Janet Schlarbaum Investment Research By Liz Koh

As most of us have owned a property at some stage in our lives, it is a form of investment we are familiar with. If we own a property we can choose to live in it ourselves or let it, we can drive past it, touch it, admire it, show it off to our friends and use it as security for a loan. Of course, there’s also the popular belief that “land must be a good investment because they’re not making any more of it”. It is not surprising then, that when investors set about creating wealth or establishing a retirement fund, property investment is often at the top of the list.

It is astounding how often people plunge into property investment without doing their homework. Many property investors – usually the less successful ones – cannot tell you what rate of return they are getting on their property. Good professional advice is essential before you purchase an investment property so that you can estimate as accurately as possible the likely income, outgoings, tax liability (or tax benefit) and overall return (net income plus capital gain). While higher priced properties can produce better capital gain, they often generate a lower income return, as rent is determined more by the physical characteristics of a property (eg the number of bedrooms) than the value of the property. Advice should be sought on the best ownership structure for an investment property and research should be done on the best location to invest in.

Owning property directly gives an investor control over their investment, but brings with it all the hassles of bad tenants, midnight calls to fix the plumbing, and the risk of having a lot of money tied up in one asset which might take some time to sell if funds are required.

Property investment can, however, be hassle-free. Two alternatives to investing in property directly are listed property trusts and managed property funds. Listed property trusts are investment vehicles which are listed on the stock exchange. These trusts raise funds from investors which are then pooled to purchase a diversified portfolio of investment properties. They generally pay excellent dividends to investors and are a good source of retirement income. Investors can convert to cash quickly if required by selling their holding on the share market. The value of the investment is determined by a combination of the value of the underlying property assets and the dynamics of the share market. Managed property funds, of which there are many available, operate in a similar way except that they are not listed and the value of the investment is determined by the value of the underlying assets rather than being influenced directly by the share market.

Janet Schlarbaum Side Effects of the Current Economy By Michael K Carroll

One of the side effects of the current economy and number of foreclosures is an increase in the percentage of people relying on leased housing. As families lose their homes they have to live somewhere and rentals are often the only choice available to someone with a foreclosure on their credit history. Add on to the fact that some estimates show that in California alone twenty percent of foreclosed properties were rental properties all adds up to the fact that there are a flood of people looking to rent rather than own. This would seem to be great news for owners of income property, but with the new renters there are also the fact that many homes being sold by financiers are being purchased by investors who have every intent of turning that property into an incoming producing property. The market just got more crowded and owners are now faced with increased competition for tenants. Move in Specials, first month free, decreasing rents and no security deposit are all common techniques to try and make sure your property stands out amongst all the others, yet they are not always the best solutions. Instead of jumping to a decrease in income and security, other tactics should be looked at. Reducing your income, which is exactly what most these tactics do, make sure you have exhausted all other avenues first.

Housing is an emotional purchase and any marketer will tell you people make decisions based on emotion. First and foremost you need to make your property as inviting as possible. It goes without saying that you need to make the outside look as good as possible, but take a look inside. Any real estate expert will tell you that a staged home is easier to sell than an empty one, the reason is it is easier for the prospective buyer, or in the case of income property tenants, to see themselves in the home if it has some kind of furniture in it. Staging companies are great resources and might even offer their services for a percentage of the lease. Property Managers or owners of a number of units may find it more profitable to buy a room or two worth of furniture and then store it for when you need it. The cost of furniture and rental space is probably less than the income you would lose if your vacancy extends into more than a couple months.

You can have the home decorated the nicest and have the best sign out front but if people are not driving by they are useless. Open up a classified add and you will see an overwhelming number of ads all saying the same thing ”Charming space with so many beds and so many baths in such and such neighborhood”, what does that tell you. If you own properties and do not have a website what are you waiting for. URL registration can easily be found for under twelve dollars a year, some sites even offer basic hosting with the URL or at the vary least hosting plans are very affordable. If you are not savvy in the ways of HTML there are companies that can build a website for you. Instead of just putting the standard verbiage you can now direct potential tenants to your website where they can view pictures, get community information and download application materials. This also gets the potential prospect imagining themselves in the home before they even view it. How cool is it if you show the place, getting an application right then and there.

