Swap

Swap or SWAP may refer to:

Finance

Science and technology

Other

See also

Swap (finance)

A swap is a derivative in which two counterparties exchange cash flows of one party's financial instrument for those of the other party's financial instrument. The benefits in question depend on the type of financial instruments involved. For example, in the case of a swap involving two bonds, the benefits in question can be the periodic interest (coupon) payments associated with such bonds. Specifically, two counterparties agree to exchange one stream of cash flows against another stream. These streams are called the legs of the swap. The swap agreement defines the dates when the cash flows are to be paid and the way they are accrued and calculated. Usually at the time when the contract is initiated, at least one of these series of cash flows is determined by an uncertain variable such as a floating interest rate, foreign exchange rate, equity price, or commodity price.

The cash flows are calculated over a notional principal amount. Contrary to a future, a forward or an option, the notional amount is usually not exchanged between counterparties. Consequently, swaps can be in cash or collateral.

Swap (computer science)

In computer programming, the act of swapping two variables refers to mutually exchanging the values of the variables. Usually, this is done with the data in memory. For example, in a program, two variables may be defined thus (in pseudocode):

(In many programming languages where the swap function is built-in; in C++, overloads are provided allowing std::swap to swap some large structures in O(1) time.) After swap() is performed, x will contain the value 0 and y will contain 1; their values have been exchanged. Of course, this operation may be generalized to other types of values, such as strings, aggregated data types and comparison sorts, utilize swaps to change the positions of data.

Using a temporary variable

The simplest and probably most widely used method to swap two variables is to use a third temporary variable:

While this is conceptually simple and in many cases the only convenient way to swap two variables, it uses extra memory. Although this should not be a problem in most applications, the sizes of the values being swapped may be huge (which means the temporary variable may occupy a lot of memory as well), or the swap operation may need to be performed many times, as in sorting algorithms.

Credit

Credit may refer to:

See also

Debits and credits

In double entry bookkeeping, debits and credits (abbreviated Dr and Cr, respectively) are entries made in account ledgers to record changes in value resulting from business transactions. Generally speaking, the source account for the transaction is credited (that is, an entry is made on the right side of the account's ledger) and the destination account is debited (that is, an entry is made on the left side). Total debits must equal total credits for each transaction; individual transactions may require multiple debit and credit entries to record.

The difference between the total debits and total credits in a single account is the account's balance. If debits exceed credits, the account has a debit balance; if credits exceed debits, the account has a credit balance. For the company as a whole, the totals of debit balances and credit balances must be equal as shown in the trial balance report, otherwise an error has occurred.

Accountants use the trial balance to prepare financial statements (such as the balance sheet and income statement) which communicate information about the company's financial activities in a generally accepted standard format.

Credit (finance)

Credit (from Latin credit, "(he/she/it) believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date. The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment. Credit is extended by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.

Credit does not necessarily require money. The credit concept can be applied in barter economies as well, based on the direct exchange of goods and services. However, in modern societies, credit is usually denominated by a unit of account. Unlike money, credit itself cannot act as a unit of account.

Movements of financial capital are normally dependent on either credit or equity transfers. Credit is in turn dependent on the reputation or creditworthiness of the entity which takes responsibility for the funds. Credit is also traded in financial markets. The purest form is the credit default swap market, which is essentially a traded market in credit insurance. A credit default swap represents the price at which two parties exchange this risk – the protection seller takes the risk of default of the credit in return for a payment, commonly denoted in basis points (one basis point is 1/100 of a percent) of the notional amount to be referenced, while the protection buyer pays this premium and in the case of default of the underlying (a loan, bond or other receivable), delivers this receivable to the protection seller and receives from the seller the par amount (that is, is made whole).