No Investor Backlash Over Banks' Credit Downgrades

So turns the post-subprime bizarro world of credit-rating companies: Moody’s Investors Service (MCO)  downgraded Morgan Stanley (MS), Credit Suisse Group (CS), and 13 other banks. Today the banks respond by … rallying? Has the sector no shame? Or do credit ratings perhaps not mean what they used to?

“All of the banks affected by today’s actions have significant exposure to the volatility and risk of outsized losses inherent to capital-markets activities,” Greg Bauer, Moody’s global banking managing director, said in a June 21 statement.

That sounded dour enough, especially with everyone so worried about the systemic reverberations that could emanate from a full-blown euro crisis. Moody’s reduced Morgan Stanley’s long-term senior unsecured debt rating two grades to Baa1, while nine other banks, including Switzerland’s UBS (UBS), got two-level cuts; Credit Suisse was taken down three levels to A2. Meanwhile, in a Scarlet Letter-like rebuke, Goldman Sachs (GS) now must endure the ignominy of an A3 rating on its senior debt—the lowest in the storied investment bank’s history.

This all comes after Moody’s in February said it was reviewing the health of 17 banks. So investors have had four months—which included JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) bombshell trading-loss revelation, as well as fresh fear and loathing out of Athens and Madrid—to price in new concerns.

Shares of all the firms affected by the downgrade were up Friday in early trading, several by more than 2 percent, with financials leading gains in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Notably, the cost to protect Morgan Stanley debt against losses dropped to the lowest in more than seven weeks, while credit-default swaps linked to Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) also improved.

The banks themselves were defiant. Citigroup, which took a cut from Moody’s to its lowest rating since it was formed 14 years ago, said in a statement: “Moody’s approach is backward-looking and fails to recognize Citi’s transformation over the past several years. Citi believes that investors and clients have become much more sophisticated in their credit analysis over the past few years, and that few rely on ratings alone—particularly from a single agency—to make their credit decisions.” The bank said it was “especially surprised” at the ”disproportionately adverse treatment” it says Moody’s has given U.S. banks compared with their European counterparts. Moody’s included Citi among a list of four banks, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), that have a history of “high volatility” and problems with risk management.

Edinburgh-based RBS, the majority U.K. taxpayer-owned lender that took the biggest bailout in the global financial crisis, said the Moody’s action “is backward-looking and does not give adequate credit for the substantial improvements the group has made to its balance sheet, funding, and risk profile.” For its part, Morgan Stanley said that while the new ratings “are better than its initial guidance of up to three notches, we believe the ratings still do not fully reflect the key strategic actions we have taken in recent years.”

Citi further used the Moody’s downgrade to lend its bailed-out moral suasion to the anti-ratings companies movement. ”Investors and clients should make their own decisions,” the bank said. “Citi is aware that analytical alternatives to the ratings agencies exist today from several providers that would further enhance the ability of investors and clients to arrive at their own conclusions without being captive to the judgments of rating agencies.”

The ghost of subprime lingers for the ratings companies. As housing and financials led the economy into its deepest dive in a generation, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s (MHP), and Fitch Ratings were all late to recognize the error of their overly optimistic credit ratings on everything from mortgage-backed securities to bank debt. They have since been trying to win back the reputational clout they enjoyed before the crisis. The cuts by Moody’s are “a mea culpa from 2007 and 2008,” says James Leonard, a credit analyst with Morningstar (MORN). “The banks have gotten so much better in the last few years in terms of capital, yet their ratings keep going down. What does that tell you? That the ratings were so wrong before.”

“To downgrade a BofA or Citigroup or companies that are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars of cash in government-backed securities makes no sense,” added Dick Bove, the oft-quoted banks analyst, in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “You can forget Moody’s,” he said. “You should have forgotten them a long time ago.”

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RBA’s Stevens May Lift Rates in Third Quarter: Australia Credit

June 05, 2011, 10:16 AM EDT By Michael Heath

June 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Reserve Bank of Australia may resume lifting the developed world’s highest borrowing costs in July or August to counter inflation fueled by the biggest surge in demand since 2009, rates in money markets show.

