All about bitcoins

What are Bitcoins?
BitCoins are a type of cryptocurrency.

Are Bitcoins legal?
This depends on the country. Many countries have declared Bitcoins as legal, however some countries have banned it completely. Some have chosen the middle path cautioning investors to be careful on trading in these currencies.

What is the meaning of mining Bitcoins?
It is the process by which transactions are verified using the blockchain. Anyone with suitable hardware and internet can mine bitcoins.

Can I mine bitcoins using my mobile?
Earlier it was easy to mine bitcoins using normal laptops. But now it has become very complex and requires ASIC machines to mine bitcoins. Definitely it is not possible using mobiles.

Is it economical to mine bitcoins?
Mining bitcoins is very complex and requires a lot of time and computing power. With the volatile value of bitcoins it cannot be said if it make economic sense or not.

Are there alternative Crytocurrencies?
There are many crytocurrencies that was introduced after Bitcoin. Some of them are Ethereum, LiteCoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple etc.

famous financial quotes

The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.  ~Cree Indian Proverb

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life.  ~Michael Leboeuf

No matter how hard you hug your money, it never hugs back

"Your money, or your life."  We know what to do when a burglar makes this demand of us, but not when God does.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.  ~Bob Hope

Business is the art of extracting money from another man's pocket without resorting to violence.  ~Max Amsterdam

If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.  ~Author Unknown

Money is like manure.  You have to spread it around or it smells.  ~J. Paul Getty

Too much money is as demoralizing as too little, and there's no such thing as exactly enough.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Money often costs too much.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil.  ~Henry Fielding

Never call an accountant a credit to his profession; a good accountant is a debit to his profession.  ~Charles J.C. Lyall

The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters.  ~Jean-Paul Kauffmann

The little money I have - that is my wealth, but the things I have for which I would not take money, that is my treasure.  ~Robert Brault

October:  This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in.  The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.  ~Mark Twain,

If inflation continues to soar, you're going to have to work like a dog just to live like one.  ~George Gobel

In the old days a man who saved money was a miser; nowadays he's a wonder.  ~Author Unknown

Those who believe money can do everything are frequently prepared to do everything for money.  ~Author Unknown

Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.  ~Oliver Wendell

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it.  The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.  ~Henry Ford

A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to us than the 99 which we had to work for, and the money won at Faro or in the stock market snuggles into our hearts in the same way.  ~Mark Twain

The best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings and not his cash.  ~Author Unknown

Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; it is a good servant but a bad master.  ~Alexandre Dumas fils

If the nation's economists were laid end to end, they would point in all directions.  ~Arthur H. Motley

Empty pockets never held anyone back.  Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.  ~Norman Vincent Peale

He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.  ~Henry Ward Beecher

Money and women.  They're two of the strongest things in the world.  The things you do for a woman you wouldn't do for anything else.  Same with money.  ~Satchel Paige

We ought to change the legend on our money from "In God We Trust" to "In Money We Trust."  Because, as a nation, we've got far more faith in money these days than we do in God.  ~Arthur Hoppe

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot.  In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.  ~Oscar Wilde

savings account interest rates set to raise - stock market investment strategies

RBI today deregulated interest rates. this is set to trigger a competition among bank to spice up the interest rates in order to attract money into their banks. This is going to be beneficial to the end user regarded more as the RBI's diwali gift.

Is this going to have an effect on the stock market? If the banks provide guaranteed income to the investor then who would like to invest in more riskier investments like stocks. Gold which used to provide a safer investment also looks very volatile since its now traded like other stocks. So this move is customer friendly and is sure to have an impact on the stock market, but need to keep a close watch on how much will it impact.

Banks have started increasing interest rates for savings bank deposits. Banks that have relatively low savings deposits are luring the customers to open savings account in their banks. Banks that have more savings deposits are not expected to hike the interest rates unless large  number of people start moving out of their banks. Surely this is going to help the customers, however the affect may be slow.

stock market investment strategies - invest in gold - an in depth analysis

Is it a good time to invest in Gold?

Gold has seen a huge upside in the last couple of years. Is it sustainable?

Well, the answer for this is not predictable. This is due to the recent listing of gold in stock markets. Now-a-days Gold is being traded so heavily in the stock market that the volatility that usually is associated with stocks is now seen in the rates of Gold.

