The cost of making mobile phone calls in Europe is set to fall substantially after lawmakers backed plans to cap so-called "roaming" charges.
The amount mobile customers are charged by local phone operators for using their handsets while abroad should now fall by as much as 75%.
More than 150 million people across Europe will be affected by the changes in the pricing regime.
But the new charges are not likely to come into effect until later this year.
Full information
The changes still need to be approved by the European Commission and member governments of the 27-nation bloc, although these approvals are considered a formality.
A European Commission spokesman described the vote as "wonderful", saying many people would now feel able to use their phones abroad for the first time.
But consumers will not feel the benefits of lower prices until late July or early August at the earliest, too late for many people travelling in Europe this summer.
Text messaging will not be covered by the proposals.
Brussels has sought for some time to regulate the cost of making mobile phone calls when abroad, after finding huge differences in what people have to pay in different countries of the EU.
Under the plans, the cost of making a mobile call anywhere in the EU would be capped at 49 euro cents (33p) a minute in year one, while receiving a call would cost 24 cents (16p) at most.
These costs should now fall to 46 euro cents (31p) and 22 cents (14.9p) respectively in year two, and 43 cents and 19 cents in year three.
British mobile users currently have to pay up to 5.92 euros (£4.03) for a four-minute call made while in Spain.
Under the changes, this would fall to 1.96 euros (£1.33).
As part of the plans, mobile users would receive a free text message informing them how much they will have to pay when travelling abroad.
Market benefits
MEPs have backed the plans, saying that they wanted to focus on consumer priorities.
Liberal Democrat MEP Fiona Hall said the new law would protect consumers from "abusive charges" that bore no relation to phone operators' costs.
"Mobile phone users should feel the benefits of the single market and not be penalised simply the crossing a border," she said.
But she added: "Consumers should be warned that texting and data roaming are not covered under this law and charges for these services are still excessive."
Some phone firms have already cut roaming costs in anticipation of the changes.
But the industry has criticised the price caps saying they will curb competition and make it difficult for smaller firms, in particular, to remain competitive.
"After years of expanding mobile coverage, this regulation could lead to a contraction in coverage, running counter to the EU's aim of ensuring all its citizens have ready access to communications," said Rob Conway, chief executive of industry body the GSM Association.
woensdag 23 mei 2007
zondag 20 mei 2007
Beurzen hoger door overnamegeruchten
AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De Europese aandelenmarkten profiteerden vrijdag van geruchten over ophanden zijnde overnames en fusies. In Amsterdam was zwaargewicht Shell net als op donderdag in trek bij beleggers. Er gaan geluiden dat Shell de handen ineen wil slaan met de Britse sectorgenoot BP. De AEX-index van meest verhandelde fondsen in Amsterdam eindigde op 536,69 punten. Dat betekende een plus van 5,16 punten ofwel 1 procent. De MidKap-index van middelgrote fondsen ging 0,5 procent vooruit tot 738,77 punten. De beurzen in Frankfurt en Parijs stegen 1,4 en 1,2 procent, terwijl Londen 0,9 procent won.
De opmars van het aandeel Shell begon op donderdag, toen het concern in verband werd gebracht met zowel BP als het Russische Gazprom. Door een fusie tussen Shell en BP zou veruit het grootste oliebedrijf ter wereld ontstaan, maar marktkenners waren overwegend sceptisch. Zij vinden dat de zogeheten 'supermajors' simpelweg te groot zijn om nog kostenvoordelen te kunnen realiseren door samen te gaan.
Grote problemen
Ook wezen zij er op dat Shell een moeilijke periode achter de rug heeft na het reserveschandaal en dat BP het juist nu zwaar heeft met onder andere grote problemen in Alaska. Desalniettemin leken beleggers brood te zien in de geruchten. Shell won 2,2 procent. BP en Total schreven respectievelijk 2 en 2,9 procent bij.
Ook in de banksector gonste het van geruchten. ABN Amro won 0,3 procent op berichten dat Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) probeert een akkoord te sluiten met Bank of America over ABN Amro's Amerikaanse dochter LaSalle.
Onderhands
ABN Amro wilde LaSalle onderhands verkopen aan de Amerikaanse bank als onderdeel van de overname door het Britse Barclays, maar het gerechtshof in Amsterdam stak hier een stokje voor. Fortis, dat samen met RBS en Banco Santander probeert ABN Amro in te lijven werd 1,2 procent duurder. RBS en Santander schreven respectievelijk 1,3 en 2,2 procent bij.
In Italië zou opnieuw een grote bankovername in de maak zijn. UniCredit is van plan Capitalia over te nemen om samen de grootste bank in de eurozone te vormen. De fusiebank zou met een marktwaarde van 100 miljard euro de zevende plek innemen op de lijst van 's werelds grootste banken. Volgens ingewijden doet UniCredit aanstaande zondag een officieel bod op Capitalia, waarin ABN Amro overigens een belang heeft van ruim 8 procent.
Koploper Arcelor Mittal
Bij de hoofdfondsen op het Damrak was staalconcern Arcelor Mittal (plus 2,8 procent) een van de grotere winnaars. Dat kwam door een gunstig rapport van zakenbank UBS.
Philips maakte voorbeurs bekend dat het een deel van het belang in de Taiwanese chipproducent TSMC verkoopt. De transactie levert het elektronicaconcern een boekwinst op van ruim 1,2 miljard euro. Het nieuws zette het aandeel 1,6 procent hoger.
De euro noteerde 1,3515 dollar in vergelijking met 1,3495 dollar bij het slot van de Europese beurzen op donderdag.
De opmars van het aandeel Shell begon op donderdag, toen het concern in verband werd gebracht met zowel BP als het Russische Gazprom. Door een fusie tussen Shell en BP zou veruit het grootste oliebedrijf ter wereld ontstaan, maar marktkenners waren overwegend sceptisch. Zij vinden dat de zogeheten 'supermajors' simpelweg te groot zijn om nog kostenvoordelen te kunnen realiseren door samen te gaan.
Grote problemen
Ook wezen zij er op dat Shell een moeilijke periode achter de rug heeft na het reserveschandaal en dat BP het juist nu zwaar heeft met onder andere grote problemen in Alaska. Desalniettemin leken beleggers brood te zien in de geruchten. Shell won 2,2 procent. BP en Total schreven respectievelijk 2 en 2,9 procent bij.
Ook in de banksector gonste het van geruchten. ABN Amro won 0,3 procent op berichten dat Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) probeert een akkoord te sluiten met Bank of America over ABN Amro's Amerikaanse dochter LaSalle.
Onderhands
ABN Amro wilde LaSalle onderhands verkopen aan de Amerikaanse bank als onderdeel van de overname door het Britse Barclays, maar het gerechtshof in Amsterdam stak hier een stokje voor. Fortis, dat samen met RBS en Banco Santander probeert ABN Amro in te lijven werd 1,2 procent duurder. RBS en Santander schreven respectievelijk 1,3 en 2,2 procent bij.
In Italië zou opnieuw een grote bankovername in de maak zijn. UniCredit is van plan Capitalia over te nemen om samen de grootste bank in de eurozone te vormen. De fusiebank zou met een marktwaarde van 100 miljard euro de zevende plek innemen op de lijst van 's werelds grootste banken. Volgens ingewijden doet UniCredit aanstaande zondag een officieel bod op Capitalia, waarin ABN Amro overigens een belang heeft van ruim 8 procent.
Koploper Arcelor Mittal
Bij de hoofdfondsen op het Damrak was staalconcern Arcelor Mittal (plus 2,8 procent) een van de grotere winnaars. Dat kwam door een gunstig rapport van zakenbank UBS.
Philips maakte voorbeurs bekend dat het een deel van het belang in de Taiwanese chipproducent TSMC verkoopt. De transactie levert het elektronicaconcern een boekwinst op van ruim 1,2 miljard euro. Het nieuws zette het aandeel 1,6 procent hoger.
De euro noteerde 1,3515 dollar in vergelijking met 1,3495 dollar bij het slot van de Europese beurzen op donderdag.
maandag 14 mei 2007
Shares surge on Hong Kong market
Shares of firms listed in Hong Kong surged after China said corporate investors could invest abroad.
The move is part of plans by China to reach overseas markets by investing some of its $2 trillion savings.
Shares in mainland Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong added 5%. The key Hang Seng index was up 2.6% to 20,990.62 points having topped 21,000 earlier.
Other Asian share markets also climbed as data showing economic strength in the US boosted Wall Street.
Impetus
"There's a bit of euphoria," said Andrew Sullivan, sales trading director at Daiwa Securities, following the gains in Hong Kong.
"This has given the market the impetus to move above 21,000".
Stocks which rose included China's leading aluminium firm Aluminium Corp, which added 9.5%, while Jiangxi Copper increased 11.5%.
China Mobile gained 5.7% while the strongest blue-chip player was Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, climbing more than 9%.
Other gains
Other gainers in Asia included Malaysia's benchmark index, up 0.86%.
Singapore's Straits Times index added 1.53%, with Singapore Airlines shares taking off as much as 4.9% after good earnings results.
Indonesian shares added 0.74%, just below a record high of 2,049.53 points set earlier in May.
Meanwhile in Japan, stronger-than-expected economic figures indicated that interest rates could be increased later in the year, sending the benchmark Nikkei index up by 1%.
Shares in exporters rose including car firm Toyota, which added some 3%, and Sony, up 1.5%.
Firms with strong overseas operations were boosted after US stocks recovered on Friday having fallen the previous session to two-month lows.
Sentiment on Wall Street got a boost from US Federal Reserve signals that it may consider reducing interest rates later this year.
The move is part of plans by China to reach overseas markets by investing some of its $2 trillion savings.
Shares in mainland Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong added 5%. The key Hang Seng index was up 2.6% to 20,990.62 points having topped 21,000 earlier.
Other Asian share markets also climbed as data showing economic strength in the US boosted Wall Street.
Impetus
"There's a bit of euphoria," said Andrew Sullivan, sales trading director at Daiwa Securities, following the gains in Hong Kong.
"This has given the market the impetus to move above 21,000".
Stocks which rose included China's leading aluminium firm Aluminium Corp, which added 9.5%, while Jiangxi Copper increased 11.5%.
China Mobile gained 5.7% while the strongest blue-chip player was Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, climbing more than 9%.
Other gains
Other gainers in Asia included Malaysia's benchmark index, up 0.86%.
Singapore's Straits Times index added 1.53%, with Singapore Airlines shares taking off as much as 4.9% after good earnings results.
Indonesian shares added 0.74%, just below a record high of 2,049.53 points set earlier in May.
Meanwhile in Japan, stronger-than-expected economic figures indicated that interest rates could be increased later in the year, sending the benchmark Nikkei index up by 1%.
Shares in exporters rose including car firm Toyota, which added some 3%, and Sony, up 1.5%.
Firms with strong overseas operations were boosted after US stocks recovered on Friday having fallen the previous session to two-month lows.
Sentiment on Wall Street got a boost from US Federal Reserve signals that it may consider reducing interest rates later this year.
zaterdag 12 mei 2007
Wall Street: beurzen bewegen zijwaarts in middaghandel
Op Wall Street bewegen de aandelenindices zich vrijdag aan het begin van de middaghandel zijwaarts in de handel na een winst te hebben opgebouwd in de openingsuren. De beurzen tonen herstel na een dip een dag eerder, onder meer als gevolg van tegenvallende detailhandelsverkopen. De beurzen weten zich verder gesteund door cijfers over de Amerikaanse producentenprijzen. Deze bieden volgens handelaren ruimte voor speculatie op een mogelijke renteverlaging door de Federal Reserve. De kerninflatie in de VS lijkt onder controle, hoewel de producentenprijzen in april iets harder zijn gestegen dan economen gemiddeld hadden verwacht. Hogere energie- en voedingsprijzen dreven de inflatie, want zonder deze producten bleven de prijzen op hetzelfde niveau steken als een maand eerder. Rond 19,30 uur noteert de Dow Jones-index 0,75% hoger op 13.313,95 punten. De S&P 500-index wint dan 0,8% op 1.503,37, terwijl schermenbeurs Nasdaq een plus van 0,9% op de borden zet bij een stand van 2.556,38 punten. De tienjarige T-bond noteert 5/32 hoger op 96-18/32, bij een rendement van 4,64%. De euro noteert 0,3% hoger ten opzichte van de dollar op $ 1,3516. De Dow Jones-index telt in de middaghandel 25 stijgers tegenover 5 verliezers. De Amerikaanse uitgever en dataleverancier Thomson verkoopt zijn onderwijstak voor $ 7,75 mrd in cash een een groep investeerders. Het gaat om de onderdelen Thomson Learning en Nelson Canada. De opbrengst kan Thomson gebruiken voor de overname van Reuters, waar het begin deze week een bod van $ 17,5 mrd op uitbracht. Het aandeel staat tussentijds op een winst van 3,8%. Nvidia Corp. (+7%), de op een na grootste producent van computerchips voor grafische bewerkingen, publiceerde zijn resultaten over het eerste kwartaal. In die periode steeg de winst met 44% door een toename van de verkopen aan producenten van laptops. Ameren Corp.(+1%), dat elektriciteit en gas levert aan ruim 2 mln huishoudens, wist in het eerste kwartaal van dit jaar de winst met 76% op te voeren. Daarmee versloeg het de gemiddelde verwachting van analisten. Amgen (-3,2%) verliest voor de tweede dag op rij. Analisten van verschillende banken hebben het advies voor het aandeel verlaagd. Ze maken zich zorgen over mogelijke restricties van de Food and Drug Administration voor het medicijn voor bloedarmoede, waardoor de omzet van Amgen flink kan verzwakken. Donderdag verloor het aandeel al 9%. Applied Materials (+3%) profiteert van een adviesverhoging door UBS. Het bedrijf krijgt nu een buy-advies. Een analist van UBS ziet groei voor het bedrijfsonderdeel dat zonnepanelen produceert, en beter dan verwachte resultaten voor Rexchip, een joint venture van Elpida en Powerchip. Foot Locker (-7,6%), de grootste winkelketen voor sportschoenen in de VS, heeft de winstverwachting voor eerste kwartaal naar beneden bijgesteld. Ging het eerder uit van een winst per aandeel van $ 0,37, nu rekent het op $ 0,10-0,11 per aandeel.
