What are the pros and cons of hedge fund investing?
Hedge funds are sometimes the highest-earning investment vehicles, and sometimes they do that much worse than everything else. They have a high buy-in, low transparency, and limited liquidity. There are also other advantages and disadvantages worth mentioning. A good hedge fund can provide you with an excellent diversification of your investable assets and give you exposure to the best and brightest money managers in the world. Continue reading...
How Do I Become a Millionaire?
Even people who only make an average salary (teachers, janitors) can easily become millionaires. Doing so boils down to following a very basic formula: work, save, and invest. Let's look for instance at three different scenarios where a person invests $100/month, $500/month, and $1,000/month (very realistic goals), and let's also assume a reasonable growth rate of 6% per year. For $100/month, it will take you roughly 66 years. For $500/month, it will take you about 40 years, and for $1,000/month, it will take you approximately 30 years. Continue reading...
How do Bitcoin Transactions Work?
Two words: blockchain technology. Transactions in bitcoin are encoded, packed into a block of other transactions, and all of these are sent out to thousands of computers running blockchain computations, known as hashes. All of these computers are running similar algorithms designed to force honest work and to take time for the computers to complete. The purpose of this step is merely forcing the blockchain to require time, energy, and effort, and to be randomized and decentralized when it is validating transactions. Whichever computer solves it first receives an incentive reward, and the entire blockchain, comprised of all computers running bitcoin client software, then updates the ledger to include the most recent validated transactions. Continue reading...
What is Corporate Equity?
Corporate equity is retained earnings plus common shares outstanding. On a corporate balance sheet, the retained earnings and the outstanding common stock capitalization combined would be considered the corporate equity, also called shareholder’s equity / owner’s equity. Of the total corporate equity, the portion representing common stock equity is only the capital raised through the issuance of shares in an IPO (initial public offering), where payment for those shares was paid to the company. Subsequent trading in those shares does not affect the common stock equity on the company books. Continue reading...
What is Total Enterprise Value?
Enterprise value is an amount that would have to be paid for a company to acquire all of its equity and debt. It is notable that cash and cash equivalents are left out of this equation since that amount is netted out of a cash purchase. The basic formula for enterprise value is market capitalization + debt obligations and any minority interests or preferred shares. This regularly appears in the numerator position in the EV/EBITDA ratio. Often investors can just look at the market capitalization of a company to get an estimation of the size of the company. Continue reading...
What is a Dividend ETF?
Dividend ETFs invest primarily in preferred stock and stocks that pay regular dividends. Strategically, they tend to be either Dividend Appreciation or High Yield. Dividend ETFs are equity dividend funds that seek income from preferred stocks, common stocks. As of 2016 there are over 130 Dividend ETFs, and that’s up from about 29 in 2011 and 45 in 2012. This has become a popular strategy, obviously, and they all seek to distinguish themselves from the pack. Continue reading...
What does 'short covering' mean?
When a security is sold “short,” it means that the investor did not own the security, to begin with, and the broker can require that the investor return the shares in what’s known as ‘short covering.’ Covering a short position means to acquire the securities which were sold short, and returning them to the custodian/broker that facilitated the short sale. Imagine a shopkeeper who allows a customer to lock-in a certain price for a widget, even though the shopkeeper does not have the widget in inventory. Continue reading...
What are some Key Numbers Related to the World Capital Markets?
As of 2014, global GDP was $77 trillion. The total market capitalization of all world stock markets is approximately $70 trillion, and about a fourth of that amount is the U.S. market. The U.S. economy is the largest by GDP, which for 'fiscal year' (FY) 2016 was approximately $19 trillion. The total value of notional derivatives fell to $18.1 trillion. How Many Dollars do We Have in Circulation? What is Currency in Circulation? Continue reading...
Is successful asset allocation an art or a science?
Successful asset allocation will cater to the risk tolerance and goals of a client based on past performances while seeking gains in an uncertain future; this calls for a mixture of art and science. We believe that successful asset allocation is based on rigorous statistics, but as with any other statistics, it’s 20/20 retrospective vision. Proper diversification can help to make the future performance slightly more predictable, but as market conditions unfold, the appropriate rebalancing or reallocation may not always be obvious, especially to a computer. Continue reading...
What are currency futures?
Currency futures are derivative contracts that trade on regulated exchanges around the world. Like forward contracts, they name a specific amount of one currency which is to be exchanged for a specific amount of another currency at a future date. Futures name a specific amount of one currency which will be exchanged for a specific amount of another currency at a future date. Like other derivative contracts that trade on exchanges (e.g., options), futures are transferable and are traded as the market calls for up until their expiration. Investors can short them (sell to open) and hold them long (buy to open), and can close their positions as they see fit without riding out the contract to the expiration date. Continue reading...