mugugag blog

Is it time to juggle your portfolio? Perhaps. The year end is less than two months away. I have elaborated on the importance of fall season as the best time to rearrange your portfolio. Mainly, stock that rises during the year will continue to rise heading into year end. On the other hand, stock that underperformed, will continue to be sold heading into year end.
Now, the year end is almost here. While there are no guarantee that you can buy at the best possible price, it is as close as you can get. Stock does not turn exactly on the last day of the year. Even when it does, investors will anticipate its movement and make any arbitration move useless. But, the November- December period is close enough for small investors to get the best possible price.
Having said that, I don’t advocate buying any stocks that fall sharply during the year and selling any stocks that have risen a lot. Fundamental still drives stock price movement in the long run. Therefore, what you need to do first is to determine the fair value of a common stock that you want to invest. I have touched on this subject briefly in the past too.
If you are looking to invest, you can start researching stocks that have fallen throughout the year. Until year end, these stocks will continue to be depressed. Here are several list to help you look. Fannie Mae (FNM), Lexmark (LXK), Pier 1 Imports Inc. (PIR), Sharper Image Corp (SHRP), Seagate Technology (STX), JoAnn Stores (JAS), Take Two Interactive (TTWO) and Flagstar Bancorp (FBC).
If you own one of these stocks, you might want to continue holding them until the year ends. This way, you will pay taxes for fiscal year 2006 instead of 2005. Here are several list: Apple Computer (AAPL), TXU Corp. (TXU), NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA), Tesoro Petroleum (TSO) and Valero Energy (VLO).

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There are many complications to being a small business owner but none so pressing as the need for health, dental and life insurance. Many small business owners obtain coverage through the employment of their spouse. However, there are just as many small business owners who are not married, whose spouse is also self employed or not offered benefits through their employer.
Another option for a small business owner is to partner with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). PEO’s, also known as employee leasing companies, handle the human resources functions of companies of any size but they focus primarily on small and medium sized businesses. Some of the human resources functions handled by a typical PEO are:

Payroll
Direct Deposit
Worker’s Compensation Insurance
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Life Insurance
Retirement Plans
Tax Deposits and Reporting
Regulatory Compliance

A PEO groups together businesses of all sizes in order to get the best rates for benefits and to reduce human resources costs to a minimum. In order to work with a PEO you will be asked to fill out an application and provide a set-up fee ranging from $50.00 to $300.00 depending upon the size of your business. Monthly fees will be determined by the PEO and are usually based on the number of payroll checks issued during each month and the number of employees. Your company will be billed, at least monthly, for the cost of fees, benefits, taxes, etc. not paid by employees.
After signing a contract with a PEO your employees will need to fill out employment and tax forms that will then be forwarded to the PEO. The PEO then becomes the employer of record for the employees and from then on handles all payroll and benefit tasks. Timesheets, benefit enrollments and changes will all be submitted to your PEO and you will receive regularly scheduled management reports. At the end of a calendar year the PEO will provide all employees with a W-2.
Some PEO’s work with companies in every state and others are state specific. You can find individual PEO’s by using a search engine such as Google. You can save time by using the free services of a PEO clearinghouse such as www.StaffMarket.com. You can also find a SEO by visiting The National Association of Professional Employers Association (NAPEO) at http://www.napeo.org. NAPEO offers a directory of members searchable by company name, state or country and offers guidelines to help you screen and select a PEO.
A PEO may not be the perfect solution for every small business but it is an option for individuals and companies who are willing to outsource human resource functions to obtain much needed benefits, improve employee retention and save time that can be better used to growing the business.
2003, Davis Virtual Assistance. All rights reserved.
The author grants reprint permission to all venues so long as the copyright and by-line are included intact.

