During a conference call this past Friday, Don Coxe, who is the Chairman and Chief Strategist of Harris Investment Management, and Chairman of Jones Heward Investments, stunned listeners when he suggested that there was a rumour that “there’s rumors the Saudis are going to move off their peg to the Dollar”.

The rumor comes on the heels of the Fed’s 50 basis point rate cut, which is being hailed on Wall Street as appropriately aggressive and reviled in the Bond market as inflationary.

I think its bald-faced bailout of the credit system, and is a ham-handed attempt to restore faith in the monetary system worldwide. If you’re like me, your faith was gone long ago, and sure, the markets are exuberant in their short-term reaction, but the U.S. Dollar has sunk to new lows versus most currencies.

If a real rout of the U.S. Dollar materializes in the form of wholesale dumping of dollars from foreign reserve holdings, then obviously the U.S. is going to suffer severe economic recession.

In a letter written to the Financial Times on September 19th by Richard Dale, professor of International Banking at Southampton University in the U.K., he relates the following cautionary tale:

In May 1984, Continental Illinois, then the seventh-largest bank in the US, suffered a devastating run. Having only a small retail deposit base, the bank had expanded its loan book rapidly by borrowing heavily in the wholesale money markets. When doubts began to arise about the quality of Continental’s loan portfolio, it was abruptly shut out of the money and capital markets and was forced to borrow from the Federal Reserve.

The Comptroller of the Currency stated publicly that the bank was solvent and adequately capitalised; the US central bank indicated that it was prepared to provide open-ended liquidity support; and the US Federal Deposit Insurance issued a statement effectively extending 100 per cent deposit insurance to all depositors and general creditors of the bank. Despite these initiatives, confidence in Continental was destroyed, the withdrawal of funding continued unabated and, in the absence of any private buyers, ownership of the bank was eventually transferred to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company in July of that year.

The Northern Rock crisis is almost a precise re-run of the Continental Illinois collapse. The immediate cause of the problem – over-rapid balance sheet expansion funded through wholesale markets – is the same. The progressive official interventions – statements on solvency, open-ended liquidity support and now the guaranteeing of deposits – are being repeated. But confidence has yet to be restored and the ultimate ownership of Northern Rock is in doubt.

There are two clear lessons in all this. First, once confidence is lost it is very difficult to get it back: if there is criticism of the Bank of England, it is not that it bailed out Northern Rock but that it underestimated the potential for a contagious financial collapse. The Bank should have offered 100 per cent deposit insurance on day one of the crisis and before queues started to form outside Northern Rock branches. Second, depository institutions that engage in large-scale maturity transformation (borrowing short and lending long) should be funded largely from captive retail deposits and not from fickle wholesale markets. How the UK Financial Services Authority overlooked this fundamental precept should be a matter for investigation.

Finally, when the dust eventually settles on this global banking crisis, there may be a case for reviewing the fusion of banking and securities markets that has occurred following the abolition of the US Glass-Steagall Act a few years ago. Arguably, the core banking system should be kept separate from the innovative risk-taking that is the lifeblood of the securities markets.

Embedded in a story on the front page of the Financial Times on September 19 was this little snippet in an article entitles “Lehman Results Bring Cheer to Wall Street”:

“Lehman overcame a 47 per cent decline in revenues from fixed-income capital markets. Its earnings were boosted by a lower tax rate and the use of a new accounting rule allowing it to book as profits the reduction in market value of some of its debts”.

Alex Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute astutely commented,

“In other words, if the “fair market value” of your debt goes down – perhaps because the bond market considers you a worse credit risk – while you owe exactly the same amounts to your creditors as you always have, you can then declare a “profit”. The “fair value” accounting theorists have thereby arrived at absurdity.”

About Short term Investments
1. Investment is done for short period like from one week to several months.
2. Returns will be based on mostly on news; speculations, rumors, new product launch, and short term technical analysis and so on. So the risk is high because the factors may or may not affect the stock price, even if they affect then also it is very hard to say how long will be the effect and whether the effect will be positive or negative so to conclude the over all scenario it is considered as risky deal for investing short term in stock market.
3. The returns could be low, moderate or high it all depends on how market takes up the stock price.
4. Over all it is considered by most of the analyst that the investment for short term in short term could be risky business.
5. One more important factor in short term is that you have to be always in touch with the market and keep yourself updated about your stock. It’s like the rice is cooking and need attention all the time. You have to be alert all the time to book your profit or exit form that stock.

