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PLANNING RETIREMENT STOCK - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE A FORTUNE WITH YOUR INVESTING

When it comes to planning retirement, stock is very important helping you achieve your retirement goals. The stock market is one of the main avenues of revenue for many investors today, and it can be a great source of revenue for you. Combined with real state, the stock market is probably one of the most famous investment vehicles there is today.

Unfortunately, most people never make a significant amount money in the stock market. In fact, many people end up losing a great deal of money instead with their retirement planning money. Why is this?

Quite simply, most investors will never bother to look at the financial situation of the company they are investing in, and instead they focus on the stock price a particular company. For instance, they might see this certain company has gone up 10 bucks over the last couple weeks, and they will simply jump aboard because a stock price is going up.

They won't even bother to look into the fact that the company hasn't made any money for the last five years. This was a big factor in the dot.com crash.

The stock prices were skyrocketing in these internet based companies because everybody was jumping aboard with investing, but there were no profits behind any of the companies. Once people start finding this out, the market crashed significantly.

Therefore, with your planning retirement stock investing, don't be fooled because a company stock price is going up. Always check the financial situation of a particular company before you invest. For instance, if you're looking into investing Coca-Cola, you would look at the financials statements, income statements, balance the, statement of cash flows, etc.

Think about it: when you invest, you are essentially buying part of the company itself. Would you buy into a company in which you have no idea how the financial situation was? Of course, this is exactly what most investors are doing: buying part of a company without even checking into the financial health.

This may work for some investors who are constantly checking the market and monitroting trends, but the vast majority of them will lose with this strategy. Therefore, whenever you invest for your retirement planning, make sure that there is the financial numbers are there, and you'll make a lot of money with your investments. When planning for retirement, stock investing can be your greatest source of income, but only when done properly.

FIXING CREDIT REPORT ERRORS

After taking the first step of obtaining a free credit score report, the next most common step to improving your credit score is to correct any errors that might be present. Strangely enough, errors do occur, and it is well worth taking the time to dispel such inconsistencies. You must carefully scrutinize the report in order to correct things like account numbers, names, wrong information, as well as items that are out of date. The last error type is the most common mistake and when corrected can have an important impact on your score.

There are guidelines that regulate how long certain kind of information can be recorded in your credit score. For example, most undesirable information that is over seven years old may be removed. This includes lawsuits, judgments, paid tax liens, accounts dispatched for collection, records of criminal activity (other than convictions), late payments, and even child support and many other pieces of possibly adverse information. This is great news for those that have blemishes on their credit report from years ago. These things will not show up forever. Even insolvencies that are older than ten years can be dismissed from your score. Getting rid of this outdated undesirable information can have an immediate impact on your score, especially depending on the severity of the problem.

It may seem silly, but it is just as important to check things like your Social Security number, name, address, phone number, and information concerning your occupation. These mistakes might be outdated or simply entered incorrectly. These errors actually do occur. In the same way, errors also occur concerning your involvement with certain accounts. It is possible that suits or credit accounts that do not belong to you show up on your credit report. This is also true of accounts that have been paid in full. Sometimes these accounts may not have been updated and still show an outstanding balance.

By filling out a request for reinvestigation form or writing a letter, you can correct these errors that are detrimental to your overall credit score. You should, as carefully as possible, reference every inaccurate or outdated piece of data that appears on your report as well as describe why that information is incorrect. The reporting agency will then investigate those items and contact you within 30 days to notify you of any changes. This process may also be expedited if you are trying to qualify for a mortgage or car loan. This is known as a rapid rescore.

Once you have rid your free credit score report of any incorrect information, you can then begin to add positive information. This might be through a new loan, a secured credit card or simply making responsible payments on the accounts you already have. By double-checking your credit report for errors you might save yourself a great deal of time in the task of recreating your credit merit.

WHAT YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAY HAVE NOT TOLD YOU

Independent Financial Advisers are professionals who offer unbiased advice on financial matters to their clients and recommend suitable financial investments.

