| |
| |
|
|
Investing Information |
|
Buy: Hold: Sell: Jump
I'm sitting here at my computer desk with a cup of coffee at my elbow. The coffee rest in a mug, the mug garnished with the words Buy, Hold, Sell, Jump, vertically along its sides. Emblazoned across the top of the cup are the words, Wall Street, which encircles the upper portions of the mug. The handle of the mug is quite ornate, rounded at the bottom, with a cradle in the handle's top. In the cradle is a die, with a small metal pin through the die, which enables my thumb too spin the die. Instead of numbers, as in a pair of dice, the die's choices are Yes, No, and ? And, lo and behold, an article is born. When do you buy, sell, hold or jump? (A better question still, what do you buy, when do you sell, how long should you hold, and why would you jump?) This article will tackle the word Jump (to find the answer to those other questions, they've been answered in some of my other articles). Would Jump mean off a building? Or Jump to another stock market security? The word Jump reminded me of one of my other articles where I stated 'just because thousands of people on wall street make their living doing 'technical analysis' doesn't mean you have to jump off a building, too'. Just today, reported by CNBC, a hedge fund has gone bankrupt. Seems the manager of the fund has skipped the country, along with all of the money. It's been reported tens of millions of investor's dollars are gone (as well as the manager). The Wall Street Journal just had a report stating that retirement plans are facing a new threat: Theft. Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal (March 2, 2005): New York Retirement Plans are facing a growing threat: Theft "Susana Longo, the compliance officer at Applied Financial Group, an investment-advisory firm in Atlanta, was indicted in January on federal charges of stealing $5.4 million in retirement savings from 220 workers at a car dealer, two medical practices and an audio-visual specialist. She acknowledged spending the money on two beach houses, a diamond ring, a 1,600-bottle wine collection and a Porsche 911, according to a lawsuit filed by the advisory firm." (The article also stated this went on for four years.) The article also goes on to state there are important lessons to be learned through this Atlanta case and they were stated in these excerpts from the same article in the Wall Street Journal: * Roll your money into an individual retirement account when you retire (my comments on this later). Eight retirees who left their assets in one of the four affected plans were receiving monthly checks from their accounts until the plan was frozen last spring amid the investigation, said William Whitmire, the company's director and the Plan's trustee. "Some of them are really desperate, but there's nothing that can be done until the insurers come to agreement,' he said. * Make sure you are getting all your statements, and force yourself to reconcile them. The amount deducted from your paycheck should match the amount deposited into your 401(k) account. * The trustees of the four Atlanta-area plans were supposed to get regular statements from both the retirement-plan administrator and the custodian of the plans' assets. The trustees of the two hardest-hit plans didn't get their custodial statements regularly, because they were sent to other addresses. When trustees did get custodial statements, they didn't review them. *Don't assume that you will receive a heads-up from your employer or plan custodian. As the alleged fraud in Atlanta began to unravel, federal agents showed up at Whitmore's office with a stack of about 75 forged checks made out to people 'he never heard of," he said. He claims that the plan's custodian didn't call to make sure the checks were authentic. As I was reading this article I couldn't help thinking about the old adage 'No one cares as much about your money as you do.' And here's the crux of this whole article: You do not have to wait until you retire before moving monies from your 401(k) Plan into an individual IRA. There was and is a law which was passed in 2002 which allows you to transfer any after-taxed dollars and company-matched dollars out of your 401(k) plan into an IRA (with no fees or penalties, and no matter what your age). I have been doing this while still employed with my company. I have built my own mutual fund, using monies that have been transferred from my 401(k) into an individual IRA. If you get nothing else out of this article, let it be that you will contact the firm your 401(k) monies are with, and find out your available options. To read the Preface from the book 'The Stockopoly Plan- Investing for Retirement' visit: http://www.thestockopolyplan.com Charles M. O'Melia is an individual investor with almost 40 years of experience and passion for the stock market. The author of the book 'The Stockopoly Plan'; published by American-Book Publishing. The book can be purchased at http://www.pdbookstore.com/comfiles/pages/CharlesMOMelia.shtml
MORE RESOURCES:
