Victory Investment

Archive for September, 2010

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Copyright By Anyaele Sam Chiyson

This article was culled from Anyaele Sam Chiyson`s Soon-To-Be-Released book: Champion of Centuries.

Last week I wrote that the next price barrier for gold is 00/oz and recently the price has been hovering around 98/oz for few days. Few months ago most analysts expected the gold price to be on these levels by the end of the year but recent news from America and Japan has encouraged investors to jump on board faster than predicted.

Last week the Japanese government announced that they will interrupt the markets by weakening the Yen for the first time in six years. This is a rather significant move from the Japanese government since they haven’t injected any stimulus into the markets since the last recession in 1990s. The falling Dollar has caused problems in Japan since their large exporting industry has been suffering because of the strengthening Yen and the government was forced to take actions. All this is gold positive because one more of the few reserve currencies have been manipulated by the government.

The counter strike from the Dollar came on Tuesday when the FED announced the readiness to introduce a new round of quantitative easing to boost the economy. After the announcement gold has been very close to the 00/oz mark and once this level is reached, investors need to revalue their price targets once again.

The depreciation of the Yuan compared to the Dollar has caused a growing tension between The U.S and China in recent weeks. The U.S is blaming the cheap Yuan for its economic issues and even financial sanctions against China have been on the cards. If these two giant economies are starting to threaten each others, the impact on the ever slowing recovery could be enormous. Both of the nations are key players in the global economy and how they manage to support the economic growth and stability will have a major effect on all economic regions.

According to the IMF, a growing number of central banks, especially from Asia, have been topping up their gold reserves in the last 12 months. Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Mauritius, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been the main purchasers and the changing attitude towards gold investments from central banks has encouraged investors to buy gold.

Gold has gained 17% since January and has been the best performing asset by miles. Still most people don’t see gold as an investment since it doesn’t pay any dividend. This is a totally wrong approach to hard asset investing. Investors should keep gold in their portfolios to balance the risk aspect of investing. Every time something goes wrong in the global economy, people go for gold. This has been proven several times in last few years and is likely to be proven many more times before the recession is over.

Venture capital investment helps in the development of innovative and entrepreneurial companies in India. It has developed out of the need to provide, risky and unconventional capital for new ventures which are based on dynamic entrepreneurship. Venture investment can be in the form of quasi equity or equity and in some cases, even straight or conditional debt, which is made to a venture backed by a professionally and technically qualified entrepreneur.

Venture Capital firms receive investment proposals through financial intermediaries or directly. The process starts with desk research on the deal. In case it evinces appropriate interest, the management team is asked to come up with a suitable business model for the company keeping in view the unique aspects and prospects of the business venture. The fund examines the competence and quality of the management team of the aspiring company so as to get a perspective of the overall investment proposal and business prospects. In case the investor finds the venture a profitable proposition, a term sheet containing the terms and conditions of the proposed investment is created and negotiated with the promoters. The next step is a detailed due diligence which is assigned to independent advisors or carried out by the venture capital fund itself. This is to examine the financial, business and legal aspects of the deal in depth. The venture capital firms then have to assess the stages of requirement and the actual quantum itself and other milestones in the proposal. After the completion of due diligence, the fund may modify the terms and conditions or stipulate new conditions. Changes and modifications are negotiated with the promoters. A letter of intent is issued by the venture firm and various formalities are completed.

When the promoters request for venture capital investment funds, the firms release it. The functioning of the invested company is regularly monitored and the investor company may give strategic plan inputs and guidance to invested company to optimize performance.

To know more about , kindly visit –

One question almost every investor asks at some point is whether it is possible to achieve above market returns by selecting a diversified group of stocks according to some formula, rather than having to evaluate each stock from every angle.

There are obvious advantages to such a formulaic approach. For the individual, the amount of time and effort spent caring for his investments would be reduced, leaving more time for him to spend on more enjoyable and fulfilling tasks. For the institution, large sums of money could be deployed without having to rely upon the investing acumen of a single talented stock picker. Many of the proposed systems also offer the advantage of matching the inflow of investable funds with investment opportunities. An investor who follows no formula, and evaluates each stock from every angle, may often find himself holding cash. Historically, this has been a problem for some excellent stock pickers. So, there are real advantages to favoring a formulaic approach to investing if such an approach would yield returns similar to the returns a complete stock by stock analysis would yield.

