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Window dressing is the name given to a widespread practice of institutional investors, and particularly of mutual fund managers, that is regularly adopted to ensure that their quarterly reports to investors present an artificially positive aspect regarding the investments they have brought into their portfolio.

This window dressing is achieved through the culling at quarter end of particularly poorly performing stocks. Such stocks, generally regarded as “losers” owing to their recent price performance, are replaced with stocks that have been among the top performers of recent times. This practice is designed to support marketing efforts that seek to encourage new investors to invest in the fund. Window dressing has the effect of making it appear that the fund manager has been smart enough to invest largely or exclusively in the winners he/she now lists as making up the portfolio.

Interest rates is the income on bank and building society deposits, and takes different forms and sizes. It is essential that the investor develops an awareness of the types there are and how they differ from each other. As will be soon revealed, lack of such knowledge can lead to flawed decision making, with resultant investment losses.

The interest rate paid by banks and building societies can be fixed or variable, and depends on the economy’s basic rate. Between the extremes of fixed and variable interest rates is the ‘roll-over’ type. An example, is a six-month roll-over interest rate, in which the interest rate remains fixed for six months and then changes to match the new current interest rate in the market.

During every correction, I encourage investors to avoid the destructive inertia that results from trying to determine: “How low can we go?” and/or “How long will this last?” Investors who add to their portfolios during downturns invariably experience higher values during the next advance. Yes, Virginia, just as certainly as there is a Santa Claus, there is another market advance in our future. And despite a still much too high DJIA, we are in the third month of a correction. (A fourth month if you own income securities.)

If you are interested in possibly refinancing a residential or commercial mortgage, there are some important pointers that you should keep in mind to ensure that you make the best possible decision when it comes to your own mortgage refinancing decisions.

The number of factors that you need to keep in mind is making certain that you deal only with a reputable and reliable lender. Unfortunately, perhaps no other industry has seen an invasion by bad operators in the past decade than has the mortgage refinancing sector. Therefore, before you make application with any mortgage refinancing lender, you have to do your homework and really understand the background, history and reputation of a particular mortgage refinancing lender.

For a millennium, mankind attempted to define and measure risk.

From the early days of Pascal and Golton to the modern forerunners in academia, defining and measuring risk has been a relentless pursue. Until we properly define and measure risk, there seems no way to mathematically defeat risk, creating risk free financial markets and economies.

When income exceeds expenses, asset is created. When the reverse occurs debt or liability rises. The excess of income over expenditure can be saved with three time horizons in mind: short-term, medium- term and long-term. An example of short-term saving is the money one puts aside to take care of the following month’s expenses before he gets paid. Saving towards a car can be considered as medium-term, whereas saving towards higher education of a toddler, is long-term. Long-term saving can also be termed ‘investment’. Short-term saving comes quite naturally to most of us, and with a bit of effort, medium-term saving does not become much of a hurdle to surmount. In spite of being the most important form of saving or investment, long-term saving is normally ignored.

If you decide to participate in forex trading, it is not a requirement that you hire a broker to handle your account. Forex trading can actually be a one-man enterprise and if you study the industry well and learn the ropes, you can actually manage your own account without anybody else’s help. However, if you don’t have the time or are not very confident about your decisions, a managed forex account may be a good way to handle your investment efficiently.

What is a managed forex account?

If you want to find an appreciable number of profitable trades when trading Forex you need to enter the forex market at the best period of time. This means you should enter when the activity, the volume of transactions, is the highest. All experienced traders focus on the hours when the currency markets tend to make their biggest moves, i.e., during the big market overlaps, which therefore, are usually the best times to trade.

Forex markets are open worldwide with the following schedule:

* New York Market trade times: 8am-4pm EST

* London Market trade times: 2am-12Noon EST

Taking too much risk with your investment: We all want the highest interest rate possible and the lowest risk possible - unfortunately these are competing objectives. High rates always spell high risk BUT high risk does not always spell high rates. You should know that risk and reward are traveling companions: if you want low risk you’ve got to settle for low rates and if you want the chance of making high rates you’ve got to accept high risk.

Some fund managers attempt to predict the movement of the stock market in order to organize their portfolios in a way that will produce higher returns. It has as well being suggested by some investment experts that investors time the market to see whether it is going to rise or fall before taking a plunge. But let’s face it; is it possible to tell whether the market is going to move up or down?