Copyright (c) 2007 Het Financieele Dagblad
Copyright (c) 2007 Het Financieele Dagblad
dinsdag 8 mei 2007
Europese beurzen blijven op verlies noteren
Europese beurzen blijven op verlies noterenDe Europese markten gaan voor het eerst in drie dagen opnieuw in de min. Beleggers wachten angstvallig op de bekendmaking van de Amerikaanse groeicijfers (bbp) deze namiddag. Gevreesd wordt dat de economie in de VS op zijn traagste groeipunt beland is in meer dan een jaar.(tijd) - De DJ Stoxx50 gaat rond 11.45 uur 0,4 procent omlaag tot 3.862,14 punten. De EuroStoxx50 verliest evenveel tot 4.396,42 punten, terwijl de Euronext100 0,2 procent in de min gaat tot 1.036,32 punten. De toonaangevende nationale indexen verliezen allemaal: in Parijs en Frankfurt wordt 0,1 procent verloren, de Amsterdamse AEX verliest 0,4 procent, de FTSE-index in Londen gaat een half procent in het rood.De mijnfirma's BHP Billiton en Anglo American gaan omlaag door de dalende metaalprijzen. De lager uitvallende Amerikaanse woningaanvragen doen beleggers vrezen dat de vraag naar ruwe metalen voor de bouwindustrie zal afnemen. BHP Billiton, het grootste mijnbedrijf ter wereld, geeft 1,7 procent prijs tot 1.126 pence. Anglo American zakt 1,2 procent weg tot 2.651 pence.Het bankenconsortium rond Fortis, RBS en Santander wil zo snel mogelijk een openbaar bod uitbrengen op ABN AMRO. Dat hebben de banken vrijdagochtend gezamenlijk bekendgemaakt. Royal Bank of Scotland zakt 0,8 procent tot 1.954 pence. Santander daalt 1,4 procent tot 13,34 euro. ABN AMRO doet het beter: het aandeel gaat 0,9 procent hoger tot 36,63 euro.Peugeot Citroen stijgt 1,1 procent tot 59,06 euro. Europa's tweede grootste autofabrikant maakte bekend dat de inkomsten in het eerste kwartaal met 6,5 procent gestegen zijn tegenover het jaar voordien. Dat komt door de sterke vraag van buiten West-Europa. De omzet voor het eerste kwartaal klokte af op 14,9 miljard euro, meer dan analisten verwacht hadden. Zowel Citigroup als UBS verhogen hun koersdoel voor het aandeel.Carlsberg stijgt 0,8 procent tot 611 Deense kronen. De Deense bierbrouwer zou in de toekomst nieuwe overnames willen doen. Dat zou mogelijk worden doordat de controlerende aandeelhouder van de biergroep zijn greep op Carlsberg wil verminderen. Met de aandelen die zullen vrij komen, plant de brouwer nieuwe overnames te doen. In dezelfde sector wint het Nederlandse Heineken 0,9 procent tot 39,01 euro. Beleggers speculeren erop dat een consolidatiegolf in de sector nu niet meer veraf is.Koninklijke Ahold doet er 1,4 procent bij tot 9,43 euro. Anders Moberg, de gedelegeerd bestuurder van de Nederlandse supermarktketen, stapt op vanaf 1 juli om 'andere carrièremogelijkheden na te streven'.Vedior klimt 4,6 procent hoger tot 18,82 euro. De vierde grootste uitzendkrachtengroep ter wereld zag zijn winst over het eerste kwartaal met 44 procent toenemen. Daarmee worden de verwachtingen van analisten ruimschoots overklast. Het bedrijf maakte ook bekend dat zijn voorzitter Zach Miles een stapje terug zal zetten.
dinsdag 1 mei 2007
Voorkennis Loont
Beleggen in aandelen is een populair spel met zowel risico's, als lucratieve rendementen.De toekomstige bedrijfswinsten en de marktrente bepalen het succes van een aandelenbelegging.De spelregels zijn simpel: voorspel de toekomst beter dan de rest en je wint. Maar winnen is niet eenvoudig.Met een aandeel koopt u een stukje van een bedrijf en geeft u daarmee recht op een deel van de toekomstige winsten van de onderneming. Het is de taak van de belegger de toekomstige resultaten van het bedrijfsleven zo nauwkeurig mogelijk te voorspellen. Hiertoe bent u gelukkig niet aangewezen op een glazen bol, maar op bronnen zoals jaarverslagen, beleggingsbladen, internetsites en analistenrapporten. Op basis van al die informatie selecteert u de aandelen waar u in de toekomst het meest van verwacht en u wordt slapend rijk.Was het maar zo simpel. Toekomstige verwachtingen zijn al verwerkt in de huidige koersen. Al die andere beleggers met dezelfde informatie zullen immers hetzelfde doen als u: ook zij kopen aandelen van bedrijven waarvan de toekomstverwachtingen rooskleurig zijn. Hogere koersen zijn het directe gevolg. De tucht van de markt maakt het maken van een bovengemiddeld rendement niet makkelijk.Tenzij u over informatie beschikt die anderen niet hebben.Wanneer u erin slaagt unieke informatie te vergaren met voorspellende waarde, kunt u de markt te slim af zijn. Vooral informatie uit eerste hand is interessant. Hanteer hiertoe onothodoxe methodieken, zo is mijn advies. Vlieg eersteklas, boek luxe hotels en eet in sterrenrestaurants. Misschien vangt u een gesprek op tussen topmannen over een mogelijke fusie of marktintroductie Of sluit een deal met een schoonmaakbedrijf die alle interne documenten voor u uit de bestuurskamers vist. Voorkennis levert u absoluut unieke informatie op.Beschikt u niet over voorkennis, dan wordt het erg moeilijk de markt te verslaan. Adviezen en tips uit tweede hand hebben vaak weinig effect, omdat ook die informatie al in de koersen is verwerkt.De keuze voor een meer zekere, algemene weg is dan zo gek nog niet. Beleg dan bijvoorbeeld in een indexfonds, of een (wereldwijd) aandelenfonds.Daarnaast kunt u met een klein deel van uw vermogen gaan spelen. Als het fout gaat, is de schade beperkt, maar als de strategie goed uitpakt, bent u als kleine belegger toch al die anderen te slim af.Matthijs Kanis is oprichter, directeur en mede-eigenaar van Belegger.nl bv. Deze BV exploiteert de websites www.belegger.nl, www.beursduivel.be en www.marketadvices.com. Matthijs schreef columns in Dagblad Spits, stond aan de basis van de Nationale Beleggerstest en schrijft momenteel het boek “ Beleggen voor Dummies” .De informatie in deze column is niet bedoeld als individueel beleggingsadvies of als aanbeveling tot het doen van bepaalde beleggingen. De standpunten en vooruitzichten van Matthijs geven zijn mening weer over het genoemde onderliggende item en van de uitgever in dezen in zijn hoedanigheid als directeur van Belegger.nl. Zijn beloning staat/stond/zal niet direct of indirect in relatie (staan) met zijn specifieke aanbevelingen of standpunten in deze column.Matthijs Kanis heeft naast een belang in Belegger.nl bv een belang in Jungle Rating bv en belegt met name in beleggingsfondsen, waaronder indexfondsen, wereldwijde aandelenfondsen, mixfondsen, emerging marketfondsen en specifieke groeifondsen van onder meer ABN AMRO, Vanguard, Fidelity, Templeton, Robeco en Theodoor Gilissen. Voorts heeft hij aandelen ABN AMRO en Philips in zijn portefeuille zitten. De waarde van zijn beleggingen is bescheiden. Zijn belangen in Belegger.nl bv en Jungle Rating bv relatief groot.
zaterdag 28 april 2007
World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is a series of poker tournaments featuring most of the world's professional players. It was started by attorney/television producer Steven Lipscomb, who now serves as CEO of WPT Enterprises (WPTE), the firm that controls the World Poker Tour.The tour had its debut season in the latter part of 2002 and early part of 2003, climaxing with the WPT Championship in April 2003 at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first season aired on the Travel Channel on American cable television in the spring of 2003. The show made its network debut on February 1, 2004 on NBC with a special "Battle Of Champions" tournament, which aired against CBS coverage of the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show. The Travel Channel aired the first five seasons of the Tour. In April 2007, WPTE announced that the series would move to GSN for its sixth season in the spring of 2008.[1]Contents[hide]* 1 Sherman Act lawsuit* 2 Player of the Year* 3 Tournament Results* 4 Deal* 5 Trivia* 6 See also* 7 Notes* 8 External linksThe World Poker Tour is a collection of Texas hold 'em poker tournaments held internationally, but mainly in the United States. The television show has led to a boom in the table game across American homes, in local casino poker rooms and online. The key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. The show, which is syndicated internationally, is co-hosted by World Series of Poker winner Mike Sexton, and actor Vince Van Patten. Shana Hiatt served as the show host and sideline reporter in its first three seasons. Courtney Friel took over the host role for the fourth season, and Sabina Gadecki for the fifth.The show's hosts Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten give the impression that all of their commentary is recorded live as the tournament happens, and they have occasionally interacted with the players during the game. However, their comments about hole cards are recorded after the tournament takes place because state gaming regulations prohibit them from observing a live feed of the "hole card cameras". Consequently, the broadcast audio is a mix of the live recording, and commentary recorded in post-production.The drawing power of the WPT and most other poker tournaments is that anyone who can pay the "buy-in" (an amount ranging from $2,500 to $25,000) or win a "satellite" tournament is able to compete against the top professional players, such as Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, or the top 2004 tournament money and multi-WPT tournament winner, Daniel Negreanu.Fans of the show find it interesting because of technical innovations such as the ability to see the players' hole cards through a small camera in front of them on the poker table (an innovation first seen on the UK program Late Night Poker). With the success of the show, special programs, such as the "Hollywood Home Game" (featuring celebrities playing for charity) and "Ladies Night" (featuring six top women players) were developed.In 2004, the World Poker Tour created a Walk of Fame, inducting poker legends Doyle Brunson and Gus Hansen as well as actor James Garner.Now in its fifth season of broadcast, it still remains among the highest rated television programs on cable. It airs Wednesdays on the Travel Channel. The first four seasons of WPT are also available on NTSC DVD. (The second season DVD set features audio commentary by several of the players. The third season is only available in a "Best Of" format, featuring just half of the episodes.)A series of spin-off tournaments, titled the Professional Poker Tour, began filming in 2004. Broadcast of the series was delayed, in part because of a dispute with the Travel Channel over rights. In the fall of 2005, WPTE announced that "a cable channel" (believed to be ESPN) had withdrawn from bidding for the PPT series, and that WPTE was negotiating with the Travel Channel to air the series. On January 30, 2006, WPTE and the Travel Channel announced that they had dismissed all open lawsuits. The series began regular broadcast July 5, 2006.
vrijdag 27 april 2007
7 Rules of Wealth Building
Practical Keys to Amassing Investment CapitalMost parents want to teach their children responsibility - how to become self sufficient and succeed in life (after all, no one plans on raising a dead beat). However, very few actually accomplish this task. Why? Because, as parents, we are limited to the experiences our parents passed on to us; the antiquated notion that "responsibility" is simply getting a job, saving a little money, and maybe purchasing a car or some equally important item. Hopefully these seven rules will open your eyes and help you teach your children to avoid the traps that have stolen financial success from so many people.
Wealth Building Rule 1:
Put Off MarriageYour biggest obstacle to attaining wealth is YOU. Too often, people live their lives in a manner that is not conducive to creating riches and then get frustrated at "the system" when they only really have themselves to blame.
One of the most important financial decisions you will ever make is marriage (more specifically who you marry and when). By putting off the walk down the aisle for a few years, you can save a decade worth of frustration. Your first goal should be to become financially independent, with little or no debt, and have your investments in place. Once you have these three things, your odds of success are drastically improved by beginning your journey on a level playing field (after all, the number-one reason for divorce is financial trouble).
Wealth Building Rule 2:
Debt is a DiseaseWith a few notable exceptions, debt is a form of bondage; a disease that enslaves the borrower. A few years ago, there was a young lady attending college who shot herself because she couldn't pay back $2,300 in credit card debt. Although an extreme example, it is a testament to the power money has over peoples' lives. Imagine your life without owing anyone anything; your car, your house, your education, all paid for in full. Like what you see? When you want it badly enough, you will make extinguishing your debt your number one priority.
Wealth Building Rule 3:
If You Don't Like Where your Parents Were at Your Age - Do Things DifferentlyThe old cliché that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results," holds just as true today as it did when it was originally written. If you don't like where your parents were at your age, stop what you are doing. During your childhood, they taught you all they knew about money. For many people, these early years established how they feel about their finances today. In order to become financially successful, you must do something different than they did. Otherwise, you will end up exactly as they are.
Wealth Building Rule 4:
When you Begin a Job, Look at the Pay of the Highest EmployeeWhether you are looking for employment now or are thinking about it sometime in the near future, one of the most important things for you to do is to look at what the top-dog gets at any company for which you are considering working. This will give you an idea of how high you can expect to climb in terms of earnings and promotion. If the CEO is making $30,000 a year, you have no chance to make six figures. Select a job accordingly.
Wealth Building Rule 5:
Do Something You Love and Get Paid for ItI remember going into college and being surrounded with people who wanted to be artists, scientists, and businessmen, but instead did what their parents or grandparents told them to do. There is no honor in being a doctor or a lawyer if you wake up every morning and hate your job. Pick a profession you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.
Wealth Building Rule 6:
Understand the Money MythMoney is nothing more than a piece of paper with the image of a long-dead person on it. When you understand that any power it has over you is derived from your relationship with it, you suddenly become free from the constant pressures and stress of thinking about it. Especially at times such as these, if you are putting money away for ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road, stop checking your portfolio every day! There is nothing you can gain from it except stress.
Wealth Building Rule 7:
Your New Commodity is Not Your Labor, It's Your IdeasWith the advent of the Internet and other technological advances, you are no longer limited to supporting yourself or making a living by your physical labor.
Wealth Building Rule 1:
Put Off MarriageYour biggest obstacle to attaining wealth is YOU. Too often, people live their lives in a manner that is not conducive to creating riches and then get frustrated at "the system" when they only really have themselves to blame.
One of the most important financial decisions you will ever make is marriage (more specifically who you marry and when). By putting off the walk down the aisle for a few years, you can save a decade worth of frustration. Your first goal should be to become financially independent, with little or no debt, and have your investments in place. Once you have these three things, your odds of success are drastically improved by beginning your journey on a level playing field (after all, the number-one reason for divorce is financial trouble).
Wealth Building Rule 2:
Debt is a DiseaseWith a few notable exceptions, debt is a form of bondage; a disease that enslaves the borrower. A few years ago, there was a young lady attending college who shot herself because she couldn't pay back $2,300 in credit card debt. Although an extreme example, it is a testament to the power money has over peoples' lives. Imagine your life without owing anyone anything; your car, your house, your education, all paid for in full. Like what you see? When you want it badly enough, you will make extinguishing your debt your number one priority.
Wealth Building Rule 3:
If You Don't Like Where your Parents Were at Your Age - Do Things DifferentlyThe old cliché that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results," holds just as true today as it did when it was originally written. If you don't like where your parents were at your age, stop what you are doing. During your childhood, they taught you all they knew about money. For many people, these early years established how they feel about their finances today. In order to become financially successful, you must do something different than they did. Otherwise, you will end up exactly as they are.
Wealth Building Rule 4:
When you Begin a Job, Look at the Pay of the Highest EmployeeWhether you are looking for employment now or are thinking about it sometime in the near future, one of the most important things for you to do is to look at what the top-dog gets at any company for which you are considering working. This will give you an idea of how high you can expect to climb in terms of earnings and promotion. If the CEO is making $30,000 a year, you have no chance to make six figures. Select a job accordingly.
Wealth Building Rule 5:
Do Something You Love and Get Paid for ItI remember going into college and being surrounded with people who wanted to be artists, scientists, and businessmen, but instead did what their parents or grandparents told them to do. There is no honor in being a doctor or a lawyer if you wake up every morning and hate your job. Pick a profession you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.
Wealth Building Rule 6:
Understand the Money MythMoney is nothing more than a piece of paper with the image of a long-dead person on it. When you understand that any power it has over you is derived from your relationship with it, you suddenly become free from the constant pressures and stress of thinking about it. Especially at times such as these, if you are putting money away for ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road, stop checking your portfolio every day! There is nothing you can gain from it except stress.
