Daily Investment Tips

The biggest myth spread by Facebook haters is Facebook doesn’t turn a dim. This people have a hate for everything Facebook and it is only natural they look for anything negative and in the process miss the positive.

Facebook Profits Facts

According to Reuters, Facebook’s revenue doubled to $1.6billion in 2011′s first half, a source with knowledge of its financials told Reuters. Facebook profits during that same period was $500 million.

Estimating where Facebook Profits & Revenues now stand

Estimating financial results for a fast-growing company like Facebook is always difficult, since so much is unknown, but if figures provided by the WSJ and the NYT are correct, the network’s revenue climbed about 160 percent in 2010, and its profit doubled. Continuing that kind of growth would result in revenue of more than $5 billion this year, and assuming the profit margins stay at 20 percent, profit may be close to $1 billion.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Estimates, Facebook, facebook profits, Myth, Nyt, Profit Margins, Profits, Reuters, Wsj

2011 may be the year tech IPOs take off, and the first Tech IPO off the gates will be Linkedin. New York Times is reporting;

Linkedin plans to go public this year and has hired banks to advise it on the process, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. From NYT

The actual date for Linkedin I.P.O. is not yet confirmed.

Linkedin currently boasts about 85 million registered users. The companys stock already trade in private exchanges, it has a valuation of about $2.2 billion.

Maybe Linkedin IPO will be the catalyst for, Zynga IPO, Groupon IPO and the mother of all IPOs, Facebook!

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Banks, Catalyst, Gates, Ipo, Ipos, Linkedin, New York Times, Nyt, Private Exchanges, Stock

Jim Simon is a hedge fund manager with Renaissance Technologies. A.K.A as “Quants”  Traders with PHds and rely on complex mathematics in making money.

When they came to the scene with their mathematical models for investing it seemed they had found the answer to the age old question “Is there a perfect formula to make money in the stock market?”

From a NYT article:-

Mr. Simons was celebrated as the King of the Quants after his in-house fund, Medallion, posted an average return of nearly 39 percent a year, after fees, from 2000 to 2007. It was an astonishing run rivaling some of the greatest feats in investing history.

With those kind of results it was easy for investors to get carried away with the idea that Jim Simon and the rest of Quants family were the messiahs.

Past results is not an indicator of future performance.

After the collapse of Bear Sterns and Credit crises most Quant funds are fighting for their own survival. The NYT article further reported : -

The combined assets of quantitative funds specializing in United States stocks have plunged to $467 billion, from $1.2 trillion in 2007, a 61 percent decline. And One in four quant hedge funds has closed since 2007

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Bear Sterns, Collapse, Crises, Feats, Hedge Fund Manager, Investment Returns, Jim Simon, Jim Simons, Mathematical Models, Medallion, Nyt, Nyt Article, Phds, Quant Funds, Quant Hedge Funds, Quantitative Funds, Quants, Renaissance Technologies, Stock Market, Trillion

The latest news on Cocoa prices is Cocoa prices on London market are at 30 year high, and cocoa has already jumped 150 percent since 2008.

So what is driving this upward trend in cocoa prices?

According to an interesting piece in NYT.

In a stroke, a hedge fund manager here named Anthony Ward has all but cornered the market in cocoa. By one estimate, he has bought enough to make more than five billion chocolate bars.

Mr. Ward purchases have created a shortage of cocoa in the market and rival traders are crying foul, saying Mr. Ward is stockpiling cocoa in a bid to drive up already high prices so he can sell later at a big profit.

If the next cocoa harvest falls below expectation we should expect the prices of cocoa to shoot even higher.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Bid, Chocolate Bars, Cocoa Commodity, Cocoa Prices, Commodity Investment, Commodity Prices, Expectation, Five Billion, Hedge Fund Manager, Investment Tips, Latest News, London Market, Nyt, Stroke, Upward Trend