OFW and the benefits of stock investing

source: http://thepinoy.net

OFW or Overseas Filipino Workers has been one of the Philippines's main economy booster for the past years. Their remittances which comes from all over the world has help our country from slipping into further downtrend. 

source: thelinkbetween

But the bad thing with our kababayans about working abroad is that the more they become into consumer based family. As the jingle goes "Japan-japan aasenso na kami, Saudi-Saudi mayaman na kami", most families who either have one or two family member working as an OFW have this notion that all their poverty woes will end. Thus they become extravagant and sometimes the actual needs are set aside causing children to be undisciplined and unruly and sometimes to the point that marriages are broken due to infidelity. 

Money will always be the issue. So to keep the OFW from being away from the family why not educate our OFWs how to invest in the stock market? Many Pinoys will raise their eyebrow when they hear stock market. They will say you should be filthy rich to be able to enter the stock market or others would say the stock market trading is a gamble; you invest and the next thing you know the value of the stock you bought plummets down. 

These are one of the several wrong notions about the stock market and why until now only about 1% of the Philippine population only invest in the stock trade. Well here are some truths about the stock market:

1. You don't have to be super rich or even have 1 million to be able 

    to invest in the stock market, you can 

    start at 5,000.00 pesos using an online stock broker

2. When your stock's value plummets as the news in TV and papers 

    say, you have not yet loss anything. That is just paper loss, you

    only lose when you sell it at a price below from your buying cost.

3. You don't have to have a degree in stock trading. All you need is 

    the will to learn, the patience to wait for the price of your stock 

    to go up,  and the discipline not to panic and not to over do things
4. Tax on stock trading earnings in the Philippines is only 1/2 of 1% 

    of the total trade. That is so small.

5. You don't really need to be 24 hour on the stock market. You just 

    have to know when to buy and when to sell which is buy when 

    stocks prices are low and sell when stock prices are high.

6. There are so many free information about the stock market in the 

    Internet and their are so many blogs that give free advices on 

    stock trading, remember these are free.

7. There maybe risk in the stock market but the risk is manageable, 

    it is up to you how you manage the risk.

How could stock investing help solve some of OFW's problems? Well number one is when one truly disciplines himself in stock investing in the long run one carries it in the way handles its finances thus helping the OFW to be responsible about how and where the hard earned cash go. If such is shared to the families that are left behind in the Philippines and they have adopted such attitude the family will be able to save up for the future and in the long run the OFW may have enough investments to return home and stay for good. When such investments are positioned well, in the future it will cover all the expenses and thus the OFW need not go back to overseas work.

Since the foreign exchange difference is our advantage, the OFW can well invest because every dollar, dinar, or pound has greater value in peso...thus the little of those that is remitted back to the Philippines, the more stocks it can buy and the better chances it will earn.

"Strengthening the OFW Families: Stronger Homes for a Stronger Nation."