Many investment writers have proposed at least one such formulaic approach during their lifetime. The most promising formulaic approaches have been articulated by three men: Benjamin Graham, David Dreman, and Joel Greenblatt. As each of these approaches appeals to logic and common sense, they are not unique to these three men. But, these are the three names with which these approaches are usually most closely associated; so, there is little need to draw upon sources beyond theirs.

Benjamin Graham wrote three books of consequence: “Security Analysis”, “The Intelligent Investor”, and “The Interpretation of Financial Statements”. Within each book, he hints at various workable approaches both in stocks and bonds; however, he is most explicit in his best known work, “The Intelligent Investor”. There, Graham discusses the purchase of shares for less than two – thirds of their net current asset value. The belief that this method would yield above market returns is supported on both empirical and logical grounds.

In fact, it currently enjoys far too much support to be practicable. Public companies rarely trade below their net current asset values. This is unlikely to change in the future. Buyout firms, unconventional money managers, and vulture investors now check such excessive bouts of public pessimism by taking large or controlling stakes in troubled companies. As a result, the investing public is less likely to indulge its pessimism as feverishly as it once did; for, many cheap stocks now have the silver lining of being takeover targets. As Graham’s net current asset value method is neither workable at present, nor is likely to prove workable in the future, we must set it aside.

David Dreman is known as a contrarian investor. In his case, it is an appropriate label, because of his keen interest in behavioral finance. However, in most cases the line separating the value investor from the contrarian investor is fuzzy at best. Dreman’s contrarian investing strategies are derived from three measures: price to earnings, price to cash flow, and price to book value. Of these measures, the price to earnings ratio is by far the most conspicuous. It is quoted nearly everywhere the share price is quoted. When inverted, the price to earnings ratio becomes the earnings yield. To put this another way, a stock’s earnings yield is “e” over “p”. Dreman describes the strategy of buying stocks trading at low prices relative to their earnings as the low P/E approach; but, he could have just as easily called it the high earnings yield approach.

Whatever you call it, this approach has proved effective in the past. A diversified group of low P/E stocks has usually outperformed both a diversified group of high P/E stocks and the market as a whole.

This fact suggests that investors have a very hard time quantifying the future prospects of most public companies. While they may be able to make correct qualitative comparisons between businesses, they have trouble assigning a price to these qualitative differences. This does not come as a surprise to anyone with much knowledge of human judgment (and misjudgment). I am sure there is some technical term for this deficiency, but I know it only as “checklist syndrome”. Within any mental model, one must both describe the variables and assign weights to these variables. Humans tend to have little difficulty describing the variables – that is, creating the checklist. However, they rarely have any clue as to the weight that ought to be given to each variable.

This is why you will sometimes hear analysts say something like: the factor that tipped the balance in favor of online sales this holiday season was high gas prices (yes, this is an actual paraphrase; but, I won’t attribute it, because publicly attaching such an inane argument to anyone’s name is just cruel). It is true that avoiding paying high prices at the pump is a possible motivating factor in a shopper’s decision to make online Christmas purchases. However, it is an immaterial factor. It is a mere pebble on the scales. This is the same kind of thinking that places far too much value on a stock’s future earnings growth and far too little value on a stock’s current earnings.

The other two contrarian methods: the low price to cash flow approach and the low price to book value approach work for the same reasons. They exploit the natural human tendency to see a false equality in the factors, and to run down a checklist. For instance, a stock that has a triple digit price to cash flow ratio, but is in all other respects an extraordinary business, will be judged favorably by a checklist approach. However, if great weight is assigned to present cash flows relative to the stock price, the stock will be judged unfavorably. This also illustrates the second strength of the three contrarian methods.

They heavily weight the known factors. Of course, they do not heavily weight all known factors. They only consider three easily quantifiable known factors. An excellent brand, a growing industry, a superb management team, etc. may also be known factors. However, they are not precisely quantifiable. I would argue that while these factors may not be quantifiable they are calculable; that is to say, while no exact value may be assigned to them, they are useful data that ought to be considered when evaluating an investment.

There is the possibility of a middle ground here. These three contrarian methods may be used as a screen. Then, the investor may apply his own active judgment to winnow the qualifying stocks down to a final portfolio. Personally, I do not believe this is an acceptable compromise. These three methods do not adequately model the diversity of great investments. Therefore, they must either exclude some of the best stocks or include too many of the worst stocks. It is wise to place great weight upon each of these measures; however, it is foolish disqualify any stock because of a single criterion (which is exactly what such a screen does).

