Investment|Articles, Answers and Videos - on Investment
Oct
30
Filed Under (Personal Finance) by investment
Marcie H asked:
At my old job they offered me a 401 plan and I beleive they also offered for them to put money in a account. Not much. I didn’t do the 401 plan but I’m wondering if they put money in a account for me. The company I worked for went under, however, I keep getting letters from Mercer saying about changes and stuff so I’m wondering if I have something in there and not know it. When I went online to Mercer I couldn’t find a website for the investment part. Any suggetions?
KENETH
At my old job they offered me a 401 plan and I beleive they also offered for them to put money in a account. Not much. I didn’t do the 401 plan but I’m wondering if they put money in a account for me. The company I worked for went under, however, I keep getting letters from Mercer saying about changes and stuff so I’m wondering if I have something in there and not know it. When I went online to Mercer I couldn’t find a website for the investment part. Any suggetions?
KENETH
Oct
29
Filed Under (Investment Company) by investment
Joe Ficalora asked:
Different Types of Investments:
As we said last time, owning a stock is like owning part of a company. As the company rises or falls in value, so does the price of it’s stock. A key distinction is that the value of the stock is not only driven by the fundamental value of the company, but by other factors as well. These factors may include overall stock market trends, domestic versus foreign trade issues, business sector climate, etc. Owning a bond, is like owning part of a loan to a company or institution, like the State of Texas. Bonds typically pay a fixed amount of dividend as the loan is repaid. The bond’s value is determined by the interest rate on the underlying loan, and the current interest rates and trends in the marketplace. For example, who would not want own a 10% bond right now, when the money markets or bank passbook savings accounts are paying 3%? Should the institution or company fail or default on the loan, you could lose all or most of your bond’s value. Large companies or institutions usually issue bonds; so the risk is greatly reduced over owning a company’s stock share.
A stock mutual fund, is a group of stocks owned by a fund company to achieve certain investment objectives. Likewise a bond mutual fund is a group of bonds held to achieve a certain investment objective. Mutual funds, in both stock and bond types exist in many styles and forms. Fundamentally they are a savvy collection of stocks or bonds assembled and professionally managed for a specific or combination of investment aims. These typically diversify your investments so that no one particular company can sink your entire investment. The converse is that no one single stock can shoot your mutual fund up to a huge return.
Typically each mutual fund focuses upon growth, income, value, large, small or mid-capitalization companies, or a combination of these objectives. There are thousands of different funds and dozens of fund families to choose from. There are also companies that rate mutual funds, like Morningstar (www.morningstar.com ). Some mutual funds use a management team to select and prune stocks in the portfolio, some use certain methods, and some follow the leadership of a single fund manager. You should check these out before investing in a particular fund.
An oft-overlooked mutual fund consideration is the management fee or what are referred to as 12b-1 fees. Most fees are in the range of 1 to 2%. Be wary of any fund outside that range. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission can help unravel some of these issues for you. A good starting point is their investor section on mutual fund performance, specifically www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/mperform.htm . They also have a fund cost calculator to help take into account the fund management fees. Some funds are no-load mutual funds because they do not pay a sales person any commissions for selling fund shares. These are typically lower in cost, and if you own them for a long time, they can make a difference in the net return on your mutual fund investment. Conversely, there are loaded funds, which charge a commission when you invest in their fund. These vary widely in amounts, so ask for exact details before investing. Some require you to pay the sales commissions; others add that to the fund expenses. Either way it’s a cost to you. The Vanguard Funds (www.vanguard.com ) are often mentioned as a leader in creating no-load, low cost mutual funds. You will find compelling arguments at their website for owning no-load funds. You should check carefully on overall fund performance including fees when evaluating fund choices.
Measuring Risk:
Most mutual fund and stock tables and resources will list something called the beta or volatility of the items listed. Beta is a measure of the risk of the security listed associated with variation of the security when compared to the overall stock market. If beta is 1, then the stock or mutual fund varies about the same as the general market index. If less than 1, then the security is less volatile than the general index of comparison, with higher than 1 meaning more risk.
Measuring Risk-adjusted Returns:
There is also parameter called alpha, which is the market-adjusted return of the security. If alpha is positive, then the security earned a higher return than the relative market index of comparison. If alpha is negative, then the security earned less than the market did.
Minimizing Overall Risk:
Risks in the future may be reduced in the present only through preparation, planning and actions!
We discussed preparation and planning for the future in the last Investment Corner, which is a key risk-reduction strategy.
Risk reduction for investing is typically achieved through:
• Diversification,
• Portfolio Allocation,
• Pre-determined buying and selling prices, and
• Adherence to personal investing rules.
Now let’s look at the first part of risk reduction strategy for investing.
Diversification:
Diversification is spreading out your investments across several areas to reduce risk and capture growth in multiple places. Diversification is typically done at several levels. At the uppermost level, we typically diversify investments across different investment vehicles, such as cash, stocks, bonds and real estate. By doing this, we reduce several important risks. Inflation can reduce the value of cash on hand over time, which is why smart folks do not keep their life savings in cash hidden in a mattress! On the other hand, inflation can drive down the value of fixed dividend investments like bonds as well. Real estate may rise or decline with inflation, depending upon the health of both the local and the greater economies. Fixed hard assets like precious metals funds (gold) will usually rise on inflation or fears of inflation. Other risks include stock market declines, individual company bankruptcies, and so on…. By not “placing all the eggs in one basket” we lower our exposure to risks through diversification. During broad stock market declines, many folks move assets from stocks to cash or bonds. And of course the opposite during bull market runs.
Another diversification notion is that of slicing up your investment by specific growth sectors. Within a specific type of investment vehicle, say Mutual Funds, we diversify across the available growth and income sectors. Typically this is large, medium and small companies, as well as high dividend or high growth type stocks. You also could look into diversifying into domestic or international companies such as Asia-Pacific.
