In this lesson summary review and remind yourself of the key terms and concepts related to financial assets. Topics include the basic types of financial assets, the meaning of interest, and the distinction between stocks and bonds.
Lesson Summary
What if you woke up one day and discovered you won
The purpose of the financial system is to connect savers and borrowers. Savers store their wealth in ways that let them earn a return. Borrowers want to pursue projects, but they need money (from savers) to fund those projects. For example, if a firm wants to build a new factory, they might issue bonds and stocks to savers as a way to raise financial assets and get real assets. When borrowers buy those stocks and bonds, they are effectively lending money to these firms.
Key terms
| Key term | definition |
|---|---|
| financial system | the set of institutions that connect savers with borrowers |
| financial intermediary | an institution that transforms the savings from individuals into financial assets (for the saver) and liabilities (for the borrower); the financial intermediary that people have the most experience with is a bank, which converts the savings and other deposits of many depositors into loans for borrowers. |
| asset | some item of value that is expected to provide the holder some future benefit; factories are an asset because they can be used to produce goods that provide income to a firm in the future, and a bond is an asset to a bondholder because it will provide income in the future. |
| liabilities | requirements to pay money in the future; a loan is a liability for the person who takes out a loan, but an asset to the person who loaned money out. |
| real asset | (sometimes called a physical asset) a claim on a tangible object that gives the owner the right to use it as they wish. A house is a real asset that its owner can sell or rent out, and a factory is a real asset that a business can use to earn profits. |
| financial asset | a contractual claim to something of value; modern economies have four main types of financial assets: bank deposits, stocks, bonds, and loans. In reality, there are many more types of financial assets (like derivatives, calls, puts, and so on), but you only need to know the basics of these four types for this course. |
| financial risk | when there is any uncertainty about the future value of an asset; for example, if you don't know how many lime smoothies you can buy with the money in your savings account next week, the value of your savings account has risk, because inflation can reduce its value. |
| bank deposits | (also called demand deposits) money kept in a bank, like checking accounts; we call these "demand deposits" because banks are usually required to provide access to the money in those accounts immediately on request (in other words, on demand). |
| liquidity | how easily an asset converts to cash without loss of purchasing power; a house might be a store of value, but it's not a very liquid asset because you can't immediately buy a bowl of ice cream with it very easily. Cash is the most liquid asset because you can use it immediately. |
| return | the profit made on an asset, usually expressed as a percentage; for example, a stock that is purchased for |
| bonds | bonds are a form of an IOUs (a promise to pay back some amount in the future); bonds have three key features: the bond’s par, the bond’s maturity, and the bond’s coupon payments. |
| stock | a slice of ownership in a company; if you own one share of a company that has a total of 100 shares, you own |
Key takeaways
Cash and demand deposits are the most liquid forms of money
When it comes to financial assets, liquidity refers to how easily we can convert that asset into purchasing power. A good analogy for liquidity is liquids! Think of money in a checking account as water, wealth you have stored in a savings bond as cooking oil, and a house as honey. They will each pour out of their “container” at different speeds, and the one that is most liquid (the water/money) will pour out the quickest - you can spend money right away!
It takes a while to sell a house, however, which makes it similar to honey: it’s going to be a while before you have access to its purchasing power. We call assets like this illiquid because they are either hard to convert to spending power, or spending power is lost in the process. For instance, to sell your house this week you might have to sell it at a loss (less than you paid for it), and so some of its spending power will be lost in the process.
This is why cash and demand deposits are the most liquid assets: you can use them immediately to buy things without any loss of value. If you want to buy a
There are many kinds of financial assets
A modern economy has many ways to store value besides money, such as stocks, bonds, derivatives, and commodities like gold. Each kind of financial asset has a different goal for the agent that issues it, and they each have a different amount of risk and return for the person who purchases it. For instance:
A car factory owner might not know how much they can sell cars for once they are made. The value of stocks might increase, decrease, or even lose all of their value. Bond issuers may fail to pay back the par value of a bond. Even cash and savings accounts have risk because inflation may cause their purchasing power to decrease.
Stocks
Stocks are ownership claims. When a company initially issues stock, the company is exchanging cash for an equal ownership stake in the company (stocks are sometimes called “equities” because they represent equal shares). That ownership stake entitles the person who owns that stock to a portion of the profit the company makes, called dividends.
Another source of value to someone who owns stock is the ability to sell it to someone else, which will yield a return to the stock owner if the stock has appreciated.