Finally, there is Joel Greenblatt’s “magic formula”. This is the most interesting formulaic approach to investing, both because it does not subject stocks to any true/false tests and because it is a composite of the two most important readily quantifiable measures a stock has: earnings yield and return on capital. As you will recall, earnings yield is simply the inverse of the P/E ratio; so, a stock with a high earnings yield is simply a low P/E stock. Return on capital may be thought of as the number of pennies earned for each dollar invested in the business. The exact formula that Greenblatt uses is described in “The Little Book That Beats the Market”. However, the formula used is rather unimportant. Over large groups of stocks (which is what Greenblatt suggests the magic formula be used on) any differences between the various return on capital formulae will not have much affect on the performance of the portfolios constructed.

Greenblatt claims his magic formula may be used in two different ways: as an automated portfolio generation tool or as a screen. For an investor like you (that is, one with sufficient curiosity and commitment to frequent a site such as this) the latter use is the more appropriate one. The magic formula will serve you well as a screen. I would argue, however, that you needn’t limit yourself to stocks screened by the magic formula, if you have full confidence in your judgment regarding some other stock.

These four formulaic approaches (the three from Dreman and the one from Greenblatt) will likely yield returns greater than or equal to the returns you would obtain from an index fund. Therefore, you would do better to invest in your own basket of qualifying stocks than in the prefabricated market basket. If you want to be a passive investor, or believe yourself incapable of being an active investor, these formulaic approaches are your best bet.

In fact, if I were approached by an institution making long – term investments and using only a very small percentage of the fund for operating expenses, I would recommend an automated process derived from these four approaches. I would also recommend that 100% of the fund’s investable assets be put into equities, but that is a discussion for another day (in fact, it’s a discussion for Tuesday; my next podcast is devoted to the dangers of diversification). If, however, you believe you have what it takes to be an active investor, and that is truly what you wish to be, then, I would suggest you do not use these approaches for anything more than helping you generate some useful ideas.

If you choose this path, you need to be clear about what being an active investor entails. Read this next part very carefully (it is correct even though it may not appear to be): I have never found a screen that generates more than one buy order per hundred stocks returned. Even after I have narrowed the list of possible stocks down by a cursory review of the industry and the business itself, I have never found a method that can consistently generate more than one buy order per twenty – five annual reports read.

Here, I am citing my best past experiences. In my experience, most screens result in less than one buy order per three hundred stocks returned, and I usually read more like fifty to a hundred annual reports per buy order at a minimum. You may choose to invest in far more stocks than I do. Perhaps instead of limiting yourself to your five to twelve best ideas as I do, you might want to put money into your best twenty – five to thirty ideas. Do the math, and you’ll see that is still quite a bit of homework.

That’s why remaining a passive investor is the best bet for most people. The time and effort demanded of the active investor is simply too taxing. They have more important, more enjoyable things to do. If that’s true for you, the four formulaic approaches outlined above should guide you to above market returns.

Eldora Gold resources latest article info on gold investment – Spanish gold coins pieces present some of the most fascinating examples of coin minting industry of the Old World that had existed centuries before the US started minting its coins. Spanish gold coins were often depicted in multiple movies and novels in association with pirates, lost treasure and sunken ships. The Spanish gold coins fascination continues up to this day not only due to their pure gold content, mintage and amazing history behind.

Eldora Gold Resources tips on Spanish gold coins value retention. It is important to research and evaluate each of the gold investment companies under consideration. There are many gold investment scams, fraud, boiler rooms that you should watch for, this will serve as a good warning before investing and only use gold options and companies that are verified, and have a good business reputation. This will minimize the risk of falling prey to any boiler rooms, scams or frauds.

Initially, Spanish gold coins named Doubloons were made by hand using primitive methods and manually sized to a specific weight by actually cutting pieces off already made coins. This method gives them characteristic odd rough shape that is especially prized among old gold coins collectors. The smallest fraction of Spanish gold doubloon is one Spanish escudo, the escudo denomination doubles creating two, four and eight escudo coins respectively.