At the lower levels of investment diversification are multiple choices within a specific growth target. Most advisors strongly recommend diversification within a stock or bond market holding. If you feel for example that the Internet’s growth will continue or expand soon, buying stock in several companies who offer Internet products would help lower risk of any one company not doing too well. Diversification across several stocks is usually done in simple form through equal partitioning. If for example you had $10,000 to invest, how would you do it? You could place 20% of your total investment amount in each of 5 different Internet stocks as in Table I:
Table I –Stock Investment Diversification
Stock Name Current Price 90 Day High 90 Day Low Amount Invested ~ Shares
Company A $25 $28 $20 $2000 80
Company B $40 $40 $20 $2000 50
Company C $60 $60 $20 $2000 33
Company D $300 $300 $198 $2000 7
Company E $8 $9 $3 $2000 250
By looking at the trading ranges across the 90-day history, you can estimate the risks or volatility of each stock. Do the stocks have the same risks? Do they all have the same growth potential?
One approach would be to allocate risks equally, as opposed to allocating investment equally. You would be to use the information in the range of stock trading prices to assess risk and re-allocate your investments as this diversification calculator shows below in table II:
Table II – Risk Diversification Calculator
Risk Diversification Calculator
Investment Amount $10,000
Stocks 5
Stock_1 Stock_2 Stock_3 Stock_4 Stock_5
90-day Max $28 $40 $60 $300 $9
90-day Min $20 $20 $20 $198 $3
Cur. Price $25 $40 $60 $300 $8
Trade Rnge 32% 50% 67% 41% 100%
Eq. Amt $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000
$$ at Risk $640 $1,000 $1,333 $819 $2,000
Risk Ratio 1 1.5625 2.083 1.28 3.125
Risk-Red. $2,000 $1,280 $960 $1,562 $640
Adj. Inv.$3,104 $1,987 $1,490 $2,425 $993
If you do not want to do the research and monitoring required for several individual stocks or bonds, choosing a mutual fund may be the wisest choice, with a smaller but usually acceptable return on your investment. The key question you need to answer is not “Should I diversify?”, but rather “How will I diversify my investments?”
About YOU
The primary things you should know about yourself before selecting among the different types of investments are:
I. How much of my time is available to monitor/manage my investments?
II. How often do I want to change my investment choices?
III. Do I want help and advice from investment professionals?
These are important questions you need to answer for yourself. All investment requires some time commitments to monitor and manage. When stock markets or life situations begin to change, you may need to change your investment choices. If your experience level does not warrant it, getting professional help may increase both your results and comfort level.
I. Time to manage your investments: Your time is worth money! At least if you can put it to good use in managing your investments… but do not become obsessive with it. Investments take time to grow. Every investment portfolio must be watched and pruned from time to time. You wouldn’t want to look back after 5 years and find that right after your investment choices were made, that the business climate changed and those choices had become poor performers.
Two typical uses of your time applied to investment managing:
• Weekly, monthly or quarterly checking for:
o Stock movements
o Business climate changes,
o Company news
• Annual or quarterly allocation changes
o Re-planning or shifting your plans
o Pruning and re-diversification
o Reallocation of investment amounts
Weekly or Monthly Check-ups
If you buy individual stocks and bonds, these will need monitoring more often than if you had purchased mutual funds. However, stock and bond funds need attention too, just less often.
Some questions you should answer for yourself are:
• Can I afford time each week to check investments (Friday night or Saturday morning)? This is important for individual stocks and bonds.
•Am I disciplined enough to check my investments periodically? This is critically important, as the business environments are constantly changing.
• Can I put this on a monthly calendar and stick with it? Monthly checkups are important no matter what your investments may be…
• If I get an automatic e-mail sent will I read it? Many investment houses will do this for all accounts above a certain size limit. You can pool your investments under one roof, usually with savings in cost plus perks for research, quotes, e-mails, etc. Both Fidelity and Schwab are good examples of these services once you reach certain size limits.
Quarterly or Annual Check-ups
If you are only into mutual funds as investment vehicles, then you need check them only quarterly or annually. After all you are giving up some small amount of income to pay for professionally managed investments, right? You may want to keep up with monthly or weekly news on the investment fund management team, however, as management team shakeups there could cost you. The key thing is disciplined reviews and setting a schedule that you can stick to. Ignorance in this case can be dangerous, so do it together with your spouse or a family member that you trust. As you get good at it, the time required to do these should drop from several hours to perhaps an hour to review all your investments. If you have been keeping tabs on things, it can be shorter still.
“Even if you’re on the right track you will get run over if you just sit there!” - Will Rogers.
II. Changing your investment choices:
The challenge when deciding to change investments is often the emotional content. “We had a return of say 7%, when the broader markets got only 5%”. How did the overall group for your investment vehicle do? Morningstar provides good index comparisons, as do other groups. If your choices did not perform above the class average for 1 or 2 quarters in a row, it’s probably a good idea to consider other alternatives. That may require all the same diligence of researching an investment as you did originally. If you are seriously concerned and need to act quickly, you can always sell and put the proceeds into cash or a money market for a short time while you do the research.
III. Getting help from professionals:
I have often found the larger funds and investment houses to be a plethora of information via the Internet. They have how-to guides, acronym explanations, and in general some great advice. If however, these seem to complex for you, or you would prefer to seek out a single person with whom to deal, then find a Certified Financial Planner. The best ones should be able to provide references, a track record, and a good deal of services all at your doorstep. These services do not come free and can be in the thousands of dollars to set up your initial plans. Be certain to check 3 to 5 references and interview several planners before deciding. Determine what you pay exactly and what you get exactly after your selection is made. Be certain that they are certified, a place to begin is: http://www.cfp.net/ .
Summary
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this topic of stock and bonds versus mutual funds. Primarily remember that individual stocks require more monitoring, but can yield higher returns. The same applies somewhat to individual bonds. Newer investors to these may want to start with mutual funds, Money magazine has an annual issue every February that is very helpful and is usually available at public libraries. Finally remember to lower your risks by diversification, no matter what investments you make. Ask yourself the questions we reviewed about your time commitments and discipline for monitoring as part of the investing process. And of course, read-up on the Internet and some of the books listed below.
