When I talk to my son about investments these days, his reaction is quite fuming. Why? Because he lost most of his savings by selling all his stocks at lower price in fear of losing more money. My talks on ‘Buy and Hold’ policy always irritated him and he thought it’s a conservative method which helped in gaining nothing but a false assurance that you money is still intact. He is now gradually accepting this conservative method. So what if he had to learn it the hard way? It’s the lesson that matters. If you ask me to define ‘Buy and Hold’ in few words, it is the safest type of investment I have used to protect my funds since last 40 years. No, I am 58. I started investing when I was 18.   [...] 

When choices are many making a selection is a difficult matter. There are so many funding options that you could think of for investing in these days. You could think of investing in a mutual fund or an exchange traded fund or any other that comes up. There are about 9,600 choices today available for funding from which you could choose. You could consider opting for a funding company of which there are the independent and the non-independent types. These funding companies are associated with banks, financial agencies and brokerages. The choice is so confusing that many people buy funds from mutual fund advisors rather than directly from mutual fund companies. The brokers either charge a specific fee or take a percentage as commission on the money invested. These fees may or may not be obvious.  [...] 

Gold investments always seem to be on the high regardless of the economic condition. Of course, the recent recession did have a slight adverse impact on the investment rates in the last few months but now, again there seems to be an increase in the rates of gold investment again. If you ask SPDR gold trust, according to Herald Tribune, you’ll find that this trust has seen an inflow of $9.5 billion in investments from the beginning of this year to the month of September. The plummeting economy might have seen the investments a bit low in the present but on the whole its investment is on the rise. According to a Gold News report, Natalie Dempster, head North American investment, “A recovering global economy coupled with most major central banks keeping benchmark rates at record low levels  [...] 

If you are planning to invest major chunk of your funds in real estate, it’s time for you to hire a financial consultant. Real estate, which was once considered a safe investment, is not topping the priority list among investors in US since 2007. The world saw a tremendous business potential in the mortgage market in early 2000’s. The ever increasing pool of new homeowners and rising real estate price attracted numerous consumers to invest even more. This led the residential mortgage market to reach a tremendous size nearing $10 trillion by late 2007. However, since 2007 the same market has witnessed the biggest fall ever in US. Since US has attached itself to most of the financial markets in the world, the dilemma is now global. The UK’s Independent has predicted that the “UK mortgage  [...] 

No human is perfect and we do make mistakes when deciding upon what to buy and what not to buy; and that might cost you a fortune, especially when the times are so very financially tough. Here are some examples of such blundered investments that you could well avoid making. Buying Fancy Vehicles Many of us go crazy over new vehicles. College students are especially very prone to the temptation of owning the best car or bike in town. I’ve come across many of my college mates being obsessed with the idea of possessing the latest limousine or bike in town. One of my friends did buy a dandy car a couple of years ago. In a hurry to own the vehicle, she bought it at an auction for quite a bit. But the honeymoon with the car lasted for only a short time. After a year, one by one, the parts started  [...] 

The recession has taught all of us some lessons in investing that we cannot forget. Some of us had seen success while most were not all that successful. In either case we have emerged wiser about what investments we should make. You might know for yourself what works but sharing your thoughts with a similar interest group is going to help you in understanding what went right or wrong better so that you are better geared for the coming days when you’ll be facing new opportunities and have to make the most profitable investment. By the way, did you think that the US Treasury bonds were the best investments? You’re wrong my friend !If you’ve thought that running from the failing US stock markets to the succeeding Chinese markets was a smart move, let me tell you, that you aren’t all that  [...] 

Buying a property or a house is a dream for many! When I was in school I dreamt of buying a palatial house with 14 large rooms and a luxury swimming pool flanked by a lush lawn. Looks too much given the current economic scenario, right? Yes, to most of us it does. Even on buying an ordinary house, a modest two bed-roomed apartment in a reasonably posh locality seems to be a distant dream, leave alone the kind of house I was talking about! Even purchasing a small property seems to be leaving us bankrupt these days. So let’s see what we should do to buy a property as well as avoid the pinch. “Invest For Money, Not For Living” You know what many prudent property buyers are doing these days? They are buying property out of business interest. They don’t want to live in the homes or properties  [...] 

Oh God, let this earth stay green! This seems to be the strong appeal of not only environmentalists but also scientists who can foresee doom in the near future if measures are not taken to rectify it. Depletion of the ozone layer, ice glaciers melting and animal species disappearing are not events of the distinct future. They are happening now and their devastating effects are colossal. As you can see there are vast temperature changes, drought-like conditions and epidemic prevailing in the world today because of the changing climatic conditions and ecosystem imbalance. Green Technology has been conceptualized and brought into existence to counter the detrimental effects of environmentally harmful agents and activities; and conserve the environment. Popularly known as the green tech revolution,  [...] 

These days, I find the newspapers highly infested with classifieds on profitable business opportunities with consumer food products. Mushroom and fish trading are flourishing business opportunities, along with a lot of other items like soybean, palm oil, sugar 11, rubber etc. These days, when recession is the single most dominating phase of the current economy, you cannot probably thinking of making investments in the conventionally high investment options like diamonds, gold, silver, or crude oil. A wiser option would be to trade with products of everyday usage. Just weigh the advantages for yourself. They don’t require high investments and the demand for these products is very high, rather more than the supply. Products like soybean, cocoa, wood etc. which were not very popular a few years  [...] 

“It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.” –William Graham Sumner Taking the present socio-economic conditions in purview, I agree with the above wise words of William Graham Sumner. Come any adversity, the middle class is the most affected. In the present sluggish economy, the middle class seems to be an endangered species heading towards fast extinction, as many experts predict. A member of the American upper middle class, a good job, steady income flow, a good apartment, a budget holiday, and health insurance were my much achieved perks. I would sleep peacefully at night resting my head on the pillow of security. But now, I’m rudely awakened as the present phase  [...]