You bet! Instead of issuing bonds, Fields Follies decides to raise money for their project by issuing shares of ownership in the company. They sell 100 shares of stock at
Jacob buys one share of stock for
Bonds
Companies and governments issue bonds to get cash today in exchange for money in the future. Unlike stocks, bonds do not give the owner of the bond any ownership claim—it is only a loan.
The value of a bond to the person who buys it is based on its maturity, par value, and coupon payments. Maturity is the length of time until you are paid a fixed amount of money. That fixed amount of money is the par value (sometimes called face value). Sometimes bonds give the owner an occasional payment called a coupon payment. For example, Joe buys a bond for
Sure! Fields Follies is a company that creates traveling carnival rides. They want to build a new factory to build their new ride, the Ultra-mega-slide 5000. Instead of borrowing money from a bank to do that, they decide to issue 400 bonds with a face value of
Jacob buys one of these bonds in January 2014 for its face value (
When interest rates increase, bond prices decrease
When interest rates go up, the price of previously issued bonds goes down. Let’s walk through the logic of why this relationship exists. Suppose you buy a bond that has a par of
When you bought the bond, you were expecting a
Now, suppose the interest rate on your bank’s savings accounts increases to
Nope! The bond still isn’t as good of a deal, even though the price went down by
You are absolutely correct! Recall that one of the determinants of demand is a related good: if a substitute is more attractive, the demand for a good will decrease.
In this case, when the return on a savings account increases because the interest rate has gone up, this will lead to a decrease in the demand for bonds. As in any other market, when demand decreases, the price decreases, as shown in the market here.
The interest rate is the opportunity cost of money
If you hold onto cash (such as keeping it in your pocket or buried in your backyard) it's going to cost you. For example, if you have a
That is what an interest rate is—the opportunity cost of holding money. When a bank pays you interest on your savings account, the bank is paying you for letting them use your money. You are willing to give up using that money yourself today in exchange for an ability to use more in the future.
Key equations
The Savings-Investment spending identity
(
When firms engage in investment spending (
Let’s think about what would happen if savings and investment weren’t equal to each other. Suppose the current interest rate was
Suppose firms want to borrow a total of
So, the bank increases the interest rate to
There are three ways to think about an interest rate:It is the opportunity cost to people with money in their pocket of not putting that money in an interest-bearing account.It is the price of borrowing money.It is the reward for saving money.
Common misperceptions
- A lot of people think of loans only as a liability, not an asset, because having a loan means you owe something. But to the person who is owed that money, the loan is an asset. Banks count loans as assets because they are a store of value for them. If a bank has made a loan for
- Similarly, people tend to only think of their bank accounts as assets. That’s true, but to the bank that has to pay the account holder that money when they want to withdraw it, that deposit is a liability.
- Money is not just pieces of paper or coins with historical faces it. Money is anything that can serve the three functions of money. That means that anything we believe is performing those functions is money, including printed currency, electronic records, or even the giant stone money on the island of Yap.
- Some people believe that "financial risk" is when you don't know if the value of something is going to go down or not. In reality, financial risk means uncertainty in any direction, not just down.
- A common mistake is to mix up the relationship between bond prices and interest rates. Think of bonds and other financial assets (such as savings accounts) as substitute goods. Like other substitutes, when the price of one goes up, the demand for its substitute goes down. When interest increases (which is basically the “price” you are paid for the money in your savings account), the demand for bonds will decrease. As a result, the price of bonds will decrease.
Discussion questions
- Use the format below to create a table describing the four financial assets that includes
1) the definition of the financial asset
2) the risks that that asset faces
3) the return to holding that form of asset
| Asset | source of risk | source of return |
|---|---|---|
| a) | ||
| b) | ||
| c) | ||
| d) |
| Asset | source of risk | source of return |
|---|---|---|
| Stocks | uncertainty over resale value, uncertainty about dividends | resale value, dividends |
| Bonds | default risk, inflation risk, interest rate risk | resale, a par value higher than the purchase price, coupon payments |
| Bank deposits | inflation risk, bank failures | interest |
| Loans | default risk, inflation risk | resale of a loan, interest |
-The interest rate is currently
The price of the bond will decrease. The expected return on the government issued bond is:
Therefore, the bond is paying a higher return than the current interest rate. However if the interest rate increases, a bond with a return of
-What is the opportunity cost of keeping
The interest rate that you could be earning on that money from an interest-bearing account or the return on any other kind of asset.
