Fortune Watch

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With Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme foremost in many investors’ minds, how can you tell whether an investment pitch is a scam? Keeping Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in your mind minds. “It pays to remember that if an investment opportunity sounds too good to be true, it usually is.” Here are 10 tell-all questions to consider:

1. Does it promise “low risk and high gain?”
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” It’s a fundamental fact or basic of investing that the higher the potential return, the greater the risk and that you may never see that return. Do not fall for investments that promise spectacular profits or “guaranteed” returns.

2. If you don’t act now will it be too late?
Why will it be too late? Any legitimate investment will be there tomorrow, and next week, and next year. Never be pressured into investing in something because tomorrow might be too late. Even if it turns out that the stock doubles tomorrow, you should feel better knowing that you were cautious and responsible with your money.

3. Does the investment tip claim to predict the future?
“It will double in three months.” Oh, yeah? And where did your broker buy his or her crystal ball? Not only is this a ridiculous promise for a broker to make, it’s illegal. Go aheaed and report this infraction to his or her sales manager. And if the matter doesn’t get satisfactory attention from a supervisor, contact the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA).

4. Do you know the background of the salesperson and his/her employer?
Any individual selling securities to the public must pass a background check, a series of examinations, and be registered with FINRA. Likewise, their employers must also be known to FINRA and the SEC. If you would like to check up on the background of your broker or brokerage firm, use FINRA’s BrokerCheck page. But remember, even if they don’t have any complaints against them, it doesn’t necessarily mean they can be trusted. You could be “Scamee No. 1.”

5. Does it “guarantee” anything?
It is impossible to guarantee the performance of any investment, but if your broker is doing so he could get tossed out of the industry.
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As the growing number of foreclosures and the value of stock portfolios hit bottom, news reports from the US of the financial fallout are growing increasingly dire.

Layoffs, foreclosures, cutbacks - there are plenty of grim economic stats out there this holiday season. Here’s perhaps the grimmest one of all: Calls to National Suicide Prevention Lifeline hotline have soared by as much as 60 per cent over the past year.

Mental health experts say the sour economy has turned what usually manifests as seasonal blues into a full-blown crisis. The fear of losing one’s job and pressures caused by a downturn in business, demotion or pension plan cutbacks can be bad for mental health and therefore increase suicide risk.

“Fear is the No. 1 emotion we’re hearing. People are feeling hopeless and helpless because of the economic crisis, and many feel that things aren’t going to get better. Now many of the calls are from people who have lost their home, or their job, or who still have a job but can’t meet the cost of living.”

A 90-year-old woman in Ohio shot herself while being served an eviction notice. A 45-year-old businessman in Los Angeles murdered five members of his family before turning the gun on himself, saying in a suicide note that he had done so because of his troubling financial situation.

While these stories put a human face on the toll the financial crisis has taken, the Director General of the World Health Organization this may only be the tip of the iceberg. As people struggle to cope with losing their homes or livelihoods, she said, “It should not come as a surprise if we continue to see more stresses, more suicides and more mental disorders.”
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Apparently appropriate brand names for these TOP BRANDS





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Presumably yo are pretty uncomfortable about the current state of financial markets you can be reassured that you’re not alone. Almost all investors are experiencing some discomfort from the recent falls in asset values, yet some handle it better than others.

A big influence on your investment outcome over the long term depends largely on how you manage your emotions in relation to the market’s volatility can have. Here we explore the influence of our emotions on financial decisions and look at what we can do in times like these.

Our emotions are fundamental in the decision making process and influence our behaviour, thoughts and actions. Understanding our emotions and learning to manage them can improve our overall investment experience.

Our feelings make us focus on information that matches our mood, according to studies by behavioural scientists. So, for example, if the market is trending upwards, and your mood is positive, you would tend to focus on information that confirms these emotions, (as was probably the case throughout the first half of last year). Conversely, we are more likely to be influenced (unconsciously) by information that is negative in the current climate.

Our feelings also influence what information we retrieve from our memories. For example, if you are in a positive frame of mind, you are more likely to focus on positive possibilities. Given the current sentiment, we can assume that most people are currently focusing on negative possibilities.

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The scandal around the so called investment guru Madoff is the second big case in this year as masses of people have lost their fortune. The first case was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Many people are lured to invest their money in financial market instruments that promise attractive yields. These instruments are, however, as opaque as black boxes.

Hedge funds as black holes

Hedge funds bet with complex structures of derivatives. Most of them lack the transparency. The common investors do not understand how they work. Institutional investors usually invest in funds of hedge funds. Their managers claim to be capable of picking the promising funds. Funds of funds absorb a cascade of fees that have to be subtracted from the yield.