However, Gold being a metal is seen as much safer option than stocks, since many believe that the value of natural resources cannot come down too much. There may be volatility but the price of gold crashing down like stocks is surely not expected.

If you see the normal trend, whenever the stocks go down then the gold prices go up. This is due to the fact that if stock is not reliable, people feel it better to invest in safer resources like gold. However, I feel this model is not going to last long. If ever there is a slowdown then the purchasing power of people also go down, so the price of gold will come down along with it. People who have gold at the time of slowdown also would like to demand money in exchange of gold contributing to the decrease in the price.

According to me, the role of Gold in your portfolio can be max of 20%. What is your opinion?

stock market investment strategies - e-gold and e-silver from NESL

If you are looking at investing in Gold or Silver then e-gold and e-silver offerred through NESL is a good opition.

In India, Gold is also traded in the form of Gold ETF's. However, in the case of silver ETF's are still not introduced. So you can look at investing in e-gold or e-silver.

Advantages:

• Investing in metals is a safer option as it is not affected by inflation
• Better than ETF's since the maintainence charges, vault charges etc are lesser.
• Option to convert to physical gold.

Disadvantages: 

• Need to open a new account for trading in e-gold, e-silver or e-copper.
• Doesnt have a long history, so procedures are yet to finetuned. You cannot convert to physical form in all cities etc. Information about this at the broking houses are also limited.

Related posts:

Best Gold ETF in India

Gold investment options

India's best Gold ETF - Stock market investment strategies

Investing in Gold is the safest option because the price of gold is always increasing. whether it is a slowdown or the stock market is booming the prices are always going to go up. There is no better place than India for investing in Gold. This is because the consumption of Gold is almost 25% in India of the total consumption thorough out the world. According to the recent estimates if there is no new gold mine found then with the current comsumption all the Gold would have been extracted in another 9 years time. This makes investment in Gold a very good option.

With the government in India plunging into a minority it can be easily seen why Gold reached all new heights? With the festival season coming up Gold can be expected to scale new heights in the coming months. So why wait, grab a part of the Gold pie today.

Here is the list of Gold ETF's present in the market

Gold benchmark exchange fund (GoldBees)
UTI gold fund (Goldshare)
Quantam gold fund
SBI gold fund
Kotak gold fund
Reliance Gold ETF

Almost all of these are available in the form of ETF's (exchange traded funds). i.e. you can invest in these as if these were normal shares. So if you have a demat account you can invest in these shares.

The next question that comes to mind is which one of these shares is the best to invest in when there are so many options. Lets analyse these shares and then decide on the best ETF.

First lets look at the volumes. This is an indicator of the stability of the stock. The volumes of GoldBees is almost 60% of the total gold shares in India. The main reason for this is GoldBees was the first gold ETF to be ever introduced in India. It was recently acquired by Goldman Sachs.

The other criteria to consider is the expenses that is incurred in the maintenance of the Gold ETF. If you check this also Gold bees scores above the rest. Gold bees maintenance cost is 1% while the close second is Quantum gold ETF with 1.25%. This eats into the profits so this also should be considered while selecting a Gold ETF.

Leaving all the statistics aside, finally what matters is the difference in the performance of Gold ETF over a period of time. If you look at this as well the performance of GoldBees is the best followed by kotak gold ETF.

Another factor to look at is the price of units. This differs for each ETF although all are based on the price of Gold. All ETF is approximately the price of 1gm of Gold except Quantum gold ETF which is half gm of gold. This may not make much difference but for small investors this may be useful information.

Overall GoldBees by far looks the best Gold ETF at present. Kotak, Quantam and SBI look promising. What is your opinion. Any other factors that you would like to discuss while choosing Gold ETF's?

Related Posts:

Types of investment in Gold

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Stock Market Investment Strategies - Gold ETF (equity traded funds) vs Gold mutual funds vs Gold commodities- Metals investments options

Is it a good time to invest in Gold. Any time is a good time because this is a metal. The value of the Metals are only going to increase with time and never decrease. This is because it is very rare that a new gold mine etc are discovered which can bring the value down. With many satellites and technology to determine the inside of earth crust the chances of a new mine getting discovered is almost impossible. With increasing extracting costs and along with the new demand (whenever there is a slowdown in any part of the world) the prices of gold are bound to increase. So investing in Gold is the right thing to do. After gold if you want to invest the next option is to invest in silver. Every day a new gold ETF or mutual fund is being announced, even this increases the demand for metal. At the current consumption rate of Gold it is expected that the current resources of Gold will get extinct in another 8-9 years, unless you hear of a huge gold mine being discovered.