Real Estate agents who are looking to sell a house often will hold an open house, a time for people to walk in and view the house. Yet this tactic is not as popular in the rental house, and is a missed opportunity to save time and to get your property rented. Set aside a Saturday or Sunday, advertise it in all of your normal outlets, making sure you set clear start and end times, and then see what happens. While sitting open houses for my wife I was surprised the number of time I was asked if the owner would consider renting the home. It is easier to get people to come to you one day as opposed to driving to the location every time someone wants to see it. Some marketing strategies save you money and some save time, open houses could save both. The day of put signs up directing people to your property, make sure you have all the necessary forms that potential tenants will need to apply for a lease.

Unfortunately not all advertising is free, and sometimes you need to pay to place an ad. Advertising is an investment and as such you need to make sure the money your spending is well spent. If you are not asking everyone who calls, to inquire about your properties, how they found out about the home; if you take only one tip and use it make this the one. Keep a tally of calls that come in, calls that lead to showings and calls that lead to signed leases. If you find that 95% of your signed leases are referred from one particular ad in a certain magazine, you can start to eliminate ads in magazines that do not get you the same exposure, this means you save money. Tracking referral sources also allows you to put the optimal message out there, or allows you to target which property you market in which publication. You may even find out that your best marketing tool is a good old lawn sign. Never waste money on an ad that does not work.

Author: Cornie Herring

People always say that investment is a money game with the playing rule of “high risk with high return and low risk with low risk”. You may want to invest in an investment portfolio that is able to give a good return and stock market is always the best choice in term of high return. But you aware that investment in the stock market will cause you to lose all your money as well, because the game rule said “high risk is high return and low risk comes with low return”. Hence, stock game might not suit your risk profile; you may want to look for an alternative that can give comparatively good reward but with much lower risk than stock. If you are categorized in this group, then mutual fund can be your game.

Mutual Fund Is A Risk Sharing Game

A mutual fund is simply a financial medium that allow a group of investors to pool their money together with a predetermined investment objective. The pooled money will manage by a fund manager. The fund manager is a person who is widely expert in stock and bond markets. He/she is responsible to invest the pooled money into specific securities, usually stocks and bonds. When you are buying shares of mutual fund, you will become one of the fund’s shareholders. All the gains and losses will be shared among the fund’s shareholders. Hence, mutual fund is a risk sharing game.

Compare to stocks and bonds, mutual funds are one of the cost effective and an easy playing game. You do not need to really expert in stock and bond market because the fund manager will take care of it; and you do not need to crack your head to figure out which stocks or bonds to buy, because you have the expert, the fund manager to make the decision for you.

You do not need a lot of money to get your start the game; you decide the amount of money you plan to invest into the mutual fund. Some mutual funds may even let you start with just $100. The best part is the cost effectiveness. By pooling money together in a mutual fund, investors can purchase stocks or bonds with much lower trading cost. The biggest advantage of mutual funds as compare to stocks or bonds is “diversification”.

Diversification Will Lower The Risk

Investment experts always advise that if you want to invest you money, “Don’t put all your eggs into the same basket; else if the basket fall, all you eggs will break”, some will happen on your money, if you invest in one stock, if the stock perform negative, you loss all you money. Diversify your investment to spread out your money into many different types of investments. When one investment is down, another might perform in up trend.

Hence, with the diversification of your investment, you will reduce your risk tremendously.

You can diversify your investment by purchasing different kinds of stocks and bonds instead of one. But it may take weeks to buy all these investments. In contrary, you can get these done by purchasing a few mutual funds and mutual funds automatically diversify your investment across many stocks and bonds.

In Summary

Mutual fund is a risk sharing investment portfolio, it’s provides you a medium of investing your money into a high earning stock & bond market while automatically diversify your investment to reduce your risk. Hence mutual fund can be your alternative of investment portfolio that will give you higher reward and lower risk.

Author: Jonathon Hardcastle
Financial management decisions are divided into the management of assets (investments) and liabilities (sources of financing), in the long-term and the short-term. It is common knowledge that a firm’s value cannot be maximized in the long run unless it survives the short run. Firms fail most often because they are unable to meet their working capital needs; consequently, sound working capital management is a requisite for firm survival.