It is a financial advisors obligation to look at a client's entire portfolio. Per "know your customer" rule, advisors should take the time to understand the client's existing portfolio as well as risk tolerance, time horizons and financial goals and objectives. In a pure, Modern-Portfolio Theory sense, it is accepted that diversification and asset allocation have been proven to increase long-term rewards and reduce short-term risk. Additionally, clients who achieve their goals with limited or manageable risk are happier clients. Therefore, it is important for financial advisors and investors to think outside their routine "box" of investments and be aware of ALL the ways to offer their clients true diversification.

Advisors should recognize that true diversification extends beyond a portfolio that holds even a carefully balanced array of market-traded assets. There are a wide variety of "alternative" investments that include things like mortgage deeds or notes, real property, liens and foreclosures, hard-money lending private equity investments, start ups, to name a few*

Typically, the vast majority of institutions offering IRA services do not allow for their clients to invest in alternative investments, and therefore do not promote the fact that clients can choose from a wide variety of investments options outside of traditional markets for their Retirement Account. Be aware of the large brokerage firms that claim to offer clients "self directed" IRAs. These accounts are typically only self-directed in the sense that clients make the investment decisions and choices independently (e.g. without the advice or discretion by the provider). In these institutions they restrict the "type" of investments to publicly traded investments. Prudent advisors and investors should be aware of the opportunities outside of market-traded assets, opportunities that are available within a self-directed retirement account (SDRA). These assets typically have no or low correlation to the financial markets. This means that they can provide more diversification in a portfolio while giving the client more investment options overall. Many investors have a better understanding of alternative investments and, therefore, may feel more secure in "investing in what they know".

To better serve clients needs and put client's best interest first, if an advisor doesn't actively offer their clients the opportunity to invest in alternative investments, they should at least be aware of other investment options and ideally be able to refer the client to someone who does.

*Some restrictions apply. It is important to consult with a professional regarding IRC Pub 590 regarding regulations before investing.**Securities offered through USWA, LLC, Member SIPC, and advisory services through USFA, LLC, a registered investment advisor.

Capital Market Solutions, LLC ("CMS") is a full service Financial Service Firm who is bridging the gap between traditional and non-traditional investing. They advise investors on ALL the investment opportunities that exist today for their retirement accounts. At CMS (through USWA), clients have the option to invest in tradition investments such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds to name a few. But CMS takes it one step further by also advising clients on non-traditional investments-something most banks, brokerage firms and other IRA sponsors won't permit you to do**.

SEASONAL PRICE TRENDS IN A STOCK

Market fluctuations fuel the speculation that drives stock markets around the world every day. Both internal successes and failures within a corporation and external events sway the preferences of stock buyers; sending prices either up or down. These minor fluctuations day in and day out can often focus analyst's attention on recent trends and daily or weekly analysis. As a result many analyses of stocks in the markets or markets themselves on the whole are focused on the short term. This is helpful for your active or pending trades but of little value for your future investment decisions.

The traditional approach to longer term assessment has generally been to turn to more fundamental analysis styles. Traders often review corporate structure, assets and the attempt to assess the general health of a company, the industry and sector it operates within as well as the general market and economic conditions of the country. These assessments require a great deal of work to complete properly and have no better success rate on average than throwing darts blindly at the stock section of a news paper which has been proven time and time again. The trouble with this sort of analysis is that there are too many factors in play to accurately assess all the possible influences on the future price trend of a stock. It just isn't possible to account factor.

One factor in market places around the globe which is predominant at every economic level from micro to macro is seasonal trends. From the fruit peddler on the street to the largest corporations in the world seasonal trends affect business. The traditional market segmentation of the year loosely correlates to the seasons: the first quarter beginning in the winter, the next spring, and then summer and finishing in the fall with the last quarter. Seasonal trends do not only refer to weather systems which for instance may create demand for more heating oil in the winter which then tends to push prices up but it also encompasses social seasonal trends such as school terms, holiday seasons and others. Most traders are familiar for example with the seasonal anecdote regarding the Dow Jones index where purchasing the index every year in September from its inception then selling it every spring would return hundreds of times the investment while buying in the spring and selling in the fall would only multiply the original investment a handful of times.

