I have been reading the other thread (bumper yield on wall street) and it makes for some good read, but it is also not really helping a lot of nepalese that have little or no experience/knowledge about the market. I am reading up on all these proclamations by the threaders (and maybe they are telling the truth), but I can easily see the ramifications -- ever seen those auto commercials where they say 'do not try this at home"? This is one of those things.
Forget options, futures and currency swaps unless you know what you are doing. Heck, even stay away from individual securities if you can help it. for beginners, go after mutual funds. try cheap mutual fund houses such as Vanguard, Trowe and Fidelity. go to morningstar.com and look for the 4 and 5 stars; and then most important, create a well diversified mix--have proper controls in place so you dont have everything correlated to the market; go after index funds to minimize costs, and place your equity exposure in accordance to your age (for example, if you are 30 go after 30% in bonds and cash and the rest in stock exposure)
by the same token within the stk exposure break it down 50/50 between domestic and international-- choose an index fund copied around the wilshire 5000, and an international index fund chasing the msci (international index)---with fixed income (bonds) have 1/3rds in mmkt, an bond index fund, and a high yield.
there, that should do it. Dont forget to rebalance it every year though.

Captain Bro:

You know it.....I had heavily allocated on International Funds, and last I checked, I am losing money on International funds...(last Qtr).....As you can see, I am rather novice to all these...expert opinions would be highly appreciated....

Guys, let us have a finance forum at this yrs ANA-- I want to meet all of you and share ideas. I usually dont like to talk shop on the weekend of the 4th, but this would be too great an opp to pass up.
And I think we have a very smart guy in our midst..emini you are it...I dont think you are making any of this up.
I could see all of us benefitting by sharing ideas and strategies. I know I could.

Yeah..would give my right arm to see ya all then. Btw, seems like everyone's only doing stocks here. I need to meet up with FX guys and better still: any fellas into FX Options. I know not many people in the finance industry are into my specialization, so the chances of meeting up with other Neps would be minimal...however, I have my spirits up.
Laterzzzzzzz

Kingtcrawler,

moneymarket is like maintaining cash accounts. Its almost risk free but it does not yield as much as others. Even CD pays off more than moneymarkets. Mutual funds are better options. Specially if you are investing for retirments. You do not wanna be too aggressive with retirement money.

Mutual fund are already diversified like by Investor bankers like Vanguard or Fidelity. If you can invest in state munis and govt bonds, thats good to as you get tax benefits from them.

In mutual fund try to get those funds which pay didvidend and less of capital gain. Invetment advisor can help you on this. Capital gains are taxed at higher rate than dividends.

emnitrade,
please share some knowledge anout futures and EFTS. Any help will be appreciated. This is a good thread.

Thanks Jyalinchha for starting it.

peace out

China's my favourite so far. I'm sick of Chinese food here at my college and every freakin mall but I love Chinese oil and gas, telecom, manufacturing.....

I'm not aware of companies, I may have to search for some ADRs listed on the North American exchanges. But those are the indutries within China I'm optimistic about.

However, one needs to keep in mind that, foreign exchange, which could turn out to be the biggest gainer ...as is evidenced by the United State's constant bickering with China to float its curency and Henry Paulson, (former Goldman Sacs CEO with $38 million compensation package in his last year before quitting to get a mere $200,000 salary at the US Treasury) 's visit to China recently to bug them about it is another factor to consider.

For those who are not aware, think about it this way:

Say china's curreny is X and United States currency value is 4X. However, china's currency is undervalued meaning China's currency only appears as 0.5X. What does that do? The companies within the US (and NOT the gvernment as thought by many) will consider China's labour and products cheap. Ho ki hoina? If I have to pay the Chinese one fourth of what I have to pay you- the AMRIKAN- I'd be more than happy as a businessman. But you van;t just write the Chinese a cheque. With import export, what comes into play is government bonds.

If I want to get something from China, I'll need Chinese currency. I go to Ben Bernanke (the current Federal Bank chief) and his band of merry men and ask for chinese yen. Benny won't give me that easily. He says, ok, you can get your products (imports) into the US but I will issue China bonds which me and my boys will later pay back. So the US owes China money that way primarily and others (this is a very crude example and very basic). But the US shouldn;t have a problem paying. But why is US pushing China to float (i.e. let it's currency compete with other currencies) its curreny? Doing that will cause Chinese Yen to rise against the dollar and US companies will be hard pressed to find cheap labour in China. So they will have to find labour somewhere else. Dong that will hurt the Chinese. They're like fleas, feeding on the giant US rat's blood. If the US companies take their hands out of China, it's huge international investment in the country will be doomed.

