7 Things Smart Investors Always Keep in Mind

By Sarika Periwal

1. Have preset goals

Investing your money is a serious business and deserves a well thought out plan. While saving money is always a good idea, you should also know what you are saving money for, and how much you will need to meet that goal. Usual financial goals could include saving enough to buy a home, or planning for investments to supplement your pension, or even having ready access to a certain amount of money in case of medical emergencies. The goals must be set before you can save money for them.

2. Invest first then play
If you clear all your bills before you set aside some amount to invest, you will never have any money left over. What you need to do in a very disciplined manner is to invest regularly in a couple of options and then use the remaining money for your regular expenditures. That way you will always have enough to invest and will work out the difference in your current lifestyle. Skipping a movie a month is a small price to pay for a good investment portfolio.

3. Spread it out over different heads
Just like putting all your eggs in a single basket is ill advised, your investment strategy should also not concentrate only on a single investment option. There are some savings options that you will always find easier to invest in. They are like your comfort zone and if you are not careful you may over invest in an area that does not offer you the best possible returns. Or you may risk much more by investing in a single company’s stocks. Use a commodity trading company after conducting diligent research. That way a single crash in the financial world won’t clean you out completely.

4. Understand your investment
If you are paying a portfolio manager to handle your investments, it is even more important for you to ask what he is doing with your money. You must always understand what you are investing in and the possible risks that you are taking. Yes it is not the most entertaining of subject matters, but financial investments work much better for you if you know exactly what you are investing in. So break out that portfolio and get a gleaning of what every single investment line stands for.

5. Rebalance your portfolio every year
Just as your needs change each year, the focus of your investments may also need to change each year. If you are investing in mutual funds, stocks, or commodities, take time out once a year to see if they are the best performing ones in the field. If they are doing well, leave them alone. If you feel that others are offering better opportunities go ahead and make the change. By simply being aware of what is going on in the market you will be a wiser investor.

6. Pay off loans as fast as you can
A loan is simply making money for the creditor. So you need to ensure that you pay no more interest than is due. If you can collect an annual corpus through wise investing to pre-pay portions of your loans, it is actually a very wise investment in your future.

7. Trust your gut
Though you may not be the best financial wizard in town, you must also trust your own instinct when it comes to taking up investment plans. Just because it sounds good when your broker is hard selling something, is no reason to invest in it. Take a look for yourself. Ask others for their opinion and always trust your gut before making an investment decision.

Source:http://www.selfgrowth.com/

Quote for the day

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” -  Siddhartha Gautama

27-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“Risk, then, comes in two flavors: "shallow risk," a loss of real capital that recovers relatively quickly... and "deep risk," a permanent loss of real capital.” -  William Bernstein

26-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

"To hate is to show you still care, who needs that, focus on what's really important." - Henry Rollins

2015 Social Media Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet

Nowadays most of us use approximately three different social media sites and this can end up consuming a lot of your time. With lots of information to keep up with, it is important for social media users to consider productivity. Keyboard shortcuts can help you to navigate through the social media platforms quickly.

Shortcuts are specific key combinations for specific commands that are otherwise available through an interface or menu only. This translates to lots of mouse-clicking and requires time. You can easily save this time by using and learning keyboard shortcuts, particularly for social media platforms. With these shortcuts, you can easily get to a specified section of these platforms. For example, you can check out your photos, messages, account settings, friend requests or perform specific commands by using a single shortcut without a lot of mouse-clicking.

Keyboard shortcuts also helps users to multitask. This is because you will not have to follow the pointer in order to check out what exactly you are doing. This will help you to free your mind from other tasks and enables you to carry out multiple tasks at the same time. So speed up the browsing process by using these social media keyboard shortcuts.