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What is title insurance and why should any buyer get it when purchasing a home (single family, townhouse, condo, apartment, or whatever format your home purchase takes)? Doesn’t the attorney or settlement company handling the closing see to it that you have a clear title? Isn’t this just another way for someone to siphon a few coins off a real estate transaction?
Title Insurance
Title insurance prevents the property owner from suffering financial loss if, at any time during his ownership of the property, someone comes along who can show that they have full, or partial, ownership of the property instead. Every mortgage lender I’m aware of requires title insurance be purchased to cover the amount of the mortgage. They’re not in business to lose money.
A careful title search is done at the time property changes hands. On rare occasions mistakes are made anyway. Property can change hands in a number of ways including by deed, by will and by court action. Typically, these proceedings are recorded in different places. Searching the history of ownership to be sure nothing has fallen through the cracks is a tedious job that requires alertness, intelligence, and skill. Mistakes can happen. Fortunately they don’t occur very often, but they do happen.
A mistake of this kind happened a few years ago to some elderly friends of mine who owned a 136 acre parcel of farmland in Stafford County, Virginia. It had been the home place, the family farm. The family had 10 children who inherited it on the death of their parents. After they became adults, one child, a daughter, bought out the interests of each of her siblings. At her death, the property was conveyed by will to her three sons. One of her sons had died without a will which resulted in his widow and their 3 children gaining ownership of his one third interest per state law.
My friend is the widow. She and her brothers-in-law wanted to sell the property. The area had begun to develop and each of the three of them had significant health problems, so they decided an influx of cash would be welcome. The property was master planned, but not yet zoned, for multi-family use. Being subject to a rezoning complicated the sale, but the price reflected the change in use. When the title work was done, it was discovered that the heir of one of the 10 children was still shown as a ten percent owner of the property. Neither my friend nor her brothers-in-law had title insurance. If the heir would not sign a “quit claim deed,” they were stuck with an additional owner.
Actually, this happened not once, but twice with the same family group. In one case, the aunt remembered that her parent had been bought out and signed the quit claim deed. In the other case, a cousin either did not know or refused to acknowledge what had happened and ended up getting ten per cent of the proceeds.
My suggestion is that you purchase title insurance because lack of it could prove devastating. You make a down payment. You make monthly payments, an increasing portion of which is reducing the amount of principal owed. It is very likely that the value of your property will go up over the years. As time passes, these elements are likely to result in your home equity’s being your largest asset. Just how devastating would it be if you eventually discovered that someone else owned what you’d always thought was your home?
Do yourself a favor. When you buy a home, buy title insurance.
What if the home you’re purchasing is new? No one else could have owned it before you, right? Well, someone owned the land. As a matter of fact, the builder/developer probably had a construction loan on it, and they’re often released in groups of 10 lots at a time, so it’s possible a bank has an interest in your title. What happens if the bank goes bankrupt and you’re left trying to get a release from a trustee in bankruptcy?
Honestly, I’m not making this stuff up. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen. Do yourself a favor. Buy title insurance.

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With the hectic pace of life for so many of us today, is it any wonder that we’re conducting more of our everyday transactions online? Even when it comes to more serious long-term decisions, consumers frequently start the shopping process by browsing preliminary information online at trustworthy Websites. This holds true for those in search of a mortgage, as well. Whether you are planning to buy a new home or refinance an older one, you may want to check out the benefits of doing business online with a company like Mortgage Mall (www.mortgagemall.com.au).
A full-service mortgage site, like others of its type, offers a complete menu to get visitors started in the loan application process. You can choose either a quick or full application to complete and then submit it online. The site also provides calculators for convenient ways of crunching the numbers while you figure out what you can and cannot afford to pay for a home in terms of monthly payments and interest rates. Contact links and company history round out the Website’s features to give potential customers an overview of this financial institution’s mortgage lending capabilities.
A top-notch online mortgage Website typically features a full line of mortgage options. You can click on a variety of links to learn more about payment plans and neighborhood price comparisons. This is a great place to start if you are thinking about selling your home in the not-so-distant future. Another helpful source of information to check is Your Mortgage (www.yourmortgage.com.au), where you will find calculators and articles that offer practical advice like how to sell your home faster or manage the legal implications of real estate transactions.
Buying or selling a home can be a drawn-out process. Making appointments, signing papers, and waiting for answers can be time-consuming and sometimes costly. That is why more homeowners and buyers are looking to the Web for fast, convenient mortgage service. They know that a financial lender’s site is available around the clock, 24/7, to provide information and guidelines for buying or selling a home. You don’t have to wait for someone to answer the phone or arrive at your home. You can click on several links to start finding the information you need. When you have a general understanding of the process and submit online information as a preliminary or full application, you have started the ball rolling toward a speedy conclusion that hopefully will be rewarding.
You don’t have to share a lot of confidential information on the Internet, either. Just punch in a few answers to start-up questions, get a few rates or ideas about the terms that are being offered, and follow up with a mortgage officer who can answer the next round of questions and work with you to get the deal you want. Start shopping online now to compare terms, rates, and services and get the help you deserve at the time you need it without waiting forever.