Yields on July and August interbank cash rate futures advanced last week for the first time in a month after a gross domestic product report showed demand expanded 1.3 percent in the first quarter, more than twice as much as in the prior period. June contracts show traders are betting RBA Governor Glenn Stevens will leave the central bank’s target interest rate at 4.75 percent tomorrow, where’s it’s been since November.

Household spending accounts for 55 percent of Australia’s economy, and the central bank has sought to restrain consumption with 175 basis points of rate increases between October 2009 and November, letting investment in mining drive growth. A June 2 report showing the biggest increase in retail sales in 17 months signals higher incomes are encouraging consumers to spend more, spurring the first weekly decline for benchmark 10-year notes since April 8.

“The question over the timing of the next RBA move has come down to the propensity to consume,” said Jarrod Kerr, director of Australia rates strategy at Credit Suisse Group AG in Singapore. “The strength of consumption and the surge in income growth suggests the RBA will deliver another rate rise in the coming months.”

Soaring Currency

The RBA has expressed concern that higher consumption will clash with capacity constraints such as skill shortages caused by mining investment that the government estimates will reach A$76 billion ($81 billion) next fiscal year.

Twenty-three of 28 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News predict Stevens will keep rates unchanged tomorrow. Five forecast an increase to 5 percent.

Australia’s currency has soared 27 percent in the past year as surging commodity shipments to China and India underpin investors’ expectations that the RBA will raise rates.

The so-called Aussie reached $1.1012 on May 2, the highest since exchange controls were scrapped in 1983, and closed at $1.0716 on June 3 in New York.

Unemployment has fallen to a two-year low and consumer price growth accelerated last quarter to the fastest pace since 2006 as companies including BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, expand output.

Iron Ore, Coal

“Australia’s terms of trade are likely to rise further in the June quarter, to be above the level assumed a few months ago -- and at their highest level in at least 140 years -- boosted in particular by high prices for iron ore and coal,” the RBA said in its quarterly policy statement on May 6, referring to a measure of income earned from exports.

The yield on July cash-rate futures advanced 2.5 basis points to 4.825 percent, while the rate on the August contract climbed 3.5 basis points to 4.875 percent last week. The chances of a July rate increase climbed to 30 percent on June 3 from 20 percent on May 27, while the probability of an advance in August rose to 50 percent from 36 percent.

The current stretch is the fourth time since mid-2007 that Australia’s central bank has held policy for five-straight meetings. The RBA raised rates in November 2010 and October 2009, after ending such a pause in October 2008 with a reduction in the benchmark.

Australia’s economy shrank 1.2 percent in the first quarter, the most since 1991, as floods in the northeast slashed coal exports, a June 1 report showed. Even so, the currency rose and bonds fell the most in almost four months after the data as investors focused on final demand, the broadest measure of spending by government, consumers and businesses, which more than doubled from 0.6 percent in the final quarter of 2010.

Economy Rebounding

A day later, a government report showed April retail sales advanced 1.1 percent from a month earlier, the biggest jump since November 2009 and almost three times more than the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists.

In the May 6 review, the RBA forecast growth of 4.25 percent this year. Consumer prices will rise 3.25 percent over the period and core inflation will reach 3 percent, it said.

Expectations for consumer-price gains declined for a fourth week, the longest stretch since December, government debt markets show. The gap between yields on five-year inflation- linked notes and similar-maturity bonds that aren’t indexed shrank to 2.98 percentage points on June 3 from 3.01 percentage points a week earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The so-called breakeven rate shows investor estimates for annual inflation over the lifetime of the bonds. The RBA aims to keep inflation in a range of 2 percent to 3 percent on average.

RBA’s Pause

The central bank may also have cause to keep rates unchanged as global growth shows signs of weakening, including the economies of some of Australia’s biggest trading partners, and Europe’s debt crisis deepens.

China’s manufacturing expanded at the slowest pace in nine months in May, a survey of companies released last week showed. India’s growth in three months to March 31 was the weakest in five quarters, and Japan’s industrial production rose less than economists forecast in April. Those three countries accounted for 51 percent of Australia’s total exports so far this year.

