If you have started out safe in the investment world, you may find yourself engaging in safe investments and making some good returns. If so, it may be time to spread your investment wings and move out of your investment comfort zone. However, while more risk will be involved, it?s important not to take too great a leap ? you could land yourself in hot water and face potential losses, especially if you are not experienced in investing in particular areas.
Stocks and Shares
If you are investing in shares and stocks, moving out of your investment comfort zone can be done in a variety of ways. You might want to consider:
Investing in a new company or niche ? For example, you might want to move away from blue-chip stocks and invest in a company that?s a little more risky, or you might want to invest in an up-and-coming industry that you feel has potential.
Changing your current investment strategies to involve more risk ? You could consider changing or removing your stop-loss limits or amending your selling and buying tactics to try something new.
Simply putting more into your current investments ? This means sticking with what you?ve already got and increasing your share volume by buying more of the same shares and stocks.
Diversifying your portfolio altogether ? This would indicate moving away from stocks and shares to invest in something else; you could invest in something similar, like precious metals or bonds, or diversify completely and start investing in commercial property.
Forex
Learning and investing in forex is a fun and easy way to get into the investment field, and many beginner investors will often learn forex as a way to supplement their income and manage a comfortable, low-risk portfolio.
Getting out of your investmentcomfort zone, however, means involving more risk in your strategies and decisions. You may choose to invest more money into your present currencies, giving yourself more leverage or investing in new currencies. Like stocks, you can also consider removing or changing your stop-loss orders to increase your percentagerisk.
Property
Property investment can be quite different to trading shares or currencies online, and growing your property investment portfolio often means buying or investing in more properties. If you are keen to grow your investment, you can consider:
Using your current equity to purchase more properties in the same area.
Using your equity to invest in properties in different areas.
Investing in different types of properties (e.g. moving from residential investments to commercial investments).
Buying international properties.
Analysing your profits and losses in regards to capital gains tax (CGT) and rethinking your strategies.
Leasing out your investment, if you are living in it, and turning it into an investment property.
Diversifying your property portfolio completely by investing in some stocks or bonds.
Precious Metals
Investing in precious metals has become increasingly popular in the last few years, especially given the instability of the global economy and reliance on the more steady values of metals like gold. Investing in precious metals can be a lucrative endeavour, particularly for those looking to secure their future wealth. If you have invested in only one particular type of metal, you can step out of your comfort zone by looking into other metals. You could:
Invest in other metals and minerals, such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium or copper.
Invest in gems (e.g. diamonds or rubies).
Invest in other commodities, like oil, gas, etc.
Change your investments from coins to bullion bars or vice versa.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) ? Kentucky's 54-game winning streak at Rupp Arena came to an end on Saturday when the No. 8 wildcats were upset by Baylor 64-55.
Pierre Jackson scored 17 points and Isaiah Austin and A.J. Walton each added 11 for the Bears (5-2). Brady Heslip and Cory Jefferson each added 10 points and Baylor beat the Wildcats for the first time in eight tries.
Baylor shot just 41 percent for the game but held Kentucky (4-3) to 21-of-71 from the floor.
Archie Goodwin scored 17 points for Kentucky before fouling out with 1:44 remaining in the game. Alex Poythress added 13 and Nerlens Noel eight for the Wildcats.
After trailing for the first 15 minutes Baylor took its first lead at 20-19 on Jackson's 3-pointer and stayed close before closing the half with a 12-2 run for a 34-29 lead. The Bears kept the Wildcats at bay with a zone defense that forced Kentucky into 16 turnovers.
(Reuters) - News Corp is expected to name Robert Thomson, a close confidant of Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, to lead its new publishing company by the end of next week, according to sources familiar with News Corp's plans.
Thomson is currently managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of its publisher Dow Jones & Co, which News Corp acquired in 2007. Gerard Baker, currently the deputy editor of the Journal, is expected to succeed Thomson, according to these sources.
Murdoch will be relying on his trusted lieutenant to steer the new company - whose main assets apart from Dow Jones include its British and Australian newspapers and HarperCollins book publishing business - at a difficult time. Newspapers in many developed markets are suffering from a severe drop in advertising revenue and circulation is being hit as readers are choosing to get their news on smartphones and tablets.
Among the key decisions Thomson will have to make include what to do about the financially struggling New York Post and whether the new company will go on an acquisition spree for other U.S. newspapers that could come on the market, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Thomson and Baker were not immediately available for comment. Representatives for Dow Jones and News Corp were also not immediately available.
