A lot of investors dislike volatility. They reason that the up and down movement of the stock price makes it harder to predict. Higher uncertainty means higher risk, they say. Therefore, for the same reward, they prefer stocksthat has a lower volatility.

On the contrary, smart investors like Warren Buffett embraces volatility. He reasoned that if a stock A is trading at $ 50 and has a fair value of $ 60. Shouldn’t A be less risky if it plunges to say $ 20 or $ 15? That is a valid point. This of course assume that the fundamental that caused the drop has not changed.

I like volatility for several reasons. For entry and exit points, volatility increases our potential return. No, I do not advocate day trading. No, I do not recommend buying stock A at $ 30 and selling it at $ 31 just because it has risen in value. We should try to be investors with long term horizon of at least one year.

Another reason to like volatility is that it reduces uncertainty. Some of you might roll your eyes and think that this is nonsense. Let us explore this. What causes a stock to move? The stock price might move due to market sentiment. It also move when it release earnings or new products or news about incoming threat from competitors. In other word, the stock price moves due to the news concerning the company.

News are fact. Fact are certainty. Therefore, when the news is out, you get less uncertainty because the unknown has already been discovered. Be it bad or good, news always reduce uncertainty.

For example, when Merck & Co Inc. (MRK) announced the withdrawal of its painkiller drug, Vioxx, that reduces uncertainty. Sure, shareholders lost money as the stock price plunged and volatility increased. But, sooner or later, Vioxx will be pulled anyway. Not pulling Vioxx only make the liabilities worse. Now, potential investors can estimate Merck’s fair value based on the ‘bad’ news. While the news is bad, it reduces uncertainty which reduces risk. This is in a sense good news for investors.

It is hard to fathom. But we need to embrace volatility. Sooner or later, a company will announce news, which can be good or bad. Either way, the stock price will be volatile when the news is announced. Volatility is bound to happen. Otherwise, how can we investors profit from it? When a company’s stock price does not move much, you can’t profit much and vice versa. The trick is knowing when to buy and when to sell. That will determine your rate of return.

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Tags: Annual Report, finance, investing, Portfolio, stockAnnual Report, finance, investing, Portfolio, stock

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You have always been interested in investing in a business, however you always hold back because you are scared of making a bad choice and losing your investment. However, there are some ways to evaluate businesses to reduce the risk you are taking when you invest. Of course, risk is never eliminated, but when you properly evaluate what makes a business worth investing in then you will more than likely have your answer whether the company will be a success or failure before you invest your dollars. The following tips will help you make the right investment.

Investment Tip #1 Management

When deciding whether a business is worth investing in or not you need to evaluate the management because a business really is only as successful as its management. Because of this you want to evaluate if the management is knowledgeable, rational, and able to make the right choices to make the company money and prevent it from losing money. Of course, this is an easy question although the answer is a little more difficult.

Investment Tip #2 Business Plan

A business plan that is well laid out and shows positives, negatives, and how the company and management will handle problems within the business is very important. A good business plan shows that management knows where the company is, where it wants to go, and what it needs to do to get there. Be sure you take a look at a company’s business plan before you invest.

Investment Tip #3 Return on Investment

The ROE, or return on investment, is also crucial when you are considering making an investment in a company. Of course, the ratio of equity to debt can be confusing, but if you evaluate the ROE and other economic factors you should be able to tell if the company is bringing money in or losing it.

Investment Tip #4 Room for Growth

Making sure the business has room for growth in its market is also important. A company that has little competition is preferable, but a company with a moderate amount of competition and a plan to be number one is ok as well. Just do your research.

When you are interested in investing in a company you need to take your time and evaluate the company, look over financial statements, talk to management and have all of your questions answered to your satisfaction. After all, it is your money and you aren’t going to give your money to just any company. So, be sure and confident in the company and have that backed up with proof and you will decrease your risk investing in a company.

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Tags: Business, finance, financing, investing, investments, mutual funds, stocksBusiness, finance, financing, investing, investments, mutual funds, stocks

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Having just read Peter Lynch’s “One Up On Wall Street”, I must say that this is the one book that I wished I have read earlier. Not that I agree with the whole philosophy. But the book has many different elements that we as investors can learn a lot from. This article will exploit just one of the many things we can learn from Peter Lynch.

One of the very few things that Peter Lynch asks before investing in stocks is not the P/E ratio, dividend yield or the growth rate of a company. But rather, it is the: “Do I own a house?” question. Why a house? Peter Lynch beautifully elaborate that regular folks have an edge in investing in a house rather than a stock. Further, investing in houses have many merits that stocks do not have.

1. A house will be a money maker. That may not be obvious but the truth is, in 99 out of 100 cases, you will always make money in house. You won’t wake up one day and find that the house that you live in has declared bankruptcy or goes under. This kind of thing may happen with individual stocks.

2. A house is rigged in home owner’s favor. Home owners can put 20% down and enjoy the power of leverage. While some brokers will lend you that kind of money to invest in stocks, but if your stock price fell by 20%, you have to put more money into it. Not with a house. You are welcomed to take your time and pay off your mortgage even as your house value goes down in value. Lynch elaborates a wonderful illustration on how nobody will ask homeowners to “come up with twenty thousand dollars tomorrow or else you should sell off your two bedrooms”. When this happens to a stockowners, it is called margin call and it does happen a lot of time to leveraged stock investors.

3. Tax advantage. Your mortgage expense is tax deductible. Your stock purchase is not tax deductible. Only when you sell your stock at a loss, you can then a tax write off. Further in your later years, you can decide to sell your house and move into a bigger house, while avoiding tax on your profit. In stocks, what you sell at a gain, you can’t escape the taxman (unless illegally) and then when you make another good investment, you will be taxed later on your profit gain.

4. House Put a Roof Over Your Head. That won’t happen in stocks. You need to pay rent when you invest in stocks. When you bought a house, you can stay in it and avoid paying rents. Furthermore, you won’t likely to sell your house reading the headline: “Home Prices Take A Dive”. Also, the afternoon papers do not publish the daily closing price of your house in the classifieds and ten most active house in the neighborhood.

5. Everyone has an edge in house investing. It is handed down from your parents. You naturally knows how to poke around from the kitchen to the garage and ask the right question. You can drive around the neighborhood and see how many houses are being sold and what is being renovated. Further, before you make an offer of the house, you hire many many experts to search for termites, roof leakage, piping, wiring, cracks and others. Imagine that with investing in stocks. Some stock investors even spend more time clipping coupons for grocery than finding a good stock investment.

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Tags: finance, investing, stockfinance, investing, stock

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