Wealth Building Rule 7:
Your New Commodity is Not Your Labor, It's Your IdeasWith the advent of the Internet and other technological advances, you are no longer limited to supporting yourself or making a living by your physical labor.
4 Things to Look for in an Investment
The most important qualities every good investment possesses
New investors are often interested in purchasing a company's stock but are not sure where to begin. These four characteristics should serve as helpful guidelines in your search for a good investment.
1. What is the price of the entire company?When doing research, it is important that you look at more than just the current share price - you need to look at the price of the entire company. The "cost" of acquiring the entire corporation is called market capitalization (or market cap for short) and is frequently referred to by financial professionals. In short, the market cap is the price of all outstanding shares of common stock multiplied by the quoted price per share at any given moment in time. A business with one million shares outstanding and a stock price of $50 per share would have a market cap of $50 million.
This market capitalization test can help keep you from overpaying for a stock. Consider the case of eBay and General Motors during the heyday of the Internet era. At one point during the boom, eBay had the same market cap as the entire General Motors Corporation. To put that into perspective, in fiscal 2000, General Motors made $3.96 billion dollars in profit, while eBay made only $48.3 million (not including stock option expense!). Yet were you to buy either one, you would have had to pay the same amount. It is almost unbelievable that any sane investor would pay the same price for both companies but the general public was seduced by visions of quick profits and easy cash.
Another useful tool to help gauge the relative cost of a stock is the price to earnings ratio (or p/e ratio for short). It provides a valuable standard of comparison for alternative investment opportunities.
2. Is the company buying back shares?One of the most important keys to investing is that overall corporate growth is not as important as per-share growth. A company could have the same profit, sales, and revenue for five consecutive years, but create large returns for investors by reducing the total number of outstanding shares.
To put it into simpler terms, think of your investment like a large pizza. Each slice represents one share of stock. Would you rather have part of a pizza that was cut into ten slices or one that was cut into eight slices? The pizza that was only cut into eight parts will have bigger slices with more cheese and toppings.
The same principle is true in business. A shareholder should desire a management that has an active policy of reducing the number of outstanding shares if alternative uses of capital are not as attractive, thus making each investor's stake in the company bigger. When the corporate "pie" is cut into fewer pieces, each share represents a greater percentage ownership in the profits and assets of the business. Tragically, many managements focus on domain building rather than increasing the wealth of shareholders.
3. What are your reasons for investing in the company?Before you purchase stock in a company, you need to ask yourself why you are interested in investing in that particular opportunity. It is dangerous to fall in love with a corporation and buy it solely because you feel fondly for its products or people - after all, the best company in the world is a lousy investment if you pay too much for it.
Make sure the fundamentals of the company (current price, profits, good management, etc.) are the only reason you are investing. Anything else is based on your emotions; this leads to speculation rather than intelligent investing. You have to remove your feelings from the equation and select your investments based on the cold, hard data. This requires patience and the willingness to walk away from a potential stock position if it does not appear to be fairly or undervalued.
4. Are you willing to own the stock for the next ten years?If you aren't willing to buy shares in a company and forget about them for the next ten years, you really have no business owning those shares at all. The simple but painful truth of this is evident on Wall Street every day. Professional money managers attempt to beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is a collection of 30 largely unmanaged stocks. Year after year, they fail to do this. It seems impossible that a portfolio managed by the best minds in finance can't beat an unmanaged portfolio of long-term stocks held indefinitely.
The guaranteed way to success has historically been to select a great company, pay as little as possible for the initial stake, begin a dollar cost averaging program, reinvest the dividends and leave the position alone for several decades.
New investors are often interested in purchasing a company's stock but are not sure where to begin. These four characteristics should serve as helpful guidelines in your search for a good investment.
1. What is the price of the entire company?When doing research, it is important that you look at more than just the current share price - you need to look at the price of the entire company. The "cost" of acquiring the entire corporation is called market capitalization (or market cap for short) and is frequently referred to by financial professionals. In short, the market cap is the price of all outstanding shares of common stock multiplied by the quoted price per share at any given moment in time. A business with one million shares outstanding and a stock price of $50 per share would have a market cap of $50 million.
This market capitalization test can help keep you from overpaying for a stock. Consider the case of eBay and General Motors during the heyday of the Internet era. At one point during the boom, eBay had the same market cap as the entire General Motors Corporation. To put that into perspective, in fiscal 2000, General Motors made $3.96 billion dollars in profit, while eBay made only $48.3 million (not including stock option expense!). Yet were you to buy either one, you would have had to pay the same amount. It is almost unbelievable that any sane investor would pay the same price for both companies but the general public was seduced by visions of quick profits and easy cash.
Another useful tool to help gauge the relative cost of a stock is the price to earnings ratio (or p/e ratio for short). It provides a valuable standard of comparison for alternative investment opportunities.
2. Is the company buying back shares?One of the most important keys to investing is that overall corporate growth is not as important as per-share growth. A company could have the same profit, sales, and revenue for five consecutive years, but create large returns for investors by reducing the total number of outstanding shares.
To put it into simpler terms, think of your investment like a large pizza. Each slice represents one share of stock. Would you rather have part of a pizza that was cut into ten slices or one that was cut into eight slices? The pizza that was only cut into eight parts will have bigger slices with more cheese and toppings.
The same principle is true in business. A shareholder should desire a management that has an active policy of reducing the number of outstanding shares if alternative uses of capital are not as attractive, thus making each investor's stake in the company bigger. When the corporate "pie" is cut into fewer pieces, each share represents a greater percentage ownership in the profits and assets of the business. Tragically, many managements focus on domain building rather than increasing the wealth of shareholders.
3. What are your reasons for investing in the company?Before you purchase stock in a company, you need to ask yourself why you are interested in investing in that particular opportunity. It is dangerous to fall in love with a corporation and buy it solely because you feel fondly for its products or people - after all, the best company in the world is a lousy investment if you pay too much for it.
Make sure the fundamentals of the company (current price, profits, good management, etc.) are the only reason you are investing. Anything else is based on your emotions; this leads to speculation rather than intelligent investing. You have to remove your feelings from the equation and select your investments based on the cold, hard data. This requires patience and the willingness to walk away from a potential stock position if it does not appear to be fairly or undervalued.
4. Are you willing to own the stock for the next ten years?If you aren't willing to buy shares in a company and forget about them for the next ten years, you really have no business owning those shares at all. The simple but painful truth of this is evident on Wall Street every day. Professional money managers attempt to beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is a collection of 30 largely unmanaged stocks. Year after year, they fail to do this. It seems impossible that a portfolio managed by the best minds in finance can't beat an unmanaged portfolio of long-term stocks held indefinitely.
The guaranteed way to success has historically been to select a great company, pay as little as possible for the initial stake, begin a dollar cost averaging program, reinvest the dividends and leave the position alone for several decades.
Vista Pays Off for Microsoft
Despite rumblings to the contrary, sales of the new operating system led to big revenue gains for the quarter and raised hopes for the year to come
by Jay Greene
In the weeks before Microsoft's quarterly earnings release, reports abounded of security problems with the new Windows Vista operating system. And talk was rife that myriad software programs don't work well with Vista. It was enough to give the impression that Vista, launched in January, wasn't selling all that well. Microsoft's fiscal third-quarter results, reported Apr. 26, paint a different picture.
Revenue in Microsoft's (MSFT) Client Division, consisting primarily of Windows sales for PCs, hit $5.3 billion, a 67% jump over a year earlier. That includes $1.2 billion in deferred revenue from presales of Windows Vista, money paid by customers before the quarter started but not counted in results until the product shipped. But even without that spike, the group's sales climbed 17%. In other words, Vista sales growth topped Microsoft's estimates of overall PC unit sales growth, which came in between 10% and 12%. That's largely because 71% of customers opted for the high-priced premium editions of Vista.
And while some corporate customers still opt for the predecessor Windows XP when they buy new computers, for software compatibility reasons, a remarkably large number are taking the new operating system. Microsoft says 85% of Windows sales are Vista, outpacing sales of XP at the same time in its life cycle.
Beating Expectations
Vista wasn't the only new product that powered results. The 2007 Microsoft Office system, the group of products led by the new Office productivity software, which launched alongside Vista, posted surprisingly strong numbers. Sales in the Microsoft Business Division, consisting largely of Office, hit $4.8 billion, a 34% gain. Like Windows, Office benefited from about $500 million in deferred sales. But even without the bump, the division's sales would have jumped 20%. "We exceeded our revenue expectations by about $200 million," Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said during a conference call discussing results.
Vista and Office gains translated to a quarter that surpassed Microsoft's earlier forecast and analysts' expectations—and they augur stronger results this year and next than Wall Street was predicting. Microsoft increased its guidance for the fourth quarter and suggested that results in fiscal 2008 might come in ahead of analyst projections.
The company now expects to report fiscal 2007 sales of $50.9 billion to $51.2 billion, up 15% to 16%. Just three months ago, Microsoft was guiding to a more conservative $50.2 billion to $50.7 billion in sales. The company now expects earnings per share for the fiscal year to land between $1.48 and $1.50, up from its earlier guidance of $1.45 to $1.47. Microsoft also offered up its first guidance for fiscal 2008: The company expects $22 billion to $22.5 billion in operating income on sales of $56.5 billion to $57.5 billion. Earnings per share should come in between $1.68 and $1.72.
This guidance comes on top of a quarter that Liddell says left him "extremely pleased." For the period, operating income climbed 69%, to $6.6 billion on sales of $14.4 billion, a 32% gain. The deferred revenue goosed the top line with an extra $1.7 billion and boosted net income by $1.1 billion. Even without those gains, revenue would have climbed 17%, remarkable for a company Microsoft's size.
Searching for Market Share
The only real blight came in the online services group, the division that competes head-on with Google (GOOG). But even there, Microsoft's fortunes look brighter. The company continues to trail Google in Web-search market share. But it seems to have reversed the slide, garnering 10.1% of U.S. searches in March, up from 8.9% in January, according to market research firm Nielsen//NetRatings (NTRT) (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/2/07, "Where Is Microsoft Search?"). And while overall revenue in the unit climbed a modest 11%, to $623 million, hurt by a $37 million decline in the online access business, ad sales grew 23%, to $456 million. Not Google numbers, to be sure.
"They've at least stanched the bleeding," says Sanford C. Bernstein (AB) Senior Research Analyst Charles Di Bona II.
by Jay Greene
In the weeks before Microsoft's quarterly earnings release, reports abounded of security problems with the new Windows Vista operating system. And talk was rife that myriad software programs don't work well with Vista. It was enough to give the impression that Vista, launched in January, wasn't selling all that well. Microsoft's fiscal third-quarter results, reported Apr. 26, paint a different picture.
Revenue in Microsoft's (MSFT) Client Division, consisting primarily of Windows sales for PCs, hit $5.3 billion, a 67% jump over a year earlier. That includes $1.2 billion in deferred revenue from presales of Windows Vista, money paid by customers before the quarter started but not counted in results until the product shipped. But even without that spike, the group's sales climbed 17%. In other words, Vista sales growth topped Microsoft's estimates of overall PC unit sales growth, which came in between 10% and 12%. That's largely because 71% of customers opted for the high-priced premium editions of Vista.
And while some corporate customers still opt for the predecessor Windows XP when they buy new computers, for software compatibility reasons, a remarkably large number are taking the new operating system. Microsoft says 85% of Windows sales are Vista, outpacing sales of XP at the same time in its life cycle.
Beating Expectations
Vista wasn't the only new product that powered results. The 2007 Microsoft Office system, the group of products led by the new Office productivity software, which launched alongside Vista, posted surprisingly strong numbers. Sales in the Microsoft Business Division, consisting largely of Office, hit $4.8 billion, a 34% gain. Like Windows, Office benefited from about $500 million in deferred sales. But even without the bump, the division's sales would have jumped 20%. "We exceeded our revenue expectations by about $200 million," Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said during a conference call discussing results.
Vista and Office gains translated to a quarter that surpassed Microsoft's earlier forecast and analysts' expectations—and they augur stronger results this year and next than Wall Street was predicting. Microsoft increased its guidance for the fourth quarter and suggested that results in fiscal 2008 might come in ahead of analyst projections.
The company now expects to report fiscal 2007 sales of $50.9 billion to $51.2 billion, up 15% to 16%. Just three months ago, Microsoft was guiding to a more conservative $50.2 billion to $50.7 billion in sales. The company now expects earnings per share for the fiscal year to land between $1.48 and $1.50, up from its earlier guidance of $1.45 to $1.47. Microsoft also offered up its first guidance for fiscal 2008: The company expects $22 billion to $22.5 billion in operating income on sales of $56.5 billion to $57.5 billion. Earnings per share should come in between $1.68 and $1.72.
This guidance comes on top of a quarter that Liddell says left him "extremely pleased." For the period, operating income climbed 69%, to $6.6 billion on sales of $14.4 billion, a 32% gain. The deferred revenue goosed the top line with an extra $1.7 billion and boosted net income by $1.1 billion. Even without those gains, revenue would have climbed 17%, remarkable for a company Microsoft's size.
Searching for Market Share
The only real blight came in the online services group, the division that competes head-on with Google (GOOG). But even there, Microsoft's fortunes look brighter. The company continues to trail Google in Web-search market share. But it seems to have reversed the slide, garnering 10.1% of U.S. searches in March, up from 8.9% in January, according to market research firm Nielsen//NetRatings (NTRT) (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/2/07, "Where Is Microsoft Search?"). And while overall revenue in the unit climbed a modest 11%, to $623 million, hurt by a $37 million decline in the online access business, ad sales grew 23%, to $456 million. Not Google numbers, to be sure.
"They've at least stanched the bleeding," says Sanford C. Bernstein (AB) Senior Research Analyst Charles Di Bona II.
How to get started investing
Q: I have saved about $1,500 and I want to start investing. Is there any good advice, books, or stocks you can point me to?
A: Welcome to the exciting world of investing. As you'll soon learn, becoming a good investor is not unlike trying to become a solid surfer or football player. It doesn't take long to learn the very basics, but to really get good, it takes years and years of practice, dedication and study.
Before getting into a few suggestion on how to get started, I first wanted to impart the good news. I'm glad to see that you've already succeeded at one of the most difficult parts of investing: saving money. Having the discipline to clip coupons or give up that $2 cup of coffee every morning is the first step. After all, you need money to make money.
But now that you have your savings plan in place, it's time to take it to the next level.
The first decision you have to make is: What kind of investor do you want to be? Do you think you can outsmart other players on Wall Street? Do you think you can find outstanding stocks that are being ignored by other investors? Are you willing to spend your weekends and extra time researching stocks and studying about investing? If the answers to these questions are all yes, then you are what's called an active investor. If you answered most of the questions with a no, then you're a passive investor.
Now that you'd identified the kind of investor you are, then it's time to put together a game plan. We'll start with the passive investor first. Again, a passive investor is one who doesn't really want to spend the time learning about investing or doubts he can beat the millions of other stock investors. The passive investor simply wants to get the average return for a given amount of risk. This can be done very easily now, by buying mutual funds, index funds and exchange-traded funds that track certain asset classes.