About 60 percent of a financial manager’s time is devoted to working capital management, and many of the potential employees in finance-related fields will find out that their first assignment on the job will involve working capital. For these reasons, working capital policy and management is an essential topic of study. In many text books working capital refers to current assets, and net working capital is defined as current assets minus current liabilities. Working capital policy refers to decisions relating to the level of current assets and the way they are financed, while working capital management refers to all those decisions and activities a firm undertakes in order to manage efficiently the elements of current assets.

The term working capital originated with the old Yankee peddler, who would load up his wagon with goods and then go off on his route to peddle his wares. The merchandise was called working capital because it was what he actually sold, or “turned over”, to produce his profits. The wagon and horse were his fixed assets. He generally owned the horse and wagon, so they were financed with “equity” capital, but he borrowed the funds to buy the merchandise. These borrowings were called working capital loans, and they had to be repaid after each trip to demonstrate to the bank that the credit was sound. If the peddler was able to repay the loan, then the bank would issue another loan, and these were sound banking practices. The days of the Yankee peddler have long since pasted, but the importance of working capital remains. Current asset management and short-term financing are still the two basic elements of working capital and a daily headache for the financial managers.

Working capital, sometimes called gross working capital, simply refers to the firm’s total current assets (the short-term ones), cash, marketable securities, accounts receivable, and inventory. While long-term financial analysis primarily concerns strategic planning, working capital management deals with day-to-day operations. By making sure that production lines do not stop due to lack of raw materials, that inventories do not build up because production continues unchanged when sales dip, that customers pay on time and that enough cash is on hand to make payments when they are due. Obviously without good working capital management, no firm can be efficient and profitable.

Statements about the flexibility, cost, and riskiness of short-term debt versus long-term debt depend, to a large extent, on the type of short-term credit that actually is used. Short-term credit is defined as any liability originally scheduled for payment within one year. There are numerous sources of short-term funds, such as accruals, accounts payable (trade credit), bank loans, and commercial paper. The major elements of current liabilities are trade creditors and bank overdrafts, and these are further analyzed.

Janet Schlarbaum Capital Management

By Ashish K Arora

Collected by Janet Schlarbaum

When it comes to long term investment, there is nothing to beat investment in real estate. With property prices almost always on the upswing, it is one investment that bring you rich dividends in the future. Investing in property though is not all about just having the financial wherewithal to buy a particular property. It has got a lot to do with finding the right property. What constitutes a right property is something that you may be wondering about. Here are some of the best investment property tips that you can find anywhere, which can help you make the right decision.

1. Foremost among all the investment property tips is to imagine that the property that you intend to buy is for renting out, rather than you living there. Remember, a sprawling lawn will not bring you cash flow. Instead, you need to take into account as to what a tenant would want? The house that you want to buy should have the necessary supporting infrastructure to attract tenants.

2. Another one of the important investment property tips that you should not ignore is to take for granted that property prices are always on the higher side and still increasing. Remember, you can always find bargains. The key lies in shopping around and finding one.

3. You should never feel dejected that you could not afford a particular house. You should remember that there are plenty of other houses that are available.

4. One of the key investment property tips is to do thorough research, before you go about looking for a property. You should be aware of the latest trends in the real estate market.

5. Another one of the important investment property tips is to seek professional help. For instance you can always get to know about the latest market trends from an experienced real estate agent.

Janet Schlarbaum For Your Quick Success

Author: Steve Selengut

Stocks, bonds, index funds; averages, recessions, market rallies and corrections; mutual funds, technical analysis, financial statements; commissions, taxes, and discount brokers. Just how much do you know about investing, or perhaps a better question: is there any “know” in the investment vocabulary? So many terms, ideas, and strategies; so little time and money! Here’s a list of thirty mostly-true or mostly-false comments for you to kick around with your friends and fellow investment bloggers:

1. Every Properly Diversified Portfolio will have up to 5% of its market value in each of these areas: miscellaneous speculative opportunities, gold or other commodities, small cap stocks, and global index funds.

2. Financial Professionals are well trained in all aspects of investing, investment portfolio design, and management. Consequently, a significant portion of their compensation is tied directly to how well they help their clients develop high quality, properly diversified, and goal directed portfolios.

3. Buy-and-Hold continues to be the proper investment strategy for most individual investors, especially if automatic reinvestment of income is part of the package.

4. It’s a better Investment-Income Strategy to buy shorter duration corporate and municipal bonds (rather than higher yielding long-term debt) because the market value doesn’t fluctuate as much with anticipated changes in the direction of interest rates, and that is the most important concern with income investing.

