stocks

Tuesday’s Drop: Is it just China’s bubble? Or is it America’s too?

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It’s been three days since Tuesday’s large point drop, and the markets haven’t really recovered yet. Should we be concerned?
Chart from Yahoo! With Thanks.

This is just a personal opinion: but I’m not concerned at all. Why?

  1. The markets have risen steadily for months without a correction. In fact, many people believe that a correction was coming anyway.
  2. I’m not speculating in stocks at the moment. I do have some positions, but I have sold out my Tech stocks (taking a loss in the process).
  3. I don’t use money that I need or (I hope) will ever need.
  4. I wasn’t totally invested. In fact, up until this month I was sitting 25% in cash. Right now, I’m still about 11% in cash.
  5. I’m investing for income at the moment anyway. The stocks I have produced a fair dividend, albeit with some risk.
  6. With cash waiting, a correction like this could open opportunities to buy good stocks at attractive prices.

I don’t usually blog about the stock markets at the moment, since I don’t really have much expertise in them. But my hand was forced when I read John Mauldin’s latest newsletter Global Market Brief: China’s Engineered Drop written by George Friedman.

In the letter, he notes some scary statistics about the balloon that was developing China’s stock markets:

In January, the number of total traders on the Chinese exchanges grew by 1.38 million, an increase of 134 percent from a month earlier, while stock turnover was up 700 percent from a year earlier.

Given the penchant for Chinese to gamble anyway (and Taiwanese, I may add), whenever the stock market or property prices start to rise, or the lottery jackpots get bigger, we will see this phenomenon. Friedman notes that this is the first time that Chinese stock markets have had a major effect on Global Stockmarkets. One thing I’m sure about, this is not the last time!

I’d certainly welcome more informed comment from my readers…

Stockwire.com: A myspace for investors – or just plain ol’good?

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I recently registered for a Microcap website called stockwire.com with the long appellate The MySpace for the Penny Stock investor! So it’s kind of a mouthful! Registration was a real bliss. At first I thought there was going to be an annoying video ad, but the ad/commentary/registration was wonderfully simple and effective. Stockwire.com is a Penny Stock website that is primarily focused on the Micro Cap and Small Cap investor. The forums are small but effective. I love the simple video tutorials, stock profiles, and blog sections. I don’t generally recommend buying over the counter stocks like these because volatility and fluidity are generally issues in penny stocks. In other words you can get seriously burned by lack of information. With any luck, Stockwire.com could help to bridge the information gap with accurate reporting, and discussion in its pages. Naturally, all investors should do their own Due Diligence before purchasing any stock found on this or any other information source!

Sponsored by Stockwire.com.

Salary Slaves: Are you one?

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1

Well, to explain: I don’t want to work for money per hour, I think loretta said “wage slave. Right now, I part own my own business, but I’m too busy working at it as a teacher, that I don’t have time to create more opportunities. This is not what I had in mind as a business.

Also, I had to pass up some opportunities because I didn’t have the time or money to invest in expanding my own opportunities. So then I began to think of how to raise capital without working at a job, ie. having remuneration based on how many hours you work or a boss’ (unfortunately, some of the posters fell into the bear trap and tried to answer by saying getting a job or working more not my point, guys! but then I should have had more context.)
Do you want to have it to invest in something else œreal estate, stocks, mutual funds?

Yes, I do. I want to invest in expanding my business. Developing new business(es), perhaps real estate, too. I just don’t see much future for the stock market right now. I’d only invest there as a place of last resort, i.e. can’t find better chances.

>>>As mentioned in other posts, it would certainly be possible to save a million NT$ by living frugally over the course of a few years. If you have two incomes and no kids then this could probably be done in a year.

I agree that can be done, but sorry not my point, but thanks.

I like some of the other ideas, posted as well. Keep at it.

Kenneth