There are different ways if you want to invest in Gold or metals in general. Two smarter options are Gold ETF and Gold mutual funds. Ofcourse, you have the traditional way of investing in Gold. The problem with that is you need to safeguard the gold in possession yourself.

Lets look at these two options of investing in Gold / metals and which one is more advantageous for you.

Gold ETF: equity traded funds are just like shares / equities. You need to have a demat account to trade in these shares. This comes with transaction charges and demat charges. If you are interested in short term trading then this is the one for you. Since these are equities you need to buy Gold ETF's in multiples of units.

Gold Mutual funds: For having the gold mutual funds you need not have an associated demat account. You can invest in these funds using a systematic investment plan that protects you from ups and downs of the volatile market. On a long term this might be a better bet. However, this is associated with entry load and exit load. There are like mutual funds so you can invest any amount. In India however there doesn't exist any mutual fund that can directly invest in physical Gold. Instead invests in Gold ETF. Hence the performance of Mutual funds will be slightly lesser than that of corresponding ETF's since it incurs mutual fund maintenance costs as well. So in India, Gold ETF's are surely a better option compared to Gold Mutual funds.

These are options you get for investing in Gold. There are other ETF's similar to gold ETF. They are silver ETF, copper ETF, Lead, zinc etc.

In the recent times Siver ETF's have outperformed Gold ETF's. However, in India Silver ETF's are yet to make it to the market since there are laws which doesn't allow it to enter India. So investing in Silver through commodities would be a better bet.

Commodities: There is also the option of investing in these metals including gold through commodities. If you invest in commodities then you have the option of converting it into the physical form as well at a nominal charge. Even this comes with the advantage that you need not safeguard it yourself yet can be converted to physical form. This option is not available either in metal ETF's or metal mutual funds.

National spot exchange is an exchange where you can trade in metals. This stock exchange deals specifically with trading in metals. Presently it allows trading in Gold, Silver, Copper and Zinc.

Egold: another option to invest in gold is to invest in e-gold. Similar to NSE and BSE for stocks there exists National Spot Exchange to invest in E-Gold and other metals like silver, copper etc. However, it doesnt have long history and not many customers are used to it.

Related Posts:

Best Gold ETF's in India

e-gold and e-silver

Real estate investment

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Stock Market Investment Strategies - Most awaited IPO's of the year 2011

2010 has been the year for the IPO's, they were making good money in the short term. The biggest of them all being Coal India IPO. There was a lot of money flowing into the Indian stock market even though in other market people preferred to play the waiting game.

Now moving into the year 2011 lets look at the list of Most awaited IPO's:

Micromax - Micromax is planning to go public with the launch of its IPO this year. The success story of micromax with its low end phones is a miracle of sorts. The company was not even heard of before 2 years but now it has taken the 2nd position in the overall sales of the mobiles in India next only to Nokia. Its IPO is very eagerly awaited.

Jindal Power

L&T Finance Holdings Ltd

Reliance Infratel


Delhi Metro Rail Corp


Reliance Life


The LOOT


Which IPO are going to go for.

Did I miss anything? let me know...

Stock Market Investment Strategies - BSE enables trading through mobile phone

Trading in stocks is set to be simpler soon. BSE has issued guidelines for the brokers to make use of its mobile platform for trading. Over time this will evolve and enable more and more people to get into trading and stock market. A trader can place orders, view positions and trade from anywhere in the country through the mobile.

This facility is expected to be operational by October. To avail of the facility, trading members will have to submit an application that will be followed by a system audit. The charges for this has to be bourne  by the trader.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - Real Estate Investment Trust - REIT

Real estate Investment trust is like a mutual fund which invests in real estate directly, either through properties or mortgages. The returns you get on the property is primarily through rent if invested directly, else it would be in the form of interest on mortgages. There are also mixed type of REIT's which invest on properties directly as well as earns on mortgages.

REITs invest in shopping malls, office buildings, apartments, warehouses and hotels. Many of the REIT's invest specifically in one area of real estate - shopping malls, or in one specific region, state or country.

Advantages of REIT's over owning a real property are:-

• Can invest any amount.
• More liquid than real property.
• Also diversifies the money in different properties. (Usually REIT's come with the condition that any one property should not be more than 15% of the total fund amount)
• Doesn't give the headache associated with properties ;-)

REIT's are yet to be introduced in India even though its is very highly successful in countries like Singapore, USA.

