Investor Relations » Thousands Of Dollars

How to Make $1,000,000 From Stock Market – 5 Tips From Successful Investor

Admin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:49:15 +0000

Formulate Specific Goals You must have heard this many times before but have you done it yourself? In many cases I find most beginners unable to design specific investment goals. “Want to be Rich in 3 Years” is not good enough. You must specify how much money you need, what kind of return you expect and how long you can wait. Bottom-line, you must have goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Otherwise, you’ll easily lose sight along the way. Analyze Your Risk Tolerance If you think that nobody understands yourself than you do, think again. More importantly, people tend to be emotional than realistic when it comes to money. That is why you can easily notice significant price volatility in stock market as a result of human’s feeling of over-pessimistic or over-optimistic. There is nothing wrong with your emotional feeling. What matter is how you can control your emotion should anything happen. You can do this by first objectively evaluate your risk tolerance through various questionnaires. Compile all of the results and summarize what is your investing personality. Identify the Best Strategy Once you’d discovered your own investing preferences, start digging which investing strategies suit your personality. Stock investing strategy that suits my personality might not be working very well for you. Thus, it is your job (and not your financial advisor) to look for those investment strategies; namely short-selling, swing trading and momentum investing. At this point of time, you need to do a lot of research. You might have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars buying books and hours of reading them. If you think it is a waste of money, probably investing is something you should consider outsourcing straightaway. Even then, you still need to know where your money will be invested. Develop Long Term Plan By now you should have definite idea on how to invest your money. At least, you must be aware of various financial instruments, stock investing strategies and how all of them are related one to another. Only then you can develop effective long term stock investing plan. Let’s start with elements that you should include in your definitive long term plan. First of all, you must have deep thought on the asset allocation strategy. Secondly, finalize which strategies you intend to pursue. Last but not least, prepare enough cash for emergency funding should significant opportunity arise. I personally prefer 40 to 60 per cent for long term stock investing, 20 to 35 per cent for momentum investing and 10 to 15 per cent for some speculative trading. There is no right and wrong decision here. As long as it fits your investing personality, you should be fine. Follow the Plan and Track Progress Above all, you must implement what you should have planned before. Otherwise, you are putting your efforts to waste. And most importantly, track how your investment performs at least on half-yearly basis. From the performance review, you may (or may not) want to re-strategise your stock investment portfolio accordingly.

How to Use Video in Your Investor Relations Strategy

Admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:20:13 +0000

Raising Your Profile

In this economy of depressed markets and money-conscious investors, the cost of raising capital or your stock’s profile is not only getting higher but the ROI is practically non-existent. It seems like every company is working harder and spending more on investor relations and marketing campaigns but yielding far less results.

In raising your stock’s profile, nothing is more important than building solid relationships, creating opportunities to pitch investors and differentiating your company to attract new investors. Reaching new investors is the most expensive and time consuming part of an investor relations strategy, yet it is an often fruitless process – especially for small cap companies like those listed on the Canadian TSX Venture or the US’ OTCBB exchanges.

If your company is going to spend any money on an IR or marketing campaign to raise the profile of your company’s stock, you better make sure that you have put in place the right corporate branding that targets investors and not just your clients. If you don’t, you may lose thousands of dollars in investments from investors that would have otherwise been interested in your company’s stock but invested elsewhere because your lack of a corporate image.

Respect Your Investors

Investors need to know that you respect them. No one will invest in a company with a website they don’t understand or written in another language. These days, no one will invest in a company that spends little or no money on their corporate image. Luckily, changing the way you present to investors is simple. An easy first step is to incorporate professionally produced investor-geared videos into your program.

Tell a Story

Videos are a great first step but there are major pitfalls if you attempt to do it without first understanding what works. Let’s face it: Most corporate videos are boring.

Videos need to tell a story. It needs to be well-scripted and well-produced because this piece of material will be the first thing investors look at and may be the last thing they see before they make any investment decisions. But once you have one, it will become your most powerful selling tool – aside from yourself, of course.

Don’t believe me? Take a look and do some research. Find two comparable public companies, one with well-produced corporate videos and the other without. Then take a look at their average trading volume and share price performance. You’ll find the answer won’t be surprising (given similar comparables, of course.)

