Retirement Investing
You must have thought a number of times about how your dream retirement is going to be like, but have you really thought about how are you going to make your retirement investment? If not, then it’s time for you get started and do all the calculations. This is because, if you want your retirement dream to come true, this wakeup call should get you on your feet to get real and act wise. After all, even when you employ an expert to handle your finances, you cannot simply follow someone else blindly for your future livelihood. It is equally important to acquire the knowledge and understand what differentiates a quality advice from a quality sales pitch.
Here are a few good steps to help you get started:
1. Educate yourself
You can start your retirement investment education by reading various book reviews and taking online or live investment classes.
This way you learn about what options are on the platter and how many possible ways you can go about them. But beware of the free lunch or free dinner seminars which usually try to sell you their investment plans or products in the name of education.
2. Professional Assistance
When the best of the athletes can have coaches why can’t you have professional guidance for your retirement investment planning? Seek professional assistance and not a sales person and you will be able to make the best out of the good financial advice that you get. This will also help you to keep yourself out of legal troubles which you can get into unknowingly.
3. Retirement Investment Plan
You must have read or heard this famous saying somewhere – “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”.
This is true for your investment planning too. Laying out a proper retirement investment plan and sticking to it is one of the biggest mantras of the retirement process. The way to go about it is to first make your overall retirement plan and then sit down to chalk out your investment plan. One thing to remember is to keep things simple and abide by the time frame.
For more info on Retirement Investing visit : Retirement Planning
Investment Risk
The investment is an activity that can generate many currencies if done the right way. Any type of investment will always have the risk so it is very important to advice and train before investing in any security.
When a person makes the decision to invest, which is must take into account all possible risks that the investment can bring. Depending on the size and type of investment and its risks are. In this section we briefly three types of investment:
Low Risk Investment
Moderate Risk Investment
High Risk Investment
Low-risk investments are those with very low probability that can be lost. Among the most common investment of this type are investing money in the bank through mutual funds and certificates of deposit. Those who invest in this type of security can be assured that your investment is very safe and cared for. Moreover, this type of investment does not really generate a lot of dividends as you are not risking much.
Moderate-risk investment more likely to present risks but still the risk involved is not very high. Such investment will generate profits much higher than low-risk investments but for the amount involved is much higher. Among the types of moderate-risk investments are cash investment, investment in bonds and real estate investment.
High-risk investments not only involve a contribution of much higher initial capital but also the risks of losing everything is much more evident. This type of far more unstable and volatile, which in many cases can not predict exactly what will happen as these investments are tied to many variables that are completely beyond the control of the inverter.
Investing is an activity to generate money very effective provided it is done with the advice and knowledge to minimize risk
Chowdhury Shahid-uz-zaman
Investment Guidelines
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Quality Investing
There are various kinds of investment strategies followed by different investors. Each strategy is underlined by the same principle of earning returns on the stocks invested in. One such strategy is quality investing. Here, only those securities the show above-average quality characteristics are chosen for investment. Although the basic principle of quality investment originates from the real estate world, it applies very well to the stock market too. In share trading, fundamentals analysis and active stock picking are used as strategies to identify quality stocks. Quality investors only chose those securities that are “attractively valued.”
Quality investment is quite independent and different from other types of investment strategies such as growth investing and value investing. In growth investing, investors choose stocks of those companies that show the signs of having an above-average growth.
These stocks are characterized by high price-to-earning (P/E) or price-to-book ratios. However, only these high growth factors will not attract a quality investor. A stock’s high earnings growth should also be characterized by good fundamentals of the company invested in for its price to be justified by a quality investor.
In value investing, an investor picks a stock that is believed to be trading at less than its intrinsic value or is undervalued. The stocks ideal for value investing are characterized by low P/E ratio, low price-to-sales ratio, low price to cash flow, low price-to-book ratio, and high dividend yield. In contrast, a quality investor will never buy a company’s stock just because it is undervalued. Such an investor looks for stocks that are of an excellent company and is also attractively valued.
