Category: Investment

Gold is a unique asset that combines steady returns with high liquidity value as we Indians are very emotional people it gives us a great emotional satisfaction. Indians love gold and more than 18000 tones gold is laying stagnant in Indian homes, as it is also the best way to flaunt your wealth. The gold also has a  great  strong  religious link which will be on full display on Akshaya Trithya, the auspicious day that is supposed to bring good fortune and prosperity. A major chunk of gold owned by the Indians is in the physical form but paper gold is also fast becoming popular and 35 % of the gold demand is for this more convenient, cost effective and tax saving alternative. The advantages of paper gold, known as gold ETF units are mentioned below: It offers fast liquidity and can be bought and sold easily just by click of mouse or by your stock broker. The price of paper gold  [...]

The data collected by a 20 years long survey of Thomson Financial suggests that early stage of private equity investments has in long-term surpassed every other investment class with an average annual return of more than 20.6 percent. The individual investors are recognized as the biggest sources of startup and seed capital. In the year 2007, individual investors infused an amount of 25.6 billion US dollars in private corporations, which is almost equal to the sum of 26 billion US dollars invested by the venture capital fund. The venture capitalists put their investments only in 4,000 business of the United States, whereas the individual investors made investment in over 51,000 US companies. The most believable statistics suggest that, during the financial year 2007, US had around 234,000 individuals investing actively in private companies and around 49,500 private businesses obtained funds  [...]

Investing in India, which is economically not a celebrated country, may sound a poor decision. But a close look at the Indian capital market will reveal abundant investment options for both Indian residents and NRIs. It is wrong to imagine that the country has closed all its avenues for investment. Such statements come from people with less knowledge about Indian capital market. A bird’s eye view over the investment options in India will surely make an investor sprang up as he will be amazed to see how much money is scattered all over. Insurance policies Investing in insurance policies is one among the many investment options that also comes with indemnification service for your life, or any other asset. Investments options in insurance market of India are plenty and the premiums associated are reasonably priced. Home insurance, car insurance and life insurance policies form the best  [...]

Using a put option always works well when the market is choppy and volatile. In order to take advantage of any volatility that might occur, you can use a put option or a call option to increase your earnings from the investments you have made and you can also decrease your investment losses. The person that owns the right to use a put option has the right to sell stocks once a certain price is hit, while those that would sell a put option must buy at a certain, pre-determined price. If you own a call option, you can buy at a certain price while if you sell call options you must sell once a certain price is hit. Commonly, a put option is used for the owner of a stock as a failsafe mechanism. It allows him to build some insurance in place if the stock price were to plummet. Think of it as a safety net. Let’s illustrate this point with an example. Let’s take a fictional company called  [...]

For centuries now, gold has been a symbol of prestige, power and wealth. Ancient civilizations created gold jewelry as a form of ornamentation (as do we today) and even early forms of money were created from gold. Through millennia, our love for gold and precious metals remains as strong as ever and precious metals investing is as robust now as it has ever been. It has been attracting a lot of attention and rightly so. Precious metals will almost always retain their value irrespective of the economic climate that is prevailing. Some might go so far as to suggest that precious metals are the best investment you would ever make. But that is not true. But in these times of economic volatility, it is certainly a great investment to make. Gold is as popular as ever and it attracts major investment as always, but it should not be the sole focus of precious metals investing. There are other  [...]

If by chance you are in possession of US Savings Bonds, you can easily find out such things as how much your bonds are worth or how much interest you are earning by using bond calculators that are available online. It’s easy and quick to use, and it’s all available at www.treasurydirect.gov. This one website lists the value of each bond and I have bought several bonds via payroll deductions, and I know how much of a pain it is to keep track of these bonds. But using the mighty power of the internet, I can find out its worth without so much as visiting a bank. I highly recommend becoming fast friends with bond calculators if you are to make the most of your savings bonds. Allow me to walk you through the process of using the calculator itself. Once your web browser loads up the Treasury website, go to the option for individual investors and then look for the savings bond calculator  [...]

If you’ve never been to Thailand, let me tell you that they hawk their fauk Gucci bags and Rolex watches quite aggressively down in the land of smiles. But even their bullishness and aggressive nature cannot match the aggression with which some peddle a variable annuity. New York City can be a real jungle in that sense, and perhaps part of the reason for this hard sell is that there are commissions of 5% or more that are given to sellers, and so sales of this instrument have risen exponentially in the last decade. But this is not high school, and winning the popularity stakes is not everything. The fact is taking a variable annuity might not be for you. Good old mutual funds are still where it’s at for most of us. So just what is a variable annuity? It’s a tax deferred investment that comes hooked to an insurance contract, and all of this will shield you from any loss in capital.  [...]

There are those that say bond funds might be the next bubble to burst given how much money they have attracted in the last few years. To be honest, I can’t really argue much with that. Interest rates have tailed off and I’m sure it doesn’t make sense to invest money in bond funds any more. So, just in case the bubble does burst, what’s the best investment strategy for bond funds? No matter how secure your investments seem, if you don’t have a proper contingency in place to deal with problems that arise, you might feel as if the carpet has been pulled out from under your feet. If you’re just the average investor, you need to be prepared for all such eventualities. After the financial markets melted down, everyone stayed away from the stock markets and that is what saw the flight of capital to bonds instead. And so if bonds do fall apart at the seams this year, the best strategy  [...]

Just how does the stock market work? What are stocks in the first place? These are the kind of questions that will be asked by newbies when trying to find out more about stock markets. The fact that books such as ‘Stock market for Dummies’ exists proves that the writers of that series of books knew that there was a lacuna to be filled. So let’s try and address the simple concepts as easily and clearly as we can. What is a stock? A stork brings babies to your house. Stocks give you dividends normally and represent ownership of the company. See, they would never put it that way in ‘Stock market for Dummies’ and I’m sure you’ll remember that example forever now. As an owner of a company’s stocks, you will be known as a shareholder or a stockholder. You get a stock certificate and a small trophy for owning stocks. Okay, I made up the part about the trophy, but you do get a certificate.  [...]