Global banking crisis is the possibility of a millionaire?

Turbulence in financial markets, some of the super-rich in search of possible transactions. But it is not without risk, says Stephen Wall

Global banking crisis, his high-profile victims, and the flight of "Financial Statements". However, if you have money, which means that billions, it seems that there are several possibilities, and the famous millionaire ranks realized that with both hands.

Despite the earlier cry of pain, global banking giants have been assured in the hands of Arabic, Chinese and Singapore sovereign fund last cries, the state of the international financial world, have to answer a few of world's richest people own the world

Outstanding in the past month have been concluded a new agreement on a well-known investor and, depending on where and when you're the world's richest person, Warren Buffett. Through his holding company Berkshire Hathaway, Buffet reached an agreement to buy $ 5 billion (E3.9bn) of preferred shares in major Wall Street investment bank, sorry bank Goldman Sachs

Sacks appeal
The agreement also includes warrants to purchase additional buffet at $ 5 billion ordinary shares at a later date. Historically, Buffet warned against investing in finance, but also calling Goldman, at a time when their stocks caught up in negativity in the areas of finance, is a testament to the strength of the bank.

Mr. Buffet not only millionaire in the field or possible chances. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has acquired a 50 percent share in the realization of the Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital for $ 500 million. Mr. Prokhorov, also in the light of the continuing decline in the market in Russia may have korobochny own business - only a year ago, Renaissance is estimated at $ 4BN.

His fall from high altitude was the result of global uncertainty and, in particular in relation to Russia, the current investor panic fueled by falling oil prices margins, liquidity concerns and fears over potential losses, particularly in banking shares.

Of course, the interest of maintaining super-rich banks, is not new, we are here several times before. Perhaps the highest profile example of our time is to save Citi in early 1990, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Prince Al-Waleed has imposed $ 590m in a time known as Citicorp for about 15 percent of the population, when the game was at a price of 9 dollars. Citi-remains the largest shareholder in Abu Dhabi's investment arm paid 7.5 billion dollars to 4.9 per cent.

However, if it is a possibility, there is a danger that, as two recent examples highlight standout. The most dramatic was the British billionaire investor Joseph Lewis, of course, a place similar, but more short-term option at Bear Stearns in September 2007.

Mr. Lewis has invested $ 1 billion, the fifth-largest investment bank in the U.S. at the time that his actions were trading $ 100. If then fell in March 2008, Mr. Lewis loss amounted to $ 1.16bn.

Next was a member of the royal family of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Thani game with a 280 million U.S. dollars to buy now is not the Icelandic bank KAUPTHING. The agreement gave him 5 / 01 percent to the bank the third-largest individual shareholder at the time. The failure, his status as head of equity left very little protection from massive loss.

The meaning of all this, of course, is that the super-rich long-term investors clearly see tremendous opportunities. However, markets are not always mutually millionaire, and those who are short-term gain may not be in a better position to win.

Taking into account similar to playing a future long-term investment strategy, such as Prince Al-Walid with Citi and buffet with Mr. Goldman.

Stephen Wall is a senior officer of wealth management strategies reflection Association Scorpion
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Gains from investments by insurance

Insurance companies often in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, such as the sale of shares in the market and destabilizing.

But for distributors funds, insurance companies have access to an entirely new customer base. Today, the emphasis on "the best rock 'leading insurers, the customer access to the widest possible range of investment funds. Some even offer hedge funds. There are long days, "only its own brand." Investing in the form of insurance provides valuable tax advantages for customers - so valuable that the British Government is considering changes.

The Holy Grail "for most investors is the ability to improve productivity without risk.

One way to achieve this is to some financial figures. Insurance may be investors to "wrap" in its portfolio, so that the tax is not collected in favor of negotiations between the various funds. Everything is possible, once again arrived in new assets, not just the net profit after tax.

Revenues may also be combined - no need to disseminate this case is not required. Thus, investors in lower risk assets, such as cash, bonds and investment guarantees could prevent the tax burden if you do not profit and loss.

Insurance can be regular contributions - in the United Kingdom, should continue for a period of 10 years for tax relief - or a single investment.

