krogias

Question : What enables you to both eat healthy and be a good steward of your community?  Answer: Buy a share membership to your local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Through a CSA membership, you are buying seasonal food directly from a local farmer. In a CSA, the farmer offers a set number of "shares" to the public. A share consists of a box of farm produce. You purchase a share up front at the beginning of the year and in return, you receive a box of seasonal produce each week throughout the season. Information about CSAs and how to find one in your community can be found at http://www.localharvest.org/ Advantages for the Farmer • Market your produce prior to the growing season • Receive payment early in the season, which provides cash flow • Connect with those who will be consuming your produce Advantages for You • Fresh food, packed with flavor and vitamins as they will be consumed or frozen very soon after they are harvested • Exposure to...

So you want to buy shares of Facebook with their Initial Public Offering (IPO)? Good luck. An IPO is where a private company or closely held company, like Facebook, offers shares to the general public for the first time and that stock is then traded on a stock exchange. Friday’s ‘All Things Considered’ on National Public Radio did a great job of explaining how IPOs work and why companies go public in their article “ Facebook’s IPO and the Average Investor .” When a company goes public, it works with an investment bank to price shares of its soon-to-be issued stock and to decide how many shares to issue. The initial price is a combination of science and art. The science is calculating the value of the company including potential future income (part art), and the real art is forecasting what investors will pay for the stock. Investment banks will sell large blocks of stock from the IPO to its best customers. These are usually large institutional investors and their high dollar customers...

“Make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened and keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.”  This is what you hear as you get on an amusement park roller coaster. Maybe your stock broker or financial advisor should also say this when you begin to invest in the stock market. In the spirit of full disclosure, should we formally address the stock market by its thrill ride name? There is Disney’s The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror , Kings Island’s The Beast , Six Flags Great Adventure’s Kingda Ka , the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has Insanity , and the king of amusement park roller-coasters, Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio has Disaster Transport , Iron Dragon , Maverick , Mean Streak , Millennium Force , Raptor , Top Thrill Dragster and Wicked Twister . Any one of these names fit the gyrations, the ups and downs of the stock market. Even with your seat belt securely fastened, it is a good time to reassess your risk tolerance and which investment optio...

As a business professor I am torn about the Occupy Wall Street protest (OWS).   On one hand, the capitalism and free market economy enable people to “pull themselves up from their bootstraps” and become wealthy by inventing, creating, developing and delivering new and creative products and services that meet a need.   Doing this at a price consumers will pay while making money is an art and science.   For those who have this talent and gift, should they not be compensated for taking risks?   Isn’t that what makes American business great?   This is the land of opportunity….right?   Just look at what the late Steve Jobs did to help make your life better.   We didn’t have to buy an overpriced MP3 player, but Jobs had the gift to make the i-anything what we as Americans wanted to buy. On the other hand, I read about executive compensation in the millions while the business is laying off workers or not giving them a raise and I wonder how many line jobs tho...

“ New Bank Rules Sink Stocks”, “Turn at the Capitol Rocks the Market”, “Stocks Set to Bounce” -The stock market and individual stocks are susceptible to headliners, rumors and speculation. Daily monitoring of the ups and downs can be disheartening or exhilarating. Remind yourself that stock market fluctuations are relatively short-run and investment in stocks should be for the long haul. Historically, prices recover over time. If volatile stock investments are too stressful for you, consider growing your investment portfolio through low-cost index funds (i.e. check out Vanguard 500 Index at Vanguard.com ). Index funds reduce the effects of individual stock fluctuation by diversifying your portfolio and have performed comparably well. In order for your savings to outpace inflation; you will need to take on a certain amount of risk with your investments. Low-cost index funds are an option for the road-weary.