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Showing posts from November, 2011

George Soros: When I see a bubble I'll buy, and I see a flaw in the bubble, I'll sell!

First-Year MBAs: Internships and Recruiting

What are current sentiments, trends, and outlook, as MBA students prepare for a tough job market in 2012-13? What are the best tools, advice, and guidelines to get ready? The Consortium Finance Network hosted a webinar Nov. 22 for first-year Consortium MBAs in finance to discuss strategies for recruiting and securing internships for the summer, 2012. Panelists included Consortium graduates Eddie Galvan, Denzil Vaughn , and Enoch Kariuki . CFN founding members Tracy Williams and Camilo Sandoval (also a Consortium alumnus) and the Consortium's D-Lori Newsome-Pitts organized the webinar. Fortunately for students, the hiring environment for 2012 is not as discouraging as it was in 2008-09, when financial institutions worried more about survival than bringing aboard new MBAs.  Yet with announcements every other day from banks about rounds of lay-offs, finance students know the task of winning an offer for a meaningful internship will be tricky. Market volatility in recent months, fre

Venture Capital: Diversity Update

If you were to peep inside the corridors of most venture capital firms, including those in pockets of Silicon Valley or those scattered about Manhattan or in the Boston suburbs, would you see encouraging signs of diversity? Would you see a diverse environment, an inclusive culture, or a setting where those from under-represented groups are deeply involved in investment discussions, analyses, presentations, and decision-making? In those same venture capital firms, would you see women, blacks and Hispanics in prominent professional roles? Not really, says a survey from the National Venture Capital Association ( http://www.nvca.org/ ) . Would you be surprised? Not really, the survey also shows.  The business of venture capital (investing in promising start-ups, nurturing new ideas, coaching young entrepreneurs, and facilitating financing in second and third rounds) has a long way to go. The survey was taken in mid-2011 and follows a similar survey from 2008. The survey was sent to investm

Hire an i9 lawyer to Stay Miles from Immigration Issues

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Do you want legal status from the Department of Homeland Security? Are you looking for legal assistance that can help you represent in Immigration Court? With the help of a veteran immigration or i9 lawyer, you can get full-fledged legal assistance and can ease your pressures in pursuit of immigration benefits. They are specialized attorneys who hold licenses to practice law under the regulation of the State and Federal Government. Throughout the year, plenty of immigrants come to US and that too without an immigration lawyer. While paying a visit to foreign lands, you might encounter such situations where you fall absolutely clueless in getting a solution. Crucial things like paperwork filing or easing you struggle with speaking or writing English can all be handled by an i9 lawyer. So, if you are in the hunt for finding the best immigration lawyer, you need to keep a few things in mind so that you don’t pick someone amateur in this profession. Kick off your researches by going thro

Annuity – Securing your retired Future

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Recession has brought almost everything under strain and annuities are also not different. The total investment and savings option has already gone into jeopardy. Since there is hardly any option of pension, so only savings on an Annuity scheme could help us to face the bad weather of future years. Since, medical expenses are on a constant rise and investment in an annuity scheme could be very much beneficial. It is designed in such a way, that it accepts and grows the funds in favor of an individual. When the annuitization is completed it pays back the money to the investor.  They are designed in such a way, that it could generate a steady cash flow over a certain period of time. They are very much helpful for the retired persons. This financial scheme could generate the same flow of money. This is almost similar, the person generated during his years of employment. The Annuity scheme can continue till the annuitant or their spouse is alive. They can also be some way or t

Financially Boost -Up the Post Retirement life

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Being financially strong is our prime target, isn’t it? All the workloads, overtimes, official responsibilities, and investments we bear-is to secure ourselves financially. With financial freedom, we get the independence to rule our own lives in our own way, right.. Then, why letting this life of joys get spoiled after retirement just because you have stopped earning.? Why relying upon others for asking money after retirement- is that all what you deserve after 40 years of hard work and sincerity?? My answer will be a “no”. Of course, you deserve to be happier than ever during your retired life and this can be done by equity release.  Certainly, equity release allows you to have the benefits of unlocking a huge amount from the valuation of your own property without selling it, until you die. It is a great way of making oneself financial needs or self independent after retirement. Let us discuss the matter in brief. How to become eligible for releasing equity?? Only, the people who

Do You Invest Based on Your Intuition?

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"Do you invest based on your intuition, the fundamental or the technical analysis? This is a question posed by a 18 year old girl who attended my investment workshop last month in KL. I thought for a moment and answered: "Both technical and fundamental." Shortly after, I continued, "sometimes intuition!" I know when I said "intuition" it may discredit myself but I have to give an honest answer, because that's the way I trade - a combination of everything, technical, fundamental, psychology, market sentiment, feng shui and intuition! Some people will relate "intuition" with feng shui or astrology as they belong to the non-scientific world which is difficult to explain. There is really no right or wrong answer when it comes to investing or trading, because investing is an art! In the history of investing, there was one a famous investment guru who traded using geometry, astronomy and astrology. He is the legendary William D. Gann who inven