Greece’s fiscal crisis worsened enough for Moody’s Investors Service last week to raise the probability of a default to 50 percent. Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers, said June 3 that the European Union will approve a new aid plan for Greece.

U.S. stocks fell last week, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its longest stretch of losses since 2004, after Labor Department figures showed payrolls rosed 54,000 in May, less than the 165,000 median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, while the jobless rate climbed to 9.1 percent.

Europe Concerns

“Australian fixed income looks to have been the beneficiary of heightened European concerns and increased uncertainty over the U.S. outlook,” said Su-Lin Ong, head of Australian economic and fixed-income strategy at RBC Capital Markets in Sydney.

The yield on the Australian government’s benchmark 10-year note advanced to 5.234 percent on June 3 from 5.230 percent on May 27, snapping the longest stretch of declines since 2008. The premium over the rate on similar-maturity Treasuries widened to 225 basis points, or 2.25 percentage point, from this year’s low of 197 on March 3.

A May 31 central bank report showed loans provided by Australian banks and finance companies stagnated in April. Australian employers shed 22,100 workers in April, bringing to 26,300 the number of net new jobs created in first four months of 2011, the weakest for that period since 1999.

Australia’s minimum wage was increased 3.4 percent to A$589.30 a week, the national workplace relations tribunal said June 3. The wage price index rose 3.8 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the government reported May 18.

Queensland’s Exports

Stevens has held rates for five meetings to allow the economy in Queensland to recover from floods in January that Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the nation’s most expensive natural disaster.

Further weighing on consumers, the government said last month it will end 23 years of spending growth to help ease inflation pressure and support the return to a budget surplus.

The gap between yields on corporate notes and sovereign debt widened one basis point last week to 162, paring this year’s decline in the spread to 35 basis points, Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes show.

In a statement after its May 3 policy decision, the RBA said it left rates unchanged as households continue to show caution in spending and borrowing, and are saving more.

Last week’s GDP report showed Australia’s household savings ratio climbed to 11.5 percent in the three months through March from 9.7 percent in the previous quarter, the highest level since 2009.

--With assistance from Candice Zachariahs and Daniel Petrie in Sydney. Editors: Brendan Murray, Garfield Reynolds

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net

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Finance, Credit, Investments - Economical Categories

Scientific works in the theories of finances and credit, according to the specification of the research object, are characterized to be many-sided and many-leveled.

The definition of totality of the economical relations formed in the process of formation, distribution and usage of finances, as money sources is widely spread. For example, in "the general theory of finances" there are two definitions of finances:

1) "...Finances reflect economical relations, formation of the funds of money sources, in the process of distribution and redistribution of national receipts according to the distribution and usage". This definition is given relatively to the conditions of Capitalism, when cash-commodity relations gain universal character;

2) "Finances represent the formation of centralized ad decentralized money sources, economical relations relatively with the distribution and usage, which serve for fulfillment of the state functions and obligations and also provision of the conditions of the widened further production". This definition is brought without showing the environment of its action. We share partly such explanation of finances and think expedient to make some specification.

First, finances overcome the bounds of distribution and redistribution service of the national income, though it is a basic foundation of finances. Also, formation and usage of the depreciation fund which is the part of financial domain, belongs not to the distribution and redistribution of the national income (of newly formed value during a year), but to the distribution of already developed value.

This latest first appears to be a part of value of main industrial funds, later it is moved to the cost price of a ready product (that is to the value too) and after its realization, and it is set the depression fund. Its source is taken into account before hand as a depression kind in the consistence of the ready products cost price.

Second, main goal of finances is much wider then "fulfillment of the state functions and obligations and provision of conditions for the widened further production". Finances exist on the state level and also on the manufactures and branches' level too, and in such conditions, when the most part of the manufactures are not state.