For instance, let's say you're a 20-year-old who doesn't have any near-term needs for cash. You could afford to be pretty aggressive in that case. You'll want to put your money into a variety of investments, such as the Standard & Poor's 500 exchange-traded fund (which trades by the symbol SPY) as well as a number of funds that track small-cap companies. But how do you decide where to spread your cash? There are plenty of tools that can help you. A great resource is ifa.com. It's a great site because it not only explains the beauty of passive investing, but also has a tool that helps you decide what types of indexes you should invest in, based on your expectations and appetite for risk. The good thing about passive investing is that you put your money into the indexes and forget about it.
So what if you want to be an active investor? Well, this will going to take more work. This type of investor uses research, homework and smarts to find stocks that are undervalued. This will take much more work and could be frustrating, since most active investors under-perform similar indexes. That's not to discourage you, though, since skillful active investing is possible.
First, you'll need to get acquainted with financial statements. This is important because accounting is the language in which financial information is communicated. There are many books on this topic, but one of the best I've found is Analysis of Financial Statements by Leopold A. Bernstein and John Wild. It's fairly easy to read and does a good job explaining the parts of financial statements that investors need to know about.
That's a good start. But to be an active investor, you need to decide what your strategy will be. Do you want to be a momentum investor? These investors think stocks that are rising have something going for them and could be a harbinger for future outperformance. These types of investors also look for accelerating earnings, because that's a sign the company has tapped a new product or innovation that could power earnings. One of the best books on this method of investing is How to Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad, by William J. O'Neil. In the book, O'Neil explains his "CANSLIM" approach to picking stocks, which is based on a number of factors including stock price behavior and earnings growth.
If that type of investing seems too aggressive, and you want something that's based on a company's value, there are several options for you. A great methodology is one advocated by the National Association of Investors Corporation. Their methodology is very intelligent and comprehensive, but still easy to learn and apply. You can learn more about the NAIC approach at better-investing.org.
Lastly, are you a bargain-hunter investor? Do you want to buy battered stocks like Kmart that get left for dead only to recover and rally. The bible for such deep value investors is the classic Security Analysis: The Classic 1940 Edition, by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. It shows you how to find bargains in the stock market.
Lastly, there are some lessons that can be applied to any type of investors. One of the best lessons is the importance of never letting losses get too big, which is the 10% rule you refer to in your question. Again, you should never let a stock fall more than 10% below your purchase price. Lessons like these and more are contained in the classic Battle for Investment Survival by Gerald Loeb.
Good luck!
Posted from: www.usatoday.com
A: Welcome to the exciting world of investing. As you'll soon learn, becoming a good investor is not unlike trying to become a solid surfer or football player. It doesn't take long to learn the very basics, but to really get good, it takes years and years of practice, dedication and study.
Before getting into a few suggestion on how to get started, I first wanted to impart the good news. I'm glad to see that you've already succeeded at one of the most difficult parts of investing: saving money. Having the discipline to clip coupons or give up that $2 cup of coffee every morning is the first step. After all, you need money to make money.
But now that you have your savings plan in place, it's time to take it to the next level.
The first decision you have to make is: What kind of investor do you want to be? Do you think you can outsmart other players on Wall Street? Do you think you can find outstanding stocks that are being ignored by other investors? Are you willing to spend your weekends and extra time researching stocks and studying about investing? If the answers to these questions are all yes, then you are what's called an active investor. If you answered most of the questions with a no, then you're a passive investor.
Now that you'd identified the kind of investor you are, then it's time to put together a game plan. We'll start with the passive investor first. Again, a passive investor is one who doesn't really want to spend the time learning about investing or doubts he can beat the millions of other stock investors. The passive investor simply wants to get the average return for a given amount of risk. This can be done very easily now, by buying mutual funds, index funds and exchange-traded funds that track certain asset classes.
For instance, let's say you're a 20-year-old who doesn't have any near-term needs for cash. You could afford to be pretty aggressive in that case. You'll want to put your money into a variety of investments, such as the Standard & Poor's 500 exchange-traded fund (which trades by the symbol SPY) as well as a number of funds that track small-cap companies. But how do you decide where to spread your cash? There are plenty of tools that can help you. A great resource is ifa.com. It's a great site because it not only explains the beauty of passive investing, but also has a tool that helps you decide what types of indexes you should invest in, based on your expectations and appetite for risk. The good thing about passive investing is that you put your money into the indexes and forget about it.
So what if you want to be an active investor? Well, this will going to take more work. This type of investor uses research, homework and smarts to find stocks that are undervalued. This will take much more work and could be frustrating, since most active investors under-perform similar indexes. That's not to discourage you, though, since skillful active investing is possible.
First, you'll need to get acquainted with financial statements. This is important because accounting is the language in which financial information is communicated. There are many books on this topic, but one of the best I've found is Analysis of Financial Statements by Leopold A. Bernstein and John Wild. It's fairly easy to read and does a good job explaining the parts of financial statements that investors need to know about.
That's a good start. But to be an active investor, you need to decide what your strategy will be. Do you want to be a momentum investor? These investors think stocks that are rising have something going for them and could be a harbinger for future outperformance. These types of investors also look for accelerating earnings, because that's a sign the company has tapped a new product or innovation that could power earnings. One of the best books on this method of investing is How to Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad, by William J. O'Neil. In the book, O'Neil explains his "CANSLIM" approach to picking stocks, which is based on a number of factors including stock price behavior and earnings growth.
If that type of investing seems too aggressive, and you want something that's based on a company's value, there are several options for you. A great methodology is one advocated by the National Association of Investors Corporation. Their methodology is very intelligent and comprehensive, but still easy to learn and apply. You can learn more about the NAIC approach at better-investing.org.
Lastly, are you a bargain-hunter investor? Do you want to buy battered stocks like Kmart that get left for dead only to recover and rally. The bible for such deep value investors is the classic Security Analysis: The Classic 1940 Edition, by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. It shows you how to find bargains in the stock market.
Lastly, there are some lessons that can be applied to any type of investors. One of the best lessons is the importance of never letting losses get too big, which is the 10% rule you refer to in your question. Again, you should never let a stock fall more than 10% below your purchase price. Lessons like these and more are contained in the classic Battle for Investment Survival by Gerald Loeb.
Good luck!
Posted from: www.usatoday.com
donderdag 26 april 2007
ABN Amro investors in bid revolt
ABN Amro shareholders have told the managers of the Dutch bank to sell the bank to the highest bidder.
This vote, at an unusually heated shareholder meeting of ABN Amro, could result in the bank's break-up.
ABN Amro's managers are in favour of a proposed £45bn (66bn euro; $90bn) takeover bid by British rival Barclays.
However, UK bank RBS, Spain's Santander and Belgium's Fortis have mooted a £49bn bid, that would see the Dutch bank's assets split among the three.
So far the RBS-led consortium has not yet put forward a formal bid.
But whoever wins the looming bid battle, the takeover is likely to result in thousands of job cuts.
Strong message
ABN Amro shareholders sent a strong message to the Dutch firm's management by approving a motion tabled by a well-known hedge fund, The Children's Investment Fund (TCI).
It proposed that ABN should "actively pursue any possibility to sell some or all of the major businesses of the company to maximise shareholder value".
The vote came during an unruly meeting in The Hague, where the head of the Netherland's shareholders rights association, Peter de Vries, had to be escorted from the stage by security guards.
Mr de Vries threatened to take the company's management to court if plans to sell ABN's US operations, LaSalle, to Bank of America went ahead.
The sale, made without seeking the consent of ABN's investors, was seen by many as a deliberate attempt to halt a bid from the RBS-led group.
But chief executive Rijkman Groenink defended the $21bn sale of LaSalle as a strategic move ahead of a US economic downturn.
'Price not the only thing that counts'
Mr Groenink also said that nothing was stopping RBS and its allies from making a counter-bid for LaSalle or all of ABN Amro.
But he insisted the deal with Barclays was in the best interests of both investors and the company.
"Price isn't the only thing that counts," Mr Groenink said. "As human beings and responsible citizens... we have the obligation to look farther than the last quarter."
Yet, under shareholder pressure, ABN said it would allow the Royal Bank of Scotland group to examine its books ahead of the meeting, setting the stage for a hostile battle takeover battle for the Dutch bank.
The RBS group has proposed a bid for ABN of 39 euros per share, compared with 36.25 euros per share offered by Barclays.
Facing its own investors earlier in the day, Barclays chief executive John Varley said its offer would create one of the most powerful banks in the world, valued at £94bn.
"It's very clear what ABN Amro want," he added.
This vote, at an unusually heated shareholder meeting of ABN Amro, could result in the bank's break-up.
ABN Amro's managers are in favour of a proposed £45bn (66bn euro; $90bn) takeover bid by British rival Barclays.
However, UK bank RBS, Spain's Santander and Belgium's Fortis have mooted a £49bn bid, that would see the Dutch bank's assets split among the three.
So far the RBS-led consortium has not yet put forward a formal bid.
But whoever wins the looming bid battle, the takeover is likely to result in thousands of job cuts.
Strong message
ABN Amro shareholders sent a strong message to the Dutch firm's management by approving a motion tabled by a well-known hedge fund, The Children's Investment Fund (TCI).
It proposed that ABN should "actively pursue any possibility to sell some or all of the major businesses of the company to maximise shareholder value".
The vote came during an unruly meeting in The Hague, where the head of the Netherland's shareholders rights association, Peter de Vries, had to be escorted from the stage by security guards.
Mr de Vries threatened to take the company's management to court if plans to sell ABN's US operations, LaSalle, to Bank of America went ahead.
The sale, made without seeking the consent of ABN's investors, was seen by many as a deliberate attempt to halt a bid from the RBS-led group.
But chief executive Rijkman Groenink defended the $21bn sale of LaSalle as a strategic move ahead of a US economic downturn.
'Price not the only thing that counts'
Mr Groenink also said that nothing was stopping RBS and its allies from making a counter-bid for LaSalle or all of ABN Amro.
But he insisted the deal with Barclays was in the best interests of both investors and the company.
"Price isn't the only thing that counts," Mr Groenink said. "As human beings and responsible citizens... we have the obligation to look farther than the last quarter."
Yet, under shareholder pressure, ABN said it would allow the Royal Bank of Scotland group to examine its books ahead of the meeting, setting the stage for a hostile battle takeover battle for the Dutch bank.
The RBS group has proposed a bid for ABN of 39 euros per share, compared with 36.25 euros per share offered by Barclays.
Facing its own investors earlier in the day, Barclays chief executive John Varley said its offer would create one of the most powerful banks in the world, valued at £94bn.
"It's very clear what ABN Amro want," he added.
Siemens Chief Says He Will Step Down
FRANKFURT, April 25 — The embattled chief executive of Siemens, Klaus Kleinfeld, said Wednesday that he would step down when his contract expired in September, the latest casualty in a widening corruption scandal that has shaken corporate Germany.
Events at Siemens, a giant engineering company and manufacturer, have generated headlines and radio and television reports in a country where corruption was rarely discussed, spurring debate about how German companies do business.
“In times like these,” Mr. Kleinfeld said in a statement, “the company needs clarity about its leadership. I have therefore decided not to make myself available for an extension of my contract.”
His decision followed a meeting on Wednesday of the Siemens supervisory board, where the matter of his contract had long been on the agenda. Until days ago, there was little question that Mr. Kleinfeld, 49, would be retained in the job he had held the last two years.
But the 20-member board, which represents major shareholders and labor unions, rapidly turned against Mr. Kleinfeld as the scandal deepened and members saw a need for a fresh start.
The resignation came six days after Heinrich von Pierer, a senior industrialist who led Siemens from 1992 to 2005, announced that he would quit as chairman of the supervisory board to help Siemens return to “calmer waters.”
Both men have denied any wrongdoing. Siemens said Wednesday that independent investigations to date by the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton “have found no indications of personal misconduct or that Kleinfeld had any knowledge of events related to the affairs.”
To some extent, Siemens is a victim of a shift in the ethical climate of corporate Germany: bribery of foreign officials had been tax-deductible in this country until 1999. Mr. Kleinfeld’s downfall may be an indication that standards are indeed changing rapidly.
In this case, some Siemens board members, who have been caught up in scandals elsewhere, appear reluctant to take actions — like standing behind a chief executive — that might later call into question their own oversight.
Investors reacted to the news by selling Siemens stock on Wednesday. Shares slid 0.9 percent in Frankfurt, to 88.36 euros ($120.52), reversing earlier gains. Later in the day in New York, Siemens’ American depository receipts fell $6.67, or more than 5 percent, to $117.75. The share price had risen nearly 50 percent during Mr. Kleinfeld’s tenure.
The Siemens board will now search for a successor to Mr. Kleinfeld, who had been hand-picked by Mr. von Pierer.
Any insider is at risk of being ensnared in the scandal as investigations unfold. An outsider would need time to get a grip on a vast company that employs 475,000 and makes home appliances, computers and power plants.
“It would mean six months of stagnation at Siemens,” said Daniela Bergdolt, head of the Bavarian division of a private investors’ association, DSW.
German news reports have focused on Wolfgang Reitzle, a former executive at BMW and Ford who is chief executive of Linde, a producer of industrial gases that is based, like Siemens, in Munich.
Mr. Reitzle has turned around Linde by spinning off units, and led the recent acquisition of a larger rival, the BOC Group of Britain. He is close to Josef Ackermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank and the Siemens supervisory board member who reportedly led the opposition to renewing Mr. Kleinfeld’s contract.
Uwe Wolfinger, a spokesman for Linde, said Mr. Reitzle “would remain as Linde’s chief.”
Accusations of corruption at Siemens began last autumn, when Munich prosecutors began investigating reports that more than $500 million in bribes had been paid to foreign officials in the preceding seven years by Siemens’ communications unit. The company is also involved in a bribery case involving an Italian energy company.
Problems escalated for Mr. Kleinfeld, and for Mr. von Pierer, last month when prosecutors arrested Johannes Feldmayer, a member of the Siemens board of management and the second-highest-paid executive after Mr. Kleinfeld.
Mr. Feldmayer was accused of funneling corporate money to finance an independent labor union that is perceived as friendly to management and at times acted as a counterweight to IG Metall, the large and powerful German labor union.
Officials at IG Metall, which holds nearly half the seats on the Siemens supervisory board, were enraged and brought charges against the company for breaking German law. Labor representatives of large German companies hold half the board seats.
The union was a leading force pressing for the resignation of Mr. von Pierer, and it made clear that Mr. Kleinfeld would also have to go to give Siemens a fresh start.
Mr. Kleinfeld had also hurt his relationship with the union by pressing ahead with plans to sell the company’s auto parts unit, VDO, a move investors applauded but that cost him support on the board.
Mr. Von Pierer’s successor as chairman is Gerhard Cromme, a champion of good corporate governance in Germany and the first outsider to head the board. He took up that role at the meeting on Wednesday.
Siemens board members were unwilling to extend Mr. Kleinfeld’s contract while the independent investigation was still being carried out because they feared that Mr. Kleinfeld was at risk of being entangled in the scandals. Analysts said that after Mr. von Pierer resigned, it would be just a matter of time before more heads rolled.
Mr. von Pierer’s last words to the company, in a memo to employees, called for “decisive action.”
In an effort to save his job, Mr. Kleinfeld released quarterly earnings figures late Tuesday, two days earlier than planned, to underscore the company’s financial health. Net income rose 36 percent, more than analysts had predicted.
