Philippine stock market board (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The American stock market index, as will all such markets around the world, is subject to ups and downs on a daily basis that are caused by numerous factors. For example, who could have predicted the 9/11 terrorists attacks, which had a huge negative impact on world stock markets? When Lehman Brothers, a major American investment bank, collapsed in 2008, the value of all stocks and company shares in the USA fell dramatically. More recently, the Greek debt situation has had an adverse impact not only in Europe but also on the American stock market, as has the political unrest in Syria.

Image via CrunchBase

In the world of business today there are a lot of tough decisions that have to be made by any management that wishes to be successful. It is indeed worthy to note that many managers have opted to cut down on spending in just about all departments of the business. Most have also decided to neglect investing in technology.

The following graph gives an illustration of investing a dollar in different asset classes in the market from 1926 to the end of 2007. The returns and dollar value shown represent past performance only and does not guarantee future results. The red arrow at the bottom indicates when 9-11 occurred. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Understand What Type Of Investor You Are

A key principle is to understand what type of investor you are. There are either active or passive investors. To be an active investor one must be committed to doing the necessary research in order to generate a good return. They also must learn to manage risk wisely. A passive investor does not have the amount of time it takes to properly research and diversify investments. This type of investor is better off investing in a whole index fund where they can achieve diversity and get the return of the whole index. Another option is to let a professional handle his investments if they do to have the time to devote to it.

Investment Frontiers Symposia (Photo credit: apec2011ceosummit)

If you have already paid off all of your debt in credit cards and have in mind financial goals like buying a home, paying college tuition, or retirement savings, then you should do your homework prior to making any investment decisions.  You should have the answers to the following questions:

• How much risk for tolerance do you have?
• What kinds of investments are you looking at: mutual funds, bonds, stocks?
• Are you interested in purchasing an annuity or an IRA?
• Do they offer a 401K plan at your job?

found photo: business leaders (Photo credit: squareintheteeth)

When opening a new business in London, the key to success is finding the right team to make it work. In business, just like in sport, teamwork is the key. And the quality that holds any great team together is the mysterious and mercurial ‘morale’.
Look at any great team in any field of life, whether it’s the current Barcelona football team or the team of web wizards behind the success of Google, and you’ll notice several things they have in common.

While individual brilliance is definitely needed for success, without a strong team unit individuals are unable to shine. The driving force behind any team is morale, or team spirit, a quality that is difficult to define and even more difficult to create. It involves all the team members being happy, comfortable and confident in their roles. But more than that, it is about each individual working for the greater good.

Wind turbines (Vendsyssel, Denmark, 2004) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The price of operating a business has skyrocketed over the last two decades, but it is possible to cut costs when it comes to electricity. Office appliances now account for the majority of electric costs. When you choose the right office appliances, operate office appliances correctly and compare business electricity prices you can save your business thousands of pounds each year.

Office Appliances Eats Profit

Office appliances are the largest electrical expense of your business. The more equipment you use and the longer it stays powered on, the more profit it continues to eat. However, if you understand exactly which pieces of office appliances consume the most electricity and what you can do to prevent waste, then you will begin to see the savings directly on your bottom line.

Webvan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few things were never intended to be, yet that does not imply that buyers won't stack millions of pounds on a bad idea - or perhaps a great idea that went bad. Whether or not they slumped and ripped or pulled investors dry, these investment strategies simply failed to work.

Amp'd Mobile: Amp'd Cell stands top for cash burning, with $360 million being ended up in bankruptcy. Their main concern was its clients' capability to invest.  Whilst various other cellular companies verify for a capability to pay expenses in a month time, the company allow it until 3 months and promoted to those risky clients. It has been noted that 80,000 of its 175,000 clients were not able to pay their expenses.

Procket: This was one of the highly valued telecom companies in the U.S. The company had $272 million in capital along with a worth of $1.55 billion however was eventually bought by behemoth Cisco Systems Inc. for a deflating $89 million.

Webvan: Webvan had been a grocery delivery company which served 9 metro cities. However, in 2001, the business went bankrupt once it made plans to expand to 26 more cities with $1.2 billion budget. Regardless of millions in product sales, their collapse was due to a money-burn which surpassed product sales development.  Significant buys included $1 billion for manufacturing facilities, business servers and much more than one hundred Aeron chairs.

In 2011, the oil and gas industry in Texas experienced growth in nearly every sector, including drilling permits and employment. According to a report by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers (TAEP), higher oil prices in Texas resulted in a ripple effect that resulted in an across-the-board increase in energy payrolls in the state. As a result, the state of Texas enjoyed strong economic performance in 2011 while the rest of the United States continued to struggle with the effects of a recession.

Joaquín Guzmán Loera drug lord and lider of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 1980’s have become known as the time of the cocaine explosion in North America, where this predominately Central American produced drug was consumed by our country in abundance for the first time since prior generations. The 1980’s were a time when cocaine usage crossed into all social and economic lines to sub-urban and rural America, and over into the stereotypical impoverished ghetto’s of the inner city to the hands of lawyers, actors, housewives and the average John Doe. Since then, with the advent of new trends in synthetic illegal narcotics usage such as “ecstasy”, “methamphetamines”, and even prescription drug abuse with the like of “oxycotin” and so on that have since been introduced to the generation y/millenials, the reputation of the drug cocaine usage in has decreased in notoriety as something of the past.

Hovering in the 12,800 to the 13,000 range, the Dow Jones is often a barometer of the economy. As the United States economy unfolds in 2012, it will have to overcome several hurdles before the Dow Jones can possibly stay above 13,000 for an extended period of time.  Consumer data, unemployment rates, the housing and the effects of the end of the Iraq War are all expected to have a strong influence over the profits reaped from the Dow Jones this year.