So you’ve saved up money from your summer job or internships (or career), and are ready to dabble in the world of investments. Fantastic! Choosing investments is both exciting and challenging; there are numerous investment options that you can explore, and the ones you may end up choosing will likely be based on your personality and risk-tolerance.

The most obvious way to split investment types pertains to investment horizons – there are short term investments and long term investments. These coincidentally align with the way the finance world is split, as you may have read in the past, into the buy side and the sell side. The sell side is more focused on short term investments, such as trading equities, options, forward contracts, and derivatives. On the other hand, the buy

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The budget deficit guarantees the existence of public debt over many years. Foreigners are thinking about the financing of the budget, underscoring the recent report that China sold some of their Treasury securities. The crisis in Greece and other countries underlines the risks of buying bonds of countries with high debt. And finally, the expansion of the Fed balance sheet through various lending programs and the purchase of assets threatens both the authority of the Central Bank, and rising inflation. Higher inflation certainly pushes long-term profitability is much higher. Indeed, a month ago, a respected author and hedge fund manager suggested that “everyone” should be put on lowering Treasury securities.

Maybe so. Of course, in the long term, the U.S. must return to fiscal prudence and to reduce their deficits, or they will face the rising cost of credit. However, in the medium term – say, in the next few quarters,

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ETFs or Exchange Traded Funds resemble a closed-end mutual fund. A mutual fund represents an investment vehicle that pools funds from various investors and invests in a basket of stocks, bonds, money-market instruments, currencies and other securities. In a closed-end mutual fund, the total number of shares of the fund is fixed and the shares are traded on a stock exchange, just like equities. In addition, after the initial offering of shares, additional fund shares can only be acquired by another fund owner and share prices are determined by supply and demand, not by net asset value. In contrast, an open-end fund issues new shares at market close and repurchases shares from investors that wish to leave the fund.

ETFs represent a combination of the characteristics of a typical mutual fund and a closed-end mutual fund. ETFs highly resemble closed-end mutual funds: they are traded on a stock exchange; however ETFs

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Income Investors… Here’s The Biggest Mistake You Can Make

by Alexander Green, Chief Investment Strategist Monday, February 1, 2010: Issue #1187

According to Crane Data of Westborough, Massachusetts, the 100 biggest money market funds are currently paying an average of .05 percent.

This is the smallest return that money markets have ever paid. To put it in perspective, at the present rate, it would take more than a 1,000 years to double your money.

I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that may be a tad longer than your personal investment horizon.

Here’s what not to do in response to this…

Chasing Higher Returns… In the Wrong Place

Investors who panicked during the market meltdown a year ago and have hidden in cash investments for 12 months are really suffering. Not only did they get stung in

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CHINA’S Sinosteel has all but won control of iron ore miner Midwest after four of the takeover target’s directors agreed to sell their shares.

Midwest chairman Jesse Taylor and directors Francis Ng, Steven Chong and Stephen de Belle said they would accept the $6.38 cash a share offer from Sinosteel for their collective 4.1 per cent holding in the company.

This will give Sinosteel, China’s second largest iron ore trader, a 49.68 per cent stake in Midwest.

The Chinese metals trader was also rumoured to have bought an additional 1 per cent of Midwest on market, taking it close to controlling more than 50 per cent of the company.

However, a compulsory takeover may still be a battle with Murchison Metals vowing to hang on to its 10 per cent stake in Midwest.

Murchison’s largest shareholder – Harbinger Capital Partners – also holds 9.11 per cent of Midwest’s share register, while two Midwest directors remain

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