April 19th, 2009 by Korprit Zombie

No matter what your experience is, when you buy stocks the one thing you consider first is whether or not the company has a strong balance sheet. Ignoring this one important piece, could very well cost you a lot of money.

After thinking about the first crucial piece of information, make sure that the stock is priced low and ready to go higher. If you think buying undervalued stocks means learning about buying cheap penny stocks then you may end up losing money no matter what. Basically, knowing how to pick stocks correctly would be the same as buying stocks cheaply.

What does this all have to do with cheap stocks? Buying cheap stocks means purchasing them when they are trading below face value. Knowing how to find and buy these cheap stocks is how the gurus make all their money on the market.

What do you do to buy a stock when it is cheap? You must first find a sector that should be performing well or should be performing better. Very that the PE multiple of your stock is favorable when compared to it’s competitors PE multiple. If you have a favorable position and the stock should be at a higher price, you probably just found an under priced stock. Buying the stock should be considered if you think the price should be higher.

Can you then get away with not learning how to start trading mutual funds? Only a fool would think so. Denying yourself the option of learning other ways to invest would be extremely foolish. Don’t be a fool and learn how to invest in mutual funds as well. You might regret not taking the opportunity to learn it. Mutual funds should be a perfect way to grow your savings and retirement money consistently over several years. And who wants to be one of the broke and regretful fools?

Finance, Finance and Money Management, how to pick stocks, investing, money, mutual funds, retirement, stock market, stock market investing, trading mutual funds

March 25th, 2009 by Damian Papworth

The retirement industry in Australia is second to none in the world. It forces us to save money in a very comfortable way, a way that doesn’t impact our disposable income, so we all have a big pool of money to live off in retirement.

One of the things I always despise about our retirement industry though, is the way superannuation funds take control of the investment decisions away from me. It is my money, yet I cannot make any investment decisions. The situation has improved over the years, but it is still not good enough. For this reason I set up my own Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF).

Without making this article too complex, all an SMSF is, is a structure which enables you to manage your own superannuation money. There are a number of responsibilities which come with running your own super fund, you can manage these yourself or outsource them as you see fit. Most of these responsibilities follow:

1. Your Trustee Responsibilities. Someone needs to legally own the assets of the fund. This is the trustee. The trustee is also responsible for the running of the fund, so if anything goes wrong, it is the trustee who is legally liable.

Secondly, there is the administration and accounting responsibilities. This is a time intensive role, keeping the books up to date and preparing the annual accounts, lodging tax returns and preparing reports for members.

c) Audit. Each year your superannuation fund should be audited to ensure it complies with the superannuation regulations. A successful audit will ensure you maintain your “complying” superannuation fund status and can continue to enjoy superannuation tax concessions.

4. Investments – The investment manager makes all the investment decisions, buying and selling investments to ensure the long term financial success of the fund, for the benefit of its beneficiaries. The investment manager must ensure that the investments made, comply with the superannuation laws, regulations and guidelines of the day. Failure to do so could result in a bad audit and the loss of taxation concessions.

In my situation, all I wanted was control over the investments. I wanted to manage where my money was invested and how much was invested. That way I always knew how much I had in my accounts (as opposed to waiting for the big surprise when my annual statement arrived) and I could feel comfortable knowing that my returns were well earned. They were my responsibility, so in the bad years when my investments fell, at least I wouldn’t get frustrated that I had no control. It also afforded me the luxury of managing my superannuation investment as part of my estate rather than as a separate entity. This meant my entire portfolio was significantly more balanced, which is crucial for long term financial success.

All other responsibilities I outsourced. To me, they were time consuming tasks which were better undertaken by experts in the relative fields. This left me with more time to research and make investment decisions.

Business, business;finance, family, Finance, investing, investment, Investments, mutual funds, pensions, personal finance, retirement, retirement savings, Savings, superannuation