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How many times have you “committed” yourself to “firm” goals at the beginning of a year and then not achieved them by year’s end? In the fast-paced world in which we all live, consistently finding the time to devote to improving our personal skills for a better future may be one of our greatest challenges. However, take heart; there are ways to regain control of your time and optimism for a better future. Empower yourself to achieve the goals that have eluded you in the past. Following are 10 tips to becoming more time efficient and goal oriented.
1. Establish a life plan or mission statement. What do you want to accomplish over your lifetime? Prioritize your most important goals with an explicit time period for completion such as 90 days, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. Develop a strategy to measure the incremental milestones along the path to achieving your overall goals so that you can measure your progress over time.
2. Consider career, family and personal growth goals. Expand your horizon. How many times all of us thought about someday pursuing our personal interests such as taking up a new hobby, learning a second language, reading the “classics,” or becoming healthier? What about traveling to that special place, hiking that mystical trail, learning to scuba dive, or sailing to the exotic destination that exists in our mind. Make sure that these goals get as much consideration as the more “sensible” ones such as career advancement, time management, or financial goals. Remember, “Someday” never comes, only the goals that are explicitly defined, with reasonable and honest time frames and a firm commitment are ever achieved.
3. Structure your important work hours with a time management system. Make sure to reserve time to manage our daily “emergencies” and block out time to complete necessary tasks like phone calls, email, meetings, marketing, unplanned interruptions, and administrative duties. To consistently find time to exercise, it MUST appear on your daily planner.
4. Plan your week ahead of time. Use either Friday afternoon orMonday morning to plan the week to come. At the end of the week, look to see what was not accomplished and list it in the following week’s to do list. If you consistently find many items not completed, reconsider how reasonable your planning has been and make changes.
5. Make a daily to do list. List out the items that need to be done and prioritize the importance of each one.
6. Manage interruptions. Keep track for one work week how many interruptions you experience, how long each one takes to resolve and whether they were external or actually self-imposed. You may be surprised at how much time, energy and money interruptions can cost you.
7. Review your schedule and goals daily. After taking the time to plan your week and list your goals, DO NOT file them away outside of eyesight and hope that everything will get accomplished. Keep these items in a place of easy access and review them frequently.
8. Make goals measurable. You must be able to measure progress towards your goals to sustain your motivation. After clearly defining your personal goals, being able to incrementally measure your progress is the most important component in lifestyle change. How will you know if you are on the right track to achieving your goals? You must break large goals into several measurable components so you can see your success and stay motivated in your efforts.
9. Get a buddy to help with accountability. Often describing to another person what we are working on and why its important to us can help us with support and accountability towards reaching our goals.
10. Have goals and tasks that are achievable. Make sure that the tasks and goals that you set out to accomplish are attainable; don’t set yourself up for failure.
It takes time and energy up front to become more time efficient and goal oriented, but you can create more time in your life and increase the chances of reaching your goals and full potential in life.

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Handling Customer Complaints
Even the best business will receive an occasional customer complaint. Knowing how to resolve these complaints will help you gain loyal customers who will then refer others to your business. Here are some important tips.
1. Listen carefully to the customer and gather as much information as possible.
2. Restate the complaint as you understand it. This ensures that you completely understand what the situation is.
3. Resolve the problem as quickly as possible. Tell the person you are sorry this happened and ask what you can to do to make this right. Do not argue with the customer, even though you are right and do not become defensive.
3. After correcting the problem, tell the customer thank you for bringing it to your attention and that you appreciate their business.
4. Develop a written policy for your staff to follow and reward them when they do a good job.
Remember! The customer may not always be right, but an unhappy customer treated right may well be one of your most loyal customers.
allfoodbusiness.com

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In all investing situations, we will be confronted with both risk and reward. I cannot think of any investments that offer no risk with big reward. The most common investment opportunity I have seen is low risk - low reward, low risk- high reward, big risk - big reward, big risk - low reward.
Big risk - low reward opportunities are everywhere. Buying a stock at any price will constitute a big risk - low reward investment opportunities. The odd is even worse than gambling where the house has a 55-60% chance of winning.
You might be wondering how you can quantify risk. Reward is easier to quantify. If you buy stock A at X price and it has risen to Y, then your reward is the difference between your selling price and purchase price. Some risk can be quantify while others aren’t.
Let’s use an example for clarification purpose. What is the risk of buying Merck Co and Inc. (MRK)? The risk is well publicized. Investors’ risk would be the potential Vioxx liability that stems from lawsuits. How much does MRK has to pay? Nobody knows for sure. We can only estimate. Some says $ 5 Billion. Another says $ 50 Billion. This is uncertainty and this is risk. You can reduce this risk by reading more and then make a conservative estimate regarding this issue.
Are there other risks associated with Merck? Sure. Patent expiration is one. Its best selling drug, Zocor, is slated to lose patent protection in 2006. Nobody knows what other drugs can replace Zocor’s revenue. Competition is also one form of risk. Competitors can always outsmart a company and make a product obsolete. These are all uncertainties. These are risks. Since the future is always uncertain, the risk is always there. What we can do as investors is merely to reduce the risk by making better estimation and knowing as much as you can.