V. M. Rodionova has a different position about this subject: "real formation of the financial resources begins on the stage of distribution, when the value is realized and concrete economical forms of the realized value are separated from the consistence of the profit". V. M. Rodionova makes an accent of finances, as distributing relations, when D. S. Moliakov underlines industrial foundation of finances. Though both of them give quite substantiate discussion of finances, as a system of formation, distribution and usage of the funds of money sources, that comes out of the following definition of the finances: "financial cash relations, which forms in the process of distribution and redistribution of the partial value of the national wealth and total social product, is related with the subjects of the economy and formation and usage of the state cash incomes and savings in the widened further production, in the material stimulation of the workers for satisfaction of the society social and other requests".

In the manuals of the political economy we meet with the following definitions of finances:

"Finances of the socialistic state represent economical (cash) relations, with the help of which, in the way of planned distribution of the incomes and savings the funds of money sources of the state and socialistic manufactures are formed for guaranteeing the growth of the production, rising the material and cultural level of the people and for satisfying other general society requests".

"The system of creation and usage of necessary funds of cash resources for guarantying socialistic widened further production represent exactly the finances of the socialistic society. And the totality of economical relations arisen between state, manufactures and organizations, branches, regions and separate citizen according to the movement of cash funds make financial relations".

As we've seen, definitions of finances made by financiers and political economists do not differ greatly.

In every discussed position there are:

1) expression of essence and phenomenon in the definition of finances;

2) the definition of finances, as the system of the creation and usage of funds of cash sources on the level of phenomenon.

3) Distribution of finances as social product and the value of national income, definition of the distributions planned character, main goals of the economy and economical relations, for servicing of which it is used.

If refuse the preposition "socialistic" in the definition of finances, we may say, that it still keeps actuality. We meet with such traditional definitions of finances, without an adjective "socialistic", in the modern economical literature. We may give such an elucidation: "finances represent cash resources of production and usage, also cash relations appeared in the process of distributing values of formed economical product and national wealth for formation and further production of the cash incomes and savings of the economical subjects and state, rewarding of the workers and satisfaction of the social requests". in this elucidation of finances like D. S. Moliakov and V. M. Rodionov's definitions, following the traditional inheritance, we meet with the widening of the financial foundation. They concern "distribution and redistribution of the value of created economical product, also the partial distribution of the value of national wealth". This latest is very actual, relatively to the process of privatization and the transition to privacy and is periodically used in practice in different countries, for example, Great Britain and France.

"Finances - are cash sources, financial resources, their creation and movement, distribution and redistribution, usage, also economical relations, which are conditioned by intercalculations between the economical subjects, movement of cash sources, money circulation and usage".

"Finances are the system of economical relations, which are connected with firm creation, distribution and usage of financial resources".

We meet with absolutely innovational definitions of finances in Z. Body and R. Merton's basis manuals. "Finance - it is the science about how the people lead spending `the deficit cash resources and incomes in the definite period of time. The financial decisions are characterized by the expenses and incomes which are 1) separated in time, and 2) as a rule, it is impossible to take them into account beforehand neither by those who get decisions nor any other person" . "Financial theory consists of numbers of the conceptions... which learns systematically the subjects of distribution of the cash resources relatively to the time factor; it also considers quantitative models, with the help of which the estimation, putting into practice and realization of the alternative variants of every financial decisions take place" .

These basic conceptions and quantitative models are used at every level of getting financial decisions, but in the latest definition of finances, we meet with the following doctrine of the financial foundation: main function of the finances is in the satisfaction of the people's requests; the subjects of economical activities of any kind (firms, also state organs of every level) are directed towards fulfilling this basic function.

For the goals of our monograph, it is important to compare well-known definitions about finances, credit and investment, to decide how and how much it is possible to integrate the finances, investments and credit into the one total part.

Some researcher thing that credit is the consisting part of finances, if it is discussed from the position of essence and category. The other, more numerous group proves, that an economical category of credit exists parallel to the economical category of finances, by which it underlines impossibility of the credit's existence in the consistence of finances.

N. K. Kuchukova underlined the independence of the category of credit and notes that it is only its "characteristic feature the turned movement of the value, which is not related with transmission of the loan opportunities together with the owners' rights".

N. D. Barkovski replies that functioning of money created an economical basis for apportioning finances and credit as an independent category and gave rise to the credit and financial relations. He noticed the Gnoseological roots of science in money and credit, as the science about finances has business with the research of such economical relations, which lean upon cash flow and credit.

