| Forget salary, count on your bonus
MUMBAI: The deal-makers are ensuring that they get the best deal after all. Asset management companies (AMCs) and brokerages are two areas where employees are expected to get fat year-end paychecks. Some HR consultants say this could be twice the salary. Take for example HSBC. Sources close to HSBC securities say this year the number could even go to three times. The firm refused to comment when contacted. Stock analysts and fund managers are the prime candidates for huge bonuses — riding the highs of the equity markets. Throughout the year the equity markets have seen an uptrend and till recently the stock index has given returns to the extent of 30% over the last one year, before the markets crashed, after the budget. "Bonus in private equity and investment banking could be anywhere from 100-200 % of the fixed salary, depending on the deals.
The follies of marketing timing
Many investors try to "time" the market by "buying low and selling high." In theory, that's a great idea, but it's almost impossible to put into practice. If you try to outguess the market, you run the substantial risk of guessing wrong – of buying stocks too soon, before they get even cheaper, or of selling stocks too late, after they've fallen from their highs. But these are only the most obvious of the problems that can result from market timing. Here are some others to consider: You could lose your investment discipline. The best investors are the disciplined investors. They choose quality stocks and hold them for the long term, through good and bad markets. In fact, they have conditioned themselves to ignore short-term price swings in either direction, based on their belief that their patience eventually will be rewarded.
Midcap action likely to continue through the year: Deewan
According to Neeraj Deewan, Director of Quantum Securities, FMCGs may not outperform in the long run and the year should see more of midcap action and lays his best bets on media and capital goods. Excerpts from CNBCTV18s exclusive interview with Neeraj Deewan: Q: Two stocks or rather the sector that seems to have outperformed over the past few days has been FMCG. Your thoughts on Hindustan Lever and ITC at current levels? A: Frankly, we have not been very bullish on FMCG because it has been under-performing for quite sometime. So if someone has bought them as a trading or an investmaent idea, I feel some sort of profit taking can be taken - because going ahead also, I dont feel that it will outperform the market in the long run. So there are other sectors that might outperform rather than FMCG.
Point-and-Click Investing Software From Aptus Communications Is ...
QUALICUM BEACH, BC -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 04/08/07 -- Profiting from the ebbs and flows of the stock market has just been made much simpler. It's long been known that predicting the stock market over the short-term can't be done consistently. However when taking a long-term view, the short-term ups and downs can work to a Value investor's advantage. "Ultimately a stock's value depends on its fundamentals," said Mark Hing, President of Aptus Communications. "Investors who keep their eyes firmly planted on fundamentals and remove their emotions from the investment equation are best positioned to increase their returns and minimize their risks in the markets." Value Investors just have to wait for great companies to become unpopular and undervalued.
Foreign shares, commodities keep mutual funds on track
Global stock markets mostly refused to give up their sunny view of the world economy in the first quarter, and that was enough to keep stock mutual funds modestly in the black.
Investors also favored the market sectors that have treated them best in recent years, with good results. Funds that own foreign shares did well, as did those that invest in commodity producers -- oil and mining firms, for example.
And, once again, funds that focused on small and midsize companies did better than portfolios invested in the biggest blue-chip American firms, such as General Electric Co. and Intel Corp.
For sure, nobody got rich in stock funds in the first three months. The average domestic fund eked out a 2.1 percent total return, meaning price change plus dividend income, according to Morningstar Inc.
The Best Stock to Own
Do you have a very best stock? A stock that brings you closer to retirement year in and year out? One like Kraft, formerly American Dairy Products, which -- as tracked back by Dr. Jeremy Siegel -- turned $1,000 into more than $2 million over 53 years with dividend reinvestment? In terms of returns, Kraft has quite literally been the very best stock of the past half-century. I pay special attention to this stuff: My job is to find companies with that same magic that's made Kraft such a dynamite stock. A repeatable fortune What's the secret of Kraft's phenomenal digits? Well-branded products that a lot of people use, for starters. While that may be the bulk of it, those products aren't its only source of juju. The rest comes from two magic words: dividend reinvestment.
The Best Growth Stocks
But to actually identify the best growth stocks, you have to take a step beyond looking for the companies with the highest projected growth rates. After all, if the market starts to lose faith in the company's prospects, the fall can be horrendous. So, we can establish that the best growth stocks offer both huge upside potential and a margin of safety. As such, they should satisfy three conditions. 1. A good growth rate
All else being equal, fast growth is better than slow growth. But because of compounding, even relatively small changes in the growth rate can mean a big difference to investors. Over the past 10 years, Liz Claiborne (NYSE: LIZ) has grown its revenue by roughly 8.5% annually. Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN), on the other hand, grew its revenue at an impressive 22.9% rate.
The Lie About Growth and Value Stocks
Dividing stocks between "growth" and "value" is accepted practice in the investment world. After all, these categories are backed by a large body of academic work, so we can safely assume that they serve investors' best interests. Wrong! I believe that much of that effort is wasted (for investors, that is -- it's profitable for the industry). In fact, it's largely counterproductive to the goal of achieving superior investment returns. Growth vs. value -- a false debateGrowth stocks are generally thought to be characterized by high earnings growth rates and high price-to-earnings (P/E) or price-to-book value (P/B) multiples; value stocks are characterized by low growth and low multiples. However, stocks get forced into these buckets based on narrow criteria, which results in two lists, neither of which is particularly consistent or informative in terms of investment merits.
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