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Continuing from the second article:
6. About the aground mathematical model, let us to see the product k:

First quantity received in 10/6/98, quantity 1,000, unit cost US$ 34.00.
Second in 12/11/98, quantity 1,300, unit cost US$ 23.00
Third in 1/10/99, quantity 760, unit cost US$ 36.00

Therefore, if not been sold we would have 3,060 units in stock today. But you sold - in several opportunities - a total of 1,300 units, and our current total stock is of 1,760 units. We also have the data of those sales, besides its responsible salesman.
The question is: Because today is 1/11/99, about the product k what quantity should be consider as aground and therefore with a differentiated treatment in prices and sales conditions and also in marketing, in order to sell your balance in stock?
7. To establish the definitive aground formula that will be created - in Notes - and the new Views automatically computed, for example

View 1 - column - reduced sales price, if sold in the next 15 days
View 2 - column - same, for next month.

Remember that those information are practically online, and they can be visualized in every terminal of the company at local or regional or national or international levels.
8. We established a periodicity for the automatic communication of those information - without the human interference - to salesman and similar, through the Notes integrated e-mail system. Let us say that every 15 days Notes will send automatically the new - computed - sales prices.
9. We established the automatic data acquisition of the salesman’ results, with Notes automatically analyzing each salesman’s daily sales and how much as he sold of the aground products, and then Notes send automatic e-mails specific for each salesman with reports and new rules, etc.
The databases synchronization
Naturally we need the databases synchronization among Notes and your dBcompany, because the data in your dBcompany are dynamic, that is to say, the data residing in both databases should be synchronized, or in a field-by-field or document-by-document bases.
For example:

dBcompany a,b,c —> Notes a,b,c (begin)
dBcompany a,c —> Notes a,b,c (the field b was deleted in the dBcompany)
Result: dBcompany a,c = Notes a,c (end).

Final
For each project, we must analyze the current and future needs of your dBcompany in what refers any ERP functions, but always you must have in mind that Notes as a Front-End it’s programmable almost to the “infinite”. Saying in another way, we won’t be wandering when doing an ERP application with the Notes as your Front-End, because this approach is almost an open application system.
We suggested a Front-End with the Notes, for your managerial/accounting system. But the same suggestion applies to several other situations, as the following few examples:

You have your online managerial/accounting system and also other online system for your Human Resources Department, and you need to integrate the employee’s different data from both systems. Probably your have some HR features in your managerial/accounting system, but your HR system it’s more powerful with more information and features, concerning your HR Dept.
You have your online managerial/accounting system and also other process control real-time system(s), and you need to integrate this manufacturing data with your accounting or marketing or sales systems.
You have five different online systems in your company - some online and some offline - for different purposes, and need to integrate information and/or data from the five systems in only one system - your ERP programmed Front-End.

