Investing in Experience: UP INVST | IPOV

Hi guys! I am back!

As I've said in my previous post, I really want to continue doing this blog, and so, here's my post about my UP Invst adventure with my friends, Mikee (left) and Jela (Center).  Yup, the little girl on the right is me.

After 2 research rounds we got a chance to a apart of the 5 finalists of UP INVST. We were then given roughly around a week to practice for our presentation which was held on PSE Ortigas last December 10, 2016. Thankfully our professors and the department was supportive enough to excuse us from our class so that we may prepare for the finals.

It was my first time joining a competition and I was really nervous because we were competing against students from ADMU and UP-D but we still manage to piece out a 10-min presentation for our case.

By the time, we were on the venue, I kept freaking out and forgetting my lines. I remember stuttering a few times while delivering my parts but I was generally surprised that 15 minutes (with a Q & A portion) came by so fast.

After that, we were able to rest for a few minutes before they announce the winners, and we were really surprised to be called on stage! We won 2nd runner up and won a cash prize!

All in all it was a good experience. I really encourage students to just go and join extra curricular or competitive activities because they will be able to challenge you beyond how the four corners of the classroom can ever do and remember, there's no harm in trying out new things!

Investing in Experiences: Stock Market Challenge

Hi guys!

Today, I want to talk about JCFAP's Stock Market Challenge, a national wide portfolio challenge. The mechanics are simple. Participants must make a team of 3 and trade using the Investagrams platform. Each team will be given PHP 100,000 (virtual money, of course) to trade with. The goal of the competition is to get the largest profit from your portfolio starting October to December 2016.

At first, I was excited and optimistic in playing. My teammates and I have been investing for quite sometime and so we pretty much know the basics. However, trading is different from investing and this challenge made me realize that I'm not a good trader (at all). The challenge for us students is that, university demands a lot of projects and outputs from us that, in all honesty, it is hard to find time to monitor the market movement. 

We were mostly busy with activities, exams, and reviews. Sometimes, we tend to forget to check our Investagrams portfolio. Although we have enjoyed some gains, there were more losses than what was expected. This is also due to the current market condition - The US Presidential elections and other local government uncertainties greatly affected the short term volatility (or the price movements) of the market even though the company's are actually doing well.

The competition is still not over and we will still be playing with the SMC, but I realized that investing is the strategy that would work best for me. I would rather stay in the market for the longer term as this suits my financial needs more.

How about you? Are you a trader or an investor?

Disclaimer: This are my personal thoughts about the competition. Credits to JCFAP for the image above! :)

The Investing Perspective: Should students join a "Paluwagan"?

What is "Paluwagan"?

      Paluwagan is a Filipino term for a saving or investment method commonly practiced in the Philippines. Paluwagan comes from the root word "luwag" which means loose or allowance.

How does it work?

      It starts with a group of people who will pool a fixed amount each week. This amount will be given to 1 member of the group and that will be his income from the paluwagan. On the next week, the group will be giving the same amount in the pool and this amount will be given to the next person on the list. How much you earn from the paluwagan depends in how many yo are in the group and how much you put in it each week. most of the time, the main person in-charge keeps track on who and when someone will be getting his share and will inform that person.

Is this a good investment option?

     Some analysts or advisers might tell you that paluwagan isn't a good investment option since it doesn't really have a clear sense of the time value of money and, that because the pool will be given to different persons each week, it would seem that the first money will be benefitting the most.

   

     But to me, I don't like to think of it as an investment because it's NOT! It won't be sufficient for you to finance your goals and if you only have a paluwagan as your investment then you've got to think of other ways to grow your money.

    I like to think of it as more of a saving method than an investing one. The money you put on the pool will be  keep for safekeeping and in a few weeks time it will be returned to you. If your give 100 pesos of 10 weeks in a paluwagan, you will be getting 1000 pesos on the 11th week. in that case, you don't really earn anything instead your only saved the 1000 pesos from getting used for you current whims and wants.

When should students join a paluwagan?

   Paluwagans aren;t necessarily a bad thing, but what students should understand is that before joining anything that involves your finances, make sure that you have gather all the important details such as how much you will be needing to contribute and when or how you will be getting the income. The most important tip that I can give you is only join a paluwagan if you have SPARE MONEY or SPARE ALLOWANCE. 

   Don't join one just because everybody else is doing it. Join for the experience, yes, but don't venture on something that you can't commit to. Remember that this involves a group of people and they are dependent on your contribution as you are with theirs.