“In times like these,” Mr. Kleinfeld said in a statement, “the company needs clarity about its leadership. I have therefore decided not to make myself available for an extension of my contract.”
His decision followed a meeting on Wednesday of the Siemens supervisory board, where the matter of his contract had long been on the agenda. Until days ago, there was little question that Mr. Kleinfeld, 49, would be retained in the job he had held the last two years.
But the 20-member board, which represents major shareholders and labor unions, rapidly turned against Mr. Kleinfeld as the scandal deepened and members saw a need for a fresh start.
The resignation came six days after Heinrich von Pierer, a senior industrialist who led Siemens from 1992 to 2005, announced that he would quit as chairman of the supervisory board to help Siemens return to “calmer waters.”
Both men have denied any wrongdoing. Siemens said Wednesday that independent investigations to date by the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton “have found no indications of personal misconduct or that Kleinfeld had any knowledge of events related to the affairs.”
To some extent, Siemens is a victim of a shift in the ethical climate of corporate Germany: bribery of foreign officials had been tax-deductible in this country until 1999. Mr. Kleinfeld’s downfall may be an indication that standards are indeed changing rapidly.
In this case, some Siemens board members, who have been caught up in scandals elsewhere, appear reluctant to take actions — like standing behind a chief executive — that might later call into question their own oversight.
Investors reacted to the news by selling Siemens stock on Wednesday. Shares slid 0.9 percent in Frankfurt, to 88.36 euros ($120.52), reversing earlier gains. Later in the day in New York, Siemens’ American depository receipts fell $6.67, or more than 5 percent, to $117.75. The share price had risen nearly 50 percent during Mr. Kleinfeld’s tenure.
The Siemens board will now search for a successor to Mr. Kleinfeld, who had been hand-picked by Mr. von Pierer.
Any insider is at risk of being ensnared in the scandal as investigations unfold. An outsider would need time to get a grip on a vast company that employs 475,000 and makes home appliances, computers and power plants.
“It would mean six months of stagnation at Siemens,” said Daniela Bergdolt, head of the Bavarian division of a private investors’ association, DSW.
German news reports have focused on Wolfgang Reitzle, a former executive at BMW and Ford who is chief executive of Linde, a producer of industrial gases that is based, like Siemens, in Munich.
Mr. Reitzle has turned around Linde by spinning off units, and led the recent acquisition of a larger rival, the BOC Group of Britain. He is close to Josef Ackermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank and the Siemens supervisory board member who reportedly led the opposition to renewing Mr. Kleinfeld’s contract.
Uwe Wolfinger, a spokesman for Linde, said Mr. Reitzle “would remain as Linde’s chief.”
Accusations of corruption at Siemens began last autumn, when Munich prosecutors began investigating reports that more than $500 million in bribes had been paid to foreign officials in the preceding seven years by Siemens’ communications unit. The company is also involved in a bribery case involving an Italian energy company.
Problems escalated for Mr. Kleinfeld, and for Mr. von Pierer, last month when prosecutors arrested Johannes Feldmayer, a member of the Siemens board of management and the second-highest-paid executive after Mr. Kleinfeld.
Mr. Feldmayer was accused of funneling corporate money to finance an independent labor union that is perceived as friendly to management and at times acted as a counterweight to IG Metall, the large and powerful German labor union.
Officials at IG Metall, which holds nearly half the seats on the Siemens supervisory board, were enraged and brought charges against the company for breaking German law. Labor representatives of large German companies hold half the board seats.
The union was a leading force pressing for the resignation of Mr. von Pierer, and it made clear that Mr. Kleinfeld would also have to go to give Siemens a fresh start.
Mr. Kleinfeld had also hurt his relationship with the union by pressing ahead with plans to sell the company’s auto parts unit, VDO, a move investors applauded but that cost him support on the board.
Mr. Von Pierer’s successor as chairman is Gerhard Cromme, a champion of good corporate governance in Germany and the first outsider to head the board. He took up that role at the meeting on Wednesday.
Siemens board members were unwilling to extend Mr. Kleinfeld’s contract while the independent investigation was still being carried out because they feared that Mr. Kleinfeld was at risk of being entangled in the scandals. Analysts said that after Mr. von Pierer resigned, it would be just a matter of time before more heads rolled.
Mr. von Pierer’s last words to the company, in a memo to employees, called for “decisive action.”
In an effort to save his job, Mr. Kleinfeld released quarterly earnings figures late Tuesday, two days earlier than planned, to underscore the company’s financial health. Net income rose 36 percent, more than analysts had predicted.
woensdag 25 april 2007
New Planet Could Be Earthlike, Scientists Say
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: April 25, 2007
The most enticing property yet found outside our solar system is about 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra, a team of European astronomers said yesterday.
The astronomers have discovered a planet five times as massive as the Earth orbiting a dim red star known as Gliese 581.
It is the smallest of the 200 or so planets that are known to exist outside of our solar system, the extrasolar or exo-planets. It orbits its home star within the so-called habitable zone where surface water, the staff of life, could exist if other conditions are right, said Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory.
“We are at the right place for that,” said Dr. Udry, the lead author of a paper describing the discovery that has been submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
But he and other astronomers cautioned that it was far too soon to conclude that liquid water was there without more observations. Sara Seager, a planet expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, “For example, if the planet had an atmosphere more massive than Venus’s, then the surface would likely be too hot for liquid water.”
Nevertheless, the discovery in the Gliese 581 system, where a Neptune-size planet was discovered two years ago and another planet of eight Earth masses is now suspected, catapults that system to the top of the list for future generations of space missions.
“On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X,” said Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University in France, according to a news release from the European Southern Observatory, a multinational collaboration based in Garching, Germany.
Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who studies the structure and formation of planets, said: “It’s 20 light-years. We can go there.”
The new planet was discovered by the wobble it causes in its home star’s motion as it orbits, using the method by which most of the known exo-planets have been discovered. Dr. Udry’s team used an advanced spectrograph on a 141-inch-diameter telescope at the European observatory in La Silla, Chile.
The planet, Gliese 581c, circles the star every 13 days at a distance of about seven million miles. According to models of planet formation developed by Dr. Sasselov and his colleagues, such a planet should be about half again as large as the Earth and composed of rock and water, what the astronomers now call a “super Earth.”
The most exciting part of the find, Dr. Sasselov said, is that it “basically tells you these kinds of planets are very common.” Because they could stay geologically active for billions of years, he said he suspected that such planets could be even more congenial for life than Earth. Although the new planet is much closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun, the red dwarf Gliese 581 is only about a hundredth as luminous as the Sun. So seven million miles is a comfortable huddling distance.
How hot the planet gets, Dr. Udry said, depends on how much light the planet reflects, its albedo. Using the Earth and Venus as two extreme examples, he estimated that temperatures on the surface of the planet should be in the range of 0 degrees to 40 degrees centigrade.
“It’s just right in the good range,” Dr. Udry said. “Of course, we don’t know anything about its albedo.”
One problem is that the wobble technique only gives masses of planets. To measure their actual size and thus find their densities, astronomers have to catch the planets in the act of passing in front of or behind their stars. Such transits can also reveal if the planets have atmospheres and what they are made of.
Dr. Udry said he and Dr. Sasselov would be observing the Gliese system with a Canadian space telescope named MOST to see if there are any dips in starlight caused by the new planet. Failing that, they said, the best chance for more information about the system lies with the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a NASA mission, and the Darwin missions of the European Space Agency, which are designed to study Earthlike planets, but have been delayed by political, technical and financial difficulties.
“We are starting to count the first targets,” Dr. Udry said.
Published: April 25, 2007
The most enticing property yet found outside our solar system is about 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra, a team of European astronomers said yesterday.
The astronomers have discovered a planet five times as massive as the Earth orbiting a dim red star known as Gliese 581.
It is the smallest of the 200 or so planets that are known to exist outside of our solar system, the extrasolar or exo-planets. It orbits its home star within the so-called habitable zone where surface water, the staff of life, could exist if other conditions are right, said Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory.
“We are at the right place for that,” said Dr. Udry, the lead author of a paper describing the discovery that has been submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
But he and other astronomers cautioned that it was far too soon to conclude that liquid water was there without more observations. Sara Seager, a planet expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, “For example, if the planet had an atmosphere more massive than Venus’s, then the surface would likely be too hot for liquid water.”
Nevertheless, the discovery in the Gliese 581 system, where a Neptune-size planet was discovered two years ago and another planet of eight Earth masses is now suspected, catapults that system to the top of the list for future generations of space missions.
“On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X,” said Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University in France, according to a news release from the European Southern Observatory, a multinational collaboration based in Garching, Germany.
Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who studies the structure and formation of planets, said: “It’s 20 light-years. We can go there.”
The new planet was discovered by the wobble it causes in its home star’s motion as it orbits, using the method by which most of the known exo-planets have been discovered. Dr. Udry’s team used an advanced spectrograph on a 141-inch-diameter telescope at the European observatory in La Silla, Chile.
The planet, Gliese 581c, circles the star every 13 days at a distance of about seven million miles. According to models of planet formation developed by Dr. Sasselov and his colleagues, such a planet should be about half again as large as the Earth and composed of rock and water, what the astronomers now call a “super Earth.”
The most exciting part of the find, Dr. Sasselov said, is that it “basically tells you these kinds of planets are very common.” Because they could stay geologically active for billions of years, he said he suspected that such planets could be even more congenial for life than Earth. Although the new planet is much closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun, the red dwarf Gliese 581 is only about a hundredth as luminous as the Sun. So seven million miles is a comfortable huddling distance.
How hot the planet gets, Dr. Udry said, depends on how much light the planet reflects, its albedo. Using the Earth and Venus as two extreme examples, he estimated that temperatures on the surface of the planet should be in the range of 0 degrees to 40 degrees centigrade.
“It’s just right in the good range,” Dr. Udry said. “Of course, we don’t know anything about its albedo.”
One problem is that the wobble technique only gives masses of planets. To measure their actual size and thus find their densities, astronomers have to catch the planets in the act of passing in front of or behind their stars. Such transits can also reveal if the planets have atmospheres and what they are made of.
Dr. Udry said he and Dr. Sasselov would be observing the Gliese system with a Canadian space telescope named MOST to see if there are any dips in starlight caused by the new planet. Failing that, they said, the best chance for more information about the system lies with the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a NASA mission, and the Darwin missions of the European Space Agency, which are designed to study Earthlike planets, but have been delayed by political, technical and financial difficulties.
“We are starting to count the first targets,” Dr. Udry said.
Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort
Eli Broad and Bill Gates, two of the most important philanthropists in American public education, have pumped more than $2 billion into improving schools. But now, dissatisfied with the pace of change, they are joining forces for a $60 million foray into politics in an effort to vault education high onto the agenda of the 2008 presidential race.
Experts on campaign spending said the project would rank as one of the most expensive single-issue initiatives ever in a presidential race, dwarfing, for example, the $22.4 million that the Swift Vets and P.O.W.s for Truth group spent against Senator John Kerry in 2004, and the $7.8 million spent on advocacy that year by AARP, the lobby for older Americans.
Under the slogan “Ed in ’08,” the project, called Strong American Schools, will include television and radio advertising in battleground states, an Internet-driven appeal for volunteers and a national network of operatives in both parties.
“I have reached the conclusion as has the Gates foundation, which has done good things also, that all we’re doing is incremental,” said Mr. Broad, the billionaire who founded SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home and who has long been a prodigious donor to Democrats. “If we really want to get the job done, we have got to wake up the American people that we have got a real problem and we need real reform.”
Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, responding to questions by e-mail, wrote, “The lack of political and public will is a significant barrier to making dramatic improvements in school and student performance.”
The project will not endorse candidates — indeed, it is illegal to do so as a charitable group — but will instead focus on three main areas: a call for stronger, more consistent curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening the school day and year; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures.
While the effort is shying away from some of the most polarizing topics in education, like vouchers, charter schools and racial integration, there is still room for it to spark vigorous debate. Advocating merit pay to reward high-quality teaching could force Democratic candidates to take a stand typically opposed by the teachers unions who are their strong supporters.
Pushing for stronger, more uniform standards, on the other hand, could force Republican candidates to discuss the potential merits of a national curriculum, a concept advocates for states’ rights deeply oppose and one that President Bush has not embraced.
The initiative will be announced today in South Carolina, a day before the first Democratic debate. Similar publicity is scheduled for the first Republican debate early next month in Simi Valley, Calif.
Mr. Bush made education a major theme in 2000, paving the way for the No Child Left Behind law and its emphasis on testing. In 1992, President Bill Clinton proposed an array of education initiatives. But this year the issue is overshadowed by the war in Iraq, terrorism and health care.
“Right now it’s too low on the list of priorities for all the candidates,” Mr. Broad said, “and our job is to get it up on the list.”
The project’s first print advertisement addresses the national focus head on, showing a student misspelling “A histery of Irak” on a blackboard. “Debating Iraq is tough,” the advertisement says. “Spelling it shouldn’t be. America’s schools are falling behind. It’s a crisis that takes leadership to solve. So to all presidential candidates we say, ‘What’s your plan to fix our schools?’ ”
The effort will be directed by Roy Romer, the former Democratic governor of Colorado and the recent superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, and by Marc Lampkin, a Republican lobbyist and former deputy campaign manager for Mr. Bush. It will be financed by the billionaires’ respective foundations, which they established with their wives, Melinda Gates and Edythe L. Broad. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far larger, having disbursed $1.8 billion in education grants compared with $250 million by the Broad Foundation.
Mr. Broad has long been a major political donor, primarily to Democrats, and has been particularly well known as a friend and supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He has contributed personally to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as well as to other Democratic candidates.
Mr. Gates also gives handsomely, though to campaigns in both parties. The two men emphasized that their education advocacy was nonpartisan.
Supporters of the project also include Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska; Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman; and Louis V. Gerstner, the former chief executive of I.B.M. Several of the presidential candidates yesterday applauded the billionaires’ effort, but some bristled at the notion that they were not paying sufficient attention to education.
“I think 70 days into a campaign that has yet to choose any nominees for either party, to make a sweeping kind of analysis that they are not talking about education is probably a little premature,” said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican. “If anybody goes onto the campaign trail with Governor Romney, they’ll recognize that education is an important issue to him and to voters.”
A campaign spokesman for Hillary Clinton said Mrs. Clinton was pleased that the issue would get “much-needed attention.”
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate who has proposed legislation calling for tougher and more uniform education standards, issued a statement praising the Strong American Schools effort. “I look forward to including elements of the Gates-Broad initiative in the current dialogue on how to improve our nation’s schools,” Mr. Dodd said.
Bill Hogan, a senior fellow at the Center for Public Integrity and director of the Buying of the President 2008 project, which is scrutinizing the influence of money in the campaign, said the new effort could prove remarkable in its spending level.
“If we are talking about efforts in presidential campaigns to promote discussion or debate of an issue, there has been nothing like this,” Mr. Hogan said. “This would be off the charts.”
Experts on campaign spending said the project would rank as one of the most expensive single-issue initiatives ever in a presidential race, dwarfing, for example, the $22.4 million that the Swift Vets and P.O.W.s for Truth group spent against Senator John Kerry in 2004, and the $7.8 million spent on advocacy that year by AARP, the lobby for older Americans.