In June, News Corp said it was separating its publishing and entertainment assets in response to shareholders who had pressed News Corp to get rid of its troubled newspapers business after a phone hacking scandal tainted its British newspapers and forced the company to drop its proposed acquisition of pay-TV group BSkyB.
News Corp is still finalizing the details of other executive appointments within the new company - a decision that could delay the announcement of the appointments of Thomson and Baker, one of the sources said. It wasn't immediately clear whether the role of Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick will change in any way.
Murdoch will hold the chairman title at the publishing company after its split from the entertainment side, which will include most of the group's TV and movie studio assets and where he will remain chairman and CEO.
The confirmation of Thomson's long-rumored appointment to CEO of the publishing company appears to have sidelined any plans Murdoch may have had to bring his eldest son, Lachlan, back into the family business fold. News Corp watchers and industry experts had assumed that Murdoch would push hard to recruit Lachlan given his son previously had some success as publisher of the New York Post.
The Australian-born Thomson was appointed to oversee the newsroom of the Journal and Dow Jones Newswires shortly after News Corp's $5.6 billion acquisition of Dow Jones from the Bancroft family in 2007. Thomson was editor of News Corp's Times of London and before that he was at the Financial Times where he led that paper's expansion in the U.S.
He recruited Baker in 2008 from the Times of London where he was heading up its coverage in the U.S.
While the newspaper industry is facing stiff challenges, News Corp has invested in the Wall Street Journal, adding new sections - including one that covers New York and one that focuses on real estate, while other papers have retrenched by slashing pages and frequency of publication. The Journal has risen to become the No. 1 daily newspaper in the U.S. and has broadened out its coverage beyond Wall Street to include more political and general news in an effort to compete with the New York Times.
The splitting of News Corp into two publicly traded companies will likely be completed by the end of June.
New Corp's film and television businesses include the 20th Century Fox film studio, Fox broadcasting network and Fox News channel. The entertainment business, which generated revenues of $24.7 billion in the year ending June 2012, would dwarf the publishing unit, which posted $8.2 billion in revenue.
(Reporting By Jennifer Saba in New York; Editing by Peter Lauria and Martin Howell)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Right from the start, the NFL said Gregg Williams was in charge of a pay-for-pain bounty system with the New Orleans Saints.
Now the former defensive coordinator ? who told the league about others' involvement ? is slated to be cross-examined by lawyers for players appealing their suspensions in the case.
Friday's session is part of the latest round of player appeals overseen by former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. Former Saints assistant coach Mike Cerullo faced questions Thursday, when lawyers for the league and for players spent more than nine hours in a Washington office building.
Tagliabue has insisted on keeping the contents of the private hearings under wraps. He and various lawyers attending Thursday's session declined to comment afterward.
Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma and defensive end Will Smith have said they'd be present Friday to hear what Williams has to say. The players planned to travel to Washington after New Orleans' 23-13 loss to the Falcons at Atlanta on Thursday night.
Vilma and Smith ? along with two former Saints, free-agent defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove and Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita ? were suspended by the NFL for the Saints' cash-for-hits program that the league says Williams ran from 2009 to 2011.
Smith, suspended four games, and Vilma, suspended for the entire current season, have been playing while their appeals are pending.
The NFL has described Vilma and Smith as ringleaders of a performance pool designed to knock targeted opponents out of games. The league has sworn statements from Williams and Cerullo saying Vilma offered $10,000 to anyone who knocked quarterback Brett Favre out of the NFC championship game at the end of the 2009 season.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell issued the initial suspensions, which also included a full-season ban for Saints head coach Sean Payton.
Lawsuits brought by Vilma and the NFL Players Association to challenge Goodell's handling of the case, including his decision in October to appoint Tagliabue as the arbitrator for the appeals, are pending in federal court in New Orleans.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan gave the parties until Monday to answer questions about whether the NFL's collective bargaining agreement prevents a commissioner from handing out discipline for legal contact, and whether the CBA's passages about detrimental conduct are "ambiguous, hence unenforceable."
In March, the NFL announced that its investigation showed the Saints put together a bounty pool of up to $50,000 to reward game-ending injuries inflicted on opponents. "Knockouts" were worth $1,500 and "cart-offs" $1,000 ? with payments doubled or tripled for the playoffs, the league said.
According to the league, the pay-for-pain program was administered by Williams, with Payton's knowledge. At the time, Williams apologized for his role, saying: "It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it." Later that month, Payton became the first head coach suspended by the league for any reason ? banned for all of this season without pay ? and Williams was suspended indefinitely.