Doubloons Spanish gold coins were mostly in possession by Spanish noblemen and otherwise richer layers of population and are not as heavily worn in comparison to Escudos. Therefore, the actual Doubloons value by far exceeds the value of Escudos. In the modern world of coin trading, the terms escudos and doubloons are sometimes used as synonyms to describe any Spanish old gold coins. The average price for the oldest Doubloons eBay gold coins can very often be in the thousands of dollars depending on their grade and year of mintage.

If you decided to add Spanish old gold coins to your numismatic collection, take care to only purchase coins from respectable and well-recognized coin dealers that can provide certified old gold coins or shipwreck salvaged coins with proper documentation. Increased popularity of old Spanish and French gold coins along with any other historical rare coins attracts a lot of dishonest coin dealers who mislead coin collectors into buying coins for more than they are actually worth. If you are not a numismatic expert, the general rule is to stay away from historical gold coins and choose certified gold bullion coins to ensure their authenticity and decrease investment risk.

Analyzing ROI, or Return on Investment, is one of the most important things that you can do to evaluate the consequences of a financial investment or decision. ROI analysis is used when deciding whether or not to invest in the stock market, bonds or any other financial decision, including starting a business. It is extremely important to know what the return of investment is, to determine whether or not the decision is sound. Learning how to do a proper ROI analysis can help you to determine whether or not you want to make the investment.

Return of Investment analysis takes many forms but most work by figuring out a ratio, or percentage to use. Anytime that a ROI is more than 0.00 for ration, or a percentage greater than zero percent on percentages that means that the investment will return more than it initially costs. This tiny number is often how financial experts come up with which investments to go with, and your financial adviser may recommend a certain investment simply because it offers a better ROI, even if it is only better by a very small ratio or percentage.

However, one thing that you should keep in mind is that while ROI is a great way to analyze investments, it does not tel you how risky the investment will be. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the return of investment ratio, because the ROI simply predicts what the investment will return if it performs as you think it will. There is still a risk of investing and that can be calculated differently. Other financial measuring tools such as Net Present Value and Internal ROR (rate of return) also do not calculate the risk.

Learning how to use ROI for investments is fairly simple if you can do some math. Basically, it is the return divided by the cost of the action, which is the simple way to do it. For instance, if you invested 0,000 into an advertising campaign that will probably bring in additional revenue of 0,000 then your simple ROI would be 1.8, or one and a 8/10 return on your investment. In percentages that would be 180% return on your investment. This is obviously a very good return, as it is almost 0,000 in profit from that advertising campaign.

Knowing the ROI of an investment does not mean that the investment is sound however. It is only part of the story. There are many financial metrics such as Net Present Value or NPV, Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and payback period. Each one tells a different part of the story as well as the risk of the investment and several other factors. A professional investment consultant is needed to determine whether or not an investment is a good idea. Finding a qualified Fort Worth Financial Adviser is important to protect your money.

One question almost every investor asks at some point is whether it is possible to achieve above market returns by selecting a diversified group of stocks according to some formula, rather than having to evaluate each stock from every angle. There are obvious advantages to such a formulaic approach. For the individual, the amount of time and effort spent caring for his investments would be reduced, leaving more time for him to spend on more enjoyable and fulfilling tasks. For the institution, large sums of money could be deployed without having to rely upon the investing acumen of a single talented stock picker. Many of the proposed systems also offer the advantage of matching the inflow of investable funds with investment opportunities. An investor who follows no formula, and evaluates each stock from every angle, may often find himself holding cash. Historically, this has been a problem for some excellent stock pickers. So, there are real advantages to favoring a formulaic approach to investing if such an approach would yield returns similar to the returns a complete stock by stock analysis would yield.

Many investment writers have proposed at least one such formulaic approach during their lifetime. The most promising formulaic approaches have been articulated by three men: Benjamin Graham, David Dreman, and Joel Greenblatt. As each of these approaches appeals to logic and common sense, they are not unique to these three men. But, these are the three names with which these approaches are usually most closely associated; so, there is little need to draw upon sources beyond theirs.