Related Posts:


Gold ETF

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Stock Market Investment Strategies - SC favours Mukesh, dumps Anil

The SC today gave the verdict in favour of Mukesh. SC ruled that government has full authority over the pricing of gas and no MOU between the brothers can change that. It requested Anil to renegotiate the deal with Mukesh. This is a big win for Mukesh since there wont be much of negotiation between them further.

The fortunes of the two Ambanis have moved in different directions in the years. Mukesh has grown stronger and stronger every year. However, Anil has had many setback in the last few years. RNRL shares went down drastically after the verdict. it went down by 22%. With the gas sharing agreement going aganist Anil it has effected reliance power, reliance infrastructure and reliance natural resources limited shares. Already his reliance communication is facing stiff competition by other players and gone down drastically. Have to see how Anil comes out of all this. The only company that's doing well is his Reliance capital.

Mukesh RIL has done very well in the past few years since the split between the two brothers. The difference in their wealth has increased greatly. The difference since 2008 has widened to $15.3 billion, from $9.4 billion in 2004.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - 3G mobile spectrum bids crosses 6634 crores

Bids for a 3G mobile spectrum licences rose 90% from the base price to Rs 6,634.31 crore after 10 days and fifty-eight rounds of bidding. Auction is on for three slots of 3G airwaves in 17 telecom service areas. The auctions for broadband wireless spectrum are scheduled to begin two days after completion of the 3G sale process.

Delhi, Mumbai and regions of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu continued to witness maximum demand. However, almost 50% of the country, the demand for 3G airwaves has been negative.

Overall the auction of 3G and Broadband spectrum put together is likely to fetch somewhere around Rs 44,000-45 ,000 crore.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and Aircel are participating and competing against each other in this process. The auction is likely to continue till the end of next week.

BSE advances by 10 minutes, so what to expect from NSE?

Trading at the Bombay Stock Exchange will now start 10 minutes earlier than usual - at 9.45 a.m. instead of 9.55 a.m.

SEBI in October had given permission for the stock markets to operate between 9 to 5. The brokers and the bankers were not too happy with this decision. So BSE has decided to advance its operating hours in a phased manner. You can expect the NSE to follow suit very soon.

The other thinking was that since FIIs are a big part of for the Indian market. Singapore and Hong Kong go for lunch at 10 am Indian time. If we start the markets at 9:45 am we give the guys in Hong Kong and Singapore to do some trading before they go in for lunch.

Last month, BSE changed the expiry date of monthly index F&O contracts to the third Thursday instead of the last Thursday of each contract month. BSE has also introduced weekly options to bring some interest into the derivative market.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - Telecom stocks, Good time to buy!!!

All telecom stocks have taken a beating in the stock market. Do-Co-Mo started all this with its per second billing plan. All operators came under pressure to comply with per second billing. After DoCoMo it was Airtel which launched with per second billing and then Idea and so on. Everyone seems to be going for per second billing. The operating margins of the telecom companies which was greatly reduced due to the entry of players was even more compressed.

The Central Bureau of Investigation's probe into the 2G spectrum allocation scam further pulled down the telecom stocks. This scam has stopped the allocation of the spectrum for 3G which was to be held in a couple of months time. Presently all telecom stocks seems to be playing the number's game to attract more customers which would enable them to get larger share in the spectrum.

Bharti Airtel also saw disappointing Q2 results which reduced the stock to Rs 292.90 a 52-week low. Reliance communications also saw its stock value decrease to 176.

This presents a great opportunity for the investor to invest in telecom stocks. These stocks seem to have bottomed out already. If you have a long term view it would fetch good returns. However, in a couple of months you would be a able to see a clear picture of where the telecom stocks are heading.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - trading 9 to 5 to become a reality

SEBI has allowed the stock exchanges to extend trading hours of equity markets. When this is implemented, stock exchanges will start trading from 9am and close at 5pm. This is aimed at aligning Indian stock markets with international ones in a bid to woo more trades.

Most of the international stock markets work for eight hours a day, compared to Indian markets that are open for only five and a half hours. Presently India's stock markets work between 10 to 3.30.

The main hurdle for this to happen is of banks. Bank timings also needs to coincide with market timings since the transactions will have to go through it. This will also put tremendous pressure on the brokerage offices.

