MarketWatch

[Babs_O]

Originally Posted by olusolakemmy

you sure say the juju no hold water again?

na trouble we dey so

How can. No way. I just dismissed her straight away as unreliable.

[olusolakemmy]

Originally Posted by Babs_O

How can. No way. I just dismissed her straight away as unreliable.

i trust you jare
infact most investors now see any of their pronouncement as unrelaible and thats is why i joke that, we are in truoble when everybody see his/her leader as been unreliable.
No one wants to commit his money where such people head and because of thr special gene peculiar to us in Nigeria, we lack shame, nothing can make us resign out of our will or when we acknowledge failure.

i have not seen that Nigerian holding a highly rated post of anypost for that matter that will resign when he/she sense that he is ruining that building.

[nazzyon]

The only thing I couldn't do was cry as I lost about 10% in the last month but every daily loss felt like it is normal.

Right now, I await another long drop but will buy more in the next month.

[hispy99]

Originally Posted by waaan5

I copied you Zain, but where should one keep money now? Stocks are no good, and the real estate are over-valued and there is no exch market for gold and precious metals in Nigeria.

Panacea I think is is for people to re-orientate and take positions (either in real estate or stocks) for the long run. If property prices in Lagos and Abuja rise and rent in these places also rise in tandem, then it may not be a huge problem afterall. If one continue to get rent of N5,million pa from a flat bought at N80 million, then one should not worry too much. My learning from the US estate market is that rental income holds fairly steady when house prices fall. Also my trust in the NSE and management of Nigerian companies is steadily decreasing with the rampant insider deals and the Sterling Bank share recon and the likes sagas.

@Waaan5...this is from The WSJ...people are creative Enjoy

When Stocks Tank, Some Investors Stampede to Alpacas and Turn to Drink By JENNIFER LEVITZArticle

Who can blame an investor for taking to the bottle?

Andy Pick, a 49-year-old stay-at-home father in Atlanta, recently bypassed the stock market for liquid assets -- $120,000 in champagnes. He bought 400 bottles, mostly 1996 vintage, that he says he plans to "sit on" for 10 or 15 years and then sell at a profit.

"It sure beats looking at a Merrill Lynch monthly statement," he says, adding, "The worst thing that could happen is that I drink all of it."

Given the gyrations in the financial markets, some investors are abandoning stocks and bonds and seeking refuge in unusual alternatives -- parking spaces, for instance, and condos in Peru. Sales of exotic livestock are up. The U.S. Mint has seen a gold-coin rush.

Peggy Parks invested in alpacas, which she believes have a better outlook than most mutual funds.
Investors have long turned to hard assets in market downturns, the idea being that if you invest in something real, it won't disappear, even if its value declines. But analysts say this downturn is different in that real estate, the most traditional safe haven, is also sinking. Between July 2006 and July this year, home prices dropped 19.5%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite home price index.

After the market dropped in January, Steve Borter, the 56-year-old president of a heating-and-air-conditioning company, did invest in real estate, but not the usual sort. He became landlord of a single parking space in Chicago. He bought a 12-by-20-foot spot in the Field Harbor Parking Garage for $29,000 and rents it out. "The stock market is indicative of a lot of uncertainty. With a parking space, at least you end up with something," he says.

Peggy Parks, a 49-year-old auditor in Johnstown, Pa., turned to an unusual farm animal. "I've lost a fortune in stocks, and my 401(k) is falling through the floor. I feel comfortable in alpacas," she says. She invested $56,000 in a small herd that she believes has a better outlook than most mutual funds because of the animals' breeding potential.

The national Alpaca Registry Inc., in Lincoln, Neb., says registrations are on pace to rise 7% this year and currently stand at 140,297. Ms. Parks says a female of "medium quality" can fetch $10,000 and that prices have been rising, supporting her hopes that she'll see a profit on her alpaca portfolio in five years.

Tangible Assets

Financial firms are reporting that a growing number of retirees are rolling their money out of ordinary individual retirement accounts -- commonly stocks, bonds and mutual funds -- and into self-directed IRAs, where almost anything goes. "We've had people invest in a cypress farm in Costa Rica, and a condo in Croatia," says Tom Anderson, president of Pensco Inc., a San Francisco firm that has $3.3 billion in self-directed IRAs under custody. He says 20% more assets flowed in over the past three months than in the same period a year ago.