Repetitive seasonal trends can be found in every type of financial instrument, you will see these trends form in indices composing particular sectors or those comprised of stocks within a particular market cap. You will also see the trends emerge within particular companies, especially those which rely on a seasonal sales cycle. We were quite surprised when we first built the Quarterageous tool at stockrageous at how similar and clear some price trends were in so many companies. Prior to building the completed version of the tool we tested the concept on a random set of symbols and indices and found enough trend patterns to go ahead with the completion of the development. After we completed the system and tested the trends with much wider samples we were amazed at how often trends were clearly evident. You can test for yourself at the website once you become a member; there is no charge though for a delayed membership.

Repetitions of seasonal trends are not a given for any stock or index however it isn't that great of an assumption considering how much seasons affect every structure within our economy. We used the quarterly concept as the period basis in part because so many companies report according to the traditional market quarters and also because those quarters are analogous to the traditional seasons.

You might be surprised at how often you find trends repeating year after year in the same quarter and how these in turn correlate to the seasonal affects on the company. It's free to try and it might just give you a fast and effective means of forecasting both entire markets through the indices of the market as well as individual stocks.

HEDGE FUND MANAGERS & PEDIGREE - WHO KNOWS YOU

In the hedge fund industry t is not what you know, it is not who you know. It is who knows you.

MPC Investors is a $3B hedge fund based in London. Last month they raised $900M to launch a pan-European directional long/short fund. This was while a higher than usual number of funds were losing assets or struggling to gain as much progress as they had during first two quarters of 2007. To launch this fund they closed two Asian-based hedge funds that had failed to reach critical mass assets under management(aum) levels and went shopping for the best hedge fund talent they could possibly fine. "I wanted to be able to look our clients in the eye and say this is exceptional," said Peter Harrison currently the Chief Executive Officer of MPC Investors. After hiring them he has also said, "you have to give your portfolio managers the best chance to outperform. That gets lost in many firms where they are trying to do a bit of management but also spending their time on strategy, or beating up their sales team, or the sales team is putting pressure on them to launch new product. Our sales team meet clients so the fund managers don't have to. Our objective is fund performance - it's all that matters."

This $900M was raised for a fund that didn't have a track record yet and it supported a portfolio management team that did not even exist three months ago. MPC Investors didn't have the option of shopping around a three year track record and 20%+ gains since inception.

I am writing about this because it communicates two details about how hedge funds are raising assets. The first is that assets are raised based more off of current relationships than past performance. The investors you are approaching must be familiar with who you are, what you stand for, and what your competitive advantage is. The second is that pedigree and a hedge fund's positioning and story behind its team can trump almost any other asset gathering barrier. Harrison went out to hire the very best of the best and now he has has a structure in place that allows the portfolio management team to focus just on bringing in performance. Some would say this is a cover for bringing in great talent that's not great at speaking with investors but I think the message that portfolio managers should be focused on the market and not sales meetings resonates with many people and it is not the status quo.

If you are a large institutional investor or family office you see more hedge funds approaching you every quarter. How do any of the hedge funds stand out? I think the four ways are past relationships, pedigree of the team, competitive advantages realized through the investment process (could include manager expertise - see pedigree) and performance

I list performance last within the list above because it is really becoming a commodity. There are thousands of firms out there with great performance. It is a given that if a hedge fund is committing a lot of resources to marketing that they probably have great performance. With the exception of a 7 or 10 year plus track record of it, high performance alone does not excite institutional investors, they see it Monday-Friday.

THE INVERSTOR'S CREED AND YOUR INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO

Growing up at Lake Hopatcong in Northwest Jersey, the most popular entertainment around was the rickety old Roller Coaster at Bertrand Island Park. The excitement would build as you ascended the first peak, anticipating the breathtaking plunge; eyes wide open (or shut), screaming from the thrill with a white-knuckled grip on either the safety bar or your date's hand, as she pretended to share your fear. Three times through the process, hoarse at the finish, but ready for more!