5. If an investor can learn to control his own Greed and Fear, he will have a much better chance of investing successfully.

6. Asset Allocation is a strategy used by investors to move assets from weak market sectors to strong ones in order to improve the growth of the Investment Portfolio’s bottom line.

7. No Load Mutual Funds are particularly good for investors because the mutual fund company does not charge anything for its services.

8. In the long run, investing in the stock market will assure you of keeping up with Inflation.

9. The proper gauge of your total Investment Portfolio Performance is the change in market value over the course of a calendar year, compared with the change in one of the more respected stock market averages during the same period of time.

10. Quality, Diversification, and Income are considered by many investors to be the three basic principles of investing.

11. Mutual Funds have always been a safer route to long-term investment success than trying to create your own portfolio of individual securities.

12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is comprised solely of investment grade companies, and generally gives a clear indication of what is going on in the stock market.

13. Smart Cash is an integral part of any asset allocation formula because it allows investors to time the market successfully. Professional market timers know precisely when to move into or out of cash in anticipation of the next major directional change in the market.

14. It is a well-known fact that there are certain Core Portfolio Securities that belong in all investment portfolios if long-term success is to be expected.

15. There is no such thing as a freebie on Wall Street.

16. Closed End Mutual Funds (CEFs) are not popular with Wall Street professionals because they are inherently more risky than normal mutual funds.

17. Packaged Investment Products are designed with a sincere concern for the financial well being of the average investor, and are good for everyone.

18. Zero Coupon Bonds are an important part of the fixed income portion of the investment portfolio, especially when retirement is contemplated within five years or so.

19. The second step in every stock purchase should be the establishment of a Stop Loss Order. Such an order assures you that your losses will be limited to a specific percentage of your purchase price.

20. The IGVSI tracks the market value of a small but elite group of New York Stock Exchange equities.

21. The Four Most Important Investment Ideas include: buying only high quality securities, diversifying properly, using discount brokers exclusively, and establishing reasonable profit-taking targets.

22. Profit Takers and Traders hurt the average investor.

23. Investment Grade Value Stocks will be the next red-hot market sector.

24. “Sell your losers and let your profits run” is the essence of sound Investment Management thinking.

25. The November Syndrome is the partial result of the interaction of Wall Street institutional window dressing and the Infernal Revenue Code.

26. It is important that you take your Tax Losses regularly, particularly if you have held the losing position for less than one year.

27. Annuities, particularly Variable Annuities, are perfect investments at retirement both for people of limited resources and for the wealthy.

28. Technical Analysts can predict the future movements of the economy, individual securities, and the stock market with a very high degree of accuracy.

29. Index funds will always beat the market, or market sector, that they are designed to track.

30. The keys to successful investing are Asset Allocation using only two investment buckets: Equity and Income, and the development of realistic expectations about their market value performance.

Author: Alexander Gordon

Placed by Janet Schlarbaum

Placed here by Janet Schlarbaum
“Cash is the lifeblood of business” is an oft-repeated maxim amongst financial managers. Working capital management refers to the management of current or short-term assets and short-term liabilities. Components of short-term assets include inventories, loans and advances, debtors, investments and cash and bank balances. Short-term liabilities include creditors, trade advances, borrowings and provisions. The major emphasis is, however, on short-term assets, since short-term liabilities arise in the context of short-term assets. It is important that companies minimize risk by prudent working capital management.

What Affects Working Capital Management:
• Organizations are generally focused on cash, accounts payable and supply chain issues. On the hand, external issues like the legal and business environment, or internal mechanisms like organization structure, information systems, can significantly impact working capital.
• Owing to market pressures, companies are led to paying a lot of attention to producing good quarterly results quarter after quarter. Undue focus on this may sometimes produce a flattering but inaccurate snapshot of working capital performance. This also happens in companies that have a marked seasonality of operations with working capital requirements varying widely from quarter to quarter.