About Long term Investments –
1. A long term investment is done for a period of more then one year. The investments could be from one year to several years, no limitation.
2. It is being said by most of the top businessmen, investors and analyst that if you are expecting to have great money then you should invest your money for long term in stock market and may carry on for several years.
3. Generally returns expected in long tem are good which is called as safe investment and health returns.
4. One very important factor in long term investment is that there is no need to be in front of market everyday and get worried about daily markets volatility or stocks prices up and down. Its like invest in growth oriented stocks and keep it invested for several years without fear but it is important to keep watch on quarterly and annual results so that you will come to know whether your invested company is performing well or not and if in case you feel that it is not performing according to you or market then you can plan to sell and invest in other stocks.

Let me be the first to say that creating wealth is the boring part. Yes it’s true that if you feel like analyzing stocks charts or facing tough decisions with evicting nonpaying renters, running around trying to find that one good deal that you heard about in the paper.

If you like dealing with phone calls in the middle of the night because the water heater blew out or the toilet is clogged. Worse yet you get that call in the middle of the day from your financial

analyst that you lost enormous amounts due to a bad trade in the market because they didn’t see it coming.

If these are issues that you are interested in by all means have at it. However if it’s long term stress investments that you are seeking, look no further.

Building wealth is as simple as laying the foundation, setting the boundaries and playing by the rules.

Laying the foundation requires a very basic understanding of the pillars of wealth.

The first pillar consists of you, your health and your wealth.

The second pillar comes from structure and organization.

The third pillar comes from knowing your investor makeup.

The fourth pillar is choosing the right investments.

The sixth pillar is the knowledge of time value of money.

The seventh pillar is execution of decision.

The eighth pillar is calculating risk.

The ninth pillar consists of monetization and maintenance.

The tenth pillar is tax strategy.

The eleventh pillar is your asset protection.

The twelfth pillar is your exit strategy.

To build great wealth is a due process. The preparation it takes to exercise the building of a house or large building is the same. You must have a plan and lay a solid foundation. Then only can you begin to build strength and momentum in a vertical upright position.

If your financial foundations are weak then your entire house built out of credit cards may come crumbling down right on top of you. However if you lay out a solid foundation of money management your sure to be a success.

Plan for two lives right from the start. You need a short term financial plan as well as a long term retirement strategy. You also need to keep an alternate and impartial view when it comes to your investments.

Never mix emotions into your investment strategy. Never follow the crowd, by the time you hear about it’s usually to late.

Learn about the alternatives no one else is talking about. Why do you think the richest men in the wold aren’t speaking up about their own personal portfolios?

The IRS has specific guidelines you can use to place real estate into your IRA and other qualified plans. Only two percent of all retirement funds are invested into real estate.

It is our hard-earned savings, which is at stake. So let’s be very concrete about it.

Do you have adequate capital?

It is sheer common sense that a diversified portfolio with 18-20 stocks is less risky than a small portfolio with only 3-4 stocks.

However, for a retail investor, capital is normally limited. With this small money supply it won’t be likely for him to adequately diversify his/her portfolio. In such a condition, Mutual Funds extend an alternative to be a part of well-diversified portfolio even with small capital like $100.

Naturally, a small portfolio can give super natural returns but on the other hand the risk is also very high. This high-risk high-reward scheme wouldn’t be appropriate for absolute majority of retail investors. It just suits a couple of select expert investors who have lots of money to put into market.

Also, with moderate capital it’s hard to buy pricey shares like Google, Infosys etc. This drives us to buy low price stocks. Broadly speaking high-priced stocks will be good shares and low-priced stocks might not be that good shares. Hence, with limited capital you could end up with a inferior portfolio.

Given the fact that moderate capital could mean small and inferior portfolio, Mutual Funds perhaps are more preferable path for those who cannot bring in enough money for investing

Do you have adequate knowledge & expertise?

Ok, let’s be really honest and frank here.

· Do you have more expertise about companies, economy, market trends, etc. than a qualified and knowledgeable professional investment company?

· Can you interpret the balance sheet and Annual Reports as easily as an investment company and make right conclusions?

· Can you identify the future sectors of growth? Or those that could face a downswing in the immediate future?

In short, are you more knowledgeable than an investment company?

In 99% cases, the answer would be ‘Nope’.

So why do common retail investors enter the hard terrain of securities industry, when you have the chance to allow the exert people to do the task for you?

Do you have adequate time & resources?

Let’s presume that you have big bucks to invest and also a really sound understanding of the equity markets. But do you have the third important criteria, “Time & Resources”?

There are numerous listed companies. Some of them are booming, some were booming and some will be booming. You need to purchase stocks that will be flourishing; you need to exit those whose flourishing phase is about to cease; and you need to hold on to those who are still in the success phase. The timing is very decisive for making fortune in stock markets.