Next time – Portfolio Allocation, Pre-determined trigger points, and Personal investing rules …
Self-Study:
Some great resources to continue your journey are located on the web.
Try visiting these sites:
•http://www.greatcompaniesgreatcharts.com/archives/001864.html
•http://www.rightline.net/home/gate_rm.html
•http://www.investorguide.com/stockfaq.html
•http://www.pascoresearch.com/int_alpha.asp
•http://www.stockbook.com/Evaluator/
Or read these well known authors and books:
• William J. O’Neil: How to Make Money in Stocks
• John Boik: Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time
• John C. Bogle: Common Sense on Mutual Funds : New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor
Additional info from this author may be found at http://www.sbtionline.com
CLIFTON
Different Types of Investments:
As we said last time, owning a stock is like owning part of a company. As the company rises or falls in value, so does the price of it’s stock. A key distinction is that the value of the stock is not only driven by the fundamental value of the company, but by other factors as well. These factors may include overall stock market trends, domestic versus foreign trade issues, business sector climate, etc. Owning a bond, is like owning part of a loan to a company or institution, like the State of Texas. Bonds typically pay a fixed amount of dividend as the loan is repaid. The bond’s value is determined by the interest rate on the underlying loan, and the current interest rates and trends in the marketplace. For example, who would not want own a 10% bond right now, when the money markets or bank passbook savings accounts are paying 3%? Should the institution or company fail or default on the loan, you could lose all or most of your bond’s value. Large companies or institutions usually issue bonds; so the risk is greatly reduced over owning a company’s stock share.
A stock mutual fund, is a group of stocks owned by a fund company to achieve certain investment objectives. Likewise a bond mutual fund is a group of bonds held to achieve a certain investment objective. Mutual funds, in both stock and bond types exist in many styles and forms. Fundamentally they are a savvy collection of stocks or bonds assembled and professionally managed for a specific or combination of investment aims. These typically diversify your investments so that no one particular company can sink your entire investment. The converse is that no one single stock can shoot your mutual fund up to a huge return.
Typically each mutual fund focuses upon growth, income, value, large, small or mid-capitalization companies, or a combination of these objectives. There are thousands of different funds and dozens of fund families to choose from. There are also companies that rate mutual funds, like Morningstar (www.morningstar.com ). Some mutual funds use a management team to select and prune stocks in the portfolio, some use certain methods, and some follow the leadership of a single fund manager. You should check these out before investing in a particular fund.
An oft-overlooked mutual fund consideration is the management fee or what are referred to as 12b-1 fees. Most fees are in the range of 1 to 2%. Be wary of any fund outside that range. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission can help unravel some of these issues for you. A good starting point is their investor section on mutual fund performance, specifically www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/mperform.htm . They also have a fund cost calculator to help take into account the fund management fees. Some funds are no-load mutual funds because they do not pay a sales person any commissions for selling fund shares. These are typically lower in cost, and if you own them for a long time, they can make a difference in the net return on your mutual fund investment. Conversely, there are loaded funds, which charge a commission when you invest in their fund. These vary widely in amounts, so ask for exact details before investing. Some require you to pay the sales commissions; others add that to the fund expenses. Either way it’s a cost to you. The Vanguard Funds (www.vanguard.com ) are often mentioned as a leader in creating no-load, low cost mutual funds. You will find compelling arguments at their website for owning no-load funds. You should check carefully on overall fund performance including fees when evaluating fund choices.
Measuring Risk:
Most mutual fund and stock tables and resources will list something called the beta or volatility of the items listed. Beta is a measure of the risk of the security listed associated with variation of the security when compared to the overall stock market. If beta is 1, then the stock or mutual fund varies about the same as the general market index. If less than 1, then the security is less volatile than the general index of comparison, with higher than 1 meaning more risk.
Measuring Risk-adjusted Returns:
There is also parameter called alpha, which is the market-adjusted return of the security. If alpha is positive, then the security earned a higher return than the relative market index of comparison. If alpha is negative, then the security earned less than the market did.
Minimizing Overall Risk:
Risks in the future may be reduced in the present only through preparation, planning and actions!
We discussed preparation and planning for the future in the last Investment Corner, which is a key risk-reduction strategy.
Risk reduction for investing is typically achieved through:
• Diversification,
• Portfolio Allocation,
• Pre-determined buying and selling prices, and
• Adherence to personal investing rules.
Now let’s look at the first part of risk reduction strategy for investing.
Diversification:
Diversification is spreading out your investments across several areas to reduce risk and capture growth in multiple places. Diversification is typically done at several levels. At the uppermost level, we typically diversify investments across different investment vehicles, such as cash, stocks, bonds and real estate. By doing this, we reduce several important risks. Inflation can reduce the value of cash on hand over time, which is why smart folks do not keep their life savings in cash hidden in a mattress! On the other hand, inflation can drive down the value of fixed dividend investments like bonds as well. Real estate may rise or decline with inflation, depending upon the health of both the local and the greater economies. Fixed hard assets like precious metals funds (gold) will usually rise on inflation or fears of inflation. Other risks include stock market declines, individual company bankruptcies, and so on…. By not “placing all the eggs in one basket” we lower our exposure to risks through diversification. During broad stock market declines, many folks move assets from stocks to cash or bonds. And of course the opposite during bull market runs.
Another diversification notion is that of slicing up your investment by specific growth sectors. Within a specific type of investment vehicle, say Mutual Funds, we diversify across the available growth and income sectors. Typically this is large, medium and small companies, as well as high dividend or high growth type stocks. You also could look into diversifying into domestic or international companies such as Asia-Pacific.