The "shock" market is the adult version of childhood thrill rides, but with no predictable beginning or end, and no way of gauging the size or duration of the peaks and valleys. This is one of the very few things that can actually be known about The Market, security groups, and sectors. With individual securities, the ride's direction may end abruptly at any point along the track, positive or negative! An appreciation of this admitted over-simplification is vital to your financial future... the temporary distress (or euphoria) in your portfolio Market Value is not. The thrill (remember?) is in the plunge; the fear should be building up during the ascent.

Wall Street analysts and investment commentators squander millions of words in their daily explanations for, every movement, every turn, and every bump along the ride. Many insult our intelligence with predictions of future rallies and corrections... but why? None of this microanalysis can provide a reliable answer to the question you ask yourself most frequently: What's going to happen next? Will those (pick a sector) companies survive? Will the market rebound to new highs, or sink even lower?

The solution is to operate your investment program within this known, volatile and unpredictable, thrill-ride environment that is the reality of investing. The whys, wherefores, and whens being much less important than the decision-making model you put into place to deal with them. What you do next is always in your hands (or heads) alone and you should be prepared to do something nearly every day. Doing nothing must be a decision to do nothing. A realistic, thrill-ride, decision-making model need not be thrilling at all, but it must include these two action decisions:

(1) Buy decisions that are made along the downward path of the cars as they glide, tumble, or free-fall on the (undefined by calendar partition) track of time. It's probably smarter to ride in the ones that provide warranty protection in the form of dividend payments, a history of profitability, a low P/E, and high fundamental quality ratings. Even such stalwarts, in spite of their intrinsic value, will occasionally become available at fire-sale prices; so don't even think of buying them until they have started down the hill by at least 20%. As every experienced Storm Runner enthusiast knows, not all of the hills are steep, and many will involve a variety of twists and turns before the next ascent. So don't do your buying all at once, shop slowly, diversify properly, and be patient... the ride has no reliable schedule.

In Your Money and Your Brain, financial columnist Jason Zweig observes that Wall Street obsesses on price while it ignores value. This is as deep as it is simple, and of nearly Eureka proportions. Price changes are more a function of knee-jerk reactions to current events. Value is a whole 'nuther issue, that rarely changes on a day-to-day basis!

(2) Sell decisions, therefore, just have to be made during the ascent, because unlike the local amusement park Vortex, the top of the hill is covered with darkening clouds of speculation as the altitude numbers accelerate. The Sell trigger (The single most important investment thought that people fail to think about most frequently.) must be determined carefully to assure that it is always a reasonable number. It also must be thought about in profit-taking, not loss-accepting, terms. Here, again, there is no need to think about thrill-ride numbers... there's no such thing as a bad profit (except in the purgatory of hindsight). On the way up, smaller numbers work well so long as buying opportunities are plentiful. Three quick fives are better than a long-term ten, but never look for more than ten and you will always have plenty of spending money when this particular ascent unravels, as they always do. It's always OK to take less, and never allow the greed monster to make you hold out for more. Oh, one other thing. Don't delay the profit taking because the buy list has shortened. The shorter it gets, the closer the top of the hill.

The Investor's Creed (Google it) summarizes this operating system in terms of available portfolio "smart cash". During Stock Market rallies, cash should build up in your portfolio because there are simply more opportunities for profit taking than there are new lower priced investment opportunities. Cash will dry up during corrections because new opportunities abound, AND, because prices fall while value remains intact. Consequently, it is often wise to add shares to value stock positions (and dollars to investment portfolios) when it seems really stupid to do so! Interestingly, interest rate sensitive securities can be viewed in the same manner, further supporting the use of CEFs for the Income portion of the portfolio. When the going gets tough, the numbers get ugly, and the tough go shopping for under-priced values.

If you can make yourself operate your portfolios in this manner, your long run investment success will become child's play and the Wall Street Medusa will become your favorite ride!