Uncategorized
The best thing to invest in…
Posted by admin on October 23, 2008 in Uncategorized
…is yourself. Stocks go up and down. Real estate does the same. The notion of job security is but a myth- even for unionized workers (just ask the GM workers in Oshawa who agreed to a new deal and then promptly had the planet shut down). Your pension? Pension funding short-falls is the ugly financial [...]
Avoiding self-inflicted financial wounds
Posted by admin on October 8, 2008 in Uncategorized
Investing, like life, can be seen as a process of making as few mistakes as possible (or, more accurately, learning from them when you are young and it doesn’t cost you much) rather than hitting the home run. After all, how much truly great moments do we have as investors? One? Maybe two? Just remember [...]
Implications of the bail-out on you and me
Posted by admin on September 29, 2008 in Uncategorized
With the 1997 hand over to China a distant glimmer in the island’s eye, many ambitious men made their mark developing Hong Kong real estate in the go-go 1980′s. Thus, it wasn’t unusual for a newly-minted commercial banker to find a well-dressed gentlemen sitting across from him, selling dreams of glass and steel punctuating the [...]
What’s the difference between a bank, credit union and trust company?
Posted by admin on September 25, 2008 in Uncategorized
One of the things that really annoys me about the media coverage of the credit crisis is the media paints all “financial institutions” with the same brush stroke and does not attempt to differentiate between the different players and their functions in this industry. Thus, when an investment house files for bankruptcy, everyone gets worried [...]
Where is your investment advisor and what should they be saying?
Posted by admin on September 11, 2008 in Uncategorized
If I was CNN, I would call this month the September Slaughter (cue the dramatic music and bold graphics!) with almost all the global markets in 52 week lows, a commodity sell-off and the continuing meltdown of the housing chain in the U.S. (from retail pricing to financing- look on the bright side, the other [...]
How redundant is your portfolio?
Posted by admin on September 10, 2008 in Uncategorized
Towards the end of my mutual fund days, I looked at the hodge-podge of funds I owned and noticed that they tended to own the same stock. In other words, I wasn’t mitigating my risk properly since, even if the mutual funds had different names and purposes, they held enough of the same stocks that, [...]
How to save money attending sports events
Posted by admin on September 4, 2008 in Money Saving Techniques, Uncategorized
The NFL regular season starts tonight with the Washington Redskins playing the defending Super Bowl Champs the New York Giants which is an apropos time to blog about the costs of attending a sporting event live. As a life-long sports fan, it is tough to accept the fact that large companies who own sports franchises [...]
Has real estate ever been the path to wealth?
Posted by admin on July 28, 2008 in Uncategorized
I am clearly playing Monday morning quarterback but I stumbled upon something this weekend which seems to counter the saying that you become wealthy through real estate. Merrill Lynch and Capgemini have been publishing Annual Wealth Reports for 12 years which track what the high net worth individuals (individuals with net worth over $1 million [...]
Where should this blog go?
Posted by admin on June 19, 2008 in Uncategorized
I have deliberately made this a light posting week because of personal commitments (its summer, I get to have a life!) and to give myself some perspective on this blog. The blog is 14 months old now with over 260 entries and, over that time, it has evolved quite a bit. I now have a [...]
One Family’s Personal Finance Tale, May edition
Posted by admin on May 30, 2008 in Mom2KG Columns, Uncategorized
On Monday, I speculated that oil prices may be subject to a bubble rather than real fundamentals. Sure enough, oil prices has fallen back to $126/barrel from its high of $134/barrel based partially on the belief that the prices are not warranted based on supplies and retail demand. I will continue to blog on oil [...]