Now this list keeps varying quite frequently and it calls for constant research to keep oneself updated. So, there won’t be many retail investors who can afford to devote time to study thousands of annual reports and tracking the performance of companies. Moreover, yearly reports are not all that is needed to research a company. How many of us can travel to company premises, contact their management and talk over their plans, earning expectations, etc.? Can you talk personally to the industry experts? Even if you can do all of this, can it be done on an ongoing basis – day after day every year?

So who is best person to do a sound research – a Mutual Fund with its’ experienced research squad or you, who are as too occupied with our own businesses/job?

Unlike all this, opting for Mutual Funds is a comparatively much easier task. Also, it does not ask for close monitoring. Hence it becomes the finest option for retail investors to relish the yields of stock market, without being forced to commit lots of time and effort.

As an investor, if you don’t have a web presence and not advertising on the internet then you are missing out on a major opportunity. The web is a great way to build up your identity and add to your brand recognition. It also gives you credibility with a seller. You are able to build up more of your brand and your identity once they get to your website. There are a lot of people that like to go to your website first. I’m one of those. If I’m looking for a product of service the first thing I look for is do they have a website.
The internet becomes that non threatening place to get more information. And it is an easy place that you can provide a whole lot of information. On the internet you can let all these people come and visit and easily get as much information as they want. Plus you can give them inside and outside color pictures of the house and all of the information about the house.

The internet allows you to reach a wider target audience. You can pull from a further distance than you can from offline marketing. If you are doing offline marketing like signs, you’re going to keep pretty local for the most part. With the internet you can attract buyers and sellers from across the country, a much wider target audience. Say that you have a rehab that you are trying to sell or even a rental that you are trying to rent. There are people from across the country that are moving into the area. These people can go to your website and see the house. You even have local people who decide on area to live in and then go to the web to search and see what houses are available. Whether they were buying the house or going to rent the house they’re going to the web first. You want to be there.

The internet is a much less costly way to advertise. First of all, the quality of the information, the pictures that you can put up there is so much better than anything you can do in print. And you can do so much more of it. I can have literally pages and pages of information for somebody to look at on the internet, but imagine trying to put that into a brochure and then get it mailed out to somebody. The internet is so much faster. They can literally go on and see it right away.

For example, let’s look at the travel industry. It used to be when I was a traveler I wanted to see the different resorts. I would hear about a resort and I would see their advertising and then I would have to call them up and talk to them a little bit and ask for them to send me a brochure. Then about a week later they would send me a brochure that had some basic pictures on it and that’s it. Now I go to the internet. I pull up their website and I have instantaneous access to that information. I see a whole lot more pictures than I ever could before. I get all the information I want. If you’re not on the web you are missing out on ¾ of your buyers.

The other thing you want to do on the web is capture their information using something called an autoresponder. If you are able to capture an e-mail address, then you have the ability to talk to them over and over again at really no cost. Imagine trying to mail a regular letter to a prospect every week and how costly that would get. Yet you could do that with e-mail at no cost whatsoever. You have got to establish your web presence. If you are not on the internet right now you need to make every effort to get there.

Value investing looks at the person, employing the money in a stock, as investing an amount and thereby acquiring the status of a partner in business.
It looks at the inherent Business value of a Company over a period of time. The value investor is not baffled by the short sighted ness of the markets in panic times and is well aware that one day the company will be valued as per its actual worth

Value investing talk’s about the parameters for evaluating a Company and its Business. It does not give much heed to market’s daily fluctuations.

There is also a mention of time value of money and how it should be used while arriving at the Company’s future earnings and discounting the same.

It’s like buying the near by store with the amount that the investor has. He asks himself questions like is this a viable business in the long run? Does the Business product pipeline seem great? Will I be assuming a large debt? When the answer to all these questions is right then the individual decides to go in for the kill. Trying to understand business is a tricky part and needs some keen insights about the sector and the nature of Business.

If you are trying to start a small business or you have one going already you will know that one of the major reasons why people people start this kind of business is to have more control over their finances and their time. These are the major reasons now days the people have started to quit their regular job to start their own business to work less with more comfort and of course to be the boss of their own business.

Business Consulting Services help many people to develop successful business with proper guidance and innovative ideas for the growth of business. Business consultants can help to lay the foundation stone for any successful business and provides the entrepreneurs the correct way to build his or her business. To be a successful entrepreneur one has to understand the proper methodologies like how the business should run, how to attract customers, provide customer satisfaction services, maintaining good relationship with customers etc. These are few of the important factors that govern the success of any business taught by the Business Consulting Services.