Benjamin Graham wrote three books of consequence: “Security Analysis”, “The Intelligent Investor”, and “The Interpretation of Financial Statements”. Within each book, he hints at various workable approaches both in stocks and bonds; however, he is most explicit in his best known work, “The Intelligent Investor”. There, Graham discusses the purchase of shares for less than two – thirds of their net current asset value. The belief that this method would yield above market returns is supported on both empirical and logical grounds. In fact, it currently enjoys far too much support to be practicable. Public companies rarely trade below their net current asset values. This is unlikely to change in the future. Buyout firms, unconventional money managers, and vulture investors now check such excessive bouts of public pessimism by taking large or controlling stakes in troubled companies. As a result, the investing public is less likely to indulge its pessimism as feverishly as it once did; for, many cheap stocks now have the silver lining of being takeover targets. As Graham’s net current asset value method is neither workable at present, nor is likely to prove workable in the future, we must set it aside.

David Dreman is known as a contrarian investor. In his case, it is an appropriate label, because of his keen interest in behavioral finance. However, in most cases the line separating the value investor from the contrarian investor is fuzzy at best. Dreman’s contrarian investing strategies are derived from three measures: price to earnings, price to cash flow, and price to book value. Of these measures, the price to earnings ratio is by far the most conspicuous. It is quoted nearly everywhere the share price is quoted. When inverted, the price to earnings ratio becomes the earnings yield. To put this another way, a stock’s earnings yield is “e” over “p”. Dreman describes the strategy of buying stocks trading at low prices relative to their earnings as the low P/E approach; but, he could have just as easily called it the high earnings yield approach. Whatever you call it, this approach has proved effective in the past. A diversified group of low P/E stocks has usually outperformed both a diversified group of high P/E stocks and the market as a whole.

This fact suggests that investors have a very hard time quantifying the future prospects of most public companies. While they may be able to make correct qualitative comparisons between businesses, they have trouble assigning a price to these qualitative differences. This does not come as a surprise to anyone with much knowledge of human judgment (and misjudgment). I am sure there is some technical term for this deficiency, but I know it only as “checklist syndrome”. Within any mental model, one must both describe the variables and assign weights to these variables. Humans tend to have little difficulty describing the variables – that is, creating the checklist. However, they rarely have any clue as to the weight that ought to be given to each variable. This is why you will sometimes hear analysts say something like: the factor that tipped the balance in favor of online sales this holiday season was high gas prices (yes, this is an actual paraphrase; but, I won’t attribute it, because publicly attaching such an inane argument to anyone’s name is just cruel). It is true that avoiding paying high prices at the pump is a possible motivating factor in a shopper’s decision to make online Christmas purchases. However, it is an immaterial factor. It is a mere pebble on the scales. This is the same kind of thinking that places far too much value on a stock’s future earnings growth and far too little value on a stock’s current earnings.

The other two contrarian methods: the low price to cash flow approach and the low price to book value approach work for the same reasons. They exploit the natural human tendency to see a false equality in the factors, and to run down a checklist. For instance, a stock that has a triple digit price to cash flow ratio, but is in all other respects an extraordinary business, will be judged favorably by a checklist approach. However, if great weight is assigned to present cash flows relative to the stock price, the stock will be judged unfavorably. This also illustrates the second strength of the three contrarian methods. They heavily weight the known factors. Of course, they do not heavily weight all known factors. They only consider three easily quantifiable known factors. An excellent brand, a growing industry, a superb management team, etc. may also be known factors. However, they are not precisely quantifiable. I would argue that while these factors may not be quantifiable they are calculable; that is to say, while no exact value may be assigned to them, they are useful data that ought to be considered when evaluating an investment.

There is the possibility of a middle ground here. These three contrarian methods may be used as a screen. Then, the investor may apply his own active judgment to winnow the qualifying stocks down to a final portfolio. Personally, I do not believe this is an acceptable compromise. These three methods do not adequately model the diversity of great investments. Therefore, they must either exclude some of the best stocks or include too many of the worst stocks. It is wise to place great weight upon each of these measures; however, it is foolish disqualify any stock because of a single criterion (which is exactly what such a screen does).

Finally, there is Joel Greenblatt’s “magic formula”. This is the most interesting formulaic approach to investing, both because it does not subject stocks to any true/false tests and because it is a composite of the two most important readily quantifiable measures a stock has: earnings yield and return on capital. As you will recall, earnings yield is simply the inverse of the P/E ratio; so, a stock with a high earnings yield is simply a low P/E stock. Return on capital may be thought of as the number of pennies earned for each dollar invested in the business. The exact formula that Greenblatt uses is described in “The Little Book That Beats the Market”. However, the formula used is rather unimportant. Over large groups of stocks (which is what Greenblatt suggests the magic formula be used on) any differences between the various return on capital formulae will not have much affect on the performance of the portfolios constructed. Greenblatt claims his magic formula may be used in two different ways: as an automated portfolio generation tool or as a screen. For an investor like you (that is, one with sufficient curiosity and commitment to frequent a site such as this) the latter use is the more appropriate one. The magic formula will serve you well as a screen. I would argue, however, that you needn’t limit yourself to stocks screened by the magic formula, if you have full confidence in your judgment regarding some other stock.