Single premium policies, also known as offshore bonds, residing in the United Kingdom allowed the withdrawal of regular income without any immediate tax liability. Investors can save up to 5 per cent of the initial investment each year, if the amount of its initial investment was withdrawn, but are not obliged to pay taxes until the bond is collected. Each of the 5 percent set aside "subsidy" is not a year may be postponed.

Individuals or his advisers, or hoped, the company can buy the bonds at sea, to celebrate its proposal to the portfolio. Bonds on the high seas could be a number of investments, cash and fixed income to equities, hedge funds and structured investments, such as the seizure of guarantees. However, living in the United Kingdom and can not intervene directly in individual securities.

The portfolio may be the choice of investment insurance company in the menu. Thus, the United Kingdom, similar to that of France and other countries. Many insurance companies allow investors to funds not included in the list, provided they meet certain criteria, or the transfer of portfolios in the care of their portfolio managers to manage quite arbitrary.
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Global Oil Demand: Are You Ready for Gasoline Under a Buck a Gallon?

by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist, Investment U
Friday, December 12, 2008: Issue #900

When I started driving, gasoline still contained lead and regular was selling for 29 cents a gallon. My father remembers 10 cents a gallon.

While it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see those prices again, you could see gasoline below $1 a gallon, and it just might hit $0.75 a gallon. It might not be in time for Christmas, but the Easter Bunny might leave it in your Easter Basket.

That’s not just wishful thinking on my part: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most recent monthly forecast (released just yesterday) indicates year-over-year global oil demand will shrink in 2008 for the first time in the last 25 years.

Why? Developed nations are skidding into recession and emerging nations have hit the brake pedal on economic growth. And when the United States - by far the largest oil user in the world - cuts back, the ripple effect is devastating to producers.

Oil-laden tankers are backed up at U.S. oil unloading terminals, waiting to unload. At the same time, the nation’s most recent oil inventory report shows that storage tanks are brimming with crude oil, gasoline and heating oil. But that doesn’t mean there’s no money to be made here. In fact there are a number of opportunities to profit in oil right now.

Global Oil Demand - OPEC Cuts Production

OPEC is scrambling to cut production of oil. Chances are good that they won’t cut far enough or fast enough. Supply destruction will continue to lag demand destruction for the foreseeable future. And that sets the stage for a continued softening of pump prices as well as heating oil.

And then, of course, there will be the cheaters: You can expect rogues like Venezuela and Iran to continue to pump and sell as much oil as they can possibly suck out of the ground, since there is little production accounting oversight on the part of OPEC. It was a big problem the last time we had an oil crisis back in the 1970s.

How low could it go? Merrill Lynch is on record predicting $25 a barrel. It has a fairly good chance to go even lower, before supply cuts catch up with global demand slowdown, which is still occurring.

How long will it stay low? It’s hard to say, but any increase in global economic growth would provide a boost in demand and a subsequent rise in the price of oil. Current economic forecasts, while mixed, don’t show much of an increase until the latter half of 2009 - or even early 2010.

For now, though, demand is still falling, with October alone registering a steep 8.3% decline in crude prices. Simple math says that if crude prices are cut in half from here, so, too, could the price at the pump. Car dealers with rows of gas guzzling SUVs on their lots would be jumping for joy.

But just like $147 a barrel was artificially high, so, too, would be $20 a barrel on the low side. As prices begin to stabilize in late 2009 or early 2010, oil will likely return to a trading range of $80 to $100 a barrel. It would begin to slowly rise from there as the global economy climbs out of recession and economic growth rekindles.

2 Places to Put Your Gas-Savings Cash

Naturally, there are a few ways to put your growing mound of gas-saving cash to work:

* Shares of Autonation, Inc. (NYSE: AN), one of the largest car dealer networks in the country, are off 50% from their 52-week highs. Any sustained reduction in the price of gasoline will likely have a positive impact on car sales, particularly in the hard-to-move segments of the market like low-mileage SUVs, vans and pickups.


