srini on September 26th, 2009

Investors who have the skin to bear the heat of price fluctuations and market volatility can consider the Small Cap Index Funds as an amazing investment tool. These investors can attain savings as they go for indexing in stocks through an indexing approach. The investment can be diversified and it can experience substantial growth if you make it a part of the asset allocation program. This can also be a wonderful retirement investment option. The investor who desires to open an account in this type of fund simply requires an initial investment of $250. Here, $50 is regarded as an automatic investment.

Investment in Small Cap Index Fund is not a small term investment option. The investment offers you capital appreciation and the values may also experience substantial variations, depending on the market movements. The assets of this fund are collected as a separate series of the Master Fund, which is termed as the Russell 2000 Index Master Portfolio. 90% of the assets get invested in stocks in the form of Russell 2000 Index. The investor can earn good returns when the stocks of the small companies are purchased, as they can reap the maximum benefits of market volatility. The factors that need to be checked in this regard are like, the market risk and the management risks. It always pays off to diversify in a volatile market.

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srini on September 25th, 2009

Igor Olenicoff immigrated to the United States of America when he was barely eighteen years old. He was accompanied by his family and they had just $800 in hand as they crossed over from Russia following the Russian Revolution of 1917. These immigrants were initially considered as “country-less and effectively illegals”. This was the fate of numerous others who were compelled to immigrate due to the situation of the land. It was basically the caste system that was responsible for this hostile attitude.

In America, Igor attended the USC and began to work as an executive in the Mowtown Records at the initial years of his career. Thus, began his journey towards becoming a millionaire. This was actually initiated when he decided to check out his luck at the real estate business. It was in the year 1973, that Igor laid the foundation stone of Olen Properties. It shaped up to this empire that has spread its branches across the entire continent as well as the world. The current amount of commercial space owned by Olen Properties is over 6.4 million square feet and it has around 11,800 residential units strewn across Los Angeles, Florida and Las Vegas. Igor observes that the key to his spectacular business growth is due to the timely and adequate credit availability that allows the immigrants to live their dreams.

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srini on September 25th, 2009

Proper allocation and investment of savings is an important part of an effective retirement plan. Today, there are a number of retirement plan sponsors who are interested in making the index funds the focal point of the investment portfolio. Reports referring to surveys indicate that 17% of 150 employers desired to substitute index funds for a part or whole of their actively managed investment options. This constitutes to around 8% increase. According to Mike Lucci of Vanguard Institutional Sales, the enhanced interest in Index Funds is a great opportunity for investors designing a retirement plan, as it can help them to secure their capital and save in turbulent market conditions. The plans are characterized by supplemental passive investment options and active funds are replaced with a unique line-up of highly diversified low cost index funds.

Participant communication, a simplified plan design coupled with multiple levels of investment choices are marked as endearing attributes for retirees. Savings can be attained through the low-cost indexing, broad diversification and the cash drag is kept low.

Just a few points of caution:

The investor is required to take note of the inflation risks, credits and the prevalent interest rates while investing in bonds. Diversification may not shield you in a declining market. As a plan sponsor, Vanguard believes that they can effectively determine what the best interest for their participants’ prudence is.

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srini on September 23rd, 2009

Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom had already done it. Now, America has decided to follow suit and take effective measures to attract the immigrant millionaires from across the world. This initiative has been brought about as a constructive effort that will be beneficial to both sides. The immigrants will be allowed to their long standing wish fulfilled – that is, to become an American citizen and the State will use this opportunity to effectively stimulate the drooping economy. This can be perfectly brought about through investment and the simultaneous creation of jobs.

The details of the concerned initiatives can be obtained from the US Department of Homeland Security. According to the US Immigration Act of 1990, enables the allocation of 10,000 employment-based immigrant visas to the investors who qualify the requirements and their families too. If you take a look at the statistics between 1992 and 2004, you would find that the EB-5 visas were issued on an average of just five hundred each year. There are a number of factors that are responsible for this under-utilization. The fluctuating economic environment, program instability and the other countries offering more attractive immigrant investor programs are just a few of them. So, the government is considering “special handling package options for a higher fee’ in order to attract the immigrant millionaires apart from promoting stakeholders and boosting investor confidence.

