|
Finance Articles
|
|
Parachute Investing
By Al Thomas
Debt Management Help Do you struggle with the bills every month? No matter how you juggle your finances there just doesn`t seem to be enough coppers in the bank to pay your creditors. You are not on your own. The UK has been spiraling further into debt for a decade and a large number of families find themselves in your position. Their incomings can`t compete with their outgoings and this can prove to have a detrimental effect on family life. There are options available to people that find themselves in extreme financial difficulty. They can seek Debt Management Helpthrough financial firms who can provide plans that are suitable for each individual customer. If you have explored all other options, Debt Management Helpcould arrange for you to be put on a plan where you`ll pay one fixed affordable monthly fee. They`ll deal with your creditors on your behalf and you`ll make monthly payments to the debt management firm. Once a structured management plan is in place you`ll be able to cope with your regular outgoings and steer a steady path to greater control over your finances in the future. Seek Debt Management Helpduring these difficult times and you`ll see light at the end of the tunnel for the first time in ages.
Every buy any stocks, mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds? It?s OK if you know how much you are willing to risk. Pretty dumb if you don?t. Parachute investing is buying an equity with a parachute so you won?t risk all your money or, better yet, give back the profit you have made as the stock or fund went up and then goes down. If you bought that hummer at $12 per share and during the past couple of years seen it go up to $52 you don?t want to give back that nice profit, do you? With a parachute you can save most of it. How? When you invest in any stock of fund you must know how much you will risk before you buy it and how much of the profit you are willing to give back when it turns down. Take that beauty at $12. Instead of going up it went down. Are you willing to agonize as it drops to $5? If you had a parachute you would have jumped out of the plane before it crashed. If you had an exit strategy for your stock you would have sold it before you lost a big chunk of your cash. The secret of a safe investment is an exit strategy. When you bought Mr. Twelve Dollars you shook hands and told him I?d like to be your friend, but if you change your name to Ten Dollars I am leaving. Maybe that that is not very nice, but nice doesn?t cut it in the investment world. Mr. Twelve Dollars said I am going up and I want you for my friend. Please follow me and if I falter you can leave and we will part friends. Now that makes sense. You trail along and after it goes to $52 it does falter. Do you know where you are going to leave or are you going to ride it go back down to $12? In other words do you have your parachute on? That parachute is your continuing exit strategy that is in place every day. In the investment community it is called an open trailing stop loss order. Any broker can put this in place for you. You might be lucky enough to have a broker who knows where to place stops, but unfortunately there are not many of them. The brokerage industry does not teach its employees (brokers) how to protect customers? money. If that is the case you might want to use the old standard 10% rule. Have the broker place an open stop every Friday at 10% of the closing price of that day as it closes higher. Never lower the stop loss. Brokers hate this as it makes them work, but that is what they are there for and that is how they earn their commissions. With your parachute you can always protect your original cash purchase from a big loss and as your stock advances you can lock in profit as the stock advances. Every investment should have a parachute. 
|
