Investment Articles

The art of jazz improvisation can contribute a lot to trading and investing. These activities are fluid, not static. They experience ups and downs and quickly changing situations.

Trying to create a large set of rules to cover all possible market scenarios will drain your time, stifle your creativity, and cause your trading system to break down from too much “curve-fitting”.

Improvisation (improv for short) can be the answer. Contrary to what you might believe, this is not about just making up whatever you want. It’s about picking up small, simple patterns that recur in a fluid, chaotic situation. You take these patterns, or a simple set of rules, and stretch them to fit current conditions.

It’s about having a basic framework that enhances your ability to respond to the market – rather than hampering it.

When performing good improv, you neither feel like you have no idea what to do, nor do you feel like your hands are tied. When confronted with a crisis or new market situation, you are able to pull out a few ideas or principles from a previous trade, and then you feel free to modify them through your own creativity.

Good improv has the quality of less ego and more present moment awareness. If something isn’t working, you cut your losses without a fuss, and try something else. There is no anger, blame, or fear – the concentration is on understanding the current market, finding some advantage to exploit, and putting on an effective trade.

Stock Trading Riches teaches my trading system, which I am very passionate and proud of. It reflects principles from zen, Taoism, jazz improvisation, simplicity, and minimalism. It allows anyone, no matter what their level of financial experience, to take charge of their investments. Not only does it make money, but it feels like a form of meditation.

Have you ever asked yourself how rich people got…well, rich? If you want to make really big money, you have to invest in the right company at the right time. And right now is the best time to get started.

Why, you may ask? Because these little known companies are coming back strong, and if you are ready to make a large amount of cash, you have to be in them before the word gets out there. Sure the big guys are “safe”, but can they give a return of 200% or more? Of course not, because everyone else out there is invested in them. But if you can afford a little gamble, take a small risk, your 1000 dollars could skyrocket in as little as a few months.

To win the game, you have to invest in the right commodity at the right time. And don’t go listening to your broker! We all know that “the safest place to be in right now, is in the top 100″ is nothing but crap. Its their safety net, a way to protect themselves. It doesn’t mean that he is making you money, just means that he can help you invest safely. Look, pennystocks are a gamble, I know. But if you buy lotto twice a week and don’t win, but you buy it anyways because, maybe, just maybe… Take those 1000 dollars and watch them double or triple in less than a year. Get in before the rest of the world does, because they wont be cheap for much longer, I am sure of that.

So if you are ready to potentially grow your investment three or four times over, there is no better time than now.

So if you are ready to make serious money visit http://www.whiteorchid67.info

In lieu of the financial meltdown, individuals are finding it increasingly difficult to borrow money at a reasonable rate. Credit card companies and banking institutions have adopted stringent lending policy and procedures. At the end of the day, consumers are now facing the challenge of higher interest rates. Under these circumstances, individuals are turning to companies that offer peer money lending services for personal loans. Unlike the traditional banks and card companies, these companies can offer lower interest rates and fees. While most people use the peer money lending services to borrow money, did you know that individuals are also making money through these companies?

To be able to earn cash through peer money lending, you first need to register as a lender with the companies offering these services. Some of the more well-known peer lending companies include LendingClub and Prosper. Each company has its own set of criteria in order to become a lender; individuals should review this information carefully before signing up to lend money. Assuming you have reviewed the information and are comfortable with the risks involved, you are now free to make bids on the loans. Before lending cash to individuals, it is important that you familiarize yourself with how things are done.

The primary method peer lenders earn money is by loaning their money in exchange for higher interest. The borrower agrees to repay a certain amount of interest and principal every month within a specific time frame such as three years. To ordinary investors not familiar with peer lending, this might seem risky. After all, what if the borrower defaults? Well, in this worst case scenario, the peer lender loses the full amount he or she loaned to the borrower.

Given the uncertainty and risks involved with peer lending, what are some of the strategies that investors utilize to protect their investment? First, peer lenders diversify and spread their investment across multiple loans instead of investing everything in one single loan. Savvy investors also scrutinize the borrower’s profile, seeking those with job stability and avoiding those with little work history or high debt to income ratios. Finally, peer lenders reinvest the interest and principle received to take advantage of compounding interest.