Naturally this is only few examples, because any of your desired ERP functions depends only on your imagination, if using this programmed Front-End approach.
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For average Americans, taxes are the single largest bill they will pay. Almost 40% of every working person’s wages go to taxes: that’s more than most people pay in utilities, rent, car loans, or education expenses. And while the burden of most bills can be lessened by working harder and earning more money, the tax liability only increases, so earning more money just equals paying more taxes.
Most Americans do not realize that Uncle Sam’s piece of their hard-earned pie is so enormous. After all, the amount is divided into a number of small deductions: federal taxes,state taxes, county taxes, Medicare, social security, and so on. Each individual chunk looks like a reasonable price to pay in order to keep the country operating smoothly, but when added together the sum is staggering. The majority of people resign themselves to a lifetime of working too hard and to longfor someone else, paying too much in taxes to the government, and then struggling to maintain a comfortable life after retirement. But they’ve been brainwashed! The truth is every person can learn to work less and keep more of their earnings, not by cheating the IRS or by hiring a staff of overpriced accountants, but simply by following the American Dream and becoming an entrepreneur.
Business owners, especially those with a home office, have a tremendous advantage over the average working taxpayer. While most people pay taxes on the total amount they earn, business owners only pay taxes on the amount left over after their expenses. Imagine being able to deduct work-related transportation and clothing expenses from a paycheck before taxes come out. Imagine being able to write-off the rent, utilities, remodeling, and cleaning expenses every year.
It is possible. Business owners can legally deduct all of these expenses from their revenue before the IRS comes to collect their fee, and so can you, the average American simply by starting a home-based business. For home-based operations, the IRS treats home and living expenses as tax-deductible business expenses.
While keeping more money in their own pockets sounds like a blessing to most Americans, few people believe it could be that easy and that legal. But it really is. And it doesn’t take an accounting degree or an MBA to understand what the government will allow deductible expenses. All it requires is time, organizational skills, and a desire to lower the yearly tax responsibility substantially.
Time is essential. It will require time to set up a home-based business and to begin generating a stream of profit. It also takes time to study the tax laws relating to business expenses. Unfortunately, many people are unwilling to expand the initial effort required. They prefer to make their $5000 the old-fashioned way: by slaving away for forty hours or more a week to make someone else rich. In reality, the time commitment of starting a home-based business is considerably less and is required only once.

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Ultimately, no matter how high-tech your business tools may be, development and implementation of new initiatives will depend upon effective, productive communication between real live people.
Why do some business meetings result in boredom and lack of focus, whereas others send attendees charging out equipped to wage battle? Why do some supervisors confuse their workers with vague, contradictory suggestions while others support their charges with vision and assistance and help them build their own path to success?
It boils down to good ol’ human interaction - a subject somewhat out of vogue since the advent of the motherboard - but guess what? It ain’t going away. Without good clear human connectivity, a mile-high stack of computers won’t save your company from faltering.
So here is our list of steps you can take to improve your business communication.
1. Remember your vision. You are doing things for a reason. What is it? When you remember why you are doing something and can really feel its importance, that is the time to share your vision with others. Encourage them to speak of their vision for the future. Charge each other up with thoughts of where you want to go. Catch a buzz from envisioning the big picture.
2. Keep the vision alive. People will get mired down with the day to day. Find times to stoke the dream, even informally.
3. When a mutual vision is established and accepted, it is time to talk about how to get there. These talks have two distinct parts: brainstorming and action planning. In brainstorming, you share ideas about what kinds of actions can get you to your goal. But these ideas should be loose and a little wacky. Pick a few uncommon ideas and throw them out to model creative thought. Let your co-workers know that it is time to think freely without criticism. Have fun and laugh. Have a posterboard and write the ideas for all to see, in order to foster associations which could lead to even better ideas.
4. When the ideas seem exhausted, it is time to get serious and build a plan. Cross off ideas which are clearly unworkable. Boil the ideas down to 3-5 action items.
5. There should be one person assigned with overall responsibility for each action item. That person is accountable for its development. She might solicit others to assist. She might assign tasks. Nonetheless, she is the key person for that work item.
6. Follow-up is a fundamental business activity. Without follow-up, all the good work and ideas which are in play will wither and die. Meetings or other follow-up venues must be scheduled regularly to keep all the pots boiling. The top person for each action item must be asked about progress by the person responsible for the overall plan.
7. Review and analyze results and make necessary adjustments. Then build on the good and drop the bad.
8. Do not stigmatize failure. Remember that failure is necessary for success. If you can really internalize this idea, you will be able to fearlessly and logically parse the good and bad in your plan. If you truly embrace failure as a part of the success process, you will be able to make the review/analysis phase engaging, creative and extremely useful.
9. Notice when people do good things and tell them. Some very hard working people toil for a very long time without hearing even one positive sentiment. It’s an idea as old as Andrew Carnegie and Reader’s Digest, but it may be even more important today. Our computers separate us from human contact even as they connect us. Reach out in a human way. Pay a well-earned compliment. Then watch the startled, then untrusting, then relaxed and very gratified looks you get back in return.
10. Remember that you are a role model. People watch you. If you act fairly, they will trust you. If you are mean or egotistical, they will dislike and undermine you. If you help them, they will help you. Think of the people you most admire. Think about their effect on you. Can you absorb some of that goodness and pay it forward?
Copyright 2005 Mark Meshulam

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