This post educates my readers regarding investing in mutual funds. I myself started investing in a mutual fund when I was 22 years old. Back then I used my performance-based bonus in our company and invested it in a Bond Fund in Sun Life. What are mutual funds? Mutual funds are open-ended pooled funds. People invest their money in the fund and a leader called the fund manager invest it in behalf of its investors. Usually, mutual funds enable the possiblity of small time investors to invest in

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You’ve been in the world of investing for some years as of now. But you haven’t reaped your desired returns. What lessons do you need to learn? What can you do for your money to work for you? Here are some of the principles of modern finance, which I got from the book that I read and can definitely be of help to you in investing your nest eggs wisely so as to avoid the worst financial blunders. These lessons can help you about your personal investment decisions. Lesson 1: Know your

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Are you planning for your retirement? The earlier you plan, the more successful your plan will be. Retirement planning involves a lot of sacrifices, discipline and hard work. You want to live a good life in your golden years. What if you are about to retire in the next 10 years? But you haven’t save enough? Where do you start? Early retirement is the goal of many. Here are some of the simple advices to successfully enjoy the retirement of your dreams.   Estimate expenses. Take charge. Do a

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Quizzes are now becoming a lot more popular nowadays. In facebook, there are so many quiz applications from a quiz on your personality, moods, hairstyle, songs, movies, etc. Upon browsing Salve’s Money Smarts, I recently took up the Money Personality Test that I found. And the results are quite accurate as for me with regards to my personality on money. The results said that I am a “Micromanager”. What does it mean? Read the description below: Micromanagers love planning,

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I recently read an article published by ING Asia on Philippines’ Investor Sentiment. According to the published report, the investor confidence level during Q1 of 2009 further dropped 6% from the 4Q of 2008 values. Majority of the Filipino respondents in the survey view that the current situation was just an economic slowdown rather than a recession or depression as what other neighboring countries have been experiencing. However, majority of Filipino investors remain concerned about

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The key to financial success is your investment plan. What is an investment plan? That’s the part of your overall financial plan that helps you figure out exactly how to build wealth you need for retirement, college education of your children, or a new house or car. In an investment plan, you decide how much you want to put into certain kinds of investments to reach your overall goals. It is a structured plan that provides discipline and helps you stay on track. So how do you prepare an

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In one of my earlier posts, I explained in brief detail about bond investments thru a mutual fund. Now, I would like to go deeper and discuss in great detail about investing in bonds. Bonds are an important mix in a good investment portfolio and a smart way to offset the ups and downs of the stock market. You will notice that somehow these are the safe haven of investors when the stock market is down. Bonds are considered safer than stocks, although historically their return is lower. But

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As the saying goes, “the early bird catches the worm”, one of the things that I learned in the journey towards financial freedom is to start early to retire early. The earlier we started saving money, the earlier we started our financial education, the earlier we started to invest, we can be guaranteed that we can also retire earlier. Why not? Retiring early is one of the best options of a lot of people. Who wants to work for the rest of their lives? Who wants to be bothered by

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Today’s featured story on the spot light is the life story of the world’s greatest investor known as Warren Buffet and considered as the “Oracle of Ohama” for his investment tactics. He owns probably the most expensive stock in the world, which is his company Berkshire Hathaway, which reached its peak for a much as $147,000 per share. He is considered as the richest man on earth last year 2008 at the age of 77 with a networth of US$62 Billion overtaking his longest

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“If you have 1 Million US Dollars, how would you invest it?” This is the question that some visitors post in personal finance forums that I visited. 1 Million US Dollars is not that big nowadays but I can say that it is still an achievement to reach that amount especially if you worked very hard just to achieve that goal. If you were lucky enough, you can win in lotto and can easily get a 1 Million US Dollars to invest. Before investing that 1 Million US Dollars, you might want to

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In continuation on Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant financial literacy education, I have read about the so-called “7 Level of Investors” in which each level was described according to their level of financial education from level 0 to level 6. It’s comparable to little steps towards achieving financial freedom. How do they think? How do they invest? And who among these level of investors can you consider yourself? Let’s view each level of investor and identify on

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I have been involved in stock trading for quite some time now. Due to the question of one of my avid readers named dlanor from Saudi Arabia, here I am now sharing some stock trading tips that readers can use to trade stocks. But before anything else, for the beginners in the stock market, you might want to read my article on how stock market works to familiarize yourself on the stock market.   Once you already got familiarized with the stock market and started doing stock trading, here are

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I’ve been involved in the distressed investments industry ever since I started my employment. I was lucky being hired by an asset management firm in charge of due diligence of huge distressed debts and assets of the acquiring vulture fund investor. It was stressful and at the same time exciting career opportunity. According to the latest study of debtwire on distressed debt outlook for North America and Europe for 2009, a lot of investors is waiting until the second quarter of 2009 to

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It has been 2 months now since I first updated my portfolio of investments last November 2008. I’ve been recently updating myself with regards to the Stimulus Plan being implemented by the US Government to combat the effects of one of the worst financial crisis of all time and to bring the whole economy back to its “normal” operations. The Government plans to “pump prime” the economy to boost consumer confidence so that businesses will benefit from it. The plan

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