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Showing posts from May, 2011

Valuable Advice from Jim Rogers

The following is an extract from the recent interview by Investment U with Jim Rogers. He shared with us his valuable experience in trading, which I think is the best advice for any value investor! Jim Rogers: I would say one lesson we all need to learn is that after you’ve had a great success, you really should be very worried. Let’s say you sell and say you’ve made 10 times on your money. You should be extremely worried. You should close the curtains, not read, look at the TV, or anything because that’s when you’re full of hubris, arrogance, confidence. You think, “God, this is something easy,” and you’re desperate to jump around to something new. You should do your very best to avoid making another play until you’ve calmed down a lot. Just wait. It’s a very dangerous time for any investor. Likewise, if you take a huge loss and there’s a big panic and things are dumped on your head because you’re overextended or wrong for whatever reason, calm down, don’t say, “I’m never gonna inves

CFN's MBA Guide: Surviving First Year

Everybody needs a plan, so they say. Getting into a top business school (and earning membership into the Consortium) is an achievement. But it's a starting point for what's to come. Many Consortium students and other MBAs will acknowledge the starting point leads to an opening of flood gates.  Business school starts in early September, in most cases. Students are bombarded with tasks, responsibilities, cases, assignments and meetings by the second day.  Many alumni admit later they knew b-school would be a challenge; they just never knew that the workload would be so overwhelming so soon. And there is the worrisome, looming task to get a summer job, even if the summer is nine months away.  Recruiting season, year after year, starts right before school and requires significant amounts of time and attention. That's where the Consortium Finance Network's annual first-year guide can help.  For the third year in a row, CFN will distribute its guide for first-year MBAs in fi

Glencore IPO

For people who are thinking of diversifying into the London Stock Exchange (LSE), perhaps you can take a look at this IPO – Glencore International. Glencore is a Swiss-based company, one of the world's largest suppliers of commodities and raw materials, founded in 1974, over the years, it has expanded its operation into: metals, minerals, crude oil, oil products, coal, natural gas and agricultural products to international customers in the automotive, power generation, steel production and food processing industries. How big is this company? It’s about US$50billion - $60billion in valuation, 80% held by private equity firms and state funds including Singapore GIC, China, Korea, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait state funds ( CNBC ). 20% will be open to the public and will be listed in both London and Hong Kong stock exchanges on the 24th May 2011. This stock is very “hot”! It’s 4 times oversubscribed and every one is talking about it since we are in a commodity bull. However, I have to warn in

Don't Worry Be Happy

Many people are saying the stock market is very high, can we buy now? I'm still bullish about the market, and I'll buy in only when the prices retarace. So my advice is you already identified the stock that you want to buy, the next thing is to rely on the technical indicator to accummulate the stock when it is oversold. As simple as that! Good Luck! DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!

Why I Like Tech Stocks

Warren Buffett never like tech stocks, he thinks that the valuation of these companies are too difficult to understand! Although Warren Buffett is my idol, but I’m afraid I’ve to disagree with him this time! As we are entering to the 21st century – the information technology era, I see enormous potential in technology companies. I strongly think that every investor SHOULD and MUST have at least one tech stock in his or her portfolio! A tech stock could be referring to companies providing the hardware like Dell, Acer, Apple, Sony, Nokia; it could also be software companies like Microsoft, Google, Cisco; or it could be the infrastructure supporting companies like American Tower Corp, Rackspace Hosting and so on. There are tremendous opportunities in these stocks as technology and computers are part of our lives. Just take a look at the subscription rate of the Malaysian mobile phones, it’s a wopping 106% of our population with about 30million subscribers (slightly more than our 26m pop

Dimon's "State of the Industry"

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Finance types everywhere are familiar with Warren Buffet's annual sermon to shareholders in the form of a letter in the annual report. It's seldom, if ever, a bogged-down analysis of company ratios and trends. More a colloquial finance lecture. Everybody knows the Buffet letter, an honest pontification on business, the economy and the financial system. Derivatives are, he once notably said, "weapons of mass destruction" (although Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway operating vehicle has used them adroitly from time to time). This year, Buffet has other priorities and distractions. He has an internal crisis to manage. Top deputy David Sokol is under investigation for suspicious trading activity. Sokol reportedly bought an equity stake in a company before Berkshire announced it would purchase it. Buffet has publicly scolded Sokol, and Sokol, as expected, is no longer next in line to run Berkshile. That thorny current issue undermines the message Buffet delivered from his s

Are People Rational?

Economists argue that people are rational. Rational people make decisions or judgement using reasoned thinking, based on facts, applying rules; and those decisions are consistent over time. How far is this true? Do you spend time in analysing mundane simple task such as what to eat, where to shop or what to wear? Very often we make these simple decisions based on intuition or “gut feeling”. But when it comes to investment or children’s education, we will spend more time to gather information, do some analysis and then make a decision. Hence, decision making is a complex process, involving both analysis and intuition: analysis involves computation and more “rational” thought, but is slower; intuition, by contrast, is much faster, less accurate, and relying on intuitions or “gut feeling”. A study conducted in United Kingdom shows that people with autism related disorders are less likely to make irrational decisions, and are less influenced by gut instincts. This is because of the