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Whatever You Do, Don’t Buy into this Emerging Market
There's nothing like being burned by an investment, and those with money in emerging market stocks learned about it the hard way in 2011. As a group, emerging markets plunged nearly 19%, making them one of the worst-performing asset classes last year.
By no means should investors take this as a signal to avoid emerging markets, though. I firmly believe emerging markets will provide by far the best returns in coming years. They're already making an impressive comeback in 2012, jumping more than 14%, compared with about a 7% gain for the S&P 500.
However, there are individual emerging markets I think should be avoided because they're just not worth the risk. Markets like these are typically extremely volatile, even by emerging markets standards, and they can underperform, go nowhere or even lose you money for years on end. It can be difficult to escape them entirely, because most diversified emerging market mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide at least some degree of exposure. So you probably don't want to make matters worse by owning funds or ETFs devoted specifically to these high-risk, low-return developing countries.
I say this with a particular country in mind: Russia.
I speak from harsh experience. Until very recently, I owned shares of one of the top Russia-focused funds, Templeton Russia & Eastern European Fund (NYSE: TRF), a closed-end mutual fund that usually devotes about 75% of assets to Russia and the rest to other countries of Eastern Europe such as Kazakhstan, Cyprus and the Ukraine. The fund was in the top 1% of its category for the time period I owned it (the past 15 years), so I know I couldn't have made a better choice. Still, long-term returns were relatively meager and not worth the wild ride, in my opinion. And mind you, this is one of the best Russia-focused funds, let alone a mediocre or poor one.
Act Soon to Get Into One of the Biggest Money-Making Trades of 2012
If you delay, you could miss out on 50%-100% gains this year…
Daily Trade Alert
Corning Can Leverage Itself Into A Modern Industrial Growth Story
By Paul Nouri:
Corning (GLW) is no stranger to reinventing itself. Founded in 1851, since its beginning, the company has been at the forefront of the most innovative and efficient techniques in the mass production of glass.
In 1879, Thomas Edison asked Corning to produce bulbs for his invention, the incandescent light. After World War II, the company began producing the glass bulbs for televisions on a mass scale, making them affordable for families across America. At around this time, Corning formed a venture with Dow Chemical (DOW) to start Dow Corning, a company focused on the production of silicone which to this day produces approximately $ 5 billion in annual revenue.
In 1957, the company expanded its focus into kitchen plates and started the Corning Ware brand, known for its durability. In what would eventually lead to the company’s market value surpassing $ 100 billion in 2000, Corning scientists developed leading edge fiber optics
I’m Putting $6,000 into this Recent IPO
Investing in any recent initial public offering (IPO) carries one obvious risk: You may be buying as insiders and underwriters are getting set to sell. By federal law, these folks are "locked up," prevented from selling stock for 180 days after the IPO. When they can finally turn their pre-IPO stock into cash, they rarely hesitate.
So as soon as Zipcar's (NYSE: ZIP) backers and founders could sell shares in mid-October, they didn't hesitate, unloading more than 3 million shares by year's end. As a result, an IPO that closed at $ 28 on its first day of trading last spring now trades below $ 15.
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That's a fresh opportunity for the rest of us, as Zipcar still has the makings of a solid growth story. It's also why it will be the next addition to my $ 100,000 Real-Money Portfolio.
For the uninitiated, Zipcar rents cars and vans to its members by the hour or by the day. The service has quickly caught on with younger urban consumers in the United States and Europe as a youthful brand that is spoken of in the same context as JetBlue (Nasdaq: JBLU) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). Members are known as "Zipsters" (which is painfully close to Hipsters). Sure, you could rent a car from Hertz (NYSE: HTZ), but a Zipcar membership is much cooler, more flexible — and quite cost effective.
Wall Street Heads into Friday Looking For Perfect Week!
Market Summary Wall Street advanced on Thursday for the fourth consecutive session, hitting a new 8 month high as 2012 rolls on. Stocks struggled in early trading but closed slightly higher. On the…
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Don’t Fool Yourself Into Thinking You Are a Long-Term Investor If You Aren’t
Just as everyone likes to fancy themselves middle class (the facts: unless you make between $ 2,894.83 and $ 4,335.75 per month, the middle quintile for the American population, you are not middle class), everyone likes to talk about how they are long-term investors. Unfortunately, the facts don’t show that to be the case. While the average American stays in their home for seven years before selling it, many investors think displaying the same patience and horizon with a partial ownership stake in a company such as Pepsi or Johnson & Johnson is unfathomable. To them, six months is a long-term investment!
This begs the question: How can you be sure you aren’t just fooling yourself into thinking you have the right time perspective? To help answer, I wrote a new article called How Do You Know If You Are Making a Long-Term Investment?, which includes a checklist to help you determine if you are in it for the long-haul or trading stocks and fooling yourself.
The article also explains that not every company should be a long-term investment. Typically, you only want to own so-called “excellent businesses” that have very specific financial characteristics. (For more information on that topic, instead, read Getting Rich By Investing in an Excellent Business).
Both should be good places to start for new investors who don’t consider a good time to be chugging Pepto-Bismol in front of a trading screen, afraid to go to the bathroom for fear of losing their nest egg due to a change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Don’t Fool Yourself Into Thinking You Are a Long-Term Investor If You Aren’t originally appeared on About.com Investing for Beginners on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 22:12:26.
What a Way to Head into the Christmas Break! Dow, S&P Green in 2011
Market Summary Wall Street staged a late day advance in what was a quiet pre-Christmas session to close positive on the day and turn the broader market into the plus column for 2011. An increase in…
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5 Solid Dividend Stocks that Could Turn into Mega High-Yielders
For many investors, 2011 should be remembered as the year of the dividend.
Weary of market volatility, investors are flocking to dividend stocks to lock in yields often twice the meager 2% return on U.S. Treasuries. Dividend stocks will likely remain popular as long as fears of Europe's debt crisis and a double-dip recession grip the market. An added bonus is dividends that may get a nice boost next year if companies start distributing more of their record cash stockpiles to boost shareholder value.
But investors shouldn't wait for dividends to be raised further. It's far smarter to lock in a 4% yield (which is still pretty good) from a solid company's shares now, for example, and watch that dividend payout grow to become a 6%, 8%, 10% –even higher — yield on your original purchase price.
With this in mind, here are five stocks that made sizable payout hikes (at least 20%) this year while offering enticing high yields for investors. The best part: they're all reliable firms that could easily afford dividend growth in the months to come.
1. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)
Yield: 5%
Dividend hike: 33%
Lockheed Martin is a major defense contractor and the world's leading manufacturer of military aircraft. The company's new F-35 fighter is expected to be the primary driver of earnings growth in the next 10 years. The Pentagon plans to buy 2,400 aircraft for $ 380 billion, and orders booked from foreign countries could raise total purchases to more than $ 500 billion.
Getting Thru to Your Emotions with EFT: Tap into Your Hidden Potential with the Emotional Freedom Techniques
Getting Thru to Your Emotions with EFT: Tap into Your Hidden Potential with the Emotional Freedom Techniques
Many people consider the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) a modern miracle. These easy-to-do processes are revolutionizing the field of psychology. By simply tapping on stress-relief points on the body, you can use these techniques to clear stuck emotions and self-defeating patterns, producing profound breakthroughs. It’s usually fast and amazingly effective. Also, learn about other dynamic healing tools that enhance EFT, such as muscle-testing and the Getting Thru Techniques. The Gettin
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