At the lower levels of investment diversification are multiple choices within a specific growth target. Most advisors strongly recommend diversification within a stock or bond market holding. If you feel for example that the Internet’s growth will continue or expand soon, buying stock in several companies who offer Internet products would help lower risk of any one company not doing too well. Diversification across several stocks is usually done in simple form through equal partitioning. If for example you had $10,000 to invest, how would you do it? You could place 20% of your total investment amount in each of 5 different Internet stocks as in Table I:
Table I –Stock Investment Diversification
Stock Name Current Price 90 Day High 90 Day Low Amount Invested ~ Shares
Company A $25 $28 $20 $2000 80
Company B $40 $40 $20 $2000 50
Company C $60 $60 $20 $2000 33
Company D $300 $300 $198 $2000 7
Company E $8 $9 $3 $2000 250
By looking at the trading ranges across the 90-day history, you can estimate the risks or volatility of each stock. Do the stocks have the same risks? Do they all have the same growth potential?
One approach would be to allocate risks equally, as opposed to allocating investment equally. You would be to use the information in the range of stock trading prices to assess risk and re-allocate your investments as this diversification calculator shows below in table II:
Table II – Risk Diversification Calculator
Risk Diversification Calculator
Investment Amount $10,000
Stocks 5
Stock_1 Stock_2 Stock_3 Stock_4 Stock_5
90-day Max $28 $40 $60 $300 $9
90-day Min $20 $20 $20 $198 $3
Cur. Price $25 $40 $60 $300 $8
Trade Rnge 32% 50% 67% 41% 100%
Eq. Amt $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $2,000
$$ at Risk $640 $1,000 $1,333 $819 $2,000
Risk Ratio 1 1.5625 2.083 1.28 3.125
Risk-Red. $2,000 $1,280 $960 $1,562 $640
Adj. Inv.$3,104 $1,987 $1,490 $2,425 $993
If you do not want to do the research and monitoring required for several individual stocks or bonds, choosing a mutual fund may be the wisest choice, with a smaller but usually acceptable return on your investment. The key question you need to answer is not “Should I diversify?”, but rather “How will I diversify my investments?”
About YOU
The primary things you should know about yourself before selecting among the different types of investments are:
I. How much of my time is available to monitor/manage my investments?
II. How often do I want to change my investment choices?
III. Do I want help and advice from investment professionals?
These are important questions you need to answer for yourself. All investment requires some time commitments to monitor and manage. When stock markets or life situations begin to change, you may need to change your investment choices. If your experience level does not warrant it, getting professional help may increase both your results and comfort level.
I. Time to manage your investments: Your time is worth money! At least if you can put it to good use in managing your investments… but do not become obsessive with it. Investments take time to grow. Every investment portfolio must be watched and pruned from time to time. You wouldn’t want to look back after 5 years and find that right after your investment choices were made, that the business climate changed and those choices had become poor performers.
Two typical uses of your time applied to investment managing:
• Weekly, monthly or quarterly checking for:
o Stock movements
o Business climate changes,
o Company news
• Annual or quarterly allocation changes
o Re-planning or shifting your plans
o Pruning and re-diversification
o Reallocation of investment amounts
Weekly or Monthly Check-ups
If you buy individual stocks and bonds, these will need monitoring more often than if you had purchased mutual funds. However, stock and bond funds need attention too, just less often.
Some questions you should answer for yourself are:
• Can I afford time each week to check investments (Friday night or Saturday morning)? This is important for individual stocks and bonds.
•Am I disciplined enough to check my investments periodically? This is critically important, as the business environments are constantly changing.
• Can I put this on a monthly calendar and stick with it? Monthly checkups are important no matter what your investments may be…
• If I get an automatic e-mail sent will I read it? Many investment houses will do this for all accounts above a certain size limit. You can pool your investments under one roof, usually with savings in cost plus perks for research, quotes, e-mails, etc. Both Fidelity and Schwab are good examples of these services once you reach certain size limits.
Quarterly or Annual Check-ups
If you are only into mutual funds as investment vehicles, then you need check them only quarterly or annually. After all you are giving up some small amount of income to pay for professionally managed investments, right? You may want to keep up with monthly or weekly news on the investment fund management team, however, as management team shakeups there could cost you. The key thing is disciplined reviews and setting a schedule that you can stick to. Ignorance in this case can be dangerous, so do it together with your spouse or a family member that you trust. As you get good at it, the time required to do these should drop from several hours to perhaps an hour to review all your investments. If you have been keeping tabs on things, it can be shorter still.
“Even if you’re on the right track you will get run over if you just sit there!” - Will Rogers.
II. Changing your investment choices:
The challenge when deciding to change investments is often the emotional content. “We had a return of say 7%, when the broader markets got only 5%”. How did the overall group for your investment vehicle do? Morningstar provides good index comparisons, as do other groups. If your choices did not perform above the class average for 1 or 2 quarters in a row, it’s probably a good idea to consider other alternatives. That may require all the same diligence of researching an investment as you did originally. If you are seriously concerned and need to act quickly, you can always sell and put the proceeds into cash or a money market for a short time while you do the research.
III. Getting help from professionals:
I have often found the larger funds and investment houses to be a plethora of information via the Internet. They have how-to guides, acronym explanations, and in general some great advice. If however, these seem to complex for you, or you would prefer to seek out a single person with whom to deal, then find a Certified Financial Planner. The best ones should be able to provide references, a track record, and a good deal of services all at your doorstep. These services do not come free and can be in the thousands of dollars to set up your initial plans. Be certain to check 3 to 5 references and interview several planners before deciding. Determine what you pay exactly and what you get exactly after your selection is made. Be certain that they are certified, a place to begin is: http://www.cfp.net/ .
Summary
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this topic of stock and bonds versus mutual funds. Primarily remember that individual stocks require more monitoring, but can yield higher returns. The same applies somewhat to individual bonds. Newer investors to these may want to start with mutual funds, Money magazine has an annual issue every February that is very helpful and is usually available at public libraries. Finally remember to lower your risks by diversification, no matter what investments you make. Ask yourself the questions we reviewed about your time commitments and discipline for monitoring as part of the investing process. And of course, read-up on the Internet and some of the books listed below.
