Two market crashes later – Robert Kreft, a story of a full-time trader
It took the loss of a massive $300,000 during the bear market of 2001 to cause Robert Kreft to come to his senses. Declaring that from experience he has learned that human nature will usually overlook the risks in favour of the rewards, he confesses that greed drove his second foray into trading in 1999….
The ultimate starter strategy for building wealth
Instalment gearing is fast becoming the ultimate starter strategy for the capital-challenged, novice investor focused on building wealth. Buzz words such as ‘set and forget’ and ‘user-friendly’ sum up its marketability. “Instalment gearing can be done very cost effectively and has an amazing application for a wide range of people,” says Peter van der Westhuyzen,…
Investment clubs: is pooling resources good for your wealth?
When picking stocks, or choosing funds, do you make better investment decisions by going it alone – or in a group format, where investing ideas are put to the crowd? Investment clubs are big believers in the latter: a group of investors can be more successful than a single investor, but there is disagreement in…
What is the ideal mix of companies?
There is no such thing as a universally ideal share investment, because all investors are different. In particular, different investors have different attitudes to risk, liquidity and investment horizons. Brokers often try to help their clients choose stocks by producing lists of companies classified in various ways – for example, growth companies and value companies….
The Travails of Larry Williams, Futures Trader
In May 2006 Larry Williams was arrested in Sydney by federal police. Up until recently Williams was confined to the Sydney CBD awaiting possible extradition to the US on tax evasion charges. He can now go anywhere in Australia, so long as he posts his movements to police. Karin Derkley speaks to him from his…
A story of a home-based trader – Vimal Mehta
Commercial pilot Vimal Mehta often has hours to kill in hotel rooms during stopovers between flights. But he deliberately chooses not to spend this time trading. The 36-year old says that while this may seem like the ideal opportunity to work the market he finds that the situation puts too much pressure on him to…
Hedging your losses, and making profits, using CFDs
Not everyone lost money in the past couple of weeks of market gyrations. Plenty made tidy profits short-selling CFDs on stocks or indices they guessed would be sold down as the market over-reacted to the bad news on sub-prime mortgages. Others used CFDs to protect the value of their existing share or CFD holdings. Harley…
Trading CFDs full-time
Full-time traders used to be slick young traders on too much coffee who traded big sums for the big banks. Today, full-time traders come from all walks of life such as Newcastle-based mother of two, Justine Pollard, who trades Contracts for Difference (CFDs) from home. CFDs are criticised by many commentators as being too risky…
PEG ratio gaining in popularity against the P/E, but beware of its flaws
A common method used to establish the best value for money when comparing shares in different companies is to look at their respective price earnings ratios. This ratio is defined as the current market value of a share in cents divided by its earnings per share for a year in cents. Other things being equal,…
What is the price/earnings ratio of the overall market?
By Nick Renton AM Share investors are no doubt familiar with the concept of the price/earnings ratio for an individual stock. This ratio is defined as the market price of a share expressed in cents divided by the earnings per share also expressed in cents. The ratio can be described as the number of years’…
