Fortune Watch

Many years back an elderly relative of a family friend of mine passed away. The next day, while I was at the funeral, I had a really strange experience. I noticed that a man who looked really stricken with grief was continuously staring at me, I vaguely remembered seeing him somewhere too. A few minutes later, he left the group of people he was with and came and stood next to me.

“I‘ve seen you at so and so office, you are the guy who talks Financial Services, am I correct?” he whispered. I nodded, not knowing whether I was expected to carry on a conversation. And then, having surreptitiously glanced around to make sure no one was listening, he whispered again, “Is the market going to go up?”

“I don’t know,” I said. It was an honest answer because I never do know what’s going to happen to the markets (nor, do I think does anyone else but that’s not the point). The man looked hurt and angry, perhaps because he felt that I should have done my bit to lighten his sorrow by predicting the future direction of the stock market. Once he realized that I was too heartless to oblige, he stalked off and kept glaring at me till I left.

Later, I couldn’t help thinking about this incident and wonder at the vast range of attention levels that people pay to investing. I’m not talking about those who have a legitimate professional connection with the markets like investment managers, family astrologers of stockbrokers and perhaps even editors of mutual fund magazines. I am talking instead of ordinary people who have a non-financial profession.

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You establish your credibility primarily through demonstrating your with agreements with yourself and others

A good gauge of your ability to keep your agreements is how many times you are late for work or for meeting. Being consistently late is feedback that your time is not “your” time at al, but belongs instead to a constant stream of interruptions and unnecessary delays.

Arriving on time begins with leaving on time. Make leaving on time a priority, a personal challenge. Make a commitment to yourself that being on time is your number one priority. Making excuses for why it wasn’t “your fault” won’t get you there earlier next time. In fact, excuses are an attempt to put a stamp of approval on failure. Chronic lateness is not caused by any one event. It is a symptom of how your entire life is working in terms of your ability to plan your time and work your plan. If you want to master time, master the following strategies and I guarantee you will arrive on time every time.

1. Don’t make getting ready the last thing before leaving. Proper preparation begins with proper planning. If getting ready is the last thing you do before leaving the house, rest assured you will leave late as often as not.

2. Keep losing your keys? Common sense would ask how many times car keys have to be lost before it becomes obvious that a systems approach is needed for keeping track of those elusive little rascals. Although systems approaches may be a part of your everyday business or career life, few people have employed the power of systems, even simple ones to their personal lives.

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“All is not golde that glistereth.”

Shakespeare is the best-known user of the idea. The original Shakespeare editions of The Merchant of Venice, 1596, have the line as all that glisters is not gold. ‘Glister’ is now usually replaced by the more commonly used ‘glitter’, which has the same meaning:

If you want to advertise an investment-related website on a major Internet-based advertising network (that of Google, for example), it will cost substantially less to advertise a mutual fund or stock research website than it will for a site on investing in gold.

Does this tempt me to transform from a mutual fund site to a gold site? Not quite, but it does make one wonder how much sense gold makes as an investment and how exactly one should invest in it.

Does it make sense to look at gold as an investment? If you look at historical gold prices over the last 70-80 years, then it does make sense to think of gold as a good asset type in which to put some proportion of your savings. Apart from an anomalous period during the late nineties, Gold has yielded around 8-10 per cent a year over most of period since around 1920.

What is bad is doing what most seem to be doing in the name of investing for gold. We have this idea that gold is a good investment for bad times and then instead of buying gold, we buy jewelery. But there’s a problem. Jewelery is not gold, at least it’s not the kind of gold that can be considered an investment.

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Oil prices have risen to a record high above $98 a barrel, amid concerns over tight fuel stocks, a weak dollar, bombings in Afghanistan and an attack on a Yemeni oil pipeline. Oil prices soared nearly $2 a barrel Tuesday on expectations of further declines in crude oil stocks, fueling concerns that supplies may be inadequate heading into winter. The market remains bullish and seems to be on an upward trend to hit the psychologically important $100 level.

Unfortunately, this year it looks like we’re not going to be able to count on a nice drop in gasoline prices. With crude oil futures threatening to touch $100 a barrel, gas prices jumped. So, fuel economy is paramount. Here are tactics to help you get the most miles per gallon from your vehicle and save money, too.

No matter what you do, increased gasoline prices are going to affect you in some way. While the price increase may hurt some more than others, the fact remains that we’re all going to have to become accustomed to the fact that the days of cheap gas (and energy in general) are in the rear view mirror.

Regular oil changes and tune-ups cost money and can take a big chunk out of your Saturday. But repairing a car that has failed an emissions test will improve its gas mileage by an average of 4 percent. And fixing a serious maintenance problem, such as a faulty oxygen sensor, can improve mileage by as much as 40 percent. Even a simple change like replacing a clogged air filter can improve gas mileage by up to 10 percent.

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Hi everyone, I will be moving this blog to a new host this week. Nothing will change, but it is possible there will be some downtime, surely not more than a few more hours.

As soon as this is over, I will return to the regular posting schedule. Stay tuned.

Thank you very much for all the support!

Cheers
Robin

Stick to the rules. Believe it or not this is the hardest rule. The trader will keep breaking this one time and time again. As I have mentioned many times, every time that I have strayed away from my trading plan I have always lost money.

Diversify. Don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Buy from a couple of areas, not just the one sector.

Buy shares that suit your trading style. If you are buying shares for long term, obviously this won’t suit you if you are a short-term trader. And vice versa, shares for short term won’t suit if you are a medium to long term trader.

Know your risk tolerance. A speculative share has a different risk profile to an out-of-favor blue chip. Therefore allocate your capital according to the risk profile of the trade and your own personal risk tolerance. This is a personal decision that only you can make.

Don’t rush in. All investor’s particularly new ones should take their time and learn about the market before they start trading. A good way is to “dummy trade” first so as so as to learn the basics first. The market will still be there waiting for you for when you are ready to trade.

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