The New Gold Rush

In Centennial, Colo., Tim Boykin, 56, a retired engineer, says he pulled his entire nest egg of nearly $1 million out of stock and bond funds in August and put it into a self-directed IRA. He invested some of the money in his niece's company -- which is building condos in Lima, Peru. While analysts warn that real-estate investments in emerging markets are risky, Mr. Boykin says he has done his research and remains confident: "I can see pictures of the land. I can see steel. I can see people working. When I put my money in a fund, I see a big list of things that don't sound good."

Ruff Times
Not everyone thinks alternative investments are a great idea. The Alabama Securities Commission over the weekend issued an "investor alert" urging caution. People are "panicking," says securities director Joseph Borg. He worries that investors who yank their money out of the stock market are prey for con artists hawking things like phantom oil wells.

Mr. Borg, past president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, adds that in past market downturns he saw people turn to chinchillas, worm farms and super-breeds of rabbits. Emus, too, were big. "Eventually, people got tired of them and just let them go," he says. "To this day, you'll be in West Texas and a big emu running wild will just come up next to your car."

Hard-asset gurus like Howard Ruff, a best-selling author who rose to fame in the inflationary 1970s, are convinced their moment has come again. "This is a big, big time, a very big time -- and this is just the beginning," says Mr. Ruff. He has been advising people to buy bags of pre-1965 U.S dimes and quarters, which are 90% silver and in limited supply.

Gold coins also are in great demand. Last week, the mint suspended sales of American Buffalo 24-karat gold coins because it can't keep up with soaring sales. Last month, a record 14,000 bidders -- 17% more than the previous high -- turned out for a coin-and-currency auction in Long Beach, Calif., that generated $35 million in sales.

Bob Sale, a Blue Bunny brand ice-cream distributor in Colorado Springs, Colo., says he purchased American Eagle gold coins last week after his 401(k) retirement account tanked. "Holding them in your hand is like no other feeling," he says.

Mark Craddock, manager of Comic Book World, in Florence, Ky., says stock-market investors also are turning to superheroes. "There's kind of a buying frenzy" in vintage comic books, he says.

The "Silver Age Comic Book Pricing Index" of 32 frequently traded '60s comics, was up 14.2% in the 18 months ending in July, while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index was down 11% in the same period. Mark Haspel, president of Certified Guaranty Co. in Sarasota, Fla., which grades comic books, often for investors, says it's on track to handle 200,000 books this year, up from 150,000 in 2007.

"Spiderman is going to be here in 20 years -- he's not going away," Mr. Haspel says

[citizen]

Stock Market Crisis: Bailout fund hits N1 trillion - As 4 more banks inject N400bn
Friday Ekeoba and Odidison Omankhanlen, Lagos - 10.10.2008

REPRIEVE may have finally come the way of investors in equities in the Nigerian capital market as four more banks have agreed to inject additional N400 billion as bailout funds into the market.


This followed a meeting between the Chief Executives of First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Bank PHB, Oceanic Bank and Access Bank Plc and the authorities of the NSE to work out modalities on how to save the capital market from dipping further.


Each of them agreed to contribute N100 billion as the first six banks that had earlier agreed to inject into the market as Market Makers. Though the chief executives refused to confirm the latest development, investigations by the Nigerian Tribune revealed that they were committed to the bailout programme.


Confirming this development, Mr. Sola Oni, Principal Manager on Media at the NSE said the exchange was holding discussions with some banks as part of the measures to stem the ongoing market meltdown.


He, however, refused to comment on the amount each of the banks had agreed to inject into the market. He also said that the exchange had not picked any financial institution as a market maker, stressing that the present effort was aimed at looking for a way out of the downward trend in the market.


“All that I can say is that the NSE is collaborating with some banks on how to move the market forward, all the issues of appointing any of them as Market Makers is speculation. That is what one of the national dailies misconstrued as denial when I was quoted,” he said.


