QR codes are starting to get popular!
Here is a quick post to take your mind away from financial markets and get to know about a technology that is coming very soon. If you don’t know about it already, it is called QR code (quick response) that can store a text in the image that can be scanned with your cellular phone to decode the information inside. You can quickly send a text, a piece of information to someone or a URL with just a quick scan without manually entering into your device. Very cool!
And looks like the market is backing up after oil went down to $91 value (a 4% drop!) due to dumping excessive amount of oil by IAEA to the market. Some analyst mention to look at it as an stimulus to economy. Interesting view!
ETFs for safely investing in international companies
Here is a great video by BNN on the recent created ETFs to safely invest in international companies (ie European, Asian, South American) diversified. This is great in a fact that you will not be hit if one company shares suffers and you are just buying a US based ETF and they do all the management for you. You can do this on your questrade account (see List of online brokerages for that) with US or Canadian Dollar.
Safely invest in international companies video
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asian, BNN, cdn, diversified, ETF, european, international, invest, less risk, questrade, south american, usd, video | 
Leave a commentTutorials on put and call options…
Due to the demand and recent emails asking about Put and Call options we have decided to create a page explaining these tools.
Put and Call options are great in a way that the buyer (the buyer of the option) and not the option writer, is immune to big losses and the gains are unlimited. You can only lose the initial premium you have put in given the option expires and it is not worth exercising.
The good thing about options is you can put a small amount of money and gain large amount of returns given your direction in stock is right. You only can lose the initial premium you have put in, and the loss never exceeds that, and you can gain good returns with small initial investments (premium paid).
The bad thing about options is that time is your enemy and options have a expiry date (stocks don’t). You can not hold ferever until you reach your value you want to get rid of it, vs stocks you can. Options usually expire on the 3rd friday of the month that it is written on the contract (for North American options). Options can be purchased with expiry of one week to 3 years from date of purchase. You can read more about how to get started on option trading here.
Posted in Announcements | beginner, call, expiry date, gain, get started, investment, loss, money, options, put, small, unlimited, years | Leave a commentDoes everyone remember the 2008-2009 recession?
If people never learn from the past, the 2008-2009 recession is the least they have to learn for financial investing. Remember markets always go down but to what extend we never know. In 2008 it was so catastrophic that many companies went bankrupt as well as individuals.
What an investor should learn from this is to be always careful and diversify and avoid margins (if they can). What happened in 2008 was that many hedge funds were forced to sell their stocks on margin (they had a margin call) since the value dropped so much. And when they did sold or unload their stock shares, each of stocks kept going down (remember, the hedge funds are a large share holder, and when everyone wants to sell, the value plunges).
The stocks were going down everyday for a few months and some were going down 10% a day! An example of a beaten up stock is Teck Resources. If you look at Teck Resources Limited the stocks went almost to ~$3 from highs of ~$50 in a short period time. What happened was that Teck Resources had a major debt that was up for renewal and everyone thought that they can’t renew and since the debt was around $11B (half of company capitalization) , it would have had to file for bankrupcy. But then the stock recovered by miracle and they were able to sell some assets and renew the loan. It is a very good stock, but we can see that in a recession everything will go down if not go bankrupt.
Start of AB Stocks
ABstocks was started to guide new investors in stock market investing. This is one of the most complex investment tools out there and can be rewarding if done right.
Posted in Announcements | abstocks, ABstocks.com, beginner, guide, investing, stock market | Leave a comment
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