Archives: 2008 August

John McCain made it official today, naming Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his pick to run for VP on the Republican presidential ticket.

Governor Palin is not well known outside of Alaska. In fact Sarah Palin is not very well known to John McCain either. According to information released by McCain’s staff McCain has only met Palin once and had only one telephone conversation with her ever.

For McCain to decide on someone as young as Governor Palin, she is 44, and for a women with no national or foreign policy experience, is seen by many political analysts as a risky move on the part of McCain. McCain is know for doing the unpredictable but this is a bold move even by his standards. Some call it reckless.

The fourth part of this series deals with the debt/equity ratio, which is another key component of Warren Buffett’s legendary methodology. In fact, it is a component that the man himself treats very carefully when deciding which stocks to invest in. Just like the return on equity in the previous part of this series, it is an equation that is commonly used in finance, however, Buffett is the one who makes the most and greatest use of it.

The components that make up the debt/equity ratio are fairly obvious and I’m certain that many people first heard of it in high school in a commerce or business class. But just in case, there’s still some confusion, I will give a quick, brief explanation. The debt/equity ratio is given by total liabilities of a company divided by shareholders’ equity.

In making determinations as to what the stock markets worldwide are going to do in terms of how prices move, there are two distinct schools of thought about analysis of companies and their investment prospects. The typical school of thought, and one that has been successful over the last decades has been the school of fundamental analysis.

This type of analysis looks at the financial prospects of a company, and then looks at their chances of achieving desirable results compared to its competition. On the other side of the fence, there are some in the school of thought involving technical analysis, a largely unscientific but seemingly successful school of thought as well. So, what exactly is the connection between technical analysis and stocks?

Army recruiters have the job of assisting prospective volunteers through various steps before they get accepted into the army. In the United States Army, recruiters basically provide prospective candidates with the information they need as well as accompany them to testing centers.

Army recruiters are stationed in several recruitment centers in cities. When a prospective volunteer first meets a recruiter, it’s usually just for data gathering sessions, so he/she knows the details of the job. Recruiters brief candidates about the requirements, the jobs available, the enlistment process, and the benefits of each job. The recruiter also answers any questions that candidates may have.

The recruiter sets the date for a candidate to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test in a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) or a local testing facility. The MEPS is where the physical examinations are done, as well as where the candidate gets to choose his/her military occupational specialty. The recruiter is also the one who provides the transportation to the MEPS.

There are two major ways to trade in the stock markets: picking stocks at random or doing research to determine which stocks to buy and if and when to sell them. Obviously, thinking things through will give you far better results. However, there are hundreds of different strategies to pick which stocks you want! A few of them are the tried and true standards that investors have had success with - those are the ones new investors should start with and see how they perform. After they understand those basic strategies, they can branch out into more complicated strategies.

You can lower your risks through hedging. There is always a risk that the price of a stock will drop, but you can purchase a put option. This allows you to sell the stock at a set price within a particular period of time. Then, if the stock does fall, the value of your put option will rise and you can offset your losses.