These four formulaic approaches (the three from Dreman and the one from Greenblatt) will likely yield returns greater than or equal to the returns you would obtain from an index fund. Therefore, you would do better to invest in your own basket of qualifying stocks than in the prefabricated market basket. If you want to be a passive investor, or believe yourself incapable of being an active investor, these formulaic approaches are your best bet. In fact, if I were approached by an institution making long – term investments and using only a very small percentage of the fund for operating expenses, I would recommend an automated process derived from these four approaches. I would also recommend that 100% of the fund’s investable assets be put into equities, but that is a discussion for another day (in fact, it’s a discussion for Tuesday; my next podcast is devoted to the dangers of diversification). If, however, you believe you have what it takes to be an active investor, and that is truly what you wish to be, then, I would suggest you do not use these approaches for anything more than helping you generate some useful ideas.

If you choose this path, you need to be clear about what being an active investor entails. Read this next part very carefully (it is correct even though it may not appear to be): I have never found a screen that generates more than one buy order per hundred stocks returned. Even after I have narrowed the list of possible stocks down by a cursory review of the industry and the business itself, I have never found a method that can consistently generate more than one buy order per twenty – five annual reports read. Here, I am citing my best past experiences. In my experience, most screens result in less than one buy order per three hundred stocks returned, and I usually read more like fifty to a hundred annual reports per buy order at a minimum. You may choose to invest in far more stocks than I do. Perhaps instead of limiting yourself to your five to twelve best ideas as I do, you might want to put money into your best twenty – five to thirty ideas. Do the math, and you’ll see that is still quite a bit of homework. That’s why remaining a passive investor is the best bet for most people. The time and effort demanded of the active investor is simply too taxing. They have more important, more enjoyable things to do. If that’s true for you, the four formulaic approaches outlined above should guide you to above market returns.

Overseas property investment can be the road to riches or the road to ruin depending on how you invest.

If you follow the 4 tips below you will be able to enjoy the minority of big winners in overseas property investment so here they are.

1. Buy the trend

This is perhaps the biggest error made by newcomers to overseas property investment.

They don’t want to buy an established market they want to buy the new property “hot spot”

Why?

Because it’s cheaper and they think the rewards are higher. The downside of course is the risk is high to and most new property “hot spots” never take off and the investor is left with losses and a property he can’t sell.

Buy a trend in motion i.e. where investors are already investing and making money.

The reason for this is:

You have missed the start of the move and maybe some profit, but that doesn’t mean there is more to come and more importantly the downside risk is less.

Property trends last decades or longer and once their in motion they suck more money in ensuring higher prices.

Consider a favourite of US investors Cost Rica:

A property purchased 15 years ago near the popular resort of Jaco for ,000, is worth as much as 0,000 today!

Is this move over?

Consider this and decide:

Beach front property is still up to 70% less than in the USA AND with demand for ocean view strong growth will continue.

This type of market not only offers great rewards but l0w risk, also as it’s popular you can pick up extra rental income as a bonus.

So 30 -100% profit is available without the risk investing in emerging markets.

Most investors want big gains but also want low risk and that’s what an established market gives you.

2. Location

Whatever market you buy in you need to get a good location. For example in Costa Rica you would look for the expanding resorts rather than the established ones to maximize your risk reward.

3. Look at the law

Many people invest in countries and have no idea of the law and find out later that they don’t have the same rights as residents or that their property can be seized by the government etc

Don’t take the risk. Only do overseas property investment in countries that offer you protection and get a local attorney if you can’t speak the language, its money well spent.

4. Make up your own mind

Don’t fall for sales hype like huge profits in a new emerging market – If it looks to good to be true it probably is.

With overseas property investment stick with established trends that look likely to continue.

Make sure that you pick locations carefully near expanding areas to maximize risk reward and get a good attorney; it’s a small price to pay and stick to countries where the law gives you the same rights as residents.

