The Motley Fool: Long-Term Investment Research

I believe Morningstar Inc. made investing easier for individuals basically because Morningstar is doing the hard part for investors by doing a majority of the work. Joe created a compendium of information for the wide range of different funds that were available on the market (Ferrell, Hirt & Ferrell, 2009). Morningstar has a wide range of analyst to help with the different funds, which helps investors by researching different investments for them. Morningstar Analyst is trained to do the research, write up the investments, as well as rate the investments. Due to the analyst doing a majority of the work, it helps guide investors in making better choices in his or her investments. Because Morningstar is solely dedicated to serving investors,

-The advice about investing in the stock market that I found most interesting was that the longer you hold your investments, the greater the probability is of them working.

Stock Trak Investment Report [Portfolio Investment Analysis] Portfolio management is an important factor that determines the performance of the portfolio. To perform well in the portfolio, it is not only essential to develop personal investment strategies, but analyzing current financial trend is also vital. Stock Trak is an online portfolio simulation that allows students to try out different investment strategies, and also get a hand on experience in what the real market trading conditions are. By managing the portfolio, I have acquired some new knowledge of investment strategies and also become more familiar with the current market by following closely to the financial headlines.

After reading The Motley Fool articles on life insurance, a few situations come to mind in which purchasing any such policy may be ill-advised. While certainly a savvy estate planning investment for some, it is not the best investment for all. Furthermore, with so many different types of possible policies one is not a blanket “great” investment for every individual. The people who life insurance is most valuable for is those with dependents (ie. a spouse or children). However, individuals with no minor children, or no children at all, and no spouse likely do not need life insurance. It would be quite silly for me to in my current condition purchase life insurance because no one relies on my income in the short or long-term. Since my death would not financially impact any of my family members, I would not buy life insurance. Having no dependents or no outstanding debt is one condition where I would consider an investment in life instance to be unnecessary.

The stock market is a risky business. Investing can make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams, in which only a few investors have found the formula. Otherwise making the wrong decision

In the United States, a society plagued by capitalism, investing has become a way of life. To most Americans it begins with opening a savings account and slowly allowing that money to grow through the compounded interest rate over the years. While it may not seem like a big step in generating more income, nonetheless, this is a positive movement in the market of investments. With the many types of investments available knowing which are reliable, or safe, or yield good returns, are just some of the questions on the investors mind. Within each asset class there are investments to suit different kinds of risk, duration, returns and liquidity.

Fund overview The vanguard equity income fund-investor (VEIF-Inv) is an active managed equity fund which is available to investors who meets the minimum purchase amount requirement (3,000 dollars). Its inception date is 21st March, 1988, and its ticker symbol is VEIPX. VEIF-Inv has used the spliced benchmark index: Russell 1000 Value Index through July 31, 2007; FTSE High Dividend Yield Index thereafter.

FINANCE 350: INVESTMENT PRINCIPLES HEWLETT FOUNDATION William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a private foundation that give grants and gifts to different programs and addresses different social issues that include education, environment, philanthropy, global development and population, performance art programs, and other special projects. The foundation’s main objective is to help improve the lives of people for the betterment of the society. HF is a nonoperating foundation and relies on the “return on invested assets” to run the whole program (Viciera & Tung, 2006). With that being said, the foundation has to invest their resources to different assets and that it will help achieve the foundation’s goals.

Frist Community Financial: Investing in Their Employee’s In the case study written by Marcus Osborn, Kutak Rock LLP the author writes about a financial company called Frist Community Financial. First community financial gives loans to small businesses in the forms of asset-based and factoring loans. They will loan up to $1

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle once stated: “The character which wealth results is that of a prosperous fool.” Although Aristotle lived in a world that many would argue does not exist today, his statement still holds truth and is applicable to current events in modern era, specifically within the United States government. For years wealthier American citizens have soared above their less wealthier counterparts in politics, education, employment, and privilege. Those who are blinded by this privilege may contend that it does not exist, but there are various theories that support this ideology. For example, the elite and class theory states “societies are divided along class lines and that an upper-class elite will rule, regardless of the formal

Pearson and Mahoney Investment Club The Pearson and Mahoney Investment Club (PMIC) is a group of friends and family who have a strong spirit to collaborate and invest together. This network includes and is open to all like-minded individuals from all aspects of life, with differing fields of expertise and skills to formulate a balanced investment group. Membership is invite only.

Targeting an Advantage through Strategic Asset Allocation and Active Management The Lessons of The Yale Endowment Executive Summary Presented by Old Mutual June 2008 Executive Summary The Yale Endowment is known in the financial industry as a pioneer in using a combination of innovative asset allocation and active management to produce impressive long-term performance. In fact, the Endowment produced a 17.8% average annual return, net of fees, in the ten-year period ending June 30, 2007.1 This performance is particularly impressive given that, in recent years, the Endowment portfolio has carried less than a 40% weighting in equities. Instead, under the leadership of Chief Investment Officer Dave Swensen, the Yale Investments Office

Case 17 – The Investment Detective The case of the Investment Detective laid out the cash flows for us in each of eight different projects. Before doing any calculations we came up with the assumption that we could not rank the projects simply by inspecting the cash flows.

Financial Analysis and Research of Mutual Fund NCBIX The purpose of this paper is to analyze the New Covenant Balanced Income Mutual fund. This NCBIX fund involves investing money along with the Presbyterian Church mission. The money would be invested to organize personal or socially responsible goals. This determines how the

Financial Screening Research Calvert CSIFX mutual fund focuses on small-, mid-, and large-capitalization equities, and fixed income securities. They fund contains $683.88 million worth of assets of which 80% is invested in U.S. and Non-U.S. companies who do business in the sustainable energy solutions sector. They closely follow the Calvert Global Energy Solutions Fund and choose to manage this fund in a passive manner. Social responsible investing has managed to yield the CSIFX mutual fund a 5-year average rate of return 9.46% (Appendix 1a). When compared to the FUSEX which mimics the S&P 500 closely this fund drew in a 5-year average rate of return 16.28 % (Appendix 1b). You can see from the chart below that over a period of 5 years the FUSEX has grown by more than 60% as opposed to the CSIFX which has grown by just over 7% (Appendix 2a.). This same trend applied when comparing both over their lifetimes (Appendix 2b.) Both have a similar beta with Calvert being at 1.01 and the Fidelity fund maintaining a 1.00 beta over 3 years. Beta helps paint a picture of how volatile these funds are compared to the market with both close to 1 they are on par with the market. This 6.82% difference in the rate of return doesn’t take into account the social screens that Calvert intentionally participates in for the greater good of society. This large gap in the rate of return makes it very difficult to justify investors taking fewer returns for the purpose of being socially responsible.