Under the slogan “Ed in ’08,” the project, called Strong American Schools, will include television and radio advertising in battleground states, an Internet-driven appeal for volunteers and a national network of operatives in both parties.
“I have reached the conclusion as has the Gates foundation, which has done good things also, that all we’re doing is incremental,” said Mr. Broad, the billionaire who founded SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home and who has long been a prodigious donor to Democrats. “If we really want to get the job done, we have got to wake up the American people that we have got a real problem and we need real reform.”
Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, responding to questions by e-mail, wrote, “The lack of political and public will is a significant barrier to making dramatic improvements in school and student performance.”
The project will not endorse candidates — indeed, it is illegal to do so as a charitable group — but will instead focus on three main areas: a call for stronger, more consistent curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening the school day and year; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures.
While the effort is shying away from some of the most polarizing topics in education, like vouchers, charter schools and racial integration, there is still room for it to spark vigorous debate. Advocating merit pay to reward high-quality teaching could force Democratic candidates to take a stand typically opposed by the teachers unions who are their strong supporters.
Pushing for stronger, more uniform standards, on the other hand, could force Republican candidates to discuss the potential merits of a national curriculum, a concept advocates for states’ rights deeply oppose and one that President Bush has not embraced.
The initiative will be announced today in South Carolina, a day before the first Democratic debate. Similar publicity is scheduled for the first Republican debate early next month in Simi Valley, Calif.
Mr. Bush made education a major theme in 2000, paving the way for the No Child Left Behind law and its emphasis on testing. In 1992, President Bill Clinton proposed an array of education initiatives. But this year the issue is overshadowed by the war in Iraq, terrorism and health care.
“Right now it’s too low on the list of priorities for all the candidates,” Mr. Broad said, “and our job is to get it up on the list.”
The project’s first print advertisement addresses the national focus head on, showing a student misspelling “A histery of Irak” on a blackboard. “Debating Iraq is tough,” the advertisement says. “Spelling it shouldn’t be. America’s schools are falling behind. It’s a crisis that takes leadership to solve. So to all presidential candidates we say, ‘What’s your plan to fix our schools?’ ”
The effort will be directed by Roy Romer, the former Democratic governor of Colorado and the recent superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, and by Marc Lampkin, a Republican lobbyist and former deputy campaign manager for Mr. Bush. It will be financed by the billionaires’ respective foundations, which they established with their wives, Melinda Gates and Edythe L. Broad. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far larger, having disbursed $1.8 billion in education grants compared with $250 million by the Broad Foundation.
Mr. Broad has long been a major political donor, primarily to Democrats, and has been particularly well known as a friend and supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He has contributed personally to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as well as to other Democratic candidates.
Mr. Gates also gives handsomely, though to campaigns in both parties. The two men emphasized that their education advocacy was nonpartisan.
Supporters of the project also include Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska; Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman; and Louis V. Gerstner, the former chief executive of I.B.M. Several of the presidential candidates yesterday applauded the billionaires’ effort, but some bristled at the notion that they were not paying sufficient attention to education.
“I think 70 days into a campaign that has yet to choose any nominees for either party, to make a sweeping kind of analysis that they are not talking about education is probably a little premature,” said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican. “If anybody goes onto the campaign trail with Governor Romney, they’ll recognize that education is an important issue to him and to voters.”
A campaign spokesman for Hillary Clinton said Mrs. Clinton was pleased that the issue would get “much-needed attention.”
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate who has proposed legislation calling for tougher and more uniform education standards, issued a statement praising the Strong American Schools effort. “I look forward to including elements of the Gates-Broad initiative in the current dialogue on how to improve our nation’s schools,” Mr. Dodd said.
Bill Hogan, a senior fellow at the Center for Public Integrity and director of the Buying of the President 2008 project, which is scrutinizing the influence of money in the campaign, said the new effort could prove remarkable in its spending level.
“If we are talking about efforts in presidential campaigns to promote discussion or debate of an issue, there has been nothing like this,” Mr. Hogan said. “This would be off the charts.”
The 30-bet Rule
When I first started playing poker, my big brother gave me a great piece of advice. He told me to never lose more than 30 big bets in a game, give or take. That means I shouldn't lose more than $180 in a $3-$6 game, $600 in a $10-$20 game and so on. What a great piece of advice that was, one of the most important he ever gave me for money management, so I'm going to pass it on to you here: "Don't ever go off for more than 30 big bets in a poker game!"When you are first starting out as a poker player it is very difficult to judge whether you are a good player or a bad one. Until you have a lot of experience and table hours under your belt there is no way for you to effectively judge your skill level. More importantly, until you have played a lot of hours it is difficult for you to judge your level of skill compared to the other players at your table. One thing the 30 bet rule does for you is limit your losses in games where you might be the sucker. Until you are able to accurately judge how you play compared to others in your game, loss limiting with the 30 bet rule effectively stops you from dumping off large sums of money in games you may not be able to beat. This is always a good strategy for bankroll health!Even if you have enough experience and table hours to judge whether you are good, better or worse than the game you have chosen, loss limiting is still a good strategy. When we are losing it is difficult to accurately judge exactly how much losing affects our play. Even great champions will often be in a game they could generally beat soundly but because they are losing. They become a dog to the game and don't realize it. When you are losing, your table image erodes and table image is very important to how much money you can take out of a game. Other players are also more likely to play hands strong and fast against you, bluff at you and generally will be more likely to run you down which will take away your ability to bluff. All of this really eats into your earnings.Not only will your table image erode when you are losing but your skills will erode as well! As you go into the mindset of wanting to reduce your loss on losing hands you will play hands softer than called for, back off hands, and won't raise when appropriate. And we all know that passive play is a recipe for losing play. Losing generally makes us all more passive. Yet, there are those of us who steam... we chase hands we would normally fold or play hands we would normally never get involved in and the like. Steaming is another recipe for losing.By limiting your losses to 30 big bets, you are effectively minimizing the time you spend playing with a poor table image, playing passively, or steaming at the table and maximizing the amount of time you spend playing your A-game. If you don't go beyond 30 big bets, you won't dump off large sums when you are playing poorly or are in a bad game and might not be able to soundly assess your circumstances. Loss limiting acts as an objective stop-gap.So always listen to big brother... keep your losses small!
In Las Vegas, Too Many Hotels Are Never Enough
A model of a new tower in the CityCenter development in Las Vegas. MGM, which is building it, calls it the most expensive privately funded project in American history. LAS VEGAS — Stephen A. Wynn, the hotel and gambling impresario, still remembers the first time he was asked if he and other developers had lost their minds building so many casino hotels here. It was the mid-1970s, when Las Vegas had about 35,000 rooms.
Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
CityCenter, a mini-city bordering the Las Vegas strip, will feature six towering buildings that reach as high as 61 stories, including a 4,000-room hotel, over 67 acres.
He was asked that same question in the 1980s, while building the 3,000-room Mirage, and again in the early 1990s. By that time Las Vegas was home to more hotel rooms — 106,000 — than any other city in the country.
And so now, with Las Vegas in the midst of another big building boom, Mr. Wynn only shrugs when people suggest that the nation’s premier gambling center, with 151,000 rooms and counting, simply cannot absorb any more new hotels.
Ever since the mobster Bugsy Siegel opened the first modern hotel casino here in 1946, the surest means for gaining attention has been to one-up the competition by building an even more monstrously immense pleasure palace.
But even Las Vegas has never witnessed anything quite like what is going on today.
“This is the most outrageous, over-the-top expansion” ever, Mr. Wynn said.
Americans — and an increasing number of foreigners — can’t seem to get enough of Las Vegas. The current construction craze is driven by a 95 percent weekend occupancy rate — and rates that approach 100 percent at the city’s newer properties. Last year, even the weekday rate fell just shy of 90 percent, partly because of the city’s success in positioning itself as an attractive convention destination.
Fueling the current boom as well are the enticing riches to be made catering to a new kind of guest: aging boomers entering the empty-nest phase of their free-spending lives.
And contrary to some predictions, the opening of American Indian casinos and other gambling outposts in more than 30 states has not hurt Las Vegas.
Far from it. The smaller, more prosaic gambling halls stretched across the country have actually helped the boom, casino executives say, serving as a kind of a feeder system for Las Vegas as people gain a taste for gambling and then aspire to a touch of the big time. The soaring popularity of poker has also helped drive growth as the game has drawn a younger crowd to the city.
“I suppose one day Las Vegas will reach its limit,” said Anthony Curtis, president of LasVegasAdvisor.com, a local travel site. “But that day is nowhere in sight.”
Consider the Venetian, which already ranks as the sixth-biggest hotel in the world and the fourth largest in Las Vegas, home to 15 of the 20 largest on the planet. This colossus will assume the top spot once it opens a 3,200-suite tower, now under construction, that will bring its room count to more than 7,000.
Another development, Echelon Place, will have more than 5,000 rooms when it is built on the site of the old Stardust, which its owners demolished last month. The MGM currently ranks as the largest hotel in Las Vegas — and the world — with 5,000 rooms.
At $4.4 billion, Echelon Place would rank as the most expensive development in Las Vegas history — if not for the $7 billion the MGM Mirage is spending on CityCenter. That price is far more than the previous record, set when Mr. Wynn and his financial backers spent $2.7 billion building the 2,700-room Wynn, which opened in 2005.
Even competitors marvel at the scope of the CityCenter project, which MGM calls the most expensive privately financed project in American history. This minicity bordering the Las Vegas Strip will feature six towering buildings that reach as high as 61 stories. Covering 67 acres, it will include a 4,000-room hotel, a sprawling convention center, a half million square feet of retail space and 2,700 condominium units.
The changing demographics have led the designers of the new Vegas to push a sleek and modern aesthetic, along with amenities like luxurious spas, in place of the gilt and gaudy properties that reigned in the 1980s and 1990s. But their owners’ ambitions are greater than ever.
“The building we’re seeing right now,” said Gary Loveman, chief executive of Harrah’s, which operates half a dozen casinos on the Las Vegas strip, “is by leaps and bounds bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.”
For a long time, Harrah’s had only one major casino in Las Vegas. “One of my predecessors was convinced in the late 1980s, early 1990s, that Las Vegas was overbuilt,” Mr. Loveman said. “That turned out to be a wrong call. Spectacularly wrong.”
Even more than hotel construction, a boom in condominium development has increased the number of construction cranes crowding the skies.
Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
CityCenter, a mini-city bordering the Las Vegas strip, will feature six towering buildings that reach as high as 61 stories, including a 4,000-room hotel, over 67 acres.
He was asked that same question in the 1980s, while building the 3,000-room Mirage, and again in the early 1990s. By that time Las Vegas was home to more hotel rooms — 106,000 — than any other city in the country.
And so now, with Las Vegas in the midst of another big building boom, Mr. Wynn only shrugs when people suggest that the nation’s premier gambling center, with 151,000 rooms and counting, simply cannot absorb any more new hotels.
Ever since the mobster Bugsy Siegel opened the first modern hotel casino here in 1946, the surest means for gaining attention has been to one-up the competition by building an even more monstrously immense pleasure palace.
But even Las Vegas has never witnessed anything quite like what is going on today.
“This is the most outrageous, over-the-top expansion” ever, Mr. Wynn said.
Americans — and an increasing number of foreigners — can’t seem to get enough of Las Vegas. The current construction craze is driven by a 95 percent weekend occupancy rate — and rates that approach 100 percent at the city’s newer properties. Last year, even the weekday rate fell just shy of 90 percent, partly because of the city’s success in positioning itself as an attractive convention destination.
Fueling the current boom as well are the enticing riches to be made catering to a new kind of guest: aging boomers entering the empty-nest phase of their free-spending lives.
And contrary to some predictions, the opening of American Indian casinos and other gambling outposts in more than 30 states has not hurt Las Vegas.
Far from it. The smaller, more prosaic gambling halls stretched across the country have actually helped the boom, casino executives say, serving as a kind of a feeder system for Las Vegas as people gain a taste for gambling and then aspire to a touch of the big time. The soaring popularity of poker has also helped drive growth as the game has drawn a younger crowd to the city.
“I suppose one day Las Vegas will reach its limit,” said Anthony Curtis, president of LasVegasAdvisor.com, a local travel site. “But that day is nowhere in sight.”
Consider the Venetian, which already ranks as the sixth-biggest hotel in the world and the fourth largest in Las Vegas, home to 15 of the 20 largest on the planet. This colossus will assume the top spot once it opens a 3,200-suite tower, now under construction, that will bring its room count to more than 7,000.
Another development, Echelon Place, will have more than 5,000 rooms when it is built on the site of the old Stardust, which its owners demolished last month. The MGM currently ranks as the largest hotel in Las Vegas — and the world — with 5,000 rooms.
At $4.4 billion, Echelon Place would rank as the most expensive development in Las Vegas history — if not for the $7 billion the MGM Mirage is spending on CityCenter. That price is far more than the previous record, set when Mr. Wynn and his financial backers spent $2.7 billion building the 2,700-room Wynn, which opened in 2005.
Even competitors marvel at the scope of the CityCenter project, which MGM calls the most expensive privately financed project in American history. This minicity bordering the Las Vegas Strip will feature six towering buildings that reach as high as 61 stories. Covering 67 acres, it will include a 4,000-room hotel, a sprawling convention center, a half million square feet of retail space and 2,700 condominium units.
The changing demographics have led the designers of the new Vegas to push a sleek and modern aesthetic, along with amenities like luxurious spas, in place of the gilt and gaudy properties that reigned in the 1980s and 1990s. But their owners’ ambitions are greater than ever.
“The building we’re seeing right now,” said Gary Loveman, chief executive of Harrah’s, which operates half a dozen casinos on the Las Vegas strip, “is by leaps and bounds bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.”
For a long time, Harrah’s had only one major casino in Las Vegas. “One of my predecessors was convinced in the late 1980s, early 1990s, that Las Vegas was overbuilt,” Mr. Loveman said. “That turned out to be a wrong call. Spectacularly wrong.”
Even more than hotel construction, a boom in condominium development has increased the number of construction cranes crowding the skies.
Developers, including Donald J. Trump and Florida-based Turnberry Associates, are collectively spending billions of dollars building condo towers on or near the Strip, adding thousands of units even as the local real estate market, like much of the country, has been mired in a downturn.
But MGM and other developers see themselves as competing for buyers far beyond the Las Vegas market. “We see these as third homes,” said Alan M. Feldman, a spokesman for MGM.
Data provided by the National Association of Realtors indicated that the median price of a condo in the Las Vegas metropolitan area fell by 3 percent in the second half of 2006.
In a perverse way, though, the city’s current boom helped developers here avoid the kind of frantic overbuilding that plagues condominium developers and condo owners in cities like Miami and Washington. John Restrepo of the Restrepo Consulting Group, a real estate firm based here, said that a “gold rush fever” had swept through the Las Vegas condo market, with more than 100 luxury condo projects, totaling 72,000 units, announced since 2005.
But escalating land prices and a steep rise in construction costs, Mr. Restrepo said, “caused most of these guys, who were never much more than a Web site and a dream, to fade away.” Today, there are just 22 luxury condo projects, representing 10,000 units, under construction, he said, “and a large portion of those units have been sold.”
The MGM Mirage is not the only casino company venturing into the condominium business. So, too, is the Venetian, which will add a 270-unit condominium tower to its property along the Strip.