Source: http://www.visualistan.com/

25-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

"To be successful long-term — to be at the top of your game — you must constantly evolve and adapt to your surroundings. There is one constant in life that you can count on: Things will change." - Glenn Dubin

24-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“Your strategy has to be flexible enough to change when the environment changes. The mistake most people make is they keep the same strategy all the time. They say, 'Damn, the market didn't behave the way I thought it would.' Why should it? Life and the markets just don't work that way.” -  Mark Weinstein

23-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“What most people fail to understand is that while you're losing your money, you're also losing your objectivity. It's like being at the craps table in Vegas, and the fat bleached blonde in the sequined dress is rolling the dice, and you're losing, and you're determined that you're not going to let her beat you. What you've forgotten is that she doesn't care about you, she's just rolling the dice.” - Marty Schwartz

Quote for the day

"People don't buy products because of the actual value of the products - they buy stuff because the price of the product closely matches their perceived value of the product." - Charlie Gilkey

40 Best Things Ed Seykota Ever Said

“Mr. Seykota himself has put together a money management track record with returns of roughly +60% net of fees over the three-decade span of his trading career…”
-Futures Magazine

Ed Seykota, first featured in the book Market Wizards has one of the best records of all time for any trader. Ed Seykota’s returns on capital compares to those achieved by Warren Buffett, George Soros or William J. O’Neil. He is among the trading gods with no doubt. 

What does he find important in trading success? Mr. Seykota has a keen focus on trader psychology above all other trading dynamics. Seykota’s website Trading Tribe spends more time advising it’s readers on proper trading psychology than anything else. Most traders are not concerned with their own psychology and instead focus on entries and exits, with trading systems and making money, not their mind and emotions. 

This is generally their undoing. The longer you trade and the bigger your account grows the more I see the crucial importance of mindset in the trader’s success or failure. When a losing streak sets in the trader finds out what his underlying issues are and how he handles losing is the key to his long term success. 

The traders ego management determines his success as much as his trading system and risk management. An an ego can cause you to let losers run and bet far too much on any one trade. An unchecked ego can destroy your account. The market is a terrible place to learn about internal issues by losing money. Here are some quotes that changed how I thought about trading early on and have kept me on the right path to consistent profits.

Ed Seykota Quotes:
01. “If I am bullish, I neither buy on a reaction, nor wait for strength; I am already in. I turn bullish at the instant my buy stop is hit, and stay bullish until my sell stop is hit. Being bullish and not being long is illogical.”

02. “Fundamentalists figure things out and anticipate change. Trend followers join the trend of the moment. Fundamentalists try to solve their feelings. Trend followers join their feelings and observe them evolve and dis-solve.”

03. “The feelings we accept and enjoy rarely interfere with trading.”

04. “Systems don’t need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible”

05. “It can be very expensive to try to convince the markets you are right.”

06. “There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders.”

07. “I would add that I consider myself and how I do things as a kind of system which, by definition, I always follow.”

08. “Systems trading is ultimately discretionary. The manager still has to decide how much risk to accept, which markets to play, and how aggressively to increase and decrease the trading base as a function of equity change.”

09. “Trying to trade during a losing streak is emotionally devastating. Trying to play “catch up” is lethal.”

10. “The elements of good trading are: 1, cutting losses. 2, cutting losses. And 3, cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”

11. “Losing a position is aggravating, whereas losing your nerve is devastating.”

12. “The markets are the same now as they were five to ten years ago because they keep changing – just like they did then.”

13. “Luck plays an enormous role in trading success. Some people were lucky enough to be born smart, while others were even smarter and got born lucky.”

14. “Having a quote machine is like having a slot machine at your desk – you end up feeding it all day long. I get my price data after the close each day.”

15. “A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. That’s the kind of thing winning traders do.”

16. “If you can’t take a small loss, sooner or later you will take the mother of all losses.”

17. “It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us true burning desires, she also gives us the means to satisfy them. Those who want to win and lack skill can get someone with skill to help them.”

18. “Risk no more that you can afford to lose, and also risk enough so that a win is meaningful.”

19. “Dramatic and emotional trading experiences tend to be negative. Pride is a great banana peel, as are hope, fear, and greed. My biggest slip-ups occurred shortly after I got emotionally involved with positions.”

20. “Be sensitive to subtle differences between ‘intuition’ and ‘into wishing’.”

21. “The trading rules I live by are: 1. Cut losses. 2. Ride winners. 3. Keep bets small. 4. Follow the rules without question. 5. Know when to break the rules.”

22. “I usually ignore advice from other traders, especially the ones who believe they are on to a “sure thing”. The old timers, who talk about “maybe there is a chance of so and so,” are often right and early.”