Disclaimer: This post is based on my options only. The images is from google and from a site called onlinepaluwagan.blogspot.com so credits to them! :)

The Investing Perspective: What Are Stocks and How Do You Earn From It?

Although Filipinos recognize stocks as a form of investment in the Philippines, only few Filipinos are actually invest in the stock market. These might have sprung from misconceptions like "only rich people can afford to buy shares" or "I didn't finish a business course therefore I have no capability to invest in stocks" -- which I find really disheartening. Equity investments are good ways to generate profit and diversifying your portfolio and with proper knowledge, anyone (whether you are a student -- like me! -- or a working professional) can venture in it.

Stocks are simply define by a lot of authors and websites as an investors ownership over a particular corporation in which he invested in. For example, a company has issued 10,000,000 shares and you bought 1,000,000 which is 10% of the overall share. This make you owner of 10% of the companies equity. This is a from of capital structuring used by corporations in order to obtain much need capital so that they can continue to operate or expand their companies. There are 2 basic types of share: Ordinary share, which are common and gives its holder the right to vote during board meeting and Preferred shares which has a fixed dividend rate. Owners of preferred shares are prioritized when companies issue dividends. I want to focus this post to Ordinary share as they are more common and less complex.

Now that we've had a brief background of what stocks are, let's go over to how you actually earn from stocks. There are 2 common ways namely is through dividends and through market price appreciation.

Dividends

Dividends are portions of a companies earning which are distributed to shareholders. The gain from dividends depend on how many shares of stock you have in the company. Let's say that X Company's board of directors decided to distribute dividends amounting to 1 PHP/ share. This means that if you are invested in 1 million share, you get PHP 1 million less taxes.

Market Prices Appreciation

Your investment could also profit simultaneously through price appreciation. Let's say the you bought 100 shares of Y Company for 5 PHP. After several weeks the price per share went up to 8 PHP. the result gave you 300 PHP (8 - 5 = 3 x 100)  less of course taxes. The logic in this scenario is that you were able to buy the stocks cheaper than what they are currently priced in the market. This gives you an opportunity to sell them higher and realize gains from it. This method works well especially if you are a long term investor.

Now that you a have an idea on stocks, you're next step is to know When Should You Start Investing in it. Are you ready? Share you experience investing below!

Happy investing!


Disclaimer: The article is based on my personal opinions and experiences. the post is not sponsored or any of the sort.

Sources:
Dividends: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividend.asp
Stocks: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/stocks

Investing in Experiences: Heading Your Own Event

Last week, I wrote about the  4 reasons why you should attend seminars and so, today I want to focus on how to head your very own event or summit. As an advocate of financial literacy, I have experienced coming up with activities -- big and small -- that focuses on improving financial awareness on students, inside and outside our Alma mater. And just last December, I had the chance to head the first DLSU-D Students' Summit. It was a fund raising fund raising summit attended by almost 2200 students from all over Cavite and Laguna. And from my experience, heading any kind of event consist of 3 basic parts which are the Pre-Event, Event Proper and Post-Event.

Photo by Camille Trinidad, Heraldo Filipino DLSU-D

1. Pre-event - Organizing your own event will take a lot of preparations, especially if its scope is large. In my opinion, a large summit or conference needs about 3-4 months for preparation. You might think that's too far ahead but trust me, you will need all the prep time you can get! Pre-event involves the basic parts such as Planning and Logistics, Costing, Marketing, Sales and Sponsorship.

Planning and logistic will be the first step. This is where you come up with your theme, event logo, as well as inviting speakers and personalities to your event. It also involves venue reservations, and finalizing proposals and papers especially if your organization is under an office or department. The theme and logo is especially important because the theme will be the overall essence of the all event. All the topics and talk must be in line with it. The Logo in the other hand will be the permanent symbol or brand for the event. It will be used for ALL of the letters and publicity materials. Basically this will be the image that will stick to your attendees.

Costing the event should also be one of your top priorities. You need to have a workable budget and an idea of how much you would likely spend for the whole event. This is helpful especially if you will be setting up a sale mark up to your ticket prices. This will help you track if your event will make profit or not. I suggest using excel and forming "scenarios" of different total participants and deducting the projected expenses to see how many tickets sales are needed to break-even.

It is also important to allot sufficient time for the Sponsorship. My advise to you is to create a specific team that will solely focus in all sponsorship matters. They will be tasked to prepare letters to sponsors and create a sponsorship package indicate the range of monetary or in kind values together with the corresponding benefits for each sponsors benefits or what you are willing to give in exchange of their help (e.g. company logo included in the publicity materials, brand mentioning during the event and playing company commercials during breaks, etc.)

