Fortune Watch

The torrent of earnings releases set to hit this week could only exacerbate volatility moves, analysts say. Volatility has knocked around stocks on Wall Street in record ways. Buckle up for the coming week.

News and concern over inter-bank lending, credit spreads and declining oil prices, the major averages managed to piece together a strong week that built on the lowest levels in five years.

So far in October, each day the Dow in ranges of no less than 250 points. In fact, the index saw the first 1,000-point swing in its history just over a week ago on Oct. 10. Most of this volatility has been blamed on the liquidation of assets of hedge funds and mutual funds. Rumors of poor performance at major players intensified the effect.

“No doubt the indiscriminate selling we’ve seen has been liquidation, no doubt. Everything is for sale,” says Art Hogan, chief market analyst with Jefferies. Hogan points out that all the indexes have fallen by roughly the same percentage, which indicates that funds are not selling stocks in one industry to invest in another.

The news about the deleveraging of the hedge fund industry is already behind the event, to a certain extent. A lot of hedge funds have a very high level of cash right now. As we come into next week, the question now is whether cash levels are high enough for everyone’s comfort and is the indiscriminate selling is behind us or not, and can we start focusing on fundamentals.
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Investment risk is the chance that money can be made or lost on any investment. It is important to know how risk and reward interact and to understand what investments might suits different risk appetites.

“No pain, no gain.” You heard that cliché to describe something you really didn’t want to do? Unfortunately, investing carries a certain amount of risk and with that risk can come some pain, but also some gain.

You must weigh the potential reward against the risk of an investment to decide if the pain is worth taking for thethe potential gain.” Understanding the relationship between risk and reward is a key piece in building your personal investment philosophy.

What is Risk?
Risk can be thought of as the uncertainity of something happening. In investing this is often seen as the variability in the returns of an investment. This variability can be measured in many ways, one common yardstick beingvolatility. Volatility is a measure of the speed and magnitude of price changes in an investment over a period of time. If the price moves up and down rapidly over short time periods, it has high volatility. If the price almost never changes, it has low volatility.

Investors need to be aware of the various investment risks and to realise what effects they might have on their investments. Although risks pose a threat, they also pose an opportunity and investors need to know the best way of mitigating risk so that they can also benefit from the potential rewards.

What about reward?
Risk and reward go hand in hand. Generally speaking the greater the risk the greater the potential chance of reward, or loss. An investors financial goals and attitude to risk will be a guide to what type of investment will best suit them. Different asset classes have different risk/reward profiles.
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All that money you’ve lost — where did it go?

Any ideas? Come on lets talk……

Have you ever seen a road accident happen? You must have, since many generally drive like idiots and have a high accident rate. Whenever I see a road accident and later think about how it happened, I can’t help feeling that while most of us drive like idiots, most of the time accidents happen when two idiots do something idiotic at the same time and at the same place. One guy is happily speeding, while trying to read a text message and just then another one in front of him decides to turn right without revealing his intentions beforehand. Either one would have got away but the two in combination becomes an event.

The stock markets are just like that. While one company or one industry may be driven by some particular factor, a prolonged bull market or a bear market only happens when many different factors come together. Sometimes, some of these factors may be related but at other times, they may be unrelated. It could just be a coincidence that they are happening at the same time.

There has never been a correction that has not proven to be an investment opportunity. While everything is down in price, there is actually less to worry about than when prices are historically high. More money has been lost by people who bought into last year’s markets than by those who will buy into this one, at this stage of the correction. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

Every correction is different, the result of various economic and/or political circumstances that create the need for adjustments in the financial markets. This correction is worse than most that I’ve experienced, but the doom and gloom scenarios many have been pushing are unlikely to come to fruition. Once the media elects a new president, they’ll just have to start reporting better news: 96% of all mortgages are current sounds a whole lot better than 20% of all sub-prime mortgages are in trouble.

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The undeniable truth is that making a lot of money doesn’t require a high IQ, either in the market or in business. It takes ruthless disciplined routine, and a focus on doing what is right for the long-term.

You can just feel it, can’t you? People are terrified about how the market has acted over the past month, to be more precise since the last one week. Watch the news — watch if you dare. The “boo-yahs” seem more restrained.

This is the time to buy andd hold on to solid blue-chips. Buy shares of good businesses that generate real profits, attractive returns on equity, have low to moderate debt to equity ratios, improving gross profit margins, a shareholder-friendly management, and at least some franchise value. Everyone is thinking this is a terrible time to be invested. But when everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking much at all. That means ….OPPORTUNITY.

If you have been wanting to change your financial future for the better, then now is the perfect time.  The invetory of cash producing, equity filled homes is at an all time high!  Did you know that most retirees single most lucrative investment during their working years was the home that they lived in.  Imagine if they had bought just one or two more properties (that supported themselves of course) and then retired.

Those are the moments when fortunes are made. You might not recognize it at the time. You might not know it for years. But it’s true. When everyone is down on a stock, or a sector, or a country, you might as well take a look. Usually, the negativity comes with good reason. But the over-negativity can provide plenty of opportunity. It’s been that way forever, and it will always be so.