23. “I set protective stops at the same time I enter a trade. I normally move these stops in to lock in a profit as the trend continues. Sometimes, I take profits when a market gets wild. This usually doesn’t get me out any better than waiting for my stops to close in, but it does cut down on the volatility of the portfolio, which helps calm my nerves. Losing a position is aggravating, whereas losing your nerve is devastating.”

24. “I intend to risk below 5 percent on a trade, allowing for poor executions.”

25. “I don’t judge success, I celebrate it. I think success has to do with finding and following one’s calling regardless of financial gain.”

26. (On losing streaks and over-trading) “Acting out this drama could be exciting. However, it also seems terribly expensive. One alternative is to keep bets small and then to systematically keep reducing risk during equity drawdowns. That way you have a gentle financial and emotional touchdown.”

27. “In order of importance to me are: 1) the long term trend, 2) the current chart pattern, and 3) picking a good spot to buy or sell.”

28.“Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money.”

29. “Fundamentals that you read about are typically useless as the market has already discounted the price, and I call them “funny-mentals”. However, if you catch on early, before others believe, you might have valuable “surprise-a-mentals”.”

30. “If you can’t measure it, you probably can’t manage it… Things you measure tend to improve.”

31. “The key to long-term survival and prosperity has a lot to do with the money management techniques incorporated into the technical system.”

32. “If you want to know everything about the market, go to the beach. Push and pull your hands with the waves. Some are bigger waves, some are smaller. But if you try to push the wave out when it’s coming in, it’ll never happen. The market is always right”

33. “To avoid whipsaw losses, stop trading”

34. “Pyramiding instructions appear on dollar bills. Add smaller and smaller amounts on the way up. Keep your eye open at the top”

35. “Markets are fundamentally volatile. No way around it. Your problem is not in the maths. There is no maths to get you out of having to experience uncertainty.”

36. “Our work is not so much to treat or to cure feelings, as to accept and celebrate them. This is a critical difference.”

37. “Before I enter a trade, I set stops at a point at which the chart sours.”

38. “Trading requires skill at reading the markets and at managing your own anxieties.”

39. “The positive intention of fear is risk control.”

40. “Speculate with less than 10% of your liquid net worth. Risk less than 1% of your speculative account on a trade. This tends to keep the fluctuations in the trading account small, relative to net worth. This is essential as large fluctuations can engage {emotions} and lead to feeling-justifying drama.”

Source: www.newtraderu.com

These 14 giant corporations dominate the global auto industry

The automotive industry has experienced some incredible growth over the past couple of years. In the US alone, more than 30 automotive brands vie for the 17 million autos that are sold each year.

Around the world, there are even more brands selling everything from tiny economy cars to million-dollar exotics for the world's plutocracy. But the industry is highly consolidated: just a handful of major corporations own nearly all of the world's major car brands. 

This graphic does include every car company and every brand. But it does include the biggest and most influential ones that consumers are likely to come across in Europe and the Americas.

www.businessinsider.com

Quote for the day

“Always respect the marketplace. Never take anything for granted. Do your homework. Recap the day. Figure out what you did right and what you did wrong. That is one part of the homework; the other part is projective. What do I want to happen tomorrow? What happens if the opposite occurs? What happens if nothing happens? Think through all the 'what-ifs.' Anticipate and plan, rather than react.” - Tony Saliba

20-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“Rather than targeting a desired rate of return, even an eminently reasonable one, investors should target risk.” - Seth Klarman

19-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“Success in trading means an excess of profits over losses. Success in the investment field means more good than bad investments. If any one tells you he can be almost invariably successful, put him down as trying to impose on your credulity.” - Richard D. Wyckoff

18-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts.” - Charlie Munger

17 Ways successful people think differently about money

Talking about wealth and money is a sensitive topic for many people. If you are one of them, chances are, you are holding on to negative beliefs that you picked up from those around. 

Inspired by Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, we created this infographic to help you understand the difference between a successful and unsuccessful mindset.

