A common strategy has been to build up more diverse portfolios of investments less dependent on equities and with greater exposure to alternatives such as hedge funds, commodities, direct property, credit, infrastructure and timber. Next time we will talk about some of the qualities we look for in selecting stocks for our portfolios. Similarly, during bad times it is common to hear talk of ‘continued tough times’. Again this myth sounds like good common sense. A common mistake investors make at business cycle extremes is to assume that the business cycle won’t turn back the other way. As a result, they eventually start to spend more which in turn gets the economy going again. So in effect investors have actually been taking on more risk helped by the ‘comfort’ provided by greater diversification. I encourage you, if you are taking the class, officially or unofficially, to take my valuation and make it your own, changing the story and the inputs, and then recording your valuation in a shared Google spreadsheet.

If for all these things the SEO software program or SEO professional can respond to YES, then you can easily begin taking all of them really truly! As an investor you would surely desire to make profits as much as you can. The first priority is to make sure that an investment stacks up well in its own right – without relying on tax considerations. This is generally true over the long term and at various points in the economic cycle, but at cyclical extremes it is usually very wrong and constitutes another big mistake investors make. This mistake has been clearly evident in recent years. This is another classic mistake that investors make, which is again clearly rooted in investor psychology. This ‘safety in numbers’ concept has its origin in crowd psychology. It is wiser to repay these loans quickly so that your repayment capacity is increased and your credit score is improved. The problem with this myth is to ignore the fact that capacity utilisation is low in a recession simply because spending – including business investment – is weak. If it were correct then economies would never recover from recession but simply spiral down into the sort of crises that Karl Marx predicted would ultimately lead to the demise of capitalism.

Since share markets normally lead economic recoveries, the peak in unemployment often comes a long time after shares have bottomed. However, senior business people are often overwhelmingly influenced by their own sales figures but have no particular lead on the future. People often confuse these as the same thing. GIVEN the complexity of investment markets and investing, along with the massive amount of information available to investors, many people rely on logic based on ‘common sense’ or simple ‘rules of thumb’ in making investment decisions. Many franchise businesses can be operated as management franchise opportunities, especially where they involve providing of services to the B2C or business-to-business markets. The big problem is that share markets are forward looking, so when economic data is really strong – measured by strong economic growth, low unemployment – the market has already factored it in. I charge very reasonable fees which are negotiable depending on how much you want to invest. Yes, they have a decent size equity position, but the fees they earn from keeping New Media as a separate entity far outweigh any premium they would get for their equity in a buyout scenario. Overwatch will have teams from different countries (or states in the US) fighting one another much like World Cup or Premium League.

This generally led to a reduced exposure to truly defensive asset classes like government bonds. This argument is wheeled out every time there is a recession – like now. For example, at the bottom of the last bear market in shares back in March 2003, global economic indicators were very poor and the general fear was off a ‘double dip’ back into global recession. It is well known that when the consensus of experts’ forecasts for key economic or investment indicators are compared to actual outcomes, they are often out by a wide margin. History indicates time and again that the best gains in stocks are usually made when the economic news is poor and economic recovery is just beginning or not even evident. We all knew this is probably due to many companies in Japan has been undervalued for the longest time. I hear it so often that it makes me think, I might have the privilege of working in this business for a long time because this kind of thinking is shortsighted, ill-informed, and costly.