Next time – Portfolio Allocation, Pre-determined trigger points, and Personal investing rules …
Self-Study:
Some great resources to continue your journey are located on the web.
Try visiting these sites:
•http://www.greatcompaniesgreatcharts.com/archives/001864.html
•http://www.rightline.net/home/gate_rm.html
•http://www.investorguide.com/stockfaq.html
•http://www.pascoresearch.com/int_alpha.asp
•http://www.stockbook.com/Evaluator/
Or read these well known authors and books:
• William J. O’Neil: How to Make Money in Stocks
• John Boik: Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time
• John C. Bogle: Common Sense on Mutual Funds : New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor
Additional info from this author may be found at http://www.sbtionline.com
CLIFTON
Oct
28
Filed Under (Investing) by investment
Surinder Ahitan asked:
Whenever I get asked by anyone how to invest in property, I respond with a series of questions:
• What are your financial aims? In other words what are you after? Are you seeking an income, capital or both?
There is a big difference between wanting to retire in 2 years so you can live off your investment income and wanting to help your children with tuition expenses in 12 years.
• Will you need to borrow money and how much risk are you willing to take?
• Will you consider investing overseas, and if so, where will you invest – Europe, the Far East or the Middle East.
• What level of risk are you willing to take?
• What happens if you need your money back quickly?
Remember, liquidity is a major problem in property investment. If you invest in the stocks and share market, you can pick up the phone and sell in minutes. That’s liquity. Just try doing that with property and you’ll see that it’s a completely different story.
• What about your tax liability and what would happen if it all went wrong?
• Do you want to invest in commercial or residential? Do you even know the difference?
These are the type of questions you should be asking yourself before you dive in and invest in property. It’s very helpful to write down your reasons for wanting to invest in property. You can always revise your list if you change your mind about your investment motives. But I guarantee you won’t be sorry for spending a little time up front making the list. On the other hand, if you’re unable to come up with any motivating factors for investing, you’re also setting yourself up for failure.
This may seem like a lot of work, but it’s a crucial part of the process if you want to succeed. Remember: buying property BEGINS with a well thought out plan for your exit strategy!
You should also be aware of the intense marketing hype of many online estate agent sites; they often prey on gullible, uninformed individuals. Be careful not to fall for the hype regarding the off plan deals marketed in nearly every country. Media such as glossy overseas magazines that advertise second homes for sale as investments are often very misleading.
Another word of caution – don’t be fooled or conned by the promises of “get rich quick” property schemes. Property is a long-term investment. It’s easy to lose sight of this as you hear any number of different, new and possibly more exciting property investment strategies that appear to be making money NOW. Years ago you could purchase reasonably-priced property, rent it out and make good money in a relatively short period of time. However, times have changed and this is no longer the case.
Not all real estate agents will be upfront about this fact. Like many others, you may mistakenly assume that your real estate agent is determined to help you obtain the best possible return for your money. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. The main goal of real estate agents is to sell property – period. Do you think it is in their best interest to convince you to make long-term property investments? Definitely not!
Media resources can also hamper your property investment opportunities by writing bad or good reports about property investments that simply aren’t true. Property-related journalists are being paid to write, not to conduct research about the real estate market or lucrative investment opportunities.
Advertising is big business and journalists may be paid to write a scathing or glowing report about various overseas or local investments that is completely false. Hence, it’s best to ignore the majority of what you read in the magazines and conduct some solid market research on your own. After all, it’s your money so you want to invest it wisely!
Fortunately, there are some reliable resources available to help you learn about current trends in the property market. Start by consulting one of the following websites before you invest in any of your hard-earned cash:
Collierscre – One of the leading worldwide real estate consultancies
Knight Frank – Residential and commerical property professionals
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors – Leading source of information relating to construction, the environment, property and land
Estates Gazette – Magazine offering detailed information about commercial property trends
Also be sure to talk to local real estate agents as well as some reliable rental management companies. They can discuss some of the more successful local invesment property strategies. Don’t forget about members of your local business community and shop owners in your community. They can prove to be invaluable sources of information when it comes to local property invesmtent.
If you establish clear investment targets, you can focus only on the relevant types of property. I don’t recommend choosing more than two property types if you’re an inexperienced property investor. Given the vast amount of possible investment properties, this small step can save you a lot of wasted hours.
You should also limit the cities you’re considering to one or two. You can then determine the best and worst investment areas of a specific city by analyzing various factors such as crime and employment statistics.
The bottom line is don’t rely on only the latest investment fads to determine where to invest your money. This can prove to be a very costly mistake, especially if you are new to property investment. Spend some time determining your motivating factors for investing, ask yourself several important questions and narrow your target area to one or two cities. These steps will greatly improve your chance of success. With a little planning and advice, you can develop a clear investment strategy and avoid the most common property investment mistake.
JOSUE
Whenever I get asked by anyone how to invest in property, I respond with a series of questions:
• What are your financial aims? In other words what are you after? Are you seeking an income, capital or both?
There is a big difference between wanting to retire in 2 years so you can live off your investment income and wanting to help your children with tuition expenses in 12 years.
• Will you need to borrow money and how much risk are you willing to take?
• Will you consider investing overseas, and if so, where will you invest – Europe, the Far East or the Middle East.
• What level of risk are you willing to take?
• What happens if you need your money back quickly?
Remember, liquidity is a major problem in property investment. If you invest in the stocks and share market, you can pick up the phone and sell in minutes. That’s liquity. Just try doing that with property and you’ll see that it’s a completely different story.
• What about your tax liability and what would happen if it all went wrong?
• Do you want to invest in commercial or residential? Do you even know the difference?
These are the type of questions you should be asking yourself before you dive in and invest in property. It’s very helpful to write down your reasons for wanting to invest in property. You can always revise your list if you change your mind about your investment motives. But I guarantee you won’t be sorry for spending a little time up front making the list. On the other hand, if you’re unable to come up with any motivating factors for investing, you’re also setting yourself up for failure.