Source: http://www.visualistan.com/

Quote for the day

“Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.” - Daniel F. Chambliss

16-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“My basic philosophy is: Expose your portfolio to the best stocks that the market has to offer and cut your losses very quickly when you're wrong. That one sentence essentially describes my strategy.” - Mark Minervini

The more corrupt a country is the better the returns its equity markets offer, new data indicate

Corruption: doing the dirt

But look at the numbers. Since 2000, the 14 big stock markets for countries with “poor” governance, as ranked by Transparency, have enjoyed an average annual return of 11 per cent. Other markets ranged between 5 and 8 per cent. This suggests that corruption is a risk factor, and just as investors get a risk premium for investing in small or cheap companies, maybe they also get one for corrupt countries.

In the 1990s, academics discovered that companies with poor governance traded at a discount. A decade later, after big investors such as Calpers forced reforms through, the discount was gone. Is something similar happening in emerging markets?

It might, but remember that investors can shake up a company because they own it. It is far harder for them to force change in a country. Investors must trust in support from voters, activists and politicians.

The mania for “Brics” investing has now run its course. Those who would hope to harvest the corruption premium over the next 15 years must be sure to buy at deep discounts.

Source: www.ft.com

Penny Stocks

The idea behind trading penny stocks is to recognize a good deal and approach it with a strategy. 

For first time traders and those who aren't knowledgeable about the industry trends, learning about the basics is the right first step for making profit. 

To get an idea of all the important aspects of trading penny stocks, the infographic below shows you how most successful traders create their strategies. It defines some basic concepts in this business, explains potential risks and educates you on how to make winning choices. 

Here, the crucial thing is to set some rules and realistic expectations before you start looking for a way to achieve your goals. Additionally, the infographic includes several most important rules penny stock traders should live by in order to always be satisfied with their achievements and be able to keep going further. 

Therefore, the infographic visually represents all the major steps to succeeding in this promising field.

Source: http://www.visualistan.com/

Quote for the day

“As a speculator you must embrace disorder and chaos.” -  Louis Bacon

Quote for the day

“Value investors are students of the game; they learn from every pitch, those at which they swing and those they let pass by. They are not influenced by the way others are performing; they are motivated only by their own results.” -  Seth Klarman

13-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

52 week high and low prices reached in today's trading session

Crossings - 13/02/2015 & Top 10 Contributors to Change ASPI

http://www.cse.lk/cmt/upload_cse_report_file/daily_report_78_13-02-2015.pdf

Top 10 Gainer / Loser / Turnover / Volume for the day

Top 10 Foreign Activity for the Week

Quote for the day

“Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at inflection points are we rewarded.” -  George Soros

12-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

11-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“High volume at a key point is an extraordinarily valuable tip-off that a stock is ready to move. Volume can also be used in a reverse manner. When prices enter a consolidation after an advance, volume should dry up very substantially. In other words, there should be very little selling coming into the market. During a consolidation, declining volume is generally constructive.” - William O' Neill

10-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“Confidence is every part of trading. If you're not convinced that you can win, you should never climb into the ring.” -  Marty Schwartz

09-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” - Albert Einstein

The History of Web Design

We're all guilty of taking the internet for granted these days, mainly because it's such a huge part of our lives. Nowadays, everywhere you look people are accessing the internet, usually from tiny devices that fit into the palm of their hand. It's almost difficult to believe that just 25 years ago nobody had access to the internet. Despite it's young age, the internet has had a very interesting life so far. The Ecommerce experts at Americommerce have created a great infographic titled: The History of Web Design which explores the pinnacle moments of the internet's journey from conception to the present day.

This journey through time explores the days where web browsers could only support text, the birth dates of many of our most used websites: BBC NEWS (1996), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2006), and more! With growth this extravagant in it's first 25 years, the only question left to ask is, what will the next 25 bring?

Source: http://www.visualistan.com/

Quote for the day

“You must learn to allow patience and stillness to take over from anxiety and frantic activity... The good player is patient. He is observant, controlling his patience, and organizing his composure. When he sees an opportunity, he explodes.” - Jim Lau

CSE quoted Companies Beta Value As of Fourth Quarter of year 2014

The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media.

