Using Support and Resistance Levels to Improve Your Trading! PFGBEST Research Analysts, Phil Flynn and Paul Kavanaugh team up to share their strategies for day trading the futures markets in this valuable event. Learn how veteran traders identify potential reversal points early in the trading session and use multiple contracts to bring risk off the […]
Archive for the ‘Stock Market’ Category
Sticky: Educational Free Webinars – From PFG BEST
November 2nd, 2011 
Vijaianand 
Posted in Events, Financial Literacy, Freebies, Stock Market, stocks 
Tags: free webinar, stock trading 
No Comments »Optimistic Outlook on US Economy from TRP Chairman & Why US Bonds are way to go?
September 7th, 2011 Vijaianand A week ago I received an email update from TRP(TRowePrice) Chairman on the current market condition since lots going on these days. We all witnessed the wild roller coaster of the stock market last month after debt crisis in Europe, dead lock condition in the house on rising debt limits, slower economic growth and unexpected employement report.
Even this week, the market is still shows lots of sign on further downward dip with no great news on the jobs growth and expectation from President to come out with magic plan to solve the issue. While we hear lot of negative news and feel pessimistic about the future market condition, TRP chairman’s optimistic outlook with lots of evidence for slower future growth does give little bit of hope for investors to keep on moving in chartered path instead of trying to find short term profits. Here is the snapshot of his message,
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The economy continues to face a number of headwinds amid struggling consumers, a mediocre housing market, and profound fiscal challenges at the federal, state, and local levels.
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Although the current environment is not without risk, it is different than the massively overleveraged environment that existed in 2008. Banks have recapitalized, Wall Street and consumers have reduced their debt, the housing market has stabilized, and corporate balance sheets are lastly improved.
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As a result, we believe that a “growth recession,” characterized by low economic growth and persistent unemployment, is more likely than an outright return to negative growth, or a so-called double-dip recession.
Although investors are understandably concerned about the markets and the economy, we believe that current fundamentals do not warrant some of the extreme risk aversion, and we expect markets will return to normal conditions in the next 12 to 24 months. To read the full message, Click here. Why US Bonds are way to go?
With the above message on the back drop, Investors like you and me don’t have lot of options to put your money without shacky outlook for short term. Stocks, Funds and ETF’s depends on securities which are going to be bumpy ride for sometime. If you are long term investor, go ahead and continue your path on investing in securities and diversifying your portfolio regularly since market will come back eventually. But if you want to invest for short term to achieve your short term goals, only few options are available like High yield CD’s and I series Bonds and REIT’s.
Check out this article from one of my favorite financial writer and CFP, Kevin McKinley who talks about basics of financial planning to help out ordinary individual. In this article, he goes over why Bonds are good for anyone not just for Grandpa’s and Grandma’s. With the current uncertainity in the financial market, Bonds are still valid investment path with decent return and at sametime it helps to reduce or eliminate taxes. He also shares how EE saving bonds which are still available can be used as savings for kids education.
May be it was coincedence, I also came across a blog post from mymoneyblog.com which also talks about Bonds outperforming stock market in the last decade. See the below chart posted at savings-bond-advisor.com, it shows how I Series Bonds actually beat the Stock market over the last10 year period since 1999. I was surprised but it’s true fact. Even though Stock market performed well in certain periods, I-series bonds stayed the course to yield a steady return for the overall period.
In conclusion, taking the above things into perspective, investors should always plan and invest properly by diversfying in the right assets to stay positive and make few bucks more than the inflation so you can reach your long term goals. So just look out for opportunities to invest in value stocks and don’t forget to diversify in Bonds, REIT’s as well.
Stay Positive and Stay float to weather this rough economic conditions!!!
Betterment.com – Account Update
August 16th, 2011 Vijaianand I posted about Betterment.com investment service couple of weeks ago, compared their website with others and recommended to check it out. I also mentioned about their $25 bonus offering for account opened with $250 initial deposit.
I just want to post an update about my experience and performance of my portfolio so far since I opened my the account. I know it has just been couple of weeks and cannot expect so much growth but to my surprise, I saw a 1% growth for 10 days even with stock market rollergoaster ride. That’s the advantage of investing in ETF’s and index funds which are so diversified.
Anyway, let me share my experience as likes and Dislikes.
LIKES
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I got the $25 bonus amount same day I opened and initiated my $300 first deposit.
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As I said in my earlier post, their website interface is very easy to use, fast and really understandable even for non-financial saavy consumer which they are targeting. They really spent good amount of time and research to study and design the website.
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Fast money transfer with quick bank authentication and also provides easy way to setup automatic savings.
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Summary page delivers the overall picture of the portfolio as soon user logs in with amount invested and amount earned figures for the allocation model selected.
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Activity page gives the monthly activity like composition of various securities purchases. Below is the composition for securities for my initial deposit with allocation model set to 100% stocks.
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I used their advise tool to change my allocation and it was easy to use compared to TRoweprice and other investment companies tools I come across. As a guy who passed CFP exam, I have seen some complication diversification strategies but this one makes it easier for ordinary consumer. It allows to set you goals and name it as well to identify them accordingly.
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I like the quick and dirty performance charts with comparison options to keep us updated on the analysis section.
DISLIKES
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The important thing missing is better user security. In this day and age where identity theft is all over the place, any financial sites like this one should have more security to make users secured. They need to improve their user authentication process to follow the federally mandated security procedures to add more steps in user login. Most of the investment companies these days needs more than just username and password. I did notice they have session time out feature which alerts if the session is idle of for few minutes which is good.
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They limit setting only one goal for an account. May be they can take this to another level by allowing users to add different goals and set allocation to those accordingly and split their deposit to those goals monthly. That would be good one for people who multiple long term goals.
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It would be better to show the current portfolio allocation/diversification on the Allocation page instead of just giving them in activity page.
Over all, likes out weighs the dislikes and I should say I am really satisfied choosing to go with betterment.com as my another vehicle to save for retirement goal. I hope they keep their promise by diversifying the portfolio regularly by adding more ETF’s to keep returns coming to our portfolio. I am little skeptical about their long term survival but if I can guess the future with past knowledge, these smaller investment companies are good take over candidates by bigger fishes which sometimes spoils the party.
We just have to wait and watch…
Happy Investing!!