One can note down from the statistics about the business failing to grow and succeed is majorly due to non-consistent performance of the entrepreneurs and their strategy involved in the growth of business. They don’t follow any Business Consulting Services guidelines which can result in many shutting down their business due to bankruptcy. The majorities of people start business of their own to enjoy the freedom and luxury of earning more in less time being boss at the same time but end up on the losing note. For instance one may take into account the scenario faced in counties like Australia and New Zealand where 40% of the business started every year come into a stagnant and precarious condition. So, its easier and more prudent to follow the Small business coaching solutions and Business development solutions in order to enhance the prosperity of the business in the right direction.

Nowadays the Business Consulting Services provide business development solutions with programs providing guidelines and techniques to develop small-scale business into Large successful business units. The business development programs like E-Myth Consulting provide the platform for small business to turn into world-class firm. They indeed provide excellent private business tuition to guide the entrepreneurs to turn the small-scale business into an excellent revenue generator. These tutors provide essential business solutions to the entrepreneurs step by step for generating fruitful revenues for the success of the small-scale business. Thus Business Consulting Services thus indeed provide step-by-step solutions to establish a small-scale business to turn into enterprise scalable standards.

In order to meet the stiff competition of business the entrepreneurs needs to maintain standards to thrive in the market to generate the revenues. Thus business-coaching solutions are provided by the Business Consulting Services to build a successful business from small-scale business firm, to generate profitable revenue, tips and trick to love and enjoy the business one is engaged and lots of other factors that determine the success Of the business.

The days are long gone when a person graduates college, gets a good secure job, works it for thirty to forty years and retires with a nice pension. Job security just isn’t what it used to be. Prosperous people don’t believe in working hard, they believe in working smart. And, they know they will never get rich working for someone else or in their own business where they have to be present for it to operate daily. True wealth is having money and the time to enjoy it.

Prosperous people have a different mindset about wealth as it relates to money. First and foremost they don’t believe in being defined by money. Money is thought of as a material possession and does not define their happiness. They learn how to leverage what they have to produce more.

There are some key truths to becoming prosperous. Let’s review a few of them.

1. There is a big differential in the thinking patterns of prosperous and non prosperous people. Oftentimes people who are not prosperous have a negative thinking pattern towards gaining wealth. They believe that it is hard to get more than they have, and lack some of the things they want by conceding that they just cannot afford it. Prosperous people believe that they can figure out how to afford the things they want. By changing your thoughts about money you will be able to start believing you can generate more and that you deserve it.

2. Prosperous people understand that money does not define them and they are content were they are. Many people believe that they will be happier if they have more money. This is a common misnomer. Learning how to be content where you are will assist you in becoming prosperous.

3. Prosperous people change their self-limiting beliefs. If you want to become prosperous you first have to believe that you can and then you have to believe you are deserving of wealth and have the ability to receive it. Get rid of self doubts. Tell yourself you are just as worthy of having wealth as someone that has it. Begin a practice of writing down your current self-limiting beliefs at least once per day.

Understand that becoming prosperous begins with changing your beliefs as it relates to money. Simply changing your thinking about becoming prosperous is one of the first steps to enjoying a wealth building.

Do It the Warren Buffet Way

Before you start looking for the best place to invest money, you need to know how to select the right investments. Take a lesson from Warren Buffet and buy stock while the price is down and then sell it once the price goes back up. When the stock of an excellent company is down, there is no better time to purchase your share. A good business will be able to generate cash flow from year to year. So, if you purchase stock from that company at 50% of its value, you will earn quite a bit of money in the future when you sell the stock later. Always remember that the best time to invest is in a bear market and then to hold it until it is a bull market again.

Turning to the Internet When Buying

When it comes to finding the best place to invest money, it is a good idea to turn to the Internet to help you conduct your research. There are so many different stocks on the market that it really is beneficial to use a screening tool to help you filter out the ones that are good.

At Zacks.com, you can select from a variety of different screening criteria and you can set specific values to each one so you can filter out the stocks that fit the criteria you are interested in. These criteria you can filter include:

* P/E (Trailing 12 months)
* Annualized 5 Yr. Historical EPS Growth
* 5 Year Historical Sales Growth
* Sales Growth
* Price/Book
* ROI (5 year average)

After you fill out the values you are looking for in your stock, the screening tool will bring back a list of companies. You can then analyze them each and determine which ones are the best investment options. Of course, the process will still take some time, but the time is well spent and you will be focusing only on those companies that are promising investments.

With the simplicity of the site, it is easily qualifies as one of the best places to determine where you should invest your money. In order to help you learn more about the stocks you are considering purchasing, however, you should also turn to moneycentral.msn.com. Here, you can manually analyze the financial data of the company you are considering investing in.