Regulatory Framework Of UK Financial Market Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 11 Words: 3197 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is an independent non-governmental body (quasi-judicial body) and a company limited by guarantee that regulates the financial services industry in the United Kingdom. It aims to promote efficient, orderly and fair financial markets, to help retail consumers achieve a fair deal and to improve its business capability and effectiveness. The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) gives the FSA following statutory objectives: Statutory objectives The Financial Services and Markets Act imposed five statutory objectives upon the FSA: market confidence: maintaining confidence in the financial system; public awareness: promoting public understanding of the financial system; financial stability: contributing to the UKs financial stability; consumer protection: securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumers; and reduction of financial crime: reducing the extent to which it is possible for a business carried on by a regulated person to be used for a purpose connected with financial crime Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Regulatory Framework Of UK Financial Market Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Actions relating to the 2007-2009 sub prime crisis The FSA has been held by some observers to be weak and inactive in allowing irresponsible banking to precipitate the credit crunch which commenced in 2007, and which has involved the shrinking of the UK housing market, increasing unemployment (especially in the financial and building sectors), the public acquisition of Northern Rock in mid-February 2008, and the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB. On the 18th of September 2008, the FSA announced a ban on  short selling  to reduce volatility in difficult markets lasting until January 16, 2009 In the UK, there is a choice of two principal institutions that provide public markets for equity securities. These are: The London Stock Exchange; and PLUS Markets Group London is a highly attractive international centre that offers applicants access to a vast base of investor capital. This, together with the UKs more principles based approach to regulation and corporate governance (which stands in marked contrast to many prescriptive regulatory overseas regimes), results in the London market providing a more cost-effective offering with a lower cost to access capital than its counterparts in the US, The London Stock Exchange plc Founded in 1801 it is one of the largest Stock Exchanges in the world with over 1,600 companies listed on the Main Market, coming from over 60 countries and spread across 42 sectors. In 2006  £8.4 billion of funds were raised in new issues on the market with 66 new companies being listed. A further feature is the liquidity it offers for shares traded on the secondary market (i.e. after IPO). It also offers the widest investor base of all the UK markets and its secondary market is also the most liquid. A significant portion of this liquidity is generated by the inclusion of shares in the FTSE Index Series, which covers all primary listed shares on the Main Market (but not secondary listed shares or Depository Receipts Structure The London Stock Exchange has four core areas: Equity markets enables companies from around the world to raise capital. There are four primary markets; Main Market, Alternative Investment Market (AIM), Professional Securities Market (PSM) and Specialist Fund Market (SFM). Trading services highly active market for trading in a range of securities, including UK and international equities, debt, covered warrants, exchange traded funds (ETFs), Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs) Reits, fixed interest, contracts for difference (CFDs) and depositary receipts. Market data information The London Stock Exchange provides real-time prices, news and other financial information to the global financial community. Derivatives A major contributor to derivatives business is EDX London, created in 2003 to bring the cash equity and derivatives markets closer together. PLUS Markets Group plc In July 2007, PLUS Markets Group plc was granted Recognised Investment Exchange status by the FSA (Financial Services Authority), PLUS operates two primary markets: PLUS-listed; and PLUS-quoted offerings PLUS-quoted PLUS Markets cater for international companies, but it does not have the overseas profile that AIM (or the Main Market) has acquired over recent years. PLUS-quoted is an exchange regulated market and has a similar regulatory regime to that of AIM. The PLUS Rules are very similar to those of AIM. Similarly, those sections of the Prospectus Rules that apply to AIM quoted companies also apply to PLUS-quoted companies. Financial instruments traded in secondary market in UK Equity shares This type of share is called as common stock. As a unit of ownership, common stock typically carries voting rights that can be exercised in corporate decisions. Preferred stock Preferred stock differs from common stock in that it typically does not carry voting rights but is legally entitled to receive a certain level of dividend payments before any dividends can be issued to other shareholders. Convertible Preference Shares Convertible preferred stock is preferred stock that includes an option for the holder to convert the preferred shares into a fixed number of common shares, usually anytime after a predetermined date. Shares of such stock are called convertible preferred shares (or convertible preference shares in the UK) Derivatives The derivatives market is the financial market for