Fortune Watch

Does your spouse or partner complain that you’re spending too much money? When your credit card bill arrives, are you surprised to you find that you charged more during the month than you thought? Does your closet contain lots of shoes or clothes that you almost never wear? Do you own every gadget known to man (or woman)? Do you come home from the mall with items you had no intention of buying? Do you spend money on things that you didn’t realize you needed until you saw them on display in the store?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably suffer from impulse spending. When people are unable to save money for the things that are really important to them, like a house, a new car, a vacation, or retirement, impulse spending is often the culprit. If you don’t have specific financial goals, it’s more difficult to resist spending money on items that don’t really have any meaning to you.

Once you’re already saving regularly towards your most important financial goals, you may want to have a fund to use specifically for occasionally spending money on unplanned items. Then you can indulge in occasional impulse spending without jeopardizing your financial future.

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…unless the stocks you own ARE beating the market!

There is no way on earth you could ever beat the market if the stocks you hold are not keeping up with the market. And hopefully, staying ahead of the market.

But yet, that’s what lots of people try to do. They’d rather keep all the dogs in their account and maybe “take a flyer” on one stock, hoping for a miracle. It’s like trying to win a Derby horse race with your Donkey. It just ain’t gonna happen.

But hey, maybe you don’t want to beat the market overall. Maybe you just want to own the BEST semiconductor stocks, or the best retailers, or the best utilities.

Seriously, how would you even KNOW if your stocks or mutual funds are beating the market, or are the best names to own in their group? Well, I can tell you this…the best indicator I’ve ever seen in twenty-plus years in the business has been relative strength. What is relative strength? It is simply the measure of how your mutual fund or stock is doing, compared to a group of other stocks, funds or indexes…or the market overall.

Perhaps you want to compare Intel with other semiconductor stocks. Maybe you want to compare Microsoft with the S&P 500 Index. Maybe you want to compare your mutual fund against the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

This is a very easy calculation. Here is how you do it: Simply divide the price of your stock or mutual fund against whatever yardstick you choose. You’ll get a fractional number as the result. But slide the decimal over so you can work with whole numbers. Then we begin plotting that result daily on a point & figure chart.

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Imagine, you need details of your last few transactions, but are stuck in a traffic jam on way to the bank. How you wish you could get the details on your mobile phone!

Well, you really can ‘bank’ on your mobile phone today, provided you have opted for the service from your bank. Just SMS (short message service) your bank’s customer service number and get the details in a few seconds – that’s how simple it can get, if you have a mobile phone, a personal identification number and a phone banking number from your bank. It’s the same with paying utility bills, transferring money to someone, whether in your home country or abroad, and making a purchase at a retail store.

Most banks already allow customers to make basic transactions over the phone. Banking might be getting a little easier than that. One of the largest banks, recently announced plans for a mobile banking service. To use the service, mobile users download an application to their cell phones, just like you would for a game or song, and use their cell phones to check balances, transfer funds, pay bills, or even find an ATM.

Having the ability to bank using a cell phone is an innovative idea, but will it make it easier for consumers to pay their bills? Perhaps. If your credit card payment is due today, this mobile banking service might allow you to pay it the second you remember it, rather than risk a late payment due to forgetfulness.

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Gone are the days of mid 50’s and 60’s when a family could survive upon a single income. Today the inflation and economic factors are such that survival on two incomes has become hand to mouth. Going by this trend we can very well imagine what the future holds for us. Two incomes certainly will not be enough. It’s best to prepare for the worst and expect the best instead of vice versa. Its best then to have multiple incomes flows into your finances than to have an insecure future. The concept and importance of extra income becomes all the more apparent.

People who have been well-to-do have always known and taken care of this. If one income dries up, one can always fall back upon the other streams of income, and if all go well you can only get richer, no harm in that. Ordinary and average living people have always been in a dilemma regarding this. Loss of one income really affects them adversely and it would take years of hard work before any normalcy returns. Not to mention, the rippling effects of financial distress that could cause a lot of heartburn and unwanted emotional disturbances.

Having diverse sources of income or extra income gives you a backup to fall back upon. If one source vanishes, you should not feel the difference. One should have enough time to reorganize and regroup, that’s it, and you are back on the happiness highway, safe and sound. The importance of extra income and extra sources of incomes is not lost on anyone today, therefore the want and rush.

Extra Income can be of two kinds – Linear and Residual.

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Market timing is the most important expertise you must master to become a successful trader. This is where the majority of stock market traders fall by the wayside. Buy too early and you are squeezed out on any temporary falls. Sell short too early and you are squeezed out on any up moves, even if, after a few days or so, you are proved correct in your analysis..

Most of the pundits and so called “experts” will tell you that stock market timing doesn’t work, that it’s dangerous, and that “buy and hold” is the best and only way to invest.