“Las Vegas has morphed from a place that is simply a casino box with rooms to rent for 23 bucks a night,” said William P. Weidner, the president of Las Vegas Sands, the parent company of the Venetian. “It is now a place with mixed-used developments which take advantage of the new Las Vegas, a multiday-stay destination and a place where increasingly people want to live.”
The scale of Las Vegas’ hotel industry and the size of its properties put other cities to shame. Even the massive 2,000-room casino resort Mr. Wynn is building next to Wynn — it would rank as New York’s largest hotel — will not crack Las Vegas’s top 15.
Not to be outdone, Fontainebleau Resorts recently announced plans for a $2.8 billion, 3,900-room resort on the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. And developer Ian Bruce Eichner has raised $3 billion to build a 3,000-unit condo-hotel, the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino, on the Strip.
[And there is the likelihood of more large-scale projects on the horizon. Yesterday, Goldman Sachs paid $1.3 billion for the four Nevada casinos owned by Carl C. Icahn’s American Real Estate Partners, including the Stratosphere Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, but also a precious 17 acres of undeveloped land on the Strip.]
Even without the new hotel properties, the 151,000 guest rooms in the extended Las Vegas area, according to Smith Travel Research, a lodging industry data broker, are nearly twice the 80,000 rooms in New York City. Orlando ranks second to Las Vegas with 111,000 rooms.
And yet Las Vegas has more new hotel rooms under construction (11,000) than any other city in the country, as well as more rooms on the drawing boards (35,000).
Tourists spent a combined $15 billion last year at the Strip’s various casino resorts. Sixty percent of that revenue — $9 billion — was from noncasino sources ranging from hotel rooms to restaurants, some as costly as New York’s best, to high-end retailers that pay dearly for a spot inside the sprawling malls that are a staple of today’s Las Vegas casino.
These revenue sources are proving enticing even to an old-line player like Boyd Gaming, a middle-market casino company that had ceded the high-end market to the likes of MGM and the Venetian. But with the announcement of its plans for the $4.4 billion Echelon Place, Boyd made clear it was going upscale, too.
“We considered a variety of options,” said Robert L. Boughner, a longtime Boyd executive who is overseeing the Echelon project. “But ultimately we concluded that there were very compelling reasons to enter the premium tier.”
Concerns over future limits on water supplies might ultimately slow development here. Eventually, tourists might tire of fighting the daily traffic jams that snarl the Strip and nearby freeways, or grow frustrated negotiating McCarran International Airport, which seems in a perpetual state of crisis.
But those problems have not hampered Las Vegas’s success so far. The city had just under 39 million visitors in 2006, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority — an 86 percent increase over the 21 million visiting the city in 1990.
And in anticipation of handling even larger hordes of tourists, McCarran is in the first year of a five-year, $4 billion makeover. Meanwhile, officials are looking into adding a second airport at Ivanpah Valley, 30 miles from Las Vegas.
“People have been predicting dating back to 1955 that Las Vegas will reach a saturation point,” said David G. Schwartz, author of “Roll the Bones,” a history of gambling, and director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “But me, I wouldn’t bet against casino growth.”
Data provided by the National Association of Realtors indicated that the median price of a condo in the Las Vegas metropolitan area fell by 3 percent in the second half of 2006.
In a perverse way, though, the city’s current boom helped developers here avoid the kind of frantic overbuilding that plagues condominium developers and condo owners in cities like Miami and Washington. John Restrepo of the Restrepo Consulting Group, a real estate firm based here, said that a “gold rush fever” had swept through the Las Vegas condo market, with more than 100 luxury condo projects, totaling 72,000 units, announced since 2005.
But escalating land prices and a steep rise in construction costs, Mr. Restrepo said, “caused most of these guys, who were never much more than a Web site and a dream, to fade away.” Today, there are just 22 luxury condo projects, representing 10,000 units, under construction, he said, “and a large portion of those units have been sold.”
The MGM Mirage is not the only casino company venturing into the condominium business. So, too, is the Venetian, which will add a 270-unit condominium tower to its property along the Strip.
“Las Vegas has morphed from a place that is simply a casino box with rooms to rent for 23 bucks a night,” said William P. Weidner, the president of Las Vegas Sands, the parent company of the Venetian. “It is now a place with mixed-used developments which take advantage of the new Las Vegas, a multiday-stay destination and a place where increasingly people want to live.”
The scale of Las Vegas’ hotel industry and the size of its properties put other cities to shame. Even the massive 2,000-room casino resort Mr. Wynn is building next to Wynn — it would rank as New York’s largest hotel — will not crack Las Vegas’s top 15.
Not to be outdone, Fontainebleau Resorts recently announced plans for a $2.8 billion, 3,900-room resort on the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. And developer Ian Bruce Eichner has raised $3 billion to build a 3,000-unit condo-hotel, the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino, on the Strip.
[And there is the likelihood of more large-scale projects on the horizon. Yesterday, Goldman Sachs paid $1.3 billion for the four Nevada casinos owned by Carl C. Icahn’s American Real Estate Partners, including the Stratosphere Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, but also a precious 17 acres of undeveloped land on the Strip.]
Even without the new hotel properties, the 151,000 guest rooms in the extended Las Vegas area, according to Smith Travel Research, a lodging industry data broker, are nearly twice the 80,000 rooms in New York City. Orlando ranks second to Las Vegas with 111,000 rooms.
And yet Las Vegas has more new hotel rooms under construction (11,000) than any other city in the country, as well as more rooms on the drawing boards (35,000).
Tourists spent a combined $15 billion last year at the Strip’s various casino resorts. Sixty percent of that revenue — $9 billion — was from noncasino sources ranging from hotel rooms to restaurants, some as costly as New York’s best, to high-end retailers that pay dearly for a spot inside the sprawling malls that are a staple of today’s Las Vegas casino.
These revenue sources are proving enticing even to an old-line player like Boyd Gaming, a middle-market casino company that had ceded the high-end market to the likes of MGM and the Venetian. But with the announcement of its plans for the $4.4 billion Echelon Place, Boyd made clear it was going upscale, too.
“We considered a variety of options,” said Robert L. Boughner, a longtime Boyd executive who is overseeing the Echelon project. “But ultimately we concluded that there were very compelling reasons to enter the premium tier.”
Concerns over future limits on water supplies might ultimately slow development here. Eventually, tourists might tire of fighting the daily traffic jams that snarl the Strip and nearby freeways, or grow frustrated negotiating McCarran International Airport, which seems in a perpetual state of crisis.
But those problems have not hampered Las Vegas’s success so far. The city had just under 39 million visitors in 2006, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority — an 86 percent increase over the 21 million visiting the city in 1990.
And in anticipation of handling even larger hordes of tourists, McCarran is in the first year of a five-year, $4 billion makeover. Meanwhile, officials are looking into adding a second airport at Ivanpah Valley, 30 miles from Las Vegas.
“People have been predicting dating back to 1955 that Las Vegas will reach a saturation point,” said David G. Schwartz, author of “Roll the Bones,” a history of gambling, and director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “But me, I wouldn’t bet against casino growth.”
WPT Championships Day 1a: The Phil Hellmuth and Jamie Gold Show
For the next week, the center of the poker universe is at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas as it plays host to the $25,000 buy-in WPT Championship event. Some of the preeminent poker players on the planet showed up for battle in a grueling test of poker acumen, metal toughness, and testicular fortitude. And when it's all over and the dust settles, the WPT will crown a new world champion as the winner will pocket over $4 million. That will be the richest prize ever awarded in a non-WSOP Main Event.The biggest names in poker all converged on the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas in hopes of making history. The structure included ninety minute levels and a starting stack of 50,000. The 304 person field on Day 1a was star-studded. Among those spotted were Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Jamie Gold, defending champion Joe Bartholdi, Victor Ramdin, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Jeff Madsen, Dan Harrington, Vinny Procopio, Fabrice Soulier, Gavin Smith, Josh "Billy Madison" Arieh, Barny Boatman, Brad Berman, T.J. Cloutier, Kristy Gazes, Rehne Pedersen, David Plastik, Haralabos Voulgaris, Harry Demetriou, Hoyt Corkins, Steve Brecher, Padraig Parkinson, Maureen Feduniak, Jason Lester, Dan Alspach, Joe Sebok, Ralph Perry, David Grey, John Gale, Scott Fischman, John Duthie, Davidson Matthew, Barry Shulman, John Bonetti, David Levi, Ben Roberts, Amnon Filippi, Doug Lee, Juha Helppi, Johnny Lodden, Roland de Wolfe, Jordan Morgan, David Williams, Rene Angelil, Marcel Luske, Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, Mike Woo, Kenna James, Ross Boatman, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, Jen Harman, John Myung, Barry Greenstein, David "The Dragon" Pham, ZeeJustin, Noah Boeken, Tuan Le, Andy Black, Brian "sbrugby" Townsend, JJ Lui, Chad Brown, "Miami" John Cernuto, Dustin "NeverWin" Woolf, Raj Patel, Danny Alaei, Ted Lawson, Eli Elezra, Capt. Tom Franklin, Robert Mizrachi, Joe Tehan, James Van Alstyne, Liz Lieu, Alan Goehring, Eric Hershler, Cyndy Violette, Jesse Jones, Johnny "World" Hennigan, Thor Hansen, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, David Sklansky, Jon Little, Vanessa Rousso, and Alex Jacob.By far the toughest table in the room had to be table #58. It was nicknamed "The Champions Table."Table #58Seat 1: Tony CousineauSeat 2: Abe MosseriSeat 3: Hoyt Corkins (2003 WPT Foxwoods Champion)Seat 4: Maureen FeduniakSeat 5: Adam Weinraub (2007 WPT Invitational Champion)Seat 6: Tuan Le (2005 WPT World Champion)Seat 7: Jamie Gold (2006 WSOP Champion)Seat 8: Francois SafieddineSeat 10: Scott Clements (2006 WSOP bracelet winner)Later in the afternoon, EPT creator John Duthie and Martin de Knijff (2004 WPT World Champion) were both moved to the table. By the end of the session, Adam Weinraub and Tuan Le would both get eliminated.Tuan Le had a tough time against Jamie Gold who dominated Le the entire day. During the first hour of the tournament, Gold badgered the table with his usual verbal bombardment, including the former WPT World Champion. Gold promptly put Le on tilt after he displayed a masterful bluff. On a board of , Le checked to Gold who moved all in. Le sat and stared at the flop for several minutes. He obviously had a mediocre hand as he went into the tank and Gold stood up. Tournament reporters and photographers all raced over to the table to capture the first big all-in hand of the day. Gold walked back and forth and asked the press if he'd be the first player eliminated if he lost the hand. When he found out that it indeed was the case he turned to Le and said, "I've got a huge hand. I don't know, if it's taking you this long maybe you have a huge hand, too. If you do have me beat it'll be an amazing call."Le mucked as Gold tabled 6c-3s for a complete bluff. Le looked stunned as Gold mentioned, "He was about a minute away from sending me home. It wasn't looking good."Phil Hellmuth, who had arrived late, heard about the amazing bluff and began talking smack with Gold who barked right back. The two eventually settled on a prop bet where Hellmuth bet Gold $5K that he would not make it to Day 2. Gold agreed and ended up winning that prop bet. Hellmuth also promised Gold $500 in cash every time that he bluffed Le. Gold did it twice and picked up an additional $1,000.Gold continued his run towards 100K after he busted Adam Weinraub. On a board of , Weinraub bet 5K and Gold re-raised to 12K."I could be lying," Gold said as he stood up and goaded Weinraub to call his bet. "I'm not going to tell you if I'm bluffing."Weinraub moved all-in and Gold quickly called as he shouted, "Yes!"He flipped over for the nuts as Weinraub showed for a set. That hand put Gold past 100K as Weinraub headed to the rail.The big story of Day 1a involved Anna Wroblewski who ended the day as the chip leader with over 211K. She was the first player to jump past the 100K and 200K mark. No one in the Fontana Room could stop the 21-year old who won a 3K event at the Bellagio earlier in the week. She won a satellite to get in, and turned an initial $300 investment into a $337K first place prize.At the WPT Championships, she quickly built up her stack when she picked off a bluff with just Ace high. She also sent two-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Madsen to the rail early. Wroblewski flopped a set of 2s as she stacked Madsen. By the end of the night, everyone in the room wanted to know more about the new wunderkind.When played ended for the night, about 220 players remain with Wroblewski as the chipleader.Noteworthy eliminations on Day 1a included Jeff Madsen, Alex Jacob, Brian "sbrugby" Townsend, Tuan Le, Chad Brown, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, T.J. Cloutier, David "The Dragon" Pham, John Gale, Doug Lee, Davidson Matthew, John Juanda, Raj Patel, Johnny "World" Hennigan, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Barry Shulman, Mike Woo, Jon Friedberg, Jordan Morgan, and Cyndy Violette.Day 1b will begin at noon on Sunday. The remaining players in both starting fields will combine on Monday. Check back in with Poker News for live updates, photos, videos, and don't forget about out Feature Hands section.
dinsdag 24 april 2007
Knowing When to Stop Playing Poker
"I tell you what, you give me half your money, we'll go out back, I'll kick you in the ass, and we'll call it a day." The words of the blackjack dealer in National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation have never seemed more real. How you wish you could actually go back to the poker table or table game and have taken this proposition. Unfortunately, we can't reel back the paradox of time.
So you are sitting at your favorite regular game with seven to nine buddies that you are on a first name basis with. Of course, you know their last names too becuase you've been playing poker with them for years, but using last names just wouldn't keep the atmosphere friendly. It's your turn and you decide to raise the last of your chips in the pot and announce "Go big or go home!" to the rest of the table. Sure enough, your buddy Rick calls your bet and you hear him mumble "I knew he was bluffing." It's time to get up... or is it?
If you recognize your problem, do you deny to it when asked? Do people say that you don't know when enough is really enough? Are you consistently losing when you are playing poker? My friend, you might have a gambling problem if you answered any of these questions with a yes.
You usually lose "just a bit" each week, but you've already lost this week's paycheck in tonights game, and last week it was "just bad cards." When are you going to stop and realize that poker might just not be for you. When are you going to grow a backbone and surprise your Friday night buddies when you don't show up?
Losing a paycheck isn't all that bad, but your gambling problem can certainly lead to other things. Before you know it you will be losing your car, home, and, some place in the process, your wife / significant other.
Lots of people don't waste time on gamblers, especially women. If you expect to be able to have a relationship and continue gambling, you might as well save the other person by not getting involved at all. Fix your gambling problem first and then you can think about having a relationship with somebody.
So you are sitting at your favorite regular game with seven to nine buddies that you are on a first name basis with. Of course, you know their last names too becuase you've been playing poker with them for years, but using last names just wouldn't keep the atmosphere friendly. It's your turn and you decide to raise the last of your chips in the pot and announce "Go big or go home!" to the rest of the table. Sure enough, your buddy Rick calls your bet and you hear him mumble "I knew he was bluffing." It's time to get up... or is it?
If you recognize your problem, do you deny to it when asked? Do people say that you don't know when enough is really enough? Are you consistently losing when you are playing poker? My friend, you might have a gambling problem if you answered any of these questions with a yes.
You usually lose "just a bit" each week, but you've already lost this week's paycheck in tonights game, and last week it was "just bad cards." When are you going to stop and realize that poker might just not be for you. When are you going to grow a backbone and surprise your Friday night buddies when you don't show up?