derivatives, financial instruments like futures contracts or options, which are derived from other forms of assets. It has no independent existence without an underline asset and these are basically designed for investors to manage the risk efficiently and at the same time allowing them to hedge or speculate the market. Forwards A forward is a non-standardized contract between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a specified future time at a price agreed today. This is in contrast to a spot contract, which is an agreement to buy or sell an asset today. It costs nothing to enter a forward contract. The party agreeing to buy the underlying asset in the future assumes a long position, and the party agreeing to sell the asset in the future assumes a short position. The price agreed upon is called the delivery price, which is equal to the forward price at the time the contract is entered into. Futures Futures is a standardized contract between two parties to buy or sell a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality at a specified future date at a price agreed today (the futures price). The contracts are traded on a futures exchange. Futures contracts are not direct securities like stocks, bonds, rights or warrants. They are still securities, however, though they are a type of derivative contract. The party agreeing to buy the underlying asset in the future assumes a long position, and the party agreeing to sell the asset in the future assumes a short position. Options An option is a derivative financial instrument that establishes a contract between two parties concerning the buying or selling of an asset at a reference price during a specified time frame. During this time frame, the buyer of the option gains the right, but not the obligation, to engage in some specific transaction on the asset, while the seller incurs the obligation to fulfil the transaction if so requested by the buyer. The price of an option derives from the value of an underlying asset (commonly a stock, a bond, a currency or a futures contract) plus a premium based on the time remaining until the expiration of the option. Swaps A swap is a derivative in which counterparties exchange certain benefits of one partys financial instrument for those of the other partys 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 (or coupon) payments associated with the bonds. Specifically, the two counterparties agree to exchange one stream of cash flows against another stream. Usually at the time when the contract is initiated at least one of these series of cash flows is determined by a random or uncertain variable such as an interest rate, foreign exchange rate, equity price or commodity price. Global Depositary Receipts (GDR) is a certificate issued by a depository bank, which purchases shares of foreign companies and deposits it on the account. GDRs represent ownership of an underlying number of shares. It facilitates trade of shares, and are commonly used to invest in companies from developing or emerging markets. Prices of GDR are often close to values of related shares, but they are traded and settled independently of the underlying share. For example, UK investors wanting to buy shares listed in emerging market countries like Russia can face a tough time when there are government restrictions on who can own and trade them. GDRs offer a solution. Instead of trying to buy the share in its local market, the investor buys a depositary receipt, which represents the shares, instead. These are issued by investment banks, listed in the investors home market and traded separately from the underlying share. Apart from easier access, the key advantages of global depositary receipts include the fact t hey are priced in the investors home currency (typically US dollars), carry lower dealing costs and pay more timely dividends, again in dollars, than the shares they represent. Whilst similar in most respects to American Depositary Receipts, GDRs tend to be listed in European markets like the London Stock Exchange. Related innovative instruments Swaption: A swaption is an option granting its owner the right but not the obligation to enter into an underlying swap. Although options can be traded on a variety of swaps, the term swaption typically refers to options on interest rate swaps. There are two types of swaption contracts: A payer swaption gives the owner of the swaption the right to enter into a swap where they pay the fixed leg and receive the floating leg. A receiver swaption gives the owner of the swaption the right to enter into a swap in which they will receive the fixed leg, and pay the floating leg. Swaption = option, on an interest rate swap A pay-fixed swaption protects its purchaser from interest rates rising above a chosen rate, the strike rate. Likewise, a receive-fixed swaption protects its purchaser from falling interest rates. The cost (premium) of the swaption depends on several factors; but for otherwise equivalent pay-fixed swaptions the lower the fixed rate, the higher the swaption premium. The opposite dynamic holds for receive-fixed swaptions. The interest rate at which the cost of a pay-fixed swaption equals the cost of an otherwise equivalent receive-fixed swaption is referred to as the at the money swap rate for that period. Mortgage-Backed Security A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is an asset-backed security or debt obligation that represents a claim on the cash flows from mortgage loans through a process known as securitization1. Credit Default Swap A credit default swap (CDS) is a swap contract in which the protection buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments (often referred to as the CDS fee or spread) to the protection seller and, in exchange, receives a payoff if a credit instrument (typically a bond or loan) experiences a credit event. 