If you want to be a successful stock market timer, you need three key elements: A system that actually works. Discipline to follow the system. Patience to stick with the system long enough to make it work for you.

And it’s tough to do all three. Here’s why:

Most market timing systems don’t work. Or don’t work consistently enough to be valid. Some will work in trending markets but get slaughtered during flat times. Most systems don’t work in all markets.

Investors lack the discipline to follow a proven system. Once an investor finds a viable program, he or she needs the discipline to follow it. Sadly, some either can’t or won’t do that. When they let their own judgment or intuitions interfere, they don’t get the results they want or could have enjoyed by simply following the buy and sell signals they receive.

Investors lack the patience to stick with their system. The fact is, no method will win every trade, and investors without patience will find themselves hopping from advisor to advisor with no rewards to show for their efforts.

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Dollar-cost averaging is a strategy in which a person invests a fixed dollar amount on a regular basis, usually monthly purchase of shares in a mutual fund. When the fund’s price declines, the investor receives slightly more shares for the fixed investment amount, and slightly fewer when the share price is up. It turns out that this strategy results in lowering the average cost slightly, assuming the fund fluctuates up and down

Dollar-cost averaging is carried out simply by investing a fixed dollar amount into your mutual fund (or other investment instrument) at pre-determined intervals. The amount of money invested at each interval remains the same over time, but the number of shares purchased varies based on the market value of the shares.

When the markets are up, you buy fewer shares per dollar invested due to the higher cost per share. When the markets are down, the situation is reversed and you purchase a greater of number of shares per dollar invested. It’s a strategic way to invest because you buy more shares when the cost is low, so you get an average cost per share over time, meaning you don’t have to invest the time and effort to monitor market movements and strategically time your investments.

Dollar-cost averaging – the basic premise behind employer-sponsored savings plans like is the practice of investing a set amount each month in a particular investment vehicle. As the share price of your investment fluctuates, so will the number of shares your set amount buys. Sometimes you’ll pay more and sometimes the stock or mutual fund will decrease in value, allowing you to purchase additional shares.

With the vast and varied information available on investing, many have chosen to stop chasing yesterday’s high returns. Using dollar-cost averaging helps them ride out the ups and downs of the market.

Dollar cost averaging involves continuous investment in securities, regardless of fluctuating price levels. Investors should consider their ability to continue purchases through periods of low price levels r chancing economic conditions. Dollar cost average does not assure a profit and does not protect against a loss in a declining market.

Dollar-cost averaging isn’t for everyone. Short-term investors and those concerned about market volatility won’t benefit from the slow and steady pace of dollar-cost averaging. Always meet with a financial professional before investing. For those who want to invest a consistent amount each month and potentially lessen the effects of market volatility, it might be an option.

The main conclusion I can draw that one should not delay investing. If you want to invest, say, $100 in a mutual fund in a year, you should start invest immediately. If you have $1,200 spare money to invest on the first work day of January, split it to quarterly or monthly, as the markets could be on a high on 1st January and you are stuck with the same purchase price. It also helps make investing easier to budget, as the same dollar amount will be purchased at regular, predictable intervals.

Human’s are rational beings. We have the most developed brain among all species. However, in spite of all this, we are foremost governed by his emotions. It is said, man is ruled more by the heart than his mind. And these emotions, more often than not, play a huge role in man’s investments too. This is the sole reason, say, why the same person at one time might want to invest in the stock market, while at another time might find the same too much of a risk.

Investors may also feel attached towards a specific company and continue owning the stock without regards to its fundamental. For example, you might like Google’s search engine so much that you decide to buy the stock at $ 350 without doing any research. You figure that Google’s search engine is so much better that buying the stock will give you profit, right? Wrong. Now, I am not here to bash Google as an investment, but analyzing an investment goes beyond the products and companies. Most investors can identify good companies and products. It is quite easy. You know that a BMW is a better car than a Ford.

Emotions often also control the company one is investing in. Generally brand loyalties come into the picture here too. Example, if someone prefers purchasing his sportswear from Nike, he may want to invest in its stocks too, although the Reebok stocks may be doing far better. It is always better to conduct a proper research and check the latest trends rather than blindly following your heart. Keep in mind that you are currently dealing with the stock market and not the super market.

Google is a good search engine, probably the best that is ever produced so far. Sure, you probably pay more for Google than other generic search engines. But, please don’t over pay. You invest in Google to profit from it not because you like its products.

So, how do we eliminate emotion from our investing decision? We can’t eliminate it completely but there are certainly tools that might help. One is to calculate the fair value of a common stock that you are investing in. I covered this plenty of times but basically, the fair value of an investment is dependent upon the streams of profit generated by it. In the long run, if company A earns more than company B, then company A will be valued more than company B..