Parents Guide to Financing Their Kid's University

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A big worry for all responsible parents is how they should go about ensuring their children can attend university to complete their years of formal education. While university is not the only path to a successful career, if your child’s passion is one which requires a number of years of university study then you want to give them the best opportunity to compete in their career market. There is no doubt that parents want the best for their kids when they grow up, this is both natural and proper, but it should not be forgotten that part of the education process is to learn to fend for yourself and this can be extended to young people who want a higher education as much as anything else. In other words how much should your children contribute themselves to their own formal education? In many cases parents have gone without over many years to make certain that their children get the best education possible. In a child’s formative years this is absolutely necessary as he or she is far too y

MF Global: Too Small to Save

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Not the same impact as Lehman Late last month the world of finance, brokerage and trading experienced a hiccup--beyond the daily eruptions from Europe.  It wasn't yet another day of market swoons or showdowns in Europe.  It wasn't yet another day of a nose-dive in the Dow or headline disagreements on how the economy should recover. MF Global , the futures brokerage firm, filed for bankruptcy.  It was deemed too small to save. MF Global was not a household name (but so wasn't Bernard Madoff before the world found out about that fraud). Few outside the industry knew much about MF Global. Some knew that former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was its CEO. And they knew Corzine had been the head at Goldman Sachs in the 1990s. MF Global was known as a major player in futures and commodities brokerage. It had institutional client accounts with hedge funds, pension funds, corporations, banks, other brokerages, and other trading firms. It facilitated futures and commodities trading

BE's Who's Who on Wall Street, 2011

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Chris Williams of Williams Capital After financial turmoil in 2008-09, Black Enterprise magazine decided to wait a year or two before presenting its occasional list of the most powerful blacks on Wall Street. It figured it needed to watch the shake-out in the industry and observe the impact on African-Americans. In its latest issue ( http://www.blackenterprise.com/ ), it decided now is a good time to update its list, although Wall Street, banking and trading have experienced many bumps and bruises in 2011.  It failed to answer conclusively whether African-Americans took unfair, backward steps in diversity progress among top banks, brokers and financial institutions.  Everybody took hits during 2009-10, all groups and genders, including African-Americans in entry and middle-level roles. We all saw the industry reduce staff by the thousands during the crisis.And we saw how some on their own fled the industry to avoid stress and uncertainty or to explore other opportunities with less stra

Technical Analysis - Time Cycles

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Many of us have been focusing too much on the technical indicators and moving averages, and neglected one important aspect of the technical analysis - the time cycles. Time cycle is the study of the TIMING of the market boom and bust, which tells us the timing of the event happen as history keeps repeating itself. According to one of the pioneers of cyclic analysis, Edward R. Dewey, "something out there in the universe must be causing these cycles (bulls and bears) ... there seemed to be a sort of pulse to the universe that accounted for the pervasive presence of these cycles throughout so many areas of human existence." For example, take a look at our Malaysia GDP growth chart From the chart, we can see that in the history of our Malaysian economy, the recessions were recorded in 1973, 1985, 1998, 2009, which is 12 years apart with the exception of 1998. In feng shui perspective, they all fall in the year of OX (1973, 1985, 2009) and Tiger (1998)! I also discovered another h

Relax & Drive your Car with Cheap Auto Insurance

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If you have bought a car, auto insurance is a must. Go through the article to know everything that can fetch you cheap auto insurance premiums. You have got a car from dad few days ago and you have been driving with pleasure. So, you must be also having auto insurance, right? Well, if you are still in doubt, get it immediately without any delay and hesitation. If it’s a rule not to drive a car without auto insurance, you must obey it or otherwise you might have to face a chain of unpleasant consequences. Now, if you are still in the count of teens, you have huge possibilities of getting high premiums. So, your present job is to look for cheap auto insurance premiums. So, now you are wondering as how to get cheap auto insurance? Well, there are various ways to get so: Look for a reputed auto insurance company. For this you need to conduct an extensive research so that you can rely on your Financial help or an agent and get the best rates and premiums. Moreover, if you talk to someon

Here They Come, the Volcker Rules

Like it or not, the Volcker rules are coming. Ready or not, banks confront the new reality. Banks reported a gush of trading-related revenues in the 2000s. Going forward, they will not be permitted to engage in proprietary trading in the way they have done successfully the past decade. Banks, including old commercial banks and investment banks that turned into bank holding companies,  maintained trading units and ran them like internal hedge funds. They were allowed to use capital to support trading in most any instrument they felt they had expertise in or perceived profit opportunities. They  traded equities, held positions long or short, traded equity derivatives, and traded equity-linked swaps. Big banks, like JPMorgan, Citi, or Goldman Sachs, reported profits, had substantial roles in all markets, and attracted talent . Small community banks shied away. They could execute "black blox" trades, high-frequency algorithms, or deal in"exotics." Analysts described Go

Britain's Secret Spenders - are you one of them?

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Are you one of the many millions saddled with spending debts from loans, prepaid credit cards, overdrafts or other forms of borrowing? Are you also one of the 1 in 5 Brits who fail to share financial help date with your partner - or the one in ten who has a secret credit card? If so, it's time to own up - to yourself at least - and take stock of your situation. Personal debt levels have soared in recent years, at a time of recession, spiralling inflation, rising unemployment and poor growth prospects. Many of us are trapped in the reality of negative equity, expensive credit card debts, outstanding loans from the days where business was booming, an ever rising cost of living and little hope of an income raise! If your debts have escalated to problem levels, or you are secretly spending, it could be time to seek help. There are a wide range of personal and independent debt advisers and agencies who can offer confidential, valuable advice on how you can work yourself out of debt. Th