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srini on September 23rd, 2009

The owner, president, chairman and CEO of the Red Apple Group is John Catsimatidis. He also owns the Gristedes Foods. There is a subsidiary of the Red Apple Group called the United Refining Company, which is owned by John as well. The Red Apple Group has its shares distributed in the aviation industry and the real estate sector. His business flourishes in the area comprising of New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Hellenic Times publication is owned and operated by him. He can undoubtedly be considered as a multi-faceted business personality. His achievements and contribution towards the furtherance of his business and economy as a whole has made him the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Catsimatidis immigrated to the United States as an infant, accompanied by his parents from the island of Nisyros, Greece. He acquired his graduation degree from the Brooklyn Technical High School in the year 1966. His journey towards becoming a millionaire started off in a pretty somber manner. His career began as a mere recruit under his uncle in the supermarket located on the 137th Street. He named his first store in Manhattan, named ‘Seven Eleven’. During the later part of the 1970s, he started his Red Apple supermarket on the 87th Street, adjacent to Broadway. Being a certified jet pilot, it was not hard for him to indulge in the aviation industry.

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srini on September 22nd, 2009

America is facing shortage of nurses as there are around 116,000 vacancies for registered nurses that remain unfulfilled. About six months back, in February 2009, a new Nurse Relief Act was placed in the house in the form of HR 1001. It spoke about the introduction of the non-immigrant W Visa for those nurses who had an annual cap of 50,000. There are certain schedules with regard to labor certification. Nurses who fall under the third preference employment base are basically preferred during the immigration process. The physiotherapists and nurses under the Schedule A do not need labor certification.

According to the H-3 non-immigrant Visa, one can temporarily stay in the US for traineeship. If the industry desires to employ an immigrant for a senior level nurse, it may not be now easy to obtain an H-1B visa. For specific cases, nurses can immigrate to USA following the exchange visitor scheme, better known as J-1.

All these actions are taking place keeping in mind the extreme shortage of nurses in the American healthcare industry. Immigrants, who desire to work in US hail from countries having an oversupply of nurses, like India, Philippines and China. It would be interesting to note that under the prevalent immigration system, the major hospitals in America are spending hundreds and millions of dollars each year for the recruitment of foreign nurses.

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srini on September 22nd, 2009

Jerry Yang was born on the 6th of November 1968 in Taipei, Taiwan. He is a Chinese American entrepreneur and the co-founder of Yahoo! Inc. He styled himself as the Chief Yahoo! At the age of eight, he immigrated along with his family to the United States of America. They settled down at San Jose, California. His father passed away when he was just two years of age. It is quite surprising to note that Jerry knew just one English word ‘shoe’ when he arrived at USA. This is despite the fact that his mother was an English teacher!

Within a span of three years, Jerry learnt the language and he attained his graduation from Sierramont Middle School and Piedmont Hills High School. He also acquired his BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from the Stanford University and became a member of the Phi Kappa Psi community too. During his study of electrical engineering, Jerry created an internet website with David Filo and named it ‘Jerry’s Guide to the world wide web’. This was later renamed as Yahoo! and as the duo realized the business potential of this venture, they founded the Yahoo! Inc. in 1995. It initially started off as a web portal accompanied by a web directory. Although, Jerry is no longer the CEO of the company, he is a member in the board of directors.

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srini on September 21st, 2009

Even if your bank crashes down, the FDIC Insurance can effectively protect your savings. Investors consider banks as a safe haven for their hard-earned savings and capitals. The banks on the other hand loans out the money and invests it in a variety of projects. If any of these activities goes haywire, the money deposited by you may well face the danger. Under such circumstances, the FDIC Insurance offers security and helps the bank to shield your cash from any probable damage.

The FDIC covers deposits that fall under the category of Checking accounts, Savings accounts CDs and Money market accounts. Here, one needs to note that the money market funds are not covered by the FDIC. This insurance cover is not extended to the safety deposit box contents, the investments like the mutual funds or stocks and the insurance products of the likes of annuities. Further, the products mentioned above do not fall under the category of deposits. This is in spite of the fact that, these products might have been bought from the bank. The credit unions also do not fall under the purview of the FDIC Insurance.

The basic insurance limitations are:

  1. Every depositor can have up to $100,000, covered.
  2. For a retirement account, the depositor can have $250,000.

These limits can vary again with the different banking institutions. The depositor can well increase his coverage by going for multiple bank accounts.

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