China Stocks Are Red Hot

By Mike Swanson

China's economic growth has continued to be astounding. With the world's biggest populations that has discovered a love of consumer items and needing accommodation the economy has hardly slowed through these tougher economic times. Investing in China is an option for many keen on harnessing emerging markets and the opportunities they present. Some ways identify the best stocks to invest in to get into China are discussed below.

Going into China directly by setting up your own operations is usually difficult. Instead most operations entered in joint ventures with local operations. This allows the foreign company to operate while the local company provides the local cultural understanding and expertise.

Purchasing stocks in Chinese companies is another option. However it pays to be aware that there are a number of government regulations about what types of company stocks foreigners can buy. Many companies have tier A and Tier B shares with only one tier being available to foreigners, the other for the locals.

Private Equity funding works but some private equity firms have chosen to avoid China. They have found that having to rely on local partners has meant they have not had the information they require or in the time frames they would like.

Invest in Chinese property. This sector is growing exponentially and many Chinese are now saying with price increases there is no way they can own their own home. The best options exist outside of Beijing and Shanghai where these markets are reasonably saturated.

Investing in China is an option with many advantages and possible good returns. But like any foreign market you need to have some understanding of the subtleties and rules of that market. - 23212

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Do You Have The Forex Traders Mindset? (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

Human beings are emotional creatures. It is often said that we are our own worst enemy. In forex trading, this is the ultimate truth. Most of our trading decisions are guided more by emotional than logical thinking. Our mind is capable of playing emotional tricks on us.

We can get seduced into unfavorable situations by our emotions. Emotions can work for us and against us. Your battles are won or lost in your mind first. A traders mindset is the most important ingredient of success.

Forex trading is not for everyone. Do you have a strong desire to succeed in forex trading? You will end up like the majority who end up losing their money if you just want to try your luck or dabble in trading. Do you have the passion for trading forex?

Forex trading requires a lot of self motivation and a strong desire to succeed. In the beginning you may not be able to make many winning trades. You must be highly self motivated in order to become a successful forex trader. You must have a concrete plan of action and not be afraid of failure. Are you ready to devote a lot of time and effort into picking up trading skills and knowledge?

In order to become a successful forex trader, you need knowledge and skills in that field. A huge amount of time, effort and money is required for a trader to attain consistent success in forex trading.

Are you willing to accept losses as part of trading? You are going to make mistakes while trading. Do you understand that you can suffer losses in trading? Are you willing to learn from your mistakes? Do you have a traders log that you use to reflect on each lost trade and learn from it?

Most of the new traders read some market analysis from an analyst. They enter into the trade based on that market analysis. Most of us tend to blame the market analysis and the opinion of the analyst if the trade turns out to be a loser. It is easy to blame others.

When you are confident that you have done your analysis to confirm what others are saying only then pull the trigger. Dont be trigger happy! You must reflect on your decision before pulling the trigger. Is it fair to blame the other person when you could have done further market analysis on your own? When you could have planned your trade in a better way, it is foolish to blame others for your mistakes. So accept your responsibility if the trade goes wrong.

Fear and greed are the two most dominant emotions that affect not only the individual traders but also the currency markets. In fact, these two emotions are the main drivers of the forex markets.

Greed is going to make you over optimistic in thinking that a currency is going to appreciate. Similarly fear makes you over pessimistic about a currency pair. All in all, fear and greed are behind the steering wheel of the currency market. - 23212

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Know Swing Trading. Learn Forex Trading!

Secrets Of Warren Buffett

By Mike Swanson

World wide the Warren Buffett strategy is known for being very successful in stock picks. His value investment philosophy is from the Benjamin Graham school, and in 1965 he invested $10000 in Berkshire Hathaway. Today this investment is worth nearly $30 million! Had he taken the same amount of money and invested it in the "S & P 500" it would have grown, however the same investment would only be worth around $500 000.

The legend that is Warren Buffett has grown to such a degree as to almost appear mythical. His philosophy of value investing has him pursuing bargains, much like a bargain hunter might and this is how he makes his millions. He sees value in certain stocks which other people can't. The products he purchases are under-valued, so they don't attract other investors.

Undervalued stocks don't normally attract investors, but their low worth is what attracts Warren Buffett. He is able to predict what they will be worth by analyzing the fundamentals of the business, and this is what helps him to predict that the market will eventually favor his stocks.

His concern does not lie with the fact that supply and demand controls stock market intricacies and his famous quote "In the short term the market is a popularity contest; in the long term it is a weighing machine" is indicative of this.

Stocks are selected based on the company's overall potential, so he looks at this as a whole entity, and sees investing as a long term prospect for making money. Warren Buffett looks for ownership and not capital gain, and his concerns are relevant to how well a company is able to make money.

When he looks at an investment opportunity and evaluates the relationship between its stock price against the level of the company's excellence. He also asks himself certain questions, such as performance regarding return on equity, if the company avoids taking on excessive debt (we all know how he feels about debt), how long the company has been public and whether or not it relies on a commodity. - 23212

About the Author:

If you want to learn more about technical analysis and the stock market go to www.wallstreetwindow.com.

