Ben Lardes

If you are thinking about adoption abroad & are not positive if you'd like to make the leap, think about these 3 reasons why it may be more difficult than you think.

If you were Superman you would run a mile from kryptonite. It is the one thing that can do the superhero real damage. And if you are eager to invest in penny stocks, your own emotions could act as your own version of Superman's Achilles heel.

Standard and Poor's futures have been doing remarkably well lately. A report on the Bloomberg website on March 13th this year was confident about the meaning of this. Similarly the Washington Examiner was also very positive about the future regarding the results seen on Standard and Poor's futures during the early part of 2010.

It sounds dramatic doesn't it, and earnings season can indeed be that. This is the time of the year when various companies release their earnings reports. These reports look back on the previous three months and reveal how well – or badly – each company did during that time.

Before we look into earnings estimates in more detail, let us first examine what they are. Simply put, they tell us what a particular company should be earning in the next period of time. This could be a three month period or it could be a year. The figures are arrived at after extensive research by an expert analyst. Some people use the figures to help them decide whether or not to invest in that particular company.

If you have invested in dividends it pays to know a little about dividend ratios. You may also see these referred to as dividend policy ratios, and as the plural nature of the term suggests, there are two main ratios you should be aware of.

Have you ever heard of an economic moat? We have this term in our language thanks to Warren Buffett, one of the world's most famous (and richest) investors. He took the idea from the way a moat protects a castle. The moat provides a barrier between the castle and the land around it, so no one and nothing can get in easily.

Personal debt is something that hits the headlines virtually every day. We all know about personal debt and what it is like to have too many bills and not enough income. But it can be easy to forget that businesses can fall into the same traps as well.

Free cash flow sounds like a wonderful thing doesn't it? FCF, as it is also sometimes referred to, is related to corporate finance rather than individuals. Basically it refers to the sum of money that a business has for everyone who holds stock in that business. You may also hear the term ‘internal growth' as a way of describing what free cash flow actually is.

Let's start with the idea of short selling itself. This refers to the practice of selling something you do not actually own yourself when you make the sale. This is generally a financial product such as a particular type of share for example.