8 RISKS TO EQUITY MARKETS IN 2012

8 RISKS TO EQUITY MARKETS IN 2012

Morgan Stanley provides us with 8 risks to the equity markets in 2012:

■  As of the end of October, US unemployment was 8.6%; the broader measure of unemployment, U-6, was 15.6%.

■  Medium-term growth may be held back by:
(i) continuing foreclosures, home-price weakness, and a significant inventory overhang;
(ii) banks’ and households’ deleveraging and low levels of consumer confidence;
(iii) state, local, and federal government fiscal austerity measures;
(iv) the likelihood of Europe being or entering a recession; and
(v) decelerating growth in China, India, and Brazil.

■  Global investors and officials have continuing concerns about the quality, maturity structure, and magnitude of several countries’ sovereign debt burdens.

■  Economic headwinds include financially stressed US consumers and state and local government employment layoffs and budget cutbacks.

■  Germany, France, several other Euro Zone countries, the UK and the US have been implementing fiscal austerity measures.

■  US stocks are not undervalued using long-term earnings metrics; the Shiller P/E—that is, price divided by 10-year average earnings—for the S&P 500 is 21.0, 28% above its long-term average.

■  Real median household income has fallen 10% since 2007.

■  Analysts’ consensus earnings estimates for 2012 have fallen 4% versus their peak and appear likely to decline further.

Source: Morgan Stanley

The Rich Investor’s Secret to Avoiding Worry and Wasted Time

The Rich Investor’s Secret to Avoiding Worry and Wasted Time   By Dr. David Eifrig, Retirement Millionaire
Friday, June 3, 2011

Many of the world’s richest and most successful investors grow and protect their wealth using a strategy the average investor has never considered…

If you can master this technique, you can avoid a huge amount of worry and wasted time and set yourself up to make extraordinary returns.

I realize it might seem like a silly comparison, but I’ve found the most useful way to describe this approach is in terms of the anaconda…

Anacondas are one of the world’s deadliest, most efficient predators… They don’t “zip” around, wasting energy chasing after their prey. They don’t get into long battles. In fact, they don’t hunt in a traditional sense at all.

Instead, anacondas lie around in rivers for long periods of time. They wait for an unsuspecting animal to pass by. Only then do they strike… Anacondas aren’t interested in fair fights. They are nature’s “no risk” operators.

And because they don’t spend much time or energy chasing every animal that comes along, they can grow to enormous size.

So what I call “anaconda trading” is all about patience… Developing the patience to hold cash and savings and sit tight until the ideal opportunity presents itself… an opportunity where the odds are overwhelmingly stacked in your favor.

Here’s an example of how it works…

I love the idea of owning muni bonds. You collect tax-free income, and they have a tiny default rate (around 0.1%). But up until late last year, investors chasing yield had pushed payouts down to unattractive levels.

Then our opportunity arrived…

In December, famed bank analyst Meredith Whitney made a splash predicting billions of dollars of losses in the municipal bond market. Prices plunged. The biggest muni-bond fund fell to mid-2009 levels… Investors could collect low-risk, tax-free yields that were higher than taxable Treasury yields. (Historically, you only see that situation about 10% of the time.)

So we struck. In my Retirement Millionaire newsletter, we bought funds yielding a taxable-equivalent 10%… at a 5% discount.

Since then, the fear has subsided in the muni market, prices are up, and we’re still collecting our fat yield.

It was a perfect “anaconda trade.” We weren’t “chasing yield” like the rest of the crowd. Instead, we were watching an asset we liked, waiting patiently for our opportunity. When it came, we didn’t hesitate.

And right now, we’re taking advantage of another huge “anaconda” opportunity… formerly high-flying technology stocks like Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco.

These companies dominate their markets. Intel controls 80% of the world market for microprocessors. Cisco is the major manufacturer of networking devices worldwide. And they increase earnings year after year after year. For the first quarter of 2011, Intel’s earnings were up 37% from the same time in 2010.

They’ve also built up large hoards of cash. Microsoft alone has close to $50 billion. Many are even paying dividends now. Cisco, for example, started paying a dividend in March.

These are fantastic companies that I’d love to own at the right prices. And our opportunity is here…

These stocks used to be the darlings of Wall Street. But they’re no longer the fast-growing stocks they used to be. Last year, Microsoft’s earnings grew “only” 22%. So they’ve been tossed aside and forgotten by many investors today. In the past four months, Cisco has fallen more than 25%.

There’s no reason a relentless cash-flow generator like Cisco should be trading at nine times earnings. The same goes for Intel and Microsoft.

This is a perfect example of an anaconda opportunity… Our “prey” is just sitting there. We can make an easy, low-risk bet with a high probability of success.

Source: Daily Wealth

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Interview with Members : Trendlines

After a break of some time, we are please to introduce Trendlines this week:-

1) InvestIdeas: What can you tell us about your background ?

I am an engineer by training, in my mid-30s, and a part-time trader/investor mostly based in Singapore. Learnt investing/trading the-DIY-way.

Started out as a Value Investor. During the crash of 2007, realised the importance of sentiment in the market, and branched out into trading.

After initial success, paid back all the trading capital and more, due to excessive trading and the lack of a money management strategy. Those were my “tuition fees”. If one wants to learn to swim in water, one has to swallow a few mouthfuls of it at least

Realised that money management strategies + portfolio allocation is more important than knowing market direction, and started researching them. Elliott Wave Theory gave me an intuitive framework for the market, and I have not looked back since.

2) InvestIdeas: How long have you been investing / trading ?

Investing for about 5 years, and trading for 3, and always learning. A newbie really, compared to the wealth of experience on this forum.

3) InvestIdeas: What is your Investment Strategy ?

It’s a Mixed Bag. Both VALUE INVESTING and TRADING have a common underlying theme – markets react to SENTIMENT in the short-medium term, and FUNDAMENTALS in the long-term.

(Ben Graham – “In the short run the market is a voting machine. In the long run it’s a weighing machine.”)

The Elliott Wave Theory(EWT), first developed by Ralph Nelson Elliott, essentially describes market sentiment in price form on a chart. This method resonated with me inuitively.

Coupled with a few other indicators and simple money management strategies, this has become the framework behind my trading methodology.

Initial Allocation from Savings (Will change with age)
40% – Unit Trusts (Active)
40% – Stocks/ETFs (Passive)
10% – Trading
10% – Cash

Unit Trusts -> All of them in emerging markets, as the only direction in the long-term is UP, and so the surest way to participate in the growth. I do medium-term rebalancing(every 6 months or so) between individual emerging markets & money market funds, using EWT.

Stocks -> Buy & Hold Dividend yielding stocks/reits, with a few Growth stocks thrown in. But, i never buy a stock without reading its chart.

Trading -> Mostly using leveraged ETFs / Warrants. 1-2 trades a month(best ideas), maximum 4, to supplement investment income.

4) InvestIdeas: What are your favorite books on trading/investing?

Elliott Wave Principle, Frost & Prechter
How to Make Money in Stocks, William J. O’Neil
Long-Term Secrets To Short-Term Trading, Larry Williams
The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham
Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb

5) InvestIdeas: What are your investment vehicles ?

Investment: Unit Trusts, Stocks/ETFs, Property, ILP
Trading: Leveraged ETFs, Warrants, Stocks

Continue reading at the forum..