I know I don’t exactly give you the best solution to the problem. Emotion is hard to ignore. I am not immune to that. But following your emotion will cost you a lot of money. Don’t follow the herd and keep your focus on the fair value of your stock and you will do really well.

You need to realize that no matter how hard we try we cannot completely eliminate our emotions from playing a role while investing. But what we can do is apply equal amounts of common sense and logic. Always be aware that it is your finances that are going to be affected in this venture. Calculate the fair value of a common stock that you are investing in. The fair value of an investment is based upon the profit generated by it.

If, for a considerable period, organization A does far better than organization B, A will surely be far more valued than B. While investing, avoid the herd mentality, stay calm and always go in for the firm with the better fair value. This will ensure that you are a happy investor, earning high profits on your investments.

Penny Stocks are usually priced below a dollar and trading with them is fickle and risky game. While Penny stocks look like they follow the “more bang for your buck” principle, having a lot of penny stocks is very risky. Penny stocks are also referred to as small caps and micro caps. As with all trading, penny stock trading has its ups and downs. Penny stocks can give your large profits over a short time; they can also give you huge losses in the same short time.

Because of the high risks and alluring prices of penny stocks traders should be mindful of a few things. If you see that there are stocks for less than a cent, you shouldn’t invest. In the penny stock market, any thing less than a penny isn’t worth investing. You will never gain anything from a stock under a penny. In fact, it is just like the regular stock market except you buy stocks for much less, that’s why you should treat the penny stock market like any other investment.

You need to know every thing and I repeat EVERYTHING about the company and the stock that you are purchasing. With proper investing, you should be able to benefit from quick gains from the penny stock market. So be careful when buying stocks that have uneven ownership distribution.

The only way to be successful with the penny stock market is to know what companies to invest in through research.
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Why Acting on Price can be a Mistake.

Buy low and sell high is the ultimate guide to successful stock investing. It is also the reverse of what many investors do. It’s not that investors start out to do that, but too often, they use price, and in particular price movement, as their only signal to buy or sell.

Stocks that have gone up recently, especially those with a lot of press, often attract even more buyers. This obviously drives the price up even higher.

People get excited about what they read and see and want a part of the action. They jump into a stock that is already trading at a premium – they buy high.

Experienced traders can make money jumping in and out of a stock that’s caught the public’s attention, but it’s not a game for the inexperienced and it’s not investing.

There’s risk involved and tax consequences along with other issues that mean most investors should leave this activity to short-term traders.

For most investors, trying to grab a piece of the latest flashy stock, usually means paying too much (buying high).Bad Decision: The other side of the market is when a stock has fallen; most investors may want to sell along with the rest of the market. If you go by price alone, this can be a bad decision (sell low).

There are many reasons a stock’s price drops and some of them have nothing to do with the soundness of the investment. That’s why if you only follow price you may miss an opportunity.

After a stock’s price has fallen can be a great time to buy (buy low) if you have done your research on the company.

If all you know about a stock is the price, you may (and likely will) make investing mistakes. Remember, if a stock has had a good run up it may be time to sell, not buy (sell high). Similarly, if a stock has dropped like a rock, it may be a good time to buy rather than sell (buy low). You won’t know what to do unless you understand a lot more about the company than its stock price.

Very few investors make money in the stock market.

Look at where your account is today compared with what you had at the beginning. Don’t count what you have added during that time or interest income. Most folks are still running a loss.

Your broker, if you are unlucky enough to have one, will assure you that the market always comes back and you are in for the long haul. So don’t worry, be happy.

If you were one of the few (about 1%) who had a broker or financial planner that actually knew how to protect your money you would not have lost a huge portion of your portfolio from 2000 to 2003.

So, you have to learn to protect yourself! It is a lot easier than you think and most brokers are not even aware of it.

It was time to buy. Divide the portfolio into 10 equal parts. Select 10 mutual funds that have quit going down and are now going up and buy these. This doesn’t have to be done all in one day. Spread it out over the next 2 or 3 months as good equities present themselves.

Here is the key. Don’t lose money. Laugh out loud, thats what you do. Place a 10% stop loss order on each fund that was purchased and as each fund advances raise the stop every month. The investor has 10 separate positions with a 10% risk on each one. If the selection of the fund was poor and it goes down instead of up the loss is one percent (1%) of the total portfolio.

The investor has been smart enough to diversify into several sectors so the chance of losing in all 10 positions is very small. Do not buy individual stocks. Few investors are capable of choosing company stocks. Let the mutual fund manager do that. As stops are hit, find other good equities that are going up. When the market turns down you will be in cash as you will have been stopped out of all positions with nice profits.

Brokers don’t know much more that you do (and I’m not kidding). This simple strategy will spread risk, prevent large initial losses and prevent giving back profits as they are made.