26Jun 2008 by stanley No Comments

Betting on Stock Market Downturn

Tips & Advice
It's not easy to be in the stock market in the past few days and weeks. I had a feeling that the stock market recovered a bit too high too soon. I should have capitalized on that. How? By betting that it will correct itself. How do you do that? By "shorting," which is a way to make money when a stock goes down: you're basically betting that a stock will go down, and when it does, you make money. I just discovered that there are now ETFs designed specifically for that purpose. That's a very good investor's resource, in my opinion. Here are a few ETFs that do the "shorting" for you:ProShares Ultrashort () - rewards a fall in the Nasdaq;Proshares Ultrashort S&P 500 ()- rewards a fall in…
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22May 2007 by stanley 1 Comment

Sell in May, Buy Back in November

Tips & Advice
There was an interesting observation in the S&P Outlook recently. Since 1945, in the period from November-April, the S&P 500 returned 7.19%; in the May-October period, just 1.6%. What do do? Sell in May, and Buy back in November! I think this is true this year. I feel like we’re due for a correction. It might be a good time now, especially after the recent records. They recommend doing the following. For May-October overweigh- consumer staples- health care For November – April overweigh- financials- industrials- materials- consumer discretionary- information technology Now that’s an interesting observation… Here's a chart that breaks the returns by month, averaged since 1950.
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01Apr 2007 by stanley No Comments

Investing in ETFs

Tips & Advice
ETFs are great. They allow you to buy the whole index of stocks with one purchase. I have always like them. But these days, there are new ETFs coming daily. Where should you invest? John Bogle, featured in Barron's has some good advice, I think.Q: Let's say an individual has a million dollars to spend in constructing a stock and bond portfolio with ETFs. What kind of ETFs would you recommend their using?A: First off, we expect that investors should talk with their financial advisers about their particular needs. The basic strategy that we see people using is buying the broad benchmark, so perhaps the Russell 3000 Index Fund (ticker: ) and the MSCI EAFE Index Fund (), which gives you exposure to all the developed non-U.S. markets such as…
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16Mar 2007 by stanley No Comments

Reacting to Market Declines

Tips & Advice
Excellent and thorough article on a basic, fundamental truth. It's something that I deeply believe in: investing is for the long term. If you think you can time the market, you might get burned out, especially now. But if you can invest for the long term, for at least five years, you'll do well. Simple as that.ReferenceReacting to Market Declines: The Case for Staying Invested, Fidelity Investor's Weekly Newsletter (very good newsletter, btw)
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10Mar 2006 by stanley No Comments

Real Estate Weekly

Tips & Advice
Do you know what's going on in the housing market? Do you want to know the latest interest rates on a 30-year mortgage? Are you interested in the housing market in general? Is so, Real Estate Weekly newsletter is for you.This newsletter is filled with useful, relevant information. It comes in to my e-mail box every Friday. I always look forward to reading -- mostly scanning -- it for couple minutes, but occasionally reading an article or two that it refers to. This is good stuff. I recommend it.You can read the latest newsletter, March 10, 2006 edition here.ReferenceReal Estate Weekly, MarketWatch eNewsletter- To receive the newsletter, you need to create a free MarketWatch account, sign in, and sign up for the newsletter from your account details (I was not…
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22Oct 2005 by stanley No Comments

Maximize Tax Benefits

Tips & Advice
The article, A Rich Harvest of Losses, in the latest issue of BusinessWeek (my favorite mag) -- Oct 31st, 2005 -- contains a lot of good advice on how to maximize your taxes (or how to pay the least amount of it). I'll take the most important excerpts.You can gain money from this advice if you have stocks that lost in value since you bought them.Find losses and squeeze some tax benefits from them. Short term losses are more valuable than long-term losses. Why? They can be used to offset short-term gains on which the tax rate can run as high as 35%, depending on your income.But what if there are stocks you don't want to sell?You can sell a company and buy it back 31 days later. But make…
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17Oct 2005 by stanley No Comments

Stock Market Offers Long-Term Value

Tips & Advice
Can't agree with it more. If you're a short-term investor or you just want to make a guick buck, you might get lucky and come ahead the smartest guy in the world. However, true investors put their money to work for long periods of time (at least 5 years). They invest in something they like and they get good returns. They always win, as opposed to short-term investors -- speculators -- who win only some of the time.
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23Mar 2005 by stanley No Comments

Warren Buffet's Letters

Tips & Advice
I just signed up for the I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog yesterday and I'm already finding great stuff: Warren Buffet's letters. When the greatest investor of all speaks, open your ears. He sees things ahead of everybody else. Read them every year, that' s my tip.
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08Feb 2005 by stanley 2 Comments

Investing 101

Tips & Advice
I recently gave a speech titled "Investing 101." It was for my local Toastmasters club. In the speech, I covered some things that might be of interest to individual investors. I'd like to share some of them, below.Stock Market 101What is a stock market? It's where all public companies are listed and are available to be traded. Public? After a company has been successful and the owners decide to make some big money, they sell the company to the public -- investors like you. Once the company is public, the original owners no longer own the company. How do you buy shares of the company? You can do it in a brokerage account, or you can buy the shares directly from the company (some companies allow it).How does a company…
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