Fundamental analysis and technical analysis are two basic methodologies of stock-picking. Both approaches have followers and adversaries.

Personally, I am a big fan of technical analysis. Since childhood I had a great passion in browsing different charts and graphs. I always loved sciences, especially various aspects of physics and mathematics and I was very happy to study it at university. Thus, it should not be surprising, that when I started my adventure with investing, I run into technical analysis. Today, I will shortly introduce both methodologies, but in future I will focus to post mainly about technical analysis.

Fundamental analysis.

This approach assumes that many stocks are mispriced and in the long run, the correct price would be achieved in future. Analysis is performed on past and present data related to economy, industry conditions and financial conditions of the company. Company earnings, expenses, dividends paid to investors, cashflow, profit margins and many others are all important data for fundamental analysis. The goal is to determine if stocks are underpriced or overpriced and to take proper position (buy or sell). Some of the most important measures are:

• ROE - Return on Equity
• ROA - Return on Assets
• P/BV - Price / Book Value
• EPS - Earnings Per Share
• P/E - Price / EPS

Famous and successful investor, Warren Buffett used mainly fundamental analysis.

Technical analysis.

Technical analysis uses past prices and volume to predict future price. Technical analysis doesn’t care about the ‘real value’ of stocks. Technical approach assumes that all information and data related to certain company and market are already taken into account by current price. Technicians are focused on analyzing price patterns and trends. By studying supply and demand, they are determining further directions and price movements. Among most popular techniques or theories of technical analysis are:

• Dow theory
• Elliott wave theory
• candlesticks

Among many others, one of the successful users of technical analysis is… …is Kacper Wrzesniewski (yes, it’s me), the owner of this blog.

photo credit: Petrick2005

Both approaches look contrary. They have different assumptions, analyze different data. Some investors are using both methods, as they complement each other in some ways. These investors exploit fundamental analysis to limit possible stocks to underpriced, ‘good’ companies; and technical analysis to determine entry and exit point. Investing based on fundamental analysis requires long-term approach, while technical analysis can generate signals to open or close position within weeks, days or even minutes, depending on investment strategy.

Currently, I enjoy using technical analysis. I find it fun, interesting and, what is the most important, successful for me.

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Body language is a term coming from social psychology and refers to the non-verbal communication like gestures, body movement, facial expressions and even movement of eyebrowns. Body language can send more than 50% of your message.

All the time we are sending non-verbal signals. When we are aware of that and we do this at least partly intentionally it is called voluntary body language. Involuntary body language relates to those gests and movements that may be interpreted by observer, revealing your thoughts and feelings.

Body language is very important. If your body says something different than you speak, most people would believe in signals send by body.

Of course, there are no doubts that it is worth to work on own body language. The messages that you are sending would be stronger. Having good body language you will make better “first impressions” and you will be more attractive. Both in sexual and non-sexual way. Body language works also on emotional level. If you have a lot of positive energy, you feel good then your body language shows it. You are smiling and your whole body expresses these feelings. Then you influence moods and emotions of other people that surround you. If you express these on the stronger level than the other person does, he or she will share emotions with you.

Having even basic knowledge about body language will help you also in reading messages, signals and emotions of other people you communicate with. It is very useful ability.

Below are some tips and techniques which are easy and I like a lot:

• Crossing arms and legs means that a person is in defensive, insecure position. Don’t do this. Open your arms, relax.
• Smile a lot. Laugh if there is a reason to do so. It will make atmosphere more relaxed and positive. Share good emotions with others. However, people who laugh too much, very often are dishonest on something.
• Touching your faces means you are nervous. Avoid it.
• Try to mirror the other person. Observe his or her body language. Mirror his state, gestures and feelings. You will make a better connection and increase the level of understanding each other.
• First and last seconds of your performance are very important. They are most remembered by the audience. Use very strong, positive gests and emotions during that time.
• Observe other people’s body language. It is very good source to learn. Listen to them and see how they express their message with gests and facial expression.
• It is good to see yourself sometimes from outside. Experiment in front of mirror.
• Try to express something different than your words mean. Look how others receive such message. Try to find out when they will believe in your body and when in your words.
• Communicate on different distance. Check how communicating process changes when you are closing or moving farther from other person. Notice reactions.
• Look into eyes. It is not comfortable for lair to do the same. Keeping eye-contact also makes a better connection.
• Head position is very important. Keep it up straight. Lowered head signals that a person is hidding something.

Remember to relax. Observe others, practise a lot and improve your body language. Have a lot of fun.

This post was published in past on MindEssential.com, my previous blog that is currently off-line.

This is definitely, one of my most profitable lifehacks I made in 2007. I hope some of you will find it useful or at least inspiring, but I know it may not work for everybody.

Before August 2007 I was working half-time. I was a student and I didn’t want to turn into full-time mode until I graduated. I used to visit company’s office about 2 or 3 times a week. After graduation I have started full-time and I go to the office each workday.

This switch to full-time pushed me to check if my current route to work is optimal. While I was covering it 2-3 times per week I didn’t find it so important. 5 times a week multiplied by 2 (both ways) means that any improvement would be lucrative.

photo credit: CoredesatChikai

I always go to work by car. Why? It is much faster than public transport and it is comfortable. Very often, after work I go directly to the gym or martial arts classes and I have my bag with necessary equipment in my car. This is very important argue for me to use my car. I hope thieves don’t read my blog or at least they don’t want to steal my tracksuit.

Therefore, optimizing my route to work would mean shorter time of driving a car and lower consumption of fuel. Great. It looked promising, so I decided to experiment a little.

I always knew about two routes that used to give similar results. With help of Google Maps, I found another 4 routes. Now, it was time to test and compare results.

The task was very interesting. I was measuring the total time of travel as well as current time and week day. My old routes usually took about 20-24 minutes one way. Two of those, which I found with Google Maps, were giving much better results, about 15-18 minutes. That’s 10 minutes (both ways) or 20-25% of time less. Wonderful. Additionally, I discovered that one of these routes is faster about 7AM, the other one is better about 8AM and 9AM. Depending on time I’m going to work, I can select a better one.

10 minutes per day multiplied by 5 work days give almost an additional hour per week.

It didn’t take me long to work on my other routes. I managed to slightly optimize my route to the place where I have kung-fu classes. It gives me additional 10 minutes per week.

To sum it up, after successful optimization I usually save about 50-70 minutes per week. I also have lower fuel consumption, but I didn’t measure this precisely. Anyway, the result is very satisfying. You also should try to optimize your daily routes.