Impactful Selling

By now your company has engaged in marketing initiatives or have inquired about different marketing approaches. Have you noticed that video advertising reaches less people than their print counterparts but costs significantly more relative to the audience reach? That’s because videos are significantly more effective at selling.

Let’s take TV infomercials for example which often sell useless items. If they were to send a brochure or email advertising the same products they did on TV, how many people would actually react and buy something from a brochure they received? Probably not many. Yet people react and purchase useless things from infomercials every day.

Hopefully, your company’s shares are not useless. But the principles of marketing remain the same for your company’s stock as it does for those useless items on the infomercials. It’s a well-known statistic that people remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, but 70% of what they both hear and see. So give investors something they can remember.

Still don’t think video is right for your company?

Proof is in the Pudding

In recent studies of online video ad exposure, 52% took action after seeing a video ad, 45% elicited a response, 28% looked for more information, and an astounding 16% bought something. I highly doubt any print advertising can achieve those numbers.

The biggest myth regarding using video in your investor relations program is that it has to cost a lot. It doesn’t. There are a select group of IR firms that can handle every process involved anywhere in North America, do it with a very minimal budget, and present your video to a whole new network of investors. Just make sure to find a firm that not only understands the investment community but can help you script and produce a video geared towards investors.

Every client or every company we interviewed regarding the use of video in their IR campaigns all agree it’s the easiest and most effective promotional piece they have ever created. Perhaps now is the time for your company to take the leap.

Lauton U: The Shocking And Controversial Truth About Project Funding – What You Need To Know Before You Approach Investors

Admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:49:34 +0000

Ask anyone who has ever raised millions of dollars in funding and they will tell you that it is an expensive proposition. Whether it is an Initial Public Offering, a Private Placement or a simple commercial loan, it costs businesses thousands of dollars before they see their first dollar in funding. To the uninitiated this seems downright backwards. After all, they say, “My business needs money. Why should I have to pay any fees to get it?” While on the surface this seems to make perfect sense, a closer look at what goes on during a capital raise reveals some shocking facts.

There’s no better place to start our exploration of this subject than by taking a closer look at a sector whose very existence depends on its ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars every single year: charities. According to the Giving USA Foundation’s Giving USA report, last year charities raised an astounding $307.7 Billion in donations. While some might think that 100% of their donations actually go to the causes they have donated to, there are others who know better.

The reality is that charities spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars each year in their efforts to raise money. While great charities are able to keep these expenses between 5% and 10%, it’s not unheard of for others to spend as much as 90% of the donations they take in. That’s right, 90%!! So much for helping those in need, right?

While the costs for your capital raise will be nowhere near that rate, you need to be prepared to cover certain unavoidable expenses. Walk into any reputable commercial financing institution and you’ll soon learn that getting them to invest in your project is going to cost you. It’s not unusual for prospects to have to spend anywhere between $15,000 – $120,000 in due diligence and other third party fees. The greater the scope of a project and the more money is being sought, the more complicated, lengthy and expensive this due diligence process is.

“That’s insane! Why do they do that?” you ask? It’s simple really. You see, part of an institutional investor’s process to determine whether or not it makes sense to take a chance on a project is to utilize reports prepared by independent, third party firms. From appraisals to engineering reports to feasibility and environmental studies, there are an array of reports, among other things, that an investor will need to study before they commit to investing in a project. Suffice it to say, the firms preparing these reports do not work on a contingency basis. They need to be paid upfront.

On top of this, financing institutions incur substantial expenses related to the work performed by their underwriting staff. Within many financing entities there are a host of highly trained professionals whose sole responsibility it is to rigorously vet a project and give it the final thumbs up or thumbs down. They also need to be paid upfront for their services.

Make no mistake, they are there to protect their company’s interests. In the wake of the collapse of so many financing institutions in recent past, they’ve been placed under enormous pressure to weed out the worthless projects and hone in on those that offer the greatest return with the least amount of risk. Oftentimes their costs make up the bulk of a funding sources’ due diligence expenses.

