TGIF

Chart courtesy webbroker.td.com

Yes, we know the adage “Health is Wealth”. Yes, the common cold sends us rushing for antihistamines (maybe, or just a box of Kleenexes) let alone the Zika virus. What do we do on a roller-coaster day of healthcare shares on $DOW? It had to be a Friday: a weekly options day.

If we had $MRK, we would be rich. Wealthy, and maybe healthy too. If we had purchased $BMY and were in a buy-and-hold strategy, we might be neither, if we were anxiety-prone or of cardio-vascular heritage.

We could have saved ourselves a trifle with Bristol-Myers Squibb if we had kept on top of our market research, fundamentals and technicals. Or perhaps we had stop-losses in place, that might have been our saving grace. If not, we would sure go down that elevator from the penthouse to rock-bottom, and down-under in the underground parking lot where all parking spaces would be occupied.

How would we have been in the lucky situation of having Merck among our asset holdings (out of all the variety of healthy healthcare stocks out there?) ranging from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Abbott, Roche, Bayer … this investment research would be enough to send us reaching out for our favorite pain-killer medication, whether it be Aspirin, Tylenol or Advil. That brings investors to the other side of the coin, the research and development that is done on an ongoing basis by pharmaceutical companies. These are they who bring us generic meds, brand names, vaccines and cures for cancer, respiratory ailments and that pesky eczema which does not seem to go away. This would bring us to the conclusion that our investment in the healthcare sector is our intermediary support of a sector that brings us a direct benefit. This might then support the hypothesis that investment in healthcare is a necessity, and not a speculative venture.

Going back to Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb. On studying the above chart, if we had bought either stock a month ago, we might have concluded … till yesterday (Thursday August 4th, 2016) that $BMY was a marginally better investment in terms of share value, as the two were running practically neck-to-neck. Whoa! Look what happened today. One lost 16%. And the other gained 10.5%. This might drive us to drink (if that is our form of solace) … or reach for the pill that will help drive away our insomnia. Or else, we might take it all in a day’s work, and urge $BMY researchers to go at it again, and get the cure to end all cures.

I perform extensive investment analysis and provide a second opinion on your investment portfolio. I also do detailed capital gains schedules for personal taxation purposes. Bookkeeping, accounting, financial coaching, GST and year-end reconciliation is my forté. #TrushaDesai.com

#taxes #investments #financialplanning #financialcoaching

Off to the Races

Image courtesy diyprojects.ideas2live4.com

It’s almost August. We’re in the midst of summer. And we’re off to the races. Those who actually do sport hats and hairdo’s and go off to Derby or PNE or the Mahalaxmi Race Course, may do so. And there are others, those who simply ride, as in the Mounties ~ not a simple ride, that but a safe-keeping security-ridden ride. Or those who ride as in Pemberton and find little endearing fillies that will take them along trails and paths that they would not venture on alone.

How does horse riding compare with accounting? Or coaching, or small business consulting, for that matter. Because accounting with tried and trusted software like QuickBooks (Online and Desktop versions) and Sage 50, Accpac and Great Plains, Xero and Microsoft Excel with various scenarios, takes us swiftly and carefully where we need to go at year-end, during tax remittance periods and on an ongoing basis.

And so, for the nitty-gritty of a business or charity or non-profit or a professional, I can dovetail strategy to meet your requirements. I can let you focus on the big picture, while I focus on the detail. Please call me or email me, so that we can discuss how we can together your business to the (n + 1) th level. #TrushaDesai.com

#financialstatements #financialcoaching

Let's Just Rise

Glass ceilings were meant to be broken. With each successive crack, from Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto and Imelda Marcos to Angela Merkel, Theresa May and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner we have Parliaments, Senates, Upper and Lower Houses, Mayors and City Councils with women. Whether there is gender parity or otherwise in all these august bodies, whether all members of the United Nations have had women leaders at some point of their governing periods, it is not just in the political arena where women need to lead.

We need more women leaders in business, charities, on Boards and Chairs of Boards. We need more Janet Yellens, and more leaning in $FB COO’s like Sheryl Sandberg. More philanthropists like Melinda Gates ~ and yes! A long-reigning monarch like Queen Elizabeth II.

The point is, not just that we need more women leaders in different fields of life, but how do women and men work together. For that is the key to success. With the probability of a marriage more likely to end in divorce in the “developed” world, statistics have indicated that men and women do not necessarily communicate effectively with one another, resulting in marital conflict, separation and divorce. Does this therefore mean, that this man-woman conflict will translate into the political and business socio-economic juxtapositions, or do men and women work as a team? Is this a challenge that women shoulder when they are leaders while men lead the way they have since time immemorial, by driving a four-wheel drive over rough terrain? Not to say that I have anything against four-wheel drive vehicles. I have driven them, when they were the only sustainable means of transportation.

It is just that men and women communicate differently, and Mars and Venus are different planets, the focus lying on more than their distance from the Sun. It is just that men and women react differently to the same situation. It is just that men and women behave differently in similar situations. I am not stating that one behavior is “better” than the other. It is merely a matter of difference, and yes, we have the French commending that too. Perhaps we will reach some point of time in this century (or this millennium if we do not pedal faster) when we will stop nattering about glass and marble ceilings and take gender parity and equality as a fact, just as we chalk the Women’s Suffrage Movement as a historical landmark.

As a small business owner, I am cognizant of ceilings and their vertical restrictions. As a woman, I am aware that we get paid approximately 70% of our male counterparts: and this may be the case even when we "pay" ourselves. Until we value feminine output at par with male output; until we realize that it matters not what the gender of the individual, but the quality of the output that must be the decisive factor in meting wages, we may need to progress more than we think we should.

#strategy