It’s all about risk reward

Of course you can be a pioneer and go for a killing in a new emerging market, but keep in mind many pioneers got rich, but most got the arrows!

You don’t need to be clever to make 30 – 100% annual gains in overseas property investment, you can do it by following the above and more importantly with low risk,

Slovenia is a popular overseas property investment destination and was recently voted one of the top destinations in the world and Ljubljana property investment has been one of the most popular destinations so lets look at it.

Ljubljana property investment is popular as its in the capital of Slovenia is an obvious place for overseas property investors to buy.

There is a shortage of high quality property in Ljubljana and demand simply outstrips supply.

There are good opportunities for both capital growth, as well as solid rental incomes and many investors are making 30% annually or more in capital gains.

Slovenia is one of the newest countries to join the European Economic Union (joining in 2004) and has the strongest economic growth rate of any of the new member states. This economic growth is centered on Ljubljana which produces around 25% of Slovenia’s entire total Gross Domestic Product.

Property in Ljubljana is seeing strong rises and these gains look set to continue for the foreseeable future.

The limited supply of housing is exacerbated by restrictions on land planning and building new property and are the two factors behind this growth.

Ljubljana has been compared to a smaller, more intimate and friendly version of Prague and there are many similarities in its appearance.

The city has a vibrant, lively, atmosphere and while typically Slovenian overseas tourists and investors have made it very cosmopolitan. The city skyline is dotted with church spires, quaint medieval buildings and beautiful baroque architecture.

In the first half of the 20th century, Ljubljana’s appearance which lives on this day was shaped by one man – Jože Ple

nik. Jože Ple

nik was a great architect and was also a resident of Ljubljana.

The cityscape was complemented by his followers as well as by creations of the “New Wave” of young architects which have helped give Ljubljana its appearance and charms anyone who visits the city.

The population of Ljubljana is around 260,000, making the city compact and easy to get around with an efficient transport network.

June to September is the high season for visitors, temperatures vary between warm and pleasant to hot and humid. Autumn is normally mild and the falling leaves; give the city a warm and intimate feel. Winter is usually cold and the snow brings a new wave of visitors who come to enjoy the capital but more importantly, use it is as a stopping off point to go to the mountain resorts and enjoy the skiing.

Ljubljana is a great base to use to explore the other delights Slovenia has to offer.

The Karst region, the beautiful Adriatic coast and city of Piran, the Julian Alps mountains, the wine-growing areas and many historic towns are all within approximately 2 hours by car to the capital. Finally, Ljubljana makes a great base to explore surrounding countries such as – Austria, Italy and Croatia.

With budget airlines increasing the number of flights into Slovenia as tourism booms access is easier and cheaper than ever before.

The tourist s are coming in increasing numbers but so to are the overseas property investors looking to buy Ljubljana property in ever increasing numbers.

For those who want to invest in Ljubljana property, there are good investment opportunities in the city center as well as the outlying areas and prices are very affordable in terms of the gains to be had.

The Slovenia property boom is still very much in its infancy and looks set to run for many years to come. In fact a recent TV program forecast that growth would be up to 280% over the next 10 years and many locations in Ljubljana have been exceeding 30% per annum.

With growth rates of up to 30% or even more in some locations its no wonder more investors than ever are investing in Ljubljana property and with low downside risk to it makes a great destination for investors seeking great capital growth and income from their investment.

If you are thinking of investing in Ljubljana property make sure you visit the city and look at its potential and you may be glad you did.

You probably already know that Warren Buffett is the world’s greatest investor of all time. Starting with only $ 100, Buffett made an unprecedented journey in creating a personal fortune of $ 48 billon. A truly unprecedented accomplishment, especially when you consider he never started a company of his own and never invested a single penny in technology stocks. His complete fortune comes from investing in the stock market!

And, as a matter of fact, Buffett’s investment strategy isn’t that complicated: buy shares of quality companies when they are ‘on sale’. That’s all there is! With this straightforward strategy Buffett earned his billions of dollars. But, as we take a deeper look at Buffett’s returns over time something stands out…

The outperformance of Buffett compared with the S&P 500 diminishes over time. Between 1957 and 1966 Buffett outperformed the S&P 500 by a massive 14.5 times. In the most recent decade his outperformance has been diminished to ‘only’ 2.2 times the S&P 500. Of course, Buffett still shows that he is able to beat the indexes. But, now only at a fraction of the outperformance he achieved in earlier decades.

