Chassen Haynes in London: Wednesday, July 30: Lecture 6 / Tower of London / Spamalot

Today we learned about swaps. We mainly focused on learning how to properly evaluate interest rate swaps to ensure that there is a profit after the fees are taken out by the swap bank. We learned that interest rate swaps (fixed-for-floating) are used to better match cash inflows and outflows, and to obtain a cost savings via the quality of spread differential. A currency swap (fixed-for-fixed) is used to obtain financing in the swapped denomination at a cost savings, and to hedge long-term foreign exchange rate risk.

After class, Reed, Marissa, and I decided to go to the Tower of London. We got to see the all of the royal insignia. We couldn't take any pictures inside most of the places, but we got some good ones where we could. We didn't get a tour by the "meat-eaters" because I got confused about what their real name was (blonde moment).

After the Tower, we came back and got dressed up to go to a play. The play was "Spamalot." I have not laughed as hard as I did during that play. It is a spin-off of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I took a picture during one of the scenes where the "Lady of the Lake," came to show Lancelot how to be a man. I got in trouble for taking it, so I didn't take any more pictures. The only downside to the theatre was that there was no A/C!! Good times, can't wait to see it back in the states.