Free lunch for senior citizens!

Currently the world is enveloped in crisis after crisis. The pinyin for the word Crisis is ‘Wei Ji’. ‘Wei’ means danger while ‘Ji’ means opportunity.

In a crisis, it means that within danger, there is also opportunity; if one plans ahead and has the means. When there is one crisis after another like now, opportunities of a lifetime would abound and ripe for the taking if one had planned it well.

What does one mean by having the means?

If you are cash rich and hold minimal stocks or none at all at the moment, you have the means.

What does one mean by planning ahead?

Soon there would be lifetime opportunities for the taking, if not already. One would suggest to senior citizens – retirees, pensioners or those near to retirement – who have the means to plan to buy the bluest of the blue chips in your country, be it the US, Canada and Europe.

Look for utility companies, beverages companies and tech stocks for example ATT, Nestle, Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft Corporation and British Telecoms to invest in. Ensure that the companies you want to invest in are making profits from their operations, cash rich, hold minimal debt and pay regular dividends by looking up their financial statements and/or annual reports for the past few years.

Ask your financial advisors to look up these criteria if you do not understand financial statements or reports. With the current dwindling trades in the stock markets, I am sure the financial advisers would be more than willing to provide you this service.

After obtaining the necessary information, and feeling comfortable with the companies, set realistic target prices to buy their stocks; setting new lifetime lows are okay but do not set too low a target or you may never be able to own a good and safe stock which may still be profitable, paying regular dividends during a severe recession or even in a great depression, if any.

Keep monitoring your target companies’ share prices and news reports on them. Start buying once the set targets have been reached. Never put all your money in just one stock.

Do not mind stock analysts or market gurus’ lower calls, unless something is really wrong with the company concerned! If they know so much about markets and timing, their funds or hedge funds would not have lost their shirts or had to close shop.

From online news, I gather that share prices of some old established institutions in the US have already reached a few decades low. If they are good and safe companies, have a look at them. These are examples of opportunities of a lifetime within the crises, are they not?

Start doing your homework now to plan ahead.

Once your country’s economy turns good again, you could reap huge capital gains from those stocks that you have planned ahead and bought, if you want. And do not forget to donate some money to your favorite charity from the realized gains that you made from the stock market during the current crises. The needy, the orphanages, the old folk’s homes and those in dire straits need our help.

No, you guys and gals do not have to buy a billion US dollars worth of CDO and CDS off me for this free lunch! (In case, some do not understand the joke, US investment bankers had been providing free lunches for the old fools flying in from Europe for the past few years to encourage them to buy the now toxic products and other derivatives, according to online news.)

Lunch is on me because of your continued support over the past few years.

Thanks and good luck!