Posts Tagged ‘investing’

Leave Deposits, Time for You to Switch Stock Exchange

Investing for the community should become a lifestyle trend. No longer limited to just think ‘saving’ and put the funds on deposit that supposedly most secure investment instrument. Begin turning to the stock. Why?

Simple indicator is the increase in the Composite Stock Price Index (CSPI), which reached 46.13% to a level of 3703.512 during 2010, and is predicted to continue in this year.

According to research results of PT Bahana TCW Investment Management, the strategy of investing in 2011 is to minimize the allocation of liquidity, either cash or deposits. The problem of excess liquidity to keep interest rates remain low, so the acquisition can not cover inflation.

Let’s look at interest rate movements on the type of investment deposits. Since 2005, the government cut fuel subsidies and the allocation of the global crisis that terrible incident in 2008, causing deposit rates continued to decline. Until the acquisition of interest on the bonds can not fight inflation, mainly of food commodities and education.

Indeed during the 1998 crisis, the government became fully ensure public funds are deposited in the deposit. So forget the notion that the deposits as a profitable and safe investment.

Trimming the fuel subsidy is causing inflation and cause interest rates rise. But it turns out the positive impact, especially foreign investor confidence, actually increased.

Furthermore, not only foreigners who buy government bonds, but also domestic banks. Proceeds from sale of state bonds has raised additional funds of banking, even exceeding the purposes for which credit has actually been increasing.

As a result, excess funds are collected in Bank Indonesia Certificates (SBI), and ultimately be borne by the central bank.

Bank Indonesia (BI) instrument makes interest rates as inflation control through the absorption of liquidity. If the rupiah liquidity is absorbed, there can be reinforcement that reduces the risk of inflation. During the height of bank money in SBI, the bank is relatively not so needy of public funds as reflected in relatively low deposit rates.

An alternative solution is to stock investing. Shares of commodity sector remains one of the main drivers of investment in the stock market. But the expectation of rising stocks will not last year.

“We think the expectations are the benefits to follow the historical average of 20%, according to the long term nominal GDP growth of Indonesia,” explained Director of Research and Investor Relations Investments on the type of bonds or corporate bonds also worth ogled. Investors can choose a corporate bond with a good credit rating, rather than government bonds. Treasury bond yield mapping for the tenor of 10 years, in late 2010 at 7.6% level. This figure is lower than the average 10-year inflation of 8.3%.

“Indeed, inflation in 2011 could be less than 8.3%, so the yield on Treasury bonds are very attractive. But investors should be alert to secure itself when inflation soared,” he said.

Other investment alternatives can be done in non-listed companies through private equity fund. Especially when the price of stocks and bonds are considered expensive, while the low-interest bonds awake.

The advantage to invest in private equity funds is the dividend. In addition, there is potential for greater profit when released into the market the company’s business capital as a public company.

money management rule

Futures Trading, U.S., Composition by Type of ...

Money management is used in Investment management and deals with the question of how much risk a decision maker should take in situations where uncertainty is present. More precisely what percentage or what part of the decision maker’s wealth should be put into risk in order to maximize the decision maker’s utility function.

Money management gives practical advice among others for gambling and for stock trading as well.

Money management can mean gaining greater control over outgoings and incomings, both in personal and business perspective. Greater money management can be achieved by establishing budgets and analysing costs and income etc.

In stock and futures trading, money management plays an important role in every success of a trading system. This is closely related with trading expectancy:

“Expectancy” which is the average amount you can expect to win or lose per dollar at risk. Mathematically:

Expectancy = (Trading system Winning probability * Average Win) – (Trading system losing probability * Average Loss)

So for example even if a trading system has 60% losing probability and only 40% winning of all trades, using money management a trader can set his average win substantially higher compared to his average loss in order to produce a profitable trading system. If he set his average win at around $400 per trade (this can be done using proper exit strategy) and managing/limiting the losses to around $100 per trade; the expectancy is around:

Expectancy = (Trading system Winning probability * Average Win) – (Trading system losing probability * Average Loss) Expectancy = (0.4 x 400) – (0.6 x 100)=$160 – $60 = $100 net average profit per trade (of course commissions are not included in the computations).

effects of market volatility

Investing in stocks means dealing with volatility. Instead of running for the exits during times of market stress, the smart investor greets downturns as chances to find great investments. Graham illustrated this with the analogy of “Mr. Market”, the imaginary business partner of each and every investor. Mr. Market offers investors a daily price quote at which he would either buy an investor out or sell his share of the business. Sometimes, he will be excited about the prospects for the business and quote a high price. At other times, he is depressed about the business’s prospects and will quote a low price.

Because the stock market has these same emotions, the lesson here is that you shouldn’t let Mr. Market’s views dictate your own emotions, or worse, lead you in your investment decisions. Instead, you should form your own estimates of the business’s value based on a sound and rational examination of the facts. Furthermore, you should only buy when the price offered makes sense and sell when the price becomes too high. Put another way, the market will fluctuate – sometimes wildly – but rather than fearing volatility, use it to your advantage to get bargains in the market or to sell out when your holdings become way overvalued.

Here are two strategies that Graham suggested to help mitigate the negative effects of market volatility:

  • Dollar-Cost Averaging

Dollar-cost averaging is achieved by buying equal dollar amounts of investments at regular intervals. It takes advantage of dips in the price and means that an investor doesn’t have to be concerned about buying his or her entire position at the top of the market. Dollar-cost averaging is ideal for passive investors and alleviates them of the responsibility of choosing when and at what price to buy their positions.

