Ways to Keep Your Portfolio Global Warming-Proof

In the recent 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris last November 30 to December 11, 2015, the Paris Agreement was finally adopted. After a series of negotiations and anticipation, the first global climate change treaty aiming to cut carbon emissions around the world was agreed upon by 195 country leaders. The deal was the biggest move to fight and avoid the effect of dangerous warming to the human race.
Impacts of Climate Change
Global warming as an effect of climate change is evident anywhere in the globe now and its impacts to the world economy is also noticeable. In 2015 alone, flashfloods, earthquakes, landslides, wildfires and heat waves occurred in different parts of the world. CBC News listed the nine worst natural disasters that happened in 2015 leaving thousands of people dead, homes and buildings destroyed and livelihood killed.
Eight thousand people were reported dead in Nepal and Kathmandu during the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on April 25, 2015. In South Africa, 200 people were either dead or missing and about 120,000 families have been displaced due to widespread flooding in January. On a national level, for each natural disaster that occurs there is a corresponding effect to the investors, the prices of commodities, stock market, work force and national products.
The Paris Agreement should help resolve this problem in the next decades. However, there are also business sectors that will ache with the adoption of the treaty such as coal, oil, and chemicals. The COP21's goal in keeping the global temperature rice well below 2C would most likely mean finding more renewable sources of energy to compete or even replace coal, oil, natural gas and chemicals. While the COP21 is a great cause to the human race, it also presents a threat to some of the big industries around the world.
Safety Measures for your Portfolio
If you have large investments in one or more sectors mentioned above or in something else for that matter, you must know how to protect your portfolio from global warming.
One of the best ways to prepare for any global warming related fortuitous event is to set up an emergency fund. Much like how a country prepares for any disaster, individuals too should spare at least one year's worth of savings for emergency purposes. Emergency funds are recommended to be placed in FDIC-insured and high-interest accounts to ensure stability and liquidity.
Another way is diversifying investments. Wide ranged investments lower the level of risk that an inventor faces. Diversification could vary in location or industries. In simple terms, it means not putting all your money in one basket. One wise diversification method is to avoid having closely related investments so that you will still have strong cards remaining when the others become weak.
The third measure is to keep your creditor status in good shape. Remember the cliché, "you'll never know what you're missing 'til it's gone"? Well, an approved loan could be one of the things you would be missing if you didn't pay your dues right. To protect your portfolio, you must be able to tap financial institutions, ask for help and get approved when everything else fails. Getting a loan, contrary to popular belief, is not always wrong. In most cases, large corporations have numerous loans to keep their businesses running and earning. Keep a healthy creditor's record because you will never know when it comes in handy.
Lastly, make sure that you purchase insurance policies that cover damages due to natural disasters such as flood, earthquakes, landslides, etc. This may entail additional cost but the benefits are worth the investment. Look for tried and trusted insurance companies.
Now, to avoid losing a lot of money from the anticipated greener operations and new government taxes, one must get over the denial stage and start accepting that global warming is real and the worldwide carbon emission decrease campaign is already out there. Invest in the right businesses, environment-friendly equipment and processes. If you have large sums to spare, you may consider placing some in the renewable energy production sector.
Murray Priestley is the Founder & Managing Director of Alpha Holdings Management Ltd. Alpha is an investment management services firm that provides tailored solutions in investment strategies and technology provision, investment research and multi-family office.

Equity Crowdfunders Or Investment Bankers?

What with the dizzying pace of change in the alternative finance world, it seems like decades ago, but just a couple of years back in December 2013, when I launched BA to an unsuspecting world I had a couple of what you might call 'heroes' - namely the founders of Crowdcube and Seedrs. After all, these guys have been largely responsible for triggering the alternative finance revolution that's still under way today. They laid not only the foundations but also the footings for an amazing industry that's changing the lives of entrepreneurs all over the UK by enabling them to realise their business visions.
To say I have the utmost respect for those guys would be an understatement. They're pretty much the source of my boundless enthusiasm for anything and everything to do with equity crowdfunding! There's always a 'but' at the end of a sentence like that - and here it comes!
Lately, when I look at the way they're running their businesses I can't help feeling a hint of disappointment... I've started getting the feeling the revolutionaries have swapped their red berets and combat fatigues for red braces and pin-striped suits. Instead of blazing the trail for our most imaginative entrepreneurs by providing a ground-breaking alternative to the rigid mindset of the financial establishment they seem to be slowly merging into the establishment! I say this because it would seem to me that they're now turning down more businesses than ever before, they are not at as open or collaborative as they once were and are cherry picking what they deem to be the best company investments.
Just to be clear - it's not that I blame them. They want to protect their business and It's easy to see how this happens. It's not just the fear of getting things wrong; the fear of failure, it's also the fear of outside pressure, reprisals from the press and remaining legally compliant, especially with recent events like the collapse of Rebus that was funded on Crowdcube last year.
For me this approach takes all the romance and exhilaration out of what we're all trying to do - the fear of reprisals, lack of openness and sharing goes against everything I thought equity crowdfunding stood for. Worst of all, it puts the power to invest in exciting new ideas back in the hands of the 'In crowd' and limits the exposure to retail investors (the man in the street) from those opportunities.
In short, I believe this is stifling the development of equity crowdfunding and I think they should attack it head on, rate the companies they are funding on both investment and altruism. Don't be frightened of backing the wrong horse; it happens. Open your doors to aggregators that offer opinions and ratings, let the crowd become a crowd don't crush it.
Of course, it's not an unfamiliar scenario, as companies make the tough transition from fired-up start-ups to corporate entities with outside powers holding the reins and the purse strings. But the truly great innovators have always understood that you sacrifice collaboration at your peril. When Apple, for instance, opened its doors to app developers through the App Store their business changed overnight... When Google created its ad display network it's revenues soared exponentially...
And anyway, if not collaboration, what is Crowdfunding about? Equity Crowdfunding is about creating a genuinely free market, an independent place where people trade and where ratings and feedback are given to companies, and Crowdfunding sites alike. To keep the flame of inspiration burning I believe the entire community has to be able to communicate and share ideas with total freedom. In my view that means every business involved has to embrace openness wholeheartedly; has to collaborate enthusiastically; has to welcome collaborators and aggregators of all kinds and has to open their books and let everyone see their failures as well as their successes. That might sound daunting but a sense of community is important here if we are to create a sustainable liquid market and our regulator needs to support us not stifle the growth because of fear of failure.
It would be fantastic to be able to offer sensible advice online and the industry needs to promote the fact that this is not investment in traditional terms, the chances of getting rich are pretty slim (not impossible I might add!) but it's fun, it's tax efficient and you are helping people to fulfill their dreams. If you buy shares with this train of thought the industry's reputation will not be affected by failure.
The original idea was about spreading risk, about the masses investing small amounts to make a big pot. There are millions of SMEs that are looking for investment and the major crowdfunders are touching a matter of mere hundreds. The market leaders have got to stop harping on about investment as the word could insinuate you will get a return.
Equity Crowdfunding should be marketed with more altruistic values. Yes a small percentage of these companies will make it and they will possibly make it big, but the majority I'm sorry to say will fail. This does not make it bad, it creates jobs, gives great ideas a chance, in most cases is a good tax write off with SEIS/EIS and if you spread your risk and invest in lots of companies one might be the next Google. All in all you should feel good about your investment you have helped someone get one step closer to their dream and in doing so you may fulfill yours by "possibly" choosing that 1 company that turns out to be the next Google.
Call me a naive sentimentalist - I may be both of those things, but I'm also a passionate advocate of the notion of people getting together to make great things happen! So, please, let's not lose sight of what's uplifting, exciting and truly inspiring at the heart of the equity crowdfunding revolution!
To read more on Crowdfunding news visit https://businessagent.com/news/
To browse current crowdfunding campaigns or to crowdfund your own visit: https://businessagent.com/