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Our schools teach the fundamentals we all love; reading, writing, math, science and history. What concerns me is our school system lacks some of the ‘street smart’ skills that kids will need to be those successful leaders, healers and entrepreneurs.

As parents, we must take teach our children ‘money smarts’.

Can you imagine how empowered you would be if your parents taught you how to balance a checkbook, invest in the stock market, manage credit card debt, start a business, or the power of compounding interest?

If you were one of the lucky few whose parents did teach you money skills, consider yourself blessed. The present economic situation is a perfect time to teach our kids the importance of money management and the need to respect money for what it is, and isn’t.

So, where do we start? With the basics. Depending upon your child’s age, you can start with talking about money. Most of us don’t discuss the family’s financial situation at the dinner table. I propose you do. I think it’s important that children understand what is happening, good or bad, with the money being earned.

Don’t get me wrong here; I’m not suggesting you tell your kids your annual income or the balance of your investment portfolio. What I am suggesting is to bring the kids into conversations regarding ways to save, creative ways to earn additional money and what to spend that money on. Involve them with decisions on vacations, donating to a charity or cause, or how they plan to buy their first car.
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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which has avoided major acquisitions in the financial sector in recent months, may have had a $3.5 billion two-day paper profit on six major banking and financial services investments.

The two-day rally in financial shares, which drove the broad S&P Financials Index 24 per cent, came as the government announced sweeping measures to rescue the financial system and restore confidence in shaky markets.

Shares of Wells Fargo & Company, the fifth-largest US bank and Berkshire’s second-largest investment as of June 30, rose 19pc over the last two days and touched a record high. That would have given Berkshire a $1.85bn paper profit on its reported 290.7 million share stake.

Berkshire would also have had a $1.12bn profit on its reported 151.6m share stake in American Express Company, the credit card and travel services company. Stakes in Bank of America, M&T Bank, SunTrust Banks and US Bancorp also gained value.

Buffett has long favoured investments in undervalued businesses with strong earnings and management. That has helped him transform Berkshire since 1965 from a failing textile maker into a conglomerate with at least 76 companies.

“He’s always felt Wells was very well-managed,” said Frank Betz, who oversees more than $800m at Carret/Zane Capital Management in Warren, New Jersey. “Why does he like banks? Like Willie Sutton said, it’s where the money is.”

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Great investors surely have investing secrets that they use to build wealth, but they are open secrets. Anyone can find out what the greats do and copy them to have success in wealth creation. And many of the so-called secrets are simply common sense principles.

For instance, investing in a company with consistent earnings is the sensible thing to do and one that has helped Warren Buffet earn his millions. Taking care to invest in old and well-established companies is another. Many investors run into trouble by jumping on the bandwagon of some new company that sparkles for a while then quickly dies out leaving a pile of rubble rather than money.

Another common sense principle that is applied to both real estate and shares by the great investors is to never pay too much for an investment. Generally the more you pay, the less you get back as many real estate investors have found out to their cost. Warren Buffet also believes in concentration rather than diversification. When he buys a company he typically buys around 80%, and keeps it.

Another secret investment principle Buffet favours that has helped him with his wealth creation is to buy companies with experienced managers and keep them on to do what they do best – run the company. Buffet rarely interferes with the running of the companies he buys. He simply compliments the managers on the job they are doing. Buffet’s talent is to see where good investments are and buy them, not run the company.

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Another crisis unfolding in the US, if this is likely to give you sleepless nights and you ponder on whether to sell or hold on to your equity portfolio, here’s a word of advice. Stay calm and invested, don’t panic and sell.

You don’t incur losses till the time you book them. Equity markets behave in this fashion and investors should take such falls in their stride. If you are a long-term investor, you are likely to get the best returns in such turbulent times.

At such low levels, markets look quite attractive. For investors waiting to venture into the markets, this is an ideal time to average out the cost of purchase. Invest in stocks that are fundamentally strong, preferably in a broad-based index that gives you exposure to large cap stocks. Avoid small or mid-cap companies. But if you lack understanding or don’t have much information, then take the help of professionals or try the mutual fund way.

To start off, one can look at index funds that mirror the movement of an index. Index funds should form the nucleus of your equity investments and other funds should surround it. These funds act as a stabilizing factor in an equity portfolio and should not be always seen as a return-giving factor.

But how about those who are already neck-deep into equities? “Stay invested. Don’t change the investment strategy and keep investing in a staggered manner.”

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Are you planning to put up your own small business? Then as early as now, you must already be thinking of every aspect of our business and the things that you would need in order for your business to operate well.

For small businesses, one of the most convenient promotional materials to use is posters because they are easy to work with, very cost efficient and also poster printing when done well could reel you in with more customers than you expect thus, it would also mean better investment returns for you.

The innovations made in technology had totally changed the way businesses handle all their printing jobs. The introduction of online printing had totally helped business people handle all their printing projects without the need to leave the comfort of their homes. Thus with online printing business had achieved to attain fast turn around days and easy printing jobs.

Invitation printing is among the preferred printing services opted at present. Although it is often implied that invitations can be done through the word of the mouth, people still make use of invitation cards for formality, for their clients or friends not to forget about the affair that will about to happen.

Online printing can be an ideal choice of doing your invitation printing projects. Through online printing you only need to:

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