Let's discuss the most spread definitions of credit. in the modern publications credit appeared to be "luckier", then finances. For example, we meet with the following definition of credit in the finance-economical dictionary: "credit is the loan in the form of cash and commodity with the conditions of returning, usually, by paying percent. Credit represents a form of movement of the loan capital and expresses economical relations between the creditor and borrower".

This is the traditional definition of credit. In the earlier dictionary of the economy we read: "credit is the system of economical relations, which is formed while the transmission of cash and material means into the temporal usage, as a rule under the conditions of returning and paying percent".

In the manual of the political economy published under reduction of V. A. Medvedev the following definition is given: "credit, as an economical category, expresses the created relations between the society, labour collective and workers during formation and usage of the loan funds, under the terms of paying present and returning, during transmission of sources for the temporal usage and accumulation".

Credit is discussed in the following way in the earlier education-methodological manuals of political economy: "credit is the system of money relations, which is created in the process of using and mobilization of temporarily free cash means of the state budget, unions, manufactures, organizations and population. Credit has an objective character. It is used for providing widened further production of the state and other needs. Credit differs from finances by the returning character, while financing of manufactures and organizations by the state is fulfilled without this condition".

We meet with the following definition if "the course of economy": "credit is an economical category, which represents relations, while the separate industrial organizations or persons transmit money means to each-other for temporal usage under the conditions of returning. Creation of credit is conditioned by a historical process of fulfilling the economical and money relations, the form of which is the money relation".

Following scientists give slightly different definitions of credit:

"Credit - is a loan in the form of money or commodity, which is given to the borrower by a creditor under the conditions of returning and paying the percentage rate by the borrower".

Credit is giving the temporally free money sources or commodity as a debt for the defined terms by the price of fixed percentage. Thus, a credit is the loan in the form of money or commodity. In the process of this loan's movement, a definite relations are formed between a creditor (the loan is given by a juridical of physical person, who gives certain cash as a debt) and the debtor.

Combining every definition named above, we come to an idea, that credit is giving money capital of commodity as a debt, for certain terms and material provision under the price of firm percentage rate. It expresses definite economical relations between the participants of the process of capital formation. Necessity of the credit relations is conditioned, from one side, by gathering solid quantity of temporarily free money sources, and from the second side, existence of requests of them.

Though, at the same time we must distinguish two resembling concepts: loan and credit. Loan is characterized by:

o Here, the discussion may touch upon transmission of money and also things form one side (loaner) to another (borrower): a)under the owning of the borrower and, at the same time, b) under the conditions of returning same amount or same quantity and quality of the things;

o The loaning of money may bear no interest;

o Any person may take part in it.

With the difference with loan, credit, which is somehow a private occasion of the loan, represents:

o One side (loaner) gives to the second one (borrower) only money, and _ for temporal usage;

o It may not bear no interest (if the assignment doesn't foresee something);

o In it creditor is not any person, but a credit organization (at the first place, banks).

So, a credit is the bank credit. To our mind, it is not correct to use "credit" and "loan" as the synonyms.

Banking crediting is the union of relations between bank (as a creditor) and its borrower. These relations touch upon:

a) Giving a certain amount of money to the borrower for definite purpose (though, we meet with the so-called free credits, aims and objects of crediting are not appointed in the assignment);

b) Its opportune returning;

c) Getting percentage rate from the borrower for using the sources under his/her disposal.

The essential foundation of the credit essence and its important element is existence of trust between the two sides (in Latin "credo", from which comes the word "credit", means "trust").

From the position of circulation of money forms (in the abstraction, historical process of formation economical relations and social budget and banking systems expressed by them) comparing different definitions of finances and credit, the paradox conclusion appears: credit is the private occasion of finances. And truly, from the position of movement of the money forms, finances represent the process of formation and usage of the funds of cash means. Very often such movements are fulfilled without returning, but sometimes, it is possible to give loans from the budget for the investment projects of other needs. Also, when a manufacture or corporations use their cash funds and we mean the finances of industrial subject, such usage may be realized as inside the manufacture or corporation (there is no subject about returning or not returning of the usage), so gratis under conditions of returning. This latest is called commercial form because of transmitting the sources to others, but even in this occasion, it is the element of financial system of the manufacture and corporation.

