ASX Historical Market Statistics

Question: Discuss about the case study ASX for Historical Market Statistics. Answer: Introduction: 1. Share market is a place where the buying and selling of shares and other securities takes place. There are three parties involved in a share market, the investor, companies whose shares are bought and sold and the brokers who do the buying and selling. For a companys shares to be traded on ASX, it should be listed with ASX. All the buyers and sellers in the share market have uniform information as the ASX requires companies to disclose any vital information likely to affect its share price. Hence, no one investor can take advantage of company information. In a share market there are two prices bid and an offer. If shares are bought of a company, the order is called bid and if shares are to be sold, it is called offer. The ASX has a computerised trading system which matches the bids with offers and a trade is created. The buyer and seller will inform to the stock broker about the quantities and best price of shares they are willing to trade. Or they may also be prepared to take whatever best price is selling in the market. Once buying and selling takes place, the shares will be recorded as bought or sold and the ownership of the shares will be transferred from the seller to the buyer in three days. The shares are traded through a licensed stock broker as they are only authorized to sell in stock market. The brokers charge a brokerage for the services provided which is usually a small percentage of the transaction amount. The current top 20 shares by value as provided on the website of ASX is presented below: Company $ Value traded Woolworths 291,305,380.05 CWLTH Bank 152,107,479.65 ANZ Bank 111,859,506.07 BHP Billiton 109,208,937.53 Westpac 103,152,945.81 CSL 85,058,382.95 Telstra 79,218,155.65 NAT. Bank 78,820,604.01 Newcrest 75,667,764.68 Wesfarmer 72,947,052.13 Rio Tinto 69,608,749.71 Woodside 59,531,824.17 Spark INFR 50,935,054.40 AGL Energy 50,152,765.44 Macq Group 46,676,133.11 AMP 42,448,301.88 Fortescue 41,098,662.69 Stockland 39,395,918.79 Scentre 35,458,955.96 Bramb Ltd. 34,882,361.49 There are 2204 companies listed on ASX as on June, 2016. There were 2223 companies listed on ASX in the year 2008. (ASX, 2016). There has been a decrease of 0.8% in the number of listed entities. 2. Financial accounting is the process of recording, summarizing and presenting the transactions of a company for a specific period in the financial statements which include balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and changes in equity. The financial statements are external in nature as they are prepared for third parties i.e. investors, suppliers government etc. since the statements are used by different people, there are certain accounting rules according to which they should be prepared known as accounting standards. The managers of the company can use these statements to evaluate the companys performance. the various tools that can be used by the managers to analyze performance and thereby help in decision making include ratio analysis, break even analysis, contribution margin, cost volume profit analysis and operational leverage. Management Accounting is the process of collecting, measuring and communicating the information in such a way that the information is used by the top management to formulate policies and strategies for the organisation. Also the information helps management to plan and control the operations of the company. (Malik, NA). Management accounting helps the managers in managing the resources and people to create value for the organisation and provides the necessary information which helps in decision making and ultimately leads to attainment of organisational goals effectively. (Kidane, 2012). The various tools include ABC costing, quality management tools, SWOT, PEST, Balance Scorecard, porters five force model etc. (CGMA, 2016) 3. An incorporated business is an entity separate from its owners. Though incorporation involves a lot of paperwork and is an expensive process, however there are many advantages to incorporation which are discussed below: Limited Liability the liability of the owners/shareholders is limited i.e. the shareholders is personally not liable for the companys debts. The shareholder is liable only for the amount that he has invested in the company and a creditor cannot sue the shareholders or directors for any company liabilities, rather he can seek payment only from the company assets. The company exists as a separate legal entity. Lower taxes corporation tax is different from individual tax and is usually lower. Moreover the corporation can reduce its profits by deducting all operating expenses, employee benefits, health benefits and contribution to pensions and retirement plans for employees, thus reducing the profit and therefore taxes. Easier access to capital it is easier to raise capital through issue of shares by corporations. Also corporations can easily avail loans from banks. With so many alternative of capital sourcing, corporation can expand and develop its business. Perpetual existence corporations are separate legal business entity and do not come to an end with the death of its managers, shareholders or directors. As such corporation can undertake long term planning and thereby a favourable financing. 4. In todays competitive world, it is very important to have the basic ethical principles intact in a person in carrying out business. Ethical principles are standards of the right and wrong behaviour of an individual or a company that they should engage or not engage in. In order to be a good business executive, it is important to have a good character and reputation in the company because the ethical practises of senior leaders establish the ethical standards in an organisation. There are twelve ethical principles that one should abide by which include honesty, integrity, fulfilling commitments, loyalty, fairness, caring, respect for others, commitment to excellence, law abiding, maintain company reputation and accountability. In the present case there are three courses of action, ethical issues and principles for each course is discussed below: 1. If the manager declares his interest and steps out of the decision making process, he is being honest and maintaining his integrity as by declaring his interest, he would lose the opportunity to win the tender for his interest company and thus may lose making money. However by stepping outside the decision making process, the manager is not being loyal to the company. A manager is said to be loyal if he can make professional judgements independently. The interest of the company should be over all other personal interests. By not participating in the decision process, the manager is not being committed to the company. 2. If the manager declares his interest and participates in the decision making process, he is exhibiting loyalty, integrity, honesty and fairness ethical principles. 3. If the manager does not declare his interest and continues being part of the decision making process, he is being unethical since he is hiding a material fact from his company which may have an influence in the decision making process. This shows he is dishonest, disloyal and not being fair in his dealings. 4. Declaring his interest and participating in the decision making process is the best course of action for the manager as this would be the most ethical behaviour where he would have been honest by declaring his interest and also loyal by abiding by his duties as a senior business executive. The manager should keep the companys interest above his personal interest in carrying out his duties. Reference ASX, 2016, ASX Tutorial: What is the Share market, accessed online on 26th July, 2016 available at, https://www.asx.com.au/videos/2012/whatisthesharemarket_tutorial/ ASX, 2016, Top 20 Shares by Value, [Online], available at, https://www.asx.com.au/data/dw_sharesbyvalue.pdf [Accessed on 26th July, 2016] ASX, 2016, Historical Market Statistics, [Online], available at,https://www.asx.com.au/about/historical-market-statistics.htm#No. of Companies and securities listed on ASX [Accessed on 26th July, 2016] CGMA, (2016), Essential Tools for Management Accountants, [Online], available at https://www.cgma.org/Resources/Tools/essential-tools/Pages/list.aspx?TestCookiesEnabled=redirect [Accessed on 26th July, 2016] Malik, N.S., (NA), Management Accounting: Nature and Scope, [Online], available at, https://www.ddegjust.ac.in/studymaterial/mcom/mc-105.pdf [Accessed on 26th July, 2016] Kidane, F., (2012), Decision Making and the Role of Management Accounting Function A Review of Empirical Literature, Journal of Radix International Educational and Research Consortium, Vol. 1, no. 4 Josephson, M., (2015), 12 Ethical Principles for Business Executives, [Online], available at https://www.standardizations.org/bulletin/?p=13 [Accessed on 26th July, 2016] Colville, J., (2000), Incorporation: Pros and Cons, Accountancy