If you are caught in a dilemma whether to further invest in a weak stock in which you have lost, say, more than Rs 1 lakh, so that you can average out your investments or put your money in a promising company that could reap you rich dividends, which would you choose? It’s a dilemma that faces many of us and often comes in the way of making a rational investment decision. Very often, investors choose the former to cover up losses in their portfolio or just hold on to the stock in the hope that it will bounce back soon. Behavioural finance experts say investors tend to behave in this way because the pain of loss far exceeds the pleasure from gains. It’s this emotion of “loss aversion” that many investors unwittingly succumb to when making investment decisions. Often, not understanding one’s emotions when investing in the stock market leads to big financial losses for investors

Plenty of research has gone into how emotions affect investment decisions of individuals. Emotions are shaped by a lot of influences in our daily lives, including basic things like how we react to money or how our parents reacted to money. Emotions also determine how we react to different situations. Says Parag Parikh, stock broker and author of Stocks to Riches (Tata McGraw-Hill): “It also stems ourselves and seek immediate pleasure or whether we can postpone pleasure.” It’s how you deal with these emotions that will determine whether you will make money or lose your shirt during these tough times.

Weigh your emotions
Consider the “gambler’s fallacy” that nearly everyone—from housewives to corporate head honchos— falls for. Say, you are playing a game of coin tossing and nine times out of nine, the coin shows heads. What are the chances that it will show heads on the next toss? Many might think it’s slim because it showed heads nine times out of nine previously. Yet, the chances are fifty-fifty—the same as the last coin toss or the previous nine coin tosses. Each wager is unique to the chances that it gives an investor and it has got nothing to do with the previous results. This is where investors can recognise that each investment is different. If you had been winning on a particular stock before, it does not mean that you will win the next time you invest in the same. It calls for a fresh understanding of the market conditions and the circumstances that will allow your stock to do well.

Investors get easily swayed by another similar emotion: the “sunkcost fallacy”. This means that investors are throwing in good money after bad. On the other hand, if your investment is in a weak stock, then no matter how much you invest in it, chances are that you will still lose money. But sometimes you can use this psychological effect to your advantage. Let’s say you buy a gym membership for a year rather than for a month. Here you sink the money for a year, but it psychologically forces you to go to the gym rather than forego a huge sum. In investing, it works when an individual investor rupee costaverages on a good stock.

A common trap investors fall into when they are driven by emotions is when they try to recover a loss. At such times, an investor has to commit a bigger sum of money to recover his loss in the market. In doing so, he fails to recognise that his risk capital and exposure to the market has increased.Source: Business Today

These days technology is rising quickly, and it still does because it makes people’s life easier. Nowadays the web is used to do pretty much anything, from finding basic to complex information, meeting new people and even buying and selling products. Not like the old day when people need to buy something they always go to the market. Today we can stay at home, open our web browsers and with a few clicks we can get what we are looking for by having it conveniently shipped to our homes.

When it comes to technology it all sounds beautiful and simple but there is most definitively a downside. The cost of technology, in many cases, affects the well being of Mother Nature and by consequence ourselves thus, not being completely ethical. Many technologies that companies develop and produce are not safe to our planet and as a result, these unsafe products can damage the earth.

It is true that human kind cannot get anything without first giving something in return but in the process, we forget just how valuable the things we sacrifice really are, for example, a farmer who plant coffee or rice will always want to get the best price for his work. Striking a balance between fair pricing and lowering the impact the planet takes because of our demand is why fair-trade is important.

Software are now considered as the backbone of a computer, windows itself is a software with out which we would be unable to use the device called computer. With the advancement in software development department, a large no of different security applications are making a good reputation among people.They are satisfying the security needs of the people but still there is an issue related to the security of emails.

People use to send their important data through emails, but its really insecure to use email services to send important and personal data because these days the hackers just need a chance to hack those emails and take away your important data before it can reach to your desired person.

Software like Folder Lock is complete security software, which assures the security of data on your system, on removable media as well as you emails. You can send your data on emails protected by it. Folder Lock creates encrypted lockers, which are impossible to crack, even if a hacker gets his hands to it, he will never be able to crack that locker nor can he ever misuse your data.

Security software have now became a need to our systems, a security conscious will never leave his system in the hands of viruses or hackers, he would do any thing to make his/her important data secured and protected.

This is probably one of the most important things that you will ever do for you and your business. It will definitely have the biggest impact of anything you have ever done.

This activity is to help you not only create a 30 second elevator speech, but to better understand what you really do. It will define your USP (Unique selling proposition). This usually even changes my client’s vision of who they are and what they do for their customers.

1. Column One – Products, Services or Features

List your products/services, probably what you are currently telling me what you do or sell. Write down all of them.

2. Column Two – Benefits

List the benefits that your products, services or features provide. Each benefit should be directly linked to the product identified in Column One. Look to answer the question “Why” should someone buy the product, service or features.

3. Column Three – Why Buy From Me?

Identify what makes you unique in the sea of sameness where you can find hundreds of businesses selling the same products, services or features. Avoid price as may become a losing strategy.