Market maker, according to the rule, is under obligation to stabilise the market by ensuring continued liquidity, operate within the established bid and offer spread of a maximum limit of three per cent, subject to review.


An expert and former professor of economics, Chris Odezie, while speaking on the market, said “ordinarily the exchange needs to have revived itself but when this is not forthcoming, the government ought to have come in by way of fund stabilisation.”


Odezie, who said the government stabilisation should have been the best option, noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) needed to restructure itself as the transactions on the NSE had outgrown the commission’s operations and regulation

[muranay@yahoo.com]

SEC queries NSE over N600bn bail-out plan


The Securities and Exchange Commission has sought for explanation from the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the reported deal sealed with six banks to inject N600bn to shore up stock values at capital market.

Executive Commissioner, Legal and Enforcement, SEC, Mr. Charles Udora, who disclosed the issuance of the query at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, said NSE was expected to furnish it with the details of the deal within four days.

Some newspapers (not The PUNCH), had reported that six banks, had been appointed as markets makers and would inject N600bn to change the direction of the market, which had been experiencing downward trend in prices.

Udora, who was acting for the Director-General of SEC, however, said it was the responsibility of the regulatory agency to appoint market makers.

He also denied that none of the reported banks - First Bank Plc, Union Bank Plc, UBA Plc, Intercontinental Bank, Zenith and GTB – had applied for consideration as a market maker.

SEC defined a market maker as, “Any specialist permitted to act as a dealer, any dealer acting in the position of a block positioner, any dealer who, with respect to a security, holds himself out as being ready to buy and sell such securities for his own account on a regular and continuous basis.”

Udora said if there was any plan to inject funds into the system, it would be a private sector arrangement involving neither the Federal Government nor any of its regulatory agencies. According to him, there is no company operating in the stock market that requires a bail out.

He said it was within the jurisdiction of any bank to give out loans in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria .

He said, “Any bail out has nothing to do with this government. No company is in trouble and requires to be bailed out. Any bank has the right to give loans to anybody based on its requirements and the guidelines of CBN.

“If it is worthwhile for any bank to give loan, they do so as a business decision. And no loan is free. As at today, no bank has applied to SEC to be a market maker. It is not true that government has appointed any bank as a market maker.”

Analysts, however, said that the N600bn being planned to be injected into the capital market would not be enough to revive it from the loses it had suffered.

They asserted that the market had suffered significant loses of over N3.5tn within the last six months and as such, reviving it with a meager N600bn would not achieve the desired impact.

A professor of Economics at Babcock University, Chris Odezie, said now was the best time for the Federal Government to intervene in a massive way so as to sanitise the market.

According to him, government’s suspension of the stabilisation fund was not right as an intervention through it would have restored confidence in the market and boosted market activities, adding that the market needed huge funding for it to stabilise.

Speaking in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents on Thursday, General Manager, Apex Securities Limited, Mr. George Olisaemeka, said the amount, though significant, would not achieve the needed result in reviving the market.

Meanwhile, there are speculations that four more banks, FCMB, Access Bank, Oceanic bank and BankPHB, have indicated interest to help salvage the capital market from the persistent decline that has bedeviled it in the last couple of months.

The NSE, however, denied that it is working with any specific number of banks to arrest the situation.

According to the spokesperson of the NSE, Mr. Sola Oni, the exchange is still holding talks with banks and other stakeholders in the market to find a lasting solution to the issue and it has not appointed any bank as market maker.

He said, “We have not appointed any market maker. What we are doing now is to discuss with banks on how to move the market forward. We are only collaborating with the banks to move the market forward, and we intend to involve the banks and other stakeholders in arresting the situation. We expect that SEC will come up with details of organisations that have been appointed as market makers.”

[waaan5]

Originally Posted by hispy99

@Waaan5...this is from The WSJ...people are creative Enjoy
When Stocks Tank, Some Investors Stampede to Alpacas and Turn to Drink By JENNIFER LEVITZArticle

Who can blame an investor for taking to the bottle?