This may seem like a lot of work, but it’s a crucial part of the process if you want to succeed. Remember: buying property BEGINS with a well thought out plan for your exit strategy!
You should also be aware of the intense marketing hype of many online estate agent sites; they often prey on gullible, uninformed individuals. Be careful not to fall for the hype regarding the off plan deals marketed in nearly every country. Media such as glossy overseas magazines that advertise second homes for sale as investments are often very misleading.
Another word of caution – don’t be fooled or conned by the promises of “get rich quick” property schemes. Property is a long-term investment. It’s easy to lose sight of this as you hear any number of different, new and possibly more exciting property investment strategies that appear to be making money NOW. Years ago you could purchase reasonably-priced property, rent it out and make good money in a relatively short period of time. However, times have changed and this is no longer the case.
Not all real estate agents will be upfront about this fact. Like many others, you may mistakenly assume that your real estate agent is determined to help you obtain the best possible return for your money. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. The main goal of real estate agents is to sell property – period. Do you think it is in their best interest to convince you to make long-term property investments? Definitely not!
Media resources can also hamper your property investment opportunities by writing bad or good reports about property investments that simply aren’t true. Property-related journalists are being paid to write, not to conduct research about the real estate market or lucrative investment opportunities.
Advertising is big business and journalists may be paid to write a scathing or glowing report about various overseas or local investments that is completely false. Hence, it’s best to ignore the majority of what you read in the magazines and conduct some solid market research on your own. After all, it’s your money so you want to invest it wisely!
Fortunately, there are some reliable resources available to help you learn about current trends in the property market. Start by consulting one of the following websites before you invest in any of your hard-earned cash:
Collierscre – One of the leading worldwide real estate consultancies
Knight Frank – Residential and commerical property professionals
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors – Leading source of information relating to construction, the environment, property and land
Estates Gazette – Magazine offering detailed information about commercial property trends
Also be sure to talk to local real estate agents as well as some reliable rental management companies. They can discuss some of the more successful local invesment property strategies. Don’t forget about members of your local business community and shop owners in your community. They can prove to be invaluable sources of information when it comes to local property invesmtent.
If you establish clear investment targets, you can focus only on the relevant types of property. I don’t recommend choosing more than two property types if you’re an inexperienced property investor. Given the vast amount of possible investment properties, this small step can save you a lot of wasted hours.
You should also limit the cities you’re considering to one or two. You can then determine the best and worst investment areas of a specific city by analyzing various factors such as crime and employment statistics.
The bottom line is don’t rely on only the latest investment fads to determine where to invest your money. This can prove to be a very costly mistake, especially if you are new to property investment. Spend some time determining your motivating factors for investing, ask yourself several important questions and narrow your target area to one or two cities. These steps will greatly improve your chance of success. With a little planning and advice, you can develop a clear investment strategy and avoid the most common property investment mistake.
JOSUE
Oct
27
Filed Under (Education) by investment
khanacademy asked:
The difference between investment and consumption.
ODELL
Oct
27
Filed Under (Investing) by investment
guitarguitarguitar80 asked:
Ok, i know nothing about finance( i am actually a physiotherapy student) , but i know that the only way to be rich is investingbuying assets.
Ok, i know nothing about finance( i am actually a physiotherapy student) , but i know that the only way to be rich is investingbuying assets.
I want to start some investment and buy some stock online, so where can you start from? where can you get the information froms? Do i need to hire a stockbroker? How much starting money do you need to start? ( i am not very rich or i wouldnt be here :P)
some expereinced stockbroker ’s answer would be great to give me some hint and ideas how to start
THANKS ~~ Much appreciated your help
MINH
Oct
26
Filed Under (News) by investment
WSJDigitalNetwork asked:
For more news, go to www.wsj.com/video. Chapter 2: As they struggle to keep their dream investment afloat, small business owners Chuck Bidwell and Jen Guarino now face the realization of having to sell equity in the company.
SAMMIE
Oct
26
Filed Under (Fitness) by investment
Alvin Toh asked:
Investment clubs are a terrific way for kids to learn about investments even at a young age. You can start a student investment club for your own child or for your students if you are a teacher. The student investment club can help kids learn about money and teach them invaluable lessons about making decisions.
Starting a student investment club begins with the desire to invest. An adult should start and run the club and provide structure and guidance along the way. Properly used, however, the student investment club will be a good learning experience for everyone.
1. Begin with a simple goal to provide kids with limited ability to search and select stocks to invest. Ensure that younger kids have their parents permission to participate. Come up with weekly or monthly goals for investing.
2. Write rules and stick to them. Investment clubs need rules and regulations and the student investment club is no exception. This helps to establish order and ensure that things are handled properly. Write the rules in plain language that can be easily understood by the age group.
3. Limit the investments. Children have limited funds so there should be low limits on the participation requirements as well as limits to the amount the child can invest. Get the buy-in of the parents before you begin. Always consider the amount of money available to students before you choose investments.
4. Make investments fun. The idea of investments can seem somewhat a dreary subject. Spice it up by allowing kids to invest in companies that they know or have heard about. Think about popular toy or video game companies, food or restaurant companies or clothing companies. Investing in a stodgy company they never heard of and dont know the nature of business will make the club boring and kids will lose interest quickly.
5. Encourage kids to use their own money. When appropriate the students will learn better when they use their own money. Whether its from their allowance or from a part-time job, using their own money will force kids to be more interested in the investments.
6. Invite guest speakers. Whenever possible try to add interest by inviting guest speakers to meetings with the students. Find members of the local community to speak such as investment bankers, finance counselors or accountants.
7. Divide students into smaller groups. If you have a large group of students, it may be wise to have them form smaller groups. Allow them to form a corporation for investing and even let them name their company. Have them choose a president and then let them vote on investment choices.
