The Business Department of St. Gerald’s College, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland.
Congratulations to Peter McCormack (4th Year) on receiving a Certificate of Achievement from the Business Studies Teachers Association of Ireland (BSTAI) and NUIG. Peter achieved an ‘A’ grade in Higher Level Business Studies in the 2011 Junior Certificate Examinations.
Don’t forget that you can follow all the news from the Business Department in St. Gerald’s on our new Facebook Page – facebook.com/sgcbusiness
You can enter the St. Gerald’s Stock Competition from today (December 19th).
The competition ends on March 16th 2012 and the winner will receive a €50 voucher.
Thanks to Robert Comer in TY for setting up the competition on MarketWatch.com
Follow these instructions to join the game:
Please note: If you used the Marketwatch.com website before (e.g., played in a previous school competition), login using the same user account as before.
Best of luck and follow all the updates on our Facebook page!
Thanks to MyStudyMate.ie
Here’s a summary of Budget 2012. Thanks to Ms. Casey.
Michael Noonan's Budget Speech 06/12/11
Test your knowledge of the General Journal.
Click on the link below.
There has been a lot in the news recently about “bonds” and “bond yields”.
The following is an article from the Sunday Business Post that explains what these are.
What is a bond?
A bond is a unit of debt. The bonds we’re all talking about these days are sovereign bonds, or units of government debt. But companies sell them too.
It’s just a contract by which an investor agrees to loan money to a company or government in exchange for a predetermined interest rate and generally for a predetermined period of time (two years, five years, ten years).
Why is it bad when bonds rise?
When we say a bond has risen, we mean the yield – or interest rate – on that bond has risen. Effectively yields and prices move in the opposite direction. A rising bond yield is a falling bond price.
As yields rise, it indicates investors won’t buy that country’s debt unless they get a better return. The higher the level of risk they perceive to their investment , the higher the interest rate which investors demand.
Right now investors fear that if they lend to Italy they may eventually not get all their money back – so they are demanding a higher interest rate to compensate for this perceived risk.
Right. And seven per cent is a high yield is it?
Yes it’s very high, particularly when a German bond is yielding two per cent, which means investors want a five per cent premium from Italy (this is an enormous gap in sovereign debt terms).When yields in Ireland and Portugal hit that level, it was time for a bailout.
OK, so why doesn’t Italy just stop selling bonds for a while until it all blows over?
It might have to, but then it has to worry about how to pay its bills. It needs to repay some maturing bonds later this year and has to raise a hefty €300 billion in 2012.The EU/IMF could offer funds to Italy – but they probably do not have enough in the kitty to bail Italy out for a period of years, as they have done with Ireland, Greece and Portugal.
The full article is available here.
Well done to our two teams from Junior Certificate Business Studies who took part in the CIMA/BSTAI Junior Certificate Business Studies Quiz in NUIG recently.
Over 30 teams took part in the quiz from the Connacht region. We did well in the quiz considering it was our first time participating – 8th and 11th place. Both our teams were in joint 4th place mid-way through the quiz.
It was a very enjoyable evening.
Our teams were:
Team A: Conor McDonnell, Conor Quinn, Seán Tobin and Shane McCormick.
Team B: Michael Loftus, John Armstrong, Ammár Janjua and David Glynn.
Here’s a video from the quiz:
More photos from the quiz are on the NUIG – J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics Facebook page…
Aaron McMahon speaking to LC Business
By Micheal Lavelle
On 7th of November, local entrepreneur Aaron Mc Mahon came to visit our Leaving Certificate Business class to tell us about his business Rua. Here is my review of how the visit went.
Aaron’s Mother set the business up 16 years ago and originally named it Café Rouge. Once Aaron and his sister took over they decided to change the name to Rua.
Aaron told us that dedication and hard work is essential to be a successful entrepreneur. He presented us with 12 essential points from his past experience which he found essential to help him succeed. The point I found most interesting and important was “that the customer is king”. Without customers the business will not function and ultimately fail. I found Aaron’s visit very helpful for helping me with my Leaving Cert Business and future predicaments.
Aaron McMahon and a student from LC Business
Here is the solution to your mid-term test.
Did your Balance Sheet balance?
Any questions – add them to the Comments or email mrhannon [at] geralds [dot] ie
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