So, there you have it. Peer lenders are finding ways to earn more than the simple interest that the traditional banks pay for deposit accounts. While peer lending involves more risk, investors are utilizing multiple strategies to generate high returns and reduce their risk. As with any investment, the key is to take the time to learn how these services operate and how money is made. Ask lots of questions from experienced investors and start with a small investment.

A.W. Shaw was an early adopter and investor of peer money lending. He is passionate about helping everyone increase their personal financial education.

For a FREE peer lending report from Javelin Research, visit http://www.peerlendingmoney.com.

If you’re contemplating opening up a certificate of deposit, you’re making the right choice for your financial future. The confusion in selecting the best CD account comes in when people have to decide which deposit term is right for them. Most people commonly choose between a 6 month CD and a 12 month CD, but what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Neither is a bad choice, so let’s take a closer look at what each offers you.

6 Month CD Rates

Shorter term certificate of deposit accounts are ideal for people who may need access to their money in the near future, or are uncomfortable not having access to their funds for a long period of time. 6 month certificates are perfect for these situations because they can still offer a good return rate with a minimal deposit term. You may also want to consider a 6 month CD if you just want to earn a little more interest on your money before a large purchase. Here are some quick features of this type of CD:

Short deposit term
Average rate of return
Very little commitment required

12 Month CD Rates

These types of deposit accounts are considered medium term, since they do not go longer than a year or more like some CDs. 12 month certificates are great for people who are looking for a little bit more interest and do not mind having their funds tied up for half a year. Usually, people who choose to invest in a 1 year CD have a higher tolerance for inaccessibility to their funds. They usually have a higher amount of money saved for emergencies and so do not need access to their money. They are also great because you can switch over to another CD rate after only a year, unlike with longer term certificates or jumbo CDs. Here are some quick features of this type of CD:

Average deposit term
Good rate of return
Above average commitment required

Both a 6 month CD rate and a 12 month CD rate are great, but the right one depends on your personal situation. If you can afford to wait longer, a 6 month CD will generally give you better return rates. Of course, it is never recommended that you invest money you may need for the year. Build up an emergency fund, pay down all debt and then start investing. It’s a great way for you to take work towards true financial freedom.

Phi Vo is a personal finance writer for a number of finance and insurance blogs dedicated to helping people save as much money as possible.

So we know that gold is currently much more valuable than silver. That’s the general knowledge right now, and that’s why companies that have money to invest prefer to buy gold over silver. Because they’re buying and selling gold, their profit margins are larger.

Another reason companies invest in gold is that they know that gold is very popular. Over time, gold has always been considered one of the most valuable metals on this planet. People always traded gold. Kings wore gold all the time. Gold is used as a synonym of wealth. On the other hand silver is called “the gold of the poor”, and of course none of the big and wealthy investment firms want to work with something that’s associated with poor people. So, they select gold over silver.

But gold will decrease in value relative to silver because there will be much more of it as silver is depleted.

The main reason for which we use gold is to store value. Gold is our reserves. Gold is something that will be in demand and we will always be able to trade it for money or for anything we want. It will always be wanted and needed by almost any country in the world.

The crazy thing is that people don’t really consider silver to be a great way to store value. The reason for that is its price. If we want to have enough silver to even consider anything serious we have to have a lot of it. But as I have mentioned in the previous chapter it will not be a case for ever.

Silver will be just as good as gold as a means to store value in the very near future. We will want to buy silver from the investors because we will simply need it for our lives. This is common knowledge for many people that have interest in trading precious metals for long-term investments. Hopefully after reading this book this is common knowledge for you.

Andy Henry is the author of ‘Now Invest In Silver’ a beginners guide to investing in silver and the owner of http://www.nowinvestinsilver.com and http://www.sellingyoursilver.com the new auction site dedicated to silver buying and selling.

