Update!

Dear students:

Your grades have been published. Please consult with concerned department to check your grade.

You may check your marks using the following links:

For ACT201.15 http://www.4shared.com/file/61033819/a238d25/ACT201_15.html

For ACT201.16 http://www.4shared.com/file/61033820/58d26642/ACT201_16.html

For FIN254.10 http://www.4shared.com/file/61033821/2fd556d4/FIN254_10.html

For FIN254.11 http://www.4shared.com/file/61033822/b6dc076e/FIN254_11.html

Thanks.

An Unwanted Email!

Following is an excerpt of an email addressed to me by a student:

Sir take my salaam, This is XXXXXXX from XXXXXX. Sir I am so much willing to know my final marks . . . . . . . . . I have also one request to you sir. My expected grade is B. If I get a grade something below B then I have to retake it because I want do major on XXXXXXX. Plz sir I don't want to retake it because I learned XXXXX very well. It will be disaster for me if get a bad grade because my CGPA is poor and it will impact hardly. I know sir you don't like these kinds of request. But I have no other way to say. Sir I need your help and ensallah I will do well in next XXX courses. You are my only hope plz don't deny me sir. Plzzzzzz Give me at least B grade to continue it otherwise I will fall in trouble. . . . . . . . . . . Plz forgive me if I had done anything wrong to you. I am looking forward to your response. Thank You.

I want to warn all my students to be very careful not to send such emails/requests. Such an act may affect your grade negatively.

A Session of Q/A

আশফাকুর রহমান said... 
Sir, I know our exam is finished. But i wanted to know why don't we take time value of money into account while depreciating? If we took time value of money into account then we could show more money as depreciated and cut down our tax-able income in other words our tax lower. Is it because depreciation is a non-cash expense?

Dear Ashfaqur:

You have rightly pointed that out! Depreciation is a non-cash expense. It's a process of cost allocation, not a valuation. Depreciation is determined based on the historical cost of a depreciable asset. It does not change, unless you revalue. Another thing is that when we apply time value of money concept/model, we apply that on the cash flows. When we determine cash flows we do add all types of non-cash expenses including depreciation. In other words, depreciation is considered for time value of money indirectly.

Hope this has been helpful.

Extra Office Hour...

Dear students:

I am planning to be in my office from 10 am to 12 pm on the 26th of August (Tuesday). FIN254 students may check their scripts if finished checking.

Thanks.

A Session of Q/A

Mushtahir wrote:

In today's FIN254 Final exam, in problem 1, you mentioned 'pretax operating cash flow $400000'. While solving the problem i assumed that the term 'pretax' is just a trick to create confusion. Because we get OCF after deducting dep. expense and tax from EBIT. But once we get OCF we don't tax it like we do for salvage. 

OCF is alway 'pretax'.Therefore i kept 400000 as it was. Still i am pretty confused. Was my logic correct?

Dear Mushtahir:

Please recall the formula for determining OCF from Income Statement, it's OCF = EBIT + Depreciation - Taxes. Therefore, pretax OCF is just EBIT + Depreciation. Thus, if you deduct depreciation from pretax OCF you will get EBIT. After deducting taxes from EBIT, you will get the Net Income. Since there is no interest expense in the problem, OCF is just Net Income + Depreciation.

Hope this has clarified your confusion.

Thanks.

Extra Office Hours...

Dear students:

I will be available in my office from 10 am to 12 pm on 21st of August (Thursday).

Thanks.

A Session of Q/A

rumi said... 
sir,we face some problem about the financing activities and operating activities in cash flow. Please give us some example and some entry that will help us in the exam. At last pray for us.

Dear Rumi:

Broadly speaking, if an activity affects the Income Statement, then it's an operating activity; if an activity affects equity or long-term liability items of the Balance Sheet, it's a financing activity. Please try to do chapter-end problems for practice.

Thanks.

Assignment updated!

There were some changes in the solutions to Assignment 5 & 6 of FIN254. Updated file is available in the resource drive.

Thanks.

Updates!

The final exam 0f ACT201 (sections 15 & 16) has been re-scheduled to be held on 27th of August (Wednesday) instead of 15th of August (Friday) scheduled earlier by the registrar's office.

Solutions to Assignment 5 & 6 (FIN254) and Assignment 7 (ACT201) are now available in the resource drive.

Thanks.

Extra Office Hours...

Dear students:

I will be available in my office from 11 am to 2 pm today (13th of August) and tomorrow (14th of August). Hope those of you who need to see me for any assistance would make use of the extra office hours.

Thanks.

Donate and Save a Life!

Dear all concerned:

One of our students, Sharmin Quazi Bonni (Student Id# 073 - 172 - 048), of Life Sciences Department, is critically ill. Please come forward and donate to save her life.

Please donate and encourage others as well. Every donation of yours can make a difference... it may save a LIFE!

Thanks.

A Session of Q/A

Mushtahir Aziz (Anondo) said... 

While I was evaluating two mutually exclusive projects using IRR, i found two discount rates. One of them was negative and it still brought positive NPV. How can you explain that? Is it totally absurd? Because in this case we are having cash surplus while there is negative return.

Dear Mushtahir:

Please recall the class lecture on different decision rules, including IRR. I talked about two situations when IRR is unreliable as a decision rule - when a project has non-conventional cash flows and when projects are mutually exclusive. For projects with non-conventional cash flows, number of possible IRRs can be as high as the number of sign changes in the cash flows. In some cases, there may be no IRR (meaning NPV is negative at every discount rate) at all (see example 9.5)! For mutually exclusive projects, IRR may be misleading as well.

The problem you are talking about may be explained in a more specific way if I have the numbers. In a nominal sense (disregarding time value of money, in other words, with a discount rate of '0') if cash outflows of a project are more than cash inflows, it may give you a negative IRR, for obvious reason - to turn negative NPV to zero. If you start reducing the discount rate even more (higher on absolute term) you will find higher positive NPVs! 

Thank you for raising this point here. Hope this answers your query.

Lecture Notes uploaded...

Dear students of FIN254 (Sections 10 & 11):

Chapter 11 Lecture Notes have been uploaded to the resouce drive.

Thanks.

Introduction!

Dear all concerned:

This blog has been created primarily for my students. Many students come to me with concerns related to course materials, assignments, quizzes, exams etc. I also receive emails with such concerns. Sometimes I feel that the discussions I have with those students may help other students with similar concerns. This blog would play as a common platform for us to discuss/share such issues.

This blog may also be used to publish announcements, course marks etc. Hope my students would be benefited.

Best regards,

Shahzada M Imran (Szm)

Lecturer, School of Business, NSU.