Measures to Improve Working Capital Management:
• The essence of effective working capital management is proper cash flow forecasting. This should take into account the impact of unforeseen events, market cycles, loss of a prime customer and actions by competitors. The effect of unforeseen demands of working capital should be factored in.
• It pays to have contingency plans to tide over unexpected events. While market-leaders can manage uncertainty better, even other companies must have risk-management procedures. These must be based on objective and realistic view of the role of working capital.
• Addressing the issue of working capital on a corporate-wide basis has certain advantages. Cash generated at one location can well be utilized at another. For this to happen, information access, efficient banking channels, good linkages between production and billing, internal systems to move cash and good treasury practices should be in place.
• An innovative approach, combining operational and financial skills and an all-encompassing view of the company’s operations will help in identifying and implementing strategies that generate short-term cash. This can be achieved by having the right set of executives who are responsible for setting targets and performance levels. They are then held accountable for delivering, encouraged to be enterprising and to act as change agents.
• Effective dispute management procedures in relation to customers will go along way in freeing up cash otherwise locked in due to disputes. It will also improve customer service and free up time for legitimate activities like sales, order entry and cash collection. Overall, efficiency will increase due to reduced operating costs.
• Collaborating with your customers instead of being focused only on own operations will also yield good results. If feasible, helping them to plan their inventory requirements efficiently to match your production with their consumption will help reduce inventory levels. This can be done with suppliers also.

Working capital management is an important yardstick to measure a company operational and financial efficiency. This aspect must form part of the company’s strategic and operational thinking. Efforts should constantly be made to improve the working capital position. This will yield greater efficiencies and improve customer satisfaction.

Placed by Janet Schlarbaum

When you are acclaimed for excellence during times of crisis you may not feel so good in a non-crisis environment. You may not shine so bright, perform so well, be quite so acclaimed. If crisis is how you satisfy your personal need to be needed, to feel accomplished, to be respected, to be heard, to be noticed, blah blah blah, then you will naturally seek out, create, attract, be drawn into situations that will allow you to meet this need. Your environments and relationships will be filled to the brim with one crisis after another.

Perhaps there’s a better way to get your need met. Perhaps there’s a way to feel needed and still exist in peaceful, cooperative, and synergistic environments. It’s amazing to watch the content and features of a person’s life break apart and rebuild with almost the same irreverent qualities. People change mates but the essence of the relationship is the same. People change jobs and the same complaints emerge as before. People get out of debt, lose weight, move to different cities, and nothing really changes. It’s a scary thing. I’ve seen the inside view and it’s very scary.

This déjà vu type phenomenon has left me baffled and disheartened. Here’s the deal; when we treat the symptoms, the root cause remains unaffected and it emerges again and again. Our outer lives tell the same story over and over like a broken record until we finally get it. The outer reflects the inner. The outer is a symptom; the inner is the root cause. The outer is the image in the mirror; the inner is the real object. You would not stand in the mirror with the intention of washing your face and wash the reflection of your face in the mirror, would you? … I didn’t think so. Well that is exactly what we are doing when we focus on treating our symptoms.

By Shah N. Khan

‘Goodwill’ is regarded as an intangible asset in a business. Goodwill carries a value over and above the tangible assets of a business, and representing all benefits derived from the distinctive location, trade and brand names, credit rating, reputation, cusotmers and patronage of the business. When a business is sold, a charge is usually applied for the goodwill as one of the assets.

Goodwill develops by virtue of quality of products or service found beneficial by the customers, clients, users, vendors etc. and the manner and style in which the products or services are presented. Good advertising helps in accelerating pace of development of goodwill and prestige. Usually advertising and other image building techniques take goodwill and sales to new heights of fame, renown and prestige. Sponsoring sports and social events, donations to charity etc help in enhancing prestige and fame.

A brand name can help add to the goodwill of the business besides acquiring its own goodwill value. Truly great brands are far more than just labels for products or trademarks; they are symbols that encapsulate the desires and liking of consumers as well their trust and confidence. In most cases products acquire fame under their brand name rather the name of their manufacturer as we see in case of cold drinks and soaps etc.

On other hand there are many companies, which are famous, and their name helps in generating confidence and trust in their different products. The products of Pharmaceutical and Electric Companies and different brand names for their products may not be as famous as the company itself. It is the prestige and goodwill of the company that helps in improving competitive position of the product in the market.

