Personal Money Management 101 Blog

by Steve Selengut

From the end of 1999 through the end of 2009, all of the popular Wall Street market performance measurement tools were in the red. The average bloodletting level of the DJIA, the S & P 500, and the NASDAQ was a disturbing-to-some minus nineteen percent.

The Media has dubbed it “The Dismal Decade”. Read the rest of this entry »

by Steve Selengut

During the past sixty years, most economic, market, and interest rate cycles have lasted from two to five years, peak-to-peak. Rarely have any of the cycle-tracking market indices moved in tandem, and none of the cycles are considered to be particularly predictable.

Individual securities (the stuff that indices are made of) complicate things significantly by having even less predictable cycles of their own. This generally uncertain atmosphere is the very nature of the financial markets. If investors could come to grips with the non-calendar, cyclical, nature of markets, it is likely that they could improve their investment performance considerably. Read the rest of this entry »

You’re young, active, and enjoying life to the full, why think about financial retirement planning? But there are very good reasons to start planning for your retirement right now. More people are living longer; hence more pension funds will be needed. Plus many developed societies are experiencing falling birth rates, so there will be fewer working people to support you in retirement. The corollary – today’s workers can’t rely on the state or next generation to support them in old age. Read the rest of this entry »

by Steve Selengut

A participant in the morning Working Capital Model (WCM) investment workshop observed: I’ve noticed that my account balances are returning to their (June 2007) levels. People are talking down the economy and the dollar. Is there any preemptive action I need to take? Read the rest of this entry »

Key Accounting Ratios

A number of key accounting ratios can be calculated from the financial statements of a business. These ratios provide an objective summary of the financial health and investment quality of a business.

Remember though that accounting methods vary from one company to another, and also that typical ratio values may vary widely from one sector to another. Read the rest of this entry »