You shouldn’t confuse wealth with prosperity. Wealth is abundance of properties and money. Prosperity is no lack i.e. wealth, health, peace, protection, grace etc. Therefore, wealth is much less than prosperity. Prosperity, therefore involve the fruit of the spirit. You cannot price prosperity. The box-chest of prosperity includes victory, good health, preservation and protection, meeting and seizing good opportunities, and reward.

The building blocks can be summarized in 16 steps below:

1. Paying to God at least 10% of all your monthly income including material gifts.
2. Paying to yourself at least 10% of all your income every month and save this in a dedicated account.
3. Open savings account for all your family members, and save at least 10% of your monthly income proportionately as would be determined by you and your spouse.
4. Cultivate the attitude of putting aside at least 10% into an emergency account to take care of other extended family members’ request on monthly basis.
5. Use the remaining 60% of your monthly income to provide the good things of life for the members of your family.
6. Understand the difference between assets and liabilities, and decide to increase assets, and reduce the acquisition of liabilities.
7. Pay up all your debts on monthly basis, or buy only what the 60% of your income can accommodate. If it is not enough, go and do more work to earn more.
8. Never spend more than your income. It will put you into debt. Do more work or reduce your expenditure.
9. Seek knowledge on how to manage finances by reading books and engaging the services of experts who understand the language of money.
10. You must stop impressing people with materials things. The main reason for impoverishment amongst people today is ostentatious living.
11. Open fixed deposit account, and let your money work for you and make more money. Invest in Treasury bills, but listen to expert advice.
12. Buy shares/stocks in viable and blue chips companies. Your money manager and stock broker will advice you on the right stock/company to invest in. This is a good inheritance for your family.
13. Invest in Real Estate business. Buy old homes in good location with excellent advice from Estate/Property Agencies. Your net worth will increase will increase with time.
14. Set up a business, or become an entrepreneur. Employ people with education, let them use their brain and time to make more money for you. This is the apex of building wealth and prosperity. There will always be a need or service to render in your community, area or neighbourhood.
15. Get a family lawyer to write your WILL once you discover that your asset level is increasing. Your lawyer will give the legal advice as to how to proceed.
16. Prepare not to leave liabilities to your wife and family now. Let your children have the best education you can afford. Give them all the best of life you can afford, but never be prodigal.

The road to marriage success/marital happiness starts from the time when young people decide that they are ready for marriage. It is at this point that they need to know a lot about what they are getting into.

http://maritalissues.wordpress.com

Ever thought of investing your hard earned money? You can make a lot of profits by investing. Whether it is stocks or mutual funds, it is easy to make money investing. If you want to be financially stable, then investing is a great option. Now there are many places in which you can invest your money. Here are a few places in which you can make money investing:

STOCKS

One great place that can help you to make money investing is stocks. If you wish to invest in a company, then it is best that you do some research on that company. Of course, there investing in stocks comes with its risks.

REAL ESTATE

It is a lot safer to invest in real estate than in the stock market. There are many people who purchase homes that need to be re-modeled. You can make a good amount of money by fixing them or selling them. Of course, it is not very simple here. Before investing in the real estate, there are several factors that you must take into account.

GOLD

Gold is another option in which you can make money investing. It is free from the decrees or control of any government. Gold is often in demand irrespective of the financial or social situation.

ONLINE

More and more people are beginning to invest online. By just sitting in front of a computer, an individual can research, buy, sell and easily make money investing online. Thanks to the internet, you do not even have to step out of your house to generate an income.

James Parmis is a tycoon internet entrepreneur who loves helping people around the globe becoming financially literate. Visit his popular websites at http://www.MakeMoneyOnlineManila.com and get free e-books on internet marketing at http://www.FreeEbookMarketingSydney.blogspot.com

There are synonyms and antonyms in language. However, “saving” and “investing” are neither. The two terms are related financial concepts in that they deal with what we do with our money. While they are often used interchangeably, they each have separate meanings. Most people would have to save money before they invest and this is probably why the terms may get confused.