Andy Pick, a 49-year-old stay-at-home father in Atlanta, recently bypassed the stock market for liquid assets -- $120,000 in champagnes. He bought 400 bottles, mostly 1996 vintage, that he says he plans to "sit on" for 10 or 15 years and then sell at a profit.
"Spiderman is going to be here in 20 years -- he's not going away," Mr. Haspel says

Hisppy99, many thanks. I was actually able to exit many positions at the NSE and now have only about 10% of my assets trapped (aside from the hard copy certificates from bonuses and rights issues from my over 10yrs active play period). Like billions have been urging, I 'sit' on some of the cash salvaged with some in Lagos real estate in choice locations. Now if prop. prices also crash then I will be 'on the streets', hence the question. I like the bit about 'hoarding'. I tried that with gas/fuel long ago and it was not bad at all, but you have to be 'on ground' and invloved - which I can not now afford.

[zainabusman]

The week has come & gone and there is no rebound. Ndindi was just trying to talk up the market.

Value of transactions was N1.66 billion. There were 4 gainers.

I have a theory. Our market will not recover until world market calms down. There is no liquidity here. It is becoming obvious by the day that foreign speculators played a huge role in our booming market inspite of what the authorities want us to believe. Without them our market PE valuation is returning to 2005 levels. Even though i believe more correction is on the way for some non banking stocks.

The DOW is down 40% from its peak and our own NSE is down 33% from its peak. We are in interesting times.

Right now, cash is king.

[billions]

Originally Posted by hispy99

@Waaan5...this is from The WSJ...people are creative Enjoy

When Stocks Tank, Some Investors Stampede to Alpacas and Turn to Drink By JENNIFER LEVITZArticle

Who can blame an investor for taking to the bottle?

Andy Pick, a 49-year-old stay-at-home father in Atlanta, recently bypassed the stock market for liquid assets -- $120,000 in champagnes. He bought 400 bottles, mostly 1996 vintage, that he says he plans to "sit on" for 10 or 15 years and then sell at a profit.

"It sure beats looking at a Merrill Lynch monthly statement," he says, adding, "The worst thing that could happen is that I drink all of it."

Given the gyrations in the financial markets, some investors are abandoning stocks and bonds and seeking refuge in unusual alternatives -- parking spaces, for instance, and condos in Peru. Sales of exotic livestock are up. The U.S. Mint has seen a gold-coin rush.

Peggy Parks invested in alpacas, which she believes have a better outlook than most mutual funds.
Investors have long turned to hard assets in market downturns, the idea being that if you invest in something real, it won't disappear, even if its value declines. But analysts say this downturn is different in that real estate, the most traditional safe haven, is also sinking. Between July 2006 and July this year, home prices dropped 19.5%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite home price index.

After the market dropped in January, Steve Borter, the 56-year-old president of a heating-and-air-conditioning company, did invest in real estate, but not the usual sort. He became landlord of a single parking space in Chicago. He bought a 12-by-20-foot spot in the Field Harbor Parking Garage for $29,000 and rents it out. "The stock market is indicative of a lot of uncertainty. With a parking space, at least you end up with something," he says.

Peggy Parks, a 49-year-old auditor in Johnstown, Pa., turned to an unusual farm animal. "I've lost a fortune in stocks, and my 401(k) is falling through the floor. I feel comfortable in alpacas," she says. She invested $56,000 in a small herd that she believes has a better outlook than most mutual funds because of the animals' breeding potential.

The national Alpaca Registry Inc., in Lincoln, Neb., says registrations are on pace to rise 7% this year and currently stand at 140,297. Ms. Parks says a female of "medium quality" can fetch $10,000 and that prices have been rising, supporting her hopes that she'll see a profit on her alpaca portfolio in five years.

Tangible Assets

Financial firms are reporting that a growing number of retirees are rolling their money out of ordinary individual retirement accounts -- commonly stocks, bonds and mutual funds -- and into self-directed IRAs, where almost anything goes. "We've had people invest in a cypress farm in Costa Rica, and a condo in Croatia," says Tom Anderson, president of Pensco Inc., a San Francisco firm that has $3.3 billion in self-directed IRAs under custody. He says 20% more assets flowed in over the past three months than in the same period a year ago.