So, what’s the reason for this? Has Buffett’s system of buying quality companies on sale stopped working? Or has Buffett lost his ‘Magic Touch’? Twice the answer is negative.

The explanation behind the diminishing returns

The real explanation for the diminishing (relative) returns is actually quite simple. Nowadays, Buffett has to invest large amounts of money. Even investments of a few hundred million dollars aren’t worth the trouble anymore. Just, calculate along with me…

Buffett’s total investments currently have a value of approximately 110 billion dollar. So, should an investment still have some effect on the performance of the total investment portfolio this investment has to be at least 2 billion dollar. And that’s the problem.

As Buffett’s doesn’t want to influence a stock price too much (buying in large quantities drives the price of a stock up…) and wants to remain somewhat flexible, normally it isn’t possible to buy (or sell) more than 10% of the shares in a certain public company.

And, as the 2 billion equals 10% of the market capitalisation, we are speaking of companies with market capitalisations of at least 20 billion dollar. And, simply put, there aren’t that many companies with market capitalisations of over 20 billion!

And, besides the fact that there simply aren’t that many companies with market capitalisations that big, these companies are much more followed and researched by investment analysts and all kinds of investment professionals.

Because of this these companies are priced less inefficient. And voilà, here we have the second reason for the diminishing outperformance of Buffett.

Maybe you didn’t realize it, but as a consequence of this you have actually a considerably advantage over Buffett (unless you are Bill Gates…). After all, you aren’t limited to invest only in these giant, more efficiently priced companies. You can choose from a much, much greater supply of more inefficiently priced companies!

Buffett agrees with this reasoning:

“I think I could make you 50% a year on million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.”

–Warren Buffett, Businessweek, 25 th of June, 1999.

Also the returns of a couple of hedge fund managers show that it is an enormous advantage NOT to have too much money to invest. We will look at two of them: Joel Greenblatt and Mohnish Pabrai. Both of these top investors can be considered as Buffett copycats.

Joel Greenblatt

A few years ago, Greenblatt became known to a wider public as author of ‘The Little Book That Beats The Market’. In this book Greenblatt outlines a strategy in line with Buffett’s investment strategy. Greenblatt’s desire for stocks with high returns on invested capital accompanied by high earnings yields is essentially the same as Buffett’s desire for ‘quality companies on sale’.

Greenblatt’s hedge fund earned annual returns of over 40% for over twenty years. In his first ten years he even achieved annual returns of over 50%. And, like Buffett, Greenblatt got the same problem as Buffett: too much money to invest. And that’s why Greenblatt choose to buy out all the external investors in his hedge fund and to continue investing only with his own, private money!

An example of a recent investment of Joel Greenblatt is his purchase of shares of Aeropostale, a highly profitable clothing retailer. Within only a few months shares of Aeropostale had appreciated over 40%. Greenblatt sold his shares already. With a market cap of around 1 billion dollar at the time of Greenblatt’s purchase, such a transaction would be unthinkable for Buffett.

Mohnish Pabrai

Pabrai, like Greenblatt, can be considered as a Buffett follower:

‘M r. Buffett deserves all the credit. I am just a shameless cloner .’ – Mohnish Pabrai

In 1999, Pabrai started his investment fund with only 1 million dollar to invest. Now, only eight years later, Pabrai manages over 500 million dollar. Of course, Pabrai’s performance justifies this enormous growth: an annualized return of over 28% (after all fees and expenses).

An example of a recent transaction of Pabrai is his purchase of shares of Cryptologic, a software supplier for casinos on the internet. Total market capitalisation of Cryptologic at the time of Pabrai’s first investment: less then 250 million dollar. Pabrai, meanwhile, has seen this investment increase in value over 50% in less than 6 months. Again, this would be totally unthinkable for Warren Buffett.

But, like Buffett, both Greenblatt and Pabrai will be confronted with the laws of financial gravity. Also their relative returns will diminish over time. For sure, some will claim that Greenblatt and Pabrai just had some good fortune and claim that Buffett’s investments strategy doesn’t work anymore.

But also in the future new Buffett’s will arise. And they will demonstrate the sceptic, once again, that it’s still possible to outperform the market. Simply by buying shares of quality companies when they are on sale!