GMP profit drops 66% in investment banking slump (National Post)
More info…
GMP Capital Trust, Canadas second-biggest independent brokerage, said first-quarter profit fell 66% on a slowdown in investment-banking transactions.
May 9, 2009
May 8, 2009
Natural resources mutual funds
Natural resources mutual funds
Everybody knows and understands the importance of mutual funds. The economic part of the natural resources we will deal in detail in this small article about the natural resources mutual funds. The supply of natural resources is always limited. We can see the growing demand for the natural resources like oil, gas, metals, coal etc. The simple law of economics says that if there is less supply and more demand to a product then there is chance of making a profit in the market. This applies to all types of natural resources. We feel the inflationary trends in fuel prices. One way of beating the ever rising prices of fuels will be to invest in mutual funds that are dealing in it. So investing in natural resources mutual funds offers an excellent opportunity to beat the inflation and high prices of fuels. For last more than ten years, the natural resources mutual funds are performing better than the average mutual funds. It is true that commodity prices are soaring and this trend will continue for some time to come. However everything is not as easy as it used to be once upon a time. As the metals and oils take more time and cost to explore them, there will be a ratio of cost to profit to be watched. It is true that metal costs are increasing but cost of extracting and refining them is also increasing very fast. Presently it costs more to dig, mine or extract. If the company announces a new manufacturing unit, one will have to study its profitability very seriously. There is no guarantee that it will be really profitable just because the commodity or natural resources prices are increasing. The technology does affect the production costs. Other market parameters also affect the profitability of natural resources mutual funds. All this means that if you want to invest in the natural resources mutual funds you will have to be very careful. In past people used to invest in natural resources mutual funds blindly and they would get good returns. The nature of the natural resources industry was such that the profitability was well assured. It is no more like that. This in turn means its profitability will depend upon the skills of the management team. If the team managing the natural resources mutual funds is skilled, experienced, then you can get good returns on your natural resources mutual funds investments. Like any other mutual funds, there are many web sites giving full info regarding natural resources mutual funds. Study them. Decide for yourself whether oil stocks are overpriced or not. Study and then invest. You are assured of good returns in natural resources mutual funds.
May 7, 2009
Central China Goldfields signs contract with CITIC (source: IB Times)
More info…
Central China Goldfields said the contract mining deal would enable it to quickly put this near-surface gold project into production and would enable it to recover its investment in the project. (source: IB Times) - RSS news feeds and Widgets on Feedzilla.com
Zurich Financial reports 75 pct drop in 1Q profit - Boston Globe
More info…
ZURICH Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services Group on Thursday reported a 75 percent drop in first quarter net profit after booking heavy investment losses. Net profit amounted to $362 million compared to $1.43 billion in the same quarter last …