While your sponsorship team is moving, another team should be set up to head Marketing and Sales. Marketing will be tasked to come up with posters, maintain the social media accounts for the event and teasers. They can also be task to communicate and send invitations to potential participants for the event. Sales will involve  the actual selling of tickets. I personally think, that the more payment methods, the better especially if your organizing a large event. The methods I can think of are setting up ticket booths, creating a bank account were participants can deposit their payments or giving participants an option to selling tickets online thru various online ticketing sites.

2. Event Proper - this will the actual day of the event. This part involves registration up to the evaluation of the event. A typical conferences program flow may look this:

• 08:00 – 09:00 Registration
• 09:00 – 09:05 Invocation and National Anthem
• 09:05 – 09:10 Welcome Remarks
• 09:10 – 09:15 Recognition of Sponsors
• 09:15 – 09:20 Introduction of Speaker
• 09:20 – 10:00 “1st talk"
• 10:00 – 10:10 Q&A
• 10:10 – 10:15 Introduction of Speaker
• 10:15 – 10:55 “2nd talk"
• 10:55 – 11:05 Q&A
• 11:05 – 11:10 Introduction of Speaker
• 11:10 – 11:50 “3rd talk"
• 11:50 – 12:00 Q&A
• 12:00 – 12:50 Lunch Break
• 12:50 – 12:55 Recognition of Sponsors
• 12:55 – 01:00 Introduction of Speaker
• 01:00 – 02:20 “4th talk"
• 02:20 – 02:50 Q&A
• 02:50 – 02:55 Introduction of Speaker
• 02:55 – 03:35 “5th talk"
• 03:35 – 03:45 Q&A
• 03:45 – 03:50 Introduction of Speaker
• 03:50 – 04:30 “6th talk"
• 04:30 – 04:40 Q&A
• 04:40 – 04:45 Closing Remarks
• 04:45 – 05:00 Recognition of Sponsors/Closing Ceremony

During large-scale events such as summit, you will need a lot of manpower. For me, events like this might need 50 or more people and if your a little short on committees, you can delegate event proper task to your pre-event committee. That way your people and multitask and reduce representation costs. Common committees need for the event proper would be:

• Registration Committee - tasked for the participants registration
• Food Committee - distribution of food to the participants, sponsors
• Backstage Committee - tasked of managing the arrival and departure and food for the speakers and guests, among others.
• Ushers - Participants' Area - to make sure the participates and taken care of.
• Ushers - Sponsorship Area - to make sure the sponsorship area remains orderly.
• Program Committee - to make sure the program flow will be followed accordingly.
• Technical Committee - tasked to manage sounds and lighting
• Runners - will be the ones to go around the venue to communicate or deliver important messages to each committess
• Evaluation and Certificate Committees - task to distribute evaluation forms and certificates foe the event.
• Documentation - tasked to document the event proper.

3. Post-event the last step in the process. Most people might think that an event ends when the closing ceremony is complete and the participants have already left the venue but it doesn't! the Post-event involves assessing feedback, financial statements preparation (for events with money involved), sending letters of appreciation to your guest and sponsors and may a small thanksgiving party to your whole team.

It is important to tally the evaluation of your participants because it will summarize the review and maybe some of the shortcomings of the event. This way you will be able to address the problems in the events to come. It is important to properly tally the cost and revenue and see if your event ended with a profit or loss. During our summit, I'm really proud that we were able to donate funds for the university scholarship fund, the accountancy scholarship fund and emergency fund to a sister school.

Lastly, make sure to extend your appreciation to all the speakers, sponsors and committees that helped you achieve a successful event. You may do so by sending a letter of appreciation. In our organization, we organization a small thanksgiving party and of course, a thanks giving mass t thank the Lord for the strength and guidance he has given us.

Overall, heading a event is hard but it is worth it. It gave me so much experience in working and communicating with other people and it truly tested my decision -making and time-management skill. In the end, I can truly say that I came out stronger and more level-headed after this event. I hope that for all of you readers, who are new members of an organization or are tasked to head a particular event, can use this article as a guide. 

This is Jernica on investing in experiences!

Do you have any questions or suggestions on what I should talk about next? Comment them below! Also, I would love to hear your thoughts/ Hope you can follow me on twitter @TheInvestingPOV

'Til next week!

Cheers!

Disclaimer: Credits to Ms. Camille Trinidad of Heraldo Filipino, DLSU-D for the photo. The article is based on my personal experiences and opinions on how to handle events.