There is a wide variety of investment styles among the hedge funds. It seems that the general lack of transparency of the hedge funds industry has made it possible that the Madoff Ponzi could remain undetected for such a long time. The Madoff scandal demonstrates also a failure of the SEC as well as of the involved audit firms.

Hedge funds should correlate with other asset classes, e.g. stocks or bonds, according to the theory. The fact is: Hedge funds have badly performed during the actual financial crisis. The global hedge-fund industry lost $64 billion of assets in November 2008 says Bloomberg.

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1. 10% market share for Google Chrome.

2. Google’s search engine will lose a significant amount of market share as Live Search’s position will consolidate.

3. Google’s Q&A service, used to implement Google help forums, will become a part of Google Apps.

4. GrandCentral will be publicly available in the US and the interface will integrate with Gmail.

5. Google will launch a mobile browser for feature phones and non-Android smart phones.

6. The popular Google Bookmarks service will improve the way you manage bookmarks, by adding hierarchical labels, sharing options and more intuitive visualizations.

7. Google will bring some of the Chrome features to other browsers.

8. Google Translate will be seamlessly integrated with many Google services and applications.

9. Google Reader will list popular posts shared by the community and you’ll be able to subscribe to OPML files dynamically (the changes will reflect in your subscription list).

10. Google Maps Live - Google’s service will showcase webcams that stream from all around the world, it will include a tab for Google Earth and the most recent custom maps, reviews and map edits from your contacts.

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Oil fell toward $37 a barrel on Wednesday, tracking global equity losses and ahead of U.S. data expected to show an increase in crude stocks.

Stock markets are again in a bearish trend after the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 1.2 percent Tuesday. Oil prices could continue to fall on the coat tails of equity markets and the trend suggests this might into the New Year.

Oil prices have fallen about 60 percent since the start of this year and more than 70 percent since their record peak above $147 in July as demand from the United States, China, Japan and other industrialized nations has fallen.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already announced cuts of around 5 percent in global oil supplies and may call an emergency meeting before March if prices extend their near $110-per-barrel slide since summer, OPEC’s President Chakib Khelil said Tuesday.

Oil was buoyed Wednesday by a dip in the dollar, which edged down against the yen, pressured by light selling from Japanese exporters after dismal U.S. growth and housing data suggested a prolonged recession ahead.

Data for release later Wednesday was also expected to show distillate stocks rose 200,000 barrels last week, while gasoline was seen up 500,000 barrels, a Reuters poll showed.

The pace of global oil demand growth should increase next year as rising consumption in emerging markets outweighs declines in developed nations hard hit by the high fuel costs and mounting economic problems.
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The global automotive depression has finally reached all the way to the top — to Japan’s Toyota Motor Corporation, which on Monday said it now expects to lose money in its automotive operations. This will be the first such loss in 70 years.

Toyota, like its Japanese counterparts, has been staggered by the yen’s stunning appreciation against the U.S. dollar — which makes Japanese exports more expensive overseas — as well as plunging vehicle sales in North America and other major export markets.

For the fiscal year that ends March 31, Toyota still expects to eke out a modest profit of $555 million, which looks pretty good in comparison to the billions of dollars of losses incurred already this year by Detroit’s beleaguered automakers.

But the world’s largest vehicle manufacturer by sales volume and market value said it now expects to post a fiscal-year operating loss of nearly $1.7 billion, a dramatic turnaround from the $13.9 billion operating profit Toyota had forecast earlier this year and revised operating profit of $6.7 billion that it released in November. Media reports in Japan said it would be the first operating loss since just after the firm was founded in 1937.

Executives also said total revenues for the fiscal year now are expected to fall about 18 percent, to around $239 billion, revised downward from the earlier projection of $256 billion.
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Americans are giving up their dogs and cats to animal shelters in growing numbers as the emotional bonds between people and pets get tested by economic ones.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have a big job at hand and recently began a program called Help Out Pets Everywhere (HOPE) to provide food, medical care and temporary homes for pets belonging to families with financial difficulties. They received about eighteen applications in the first week, some of those people have never experienced hardship until now, and therefore, neither have their pets.

A man who turned his two dogs over in order to help pay for his mother’s cancer treatments, to the New York woman who euthanized her cat rather than keeping it alive with expensive medications, rising economic anxieties make it increasingly difficult for some pet owners to justify spending $1,000 a year or more on pet food, veterinary services and other costs.

The population growth at animal shelters shows how the weak economy is also shrinking the pool of potential adopters. And it coincides with a drop-off in government funding and charitable donations.

The effect has been cramped quarters for dogs and cats, a faster rate of shelters euthanizing animals and some shelters turning away people looking to surrender pets, according to interviews with several shelters and animal advocates. Of the estimated 6 million to 8 million dogs and cats sent to animal shelters every year, half are euthanized and the rest adopted, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

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