* A more direct way to play this would be to pick up a few shares of Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) that’s been bouncing along in a tight trading range of $15 to $20 a share since mid-October. Its profits are tied directly to the spread between the price of crude oil and the price of refined products (known as the crack spread). A widening spread bodes well for refiners like Valero.

While I’m not sure I’d be running out to buy a big SUV anytime soon, it’ll certainly be easier on the wallet when pulling up to the pump. But don’t get too comfortable with cheap gasoline. Prices will eventually revert to their natural mean. And in the case of oil, it will eventually be higher.

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Investing Like Warren Buffett: Take Your Cue From the World’s Best Investor

by Alexander Green, Chairman, Investment U
Investment Director, The Oxford Club
Monday, December 8, 2008: Issue #897

Not long ago I excerpted a recent New York Times column by Warren Buffett explaining his take on the recent market sell-off.

Despite the dour economic outlook, Buffett expects U.S. companies to report record profits within five years. He is getting fully invested in stocks in his own personal account.

Perpetual Money Machine

Since Warren Buffett’s column originally ran on October 14th, however, the S&P 500 has dropped 13%.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t get emails telling me that Buffett “blew it.” He was “too early.” Or he “failed to call the bottom.”

I beg to differ …

Warren Buffett’s Economic Outlook

For the record, here is part of Warren Buffett’s column that I excerpted:

“Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month - or a year - from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up.”

Let’s assume for a moment that Buffett is right and five years from now U.S. companies are reporting record profits.

Since we know that share prices follow earnings, the market will likely have met or exceeded its old record high. (The Dow crossed 14,000 in early October 2007.) Investors who bought good quality stocks at current levels will be in excellent shape. So will those who merely reinvested their dividends.

To clarify, let’s try a thought experiment: Today is December 8, 2013. The Dow is at 14,000. Looking back, you can now choose any one of these three options - and magically reinvent history.

Over the past six years:

* The Dow soared from 14,000 to 18,000 and has now declined to 14,000.
* The Dow treaded water and rarely traded much higher or lower than 14,000.
* The Dow sank to less than 8,000 and has since climbed back to 14,000.

With the luxury of hindsight, which scenario would you prefer?

If you’re in the wealth accumulation phase, clearly the best answer is #3. It may have been scary, but this was the only scenario that offered you the maximum opportunity to buy low.

Investing Like Warren Buffett - Not The Average Investor

That’s why, unlike the average investor who is sitting on his hands (except to bite his nails occasionally), Warren Buffett is actively buying stocks.

Some will counter that this is likely to be a steep recession and stocks may go substantially lower.

Buffett surely know this - and clearly reasons that this only makes option #3 more attractive.

History shows that most so-called market timers will either never move or move far too late. They’re comfortable in cash because they believe - quite rightly in my view - that the economy will only get worse.

But think hard - and read your history - before you opt out of the market entirely. Yes, the Dow sometimes falls during a recession. But, perversely, other times it soars.

For example, in the 13-month recession in 1926-27, the market went up 41.1%. In the 8-month recession in 1945, it went up 19.5%. In the 11-month recession in 1948-49, it went up 15.2%. In the 10-month recession in 1953-54, it went up 24.2%. In the 10-month recession of 1960-61, it went up 20.3%. In the 16-month recession in 1981-82, it went up 14.6%. And so on.

In my view, investors who are cursing this market are either spending far too much time listening to the “end-of-the-worlders” or stuck looking back, not forward.

If Warren Buffett is right - and he has a long history of being just that - these investors are moaning at opportunity’s door right now.

If you want to meet your five- and 10-year investment goals, imagine yourself five and 10 years from now. Ask yourself what you will wish then that you were doing with your money today.

Then govern yourself accordingly.

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Reasons The Average Investor Will Fail

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist, Investment U
Associate Investment Director, The Oxford Club
Thursday, December 11, 2008: Issue #899

I’ll be the first to concede the going’s tough. That almost every “time-tested” strategy that worked well in bull markets is sputtering and collapsing.

But is it so bad we’ve given up on turning a profit? And just resigned ourselves to preserving our principal, right?

