(Un)Calculated Risk | by Peter Orr of Intuitive Analytics

Refunding Adjusted Yield (RAY) Shines Light on Issuer Financing Cost

Posted by Peter Orr on Jan 23, 2015

It’s 2015. Watson vanquished humans in Jeopardy 4 years ago and is now rapidly moving towards replacing as many oncologists as possible. Google is just one company running driverless cars and trucks around everywhere. Facebook is trying to monetize every eye twitch you make looking at a web page. Let’s check in on innovation in public finance:

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Hey, We had a Tax Event!...and a Century of Top Tax Rates

Posted by Peter Orr on Jan 12, 2013

"What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin."  - Mark Twain

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Want to Get Hired by More Public Finance Issuers? Know Your Position

Posted by Peter Orr on Oct 06, 2010

The first word in our company name means we do a lot more than calc pv savings. We often work with investment banking or financial advisor clients to come up with the clearest way to express complex analyses to tax-exempt issuers. Frequently this leads to crafting ways to convey key messages as part of a broader strategy to get hired.  What often surprises me about these discussions is how little people know about their position. Let me explain

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NYT and the 0.14% that Swallowed Your Town, pt 2

Posted by Peter Orr on May 18, 2010

Last week I embarked down a path of trying to get the NYT to correct their errors in an article ostensibly on municipal swaps. This is the second round exchange (of three) with the NYT editors justifying their mistakes in the article, The Swaps That Swallowed Your Town.  My response was simple, though I was forced to use a three number example.
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Top 5 Things Your Public Finance Software Must (now) Do

Posted by Peter Orr on Apr 01, 2010

It's 2010 and time to raise the bar.  Public finance software has remained substantially unchanged for over a decade, and probably more like two.   In this day and age your public finance software, in addition to all the other stuff it's done since TRA86, must add the following five features: 

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