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New Step-by-Step Guide Shows Individual Investors How To Invest Sensibly In The Stock Market

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) August 16, 2006

The individual investor often finds himself or herself confronted with unintelligible jargon, conflicting theories, over-hyped advice, and confusing sound bites. This happens despite—-or perhaps because of—-the abundance of information on investing available today.

To fill the need for an understandable stock-investing guide for individuals, David Van Knapp, a successful individual investor and former corporate strategist, announced today the publication of Sensible Stock Investing: How to Pick, Value, and Manage Stocks.

Sensible Stock Investing is a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide for individual investors who want to invest in stocks, but who are overwhelmed by conflicting information, opinions, investment theories, and their own emotions.

“Sensible Stock Investing is the book I wish I had when I first ventured forth from mutual funds and tried my hand at investing in individual stocks,” states Van Knapp. “The book is a complete guide that pulls everything together in a practical, intelligent fashion. My goals in Sensible Stock Investing are to make the stock market understandable and deliver how-to-do-it advice tailored to the needs of the busy individual, whether he or she is a beginner or an experienced investor.”

Sensible Stock Investing presents the investment process in three phases: rating companies for their intrinsic soundness; valuing stocks to find advantageous purchase prices; and managing a portfolio once it is established. Sensible Stock Investing emphasizes solid principles, and it breaks the phases into discrete steps which can be followed by anyone. The book requires no prior financial knowledge or training.

Sensible Stock Investing is devoted to stock investing only. It is written for the “average” individual investor. It is unique among investing guides because of its pure focus on the needs of ordinary Americans, who have busy lives and thus cannot devote full time to investing. Therefore, the book contains a variety of tools and forms to help the busy individual focus on the most useful information, filter out “noise,” and record the information consistently for easy comparability.

An example of a tool in the book is its innovative Easy-Rate stock scoring system. The system shows the individual how to locate the most important information about a company, “score” it according to a point-rating scale, and derive Total Score ratings for stocks. The ratings are then used to create Shopping Lists of desirable investment opportunities.

Another feature of the book is its emphasis on portfolio management, a subject which is normally discussed far less than stock picking. Portfolio management includes risk control techniques, determining the proper number of stocks to own, creating “constitutional documents” of the investor’s goals and strategies, and knowing when to buy and sell.

Each feature of the book is designed to improve the odds of the reader’s success in the stock market. The author’s own success with the approach is shown in two real-money portfolios (still in existence), which he created in 2001 and 2002 to illustrate sound investment principles in action. Each portfolio has approximately doubled the market’s return since inception.

About the Author:

David Van Knapp is a retired business executive and successful investor who wrote this book based on his own study and experiences in the stock market. The stock-investing methods are based on sound fundamentals, innovatively assembled to provide forms, tools, and processes ideally designed for the busy individual investor. Van Knapp lives in Canandaigua, NY and McKinney, TX.

Sensible Stock Investing: How to Pick, Value, and Manage Stocks

By David P. Van Knapp

Published by iUniverse, Inc.

ISBN 0-595-39342-X

317 pages

$ 23.95 trade paperback

For more information, including a complete Pressroom, visit http://www.SensibleStocks.com.

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©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

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“The Newbie’s Guide to Profitable Stock Investing” Shows The Absolute Beginner How to Safely Cash In

StockInvestingProfits.com — Proof

Colorado Springs, CO, (PRWEB) January 18, 2008

It is no secret that what separates the rich elite of the world from the rest of us is the knowledge of investing and making money through the stock market.

For years, the precious secrets that allowed people to make maximum returns on minimum risk have been closely guarded. But “The Newbie’s Guide to Profitable Stock Investing,” blows the lid off of these tenants and now makes them available to each and every person looking for financial solvency.

“I wanted to create an easy to ready, simple to understand guide that could help anyone achieve their financial dreams,” said author Edward Moraz. “With ‘The Newbie’s Guide to Profitable Stock Investing,’ I feel that I’ve achieved my goal and given the average person the key they need to unlock the golden gates of financial investing.”

“The Newbie’s Guide to Profitable Stock Investing,” is now available to the general public, and it is sure to cause a sensation by simply outlining the basic tenants and well-kept secrets only the richest investors have known for years.

