Help me to Retire

Just letting anyone out there know that http://www.guardianwealthcreation.com/ is a scam.  They are claiming to be a certain company but they are not.  They will steal your money. Don’t get caught out as they are good at what they do. Their address for instance is a virtual office space and the text on their website is copied from random trading sites.

Take care.

For a limited time you can read Robert Kiyosaki’s (author of the RIch Dad, Poor Dad Series) latest book for free online.

Here’s a bit about what you can expect from the book from their website:

“Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money will share Kiyosaki’s view of global economics and explore why people are now finding themselves challenged by these turbulent times. Kiyosaki will not only provide people with solutions to their financial problems, but explain what created today’s economic chaos — and how it can be eased. Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money will reveal that what appears to be the worst of times is actually an opportunity in the making, and a chance for people to invest in their financial education.”

Read it here – only available for another 2 weeks online and then you’ll have to buy the book when it comes out.

Well what has been going on since March…

The market has taken off recovering around 20% but is this an ongoing recovery and new bull market or is it just a bear market rally?
Well I’d love to give you a definitive answer to that question but as you know there are no certainties in the financial markets.
The rules regarding confirmation of a new uptrend require an advance followed by some consolidation followed by another advance creating a higher low and new high. There is a good possibility we are in this consolidation phase now as long as we get that higher low and then the market once again goes higher creating a higher high. Of course the other possibility is that we are in a bear market rally and we are heading for a new low or some sideways action. This is also very possible with plenty of bad news still around and consumer confidence at all time lows. Most companies won’t be breaking any profit records for a while. The trick will be finding those few companies that are doing well!

Remember, the stock market always recovers well before the real world does so keep a close eye out. The bottom may have occurred already or may be just around the corner.

Time will tell where we are at, good luck with your investing.

Well what a few months it has been, it’s like the last few years of the stock market’s bull run never happened.

So how did we get here? Well heres a quick visual run down.

Hopefully most of you haven’t been hit too badly if you have been trading for yourselves, but if your anything like me your Super (401k) has taken a beating in the last year. In fact the only person I know who’s super has gone up in the last year is my father in-laws, who I advised that the market was peaking last year so he smartly moved it into cash. He reminds me of it every time I see him…  If only I followed my own advice! Unfortunetaly for him as cash rates are coming down so fast at the moment, soon that won’t be offering much either.

So what do we do?

I’ve personally been getting educated the last few months, and comparing this financial crisis to the only thing that even comes close and that is bear markets and crashes of the past.
The main thing that has stuck with me from anything I’ve read or learned in the last few months about similar times like these is that after every crash or bear market money flows into property with a lag in time.  The lag is the only thing that worries me at this time as it may be longer than in the past due to strict financial conditions.
Here in Australia we do not have the housing over supply situation that America does. We have a large shortfall that is actually increasing. This undersupply is what will support Australian house prices. It all comes down to supply and demand. Sure some areas will do worse than others and even fall in value but in general we will not see huge falls in the price of our homes.
One thing is for sure at the moment, if you have the equity and can get the finance it seems like there are some great long term property deals at the moment. It’s the first time in years I’ve looked through realestate.com.au or the paper and seen some properties that actually seem cheap.  Avoid the usual supects of off the plan and high density apartments (these will do worse than others at the moment), just look for good location (with in 10ks of a city) decent property. The buyers are few and far between at the moment and some sellers are just getting desperate or sick of being on the market and they are dropping prices or accepting much lower offers.
Another thing worth investigating is property sub division. I’m currently working on splitting a property into 3 at the moment about 7Km’s from the city. The land will apeal to first home buyers with their increased building grant up until June 30 2009. I’m also dipping into some unit renovations to see how that fares in these times. I’ll keep you informed.
The 2nd lag to consider is the lower interest rates lag. It usually takes about 3 months for interest rate cuts to take any effect, but as we are getting big ones every month at the moment I think this is holding buyers off further seeing where they will stop. I’m sure by early next year they will slow down and the new year the property market should settle and have buyers return as long as unemployement doesn’t become too much of a problem.

Other problems at the moment mainly relate to finance.  Just this week 2 of the major mortgage insurers have made low doc loans a lot less usefull by allowing only a 60% lend instead of 80%. This I beleive has effected most of the big banks. This will have me looking for money else where too in any future deals which could be costly.

The other possible major finance problem is what Bill Zheng from Investors Direct calls the perfect storm. This is basically where sometime in 2009 or 2010 the world decides that Australia is in over its head financially and will not lend us any more money. We’ve been getting deeper and deeper into debt for decades and basically it can’t go on for ever…..  See Bill’s DVD’s here for more info on this one and for what he thinks you should do to prepare. I personally hope that this doesn’t occur and is sorted out some other way…..

Any way I’ve dribbled on enough for now, good luck with your Investing!

Check out this site for up to the mintue real estate and finance news.

Today’s report from our friends over at Invest4profit.com.au covers 9 top Australian companies.

Paul Nojin covers these companies current price, 2009 price to earnings ratio and his comments on key prices and possible direction for the stocks.

The Stocks covered are:

• Babcock & Brown    (bnb)
• Beach Petroleum     (bpt)
• Bluescope Steel      (bsl)
• Cochlear                (coh)
• David Jones           (djs)
• Fortescue Metals    (fmg)
• Harvey Norman      (hvn)
• Telstra                  (tls)
• Woolworths          (wow)

Check out the report here, and as always good luck!

The Aussie dollar today went past .95c US to make a 24 year high. Unfortunately it got that high due to high inflation figures that were released today signaling a likely increase in interest rates in May. Looking at the Aussie $ vs US $ chart once it continues its way through .95 cents the next stop is parity. The Aussie dollar was also stronger against the yen.

Paul Nojin from Invest4Profit.com.au sent out a message today to subscribers concerning Qantas shares. Here’s what he says:
He suspects that Qantas (ASX stock code QAN) is a great buy near $3.28. Based on $3.28 and annual profit of $1b the P/E ratio is below 6. Plus, near $3.28, the dividend is 9.7%! In other words, near $3.28 QAN looks cheap. I do not guarantee it, but in all likelihood, $3.28 will hold. In that light, near $3.28 QAN is superb buying, assuming you wish to own QAN stock.
Qantas definetly sounds like one to keep an eye on.

In other news today I read about China only having 12 days worth of Coal left. Considering that 70% of China’s power comes from its polluting coal power plants, it sounds like they will be buying up a storm in the near future to get their supplies back up.
Fat Prophets have also been sending out emails for the last couple of weeks talking up coal stocks and one of their picks that has gone up 67% recently. Seems like a boom sector at the moment and one to look into.

Good luck with your investing.

In this free report the Alert Trader guys cover the ASX 200, the S & P 500 and plenty of Aussie stocks.

Included in the report are plenty of short term buys and also their longer term view on how far the Aussie market will fall in the coming months.

Check it out here.

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 

I found an interesting read on the Apple Inc company that I think you should have a read of.

It’s a great tale of how the company nearly went out of business and how through planning and innovation has come out on top with its share price showing the results. There is a great picture there showing the stock price when announcements were made and when products were shipped and the effect on the stock price. Check out where the stock price went after the iPhone announcement…
A good read about business and stocks.

Check it out