8. Track investment performance. Teach students to use charts or graphs to track their investments and keep abreast with market trends in the newspaper or on the internet. Determine a specific day in a week to review investments with the students.
EMMITT
Investment clubs are a terrific way for kids to learn about investments even at a young age. You can start a student investment club for your own child or for your students if you are a teacher. The student investment club can help kids learn about money and teach them invaluable lessons about making decisions.
Starting a student investment club begins with the desire to invest. An adult should start and run the club and provide structure and guidance along the way. Properly used, however, the student investment club will be a good learning experience for everyone.
1. Begin with a simple goal to provide kids with limited ability to search and select stocks to invest. Ensure that younger kids have their parents permission to participate. Come up with weekly or monthly goals for investing.
2. Write rules and stick to them. Investment clubs need rules and regulations and the student investment club is no exception. This helps to establish order and ensure that things are handled properly. Write the rules in plain language that can be easily understood by the age group.
3. Limit the investments. Children have limited funds so there should be low limits on the participation requirements as well as limits to the amount the child can invest. Get the buy-in of the parents before you begin. Always consider the amount of money available to students before you choose investments.
4. Make investments fun. The idea of investments can seem somewhat a dreary subject. Spice it up by allowing kids to invest in companies that they know or have heard about. Think about popular toy or video game companies, food or restaurant companies or clothing companies. Investing in a stodgy company they never heard of and dont know the nature of business will make the club boring and kids will lose interest quickly.
5. Encourage kids to use their own money. When appropriate the students will learn better when they use their own money. Whether its from their allowance or from a part-time job, using their own money will force kids to be more interested in the investments.
6. Invite guest speakers. Whenever possible try to add interest by inviting guest speakers to meetings with the students. Find members of the local community to speak such as investment bankers, finance counselors or accountants.
7. Divide students into smaller groups. If you have a large group of students, it may be wise to have them form smaller groups. Allow them to form a corporation for investing and even let them name their company. Have them choose a president and then let them vote on investment choices.
8. Track investment performance. Teach students to use charts or graphs to track their investments and keep abreast with market trends in the newspaper or on the internet. Determine a specific day in a week to review investments with the students.
EMMITT
Oct
19
Filed Under (Investing) by investment
Uchenna Ani-Okoye asked:
In our investment work when we get involved in stock investing, we do hands on stock research. Here are 12 basic stock investing rules that you may follow for successful trading. The stock market is driven by earnings, and a good stock investing course will teach you to judge the emotional state of the stock market.
Basic concept behind stock investing before getting involved in the stock trading, you should be well versed with its concept as this will help you in achieving success every time you trade. Now with all these information presented to you, it is now your choice whether you will get involved in penny stock investing. With ETF investing, you get the best of stock investing (ease of trading) and the best of mutual fund investing (built-in diversification) all in one investment vehicle.
When taking a stock investing course you may learn a few things that your broker may not even be aware of. Unlike stock investing, you need strong credit to use other people’s money to finance investment property. As you might imagine, the ads under stocks generally (which includes broad search terms like ’stock investing’) are seen the most, because most searchers begin with generic inquiries.
So if you are new to investing in the stock market take some time and learn how to by taking a stock investing course. Stock investing is relatively volatile and full of uncertainty. The more forex stock investing trades you make with a high probability of success, the more successful you will be.
Stock investing takes a great deal of research however if you make good investing decisions, it can have a high rate of return. Stock investing is a popular tool that many use for creating wealth. It is not difficult at all to succeed in stock investing.
They don’t know anything about stock investing and they often lose a few thousand dollars very quickly. You have to weigh both the pros and the cons of small cap stock investing before you sink any of your hard earned money into anything. In the real world, the world of stock investing, you should always put money after your best ideas.
It is also the hardest part to master in stock investing. Penny stock investing is a junior level course at least. Fraudsters don’t think twice before developing stock investing, commodity or option trading courses to make a little extra money for themselves regardless of whether or not what they teach helps their students.
Also, online stock investing has opened the door wide for overseas stock trading, giving you more investment opportunities than ever. In this manner, stock investing is much like surfing: spotting when or when not to ride the waves. So, before putting any money into stocks, the first question you should ask is what do you want to achieve with stock investing.
The second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, has made his millions from stock investing. Social networking has been intergraded into many stock investing courses. When you take a closer look, the alternative means of extra income via stock investing is just a spin-off of earning from a business.
Online stock investing has helped a lot in saving time and money by enjoying the thrill of trade at your convenience in the ambience of your home. What any ‘vexed’ shareholders are forgetting, and he is not, is that Rule 1 in stock investing is, don’t lose money. Penny stock investing can be profitable.
DREW
In our investment work when we get involved in stock investing, we do hands on stock research. Here are 12 basic stock investing rules that you may follow for successful trading. The stock market is driven by earnings, and a good stock investing course will teach you to judge the emotional state of the stock market.
Basic concept behind stock investing before getting involved in the stock trading, you should be well versed with its concept as this will help you in achieving success every time you trade. Now with all these information presented to you, it is now your choice whether you will get involved in penny stock investing. With ETF investing, you get the best of stock investing (ease of trading) and the best of mutual fund investing (built-in diversification) all in one investment vehicle.
When taking a stock investing course you may learn a few things that your broker may not even be aware of. Unlike stock investing, you need strong credit to use other people’s money to finance investment property. As you might imagine, the ads under stocks generally (which includes broad search terms like ’stock investing’) are seen the most, because most searchers begin with generic inquiries.
So if you are new to investing in the stock market take some time and learn how to by taking a stock investing course. Stock investing is relatively volatile and full of uncertainty. The more forex stock investing trades you make with a high probability of success, the more successful you will be.
Stock investing takes a great deal of research however if you make good investing decisions, it can have a high rate of return. Stock investing is a popular tool that many use for creating wealth. It is not difficult at all to succeed in stock investing.
They don’t know anything about stock investing and they often lose a few thousand dollars very quickly. You have to weigh both the pros and the cons of small cap stock investing before you sink any of your hard earned money into anything. In the real world, the world of stock investing, you should always put money after your best ideas.