Trademark as a name, symbol, or other device identifying a product, officially registered and legally restricted to the use of the owner or manufacturer becomes an intangible asset and part of good will that can be sold separately or its use allowed to different manufacturers in different areas. Most franchise businesses owe their success to the fame and prestige attached to their brand names. Most chains of hotels and restaurants have been able to expand their franchise business world wide merely on the strength of goodwill attached to their brand names. Investors find it safe to rely on the prestige of the trade name rather than developing their own trade mark. Though they benefit from the guidance of well experienced experts and the prestige attached to the trade name, they have to pay royalty to the owners of the trade name.

Considerable efforts, ingenuity and investment are entailed in popularizing trademarks and brand names and building prestige for the organization. Content of the human intellect are deemed to be unique and original and to have marketplace value—and thus to warrant protection under the law. Intellectual property includes but is not limited to ideas; inventions; literary and art works; medicines, chemical, business, or computer processes; and company or product names and logos. Intellectual property protections fall into four categories: copyright (for literary works, art, and music), trademarks (for company and product names and logos), patents (for inventions and processes), and trade secrets (for recipes, code, and processes). Laws in many developing countries need to be reviewed and improved as concern over piracy of software, movies, music etc is being continuously expressed by the producers of movies and developers of software.

Relentless and persistence efforts are always required to maintain and enhance goodwill. Quality of products or service is of prime importance but many other factors are also important. Here is a partial list of the factors that can help in improving or damaging the goodwill.

1. Best possible quality for Sales presentation and distribution channels must be ensured. The quality of advertising, wrappers, packing and warranties is also vital. Location of offices and furnishings of high standard and good taste are always helpful.

2. Customer care and after sales service. Great damage comes from inattention and rude behavior of staff. Good service leads to multiple sales. If you take good care of your customers, they will open doors you could never open by yourself. Always strive to provide service above and beyond what the ordinary organization would give. It will help you build long-term relationships, trust, and referral business.

3. A comprehensive advertising and goodwill maintenance program must be kept under constant review. Advertising in papers and magazines, television, radio and Internet must be planned with great care based on assumption or surveys of your penetration in markets of different segment of population. Selection of site for hoardings, posters etc. must also be made in consultation with the experts.

4. Innovation and Research: By encouraging feedback from clients and sales outlets you can make improvement in designs and contents of new models or launch new and improved products. You must also keep a watch on fads and trends in those segments of population where your products are used.

5. Provision for participation in trade shows and in charity program and sponsoring sports and cultural events must be made in your budget.

Posted by Nicholas Daniels by Direction Janet Schlarbaum

Author: I Henman

Posted by Janet Schlarbaum

Like so many others, I’m working hard to make my financial future as bright as possible. I save when ever possible, and invest smart when I have the money to do so. In my opinion I have a good portfolio built up, I’ve seen gains and small losses over the years, however I am not as far along as I had planned to be by this time. There are a couple of reasons for this, one is the fact that markets go up and down, there is nothing any of us can do about it, the second is the high percentage of tax that is charged on capital gains. I finally got tired of paying the government so much if any at all of my investment gains, so I decided to seek some offshore investment advice.

Anyone who’s been investing for a while has probably heard of individuals moving their funds to foreign markets to avoid capital gains tax. I always figured it was a fantastic idea, how ever I didn’t know the first thing about it. My first step was to talk to my local broker about the idea, of course since he is paid commissions on my account he just attempted to sell me on the idea of keeping my portfolio with him and his brokerage. I was going to have to look else where for the information I needed, so I fired up my favorite search engine and started doing some searches for offshore investment advice.

What I got back from my queries wasn’t easy to understand. While several sites appeared to offer legitimate business advice, others were clearly scams. While I didn’t know the first thing about investing offshore I also wasn’t about to just send large amounts of money to someone I didn’t know or ever talk to. I really needed to talk person to person with someone for some solid offshore investment advice. I really thought the best place to get it would be to find a brokerage that has been handling transactions for Americans to foreign markets over the years.

After I had put in a few hours reviewing multiple websites, I found a site that looked promising. It was a firm specializing in offshore investment advice. So I decided to call in person, I had been avoiding any site that didn’t display a phone number for fear it was a scam. I spoke with a broker at that firm, he was more then happy to hear out my current situation as well as my expectations for the future. After hearing my store he gave me some offshore investment advice that fit what I was looking for, needless to say once our conversation was over I had the confidence to go ahead with the necessary investments to make my dreams a reality offshore.

Via Janet Schlarbaum