“Even if you’ve never opened the business section to your local newspaper, “The Newbie’s Guide to Profitable Stock Investing,” makes playing the stock market easy to understand,” said Moraz. “Throughout history, the biggest obstacle stopping “regular people” from dabbling in investing is simply not knowing where to start. With this book, each and every would-be investor has a jumping off point so that they may realize their personal financial dreams.”

Moraz has just made the text available for $ 29.95. With a one year money back guarantee, as well as several free bonus items, it could help any novice investor get involved with the market.

Three free gifts are included with the package, and they add additional insight to the complicated world of stock market investing. The “Secrets to Solid Stock Selection” helps people learn how to take advantage of a free Internet resource the best investors in the world use every day. With clear illustrations and everyday verbiage, even first time investors will find this tool useful.

“Eric LeRiche’s Trading Secrets ” is also included in the package. Eric LeRiche is one of the most famous investing success stories of the last twenty years, and the text allows people to learn how to invest wisely and avoid common pitfalls.

Finally, a trial membership to InvestorRules.com is also included with the purchase. The site offers a chance to keep abreast of all the latest news, trends and information in the world of investing.

The stock market has made thousands financially independent, and while access to inside tips and tricks hasn’t always been easy, “The Newbie’s Guide to Profitable Stock Investing” and its associated materials are bound to make it much easier.

About StockInvestingProfits.com – StockInvestingProfits.com was founded with the goal of providing easy to follow stock investing and trading manuals for beginners. With the desire to help improve people’s lives the world over, StockInvestingProfits.com continually develops products helpful to investors at all levels.

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©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

More Stock Investing Press Releases

Wall Street Window - How To Pick The Best Stocks For Extraordinary Profits CLICK HERE

One Thousand Percent Circulation Boost for DaytradeTeam Financial Content Syndication Attributed to Launch of RSS/XML Feed

Louisville, KY (PRWEB) September 16, 2005

DaytradeTeam reports that its “Trading Tips” article feeds have increased in circulation by over 1,000% since being produced in RSS/XML formats that enable effortless syndication for website owners.

“We’ve always had an extremely loyal readership of our free trading tips and terms,” said Andy Swan, CEO and co-founder of DaytradeTeam. “But we are simply shocked at the exponential increases in circulation since we moved the articles from a typical email list to an XML format last month.”

Mr. Swan declined to give specific circulation numbers, but noted that the increase in readership since moving to RSS/XML was well over 1,000% since August 10, 2005 and that syndication of DaytradeTeam content on third-party websites was also rising quickly.

“To accommodate our content publishers, new articles are generally 250-1000 words and published every business day in each of three categories: Day Trading, Options Trading, and Swing Trading,” said Swan. “This format has been extremely well received by active investors and the websites that they visit because of the high-concentration of quality content. People love the concept of learning a little bit more every day.”

Publishers and Webmasters utilize DaytradeTeam Article Syndication Feeds at simple website URLs that allow their website software to “grab” the content automatically:

Day Trading Tips ATOM/RSS/XML Feed

Options Trading Tips ATOM/RSS/XML Feed

Swing Trading Tips ATOM/RSS/XML Feed

“Of course,” Swan continued, “no one wants to syndicate you if the content doesn’t have value to the end reader. People don’t want to read an ad, they want to learn. We have found that readers of our trading tips trust us and eventually become very loyal customers because their initial experience proved to them that we actually want them to be better investors–not just sell them something quickly.”

Individuals and Active Traders are able set up a free subscription to the educational articles through FeedBurner, a company specializing in RSS and XML Feed solutions:

Day Trading Tips–Syndicate and/or Subscribe

Options Trading Tips–Syndicate and/or Subscribe

Swing Trading Tips–Syndicate and/or Subscribe

About DaytradeTeam:

DaytradeTeam has been providing stock and options trading alerts and education to active investors since 2000 and can be found at http://www.daytradeteam.com

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©Copyright 1997-

, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.
Vocus, PRWeb, and Publicity Wire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vocus, Inc. or Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC.

Wall Street Window - How To Pick The Best Stocks For Extraordinary Profits CLICK HERE

So far this year, there have been 28 initial public offerings (IPOs). Of these, seven are already up at least 20%. In fact, one IPO — Chinese Internet company Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) — surged 100%.

The problem is that you probably weren't able to get in on any of them. The reason is that IPOs are hot commodities on Wall Street and go to top clients such as wealthy investors and institutions.