The New Gold Rush

In Centennial, Colo., Tim Boykin, 56, a retired engineer, says he pulled his entire nest egg of nearly $1 million out of stock and bond funds in August and put it into a self-directed IRA. He invested some of the money in his niece's company -- which is building condos in Lima, Peru. While analysts warn that real-estate investments in emerging markets are risky, Mr. Boykin says he has done his research and remains confident: "I can see pictures of the land. I can see steel. I can see people working. When I put my money in a fund, I see a big list of things that don't sound good."

Ruff Times
Not everyone thinks alternative investments are a great idea. The Alabama Securities Commission over the weekend issued an "investor alert" urging caution. People are "panicking," says securities director Joseph Borg. He worries that investors who yank their money out of the stock market are prey for con artists hawking things like phantom oil wells.

Mr. Borg, past president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, adds that in past market downturns he saw people turn to chinchillas, worm farms and super-breeds of rabbits. Emus, too, were big. "Eventually, people got tired of them and just let them go," he says. "To this day, you'll be in West Texas and a big emu running wild will just come up next to your car."

Hard-asset gurus like Howard Ruff, a best-selling author who rose to fame in the inflationary 1970s, are convinced their moment has come again. "This is a big, big time, a very big time -- and this is just the beginning," says Mr. Ruff. He has been advising people to buy bags of pre-1965 U.S dimes and quarters, which are 90% silver and in limited supply.

Gold coins also are in great demand. Last week, the mint suspended sales of American Buffalo 24-karat gold coins because it can't keep up with soaring sales. Last month, a record 14,000 bidders -- 17% more than the previous high -- turned out for a coin-and-currency auction in Long Beach, Calif., that generated $35 million in sales.

Bob Sale, a Blue Bunny brand ice-cream distributor in Colorado Springs, Colo., says he purchased American Eagle gold coins last week after his 401(k) retirement account tanked. "Holding them in your hand is like no other feeling," he says.

Mark Craddock, manager of Comic Book World, in Florence, Ky., says stock-market investors also are turning to superheroes. "There's kind of a buying frenzy" in vintage comic books, he says.

The "Silver Age Comic Book Pricing Index" of 32 frequently traded '60s comics, was up 14.2% in the 18 months ending in July, while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index was down 11% in the same period. Mark Haspel, president of Certified Guaranty Co. in Sarasota, Fla., which grades comic books, often for investors, says it's on track to handle 200,000 books this year, up from 150,000 in 2007.

"Spiderman is going to be here in 20 years -- he's not going away," Mr. Haspel says

Thx for this...very nice.

We need to think of cool and unique ways of growing our money in terrible times.

Any idea?

[panej]

Originally Posted by zainabusman

The week has come & gone and there is no rebound. Ndindi was just trying to talk up the market.

Value of transactions was N1.66 billion. There were 4 gainers.

I have a theory. Our market will not recover until world market calms down. There is no liquidity here. It is becoming obvious by the day that foreign speculators played a huge role in our booming market inspite of what the authorities want us to believe. Without them our market PE valuation is returning to 2005 levels. Even though i believe more correction is on the way for some non banking stocks.

The DOW is down 40% from its peak and our own NSE is down 33% from its peak. We are in interesting times.

Right now, cash is king.

Without movement controls and restrictions, NSE would have easily been down 90% YTD.

[billions]

Originally Posted by waaan5

Hisppy99, many thanks. I was actually able to exit many positions at the NSE and now have only about 10% of my assets trapped (aside from the hard copy certificates from bonuses and rights issues from my over 10yrs active play period). Like billions have been urging, I 'sit' on some of the cash salvaged with some in Lagos real estate in choice locations. Now if prop. prices also crash then I will be 'on the streets', hence the question. I like the bit about 'hoarding'. I tried that with gas/fuel long ago and it was not bad at all, but you have to be 'on ground' and invloved - which I can not now afford.

I envy you,i still have about 35% of my money in d market(apart from the ones in hard copy certificates).

The cash is fixed in a bank but if i need it urgently b4 the maturity date...the bank will take 15% out of d interest.

[hispy99]

Originally Posted by billions

Thx for this...very nice.

We need to think of cool and unique ways of growing our money in terrible times.

Any idea?

Yes, give me your money and I will double it