I wanted to write a review about Mark Shipman’s “Big Money, Little Effort” as I learnt a lot from this book. First of all it is a very easy read with only 171 pages. It was published in 2008 however lessons are still valid till this day. Mark Shipman is another fan of index
What happened to my bond portfolio this week after the Oil Price crash and Coronavirus?
Last week was a historical one following biggest OIL price drop since 2008. I wrote a blog post on the impact of Coronavirus and oil price crash to the markets. An oil price drop of 24% impacted by bonds that they rely on oil as the main source of income for their economy like Sultanate
Historical week on Oil Price Crash, Coronavirus (covid-19) Epidemic, Stock Market Crash
I have been part of a historical event this week as an investor in Stocks and Bonds. There has been three key events that shaped the markets this week. 1) World Health Organisation characterized Coronavirus (Covid-19) as pandemic. on March 11th. 2) Saudi Arabia started a Crude Oil price war against Russia on Monday March
How to monitor Stocks, Commodities and Futures prices from your iPhone Stocks app?
I have an iPhone and I use built in Stocks app to monitor what is happening in the market. The Stocks app icon looks like this Once you load the app it is very easy to add stocks with their ticker names. It is not so straight forward to monitor Commodities or Futures prices though.
Sultanate of Oman Government Bond Pay Check is coming up
In the last month I have added a new position to my portfolio that is Sultanate of Oman Government Bond. Check out this line as you see in Interactive Brokers screen. This can be translated as; OM = Sultanate of Oman Government Coupon Rate = 6.5% Maturity Date = 08 March 2047 Position Value =
What is Witholding Tax a.k.a. WTH?
It was a very unfortunate event when I met with the Witholding Tax which I will refer as WTH in short in the rest of this article. I am a Non-US resident and any income I earn as in Dividend payments or interest payments from the funds listed in the USA are subject to 30%
What does ‘Shorting’ mean in the stock market?
I always think about the film The Big Short when I talk about this topic. Before I started trading I had to watch this film two times to make some sense of it. If you got it when you first watched it then you beat me to it 🙂 What is Shorting? ‘Short selling‘ or
How to find a bond to invest?
You have decided to buy some Government bonds but where do you start? Which Country to invest in? What risks are you willing to take? What return do you expect? Is the bond overpriced or good time to buy? One of the best tool I find is provided by Interactive Brokers inside the TWS client.
How do you know if your bond is secure or junk?
There are three main agencies called S&P, Moody’s and Fitch who are doing this job for us. They continuously review the financial status of the country and update the ratings accordingly. Have a look at the comparison scale below ( source can be found here ) It is a good summary however it is considering
How do I make 10% annual return with Government Bonds ?
The US Govt bonds yield around 2.2% so they are not attractive for me at all. I look into Non-US Sovereign bonds in Emerging Markets. Below is the list of bonds I am holding at the time of this post. Let me explain how to calculate the return. To buy the first Egypt bond for