From the point of cash means movement, main character of credit is the process of formation and usage of the funds of cash means under the conditions of returning and, as a rule, taking the value-percentage. If gating the credit value doesn't take place (even in the exceptional occasions), according to the movement form, credit becomes a private occasion of finances, as from the net financial funds (consequently from the state budget) the loans which bear no interests may be used. If gating credit value takes place, by the appearance form, credit is discussed to be financial modification.

From the historical point of view, finances (especially in the sort of the state budget) and credit (beginning with usury, later commercial and banking) were developing differently for considering credit to be the part of finances. Though, from the genetic-historical point of view, previous loaners, before giving loan, needed gathering the permanent capital not returning, that is the net financial foundation. The banks analogously needed concentration of the important own capital for influxing the consumers' means and for getting higher percentage rate under the conditions of returning. Herewith, exactly on the financial basis, in the sort of financial fund (which later partially becomes loan fund) part of the bank capital appears to be the reservation (insurance) part of the fund, which by nature is financial and not loan. So notwithstanding the essential distinctions between finances and credit form the genetic-historical point of view, credit appears to be formed from finances and represent their modification.

From the essential position of expressing economical relations of finances and credit, we meet with cardinal distinctions between these two categories. Which mostly expressed by the distinction of the movement forms notwithstanding they are returnable or not. Finances express relations in the aspects of distribution and redistribution of social product and part of the national wealth. Credit expresses distribution of the appropriate value only in the section of percentage given for loan, while according to the loan itself, a only a temporal distribution of money sources takes place.

Herewith, there is a lot of common between the finances and credit as from the essential point of view, so according to the form of movement. At the same time, there is a significant distinction between finances and credit as in the essence, so in the form too. According to this, there must be a kind of generally economical category, which will consider finances and credit as a total unity, and in the bounds of this category itself, the separation of the specific essence of the finances and credit would take place.

Funding of the cash means is common to the researched economical categories. It takes place in any separate system of finances and credit, which have been touched upon during the analyses of defining finances and credit. Word combination "funding of the cash sources (fund formation)" reflects and defines exactly essence and form of economical category of more general character, those of finances and credit categories. Though in the in economical texts and practice, it is very uncomfortable to use a termini, which consists of three words. Also, "unloading" with an information hardens greatly its influxing into the circulation even in the conditions of its strict substantiation and thoroughness.

In the discussing context we consider:

1) wide and narrow understanding of economical category of the finances;

2) discussing finances in narrow understanding under general traditional meaning;

3) discussing finances, as funding of the cash means, in wide understanding, which concerns finances - in narrow meaning and credit - in complete meaning.

Termini "funding" and its equivalent "fund formation" are used by us as the purposeful structuring of cash means, which is based on two poles - accumulation of money sources (gathering) and its usage for definite purpose in the way of financing and crediting.

We have established a new termini - "finance-investment sphere" (FIS). Analyses about interrelation of finances and credit made by us give us an opportunity of proving, that in the given termini, the word "financial" is used with the meaning of funding cash sources, its purposeful structuring. In this process we consider at the same time financial, credit and investments' economical categories.

Let's sum up middle results of discussing new concept - "finance-investment sphere" and discuss its investment consisting parts.

The concept "investments" was brought into the native economical science from the West. In the Soviet economical science they for a long time used in the place "investments" the termini "capital placement", which expressed the usage of the industrial factors in the sphere of real industrial activities during realization of capital projects. From one glance, this termini in its concept is identical to the "investments", consequently it is possible to use them as synonyms. Though the termini "investments" and "investing" have the advantage towards the termini "capital placement" from linguistic and philological points of view, because they are expressed with one word. This is not only economical and comfortable in the process of working with the termini "investment" itself, but also it gives an opportunity of termini formation. More concretely: "investment process", "investment domain", "finance-investment sphere" - all these termini are much more acceptable.

