ThinkFinance.org

By James Blitz in London and Ben Hall in Paris

The French are markedly more pessimistic about their prospects for the coming decade than their counterparts in Europe or the US, fearing they will have a progressively lower living standard and get less state help, according to a new opinion poll.

A Harris poll for the Financial Times asked people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the US whether they felt they were better off than 10 years ago, and to assess how they will have fared by 2020.

By Alan Rappeport in Washington

Consumer confidence in the US picked up in December, as lower levels of unemployment and bullish stock markets lifted hopes about the state of the economic recovery.

Separately on Tuesday, a closely watched index showed US house prices were flat in October following five consecutive months of gains, raising doubts about the market’s ability to sustain its momentum.

Here is a list of Investor Tools. I intend to update this list, so do visit back.

1. MSN Money Investment Toolbox
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/controls/cabx.asp?Redir=True&target...

U.S. Government Bonds
The bonds issued by Uncle Sam are called Treasurys. They're grouped in three categories.

U.S. Treasury bills -- maturities from 90 days to one year
U.S. Treasury notes -- maturities from two to 10 years
U.S. Treasury bonds -- maturities from 10 to 30 years

Index Funds
An index fund is a "passively" managed mutual fund that tries to mirror the performance of a specific index, such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Since index funds attempt to mirror a stock index, decisions about which stocks to buy and sell are automatic for the fund and transactions are infrequent. This means that index funds do not require the management of a professional money manager, and so they are said to be "passively managed" (while any fund that requires a manager to select stocks is said to be "actively managed").

Here they are:

Company
Analyst Net Buy Recommendations
% Owned by Institutions*
Market Cap

Activision Blizzard
18
45%
$14.6 billion

Enterprise Products
14
23%
$11.9 billion

American Eagle
13
65%
$2.7 billion

Aqua America (NYSE: WTR)
13
53%
$2.4 billion

Applied Materials
12
94%
$15.1 billion

Humana
12
85%
$5.2 billion

BioMarin Pharmaceuticals
11
129%
$1.4 billion

Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR)
11
114%
$12.1 billion

St. Jude (NYSE: STJ)
11
89%
$13.7 billion

Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Investing in Gold

Advantages of Gold Investing

Probably one of the biggest advantages of gold investing is that, the demand for gold is always more than that it is supplied. This statement is especially true in case of the Middle East nations which are now touted to be the largest consumers of gold. Take the case of India; it is a known fact that India emerged as the largest consumer of gold with the world gold council quantifying it at 737 tonnes a decade back. Apart from this there is a flexibility to buy and sell gold quickly. There would be little effect upon the price. This ensures that there is little or almost zero risk of a decrease in value. Another factor that impresses is that gold is now being treated as a hedging tool in the investor’s portfolios. This is because of the near zero risk of value depreciation it offers.

Date Cost Per Ounce
January 1983 $510
February 1985 $282
December 1987 $500
February 1996 $414
September 1999 $253
December 2005 $515
September 2007 $700
August 2008 $879

1. Is gold a good long term investment?: No. If you are looking to invest long term, you better consider something that consistently moves in the right direction

2. Is gold a good short term investment?: Not right now; that is, if you don’t already have money in it. A common rule of thumb when it comes to investing is to NEVER buy high. And right now gold is plenty high

On Tuesday October 29th, 1929, Wall Street witnessed a 13% decline in the Dow Jones, an episode that became known in financial mythology as “Black Tuesday.” It is generally recognized that Black Tuesday was the beginning of the Great Depression. Between early September and the end of October 1929 the market lost a total of 40% in less than 8 weeks. In reality Black Tuesday was just the end of the beginning of the crash on Wall Street. As you can see from the graph below, the market continued to fall for several years after Black Tuesday. By the end of the slide some pundits conjectured that the market might actually go to zero. From its high of 386.10 in September ’29 to its low of 40.60 on July 29, 1932, the market had lost a total of 89%!

Barack Obama is a Born Again Christian and not a Muslim as considered by some. His Father was a Muslim, Mom a Christian, but he is a practising Christian.