Mourad Haroutunian, BA, MA
Mourad joined Profit Confidential as a financial writer. He has worked for several media companies across three continents, in many different languages, and on various platforms, all with a single factor in common: news. It was Bloomberg where Mourad fell in love with stock market writing, Proactive Investors where he became fascinated with U.S. and Canadian equities, and MT Newswires where he felt at one with speed and real-time reporting.
Addicted to online reading, Mourad has a passion for personal finance, world politics, and intercultural relations. He holds a BA and MA in journalism and mass communication.
Mourad likes to explore every corner in the cities he lives in or travels to by driving highways and walking down the streets and alleys. Away from the digital world, Mourad enjoys spending time with his little son and daughter.
Get to know Mourad…
What was your first stock market investment?
My first investments were really unforgettable moments in my life. I was closely watching a friend who had invested a bulk of his savings in an amazingly quickly appreciating blue chip. He bought the stock at $9.00 and saw it rising to $10.00, then swiftly plunging to $5.00 within a few weeks. At that time, I decided—with my below-zero stock trading knowledge—to invest $5,000, thinking the stock couldn’t drop further. I made a $50.00 gain in my first trade and you can’t imagine how excited I was. I decided to stay away a bit to see how things would be going. However, repeated chatter by my friend and others that the price would definitely go up to $6.00 prompted me to re-invest the $5,000. That was a catastrophe. The stock never went up again and I sold it a year later at $3.00, losing $2,000. The stock then nosedived to $0.30 on the heels of the 2008 financial crisis. The lesson: don’t listen to amateurish projections and more importantly, eradicate your stock trading illiteracy…
What is your investment philosophy?
Stick to the trading ABCs that most experts advise: invest only the amount of money that you would not need in the coming two years; every investment you purchase should not exceed five percent of your portfolio; when you are 25 years old, put 75% of your portfolio in stocks and the rest in low-risk securities; and flip that ratio when you are 75 years old (but make it 50%:50% when you are 50 years old). One more basic tip that I like: don’t wait until the share price goes down beyond 10%—sell it.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has joined the permabear club that forecasts an imminent economic collapse in the U.S. He said in an interview with the Washington Post that U.S. economic conditions are so risky that the world’s largest economy is headed for a “very massive recession” and…
U.S. stocks opened in negative territory at the start of the week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) shedding 0.1%, as cautious investors awaited fresh economic data. As of 9:34 a.m. in New York, the Dow Jones index was down 0.1% at 17,776.93. The S&P 500 was…
Peter Schiff, a top Libertarian financial analyst, provides one more argument on why a U.S. stock market crash is inevitable. He argues that the Federal Reserve knows well that the U.S. economy is weak, but it pretends it’s strong in order to help Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton enter…
It’s probably time to stock up on silver, one of the best performing investments so far this year. Concerns about global economic slowness have prompted risk-averse investors to seek safe haven in the devil metal and its peers, staying away from the highly volatile stock market. Recent data…
A strong U.S. jobs report crimped gold prices on Friday, a day after the yellow metal capped its brightest quarter in 30 years. The gold price for June delivery fell as much as two percent to $1,210 a troy ounce after the closely watched jobs report indicated that…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) opened lower on Friday following another drop in oil prices, brushing aside a strong March jobs report. As of 9:36 a.m. in New York, the Dow Jones index fell 0.6% to 17,573.33. Twenty stocks were declining and 10 issues were advancing. The…
Miami is experiencing its second housing bubble in the past 10 years because condo prices have now become less affordable for foreign home buyers particularly from Brazil and Argentina following the weakness of their currencies against the greenback. That’s the drama of the Miami real estate market and…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was little changed before the close of trading on Thursday, heading to end a volatile quarter with a nearly 1.6% gain. The Dow Jones index was flat at 17,717.21 as of 3:50 p.m. in New York. 17 shares were declining and 13…
Think twice before investing in companies that do stock buybacks. A recent CNBC report suggests that companies that haven’t spent a penny on stock buybacks have outperformed those that have. Companies in the S&P 500 that have engaged in the largest buybacks—including Big Lots, Hewlett-Packard, Macy’s, Xerox, and…
Canada, the world’s 11th-largest economy, will see a debt crisis and ensuing recession within one to three years, says a leading economist. This will likely impact the Canadian dollar. Steve Keen, a professor of economics who writes for Forbes, pointed to Canada as one of seven countries in…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) advanced for a fourth session in a row on Wednesday, helped by higher oil prices and on the heels of Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s careful approach to hiking interest rates. The Dow Jones index added as many as 157 points before…
New York City’s high-end housing bubble may burst sometime soon, according to CNBC Senior Analyst and Contributor Ron Insana, who sees a “dangerous” oversupply and slowing demand for the New York City real estate market. Data show general poor demand for condo apartments above $3.0 million in the…
Dow Jones Trades Near Session Highs on Fed Chair Speech The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) turned higher at noon on Tuesday as Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said the Fed still envisages a gradual pace of interest rate hikes in light of global pressures that could weigh…
VW Stock Dividend Could Be Cut, Board Member Volkswagen AG (ADR) (OTCMKTS:VLKAY), the troubled German carmaker, has hinted that it may stop paying its dividend this year in order to retain the money for the financial fallout from its worldwide emissions-cheating scandal. The news sent VW stock dropping…
SunEdison on Verge of Bankruptcy? SunEdison Inc (NYSE:SUNE) stock is on the verge of bankruptcy. At least, that’s what some analysts are worried about after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a probe into the company on Tuesday. SUNE stock downwardly breached the $1.00 barrier on…
Ron Paul: Don’t Sacrifice Liberty for Security Top Libertarian politician Ron Paul categorically rejected an idea floated in the wake of last week’s Brussels attacks that Europeans should give up liberties in exchange for security. He made his comment during his Liberty Report show on Thursday in response…
AAPL stock may get a boost as RBC Capital predicts the “iPhone” and “iPad” maker to hike its dividend and buyback plan when it reports second-quarter results on April 25. Analyst Amit Daryanani told clients that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) could comfortably increase its dividend by 10%–15%. With the…
Negative Interest Rates Bad Idea, Analyst A distinguished financial blogger has labelled negative interest rates policies (NIRPs) as bad news that signify central banks’ “insanity, impotence and desperation,” and which are likely to prompt profit-seeking lenders to resort to “modern-day Bernie Madoffs,” other than stuffing their life savings…
Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) stock got a slap in the face when descendants of oil baron John D. Rockefeller washed their hands of fossil fuel investments. In a moment of enlightenment on Wednesday, the Rockefeller Family Fund concluded there’s “no sane rationale” for companies to explore for oil…
The S&P 500, which breathed a sigh of relief on Friday when it erased all its 2016 losses, may crumble by more than one-third by the end of the year because of Federal Reserve policies, says renowned businessman and politician David Stockman, a long-time believer in an imminent…