And what will that lead to? Eventually more stability within the US and China- could take 50-60 years but in the ntermediate term, it'll cause US firms to porudce far lesser returns and we could see a bear market. That's why foreign investments seem so much attractive. This informaton is already being discounted by insiders. The Chinese central bank is already selling off US currency and diversifying into Gold. Gold is a safe heaven in times of crises- my mum taught me that since was 6 years old. when investors flee the US markets and liquidate their positions- where do they go to? GOLD!!!

AND WHO HAS THEM?

CHINA!

SO MY PICK for the near future-

GOLD!

I tend to do my own analysis. The above is my own view. I love hammering my brain and doing things my way- especially in school. I don't agree with the education system. My star sign is Aries in the Nepali way and Bull in the western way- both equally notorious for being stubborn. My GPA suffers because I try to do shit on my own. Most of the time I am wrong but oh well....that's who TT is :D

Can anybody who's experienced, in the industry..etc..confirm my analysis?

thanks.

TT

Hi KnightCrawler,

I am not an expert in mutual funds but I will share with you my own trick that has worked OK for me so far. As far as I know, Vanguard has one of the better mutual funds available out there today, so it's good that your company offers them. Now find the ticker associated with all those 13 funds and just do a simple graph analysis (see if you can sense any kind of trend) and then look at it's Year To Date Return %. Start allocating by picking funds with the most YTD return%. Now this is the tricky part, you need to make sure you monitor all 13 funds on a regular basis (once again use google or yahoo finance to get the ticker info), if the mutual funds you own currently have exceeded anywhere from the 15 to 20% in their value from the time of your purchase, you need to re-balance your portfolio by selling that fund and equally distributing your balance to other funds that might not have performed as well as the one you owned.

Mutual funds are as diversified of an investment as you'll get, so they are all pretty safe bets. Just that some perform better than others at any given time (not saying the bad performers won't make a come back). So, just use the most basic principle of investing -- sell high buy low. This is what a finincial advisor managing your retirement account usually does. I advise looking at the mutual funds YTD return at least once every 6 months and deciding if you need to sell that one and buy another. But at any case you need to re-balance your portfolio by equally distributing your funds even if all your mutual funds have been fairly flat through out the year (meaning their YTD return % is under 10%).

Well I hope I was able to make some sense....let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck.

Hi timetraveller,

Not to poke fun at you or anything but it doesn't take a rocket scientest in today's ecomony understand the importance of China and chinese ecomony. And you're right on the money about chiense companies. I only invest in stocks (but looking and trying to learn into more) and everyone should have at least 10 - 15% of their portfolio allocated into chinese stocks (i'm so bullish, already got close to 40%). i think what we saw in terms of ROI from chinese stock in 2006 is only a slim glimpse of what lies ahead for 2007 and beyond.

Like you said, what is the future? Gold. And who has them? China = chinese stocks are as good as gold LOL

p.s. oh yeah someone brought up a point about having a investment forum at the next ANN? I am totally for it...not sure if i can make it to the convention or not but if i do, would love to attend it.

hey hukka_nepali, would you mind giving some tips on some of the chines stocks?

I would appreciate it if you could share some of your research?

Thanks,
haami

I apologize...I am a layman to this thread ....trying to learn something from very good analysis here...I liked analysis of Timetraveller and recommnedation to buy golds..

By the way...

Timetraveller,Which site would you recommend for buying golds?

Thanks

Hukka, which brokerage firms are international firms avalable through? What about the commissions? Do they charge more for international stocks?

I checked a few and couldn't find a way to invest in them. Canadian firms don;t seem to have a good website.

I'm more interested in trading although I shouldn't neglect long run opportunities.

And the reason I said gold was for the long run, decades...i think once china's currency truly competes against other currencies, Chinese assets will be wayy more expensive to purchase. A portfolio with a lot of Chinese assets can be hedged by balancing it with precious metals and stocks of companies involved in mining and exploration of precious metals. Actually that'd be one arrow two bhangera (ek teer, do shekaar).

Haina?

