Online trading helps to grow your cash pile; in trying to increase their retirement funds, some have been burnt by a bear market

Trading in stocks and shares is not for those with a gambling streak in them. With a few keystrokes you can place an order that is the maximum of your credit limit with the broking house and this can be over $100,000. Investing in stocks is not like a game of poker and many gamblers have regretted the day when they asked for and received huge credit facilities from several broking houses. Some have become bankrupts in trying to make some pocket money from stock trading.

If you are not sure if you have gambling blood in your body, go to this Web site to answer 20 questions: http://www.800gambler.org/20Questions. aspx

Santa Claus Rally

There is a saying in North America that "There's always a Santa Claus rally". In his book Buy the Rumor, Sell the Fact, (see Lasting Words in this issue), Michael Maiello explains that the saying predicts that there will be a bounce in the stock market during the last five days of trading before the year ends or the first two trading days of January.

If Santa fails to appear legend has it that stock prices will be lower later in the next year, though the myth doesn't go into more detail. Business analysts put the Santa Claus rally somewhere between November and December.

In Singapore, the Capricorn effect is the name given to the end-December and January upturn of the stock market. December 2006 will be long remembered as the year when this effect proves to be true. The Straits Times index climbed to record highs even though many institutional investors have closed their books for the yearend vacation, the prices continued to defy gravity on 29th December.

For those who bought Genting International stocks at 30 cents, they have reason to celebrate when they managed to sell them at 86.5 cents on the last trading day of 2006. It reached $1.20 a week later.--CT

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