Tag: stocks

Investing in India

As investments go, India has really great long-term prospects. No doubt about it. Indeed, India has enjoyed very decent growth rates for the last decade, pulling many of its people out of poverty in the process. But investing in India…

10 Stocks off to a Good Year

Neither the multifaceted disaster in Japan nor the domino-like progression of political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa has prevented the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ($INX) from climbing 13.4% in the first quarter of 2011. And some stocks performed as if we were living in the best of times.
Among the index’s top 10 performers was CB Richard Ellis Group (CBG), a commercial real estate company that offers services to tenants, owners, lenders and investors.

The Los Angeles company’s stock climbed 30.4% in the first quarter, helped by better-than-expected fourth-quarter financial results and an improving outlook for commercial properties.
CB Richard Ellis recently raised $800 million through term loans to purchase the real estate investment unit of ING (ING).
Some analysts think the share price has limited upside potential after soaring 68.5% in the past 12 months. Yet the commercial real estate market, considered by some “the next shoe to drop,” is turning around faster than many observers expected.

Start investing with just $100

Start investing with just $100!! I’ll let you in on a little secret about investing: Start investing: How new investors can begin with $100 © MedioImages/Corbis
Extra3/5/2010 4:00 PM ET
Start investing with just $100

Faced with a dizzying array of investment options, deciding where to put your money can be daunting. But starting small doesn’t mean it won’t pay off big.
It’s not nearly as hard as you think.
However, the fact that most people do it badly might lead a reasonable person to believe the opposite.

How badly? A study by Dalbar, a Boston investment research firm, found that from 1988 to 2008, when the S&P 500 Index ($INX) grew at an average annual rate of 11.8%, individual investors in equity mutual funds saw average returns of 4.5% a year, before taxes.

How to Invest

The current bull market in U.S. stocks celebrated its second birthday on March 9.

With human beings, a 2-year-old is a lusty toddler with a lot more growing to do. For a bull-market-run in stocks, however – particularly a bull market as vigorous as this one has been – the two-year mark is a good time to start searching for some serious signs of aging.

Don’t get me wrong: The U.S. bull market could continue – indeed, it probably will continue for some time to come.

But we are almost certainly much closer to its end than we are to its March 9, 2009 day of birth.

And that reality means that we need to invest in a certain way.

Japan crisis puts world financial markets on edge

NEW YORK -Fears over the escalating nuclear crisis in Japan overtook financial markets around the globe Tuesday, pushing stocks and other investments lower. The Japanese stock market lost 10 percent of its value, and Wall Street dropped steeply before bouncing back.