Thursday, March 12, 2009

The World's Richest Got Poorer By Forbes


Forbes just released the world's richest for the year 2009, and the big announcement is that they all got poorer (woohoo big surprise!) - only about 4% got richer over the period. A whopping third of them just bowed out of the list while 83% decreased in wealth.

If we're suffering so should they right? Nevertheless, as a result of the financial meltdown we've got two trillion floating around somewhere.

Okay as an overview Bill Gates and Warren Buffett swapped places. Warren used to be number one, but well he's not anymore - Bill Gates owns that spot now. Maybe the stint on tv helped him out a bit.

Mark Zuckerberg, once dubbed as one of the youngest billionaires in the world fell off that pedestal after losing big - approximately $600 million, he must have sunk a lot of investments

For more details, check out the source at Forbes.com

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Subprime crisis for dummies

A really funny comic presentation about how we ended up having the financial crisis as a result of the sub-prime fiasco, care of Pinoy Money Talk

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Warren Buffett Owns Up To Mistakes - Business Tips from Warren Buffett


What makes a man an even bigger man? A man who is accountable. Warren Buffett is that kind of a man. No wonder he's the world's most widely followed investor.

Being the respectable businessman that he is, Warren Buffett had this to say in his annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Warren Buffett's insurance and investment company

"During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments," he wrote, adding later, "I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to re-examine my thinking and promptly take action."

"The economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 -- and, for that matter, probably well beyond -- but that conclusion does not tell us whether the stock market will rise or fall."

"Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time," he said. "It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America's best days lie ahead.

Berkshire Hathaway went down by a significant percentage, overall the company ended the year with $25.54 billion of cash, down from $44.33 billion a year earlier. It said it made roughly $6 billion of acquisitions in 2008, and spent $14.5 billion on fixed-income securities from General Electric Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and chewing gum maker Wm Wrigley Jr Co. Buffett sold some stocks to fund the latter purchases.

For all of 2008, profit at Berkshire fell 62 percent to a six-year low of $4.99 billion, or $3,224 per share, from $13.21 billion, or $8,548. Revenue fell 9 percent to $107.8 billion.

Wow even the world's most-admired investors, and Forbes magazine's second-richest American had a bad year in 2008

Some tips, which indexes does Warren Buffett use?
  • Standard & Poor's 500
  • Britain's FTSE 100
  • Europe's Euro Stoxx 50
  • Nikkei 225 in Japan