Investing: The Background Even when I was young, I would ask about investing. Problem was, no one could give me an answer about it, or was willing to talk about it. The other problem was that it never seemed to presented in an understandable way. Plus, there was always that thought, "yeah, I'll worry about investing later." Sometime during the tech boom I started to dabble in stocks. I didn't really pay attention, and so my stocks went up, and then went down. Given that I'm an MBA, have worked on wall street, and had worked for a major consulting firm, this was downright silly. So I started paying attention. And that made a huge difference. I also started writing about my investment decisions, just for myself. It was purely a matter of discipline; writing forced me to be more complete in my thinking. In early 2007, I started publishing those articles in an online website called www.asiancemagazine.com, thanks to the very kind editor, Jaymie Moran. And so, below is my monthly published series of investing articles. In March 2009, given all the volatility in the markets, I decided to start a blog to keep track of all the changes that occurred between the months. So here's my investing blog, which i update a couple times a week. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, just depends what issues are in the market. |
Investing: Eyes on Washington It’s Sunday evening, February 8, and the financial world is eagerly awaiting news from Washington. This week, newly minted Treasury Secretary Geithner will announce his bank bailout plan, while Congress will try to finalize an estimated $800 billion stimulus plan. Big events for the country? Yes, I think so..... These days, we’re always wondering whether we’ve hit bottom already, or whether there’s another leg down in the market. Having been burned several times in this market, investors are skeptical. Meanwhile, reports are that the economy, and the country, are not only suffering, but the situation seems to be deteriorating steadily... more |
Investing: Meander We Will It's December 29, 2008, and the end of year is not far away. If you're in finance, you'll probably say, "Good riddance!" or "Thank goodness!" There are a lot of you out there, I know. So can we look forward to 2009? Will things be better? More than likely, things will be better in 2009. Still, we can't quite jump for joy. We can expect many of the problems that plagued us in 2008 to continue into the next year. And on the flip side, it'd be hard to imagine events that were as earth-shattering as those that came upon us in the last year... more |
Investing: Attack of the Short Sellers Odd. This month, the market seemed... well, calmer. Things weren't as crazy as last month, but we still had pretty big stuff going on. Perhaps we're used to crazy. This month, Paulson reversed his position on the TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program, aka the rescue plan), saying that the government wasn't going to buy troubled assets from banks. That sent the Dow Jones skidding to 7552.29, the lowest close in six years. Things got so bad that the government had to step in and save Citibank with a $20 billion bailout. And the day after that, Paulson announced a new $800 billion rescue package.... more |
Investing: The Black Swan That Drove Us Into a Cave I have to tell you, I've been tossing around ways to describe the last month in financial markets all evening. And here's what I'm going to settle on: if September wasn't enough, someone had to add October.
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Investing: To Live in Interesting Times Oh my, oh my, where to begin. By any measure, it has been a historic month. Wild gyrations in the market indices. Fannie and Freddie, taken over by the government. AIG, acquired for pocket change by the government. Lehman Brothers, gone. Merrill, sold. Washington Mutual and Wachovia gone. Goldman and Morgan Stanley, now banks. And Congress might actually enact a bill in a week. That's the most astonishing of all. |
Investing: The Great Unwind It's Labor Day weekend, and yes, I'm thinking about stocks. Actually, not that much, because I've been thinking about this month's topic for several weeks now. |
Investing: China - A Post Olympic Letdown? I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like the Olympics. And how can you not? Drama, inspiration, a celebration of the human spirit – all in a matter of weeks. And this year, of course, it’s all about China. Was anyone not impressed – or awed – by the opening ceremonies? If you’re pro-Asian in any way, you had to celebrate the awakening of the “sleeping giant”, as Napoleon called China. Yet leave it to the business guys to be unimpressed. Which is not really a fair statement, because I’m sure business people around the world are cheering for China’s coming out party. It’s the economy, and the market that is in question.... more |
Investing: Wrestling with the Bear So we’re officially in a bear market. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the official definition is a 20% decline. For the Dow, the year high was 14,280, so anything below 11,424 would be a bear market. Given that the Dow today is at 11,384, that qualifies. As for the S&P, that’s teetering on the edge of an official bear market. The year high was 1,576 for the S&P, and so once the S&P fell below 1,260, the guys wearing the zebra outfits called it. Today the S&P is at 1,273, but it’s already been as low as 1,241. The real question is, why do we care? It’s not as if we didn’t know it was coming... more |
Investing: Options It’s always interesting to have stock conversations (hey, at least for me). It tells me a lot about the mood of the individual investor. And then, if you watch the news and read the trades, comparing what the individual, the media, and the professional investors are saying becomes even more interesting. The professional traders are always looking for the next opportunity. But the average man or woman on the street has fallen silent.... more |
Investing: Managing Your Trades with Stops In early April, a friend of mine called. My friend, who we’ll call Sally, was concerned that Huntsman, a stock I had recommended in a previous article, had dropped. She told me she had purchased 200 shares of Huntsman at $23.81. Yet by early April, the stock was dropping. On April 3, it had fallen to $22.71... more |
