It’s pure pain to watch someone suffer from losing all his investments due to a falling market. What to do?

It’s too easy to say, just hold on because markets recover all the time. Curious Capitalist over at Time.com points that the best response is no response, but active investors know that once you lose all the bets, you waste so much of the capital that you can’t get in when real opportunities come up.

Last week, I spoke with several investment guys who espouse peso-cost averaging. The moneysmarts definition of that is “pikit-mata” investing, where you keep setting aside the same amount of money regularly — monthly or quarterly — whether the market is up or down.
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If you think your stock portfolio has been beaten to a pulp, wait till you hear what technical analysts have to say about whether we’ve already seen the worst.

“Has the PSEi reached the bottom? Hell, no,” said Fitz Aclan, head of investment strategy of the trust department of Banco de Oro.

Fitz gave his inter-market analysis and fearless forecast at the Chart Analysis Forum Tuesday night at the PSE trading floor in Ortigas. Fitz is one of the founders of Absolute Traders, the group that organized the forum.
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We answered this question in our personal finance feature today:

Question: I am one of the thousands of people who live in Quezon City but work in Makati City. That means I drive some 20 kilometers to work every day, and that’s just one way. I tried commuting but it’s impossible during rush hour. With the price of gasoline going up, travel to and from work makes a huge dent in my budget. Is there any relief in sight for us? – Josephine P.

We all will have to deal with the rising cost of gas, whether or not we are from Quezon City, Bulacan, Cavite, Cebu or Davao. The most terrible forecast I have heard so far is for a full tank to cost P30,000. That’s almost the take-home pay of senior call center agents.
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Wrote an article for our personal finance section today. You might want to check it out:

Did you know that a good art collector could beat returns in the stock market in both good and bad times?

Investment in well-chosen Philippine art pieces at a minimum of P100,000 to P150,000 could give a 10 percent to 30 percent in a year or two. For those who have a taste for the works of National Artists, the 1972 Bencab acrylic on paper, estimated at $19,000 to $26,000 eventually sold for $54,000, writes Giselle Kasilag in Kulay-Diwa website.
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Fitzgerald Aclan, one of the most experienced technical chartists in the country and the chairman of Absolute Traders, says the key levels to watch for at in  is 3,400 for the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) and 13,200 for the Dow Jones Industrial Index.

Fitz also believes that the PSEi’s ideal support level is at 2,900 to 3,000. The PSEi on Monday closed at 3,079.99 and the DJIA ended at 12,266.39.

Here’s a So What Chocnut moment. Think of a “support level” as a sticky point that stocks find hard – historically — to bust through on their way down. It’s the historical bottom that investors look for as a signal to buy. Two things can happen to it: it can be confirmed when investors buy stocks at that level (at which point prices start going up, right?) or wiped out if investors still don’t buy at that level and stock prices continue to go down.
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BY MALAYA LARAYA

I recently conducted a half-day seminar on financial planning for some professionals and it was a rather enlightening experience on the mindsets of people when it comes to financial planning. As always there was an open forum at the end and quite a number of questions were asked – some were the usual and some were rather unusual. So for those of you who may have had some of these questions in mind but didn’t know who or what to ask; here is a small FAQ on financial planning.

What is the best investment? This is definitely the most common question that has been asked and the short answer is this : There is none. More specifically, there is simply no investment tool that is the best for all people all of the time. There are instead, instruments that are best suited to each individual’s particular needs, plans and current financial condition. Simply put, what is good for your friend, spouse, relative, lover, workmate, neighbour or child may not necessarily be good for you due to the undeniable fact that you and your friend, spouse, relative, lover, workmate, neighbor or child are two different individuals. Consequently, the two of you will have different sets of wants and needs at different times and will therefore need different solutions. Therefore, be very wary of anyone who tries to sell you a panacea for all of your investment needs as it simply does not yet exist.

Where can I get information about (x)? Despite the fact that we are very much in the online age, very many people still do not know where to get even the most basic information about financial products. From equities to managed funds to pre-need plans; people seem to be at a loss as to where to go. Here are some websites that you can visit as well as what you can expect to read.
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(Can you handle the wild ride in equities? Photo from AFP)

Good investment advisors will never forget to tell you that potential gains in the stock market are interminably intertwined with potential losses. That is what TraderPinoy was saying in his comment here. Before considering the stock market, ask your delicate stomach if it can handle the wild ride so common in equities. You will notice this warning is NOT in fine print, so don’t allow your eyes to zoom out.

Take your time… there’s no hurry.

If it can stomach the risks, here’s an excerpt from an article from INQUIRER.net that seeks to help beginners get their feet wet in the market. You can read the entire article here.
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(Photo credit: Agence France Presse)

Bear markets set off the most interesting behavior in many investors.

Some get infected with the snakebite effect, a term I got from Chartered Financial Analyst Society president Mark Yu. He explained that some people who are bit by the snake (in the world of investing) decide never to invest again.

Then you have those that follow the herd. When foreigners are spooked and they start dumping stocks, they sell their shares too and stay on the sidelines waiting for better times.

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If you knew that a company does business in an ethical way, would you buy more of its shares? Would you do more business with that company? Does good corporate governance translate into shareholder or customer loyalty?

Jesus P. Estanislao, chairman of the Institute for Corporate Directors, thinks so. He says corporate governance is closely linked with performance. He doesn’t have the figures yet. He is still in talks with the University of Asia and the Pacific to do a thorough study on the topic.

During the ICD roundtable last Wednesday, Jess revealed the top 20 listed companies in the 2007 Corporate Governance Scorecard. Here is the list:

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(Investing can feel like going through a maze. Photo: AFP)

There was a “stock market bloodbath” earlier today at the Philippine Stock Exchange as Philippine equities tracked heavy losses across financial markets all over the world on fears – again – of a US recession. For sure, business newspapers tomorrow morning will be rife with discussion on how investors are facing their worst losses in recent months and how US President George Bush’s $140 billion economic stimulus package was ignored by the world.

As I sat quietly in my home-office to digest the news after a rather busy day, and watched a leaf from my Narra tree waft lazily to the ground, the thought hit me that it hardly feels “bloodbath-ic” in here. The world looks the same as it did yesterday and the day before. It certainly still feels like 2008 hasn’t arrived yet.

Then I got a harried text message from a friend who last year invested in an equity-laced investment instrument. “I’ve lost so much money! Should I withdraw my investment?”

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