Investing for retirement is important because that is the only way of achieving a transition from working for money to money working for you. How much of hard work money can do for you depends on how much of it you can command when you need it in retirement.

The Presidency has used its two-month delay before signing the 2013 budget to dramatise its disagreement with lawmakers over their increase in the budget numbers. Raising expenditure figures has consistently been the feature of the input of the legislature to annual budgets from year to year. This time around the issues are more than just the numbers. 

Fears of impending doom and disintegration of Nigeria in 2015 are getting frequently expressed and warnings by top ranking voices in the nation are being sounded once again. I think it has become part of the process of the build up to our national elections. As fear takes the place of confidence, economic activity usually slows down when a national election is approaching and only begins to recover when the nation survives the doomsday predictions. 

At what price you are willing to buy a stock has got a lot to do with the ever changing sense of judgment as to what represents fair valuation at that point in time. A continuing inexplicable change in value judgment is the explanation for considering a stock too high at say N30 last week only to enter it with much effort at N40 in the new week.

The lessons of the recent financial crisis have warranted the need for reassessing the efficacy of the financial system regulatory framework. The bitter experiences have brought to the front burner the need to test new procedures to deal with the new issues that the crisis has unearthed.
This, I think, is in line with a global trend where financial system regulators have since been taking steps to build immunity against future financial crisis through significant regulatory changes. Is there a need for the nation to take a critical look at how its financial system regulation works? The answer is yes, because the system failed to shield the economy from the full adverse effects of the global financial turmoil.

Michaeldata2000@yahoo.co.uk

An early bullish run has been the character of the stock market for the third year running. But how far the bull will run depends on what the regulators and policymakers in government do or fail to do. This year the bull will expectedly be stronger than seen in the preceding two years. But it isn't going to be quite a normal bull.

It seems clear that it is in the character of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank to usually pull the elephant by the tail. That is exactly what he has just done by telling the government to its face again, in case it has forgotten, that it is a bad spender.
This isn't the first time the governor is telling government in a dramatic manner that its fiscal house is in disorder but a government that gives the impression that it is hard in hearing, I think deserves a shock treatment that could perhaps bring it back to some sense of sanity.
Does government ever need an expert advice to tell it what I'm sure it knows quite well - that it is spending the future of our nation upfront? I do not think so unless it does not tell itself the truth. And when it gets a fair criticism, it should appreciate it and make amends. When Sanusi is right let's agree with him.

Technical analysis is an approach to understanding the rise and fall changes in share prices that create short-term profit opportunities. It is basically a trend following approach to determining the value of stocks. It is another way of checking whether the stock you want to buy or sell will rise or fall in price within the short-term. Instead of bordering about whether the company is making profit or losses, the technical analyst considers directly the direction the share price is likely to follow.