Investing: The Line in the Sand It’s pretty easy for us to go through life and not worry about what happens on Wall Street or in the market. We read the headlines, hear of people who have been affected by the turmoil in the markets, but for most of us, all we see are higher gas prices and perhaps, mortgage payments. By any measure, it’s been an extraordinary week in the markets. And that can be unfortunate – for those who worked at Bear Stearns, or for those who have lost jobs or homes - or it can be an opportunity, if you are prepared to take advantage of it.... more |
Investing: Lessons for the Ages II Friday, March 1, 2008, the Dow took another 300-plus point dive. The bulls weren’t happy, but it’s happened so frequently now that it almost seems normal for the times. Just last year, a 300-point dive would have made headlines for days. What a difference a year makes. Last time in this column, we talked about cycles, and how all cycles come to an end. We also discussed some warning signs that told us a major economic cycle was coming to and end. This time, we’re going to talk about what happens when the market is turning. And no better time, since we’ve been experiencing it for the last year.... more |
Investing: Lessons for the Ages I Start talking about stocks, and the average person is saying, “the market is a mess,” or “wow, things are really down.” Almost every sector has taken a hit, and for many who hold stocks, the portfolio is down, no matter what you’re holding. Long story short, many people think it’s a bad time to be in stocks, or this is proof that stocks are not the place to be. I couldn’t disagree more. I think it’s a great time to be shopping..... more |
Investing: Short-Term Arbitrage It’s the New Year, and people are looking back, looking forward, making predictions and picking the best stocks for 2008. So, in this month’s column, I’m going to talk about… short-term arbitrage. Yes, I said short-term arbitrage. I promise to tell you what that is soon. Why not make predictions and pick stocks for 2008? Mostly because I think we’re seeing the continuation of trends that we’ve already talked about in past columns. For example, I see the financials continuing their downtrend... more |
Investing: Windows of Opportunity ...Last week I had lunch with a friend. In August, he was pretty happy with his money managers. They were up 20%, maybe 30%. This week, it was a whole different story. His stocks were down, significantly. His gains for the last three years, erased. Basically, the bank savings account would have done better than his prominent Wall Street money managers. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do for my friend at the moment. But going forward, times like these make me optimistic. Very optimistic. Why? Because we’re entering a window of opportunity... more |
Investing: The Quick Fix… and the Not So Quick |
| Investing: The Outlook October 2007 It’s October 1, and in stock world, the day is about to go into the history books, because the Dow is about to close at a record high. With an hour an half of trading to go, the Dow is up 198 points to 14,093, besting the previous high of 14,0000 reached in mid-July. If you had gone on vacation, and had turned a blind eye to the business news, you would think not much had happened in the last two and half months. You would be blissfully ignorant of the fact that a month and a half ago, the markets were in a freefall, panic was around the corner, and rumors of bankruptcy were the norm every morning... more |
Investing: In Times of Trouble ...In the last few weeks, it seems as if a day hasn’t passed without some major revelation that has sent the market sliding. Last week it was a European fund in trouble, followed by a Goldman Sachs’ quantitative fund; this week, concerns around Sentinel Management, Thornburg Mortgage, and Countrywide Financial all triggered major drops in the Dow. And no one knows the answer to the big question: when will it end? Chances are, if you own some stocks, many of them are down. And chances are, some of them are below the price you bought them at. Meaning, you’re looking at possible losses in your portfolio. So in the midst of this turmoil, what should you do? ... more |
Investing: The Madness of Crowds ...I live in a world of opposites. On the one side, there are the actors and artists. Usually, the last thing they want to know about is business and logic. You want to put an actor to sleep? Be logical. It’s quite simple, really. On the other side, I have my friends from business. While they find Hollywood and entertainment interesting, asking them to live like actors is a whole other thing. Rationality is a much bigger part of their lives, and believe me, I think there are a lot of good reasons for that. I believe in life, you have to face both. And – you know where I’m going with this – it’s true about stocks as well... more |
Investing: Buying the Cycle Most of us are intimidated by stocks. Too many of us have memories of the tech bust. Or a parent or relative that has a story about a stock investment gone wrong. Add to that the armies of financial advisors whose recommendations often don’t beat the market, and it’s not hard to understand why we’re afraid of stocks... What’s amazing about stocks is how much you can do with just a little bit of work. And the truth is, there is no better time to be an investor... more |
A Whole Foods Story I was at dinner about a month ago, and as usual, I couldn’t resist talking about stocks. Looking for stock picks, someone asked, “What about Whole Foods?”... “Well, it’s expensive…” I started to say... Whole Foods happens to be a particularly challenging case because the company does a lot of things right. The real question is, are we paying the right price for the stock? more... |
| Make Money While You Sleep May 2007 ...Sometime ago, I realized that that there was a slight problem with all the jobs I’ve had. Now, I’ve done a pretty wide range of things. I’ve been a banker, a venture capitalist, a consultant, an actor and a director (I’m sure you’re wondering why, but we’ll save that for another article). And believe it or not, I’ve loved all the jobs I had. But in each case, I had the same problem: I had to be awake to make any money... I looked around, and I noticed something. The wealthiest people, or let’s say, the “most financially free”, had one major thing in common: they make money while they slept... more |