1Securitization is a structured finance process that distributes risk by aggregating assets in a pool (often by selling assets to a special purpose entity), and then issuing new securities backed by the assets and their cash flows. The securities are sold to investors who share the risk and reward from those assets. Collateralized Debt Obligations Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS) whose value and payments are derived from a portfolio of fixed-income underlying assets. CDOs securities are split into different risk classes, or tranches2, whereby senior tranches are considered the safest securities. Interest and principal payments are made in order of seniority, so that junior tranches offer higher coupon payments (and interest rates) or lower prices to compensate for additional default risk. Equity Cash Senior notes Interest Principal Assets sold to the SPV Funding Special Purpose Company Mezz notes Originating bank Debt/Equity Hybrid A debt/equity hybrid is a financial instrument that contains both debt and equity characteristics. Hybrid instruments can be designed so that they exhibit changing proportions of debt and equity over time. In addition, hybrid instruments may incorporate derivative characteristics. Some of the better known hybrid instruments include certain classes of preference shares, convertible notes, capital protected equity loans, profit participating loans, perpetual debt, endowment warrants and equity swaps. All Debt and No Equity No Debt and all Equity Some Debt and Some Equity This diagram above shows that corporations finance their activities by raising debt (such as issuing bonds payable) or by issuing common shares (equity) or do a little bit of both. Corporations (and the capital markets) are very inventive in designing not only new types of derivative instruments, but also new types of primary securities that have characteristics of both debt and equity. These new types of securities are called hybrid securities or investment vehicles. 2Tranche is one of a number of related securities offered as part of the same transaction. In the financial sense of the word, each bond is a different slice of the deals risk. Transaction documentation usually defines the tranches as different classes of notes, each identified by letter (e.g. the Class A, Class B, Class C securities) with different bond credit ratings. Market Derivatives in UK and various crises Dot-com bubble burst, 2001 The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995-2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more recent Internet sector and related fields. While the latter part was a boom and bust cycle, the Internet boom sometimes is meant to refer to the steady commercial growth of the Internet with the advent of the world wide web as exemplified by the first release of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 and continuing through the 1990s. The period was marked by the founding (and, in many cases, spectacular failure) of a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as dot-coms. A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, market confidence that the companies would turn future profits, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital created an environment in which many investors were willing to overlook traditional metrics such as P/E ratio in favour of confidence in techn ological advancements. The Sub prime crisis, 2007-2009 In the UK, where the financial market is most developed, H1 2008 turnover for several market derivatives reached a respectable 38% of the deal volume transacted in the base market. However, the outstanding notional value of these derivatives still accounts for only roughly 1% of the size of the UK commercial investment market. At this stage, market derivatives failed to effectively mitigate property risk. There was still a long way until their market potential was reached. Equivalent to todays proportions for equity derivatives, the potential is estimated to be about 35ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒâ€¹Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢40% of the base market size. However, although the derivatives market is still small, its effect on the subprime crisis was already valuable. First, property derivatives might have accelerated the market clearance. Forward prices reflect, in equilibrium, the expectations of the market. In doing that, they are much more timely and realistic than forecast surveys and thus catalyse more realistic valuations. Liquidity: As market derivatives are standardized, trading volume is concentrated in a small number of fungible contracts. For example, in the heterogeneous market for physical properties and for MBS, liquidity typically evaporates in a sharp downturn. In Q2 2008 for example, transaction volume for UK commercial properties tumbled to GBP 6.1 billion, a 60% drop from the previous year. According to a survey, investors are waiting to see how far values fall. Further, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reported a collapse in housing transactions, mainly due to the inability of many to secure mortgage finance. Time-on-market for housing more than doubled compared to the previous year. Finally, liquidity in the MBS market globally collapsed in 2008. At the same time, the nascent property derivatives market did not dry up but reached record trading volumes. Global nature of the financial market The OTC segment operates with almost complete disregard of national borders. Derivatives exchanges themselves provide equal access