PinoyMoneyTalk.com

If only Unit Investment Trust Fund (UITF) investors matched their investment horizon with the UITFs they got into, the decline in UITF prices during the summer of 2006 would not have been that bad.

This is according to the Trust Officers Association of the Philippines (TOAP) who believes increasing interest rates was not the only factor that pulled down the net asset value per unit (NAVPU) of UITFs early this year. The panic selling of investors who were frightened by the falling prices also contributed to the UITF shakedown, the TOAP explains.

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In addition to the simple ways to identify counterfeit money outlined in this article, here are some more things you can check to detect if the money you have is fake or not.

Counterfeit Bill

Counterfeit Coins

Fake coins are often made by pouring liquid metal into molds or dies. This procedure leaves die marks, such as cracks or pimples of metal on the counterfeit coin.

Some fake coins are also produced to simulate rare coins that may be of value to collectors. Counterfeiters do this through the alteration of genuine coins by removing, adding, or altering mint marks or the date printed on the coin.

Information and Images Source: United States Secret Service

It's that time of the year again. You probably have received (or will soon receive) your Christmas bonus but before splurging and spending everything, take time to think how to put that extra money to work.

Here are some suggestions from the Personal Finance section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

1. Start saving for a big-ticket item. Have you been dreaming of that cool car or relaxing vacation for too long? Then use your bonus to kick off a smart savings plan. You may also use your holiday money for other medium-term goals, like graduate studies or a pad of your very own. If you don’t start now, that dream will slip farther away.

2. How about a business? They say a job gives you stability. Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is the one that will make you rich. Don't think that you need a lot of capital to start a business. With just P5,000, you can start making polvoron and other sweets then sell it at the office. You can also use that P5,000 to start a business making handmade beaded jewelry. Find out what you like to do and what you are good at. Who knows? Your business may take off and you could end up leaving your job and going into it full-time.

3. Get insured. If you don't have health insurance benefits at work, it's a must that you get your own health insurance coverage. There is never a convenient time to get sick. Use your bonus to pay for the premiums for next year.

4. Pay off debts. Use part of your windfall to pay your credit card bill in full, or that personal loan with the bank. Consider this your most creative gift to yourself. Not only will this allow you to sleep more soundly this coming year, you will also be taking a step further to being more financially stable.

5. Give to charity. You can share your blessings by giving to your church or a favorite charity. You might be surprised to realize later on that the blessings will come back to you.

6. Grow your savings. If you've decided to practice delayed gratification and save for your future, it's not enough that your money is tucked away safe in a savings account. There are many places you can park your cash where it can grow even more through higher interest rates. Here's an article to help you decide where to invest your money. 

Still, don't forget to give yourself a reasonable treat. You definitely deserve it!

Have a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!

Following is a summary of performance returns of Philippine mutual funds as of the week ended December 8, 2006.

As always, when analyzing mutual funds you should not simply look at the NAVPS or Net Asset Value per Share. This number does not necessarily tell you whether the fund is performing well or not, but the change of the NAVPS over time does. Never assume that a fund with a high NAVPS means it is generating high returns. You need to look at actual returns of the fund over a certain time horizon.

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What’s a good investment program? Where should I invest?

You probably are one of the many who keep on asking the same questions. Dr. Noet Ravalo, former Chief Economist of the Bankers Association of the Philippines, says: “It depends.” That is, it all depends on what you have and what you need.

It’s a trite response but he says that really is the answer. How and where you invest is determined by:

how much you are investing;

how big a loss you can afford to accept just in case;

how often you wish to generate returns;

how long you want to keep your investments;

how you react to uncertainties; and

how much access you have to information that you would need to monitor and manage your investments.

“Investment gurus may impress you with their so-called secret methods,” Ravalo writes in an article published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, “but the truth is, it’s all a question of how much you have and what it is for.”

Here are some references to guide you find your investment strategy:

• Test: What type of investor are you?
• Before investing, find out your investment objectives first
• Time deposits, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate: Where to invest my money?

Done with Part 1 of this quiz? Then head off straight to the following questions.

