Where does the smart money go now? Let’s face it: media has made the credit crisis much worse than what it really is. For a forward thinking investor, after the last five weeks, there are tremendous opportunities in the market. No matter if you are an average investor trying to understand where you are in the retirement, or a sophisticated Wall Street market-maker, the starting point is the same: fundamentals, truly understand what you are investing in. In today’s market, it is not hard to identify the opportunities on assets that are UNDER-valued (NOT discounted). Despite the unhistorical volatilities in Commodities, Financial Services, and a few other industry sectors, certain industries have and will always exhibit less volatility, for example Household Products, Waste Management and Insurance. In this economic environment, Biotech, Green-tech, Healthcare, Consumer Products (especially in growing emerging markets) and Telecom are good investments. In fact, a few small to mid cap firms in bio-tech went up over 50% during the last week. Even in Financials, some components of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) have been marked down so dramatically that the appreciation is at the short horizon. Before going into the details, it is always important to follow the proven principles of investing. Be specific about the investment objectives; create a strategy that is easy to follow; diversify across asset classes and within any asset class; stay on track to avoid emotional
Although this investment class can be considered the most conservative of the three, the low yield of government bonds in the past 10 years does not lend a comparative metric against many other investment opportunities (Jacobs, 2012). The fixed rate of these instruments allows for a guaranteed return, but should only be utilized at a point in an investing cycle when risk is higher than potential income growth. The 25% allocation that is invested in this class is positioned to provide a long term guaranteed investment, with the possible that these lower rates will not rise significantly in the next few years.
Advisors and investors would do well to pay as much attention to the expected volatility of any portfolio or investment as they do to anticipated returns. Moreover, all things being equal, a new investment should only be added to a portfolio when it either reduces the expected risk for a targeted level of returns, or when it boosts expected portfolio returns without adding additional risk, as measured by the expected standard deviation of those returns. Lesson 2: Don’t assume bonds or international stocks offer adequate portfolio diversification. As the world’s financial markets become more closely correlated, bonds and foreign stocks may not provide adequate portfolio diversification. Instead, advisors may want to recommend that suitable investors add modest exposure to nontraditional investments such as hedge funds, private equity and real assets. Such exposure may bolster portfolio returns, while reducing overall risk, depending on how it is structured. Lesson 3: Be disciplined in adhering to asset allocation targets. The long-term benefits of portfolio diversification will only be realized if investors are disciplined in adhering to asset allocation guidelines. For this reason, it is recommended that advisors regularly revisit portfolio allocations and rebalance
Look at Warren Buffet, who is famous for investing only in companies and businesses that he understands. Certainly in the post-Madoff world, this is an important tenet. Not understanding how an investment proposes to give you a return is a big mistake. So the second key is: understanding.
Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have been growing companies who have a secure future, while PNC and Pfizer both have been doing well this year. I believe that PNC benefited in 2017 due to the controversies around the Wells Fargo Bank. SAP SE is a growing global stock that is headquartered in Walldorf. SAP SE is a software producing company that clients are primarily businesses and larger organizations. The ETF iShares US Real Estate is a good ETF because it adds more diversity by investing in real estate, and real estate is a growing way of entrepreneurship. I recommended the Vanguard Energy Mutual Fund because it consists of US natural gas stocks that have had solid years like the Valero Energy. According to Morningstar, the future risk of this stock is below average. We are creating a safety net for Aaron Rodgers, so we don’t want to make a really risky investment where we can lose all of our money. The State Farm Municipal Bond Fund is a worthwhile investment because it has a low-risk rating, and it is tax-free like all other municipal
The United States stock market has experienced many interesting events this year, testing the nerves of millions of people around the world. The market started the year with the worst two-week performance in its history, creating a lot of uncertainty for the year to come. A severe decline in oil prices caused many firms within the energy industry to suffer. However, despite these negative events, gold saw its best quarter in 30 years, the market had a large reversal, and oil has been recovering. These volatile movements provided an amazing opportunity to make money for investors, relief for those who had holdings during this time, and a better outlook for firms. Two firms that have had an interesting year so far are ExxonMobil Corp. and Apple Inc. Exxon has experienced the effects of macroeconomic variables, while Apple has had some internal issues that lead to some stock price fluctuations.
So now to invest: to make an omelet you gotta crack some eggs. I want to invest in a conservative way, just to test the water and have a big safety net. I will put my money into a “safe harbor” investments such as a stable value fund. I will put 2/3 of my
STAY IN TOUCH: Often an individual experiences great losses in the share business because of the lack of information. Therefore, the best tip to consider while investing is to stay thoroughly informed, which is possible only through extensive involvement.
Brad Reifler, founder of Forefront Capital, gave five common sense investment tips for everyday people in a recent Reuter's article (1). Reifler said that he realized everyday individuals were not getting the same chances to invest that accredited investors received, therefore, they could not make as much money as the individuals the SEC determined were financially sophisticated, accredited investors. Basically, Reifler urges investors to be careful with their money and only invest with an advisor who they trust. He cautions people not to place all their money in the stock market, and he urges individuals to chose investments that help them reach their goals.
Vanguard REIT ETF invests in companies that purchase office building, hotels, and real property. The goal is to closely track the return MSCI US REIT Index and offers high potential investment income and growth. The advantages of Real estate investment typically include low correlation with stocks and bonds, low volatility of return, and inflation hedge. Vanguard REIT ETF provides dividend yield 4.25% and 5 years dividends growth 12.82%. Since REITs provides inflation protection, diversification, and risk-return enhancement to overall portfolio, we should include Vanguard REIT ETF to achieve the objective of foundation, which is to maintain real purchasing power and provide growth
Investment : Business fixed investment and residential investment will continue to increase as we can see that from the stability in the housing marketing . The housing inventory is down and so is the Crude oil
While we are in the midst of a recovery, it remains in the context of a high-risk, slow-growth world. Government debt as a percentage of GDP has risen substantially since the financial crisis and is acting as a drag on economies. Ultimately, growth in real GDP depends on growth in the workforce and growth in productivity; neither appears promising. Given that backdrop, the portfolio remains invested in companies that have proven that they can grow their free cash flow, even in a tepid economic environment, and have a disciplined approach to allocating cash that will create value for shareholders.
If you are a risk taking person and are willing to diversify your investments across multiple sectors, you could be rewarded greatly with great returns even if some of the stocks declined.
Investing in emerging markets offer tempting advantages to investors. The volatile economies of countries considered to be in this category have a potential for extraordinary returns. A caveat to investors considering opportunities in emerging markets are the presence of unstable governments, the chance of nationalization, poor property rights protection, and large swings in prices. Emerging markets are far from a sure thing. But, despite high individual risk, emerging markets can reduce portfolio risk. The volatile economies of these countries have such low correlations compared to the domestic market that they actually provide the greatest degree of diversification.
If you were to ask a successful investor what he or she would do differently from the beginning of their investing years, you might be surprised at the response. The learning process in investing is important, but if you can avoid the same mistakes others have made, you will gain the edge in this business.
"When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favourite holding period is forever." - A very deep and insightful thought by the most successful investor of the 20th century.