November 20, 2006 – Most financial consultants when they speak of your investment portfolio mention a low beta as a positive attribute. In fact, you will hear many wealth managers stress the need of having a beta close to 1.00. Beta, in simple terms, is the measure of a stock’s or portfolio’s volatility as compared [...]

November 20, 2006 – The following blog entry is a re-cycled entry from a magazine column that I write. I’m re-cycling this column because this article is a particular favorite of mine. However, don’t worry, you won’t see this blog degenerate into a blog of recycled ideas. 99% of my blog entries will be new. [...]

November 16, 2007 – The other day, Kaeho and I were discussing an article we both read entitled “What if Buddha Dated?” and both agreed that “What if Buddha Invested?” would make a great topic for the casual Friday blog entry. However, I decided to hand the duty of this blog to Kaeho. After you [...]

Q: An Update on ZOI Readership? Regarding my goal of obtaining readers from 100 different countries on a consistent basis, here is the update for readers of my blog from new countries for this week (though not all are consistent readers): 43. Peru 44. Latvia 45. Sweden 46. Venezuela 47. Austria 48. Republic of Malta [...]

November 15, 2006 – This blog is a continuation of my previous entry. I was going to wait uintil next week to post it, but was in a writing mood today so since I finished writing it earlier, here it is. From March 2005 to March 2006, I achieved a 40% return in my portfolio [...]

November 15, 2006 – Today, I’ve decided to trump Kaeho at his own game. Having considerable training in martial arts myself, I’ve noticed many strategies and techniques that have improved my martial arts training that are applicable to the art of investing. After all I named my blog the Zen of Investing for this very [...]

November 14, 2006 – Last week, in the U.S. Mid-Term elections, the Democrats won a stunning sweep of both houses of Congress, throwing the U.S. government into what many term as “gridlock” for the next two years as a Republican President will fight a Democratic Congress. But what does this sweeping change mean in terms [...]

November 14, 2006 – Just a few hours after I posted my blog entry on J-REITs this morning, this article appeared on the newswires. “HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Japan’s gross domestic product expanded 0.5% in price-adjusted terms in the three-month period ending in September from the previous quarter, or at an annualized rate of 2%, [...]

November 13, 2006 – When an asset class has been downtrodden for a long period of time, I tend to look at it and assess whether conditions have changed that now favor an awakening from long periods of hibernation. Japanese REITs, or J-REITs as they are better known, may just be one of those opportunities, [...]

November 12, 2006 – To determine if the person managing your $1,000,000 account is truly the expert you believe him or her to be, pick up the phone tomorrow and do this simple experiment. Do not give your financial consultant any advance notice to prepare any answers, but call him (or her) up and ask [...]

Q: How to Take an Old Idea and Recylce it? Time again for the casual Friday entry. Several weeks ago, for my casual Friday blog entry, I wrote about a photographer that started a project where he was attempting to photograph a child from all 194 countries in the world without leaving New York City. [...]

November 8, 2006 – Here in my blog and in my newsletter, I have mentioned Sothebys (NYSE:BID) as a favorite of mine a couple of times. Yesterday I sold out of BID for a 33% gain after holding it for about five months. There are a couple of important lessons to take away from my [...]

November 6, 2006 – No, you aren’t having déjà vu. It’s the topic that just keeps producing good investment opportunities. From natural gas and oil reserves, to diamonds and gold and uranium mineral resources, now this – the first new shipping corridor from Asia to Europe in over 100 years that will also drastically reduce [...]