Williams was known for his aggressive, physical defenses as a coordinator for Tennessee, Washington, Jacksonville and New Orleans, and during his time as head coach of Buffalo. In January, he was hired by St. Louis to lead their defense.
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Connect with Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich
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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, a leading Canadian pension fund, plans to open its first Asia office next year in Hong Kong, with as many as 10 staff, a source with knowledge of the matter said, as it targets higher returns from direct investments in the region.
Teachers' is one of the world's largest investors into private equity firms, and is increasingly active in direct investing in deals, and the move to set up only its second office outside Canada underscores the significance of Asia to influential pension fund managers.
Teachers' president and CEO Jim Leech said in a statement on Thursday the fund was in the preliminary planning stages of opening an Asian regional office in Hong Kong.
"Given the global nature of our business and the increasing importance of the Asian region to our fund, it is logical that we have a location there," said Leech.
Teachers', Canada's largest single-profession pension administrator, had $117.1 billion in net assets under management at the end of 2011.
It has struck some deals in Asia this year on its own, apart from ploughing money into buyout funds. The fund invested alongside Unitas Capital in New Zealand Yellow Pages in 2007.
Teachers' plans to move Raju Ruparelia, an Ontario-based portfolio manager and former investment banker with Credit Suisse, to head its Asia office which will be based in Alexandra House, in the heart of the island city's Central Business District, according to a second source.
Ruparelia is a manager for Teachers' Private Capital, the private equity investment arm of Ontario Teachers'.
About half of the team will be focused on publicly traded companies and the remaining half on private markets, the first source said.
Teachers' spokeswoman Deborah Allan declined to comment on details of plans for the Hong Kong office, the fund's second regional office after London, which opened in 2007.
The sources declined to identified as the details were private.
ACTIVE DEALMAKERS
Teachers' is actively seeking opportunities for direct investments to increase its share of profits, as pension funds in general face increasing obligations on account of ageing populations.
Teachers' said in April that while it was making double-digit returns on assets, there would be a C$9.6 billion funding shortfall as the cost of future pension plans are growing faster than its assets.
Teachers', along with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and Caisse du depot et placement, are among the world's most active dealmakers in recent years, making major bets both in Canada and overseas.
Earlier this year, CPPIB hired former Goldman Sachs banker Mark Machin to lead its organization in Asia.
Teachers' acquired a 9.9 percent stake in South Korea's Kyobo Life for around $400 million in June, and with Hastings Funds Management has signed an A$2.3 billion ($2.35 billion) deal on the long-term lease of the Sydney Desalination Plant with Australia's New South Wales state.
(Editing by Denny Thomas and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
ASD genetics and biomarker development explored in a special issue of Disease Markers
Amsterdam, NL, November 30, 2012 Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders typically characterized by difficulties in social interactions and delayed or abnormal language development. Although ASD reportedly affects 1 in 88 people in the United States, to date there have been no distinctive biomarkers to diagnose the disease. In a special themed issue of Disease Markers, investigators report on the current understanding of ASD genetics and the possibilities of translating genetic research toward biomarker development in ASD.
"Although some individuals with ASD are highly functional, many are severely impaired and require permanent care. The significant level of impairment combined with the fact that no specific therapy is yet available for ASD, make ASD a devastating illness for patients and families, and a heavy financial burden for the healthcare system," says guest editor, Irina Voineagu, MD, PhD, RIKEN Omics Science Center, Yokohama, Japan. "The most effective intervention for ASD has proven to be early behavioral therapy. Thus the identification of biological markers for ASD, allowing very early detection, even before the onset of symptoms, would be of tremendous value."
Five articles comprise this comprehensive issue, providing an overview of ASD genetic models, an exploration of several key emerging concepts in understanding ASD's molecular basis, and discussion of current biomarker development, focusing on genomic data.
Following an introduction by Voineagu, Yuri Bozzi and colleagues review the phenotype characteristics of currently available mouse models of ASD. Carmen Panaitof then discusses the role of the songbird as an experimental model system for investigating the genetic basis of human language and its ASD-related impairments. Michael Bowers and Genevieve Konopka further explore language deficits and provide new evidence for the role of the FOXP gene to regulate language. Alka Saxena, Dave Tang, and Piero Carninci focus on the functional roles of the gene MECP2, which is mutated in most cases of Rett syndrome, one of the ASDs.