Investing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Selecting Rules for Investing and Trading There are three important differences between investing and trading. Overlooking them can lead to confusion. Understanding The Real Rate of Return! There is one indicator more than any other which determines the health of an economy and it is the Real Rate of Return. Furthermore this is the simplest of all indicators to understand because it determines the safety of assets. Investing in New Zealand - Learn how to Find Unique Investment Opportunities Investing in New Zealand might be much easier than investing in other western countries, thank to the excellent infrastructure, the low taxes and the assistance of the supportive NZ government.Technological Face of New ZealandNew Zealand has a unique reputation within the global market place. The Myth of the Earnings Yield AbstractA very slim minority of firms distribute dividends. This truism has revolutionary implications. Chinas Inscrutable Currency Strategy Purpose: Expose Opportunities for Smart InvestorsThe move by China's central bank to drop the yuan's rigid peg to the dollar on the day of my return after a three-week trip to Asia left a host of questions unanswered. The basket of currencies that will allegedly determine the value of the yuan going forward was not disclosed. Preholiday Trading The Light Crude Continuous Contract closed at $66.13 a barrel Friday, after hitting an all-time high at $67. Poll Names Coin Laundries Best Investment For 2005 According to Morton Pollack, CEO of PWS, The Laundry Company and editor of the newsletter, "Historically, laundry owners have been a quiet group. Knowing they are onto a good thing, they've been pretty reticent. Economic Survival in the 21st Century - the Three Key Questions to Ask In this "special report", I want to pose a few important "philosophical questions" to my readers. Firstly -- our Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, addressed the effects and implications of our aging population on things such as Social Security again in a speech that he made last Friday. Consolidation Period The economic data reported Fri showed continued above trend growth with disinflation (at the core level, excluding food and energy) in the second quarter. Real output growth has slowed from about 4% in 2003 & 2004 to just over 3 1/2% so far this year, while a core inflation rate fell from 3% last quarter to 2%. What If You Absolutely Positively Could Not Lose - Would You Play the Stock Market? Seniors on fixed incomes face a unique problem. Where do they invest their savings to get maximum return on investment with limited risk? Some of the traditional places like CDs and Treasury Notes are extremely safe, however the yields tend to be very low. 25 Ways to Find Companies to Buy When you start your program to purchase your "ideal" company, you quickly realize that your ultimate success will depend on two primary skill sets: 1) Your ability to FIND viable companies that are for sale, and 2) Your ability to effectively qualify the potential acquisition investment once found.This article is about only step one, how to creatively find viable companies and one's that are able to be purchased. Exchange Traded Funds They call 'em ETFs.There are hundreds of them. Realistic Investing Expectations Over the long term stocks have provided us with great average return results. But this average return masks a great deal of volatility, because returns have fluctuated within a very wide band. An Investment Real Estate Strategy Unknown To Most Is A Negative Amortization Loan If you want to make the most of your personal or investment real estate, you should consider a negative amortization loan. Mortgage amortization is basically mortgage balance reduction. Tyranosaurus Rex Everyone knows T Rex was the most fearsome of all dinosaurs. He could and did kill everything in his path for food or maybe stupid meanness. Diversify! The best way to avoid being hit hard by a stock market crash or another Enron/Worldcom fiasco is to make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Diversification helps ensure steady growth of your net worth as you accumulate more assets. Investing and Asset Allocation Sometimes you spend sleepless nights worrying about which stocks to buy and which to sell, which funds to own and which to dump and whether to get into bonds.All of these are legitimate concerns, but the greatest determinant of your success as an investor will not be your sagacity in selecting specific stocks, bonds or funds for your portfolio. Property Investment Just Got Exciting There is an area in Brazil that has lower crime & lower property prices than where your are probably sitting right now!Demand from the increasing retirement population and from those who have benefited from their own property markets are now pushing overseas property prices up. Brazilian property prices are still very low and offer the overseas property buyer quality real estate in stunning locations. Success Trading: Some Basic Terminology for New Traders The world of trading can get very complex because the financial markets are complex. There thousands and thousands of successful traders out there today. Options Education : Opinion versus Fact! The most basic aspect of trading is learning to differentiate between what is FACTUAL and what is OPINION. If you stay interested in the financial markets long enough you will discover that there are a lot of sharks out there who have become expert at making that task very difficult.
|
|||||||||||||||||