WRONG.

This week the Treasury sold $32 billion in 4-week bills at a yield of ZERO percent.

That’s not a typo. Investors actually clamored for the opportunity to lend the government their money in return for absolutely no return. In fact, investors bid $126 billion at the auction, more than four times the amount available.

As Michael Franzese, the head of government bond trading at Standard Chartered explains, “I have never seen this before… It’s all about capital preservation for the turn of the year, not capital appreciation.”

Forget unbelievable. It’s idiotic. What investors are essentially saying is that absolutely no better opportunity exists in the market right now - that survival is their paramount goal of investing, not profiting. But ignore what the lemmings are doing. Their folly is creating endless (and historic) opportunities for us to increase our wealth. Of course, simply telling you that will not suffice…

6 Market Investment Opportunities Right Now

Let me share with you a short-list of market investment opportunities I’m researching and taking advantage of on a daily basis. If nothing else, it should make you think twice before you follow the $32 billion worth of stupid money…

* International Stocks: Forget decoupling. It was a farce. The United States caught a cold… and international markets caught pneumonia. The offshoot? International markets are the cheapest on the planet - despite much stronger growth prospects than in the United States. For instance, the average Russian stock trades for just three times earnings! South Africa and Brazil are the next cheapest at six and seven times, respectively. An easy way to capture upside here is to rebalance your portfolio by adding money to your diversified international funds or investments. One of my favorite options here is the Templeton Emerging Markets Fund (NYSE: EMF), run by the best international manager around, Mark Mobius.


* “Free” Stocks: Hundreds of stocks trade below their cash balances, making them essentially free. Some will of course, burn through that cash faster than my wife on a shopping spree. So we can’t buy blindly. But that’s not the case for all of these stocks. One compelling opportunity I recently presented to my subscribers is Immersion Corp. (Nasdaq: IMMR) - a leader in haptic technology. Forget cash on hand, its patent portfolio is worth more than the current stock price.


* Income: Dividend yields rest at 15-year highs. Of course, not all dividend-paying stocks are created equal. Many will slash or suspend payments just to survive the downturn. But others won’t. The master limited partnership (MLP) space is rife with opportunity. Investors seem to forget these companies aren’t impacted by the price of oil and gas. They just get paid to transport it. The price of oil might be off 70%, but demand is not. My favorite play here is Kinder Morgan Energy (NYSE: KMP). It just increased its dividend and currently offers investors an attractive 8.7% yield.


* Munis: We all know there are NO guarantees in investing. But I can guarantee taxes are going up. How else will the government fund the billions upon billions in new spending? Especially, at a time when tax receipts will plummet. Thanks to a drop in corporate profits and the loss of 1.2 million taxpayers to unemployment. No surprise, the herd is piling out of munis ($7.4 billion so far this quarter) at exactly the wrong time. Their folly is creating attractive tax-free income yields and upside for us. For instance, the Vanguard Intermediate Tax Exempt Fund (VWITX) currently sports a 4.25% yield. That’s tax free and equivalent to earning 6.5% (based on a 35% tax bracket).


* Real Estate: Pricing remains completely irrational for real estate investment trusts (REITs). Some closed-end funds are off as much as 90%. Dirt is cheap - but it isn’t that cheap. This is a once-in-a-lifetime rebound opportunity. If nothing else, capitalize on the unstoppable trend of homeowners converting into renters by considering an apartment like Equity Residential Properties (NYSE: EQR).


* Short selling: An economic recovery won’t save every company. Plenty will remain in the tank, or worse, end up on the courthouse steps. Yet, most investors overlook the simple strategy to profit from these collapses - selling short. But they shouldn’t. In these markets it’s one of the few strategies consistently booking winners. That’s why I’ve been using it for my subscribers. Just last week, we booked a 50% winner in The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), for example.

Remember this is just my short-list. The key takeaway is simple - investment opportunities abound.

Granted, we might have to work harder than normal to unearth them. But we certainly don’t have to resign ourselves to handing over our hard earned capital to the government for nothing in return. After all, that privilege is reserved for our tax dollars.

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