to customers worldwide. As long as local market regulation does not impose access barriers, participants can connect and trade remotely and seamlessly from around the world. The fully integrated, single derivatives market is clearly a reality within the European Union. Taken as a whole, the derivatives market is truly global. For example, today almost 80 percent of the turnover at Eurex, one of Europes major derivatives exchanges, is generated outside its home markets of Germany and Switzerland, up from only 18 percent ten years ago. Europes leading role within the derivatives market Today, Europe is the most important region in the global derivatives market, with 44 percent of the global outstanding volume significantly higher than its share in equities and bonds. The global OTC derivatives segment is mainly based in London. Primarily due to principle-based regulation, which provides legal certainty as well as flexibility, the OTC segment has developed especially favourably in the UKs capital. The unrestricted pan-European provision of investment services, in place since the introduction of the European Unions Investment Services Directive (ISD) in January 1996, has strengthened the competitive position of Europe in the global market environment. Many European banks are currently global leaders in derivatives. Historically, large derivatives exchanges were almost exclusively located in the US. Strong European derivatives exchanges appeared only after deregulation and demutualization in the 1980s and 1990s. These European exchanges were more independent of their users, who had been less supportive of significant changes at US exchanges. They revolutionized trading by introducing fully electronic trading and by setting industry standards. Over the years European players have strengthened their position, increasing their global market share from 24 percent in 1995 to almost 40 percent in 2007. They are now among the largest exchanges worldwide in a sector where the biggest players are international exchange groups that offer trading globally. Drivers of innovation Competition is the major driving force behind these product and technology innovations. Every product innovation is an opportunity for exchanges and broker-dealers to compete for new trading volumes. Consequently, even product segments that have been introduced recently are heavily contested. Meanwhile, technological innovations can often be a good way to enter a market. Electronic trading helped Eurex win the market for derivatives on long term German government bonds (Bund Future) the benchmark in European fixed-income markets, which had been served mainly by UK derivatives exchange LIFFE (London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange) before 1996. Facts and figures mentioned above, when summed up, gives a brief idea about secondary markets in UK. To summarise what has happened to the UK in the past ten years it would be as follows. Investment and growth have remained relatively subdued, compared with previous periods and with more dynamic growth areas, while at the same time being fairly stable. The UK has benefited from high levels of foreign direct investment. The finance sector became more important to the UK in both an absolute and a relative sense, and both domestically and in relation to the world economy, while manufacturing continued its long term decline. Household wealth grew mainly as a result of the housing bubble and the rise in the stock market, which along with easy credit and cheap imports led to a boom in retail consumption.

Online Slot Games And Online Gaming - 1792 Words

Blog 16 – Your guide to dominating the world of online slot games For the better part of a decade, it was card games that dominated the online casino landscape. But as 2010 rolled around there was a shift in dynamic that occurred, as card games were pushed to the wayside for something altogether more modern. Online slot games emerged from the shadows and have gone on to become the leading game genre within the online casino landscape. From penny slots to the big time, slot games are now anywhere and everywhere you look these days. The key element within online slots play is luck, but that isn’t all that players need to consider when they spin the reels. There are actual several elements within the game that can be controlled by the†¦show more content†¦With the rules of play in the back of your mind, you certainly have a better chance of making your free spin bonus count. After getting to grips with a game format, you need to look at the personal aspects of your game. Betting limits are key to online slots success, as they are what players must use to protect themselves when times to get tough. These limits need to take the form of a loss border, a no payout cap, and a target winnings amount. Loss borders are absolutely critical; as such a limit is the bottom end of the playing spectrum. It works as a number, that when hit, should signify the time that you get up and walk away from the game. No payout caps work in a similar fashion, just in the sense that it addresses the amount of money you can throw into a game before you give it up and move on. A target winnings amount is in place to prevent greed taking hold, as when it is hit a player should take their winnings and cash out. The final piece of the puzzle when it comes to online casino game strategy is choosing the right place to play. While not always easy to do, finding the right place to play is pivotal online casino success. Before you start spinning the reels consulting an online casino portal is an absolute must, as this is where you are going to find the cream of the crop when it comes to leading online casinos. Compare what you find there and you are likely to find that your online slots