11) San Miguel offered a 10% stock dividend in its last stockholder's meeting. The assembly hall rang with applause. San Miguel offered to:

A) buy each stockholder's 10% ownership in SMC
B) sell its 10% stock to be equally divided to shareholders
C) to pay each common shareholder a portion of the company's after tax earnings in the form of stock

12) An investment is well-hedged if:

A) it is protected against losses
B) it has limited losses
C) an investor limits losses on a certain stock by establishing an opposite position in the same stock
D) yeah it's both A and B,
E) yup, it's both A and C

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What must you do if your stock broker is "flipping"? Should you feel afraid if you were offered a "warrant"? If indeed the stock market is "illiquid", how would you take the "poison pill"?

Take this quiz and see how much you know about the stock market jargon. You'd be surprised that some familiar words have different meanings in the context of stock market trading.

All set? Grab a pen and a piece of paper and make sure you don't cheat!

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Pessimal: adj.

[Latin-based antonym for optimal] Maximally bad. Example: "This is a pessimal situation."

Also pessimize vt., To make as bad as possible.

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Search Engine Pessimization (SEP) vs Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? 

It was amusing to read an article in the HYIPDiscussion newsletter regarding ways for a site NOT to be indexed by search engines. In a time when most webmasters would kill for anything that would make search engine bots regularly and immediately spider their site, there probably are very, very few webmasters who would wish search engine spiders don't visit their site.

Without a doubt this would include HYIP or autosurf sites whose admins know that sooner or later the program will inevitably end up as scam. So in order to get rid of the program's "online track", these admins would prefer that their sites don't end up as a search engine result page (SERP) in Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. (Of course, when the program is still fluorishing they'd prefer that people find their program in whatever way possible; but once the program has collapsed they'd prefer that their personal information, IP adds, email adds, etc. associated with the site do not appear as a search result.) 

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One year ago…

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December 6, 2005
12DailyPro's 12 Days of Christmas

12DailyPro celebrated Christmas of 2005 via the "12DP 12 Days of Christmas" where it donated cash to 12 chosen charities and offered a raffle contest to upgraded 12DP members who got a chance to win various prizes including an ipod, laptop, camcorder, even a car. Revisit 12DailyPro's 12 Days of Christmas contest in this 12DailyPro discussion thread.

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December 13, 2005
StudioTraffic fading out?

While member payments continued to be delayed, StudioTraffic (ST) made another bad move by removing egold as a withdrawal payment option. The act immediately earned the ire of a lot of members. Irked by the "impatience" of these members to wait until full account auditing was supposedly complete, ST owner John Horan offered to close and settle the accounts of members who cannot wait anymore.  Reminisce the events in this StudioTraffic thread.

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December 27, 2005
FeederFund News

FeederFund (FF) announced that existing members must have at least $250 in their account balance, otherwise they will be required to pay a subscription fee. The official FF update goes:

Existing Members with a total balance greater than $250 will be exempt from the subscription fee, but this will not be an option for any new member in the future. There will be no rush for subscription payment. We are looking at the end of February as the most likely cut-off date but we will provide more information on payment methods and timings in mid January 2006.

Find out succeeding FF developments in the FeederFund board. 

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December 21, 2005
Jim Hunt is leaving 4Daily

4Daily.com admin Jim Hunt sent an email to 4Daily members explaining that he is leaving 4Daily for greener pastures. Some members, however, thought this was a mere ploy to exonerate Jim once 4Daily fully collapses. Some even claimed that a transfer to new owners did not actually happen. 4Daily eventually announced that "new owners" had taken over but that was not enough to revive the program. Reminisce this program in the 4Daily board in the Pinoy Money Talk forum.

[tags]HYIP, HYIP news, HYIP update, 12DailyPro, StudioTraffic, FeederFund, 4Daily, hyip scams[/tags]

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(1) Freelance Flash Designer / Developer
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(3) Full-time Junior Web Developer
(4) Two (2) Full-time Junior Writers 
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(6) IT Engineer 1 & 2

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