Help me to Retire

I found a handy little article on the myths of leasing a car.

If you are currently looking at getting your self some new wheels, it may well pay off for you to lease the vehicle rather than buy it. Leasing can be good for you if you are on the road lots and only like to keep your cars for a few years. And of course, if you are running your own business there can be some great tax advantages.

Check out the article and perhaps speak to your local finance person to get all the details on what will work out best for you financially.

As the panicky markets around the world have sold off over the last few days / weeks several analysts are looking for a short term bounce in the markets. This can be a great opportunity to make some money on some stocks that have just been sold down because everything is getting sold.
Today will be a telling day as Tolly from Alert Trader using his methods predicted yesterday (22nd Jan 08) as an Intermediate low for the Australian Market. He also believes the mining sector has just about finished its run down for the moment almost testing its support level. Tolly says that “More aggressive traders out there might be very much inclined to put the toe in the water (so to speak), preferably (obviously) with 1 or 2 better quality mining stocks.”

To back this up Paul Nojin from Invest4Profit sent out a message today saying that  “bargains have begun to appear”  and “I have NOT made a new stock recommendation since the 3rd quarter of last year, but I will be in the next fortnight, or sooner. It will depend on how far it falls. I’m particularly focused on stocks in the commodities sector.”
He then goes on to talk about BHP. “First and foremost I want to have BHP back on my list of buys. I expect I will be notifying clients in the next 24 hours when to buy. BHP is going to fall further yet… but the bottom is within sight.
It will not go below $29″.

So there you have a couple of pros view on the current situation and maybe a stock to follow up on.
Please remember that the above is for educational purposes only and not professional advice. You should seek professional advice before making any trading decisions.

The markets may recover for a while but I still believe longer term that more downside is likely, so pick your stocks well and good luck with your trading / investing.

While we are on the topic of the Apple company, I found an interesting site called Keynote Index Fund.
The site goes through the history of the Apple Keynote presentations from the MacWorld events for the last 10 years.
The sites table shows the year, the products launched at that event and the corresponding change in stock price.

Overall it looks as if you would have been up overall if you did some trading either side of these events over the years, especially the last couple of years. There is an event coming up next week, so if your into short term trading and you like the sound of the rumoured product releases, give it a crack. Don’t bet your life savings on it though as it’s pretty much gambling.

The best way to take advantage of the Apple stock would have course been to buy some stock in 1997 and held it to today! Hindsight.

Check it out