With this the volatility may come down which is observed in the Indian stock markets and also trading volumes will increase.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - Mindtree buys Kyocera

Mindtree one of the largest software services company in India has made a deal with San-Diego based Kyocera to buy its indian Subsidiary Kyocera wireless India.

Mindtree would make an upfront payment of $6 million to buy this firm. The IT firm expects the acquisition to contribute about $9 million in revenues for the period Oct 2009 to March 2010, with profit after tax expected to be in the range of 13-15 percent. This acquisition makes Kyocera a major strategic client for MindTree. Kyocera wireless india (KWI) which is based in Bangalore will continue to provide engineering services to San Diego-based Kyocera Wireless Corporation (KWC) and other Kyocera entities on a contract basis after the sale. Mindtree had earlier acquired Aztec and added 2.5k employees to its fold. The indian subsidiary of Kyocera employs about 600 people. This increases the total employee count to more than 10k.

Related News:

Mindtree launches Mobile Business

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Stock Market Investment Strategies - 3.9 billion for Perot Systems

Dell has struck a deal with Perot system by agreeing to buy Perot at 3.9 billion. This price is at a 67.5% premium to the existing share value. i.e. Dell would be paying $30 per share. With this deal Dell is expecting to compete with the other two service majors Hewlett Packard and IBM. Dell and Perot systems combine would be 8 billion dollar service company.

Dell has made this acquisition with the intention of entering into the healthcare and government services. Perot has a strong focus in this arena. Dell is far behind in terms of services in comparison to HP and IBM. While both these companies went on the buying spree Dell had remaining quite all this while. Now having made its intentions clear, many analysts feel that the price that Dell is paying is too high.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - Oil India IPO priced at 1050

The Oil India IPO issue price is fixed at Rs 1050 per share. The IPO has raised a total of 4982 crores for the state run Oil India company Limited.

The IPO will make its debut in the stock markets on September 30th. The bid for the IPO which closed on 10th sept was oversubscribed 31 times. The company issued a statment saying over 99% of the bids were at the higher band of 1050.

This is the third oil company in the last couple of months to issue an IPO after Adani power and NHPC which received an overwhelming response.

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NHPC IPO

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Initial public offering

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Stock Market Investment Strategies - Oil India IPO Status

In the IPO front the Oil companies seems to be getting tremendous response. Intially Adani Power, NHPC debuted in the stock exchange after this Oil India get a similar response for its IPO.

The QIB category saw a wonderful response with that category being oversubscribed by 50 times. The recession times has still put the retail subscribers away from the stock market with that category being oversubscribed only 1.7 times. When this category sees heavy oversubscribtion then you can really say that the downtime for the stock market is over.

-30.82 times on the final day

- 4.02 times until third day

- 1.44 times till second day

- 1.28 times on first day

Bidding status Details:

Retail: 1.76 times

QIB: 53.83 times

Non-Institutional Investors: 10.48 times

Employees: 0.27 times

Total: 30.82 times

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NHPC IPO

Adani power IPO

Initial public offering

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Stock Market Investment Strategies - BSE introduces IPO index!!!

BSE has launched an IPO index to track the value of stocks for two years after listing. The IPO index is similar to Sensex (which includes all the 30 sensex stocks) or the Bankex (this includes all the banking heavy weights). When the index was introduced there were 48 stocks in it. The BSE said its IPO index will track companies which have a market capitalisation of at least 1 billion rupees on listing day.

You can trade for these as if they are normal company shares. Even though they are a group of shares you cant trade them separately once you buy it. i.e. if you buy sensex then you can't sell RIL separately from the lot.

Looking at the history, it’s interesting to note that the IPO index is often rise at a faster pace than the market. However, BSE has states that a stock is included on the third day of its listing, and not at the price at which the stock was offered to the public. This takes away the listing gains that is often seen in the IPO market.

On the day IPO index was launched, some of the shares that are a part of it (in alphabetical order).

Adani Power

BGR Energy Systems

Brigade Enterprises

Edelweiss Capital

Everonn Systems

Future Capital Holding

Koutons Retail India

Mahindra Holiday Resorts

Motilal Oswal Financial Services

Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone

Omaxe

Onmobile Global

Power Grid Corporation of India

Puravankara Projects

Reliance Power

Religare Enterprises

Take Solutions

Transformers & Rectifiers

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