Gender and Information Technology Essay Example For Students

Gender and Information Technology Essay Information and communications are playing an increasingly important role in economic and social development. Meanwhile, the recent developments in communications technology have progressively reduced the barriers to communicating over distances. At the same time, computers have enormously increased the capacity to accumulate and access information sources and data. Combined with communications technology, the possibilities for information access are almost infinite. In todays information society, the rapid access to relevant information is indispensable for timely intervention in most realms of human activity; access to this technology is therefore a key to successful action. It is widely recognized that in order for the world to be able to advance in the quest for sustainable development, peace, social justice and racial, ethnic and gender equality, it is fundamental for citizens groups and organizations throughout the world to have greater participation in the decisions that concern them and to develop their capacity to propose viable alternatives and priorities for economic and social development. This possibility depends to an ever-greater extent on the access of these groups to reap the benefits offered by the new and emerging communications and information technology. In particular, new decentralized technologies such as computer networks and fax, when democratically employed, constitute powerful instruments for socializing information, which could contribute to securing the advances made by humanity, such as fuller participation of women in all spheres of activity. Women in particular, tend to be under-represented in terms of access to these technologies, and especially women from less developed regions and from marginalized groups. Women from these social groups are precisely those who make up the work force that produces computer components, in working conditions that are often damaging to their health; similarly, women in low-grade technical and service jobs also make up the largest group of computer users, while many others have lost their jobs to increasing automation. In contrast, women are less present in fields such as computer systems administration and in technical development. They are also proportionally under-represented as users of computer networks. As a result, women have less access than men to the information and networking resources that these networks offer; and they have fewer possibilities of orienting development of this technology to answer their specific needs. This is not something that women have been pigeonholed into because of prejudice or restraint from abilities. I tired of women crying wolf on this particular topic due to lack of equality. Women have the same chances and rights as men in the IT field. Just because of the boom of high paying jobs that are being offered in this new century women want a piece of the pie, but in some cases they would rather complain, rather than get the proper training to be qualified for the positions. This is not to say that there maybe some prejudice against the hiring of a woman because she is a woman, that particular aspect is not part of my argument. I believe that there is not any inequality of opportunities in the IT profession. I believe that a lot women do not care to pursue this field and this is the reason for the so called inequality. Bibliography: .

Yet Messina Essay Example For Students

Yet Messina Essay The weaknesses and wrongs of Messina and its incapability for civilised seriousness, all cluster in this one obnoxious speech. However Beatrice and Benedick stand apart. Where Messina’s surface social practices are concerned, these two are just as susceptible to error as the rest of Messina and both are extremely fond of gossip and rumour. In the masked dance they play the role of slanderous gossip-bearers to each other and both are fond of eavesdropping and spying which lays them open to Don Pedro’s love-trick. We will write a custom essay on Yet Messina specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now However, Beatrice and Benedick are not as convention-bound and as role-bound as the others. They are not fixed in set roles by obedience to social stereotypes or artificial notions of pride and honour. They reveal their own blend of wit, romance and appropriate seriousness, unique in the world of Messina, in the two remarkable scenes where mutual love is declared in the shadow of Hero’s disgrace. Here we have an exchanged avowal of surprising love, and Benedick’s initial shocked refusal of Beatrice’s command ‘Kill Claudio’, followed by acceptance of his role as Beatrice’s champion. It is a scene with its roots in ancient chivalry, and is serious and worthy as a part of that tradition. Emotions run deep. There is a place for profound affection and for volatile anger. Yet conversation is also urbane, sophisticated and witty. The movement to and fro between comedy and seriousness in these scenes is an engagement of civilised and tender beings in a play of mutual discovery, and we witness all their suppleness of mind and feeling employed in the human art of growing and maturing. In their minds and emotions both Beatrice and Benedick display a kind of agility which is a condition of true life, and compared with them most of the other characters appear wooden and immobile, too easily trapped in destructive roles. These two lovers are unusual and unconventional citizens of this play’s comic world, but are also its most natural and successful ones. Their play on words