A review rounding out the issue is "Subphenotype-Dependent Disease Markers for Diagnosis and Personalized Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders," by Valerie W. Hu, PhD, The George Washington University, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, PhD, which discusses current progress toward identifying ASD biomarkers based on genome-wide data.
"Without genetic or molecular markers for screening, individuals with ASD are typically not diagnosed before the age of 2, with milder cases diagnosed much later," writes Dr. Hu. "Because early diagnosis is tantamount to early behavioral intervention, which has been shown to improve individual outcomes, an objective biomarker test that can diagnose at-risk children perinatally is a medical imperative."
Hu demonstrates the possibility and importance of developing ASD subtypes to help identify relevant disease markers, which can ultimately aid in developing specific targeted therapies.
Voineagu concludes, "It is exciting times for genetic research and although the phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity of ASD often seem to be a daunting conundrum, well-defined diagnostic criteria, larger cohort sizes for genetic studies and integrative approaches of genomic and epigenomic data already delineate a promising avenue for elucidating the mechanisms of ASD."
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Biomarker progress offers hope for early autism spectrum disorder detectionPublic release date: 30-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
ASD genetics and biomarker development explored in a special issue of Disease Markers
Amsterdam, NL, November 30, 2012 Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders typically characterized by difficulties in social interactions and delayed or abnormal language development. Although ASD reportedly affects 1 in 88 people in the United States, to date there have been no distinctive biomarkers to diagnose the disease. In a special themed issue of Disease Markers, investigators report on the current understanding of ASD genetics and the possibilities of translating genetic research toward biomarker development in ASD.
"Although some individuals with ASD are highly functional, many are severely impaired and require permanent care. The significant level of impairment combined with the fact that no specific therapy is yet available for ASD, make ASD a devastating illness for patients and families, and a heavy financial burden for the healthcare system," says guest editor, Irina Voineagu, MD, PhD, RIKEN Omics Science Center, Yokohama, Japan. "The most effective intervention for ASD has proven to be early behavioral therapy. Thus the identification of biological markers for ASD, allowing very early detection, even before the onset of symptoms, would be of tremendous value."
Five articles comprise this comprehensive issue, providing an overview of ASD genetic models, an exploration of several key emerging concepts in understanding ASD's molecular basis, and discussion of current biomarker development, focusing on genomic data.
Following an introduction by Voineagu, Yuri Bozzi and colleagues review the phenotype characteristics of currently available mouse models of ASD. Carmen Panaitof then discusses the role of the songbird as an experimental model system for investigating the genetic basis of human language and its ASD-related impairments. Michael Bowers and Genevieve Konopka further explore language deficits and provide new evidence for the role of the FOXP gene to regulate language. Alka Saxena, Dave Tang, and Piero Carninci focus on the functional roles of the gene MECP2, which is mutated in most cases of Rett syndrome, one of the ASDs.
A review rounding out the issue is "Subphenotype-Dependent Disease Markers for Diagnosis and Personalized Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders," by Valerie W. Hu, PhD, The George Washington University, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, PhD, which discusses current progress toward identifying ASD biomarkers based on genome-wide data.
"Without genetic or molecular markers for screening, individuals with ASD are typically not diagnosed before the age of 2, with milder cases diagnosed much later," writes Dr. Hu. "Because early diagnosis is tantamount to early behavioral intervention, which has been shown to improve individual outcomes, an objective biomarker test that can diagnose at-risk children perinatally is a medical imperative."
Hu demonstrates the possibility and importance of developing ASD subtypes to help identify relevant disease markers, which can ultimately aid in developing specific targeted therapies.
Voineagu concludes, "It is exciting times for genetic research and although the phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity of ASD often seem to be a daunting conundrum, well-defined diagnostic criteria, larger cohort sizes for genetic studies and integrative approaches of genomic and epigenomic data already delineate a promising avenue for elucidating the mechanisms of ASD."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Pioneer flirted with HTC Connect earlier in the year, and now the relationship is getting more serious with firmware upgrades to Pioneer's AV receivers adding compatibility for the DLNA streaming tech. Fresh firmware is available now for the majority of 2012-model standard and Elite receivers, so if you've got a One series handset, an EVO 4G LTE, a Droid Incredible 4G LTE or a brand new Droid DNA, wireless streaming is just an update away. To see if your receiver has been granted HTC Connect-certification, head to the source below, where you'll also find links to download the relevant firmware.
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Public release date: 30-Nov-2012
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