revert to the grantor or to his heirs at the death of the life tenant. In this case, the grantor or his heirs would have a reversionary interest and alternatively, the conveyance of the life estate could specify that the estate pass on to someone other than the grantor or his heirs.

II. Marital Life Estates

A marital life estate is created in North Carolina (United States) by the intestate succession statutes governing the distribution of property of one who dies intestate that is the one who dies without leaving a valid will. This statute allows the surviving spouse to choose a life estate in one-third of the real property owned in severalty (sole ownership) by the deceased spouse at any time during the marriage under certain conditions.

If let say that the surviving spouse is entitled to any property of the deceased spouse through a will or intestate succession statutes and the surviving spouse has not joined in the transfer of such property by signing the deed, the surviving spouse must forfeit any interest in the deceased spouse’s property resulting from a will or an inheritance to claim her marital estate. Because of this, only few surviving spouses elect the marital life estate option since it is seldom advantageous for them to do so.

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GLOBAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTION – INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)

Broadly speaking, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization which consists of 188 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. Besides, the IMF provides policy advice and financing to its members in economic difficulties and also works with developing nations to help them achieve macroeconomic stability.

Helping a nation that can benefit from globalization while avoiding potential downsides such as massive movements of capital and abrupt shifts in comparative advantage, including labor, trade and tax policies are the important tasks for the IMF. Hence, the IMF supports its membership by providing:

1. Policy advice to governments and central banks based on analysis of economic trends and cross-country experiences.

2. Research, statistics, forecasts, and analysis based on tracking of global, regional, and individual economies and markets.

3. Loans to help countries overcome economic difficulties and fight poverty, mostly in developing countries.

4. Technical assistance and training to help countries improve the management of their economies.

Furthermore, one of the main goals of the IMF as a global financial institution is to ensure the stability of the international monetary and financial system by working together to help resolve crises with its member countries to promote growth and alleviate poverty. As the institution has three main tasks at its disposal to carry out its mandate which are surveillance, lending, technical assistance and training, these functions are underpinned by its research and statistics.

Within the realm of surveillance, for example, the IMF promotes economic stability and global growth by encouraging countries to adopt sound economic and financial policies. In order to do this, the institution regularly monitors global, regional, and national economic developments. As it also seeks to assess the impact of the policies of individual countries on other economies, the process of monitoring and discussing countries’ economic and financial policies is known as bilateral surveillance.

On a regular basis (usually, once every year), the IMF conducts in depth appraisals of each member country’s economic situation by discussing with the country’s authorities and the policies that are most conducive to a stable and prosperous economy; drawing on experience across its membership. At this stage, the member countries may agree to publish the IMF’s assessment of their economies along with the vast majority of countries opting to do so.

Meanwhile, when it comes to addressing how the IMF performs its mandate as a global financing provider, the institution essentially renders its member countries the breathing room that they need to correct their balance of payments problems. A policy program supported by financing, technically speaking, is designed by the national authorities in close cooperation with the IMF.

Although continued financial support is conditional on the effective implementation of this program, however, the IMF lending instruments were improved further to provide flexible crisis prevention tools to a broad range of its members with sound fundamentals, policies, and institutional policy frameworks. Whatever it is, the IMF in the most recent years has not only doubled its lending access limits, but also has boosted its financing support to the world’s poorer countries, with the loans provided at a concessional interest rate.

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