Changing native economical termini with foreign ones is purposeful, if it really matters (by keeping parallel usage of the native termini for the inheritance). Though we must not change native economical termini into foreign ones all together, when by ordinal traditional language easy to explain private and narrow concrete processes and elements get their own termini. The "movement" of these termini is approved in the narrow professional bounds, but their "spitting out" into the economical science may turn economical language into the tangled slang.

Let's discuss termini - "investment" and "capital placement's" usage in the economical literature.

Investments are placement of funds into the main and circulation capital for the purpose of getting profit. "Investments in material assets - are the placements of funds into the mobile and real estate (land, buildings, furniture and so on). Investments in financial assets are the placements of funds into the securities bank accounts and other financial instruments".

We don't meet with the termini "investments" in the earlier economical dictionary, but we meet the combined termini "investment policy" - the union of the industrial decisions, which guarantee main directions of the capital investments, the activities of their concentration in the determinant suburbs, on which the reaching of planned rates of development of the society production is depended, balancing and effectiveness, getting more and more production and profit of the national income for every lost Ruble". For today, in the most actual definitions, the capital investments are bounded only by financial means, when not only financial, but also the investment of natural, material-technical and informational resources takes place. Labour resources take an actual place in the investment process. They themselves fulfill this or that investment process.

A positive side of the discussed definitions is that they connect investment policy and capital placements (investments):

- economical development according to the key directions to the concentration;

- providing high rates of economical growth;

- raising an economical effectiveness, which is expressed:

a) by growing the throw off of the production and national income for every lost Ruble;

b) by fulfilling the branch structure of the investments;

c) by improving their technological structure;

d) by optimization of their further production structure.

Compared with such definition of the investments (capital placement) the definition of investments in the dictionary attaching the "Economics" seems to be unimproved: "investments - the expenses of gathering production and industrial means and increasing material reserve". In this definition current expenses (production expenses) are mixed with the investment (capital) expense. Also, not the investment expenses but (though the investments are followed by the appropriate expenses) exactly advancing. It differs from the expenses by that the means (means) are put by returning the advanced values, also, under the conditions of growth, to which the concept-advanced capital is corresponding. the advancing may be realized in the money, natural-material and informational forms.

Except the termini "investments", there are two more termini related with the investment. They are shown below.

"Human capital investment" - any activity provided for rising the workers labour productivity (in the way of growing their qualification and developing their abilities); at the expenses of improving the workers' education, health and raising the mobility of the working forces". It is very useful to use the mentioned termini, though it needs one correction: the human capital investments do not concern only workers, but also the servants, representatives of every kind of labour.

"Investment commodity, capital goods - a capital."

In the official manuals of political economy of the reformation time the capital investments are discussed as "expenses for creating new main funds and widening, reconstruction and renewing the active ones". In this definition the investments (capital placements) during separation of the forms (types) of further production of the main funds are bounded only by main funds (without increases of the circulation funds and insurance reserves):

a) creating new ones;

b) widening;

c) reconstruction;

d) renewing.

Also, the concept of the industrial gathering appears, at the expenses of widening of basic, circulation funds and also insurance reserves takes place".

You'll meet below the definitions of investments from "the course of economy": the investments are called "placements of fund into the basic capital (basic means of production), reserves, also other economical objects and processes, which request long-termed influxing of material and cash means. "According to the division of capital into physical and money forms, the investments too must be divided into material and cash investments".

They apportion investment commodity, to which belong industrial and nonindustrial building objects, vehicles purposed for changing or widened technical park and the furniture, increasing reserves and others.

"They call the total investments of production an investment product, which is directed towards keeping and increasing the basic capital (basic means) and reserve. Total investments consist of two parts. One of them is called the depreciation; it represents important investment resources for compensation of renewal till the level of before industrial usage, wearing out and repairing of the basic means. Second consisting part of the total investments is represented by net investments - capital investments for the purpose of increasing basic means". Depreciation is not a compensation resource of wearing the basic funds out, but it is the purposeful financial source of such resources.