However, there is actually a clever way to participate in the upside. How? By investing in the top private equity firms that help bring many of these companies public. Essentially, private equity shops look for companies with strong cash flow and substantial barriers to entry. They will use lots of debt to buy the companies — hopefully at low valuations. A few years later, the private equity firms will take these companies public and often reap big returns.

Take a look at the largest hospital operator in the United States, HCA (NYSE: HCA), which pulled off a $3.79 billion IPO in early March. The private equity backers behind the deal made a return of more than 250% from when they took HCA private in 2006.

Keep in mind that a private equity firm gets a cut of the profits from these IPOs, which can range from 20% to 25%. In light of the large transactions, the fees can add up. And yes, it looks like the IPO market is ripe for more deals.

The good news is that investors can participate in this trend — that is, by purchasing shares of private equity firms.

Let's take a look at the top shops out there and see which looks like the best investment…

1. KKR (NYSE: KKR)
KKR is a pioneer in the private equity business, with roots going back to 1976. The original founders, Henry Kravis and George Roberts, are still leading the operation. In all, KKR has $61 billion in assets under management and a market cap of $3.8 billion.

About $46 billion of KKR's portfolio is in private equity interests. The rest? Well, it has positions in public investments, debt securities and hedge funds. As a testament to its investing prowess, KKR has generated net average annual returns of 20% since its inception.

For its current portfolio, KKR has 62 companies that span 15 industries. Total revenue is roughly $200 billion.

2. Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG)
Launched in 1998, Fortress Investment Group has nearly $45 billion in assets under management and a market cap of $2.6 billion. Fortress came perilously close to failing because of the financial crisis, as the stock price fell from $31 in early 2007 to $1.08 in March 2009. Since then, the firm has regained its footing and has aggressively pared down its debt load (the stock price is now near $5.60).

Only about a third of the firm's assets are in private equity. The remaining is among a variety of sophisticated hedge funds, which cover areas like credit investments, Asian securities, currencies and even commodities. In fact, last year Fortress purchased Logan Circle Partners, which focuses on fixed-income investments.

In 2010, Fortress' earnings came to $372 million, which was a big improvement since 2008, when the firm lost $162 million.

3. Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX)
Back in the "deal decade" of the 1980s, Stephen Schwarzman was one of the top players. In 1985, he founded the Blackstone Group. It took two years to raise a fund, but the timing was perfect. It came right after the stock market crash of 1987, when valuations were much more reasonable.

Now Blackstone, which has an $8.3 billion market cap, is the largest private equity firm in the world, with a staggering $128.1 billion in assets under management. If you combined its portfolio companies into one entity, it would rank No. 12 on the Fortune 500 list.

Blackstone is also one of the largest real estate investors in the world. Holdings include top office properties, hotels, student housing, health care facilities and leisure parks. There is also a group of thriving hedge funds in Blackstone's portfolio. Blackstone even has a division that provides advisory services for mergers & acquisitions and restructurings.

Action to Take –> Of the three, my favorite is Blackstone. It has a diversified platform in key alternative asset classes. Already this year, Blackstone has had two successful IPOs: media ratings firm Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) and BankUnited (NYSE: BKU), a consumer and commercial bank. If history is an indication, the returns from future deals should be strong. After all, Blackstone's average returns have been 25% for both its private equity and real estate portfolios since inception.

While it is tough to predict what companies will be next to hit the IPO markets, there are some good prospects for the upcoming year. In other words, a healthy pipeline of future deals can be a big driver for earnings. 

And Blackstone' valuation is certainly attractive at six times its economic net income (ENI), which is a standard calculation for the earnings of private equity firms that makes adjustments for the special tax treatment of the corporate structure, as well as recognition of profits and losses on the portfolios.

Consider that other top investment firms like Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) have price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios of 12 and 10, respectively. True, it's not inevitable that the multiple will catch-up to these companies. But if the IPO market continues to show strength and valuations generally improve, investors should be interested. 

– Tom Taulli

P.S. — Few investors realize that a 20-year energy agreement between the United States and Russia is about to expire. This deal supplies 10% of America's electricity. As broke as our government is, the situation is so serious that President Obama is asking for $36 billion to avert this crisis. And Republicans support him. Here's what's going on…

This article originally appeared on StreetAuthority
Author: Tom Taulli
The SECRET Way to Profit From the IPO Boom

Read more…

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