Invest your money

By Ian Sani.

Ok, now you have your money after saving it from the hard work you have done in previous years. So where can you invest your money? That is a million-dollar question. There is no same place for every one to invest. The first two thing you need to know before asking that question are:

• How much is your investing target return
• How much risk are you willing to take

So your answer might be, “I want a ten percent return with minimal risk”. Sounds realistic? Remember that the higher return you want, the riskier it will be. There are many kind of investment out there. The most common place to invest money are to stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, and starting your own business. Each investment has their own characteristic. It’s your job to know their characteristic and match it with your preference.

Bond, mutual funds, and real estate generally have lower risk than stocks and starting your own business. With stocks you can loss your money in minutes. Imagine if you had bought Citibank stock at the start of the year at $7 per share. Guess how much it is now? It’s around $3 at mid July. A 50% drop in half a year. See how you can lose money from stock. The same applies if you own your own business. There are many companies that are closed at it’s first year. Imagine how much money you could loss this way.

If you don’t know anything about investing and want to leave it to the pros, then you can try mutual fund. A mutual fund is a professionally managed type of collective investment that pools money from many investors. Although it is professionally managed, it does not means that you won’t lose money from it. Those professional can also loss money, but at least their knowledge is a lot more than you.

Investors want to see some new math in companies’ quarterly reports. No longer content with an economy that’s limping toward recovery, the stock market is looking for signs that business improved in the second quarter or at least will in the coming months.

Investors want to see some new math in companies’ quarterly reports. No longer content with an economy that’s limping toward recovery, the stock market is looking for signs that business improved in the second quarter or at least will in the coming months.

U.S. and European stocks fell, extending losses from the first weekly decline for global equities in more than a month, as the World Bank said the recession will be deeper than previously forecast. Treasuries rose, while a drop in commodities sent oil below $68 a barrel.

Equities and commodities retreated after the World Bank forecast today the global economy will contract 2.9 percent this year. That compares with a prior estimate of a 1.7 percent decline. Growth is expected to return next year with a 2 percent expansion, lower than the 2.3 percent prediction about three months ago.

Executives at U.S. companies are taking advantage of the biggest stock-market rally in 71 years to sell their shares at the fastest pace since credit markets started to seize up two years ago. This is a clue that the stock market is already expensive. Sales by CEOs, directors and senior officers have accelerated to the highest level since June 2007, two months before credit markets froze, as the S&P 500 rebounded from its 12-year low in March. The increase is making investors more skittish because executives presumably have the best information about their companies’ prospects.

April’s record rally in European stocks pushed market valuations to the highest level in more than four years as investors bet the first global recession since World War II is easing.

The 13 percent advance in the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index last month sent the measure to 16.2 times its companies’ earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Forecasts for 2009 profit growth in the gauge fell to 18 percent on May 1 from 22 percent a month earlier, the biggest drop this year, after earnings declined 40 percent in 2008, according to data and analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Mexican stocks were downgraded by UBS AG to “underweight” from “top pick” among Latin American equities on concern the country’s economic outlook may worsen because of the deadly swine flu.

UBS on March 9 named Mexico its favorite market in Latin America, saying investors had already factored in a “severe” recession for 2009 and shares were the cheapest in a decade.

According to Bloomberg, the Russell 2000 Index’s record one-month gain is sending danger signals to investors who remember how similar rallies in U.S. stocks came to an end.

When small-caps have outpaced larger stocks much, both indexes erased gains and fell, according to data compiled by Birinyi Associates Inc. This boosting investor concerns that the S&P 500’s 27 percent advance since March 9 will end the same way as the 24 percent rally that fizzled in January.

Steeper jumps for small-cap stocks one month into a rally are signs of indiscriminate buying and usually come before equities fall, said Cleve Rueckert, a Birinyi analyst. The Russell 2000’s 36 percent climb since March 9 is its steepest since the index began in 1979, according to Bloomberg data.

The P/E ratio is a measure of the price paid for a share relative to the profit per share. A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying more for each unit of income. The price per share (numerator) is the market price of one stock. The earnings per share (denominator) is the net income of the company for the most recent 12 month period, divided by number of shares outstanding. Investors can use the P/E ratio to compare the value of stocks. If one stock has a higher P/E that of another stock, all things being equal, it is a less attractive investment. Normally, stocks with high earning growth are traded at higher P/E values, because investor anticipate the high growth. One important screener for value investing is P/E.