Source:http://jeremywaite.tumblr.com/

Quote for the day

“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.” - Marcel Proust

06-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“A lot of people would rather understand the market than make money.” -  Ed Seykota

05-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“The professional investor has no choice but to sit by quietly while the mob has its day, until the enthusiasm or panic of the speculators and non-professionals has been spent. He is not impatient, nor is he even in a very great hurry, for he is an investor, not a gambler or a speculator. The seeds of any bust are inherent in any boom that outstrips the pace of whatever solid factors gave it its impetus in the first place. There are no safeguards that can protect the emotional investor from himself.” - J Paul Getty

CSE - Percentage wise Top 25 Gainers and Losers in January 2015

Top 25 Gainers in January 2015

Top 25 Losers in January 2015

Quote for the day

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” - Mark Twain

How much does Google really know about you?

Google started as a search engine, but now it's one of the biggest collectors of data in the world. Whether it's your personal details, shopping habits, or even where you travel, Google has a lot of ways of keeping track of it. This infographic scratches the surface of Google's data collection systems.

Source: http://www.visualistan.com/

Quote for the day

“Watch idly while profit-taking opportunities arise, but in adversity run like a jackrabbit.” -  William Eckhardt

02-Feb-2015 CSE Trade Summary

Quote for the day

“Everything relates to failure. We grow up experiencing failure as children and then we go through it as adults. The key is understanding that failure is how we improve. You do this not by ignoring the failure, but by recognizing it, examining it thoroughly and not making any changes until you truly understand it.” - Henry Petroski

Quote for the day

“Keep an investment diary and re-read it from time to time but particularly at moments when there is tremendous exuberance and also panic. We are in a very emotional business, and any wisdom we can extract from our own experience is very valuable.” - Barton Biggs

The 7 Skills A Trader Must Have

There are seven skills that a trader needs in order to survive and be successful. Without discipline, no trading system will be successful. Without risk management, a trader will certainly blowup their account. Without passion, a trader will not have enough energy to get from new trader to rich trader. Without perseverance, new traders will quit after experiencing resistance, failure, and monetary losses. Without a strong work ethic, a trader will not have the necessary edge over other traders. Without flexibility, a trader will be broken by the markets. Without focus, a new trader becomes a jack-of-all-trades and the master of none. 

1. DISCIPLINE: The trader must have the ability to control their emotions and follow a plan. Discipline is a required skill in trading. Without it, a trader is either a gambler or trading based on fear and greed. Without discipline, a trader will be gamed by those in control of their emotions. 

2. RISK MANAGEMENT: Risk management must be a top priority for a trader to survive in the markets. Structuring the risk per trade to be no more than 1% or 2% of trading capital, is imperative. A trader must be able to survive 10 losses in a row. These strings of losses come around more often than a new trader would suspect. If a trader loses just 5% of their trading capital in each of ten trades, that means they are down almost 50% and need a 100% return just to get back to even. At this point they are ruined. 

3. PASSION: A trader must love to trade. Without a passion for the markets and trading, the new trader will not survive the learning process, because anyone with common sense would think that trading is not worth it. Passion will be needed to bring a trader through the learning curve and eventual losses. 

4. PERSEVERANCE: A trader can never quit. A trader will have many bad days, bad weeks, bad months, and in the beginning, even bad years. The ability to keep going despite hardship, is imperative. 

5. WORK ETHIC: There is no easy money in trading. Even the easy money in bull markets is usually taken back from newbies in the next bear market cycle. Being a trader is probably equivalent to getting a bachelors degree in a college, rather than a law or medical degree. A new trader’s tuition will come in the form of books, tapes, videos, seminars, and newsletters, and trading losses. Expecting to start making money trading from day one is like someone going up to a doctor and saying “Hey, how can I make a quick buck in the medical field?” 

6. FLEXIBILITY: A trader must have the agility to quickly realize they are wrong, and act on that by taking a small loss before it becomes a big loss. There are no crystal balls. Good traders play probabilities and try to go with the flow. Most new traders will never accept that trading is not about being right every time. In reality, it is about losing small when wrong and winning big when right. Expect a 50%-60% success rate, and understand that your wins have to pay for your losses. 

7. FOCUS: Being an expert on a specific market, currencies, commodities, futures, options, or stocks, will lead to more success than dividing your attention into too many areas. A small watch list allows you see everything, and understand your own trading vehicles better than the majority of traders, giving you an edge over others that drift between methodology.

These seven skills are more important than the trading system itself.

Source: newtrader.com