Most Timeless Investment Principles

  • Investing in Stocks and Bonds

Graham recommended distributing one’s portfolio evenly between stocks and bonds as a way to preserve capital in market downturns while still achieving growth of capital through bond income. Remember, Graham’s philosophy was, first and foremost, to preserve capital, and then to try to make it grow. He suggested having 25-75% of your investments in bonds, and varying this based on market conditions. This strategy had the added advantage of keeping investors from boredom, which leads to the temptation to participate in unprofitable trading (i.e. speculating). (To learn more, read The Importance Of Diversification.)

  • Know What Kind of Investor You Are

Graham advised that investors know their investment selves. To illustrate this, he made clear distinctions among various groups operating in the stock market.

Active Vs. Passive
Graham referred to active and passive investors as “enterprising investors” and “defensive investors”. You only have two real choices: The first is to make a serious commitment in time and energy to become a good investor who equates the quality and amount of hands-on research with the expected return. If this isn’t your cup of tea, then be content to get a passive, and possibly lower, return but with much less time and work. Graham turned the academic notion of “risk = return” on its head. For him, “Work = Return”. The more work you put into your investments, the higher your return should be.

If you have neither the time nor the inclination to do quality research on your investments, then investing in an index is a good alternative. Graham said that the defensive investor could get an average return by simply buying the 30 stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in equal amounts. Both Graham and Buffett said that getting even an average return – for example, equaling the return of the S&P 500 – is more of an accomplishment than it might seem. The fallacy that many people buy into, according to Graham, is that if it’s so easy to get an average return with little or no work (through indexing), then just a little more work should yield a slightly higher return. The reality is that most people who try this end up doing much worse than average.

In modern terms, the defensive investor would be an investor in index funds of both stocks and bonds. In essence, they own the entire market, benefiting from the areas that perform the best without trying to predict those areas ahead of time. In doing so, an investor is virtually guaranteed the market’s return and avoids doing worse than average by just letting the stock market’s overall results dictate long-term returns. According to Graham, beating the market is much easier said than done, and many investors still find they don’t beat the market. (To learn more, read Index Investing.)

Speculator Vs. Investor
Not all people in the stock market are investors. Graham believed that it was critical for people to determine whether they were investors or speculators. The difference is simple: an investor looks at a stock as part of a business and the stockholder as the owner of the business, while the speculator views himself as playing with expensive pieces of paper, with no intrinsic value. For the speculator, value is only determined by what someone will pay for the asset. To paraphrase Graham, there is intelligent speculating as well as intelligent investing – just be sure you understand which you are good at.

Playing in the stock market

Playing in the stock market can provide benefits far doubled compared to saving money on deposit or invested in bonds. But playing in the stock market could also lead to substantial losses. Therefore before deciding to play the stock is very important to evaluate whether you are someone who is willing to take risks commensurate to a commensurate benefit. The greater the risk that would result in greater profits.

If the risk is greater the yield advantage that only small, means we are wrong to apply the most basic financial strategies, higher risk, higher profit or lower risk, lower profit. This underlying why deposit rates quite low, because the risk of deposits is also quite low.

Thus, choosing to play the stock, rather than bank deposits, means having to obtain greater profits from the deposit. If it turns out the benefits derived from the deposit rate is lower, then there is something wrong in how you play the stock.

The following are the steps you need as a beginner to play the stock. This article assumes that you have read the book enough to understand the mechanisms that play the stock, as well as procedures to open accounts at securities companies.

General formulation:
1. You must have a big enough desire to play or learn how to play or have a strong desire to earn profits by investing in the stock market. It must be ingrained in you from the start, or never play the stock, you should buy mutual funds only. Formula One is: you must have a strong urge or desire to play the stock and profit.

2. Play in a fairly small amount in advance, such as Rp 10 million or USD 20 million since there is always a small possibility of a loss could be too big. Therefore play in a small amount of money, such as pilot projects. If you start to feel comfortable and know how to play to generate a profit, then you can slowly increase the amount of money invested. When adding the amount invested, always remember that the money that you can add up, do not just remember that once you earn, but you must remember that investments can be reduced even exhausted. You never know when an important event that negatively impact the market place; suddenly could happen prices plummeted, and you did not get out of the market. The second formula is: always remember that the money you invest can be reduced or even exhausted.

Financial Analysts Duty

Morgan Stanley Building

Financial analysts in their decision making and reporting little attention to non-financial information. The interest in social, environmental and social aspects to them `utterly marginal or non-existent”. The quality of management, execution of business strategy, innovation and recruiting and retaining talented employees for financial analysts clearly higher priority. This is revealed by the investigation of their anchors ‘loose’ of Nyenrode University and University of Groningen financial analysts including Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Morgan Stanley. The low appreciation of sustainability issues would result from the fact that financial analysts about the social and environmental performance do not trust. Corporate governance is seen as a focal transient.

The difference between saving and investing

saving and investing

We tell you how to get the most out of time to spare … It is equally important-and should-find a way to do both things at once. Basically, save your money is to keep a portion of your income in the form regular, you spend less than you earn and put the rest in the bank. It would be good that this policy is a normal part of your monthly budget.

Save to invest
For investing, saving is a necessary step. Once you have saved a tidy sum, you can start investing money. By investing, you would get your money really grow and you may just build real wealth. Eventually you will reach the point where your investments generate more revenue than your salary, and then your wealth will grow in earnest.

Spreading risk
In the process of building wealth, it is important to spread the risks. In this regard, you should have money in an emergency fund, of course, is not reversed.

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