Hi haami,

I've already talked about my chinese stocks earlier in the discussion but don't mind going over it briefly again:

I own CTRP -- which is kinda like your priceline.com or travolocity.com here for hotel and airline booking. online travel booking is still at it's very early stages in china, and if you know the history of it in america you can't help to be more excited about the possibility of CTRP in chaina for the future. plus chinese now have money and they are travelling (oh yeah they do bookings by phones and through local agents too, so they get their traditional customer that way and online for the new tech wiz). Currently stock price is $60+ and has gone up over 25% in the last 1 month so wouldn't recommend buying right away but not sure if there will be a pull back.

I own LFC -- china life insurance. with billions of people how can you go wrong with life insurance (still the concept of buying life insurance is fairly new in china but as more people start to accumulate wealth, so will increase their worries for health / death). this has been my best stock pick of all time with over 200% in return so at it's current price i can't recommend a buy but anything with china health care / insurance / or even finincial / banking sector should be a good long term investment.

I own ACH -- largest aluminum producer in china and still trading at a bargain price. fastest growing ecomony like chaina will need a lot of alumunim along with other metals so any type of chinese metal company (that is not over priced) should be a great buy.

MPEL -- recently IPO, I don't own it yet but seriously considering (and most probably will buy it). this is a casion stock based in Macau which is autonomous part of china. my philosophy is plain and simple here; chinese people in general love to gamble and there are lots of chinese with lots of money now and casion stocks in general have great margins as they are not really selling any product. so anything in the chinese gaming / casion stocks are good but i like this one because of it's value.

last but not the least, can't ignore chinese energy sector but i'm yet to explore those. may be some of you can or have already.

Hi_nanu...most brokerage firms allow trading of commodities.

There are many ways to invest:
1. Through companies that are involved in mining of gold
2. Through ETFs as well (Exchange Traded Funds).

Think of ETF's like mutual funds, but they can be traded like stocks! What does that provide you? ETF's are less volatile but are good way to invest because they are chosen in a way that represent a mix of companies in the same industries and represnt an average valuation of all those firms. If gold prices go up, so should the value of these companies.

3. Through futures- now this is more advanced stuff- something not even I am comfortable treading into.

Beware though, Gold prices are notoriously high right now. Look around for some more advanced analysis in the news, finance websites. Gold's value again'st the USD is also insanely high. So wait for a correction to come- let the price fall. The US china battle of economic wits wont occur for the next 10-12 years, you have significant learning time frame till then.

-TT

Opss typo: kept typing casion instead of casino.

timetraveller, i'm sure every brokerage firms let you buy international stocks. their price may vary along with tax laws but i wouldn't worry about them. i use scottrade and they charge $7 for every transaction, regardless of US or foreign stocks.

And i don't think anyone can argue about investment in gold because it doesn't get any safer. but at the same time, your ROI on is fairly limited as well. so, i say depending on where you are at with your life age / finance wise, you need decide how much you want to put in gold. it's all based on your risk threshold.

100% agree about MPEL

Macau as I've read (could be total gossip and rumour) is also China's gang lord's playground. Nepalis work there in those casinos.

It would have sucked to have been in on the IPO
but oh well I think I'll buy it as well.

Lovin the comversations.

I'm wasting my Friday....

School starting soon.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
:(

Thanks Timetraveller and all who are sharing theri experinces in this forum...Lots of people getting opportunities to add so many points in their learning curve...

Thank you all...

I am reading every posting of this thread....it is hard to understand all those but still trying to learn

Happy New year

hukka_nepali,

Have you done any research on ISP (Internet Service Provider) companies in China? With the online users number increasing there, these companies should do well as well.

Thank a bunch,
haami

Highfly and Hukka_Nepali:
Appreciate the knowledge....and all others in the field....Its always good to get the answers in a snapshot, rather than on a literature issued by these investment companies, which are confusing to say the least....

Looking forward to more knowledge sharing.......

www.investopedia.com

Check it out. Thousands of articles. Read all day, all night long.

Write, take notes, do everything you can.

But just do it

:D

haami, i don't know about ISP but perhaps we can look into the telcom sector in china. but i doubted we'll find any good ones at a great value consider the secret already being out (2 billion people and their 2 billions + communication).

the thing is, when you think about investing you need to "think outside the box", you can't be seeing the same thing everyone sees because the share price is already gonna reflect their hopes and potentials and will have very little for yours.