German Economy Minister Philip Roesler told German newspaper Die Welt that an “orderly default” by Greece can’t be ruled out, while news reports last week and over the weekend said the German government has made preparations to help shore up its banking sector in the event of a Greek default.

Meanwhile, Dow Jones Newswires, citing two unidentified International Monetary Fund officials, reported that Greece’s creditors are likely to approve the release of the next tranche of Greek aid in coming weeks.

Greek credit default swaps continue to point to a more than 90% chance of default. This is not good news at all, as a default by Greece would likely pull Spain and Italy right into the same bankruptcy vortex.

Even worse is the fact that there is so much American money tied up in Europe, particularly Greece, that if they do default it is going to hit the American markets very hard. Much of that tied up American money in Greece is in the form of retirement, such as 401(Ks) and other retirement funds. Americans stand to lose a lot of retirement money if Greece does indeed default.

“Investors currently value European banks at levels last seen when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed” in 2008, said Stephen Pope, managing director of Spotlight Ideas, a London consulting firm. “One cannot overstate the fear [of] a Greek default” and a subsequent escalation of debt contagion worries.

The stock market opened this morning and immediately fell 100 points on the latest news out of Greece. It looks like there is a massive sell off taking place.

What can you do? To be perfectly honest, if you have retirement funds set up and your company has that money tied up in European banks, then you are going to have to wait it out and hope for the best. You can always cash out your plan and pay a penalty, but you may end up losing more that way.

Whatever happens in the next few weeks remains to be seen, we just have to ride the storm out and hope for the best.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 80 points after being down as many as 245 points on Friday. It had been up by as many as 171 points after a solid jobs report in the morning. The job’s report was actually a nice surprise, as many of us thought that the jobs report would hit the market very hard. Some surprising number rolled out though and actually allowed the market to go up.

Many investors fear that Europe’s spreading debt crisis might reach U.S. banks and threaten the fragile economy. A stronger jobs report early Friday did little to reassure investors, a day after the Dow’s worst decline since 2008. It seems that you turn your head for one minute and the Dow is up 100, turn away and look back the next minute and the Dow is down 200. It really does mess with emotions.

Among the issues investors are most concerned about include Europe’s growing financial crisis; hiring in the U.S. that is too slow to significantly lower the unemployment rate; anemic growth in manufacturing and the service sector and a decline in consumer spending; and the belief that the government is unlikely to spend more to stimulate the economy.

All of these sectors are cause for concern, and it is going to continue to reflect on the market. Many investors still think we are in for a double dip recession.  The jobs report will only be good news for about 2-hours, as the market is volatile right now and could spike up or down at any moment.

A recently released report by Pension Insurance Corporation stated that companies around the world should be set to insure over $8 billion in total liabilities through only the first half of 2011. This is a staggering amount, especially in the wake of the world’s economic woes. If you compare this number to the numbers during the first half of 2010 – which were between $4 billion and $5 billion, then you can see how much more buy-in and buy-out deals and pension liability coverage deals are going down this year.

Pension liability companies fully expect the markets to continually improve this year, which will act as a huge catalyst for a once halted industry. David Collinson, head of business origination at Pension Corporation, was quoted saying that “this year should be a strong year for pension insurance transactions. With several large schemes currently deciding on their options, we expect it to be a busy first half of the year.”  Though he was quoted saying this, the company still didn’t give an estimation of the number or size of deals that it was expecting to get in 2011.

It seems as though this point in time is a great time for pension insurance costs. The cost is at is lowest in almost two years (18-months to be exact), and things are only looking better, as the forecast for the stock market is excellent this year. Hopefully the economic woes are behind us and we can get back to our regular lives.

Investors should look at the stock market as a living thing. It has ups and downs, and it’s important to not have a reactionary approach to long-term investments. Sometimes you have to face the fact that one of your stock picks may prove to be a poor choice. This happens, but don’t become wary of investing. Make decisions based on logic. Many people often sell stocks prematurely because the market has seen a bad day, and the investment later pans out. Pay attention to the trends, but don’t make a rash decision based on drifting predictions.

On the other hand, if you’re investing in the short-term, acting quickly can save or make you a lot of money. Speculative investments, such as penny stocks, depend on low initial investments and quick reactions. Though you’re not going to lose a lot with penny stocks, it’s always good to seek the advice of educated resources, such as TimothySykes.com, who is familiar working with these types of investments.

Though it’s important to diversify your investments – this behavior should be tempered with an aversion of investing in too many stocks. Investing in too many picks without professional guidance or the resources to effectively monitor your investments will always result in losses. You’ll end up overextending your financial resources, and you could potentially lose a lot of money. This is a common mistake for stock market rookies and professionals. Always understand your limitations.

