Mr Market claimed yet another victim!

Image Credit: www.danablankenhorn.com

Today I read a report in the newspaper that got me shaking my head, half in pity and half in weary resignation.

It seems that there are always such cases happening!

The report was about how a student lost $700 000 trading in shares during the recent market slump! In the process, he wiped out his dad’s life savings, lost his girlfriend, and possibly also his family’s house!

Imagine $700,000! That’s not very far off one million! More money that most of us can ever dream of!

I find such cases really sad. Tragic even. Seriously, such cases can be avoided, and I hope this story serves as a wake up call to investors/traders who are living dangerously on the edge.

Some important lessons we can learn here

1. Firstly, he wouldn’t have been in such a predicament had he invested money which he can afford to lose. That is to say, even in the worse case scenario of 100% loss (assuming he doesn’t leverage), there will be minimal disruption and adverse impact to his financial health. He will still be able to carry on the normal lifestyle that he is leading. Alas, this is not the case here.

Giving up?

Ever been in situation when you thought that all hope is gone? That there is nothing meaningful and worthwhile left fighting for? That everything is futile and just not going your way?

Before you throw in the towel, clear that mind of yours.

Sit back and reflect.

Reflect hard!

Have you given your absolute all? Have you exhausted all avenues? Have you even taken action?

Sometimes we are just too affected by the negative things other people say. I say take the constructive ones and learn from them. For the just plain nasty comments, screw them!

Most importantly, you cannot give up on yourself even when the whole world has given up on you. Maintain the faith and keep going!

Just take a leaf out of King Leonidas and his small band of Spartan warriors who battled to the death against the overwhelming Persian army in the film ’300′. Now that is what I call COURAGE and PERSEVERANCE. That’s the never-say-die attitude worth emulating.

Absolutely Outrageously Hilarious

Image Credit: theindyvoice.com

I recently caught the highly controversial but humorous anti-Bush documentary ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ by Michael Moore, and it seems to me that George Bush can do nothing right.

Despite the provocative nature of the show, Fahrenheit 9/11 still managed to bag an academy award and the best film in the 2004 Cannes film festival. Just goes to show the whole Bush-bashing looks to be the new in-thing. Sure is a good way to garner attention!

Given the whole lot of conspiracy theories about September 11 and Iraq circulating around, the video I’m going to show you isn’t about to boost his popularity ratings further.

We often hear how George Bush screw things up and questions were raised about his intelligence level. This spoof takes this notion to a whole new level.

You get to see George Bush and Condoleezza Rice engage in some real wickedly humorous banter.

Who? Hu?

Enjoy!

Warning: Can be absolutely devastatingly funny! Don’t drink anything while watching this unless you want to risk spurting everything out from your mouth.

[tags]George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, comedy, humor, Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore, September 11[/tags]

Security breach to WordPress ver 2.1.1

As you can see now, I’m back blogging with a vengeance. My website has been pretty screwed up recently which prevented me from updating it. I’ll save this nasty episode for another post.

Anyway the point of this post is to update WordPress users out there, especially those who just downloaded the recent 2.1.1 release, about a dangerous security breach.

Apparently, some elusive cracker got past the WordPress security system to their server to plant a malicious code in the 2.1.1 download.

So if you ever downloaded the ver 2.1.1 recently, please upgrade to the latest 2.1.2

Do spread the word about this to other WordPress users as well. Based on what I read, it seems to be a serious issue. More information here should you want to read up in greater detail.

[tags]wordpress, wordpress 2.1.1, wordpress 2.1.2, download, blog, security breach[/tags]

Need a blogging solution? WordPress is for you!

Forget Blogger and other blogging platform. The blogging world now belongs to WordPress and it is easy to see why.

With other blog solutions, you don’t owe the site. They reserve the right to kick you out at any time without warning, which means all your effort of creating posts, customizing and related work will go down the drain – just like that!

You have no control nor can you really brand it the way you want.

With WordPress, things are different. You are able to host it under your own domain. You control your blog site in any way you deem fit. You have the power to brand it the way you want it.

WordPress is an incredibly powerful platform, that not only allows you to create great looking blogs but also websites as well(yes it can be done contrary to popular belief)!

It requires minimal programming and designing. A lot of the work is already cut out for you. There are also loads of themes available which you can just select and customize it to your liking.

In addition, WordPress has aggregator support for RSS configurations, allows for customization of the sidebar, RSS feeds, forms, styling and more.

The Emotional Investor Part 2

Image Credit: BBC.com

I wrote the first part somewhere at the start of February, and wanted to post the follow up a few days later, but somehow this matter slipped my mind. It didn’t help I got so much other stuffs occupying my thoughts and time.

Never mind, better late than never though!

Back to the topic, psychology is a vital and very important aspect of investing. Overlook it, and be prepared to under-perform. The average investors out there are driven predominantly by greed and fear. Price fluctuations are all heavily influenced by emotional investors, as they make up the bulk of the market crowd. Yes even institutional investors are prone to making emotional and irrational market moves.

Some examples of irrational and emotional behavior of investors:

1. Investors hesitate to purchase a stock when it is an obvious bargain, but instinctively chase popular stocks to very high and overpriced valuations. They either probably think that it is too good to be true or it is just too ‘unwanted’ to their liking. The hot stock seem a ‘sexier’ choice.