Benjamin Graham, who is also known as the “father” of value investing, recognized the value of quality stocks.
He observed that losses resulting from stock market trading were not more due to buying quality at an excessively high price, but more from buying low-quality stocks at a price that seems good value. Hence, the importance of quality investment was recognized. Quality Investing gained prominence after the stock market “bubble burst” of 2001 characterized by bankruptcy, balance sheet manipulation, and other financial frauds. This cautioned the investors to go for targeted selection of quality stocks.
There are several criteria that can help an investor to select quality stocks:
Financial condition of a company:
Financial condition can be gauged by examining a company’s balance sheet, earnings, cash flow, free cash flow, debt, income stream, etc. The more income a company can generate with its core business, the better is its quality. Also, when reviewed in comparison with other peers in the same sector, the quality of the stocks can be well judged.
Top management:
A company is believed to be as good as the quality of the people who run the company. Low turnover rates, stability in the management system, and more can speak volumes about the quality of the stocks of a particular company.
Price potential of the stock:
In quality investing, quality and attractive valuation are linked. Quality helps to prevent share price losses in bearish market conditions and attractive valuation ensures that the stocks outperform the market. Factors such as discounted cash flow, price/earning ratio, and price/book ratio in caparison to the market averages gives the investor a measure of the stock’s quality.
Business model:
A company’s business model is also a good indicator of the quality of its stocks. Factors such as competitive advantage, diversification, and business trends give an estimate of the business model’s earnings potential.
Market environment:
The potential size of the market and the company’s position within it gives a correct evaluation of the quality of a stock.
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Investing Offshore
Offshore investing sometimes connotes shady deals where people put their money outside of the country to keep it out of the government. This notion, however, is far from the truth. Yes, there may be some cases about this but most of these investments are actual legal and honest-to-goodness transactions.
Gone are the days when “savings” mean keeping your money under the mattress. In today’s complex and highly developed financial world, there are plenty of choices as to where you can place your money. The main question then becomes, “What’s the best place to put my money, where it can be safe but still provide reasonably attractive returns?” One popular option would be offshore investments. This, in a nutshell, means putting your money in a jurisdiction of a country other than where you live. Hence, the name, “offshore”, as opposed to “onshore” investments – where you invest money in the country of your residence.
Here are some of the reasons why offshore investments are attractive to those who have money to invest:
Tax breaks and tax shields Some countries encourage the entry of foreign investments by being tax havens.
These aim to draw in investors in order to stimulate their country’s economic activity. Of course, the savings incurred by these tax breaks (some countries even give tax-exempt status) is highly attractive when compared to taxes levied on inshore investments.
Asset protection Worried about lawsuits and foreclosures due to outstanding debts? Some, in a bid to protect their assets turn to offshore investment funds so that they are no longer vulnerable to these risks. They do this by putting up foundations, trusts or corporations so that their funds and properties can be transferred to other legal entities.
Fewer financial regulations There are some regulations that restrict the diversification of your investments. So investing outside of the country provides you with more options.
Confidentiality Not only are the assets protected from seizure. Offshore, there are stringent laws preventing the disclosure of key information. So an investor’s identity, their shareholdings in a company and investment details are kept confidential. Please take note though that in cases where there is a clear case of money laundering, drug trafficking or anything illegal, the law also allows investment groups to disclose client information.
However, you should also be aware that offshore investing has its disadvantages. The IRS and other government agencies are actually looking closely as to how they can get rid of the tax loopholes. Also, setting up an account could be quite expensive. You will need to set up a corporation, which means fees for corporate registration, legal requirements and so on. Also, you will need a lot of money (from $ 100,000 to $ 1 million as the minimum).
It is up to you to weigh the benefits and risks of participating in an offshore investment account. Do extensive research before you let go of your money.
This is an article written by Cristi Enache. If interested, here you can read more about offshore investing