“If that’s the case, then why don’t they pay for it? Why should I have to cover the cost of all this? After all, I’m coming to them with an opportunity to make millions!” some might snap back. The unpleasant truth is that, as far as they’re concerned, you need them more than they need you. While this perspective may not sit well with some, the fact of the matter is that, right now, funding sources are literally being flooded with investment opportunities. Every single day, they’re sifting through hundreds if not thousands of projects. This means that they can comfortably pass on the expenses involved with the evaluation of your project onto you. If you don’t like it it’s no big deal. They have hundreds of others who understand that this is just another cost of doing business and are more than willing to pay for the opportunity to get their project in front of them.

In their eyes, the onus is on the prospect to demonstrate that they have a viable and lucrative opportunity, not the investors’. That’s why you’ll always have to pay for them to perform their due diligence on your project before you get funded. There’s just no way around it. Truth be told, funding sources actually prefer it this way. You see, by making prospects cover their due diligence costs it helps them dissuade the disingenuous from presenting them with projects that have no real merit or are outright fraudulent. You’d be surprised how many individuals try to get funding by misrepresenting themselves, their financials or their project.

Given all of the time, energy and expenses involved in trying to get a project funded, it’s extremely frustrating and painful when a prospect spends so much only to have a funding source come back and say “No”. Having a project you think is fantastic just isn’t good enough. If it doesn’t cater to investors’ appetites they won’t fund it. Period.

That’s why it’s smart to have your project evaluated by an advisory firm with a strong grasp of what investors’ predilections are before you put it in the hands of a funding source’s unforgiving underwriters. They are adept at accentuating the strengths and shoring up the weaknesses of a project. This saves business owners tens of thousands of dollars in wasted due diligence fees because they’re able to find problems and fix them before the underwriters discover them and are forced to kill the deal.

Now that we’ve cleared this up, its critical that you not underestimate the costs you will incur in your search for funding. This will be the topic of our next post.

We’re pretty sure we’ve struck a nerve with some of you. It’s an issue which really frustrates a lot of people so we’ll be very interested in hearing you sound-off on this controversial topic. Let the debate begin!

By: Joseph Polanco

the opportunity

Real Estate Investor Clubs – Great Opportunities

Admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:39:37 +0000

Real estate investor clubs abound these days. Their main purpose is to offer opportunities to network within the industry. However, they also offer several other advantages. These include the ability to share experiences with other experienced investors, educational seminars, tactic training, access to current real estate market trends, and, many times, a direct way to speak or communicate to people within financial or banking institutions. Buying membership into these clubs is not necessarily a prerequisite to investment success, but it can help limit risk and maximize opportunities by combining the talents and experience of several institutions and experts. And, as stated above, the ability to network at these meetings cannot be underestimated. Stories abound about large deals that were begun at a routine conference or club meeting.

The most important aspect of a real estate club is the ability to meet with other influential people in real estate or related field of expertise. The investor business is often a lonely one because of the competitive nature of investing. Individuals do not like to share their knowledge or experience in fear that the other person will take away a potential client or opportunity, thereby costing them thousands of dollars. However, by bringing hundreds of people together with the same interests and the same desires – namely making money – then that combined knowledge is easier to share. Profitable networks are then generated and potential real estate ventures are born.

Typical real estate investor clubs also offer a vast and intricate schedule of training classes or seminars. These can range in topic from where to find a profitable real estate venture to securing advantageous loans to learning the best methods to sell a property. These seminars are almost always led by experienced investors or other experts in related fields. Several individuals claim that the most informative and advantageous seminars are those led by lending institutions and banks. They explain how to secure the money that is needed for large investments without a lot of money down or with low interest rates.

Another helpful aspect to these meetings is the general real estate market analyses that are readily available. These documents track the trends of regional and national market trends, and can help point a potential investor in the right direction. By analyzing where a market had declined or increased, a person can then make a better judgement on where and when to make an investment. These analyses can also help pinpoint trends within the market. An example would be residential trends versus commercial trends. Some even make distinctions within these trends – for example restaurant investment versus retail investment. Grab as many of these documents as possible. You never know when they might come in handy.

These clubs offer a multitude of advantages over pursuing an investment career solo. You get access to a multitude of real estate analyses and a grow experience pool that cannot be matched or under appreciated. You get the opportunity to network, thus creating deals that you otherwise would not have had the opportunity to make. Why these clubs are not required for success, they can eliminate a lot of stress and worry, and make you a more successful businessman.

By: K. Van Liew

Real Estate Investor Clubs – Great Opportunities

Admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:14:36 +0000