Binary Options - What You Should Know - A Cautionary Tale

About 18 months ago after receiving numerous emails touting Binary Options I decided to try them out. Like most people I had been looking for something to supplement my income something I thought I would have some control over and could do from home.
In simple terms Binary Options are basically a means of determining whether a currency, stock or indices will go up or down within a certain period of time, and trading on your decision on whether it will go up or down.
All the sites offer graphs showing the history of that particular trade from an hour to several days. There are several platforms, Binary, Long Term, Sixty Seconds and Pairs, and depending on the Broker chosen bids can start from $1 to $25. I chose two Brokers that had the $1 options as I wanted to become familiar with the whole process before I started with immediate trades at $25 plus.
Usually the minimum investment is $250 US. Many of the sites offer matching Bonuses on your initial investment, but be careful there are very strong rules on how much you need to trade in order to ever cash out the bonus.
Once you sign up the Broker assigns a trader to you. This is where I need to caution you strongly. The first thing the trader does is to go to some lengths to make a friend of you to garner your trust via phone and Skype. Then the next move is to get you to invest more funds in order to get you into a "VIP" trading group insisting that they can't help you without sufficient funds to get you into a good trading group where the expert analysts determine the best trades.
They are extremely persistent even when told there are no additional funds. They will suggest they run your credit card with the pretense that it doesn't matter if any funds are approved or not as they will match it with a bonus if you allow them to try it. They say they will try up to $10,000 knowing that that amount could not be approved. I indicated it would not go through and I made it clear that they should not be trying any lesser amounts. They said that was fine as the purpose was to try so they can prove to their bosses that it had been tried and they could then give the bonus and enter you into a better trading group. However, this is exactly what they do, they start with $10,000 then keep trying your card with smaller amounts until they finally get an approval on whatever your credit card can bear.
In my experience it doesn't seem to matter how much funds you already have in your account even with your wins, they have a reason that you should add more funds to get you into better trading groups or fund guarantees and they are persistent. They will try this tactic each and every time you connect with your Trader.
When they do give you a trade they give a time frame and amount they suggest you invest. However, it is not a suggested amount. When I made some trades with lesser amounts I received lectures on trust, and indications that they could no longer work with me unless I listened to them and took the advice of their expert analysts and placed the trades as suggested.
Each and every trader assigned to me, used the exact same tactics and when I pointed this out, they insisted they were not like the others and each of them indicated they were only interested in helping me succeed. Baloney, they were just interested in lining their own pockets and obviously plying people for additional funds plays a part in it.
My experience was the same with both Brokers and with all of the traders assigned to me (I think they have a huge turn over in traders as they kept disappearing) Bullying is the only word for what I was put through.
Once your funds are depleted then unless you are prepared to add more funds they have no further interest in working with you with the small amounts you have left in your account. To be honest the suggested Trades were for the main part losers, and I actually did about the same with my own choices.
The moral of this story, is to be extremely cautious when dealing with Binary Options and the Brokers and their Traders. I am sure there are some Investors with large investments that might make good returns, but for the small every day investor, it is a very risky program and know that you will be bullied with the intent of getting you to invest additional funds, funds you likely cannot afford. If you choose to go this route only use funds you can afford to lose - trading is a gamble.
Contact me if you would like more information.
Avril Betts - CHA - Entrepreneur and Business and Lifestyle Coach
I have been a serial Entrepreneur for over 35 years owning several businesses and mentoring Small Business Entrepreneurs. Today I work from Home on my online Travel Agency, Business Coaching and Ecommerce. If I can be of assistance please contact me at info@avrilbetts.com
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