Personal Money Management 101 Blog

The Internet is undoubtedly a great invention for investors. Not only does it offer countless low-cost real-time trading facilities, but also provides a wealth of financial information including charts, reports, latest news…

But there is a darker side to the net, as reported in a recent edition of Moneytrack. It’s a variant of the boiler room “pump and dump” scam in which dubious salespeople call and try to pressure you into buying certain stocks. When people buy the price rises and the scam operator is able to dump their holdings at an inflated price, leaving the price to tumble back to its true value. Read the rest of this entry »

Illusionist Derren Brown recently started a media frenzy in Britain by apparently “predicting” the lottery numbers on live TV. In an alleged explanation of his feat Brown claimed to have averaged the predictions of 24 people, citing Francis Galton’s discovery that the combined estimate of a crowd is often more accurate than any of the individual estimates.

While it’s unlikely this approach can successfully predict lottery numbers, Brown’s trick has introduced a mass audience to the phenomenon explored in James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. Read the rest of this entry »

Recession is nothing new. By their very nature financial markets, and whole economies, move in cycles. Highs turn to lows and then back to highs again, and there isn’t usually an easily pinpointable reason.

However, the current recession is outstanding in two respects. In terms of severity this one is big, as witnessed by the massive scale of government intervention and bailouts. The Congressional Budget Office has forecast it: “is likely to be the longest since World War II, and by some measures could be the worst since the Great Depression” [Source: McClatchy]. The current crisis also stems from a clear cause, ie so-called the credit crunch, itself the result of irresponsible greed. Read the rest of this entry »

Definition of Recession
As the financial crisis continues we’re told the world is heading into recession, but what exactly does this mean?

Technically a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Under normal circumstances economic output increases, so that the economy as a whole produces more than it did in the past. But sometimes that increase is halted and for a time we produce less – that is recession, and is where we seem to be heading at the moment.

Economies typically move in cycles, good times (booms) are followed by the less good and so an and so forth. Despite GB leader Gordon Brown’s claim to have abolished boom an bust, what’s happening right now is just the down part of the cycle. Read the rest of this entry »

The current financial crisis began with a real estate crunch verging on depresion that continues and seems set to continue for some time to come. Whatever your interest in the real estate market the following might help you weather the storm.

Sellers
To say this isn’t the best time to sell is an understatement. Unless you really need to move it’s best to wait awhile until markets return to more normal conditions. The world has limited land but a growing population. Over time real estate has consistently proven to be one of best investments and will surely continue to be so. Read the rest of this entry »