Investment management is not that simple when one is dealing with his own investments. Maintaining a clear head even when the markets and investments are dropping is not that easy when you are dealing with your own hard-earned money. As the markets fluctuate, so can your mood and functionality, and often one’s emotional connection to his money prevents him from acting correctly – whether in fact to act, or simply to be patient and not do anything. Finding yourself in the maze of hedge funds, mutual funds, stocks, futures and commodities can be very confusing.

That is one good reason for handing your money over to investment advisors. (Of course another reason is that many people simply do not understand workings of the financial world, and therefore it is essential they turn to the fiscal experts.)

When one considers the biographies of financial leaders, like Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Alan Quasha, and others, it is clear and apparent that knowledge and experience of investment management, banking, financing and economics – together with ambition, drive and a lot of hard work – for the basis and the backbone for financial success.

The various acquisitions and holding companies of Buffet illustrate this point, as does the life of Alan Quasha, who heads Quadrant Management Inc., Carret Asset Management LLC., HKN Harken, Acerno and was a past governor of the American Stock Exchange, among other positions. Quasha is also involved in many other companies and ventures and funds, including the Brain Trauma Foundation, the Visiting Committee at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the the Overseers Committee on University Resources at Harvard University.

So-called net long speculative positions fell to 25,867 contracts on the
New York
Mercantile Exchange during the week ending May 27, from a record 127,491 on
July 31, according to a report of May 30 of the committee negotiating futures
raw materials from USA (CFTC in its acronym in
English).

The fall could complicate the investigation of the CFTC now that regulators are
trying to determine how much of the rise of oil over U.S. $ 135 a barrel last
month was due to speculators who might have manipulated the market and not the
demand for consumers. This development had little impact on the
Laurus Family of Funds
headed by David and Eugene Grin.
The CFTC, pressured by Congress, said May 29 that was investigating the 100
percent increase in oil prices last year and was considering giving more details
about the type of investors the oil market and its units.

`` The real problem is with passive investors such as pension funds and
operators indexes, which are not really qualified as speculators''because they
are holders of contracts of oil in the long term, said Olivier Jacob, director
general of Petromatrix Gmbh , A consulting firm in Zug, Switzerland. `` There
are no numbers on operators indexes, why we asked the CFTC and published''.