Biz Direct MarketKnowing When To Make A Good Decision

Aug 18, 2011: July was renamed for Julius Caesar, since he was born in this month. Earlier, it was called Quintilis in Latin, since it was the fifth month in the ancient Roman calendar, before January became the first month of the calendar year. However in the Gregorian Calendar July is the seventh month of the year.

We like July since on an average, it is the warmest month in most of Northern

Read the rest of this entry »

Aug 24, 2011: Fall is around the corner. If you want to overhaul your fall wadrobe you can enter to win a $50 American Eagle Outfitters e-Gift Card! Whether it’s you or your family, you can buy hats, scarves, boots, jeans, long-sleeves and much more at American Eagle Outfitters. Try your luck! You might win a $50 American Eagle Outfitters gift card :).

ebillMe Contest - Win a $50 FREE Gift Card

Read the rest of this entry »

Tail risk? Summer doldrums? The “quiet” month of August is rarely quiet. Concern over government debt hits markets so “rational” investors BUY government debt! Fat tails are getting obese. Bear markets and low interest rates don’t impact the returns of PROPERLY constructed portfolios. The future is unknown so robust hedging and multistrategy market neutrality are mandatory. It is sad seeing hard working peoples’ savings and pensions ravaged by the long only lobby. No return for taking high risk for such a long time. Triumph of the realists or revenge of the pessimists? Hedge funds aren’t the problem; they are the solution.

Ridiculous that market turbulence hurts so many investors. Keeping to long only is like sticking with slate and chalk when you could be using an Apple iPad. Financial innovation has progressed but most portfolios remain in the beta stone age. Hedge funds seek alpha. Total alpha sums to zero but the hedge fund industry generates substantial positive alpha. That’s despite wide return dispersion and “average” hedge funds aren’t skilled. The explanation is simple - much investment by non-hedge funds is non-alpha seeking. All hedge funds try to produce absolute returns but most other funds just aim to beat or track a benchmark.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aug 11, 2011: July saw us traveling a lot. It was really a challenge to maintain this blog amidst our busy schedules. But by God’s grace we were able to meet the challenge successfully :).

Heartfelt thanks to our loyal audience and friends from the personal finance community for sending traffic and visiting FIRE Finance. We express our gratitude to July’s top ten traffic referrers:
Jonathan via

Click on the post title to continue reading …..

Aug 10, 2011: Back to school shopping is on with full tempo this month. If you need to do some last minute stuff, then you can enter to win a $50 JCPenney e-Gift Card! JCPenney usually has clothes for all seasons, dorm accessories, shoes for college and much more. Try your luck! You might win a $50 JCPenny gift card :).

ebillMe Contest - Win a $50 FREE Gift Card Online from JC Penney
Contest

Read the rest of this entry »

Tail risk in the summer doldrums? The “quiet” month of August is rarely quiet. Triumph of the realists or revenge of the pessimists? Concern over government debt hits markets so “rational” investors BUY government debt! Fat tails are getting more obese. The future is unknown so robust hedging and market neutrality are mandatory. Bear markets and low interest rates don’t impact the performance of PROPERLY constructed multistrategy portfolios. Time to buy? It’s always time to buy alpha not beta. Volatility is a blessing since forced trading, mispricing and arbitrage situations increase. Unacceptable losses for many years show unskilled long only is for speculators but skilled long/short is for widows, orphans and retirement plans. Time to REPLACE long only with better, cheaper solutions. It had its chance but the damage must now cease.

How can a long only portfolio be considered diversified when codependencies are so obvious? When stocks crash “risk free” yields also drop doubly worsening pension liabilities. Hedge funds aren’t alternatives; they are replacements. 100% in quality REPLACEMENT INVESTMENTS is the way to reduce risk and secure viable income streams for the long term. Adding commodities and geographic diversification doesn’t help since they rely on similar global demand factors. Emerging markets offer alpha chances NOT beta anymore. Real hedge funds are in the business of trading, finding inefficiencies and monetizing volatility for absolute returns. Managers needing bull markets to make money are running closet index funds. Acid tests like now are great for differentiating true ability from random luck.

Read the rest of this entry »

<!– –>TradeKing is offering a $100 sign-up bonus. We need to open an account with at least $2500 and make 3 trades to earn the bonus. TradeKing charges $4.95 per equity and option trade. Each option contract costs 65 cents.

Get $100 when you open a TradeKing account today!

SmartMoney ranked TradeKing #1 in Customer Service in the SmartMoney June 2008 and June 2010 Broker Survey. TradeKing

Read the rest of this entry »

Aug 02, 2011: At present we are debt free. It’s a great feeling to have no financial debts. In fact it’s said that the first step to save is to get rid of our debts. We agree.

Our lifestyle can siphon off our cash faster than the rate at which we earn it. More so if we lead a fast life where we are conscious of status symbols, our images and can spare no time to manage our finances. Such a life

Click on the post title to continue reading …..

Invest in assets or strategies? The world’s best hedge fund manager Munehisa Homma, invented quantitative investing, event-driven arbitrage and algorithmic trading. Many good hedge funds increased exposure to Japan after the earthquake but weak ones reduced and sold the low. Others lost because their “quants” and “risk managers” hadn’t stress tested for an event that was certain to occur. Inevitable happenings aren’t black swans.

Homma-sensei would be buying Nikkei 9,000 call options right now, like me. Taking the other side of panic usually works. In 1755 the developer of systematic pattern recognition and candlestick analysis wrote “Buy when the crowd is selling”. The current commodities “boom” is ideal for his contrarian relative value strategies. Some commodities traders even attempt to find alpha without mastery of his methods. No wonder most of them lose over time. Bull markets disguise much incompetence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jul 26, 2011: Pay day loans are various kinds of small cash advances taken for a very short duration. They are very expensive and typically must be repaid in full by the next pay day of the borrower. These are also known as cash advance loans, check advance loans, or deferred deposit check loans.

These loans offer cash advances when money is tight, but they do not adequately inform the borrower

Read the rest of this entry »