Human capital investment is "a specific kind of investments, mostly in education and health protection".

"Real investments are the investments in the economical branches and also, they are kinds of economical activities, which provide influxing the increases of real capital, that is increasing material values of the industrial means". We can agree with such definition with one specification that material and nonmaterial values too belong to the real capital (wealth), consequently science-researching experimental-construction results, various information, education of he workers and others. Such service as organization of the excitable games, also the service of redistribution social wealth from one private person to another (except charity).

"Financial investments represent placement of funds into the shares, obligations, promissory notes, other securities and instruments. Such investments, of course, do not give increases of the real material capital, but they help getting profit, consequently at the expenses of changing the course of the securities in the time of speculation, or distinguishing the course in different places of sell and purchasing". We share wholly such definition, hence it follows that financial investments (if it is not followed by real investments as a result) do not increase real material wealth and real nonmaterial wealth. According to this context, the expression below is very important: "we must distinguish financial investments, which represent placement of the funds in the ways of selling and purchasing the securities for the purpose of getting profit and financial investments, which become cash and real, moved to real physical capital."

In the "economical course" quoted before long and short-termed investments are separated. Recognizing the existence of the bounds between them, the authors ascribe short-termed investments to "one month or more" investments. If we get such conditioned criteria, that we can call the investments which overcome the terms of some months, long-termed ones, which is very doubtful and we don't agree with it. A long-termed character of the fund placement is a significant feature of the investments (short-term doesn't combine with the concept of investments). Principally, it would be better to point out quick compensative, middle termed compensative and long-termed compensative investments:

- less then 6 months - quick compensative;

- from 6 months up to the year and a half - middle termed compensative;

- more then the year and a half - long termed compensative.

We stopped at the definition of the investments in the capital work "economical course" for the special purpose, as, in it the author tried to discuss the concept of investments systemically and quite completely, herewith the book is published just now.

We'll return to the discussion the definition economical category of "investments" in different publications in the following chapter. The definitions given here are quite enough for having a notion of the level of lighting up the given category in the economical literature.

What conclusions may be made according the definition of the mentioned economical category in the published works, except the made notions and specifications?

There is quite deeply, concretely and thoroughly defined the concept of "investments", different definitions in the economical literature; but mostly in every works about the investments discussed by us until now, there is not opened the essence of investments as an economical category. In every monograph , even if it has a title investment, as an economical category , there is given only the definition, concept of investments. But, as the Academician Vasil Chantladze explains, "a concept is a discussion, which proves something about the distinguishing feature of the researched object. A concept out of much essential characteristic features represents only one, and essential in it is only - definition".

But the categories are much wider; it is "a key, the most fundamental concept of every science". Economical categories theoretically represent real, objectively existed productive relations. A category is the defining of occasions of existed characters, connections, relations of the objective world. Generally, any educational process is fulfilled by the categories, which give opportunities for dividing the processes and occasions semantically, for expressing the definitions of a subject and realize their specific peculiarities and economical relations of a material world.

Our goal is exactly to substantiate investments - as an economical category and also, as a financial category in the narrow understanding.

Here we apply for another manual thesis made by the academician Vasil Chantladze: "every financial relation is an economical one and every financial category is and economical one, but not every economical relation and economical category is financial relation and financial category".

In the process of defining the investments, it is important to take in mind the sides of resources, expenses and incomes, because investment, from one side, is the result of the manufacture's activity, and, from another one, - a part of income, which, in this case, is not used for usage.

Another occasion: it is advisable to discuss investments in two aspects: as a category of reserve and flow, which will reflect exactly the connection between "placement of funds" and "investments".

As we've mentioned above, not long ago, in the well-known Soviet literature the concepts of "the placement of funds" and "investments" were accepted to be the synonyms and concerned to be investment of sources for further production of the main funds and formation of the turnover funds. We meet with such understanding of the concept of "investment" (here, they separate three types of the investment expenses: investments in the basic capital of investments, investments in the house building and investments in the reserves) in the modern economical publications and it is mostly used on the macro level during a statistical analyze of economical processes. In this concrete occasion investment is the category of reserve.