Network Delays Cost Stock Trading Firms Millions

By Lance Jepsen

A cheap solution has been discovered by computer programmers for detecting millionth of a second delays in routers in data center networks. Automatic stock trading systems with even a millionth of a second delay can cost over a million dollars.

The work was presented on August 20th, 2009 at SIGCOMM. The computer programming method was created by a joint task collaboration between the University of California and Purdue University computer programmers.

A delay as short as a millionth of a second can be detected in a router. Even packet loss as rare as one packet in 10 million can be detected with this programming code. This code can run on any router and does not slow the router down.

The programming code is called the Lossy Difference Aggregator. It requires no new hardware and has no performance penalty on the router.

Big brokerage houses will be very interested in this technology. If an institutional investor has a stock trading algorithm that reacts to incoming market data just 100 microseconds earlier than the competition, it can buy millions of shares and push the price of a stock higher before the competition has time to react.

Online automated exchanges like the American Stock Exchange use custom designed hardware boxes that are very expensive. These boxes are put on routers and key points in a data center network. These external hardware boxes are too expensive to put on every router within a data center network making it difficult to trouble shoot and find a problem router. By the time the problem is detected and fixed, it will cost the company anywhere from 2 to 4 million dollars because of delayed buy and sell orders.

This computer programming code will allow router vendors to add loss tracking on every router at no additional cost. This will completely eliminate the need for specialized external router monitoring devices.

The way router performance is monitored now is by expensive external hardware that tracks when a packet enters the router and when it exists the router and then takes the difference of those times.

Instead of tracking the entry and exit times of all packets going through a router, this computer code randomly divides the incoming packets into groups and then calculates the entry and exit times of each group. As long as the number of losses is smaller than the number of groups, at least one group will give a good estimate.

Subtracting the sums of the groups and then dividing by the number of messages gives an approximation of the average delay with very little performance reduction of the router. It has about the same overhead as a series of small counters.

With this computer programming code built into every router, a data center manager will be able to quickly pinpoint the offending router and interface that is adding extra millionth of a second delays or losing even one packet in a million. - 23212

About the Author:

By Lance Jepsen. For free stock trading advice by master stock traders and free stock charting software go to stock trading

A Historical Look At Guaranteed Investment Certificates

By Amy Nutt

Guaranteed investment Certificates, (GIC) are Canadian investments that provide a guaranteed rate of return over a fixed period of time. GICs are normally provided by banks, credit unions, and trust companies.

The earliest forms of guaranteed fixed-income investments included such investments as bank notes and mutual funds. The first Canadian fund, Canadian Investment Fund Ltd. (CIF), was established in 1932. It changed its name to Spectrum United Canadian Investment Fund in 1996, and this fund changed name at the end of August 2002 to CI Canadian Investment Fund. Investing in guaranteed investment certificates, or GICs, has been the safe and sound choice from the time when registered retirement savings plans became available in 1957. GICs were created to give people a guaranteed return on an investment. Back in the 1970's, interest rates on investments were higher averaging about 7.7 per cent and as much as 15.8 per cent in 1982. Part of that high interest rate was due to higher price inflation than today.

Interest rates are lower now. Over the past five years, GICs with a five-year term have paid an average of less than 3 per cent a year. Because Guaranteed Investment Certificates are low risk, there is normally a lower rate of return. With a GIC, the financial institution will borrow the person's money for a specified amount of time which can be six months, one year, two years, or up to 10 years. When the GIC period has ended, your initial investment will be returned plus any accrued interest.

To own a GIC you must deposit at least $500.00. When the period has ended, one can then cash them as taxable income or renew it for another term. If you cash out before the term as ended, you will be required to pay a fee. GICs tend to pay a higher interest rate than bank savings accounts, but less most other investments. Interest rates tend to range from 1-9%.

There are other types of GICs such as Market Growth GICs. Their interest rates depend on the rate of growth in the stock market. This is a bit more risky as the market rates tend to fluctuate. Just like regular GICs, Market Growth GICs are low-risk because your original investment is guaranteed to be returned.

GICs are a popular investment choice due to their safety and security, guaranteed growth. (The interest rate is guaranteed with fixed-rate GICs,) flexible terms, and flexible payments. With some GICs, you can decide how you collect the interest you earn, such as monthly, annually or at maturity.

Guaranteed Investment Certificates make for a sound investment if you want a protected place to save your money. GICs could be used as a part of a fixed income portion of your portfolio, used for retirement supplemental income, or just to hold your money until you come up with a number of long-term financial strategies.

Guaranteed Investment Certificates have had a long history of providing Canadians with low risk financial planning investments for retirement or other investment endeavors. Investment portfolios will benefit from having an investment with a guaranteed rate of return. As well, these investments are often selected during periods of market volatility. - 23212

About the Author:

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