Losing a paycheck isn't all that bad, but your gambling problem can certainly lead to other things. Before you know it you will be losing your car, home, and, some place in the process, your wife / significant other.
Lots of people don't waste time on gamblers, especially women. If you expect to be able to have a relationship and continue gambling, you might as well save the other person by not getting involved at all. Fix your gambling problem first and then you can think about having a relationship with somebody.
Omaha Holdem Basics
One of the most profitable variations of poker today, especially online, is Omaha high low split eight-or-better, mercifully reduced to the more common name Omaha/8. The main reason for this profitability is not only are there many poor poker players who play Omaha/8, but there are just as many who don’t even understand the rules and hand values. Another reason is that Omaha/8 is a very straightforward and mathematical game. It has much less short-term variance, or luck, than holdem. The good news is you have come to the right place to start maximizing your chance at this profit. Starting below you will learn the basics such as how to play and how to read both high and low hands. After you have a solid understanding of the rules, continue with the Omaha/8 strategy sections. They cover basic and advanced strategy for both limit and pot limit Omaha/8. Omaha/8 can be played with anywhere from 2 to 10 players with most rooms running full tables of 9 or 10 players. The player to the left of the dealer or button places a forced bet called the small blind and the player to the small blinds left places a forced bet called the big blind. The big blind is equal to the lower betting limit of the game, for example in a 10/20 game the big blind is 10. The small blind is half the big blind, or 5 in our example. Each player then receives four cards face down, often called hole cards. The first round of betting starts at this time with the player to the big blinds left, who can fold, call or raise. Play continues to the left until it reaches the big blind, who may check if the pot hasn’t been raised, or raise. Three cards are then placed face up in the center of the table. This is called the flop and these cards are community cards, which can be used by every player to form their best hand. The second round of betting starts at this time with the first person still involved in the hand to the left of the dealer. A fourth community card, often called the turn, is placed face up in the center, followed by a third round of betting. This and the last round are at the upper limit, 20 in our example, in limit play. The last community card, called the river, is now placed face up in the center of the table and the last round of betting is conducted. The pot is then awarded based on the following rules:1. If there is not a possible low hand, the high hand wins the entire pot. If two players tie for the best high hand, then the pot is split between both players.2. If one or more players have a qualifying low hand the pot is split. Half the pot is awarded to the best high hand and the other half is awarded to the best low hand. In the event of a tie, the half of the pot awarded is split between the two ties, or they each receive one-fourth of the pot. This is often called “getting quartered”. The single most important rule to remember in Omaha/8 is that you must use exactly two cards from your hand and three from the board, or community cards, to form your best hand. If you have both a high and low hand, you can use two different cards from your hand to form them, but you still are required to use exactly two. The number of players who don’t understand this rule will surprise you. Another major problem area for many players, particularly holdem players, is playing too many hands. Players assume incorrectly that because they start with four cards instead of two, that they can play a higher percentage of starting hands. This is completely wrong and can make even a great player lose money. Just like most forms of poker, tight and aggressive play is the path to profitability. This means playing around 25% of your starting hands. When I was learning Omaha/8, the strategy I quickly was forced to adopt was looking for reasons not to play a hand instead of reasons to play it. This may sound like a small thing, but by evaluating the shortcomings of a hand you will quickly become a tighter and better player. A challenge that everyone faces when learning Omaha/8 is correctly reading low hands. Remember that because each player must use two hole cards and three from the board, the only hands that can be split are the ones with three unpaired cards eight or below on the board. The fastest way to read low hands is to read them backwards as a number. When comparing two or more hands this way, the lowest number wins. Here is an example, with the lowest hand first and highest hand last.
A 2 3 4 5 - 54,321
A 3 4 5 7 - 75,431
2 4 5 6 7 - 76,542
A 2 3 4 8 - 84,321
A 2 3 4 5 - 54,321
A 3 4 5 7 - 75,431
2 4 5 6 7 - 76,542
A 2 3 4 8 - 84,321
mortgage
A mortgage is a method of using property (real or personal) as security for the payment of a debt.
The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. death vow) refers to the legal device used in securing the property, but it is also commonly used to refer to the debt secured by the mortgage, the mortgage loan.
In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property.
In many countries it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. death vow) refers to the legal device used in securing the property, but it is also commonly used to refer to the debt secured by the mortgage, the mortgage loan.
In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property.
In many countries it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
maandag 23 april 2007
Verkopers zijn te optimistisch over waarde van hun vastgoed
Belgen die vastgoed verkopen, overschatten de waarde van dat onroerend goed. Dat blijkt uit een rondvraag van de redactie. Slechts een minderheid onderhandelt over de prijs. De volledige vastgoedgids staat dit weekend in Netto, de wekelijkse bijlage van De Tijd.
(tijd) - Hoe gaat het met de vastgoedmarkt? Die vraag wordt meestal benaderd vanuit het standpunt van de kopers, de vraagzijde. De Tijd/Netto wilde wel eens weten hoe het gesteld is met de andere kant van de markt, de aanbodzijde.
Hoe gedragen de verkopers zich? Om dat te doorgronden hield de redactie een enquête bij een nationaal panel bestaande uit 15.600 personen, hoofdzakelijk samengesteld uit de lezers van De Tijd, L'Echo en de websites van deze kranten. Vanuit sociaaleconomisch standpunt is hun profiel dus hoger dan het nationale gemiddelde. De representativiteit van het panel dient niet al te strikt genomen te worden, ook al is het aantal respondenten indrukwekkend: ruim 2.800 (van wie 76 procent Vlamingen). Van hen hebben ruim 1.300 personen al een eigendom verkocht. Het leeuwendeel (57 procent) deed dat meer dan drie jaar geleden. Toch constateren we de laatste drie maanden een lichte opleving van het aantal transacties. 8 procent verkocht de laatste drie maanden een eigendom, 5 procent deed dat drie tot zes maanden geleden. Geen indrukwekkend verschil, maar toch een verschil.
Eerste vaststelling: de verkopers overschatten de prijs die ze kunnen krijgen voor hun eigendom. Amper een op de twee verkopers kreeg wat hij oorspronkelijk gevraagd had. Bijna vier op de tien moesten tevreden zijn met minder. Men zou kunnen vermoeden dat dat komt doordat de verkopers anticiperen op het spel van bod en tegenbod, maar niets is minder waar. De Belg onderhandelt nauwelijks over de prijs als hij een onroerend goed verkoopt. Bijna zes op de tien verkopers vragen van meet af aan het bedrag dat ze wensen te krijgen. Dat geldt zowel voor degenen die een vastgoed verkochten om in te spelen op een financiële opportuniteit en de meerwaarden te verzilveren (20 procent van de ondervraagden), als voor degenen die het verkochten om zelf hun intrek te nemen in een andere woning (35 procent).
Als we toch de indruk zouden hebben dat verkopers de initiële vraagprijs systematisch hoger leggen, dan is dat wellicht voor een deel te wijten aan de 15 procent van de ondervraagden die initieel een vraagprijs afficheerden die minstens 15 procent hoger was dan de prijs waarop ze hoopten.
Wie een onroerend goed verkoopt, kan kiezen tussen verschillende verkoopkanalen: een openbare verkoop, via de notaris, uit de hand of met de hulp van een vastgoedmakelaar. De rechtstreekse verkoop en de makelaar kennen het meeste bijval: 42 procent van de respondenten verkocht het onroerend goed zelf, 38 procent deed een beroep op een makelaar. De notaris (14 procent) en de openbare verkoop (2 procent) zijn minder in trek.
Beïnvloedt het gekozen verkoopkanaal de prijs en de snelheid waarmee het onroerend goed verkocht wordt? Eerst en vooral blijkt dat het verkoopkanaal de prijszetting beïnvloedt. Dat is niet zo verbazend. De verkoper rekent de commissie die hij aan de makelaar moet betalen door aan de potentiële koper door de vraagprijs met het bedrag van de commissie te verhogen. Vaste makelaarstarieven zijn er niet, maar ongeveer 4 procent van de verkoopprijs is een gangbaar tarief.
De troeven van een makelaar - extra promotiekanalen, klantenportefeuille, marktexpertise - zijn geen garantie op het krijgen van een betere prijs, zo blijkt. Bijna zes op de tien verkopers die het goed zelf verkochten, kregen wat ze vroegen. Dat aantal valt terug tot vier op de tien van de eigenaars die het via een makelaar te koop stelden. Maar liefst de helft van de verkopers die een makelaar inschakelden, moest zich tevredenstellen met een lagere prijs. Een op de drie die het onroerend goed uit de hand verkochten, kregen een lagere prijs dan gehoopt. Uiteraard kan het initiële verwachtingspatroon deze resultaten vertekenen: hoe hoger de verwachting, hoe groter de kans op een ontgoocheling.
Kan het feit dat een contract van een makelaar beperkt is in de tijd de lagere prijs verklaren? Met andere woorden: zou het kunnen dat de makelaar de verkoper aanport het goed sneller te verkopen, ook al ligt de biedprijs onder de verwachtingen van de koper? De cijfers over de snelheid waarmee verkocht wordt, lijken het tegendeel aan te tonen. Vastgoed dat via een makelaar verkocht werd, blijkt langer te koop te staan dan vastgoed dat de eigenaar rechtstreeks verkoopt. Gemiddeld deed 42 procent van de ondervraagden er minder dan een maand over om het goed te verkopen. Een op de vier verkocht het zelfs binnen twee weken na het plaatsen van het bordje 'Te koop'.
Bij een onderhandse verkoop had een derde van de verkopers minder dan twee weken nodig, tegen slechts een op de tien via een makelaar. 20 procent van de ondervraagden die met een makelaar werkten, hadden tussen drie en zes maanden nodig. Dat is het dubbele van hen die het uit de hand verkochten. Dat betekent echter niet dat het pand ook al die tijd door de makelaar werd aangeboden. Sommige verkopers nemen immers een opportunistische houding aan: ze proberen het eerst zelf. Pas als dat niet lukt, schakelen ze een makelaar in.
Nadine Bollen
(tijd) - Hoe gaat het met de vastgoedmarkt? Die vraag wordt meestal benaderd vanuit het standpunt van de kopers, de vraagzijde. De Tijd/Netto wilde wel eens weten hoe het gesteld is met de andere kant van de markt, de aanbodzijde.
Hoe gedragen de verkopers zich? Om dat te doorgronden hield de redactie een enquête bij een nationaal panel bestaande uit 15.600 personen, hoofdzakelijk samengesteld uit de lezers van De Tijd, L'Echo en de websites van deze kranten. Vanuit sociaaleconomisch standpunt is hun profiel dus hoger dan het nationale gemiddelde. De representativiteit van het panel dient niet al te strikt genomen te worden, ook al is het aantal respondenten indrukwekkend: ruim 2.800 (van wie 76 procent Vlamingen). Van hen hebben ruim 1.300 personen al een eigendom verkocht. Het leeuwendeel (57 procent) deed dat meer dan drie jaar geleden. Toch constateren we de laatste drie maanden een lichte opleving van het aantal transacties. 8 procent verkocht de laatste drie maanden een eigendom, 5 procent deed dat drie tot zes maanden geleden. Geen indrukwekkend verschil, maar toch een verschil.
Eerste vaststelling: de verkopers overschatten de prijs die ze kunnen krijgen voor hun eigendom. Amper een op de twee verkopers kreeg wat hij oorspronkelijk gevraagd had. Bijna vier op de tien moesten tevreden zijn met minder. Men zou kunnen vermoeden dat dat komt doordat de verkopers anticiperen op het spel van bod en tegenbod, maar niets is minder waar. De Belg onderhandelt nauwelijks over de prijs als hij een onroerend goed verkoopt. Bijna zes op de tien verkopers vragen van meet af aan het bedrag dat ze wensen te krijgen. Dat geldt zowel voor degenen die een vastgoed verkochten om in te spelen op een financiële opportuniteit en de meerwaarden te verzilveren (20 procent van de ondervraagden), als voor degenen die het verkochten om zelf hun intrek te nemen in een andere woning (35 procent).
Als we toch de indruk zouden hebben dat verkopers de initiële vraagprijs systematisch hoger leggen, dan is dat wellicht voor een deel te wijten aan de 15 procent van de ondervraagden die initieel een vraagprijs afficheerden die minstens 15 procent hoger was dan de prijs waarop ze hoopten.
Wie een onroerend goed verkoopt, kan kiezen tussen verschillende verkoopkanalen: een openbare verkoop, via de notaris, uit de hand of met de hulp van een vastgoedmakelaar. De rechtstreekse verkoop en de makelaar kennen het meeste bijval: 42 procent van de respondenten verkocht het onroerend goed zelf, 38 procent deed een beroep op een makelaar. De notaris (14 procent) en de openbare verkoop (2 procent) zijn minder in trek.
Beïnvloedt het gekozen verkoopkanaal de prijs en de snelheid waarmee het onroerend goed verkocht wordt? Eerst en vooral blijkt dat het verkoopkanaal de prijszetting beïnvloedt. Dat is niet zo verbazend. De verkoper rekent de commissie die hij aan de makelaar moet betalen door aan de potentiële koper door de vraagprijs met het bedrag van de commissie te verhogen. Vaste makelaarstarieven zijn er niet, maar ongeveer 4 procent van de verkoopprijs is een gangbaar tarief.
De troeven van een makelaar - extra promotiekanalen, klantenportefeuille, marktexpertise - zijn geen garantie op het krijgen van een betere prijs, zo blijkt. Bijna zes op de tien verkopers die het goed zelf verkochten, kregen wat ze vroegen. Dat aantal valt terug tot vier op de tien van de eigenaars die het via een makelaar te koop stelden. Maar liefst de helft van de verkopers die een makelaar inschakelden, moest zich tevredenstellen met een lagere prijs. Een op de drie die het onroerend goed uit de hand verkochten, kregen een lagere prijs dan gehoopt. Uiteraard kan het initiële verwachtingspatroon deze resultaten vertekenen: hoe hoger de verwachting, hoe groter de kans op een ontgoocheling.
Kan het feit dat een contract van een makelaar beperkt is in de tijd de lagere prijs verklaren? Met andere woorden: zou het kunnen dat de makelaar de verkoper aanport het goed sneller te verkopen, ook al ligt de biedprijs onder de verwachtingen van de koper? De cijfers over de snelheid waarmee verkocht wordt, lijken het tegendeel aan te tonen. Vastgoed dat via een makelaar verkocht werd, blijkt langer te koop te staan dan vastgoed dat de eigenaar rechtstreeks verkoopt. Gemiddeld deed 42 procent van de ondervraagden er minder dan een maand over om het goed te verkopen. Een op de vier verkocht het zelfs binnen twee weken na het plaatsen van het bordje 'Te koop'.
Bij een onderhandse verkoop had een derde van de verkopers minder dan twee weken nodig, tegen slechts een op de tien via een makelaar. 20 procent van de ondervraagden die met een makelaar werkten, hadden tussen drie en zes maanden nodig. Dat is het dubbele van hen die het uit de hand verkochten. Dat betekent echter niet dat het pand ook al die tijd door de makelaar werd aangeboden. Sommige verkopers nemen immers een opportunistische houding aan: ze proberen het eerst zelf. Pas als dat niet lukt, schakelen ze een makelaar in.
Nadine Bollen
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