between ‘hand’ and ‘hands,’ deploys wit for a wholly serious purpose and is a mark of exactly that free play between comedy and seriousness which sets Beatrice and Benidick apart from the rest of Messina. Claudio addresses Hero directly only three times in the play, each time briefly and each time in highly public circumstances of formal acceptance or rejection, whereas Beatrice and Benedick’s extensive, private interchanges could not be more emphatic, and it is Benedick who is able to drop his role of jester and by ceasing to joke break the fellowship in order to love. Beatrice and Benedick appear to us to be ‘realists’ because they are not idealists. Hero and to a slightly lesser extent Claudio are idealists. Beatrice and Benedick express Messina’s unruly margins and Claudio and Hero express its most serious aspirations. Claudio and Hero are idealists in the sense that they are fired by ideal visions of things, ‘ideal’ here meaning ‘the best imaginable’, the highest, the noblest, the purest. Idealism is the belief that what we really see around us is only the external appearance of something else, and that to get at it you must somehow have to get behind appearances. One of the play’s ironies is that it is the play’s ‘realists’ who will not take appearances at face value, but seek to get behind them. The jokes made by Beatrice and Benedick are sometimes blunt and crude, sometimes elaborate and self conscious. Puns, similes, metaphors, and paradoxes are all brought into play in their continual game of mutual insults and it is this aggressive verbal battle which pushes Beatrice and Benedick to the foreground of the play. Beatrice stands out from the rest of the women in Messina because she is as good at this kind of verbal game as any of the men, for she has taken over an area of discourse which the bachelors of Messina, and Benedick in particular, usually treat as a male preserve, a witty and aggressive word play which is used to ward off the prospect of marriage. .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 , .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .postImageUrl , .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 , .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:hover , .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:visited , .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:active { border:0!important; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:active , .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0 .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u924c470ca16a4e121bfbc53aa8059fe0:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Hamlet's words EssayIt is only Beatrice who will openly claim her fair share of lines in a conversation with a man, and it is only Beatrice who makes their kind of bantering language completely her own. Moreover, she can do this without seeming merely to be copying the men because Beatrice shares Benedick’s contempt for love and marriage. Beatrice equates a husband with ‘horns’, on the one hand a phallic symbol, but on the other the sign of a cuckold. Beatrice’s social position gives her a freedom the other characters cannot enjoy. She is not Hero’s sister and she is certainly an orphan. She has no parents in the play, and Leonato is her guardian. He calls her ‘niece’ a term which was used more broadly than it is now. She is related to Leonato and treated affectionately by him, but there is no suggestion that a dowry is one of her attractions and a dowry matters in the world of â€Å"Much Ado About Nothing† where Claudio coolly establishes Hero’s inheritance before Leonato signifies his approval of their troth. Beatrice is just a step down the social ladder and there is no serious prospect of her becoming the Princess of Aragon. Unlike Claudio, who initiates what is negative for his own honour, Beatrice initiates what is positive to honour her friend. If we are to save ourselves and the play from the emptiness of gossip, we need to grasp the conventions of the code of honour which govern the society of Messina. â€Å"Much Ado About Nothing† is best considered as a problem play, whose disturbing ending dramatises the inadequacy of the ideology by which its ruling classes rule. It is a comedy of social manners whose romance structure, with its improbable story, characters and denouement, makes deliberate play out of social tensions which in real life are not so readily resolved. It is an affectionate critique of upper-class manners, whose outwardness in matters of love and religion ran contrary to new expectations of the inner life that were becoming widely spread in Elizabethan England. For Beatrice and Benedick, their jokes become a means for them to resist the kind of love-relationship exemplified by Hero and Claudio. In the end the ‘happy-ending’ which sees Hero married off to Claudio is one fraught with contradictions, for the conventional relationship founded on romantic love which they exemplify has been severely satirised by Shakespeare. Beatrice and Benedick are offered to us as an alternative to Hero and Claudio, because they have managed to deploy their jokes and their bantering not only as a defence against love, but also as a language of love in order to define their own relationship, which is a more equal one than either of them could have expected in Messina. If the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is not presented as an ideal, it is nonetheless seen as preferable to the fragility of an idealised, romantic love such as Claudio’s with its potential to collapse into loathing and disgust. And for Beatrice and Benedick to have wrested the language to their own ends in this way is in itself a cause for celebration.