To avoid these common missteps, and others, an investor would be remiss to not seek the advice of an investment company or professional. They can guide you though this process and help you make more informed decisions, which are based on experience and data.

Basically, he says the markets have come back too fast, all the consumer stimulus money just moved forward purchasing that would have happened later, unemployment is still high (without even considering the one off government jobs created like the Census jobs) and wages are still stagnant. All this doesn’t look good for the future economy.

Suster goes on to talk about how this will affect Startups and venture capital money, if you’re interested, keep reading about that, but the basics are just and should keep you thinking twice about pumping more money into the stocks and equities you’ve come to love. I’d say look for a company or a group of companies that have things people can’t live without, like toilet paper and cereal, and a lot of cash on hand.

So what is diversification?

When people speak of diversification, they generally refer to the act or process of placing investments on various types of assets in different proportions. When you are making an investment, you generally consider various factors like your tolerance for risks, personal finance goals and time map.

Diversification, by itself, is not an assurance or a guarantee against risks and potential losses. However, this approach helps in significantly alleviating or minimizing the risks from speculative investments. You can offset the loss from one investment with the gain in another.

Now, why should you diversify?

Diversification is not only advisable, it must be mandatory if you are an investor. If you would like to ensure your money’s safety, you need to diversify.

There are various reasons why you should diversify. First off, diversification is a way to ensure a long-term investment return. It is a good way to maintain your long term investments. You minimize the risks on volatile investments and undervalued assets. You can say that the when you diversify you minimized your risk exposure level. You also temper the volatility of hot asset investments as well as the unpredictability of the market. With diversification, you can offset your losses, participate in the upside of some investments and mitigate the downside on other investments.

You however need to be careful with the investments you are diversifying into. Seek the advice of a trained profession when making any kind of diversification decisions.

What is Dollar Cost Averaging?

When you dollar cost average, you basically regularly invest a fixed amount of money into the market. The investor would use a systematic investment approach without much regard to the market conditions. Dollar cost averaging is great when you are creating your personal finance plans and you do not want to leave your finances at the hands of the market’s whims. Dollar cost averaging is basically used when you are making investments on stocks or unit trusts.

If you would like to create an investment that would produce long term return on investment, dollar cost averaging is the most effective method of maximizing investments especially when you do not want to consider the market. Usually, when you compare the cost of your investment with the average market cost, you would incur lower cost with dollar cost averaging. This method is ideal when the market is quite volatile. You might reconsider, however, using this method when it comes to other funds or forms of investment.

Before you invest however make sure that you have as much information as you can get your hands on. It is always better to make informed decisions when investing. Also you should never invest what you cannot afford to lose.

But today, when the Feds announced a quarter point cut stocks plummeted. I mean dropped like a rock, loosing almost 300 point overall. This after a morning of strong movement upwards.

Stocks like Google, GOOG, went from being up $5 to dropping nearly $20. Almost everything else followed suit, on the NASDAQ and the NYSE stocks just dropped.

The reason being, is because there was a general though that Feds would drop rates a half point and they didn’t. We’ll see how things rebound tomorrow.

Well this little site all about the stock market can help you get started and learn the history about not only the New York Stock Exchange but also other stock exchanges around the world. The NYSE isn’t the oldest in the world so knowing what other markets have done might be able to help you better understand and “beat” the market wherever you are.

The article that I would start out with is the article titled how does the stock market work?. If you don’t know already, the stock market exists so companies can get more money to grow with. Of course the stock market makes a lot of company owners rich. But really, that’s just a by product. Go find out what the market really means to a companies bottom line.

The next article I would read, actually, if you have one to read read this one, is the article on the stock market crash of 1929. It’s probably the most important crash in history. More important than the ’87 crash or the recent Bubbly Burst. It sent the nation into a depression. To help the world avoid repeating history you have to know what happened in history. If everyone knew about this market crash and why it really started maybe we could avoid later crashes. But then again we’d have to eliminate greed too.

Stocks in keeping with the water element like tourism, logistics, and transportation will be good bets according to geomancy specialist Yeung Tin-ming. Another guru said the best bets lie with fire-related sectors such as electronics and computer makers, as these will do well given the strength of the fire element in the new lunar year. In Hong Kong, masters of feng shui warn that these elements of fire and water clash in the year ahead, causing markets to roil in the new lunar year, beginning on February 18. Beware of turbulent times ahead, they caution.

Perhaps less romantically but more realistically, decreasingly attractive valuations since last year’s unexpected gains and recent actions from Chinese authorities regarding the cooling of overheated domestic stocks could be what’s really behind a more volatile Asian market.