It is also the hardest part to master in stock investing. Penny stock investing is a junior level course at least. Fraudsters don’t think twice before developing stock investing, commodity or option trading courses to make a little extra money for themselves regardless of whether or not what they teach helps their students.
Also, online stock investing has opened the door wide for overseas stock trading, giving you more investment opportunities than ever. In this manner, stock investing is much like surfing: spotting when or when not to ride the waves. So, before putting any money into stocks, the first question you should ask is what do you want to achieve with stock investing.
The second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, has made his millions from stock investing. Social networking has been intergraded into many stock investing courses. When you take a closer look, the alternative means of extra income via stock investing is just a spin-off of earning from a business.
Online stock investing has helped a lot in saving time and money by enjoying the thrill of trade at your convenience in the ambience of your home. What any ‘vexed’ shareholders are forgetting, and he is not, is that Rule 1 in stock investing is, don’t lose money. Penny stock investing can be profitable.
DREW
Oct
12
Filed Under (News) by investment
media1512 asked:
Top British Financial experts agree that the crisis in the markets mean that investment banking as a business is now over.
WILFORD
Oct
05
Filed Under (Investing) by investment
Eze ThankGod ik asked:
There are lots of similarities between mutual funds investments and investment clubs, and it is very nice that we understand them, as investors. The first similarity is that both are contributory funds/systems of investments. That is to say that the money being invested is not owned by an individual, rather, it belongs to different people. These are funds that are raised from the contributions by the members in of the investment clubs or contributed by different people and handed to a fund manager for investment, in the case of mutual funds. This therefore makes every contributor to the club are partaker of the gains or loses that accrues from the invested funds. Here, there is no separation of funds whereby you may say that Mr A is not eligible for the gains or loses of the investments because his investments were not there. As long as he remains a member of the club, he remains a partaker of the proceeds of the investments. Like wise, Mr B cannot wake up tomorrow and say that he wants the refund of his invested capital because he is not satisfied with the little fraction that was given to him or that he don’t know why they should invest in company A or B. Every member of the club is a partaker of the gains and loss that comes out from the investments, except one person voluntarily decides to withdraw his or her membership. There are some exceptions however, if as in the case of investment clubs, the club’s protocol is violated, or in the case of a mutual fund, the trust deed or the document agreement is contravened, there is always a contention here of people calling for justice, because a law has been broken.
Another similarity between the two is that both of them are for long term investment purposes. Mutual funds usually takes one year for the investments to mature, at the end of which, the profits will be declared and each individual investor will decide on what to do with his own share, whether to re-invest it back, withdraw only the profit or to withdraw totally from the investments. In the case of investment clubs, they have a longer life span before their investment could mature. Usually, it is between three to five years. This is because, they are few in number thereby leaving them with less financial muscle, which now means allowing their investments to stay longer and increase their profit margin. These two investment windows are not get rich quick program, rather they are solid investment programs that needs time to mature.
The third similarity between the two is that the funds are not under the total control of one man, as regards to investing. It involves a lot of brainstorming by the analysts of the company. One man cannot just wake up and say that this is where I want to invest this funds, it must be in agreement with the members of the executive, and because a lot of brain storming is involved, the nitty gritty of every company they want to invest will be trashed out and in the end, they will settle for the best which they have agreed. It is a popular saying that two heads are better than one, and this is one of the reasons for their excellent performances. What would have been omitted by one person will be noted by the second and everything will be critically evaluated.
There are many other similarities between these two investment vehicles, but I want to stop here. Let me hear your own views on this issue.
SHERMAN
There are lots of similarities between mutual funds investments and investment clubs, and it is very nice that we understand them, as investors. The first similarity is that both are contributory funds/systems of investments. That is to say that the money being invested is not owned by an individual, rather, it belongs to different people. These are funds that are raised from the contributions by the members in of the investment clubs or contributed by different people and handed to a fund manager for investment, in the case of mutual funds. This therefore makes every contributor to the club are partaker of the gains or loses that accrues from the invested funds. Here, there is no separation of funds whereby you may say that Mr A is not eligible for the gains or loses of the investments because his investments were not there. As long as he remains a member of the club, he remains a partaker of the proceeds of the investments. Like wise, Mr B cannot wake up tomorrow and say that he wants the refund of his invested capital because he is not satisfied with the little fraction that was given to him or that he don’t know why they should invest in company A or B. Every member of the club is a partaker of the gains and loss that comes out from the investments, except one person voluntarily decides to withdraw his or her membership. There are some exceptions however, if as in the case of investment clubs, the club’s protocol is violated, or in the case of a mutual fund, the trust deed or the document agreement is contravened, there is always a contention here of people calling for justice, because a law has been broken.
Another similarity between the two is that both of them are for long term investment purposes. Mutual funds usually takes one year for the investments to mature, at the end of which, the profits will be declared and each individual investor will decide on what to do with his own share, whether to re-invest it back, withdraw only the profit or to withdraw totally from the investments. In the case of investment clubs, they have a longer life span before their investment could mature. Usually, it is between three to five years. This is because, they are few in number thereby leaving them with less financial muscle, which now means allowing their investments to stay longer and increase their profit margin. These two investment windows are not get rich quick program, rather they are solid investment programs that needs time to mature.
The third similarity between the two is that the funds are not under the total control of one man, as regards to investing. It involves a lot of brainstorming by the analysts of the company. One man cannot just wake up and say that this is where I want to invest this funds, it must be in agreement with the members of the executive, and because a lot of brain storming is involved, the nitty gritty of every company they want to invest will be trashed out and in the end, they will settle for the best which they have agreed. It is a popular saying that two heads are better than one, and this is one of the reasons for their excellent performances. What would have been omitted by one person will be noted by the second and everything will be critically evaluated.
There are many other similarities between these two investment vehicles, but I want to stop here. Let me hear your own views on this issue.
SHERMAN