The most fundamental difference between saving and investing is the financial objective. Saving is protection oriented (merely putting money aside) while investing is growth oriented (seeks capital gain or returns that outweigh inflationary effects). Even if you are getting a fair return on your savings, this does not make it an investment. There are some other notable differences between the two terms.

Risk/ return trade-off

The difference between saving and investing can be pinned down to the level of risk. Savings would generally involve low-to-moderate risk with low-to-moderate returns. Savings funds may also be insured or guaranteed to a greater or lesser extent. Investing involves higher risk with potentially higher returns.

Investment period

Saving is generally designed to meet short and medium-term financial goals while investing occupies a wider investment horizon. This does not suggest that investments cannot be used for the short term or that savings cannot be used for the long-term. However, it is not often appropriate or practical to do so.

Asset classes

The type of fund used can make the difference between saving and investing. You could decide that you just want to save your money. However, if you use a growth option, then you are not saving (as you intended), but investing. Cash options are associated with saving, while growth options are associated with investing. Income options fall between the two and can be considered as a saving or investment based on the nature of the option or your objective.

Liquidity

You would typically have easier access to your money when you save as opposed to invest. The higher liquidity associated with saving suggests that you can readily convert your savings to cash. There’s still some liquidity with investment (you can sell some stocks at anytime for e.g.). However, investment bears some degree of liquidity risk (unlike savings). Liquidity risk refers to the inability to convert your investment to cash when needed for various reasons.

The difference between saving and investing is important in understanding how to undertake portfolio diversification. It can also be useful in detecting poor-quality financial advisors who think it’s just a matter of semantics. Basically, knowing how to distinguish between saving and investing can help you to construct a formidable financial plan.

There is a popular phrase in investing terminology called the ’smart money’… typically this phrase is used to describe the investors that are ahead of market sentiment. These are the people with the foresight to sell before the market crashes and buy before the market booms. The critical question to ask is how we can become part of the smart money?

Beliefs on where the ’smart money’ comes from span between simply doing a little research to make prudent investments and belief in a vast conspiracy of industry insiders that monopolize all of the best business opportunities. My perspective is that the reality probably lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, since getting ahead of the market certainly requires some sharp analysis. However, I find it unlikely that it is limited to an exclusive ‘club’ since there is a constant churn of executive ‘insiders’ that fail to predict the market accurately.

One of the easiest ways to move toward the ’smart money’ is to avoid buying into markets while they are inflating (i.e. Stocks in the late ’90’s and Real Estate over the last few years) and selling out when they hit bottom. The easiest way to accomplish this feat is to internalize the fact that once an investment type becomes ‘hot’ it is probably too late for you to capture the big returns. Simple avoidance of stepping off the cliff of market crashes will catapult you a lot closer to the smart money.

The next step is to determine what emerging areas of opportunity will create the greatest gains. This is where things become much more difficult, as it is extremely difficult to determine when down markets will bottom, and start climbing again. One thing is certain though… if a new opportunity is being reported on the television, it is no longer an emerging opportunity and the ’smart money’ is already looking for a new home.

Sincere Thanks, Douglas J Utberg, MBA

“Business, Life, and Everything In-Between”

We have all been taught about the merits of diversification in investments. It is a variation of the old adage, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Indeed, professional investment managers are trained to develop portfolios according to the tenets of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). MPT traces its roots to the work of Harry Markowitz and his seminal writings on “Portfolio Selection.” In his pioneering research, Markowitz was able to demonstrate the mathematical basis for diversification.

Essentially, Markowitz showed that selecting assets that have a positive expected return but exhibit low or (preferably) negative correlation to one another produces a combined portfolio that retains the positive expected return properties, but with lowered risk (as defined by variance).

Theoretically, this result arises due to the presence of at least two major sources of risk: nonsystematic (or unique) risk and systematic (or market) risk. While it is very difficult to eliminate market risk, it is possible to reduce the risks associated with unique investment assets. By combining investment assets that are subject to certain specific, unique risks with other investment assets that are subject to other unique risks, it may be possible to reduce the overall risk of the combined portfolio.

For the past several decades, this has been the mantra to which all investment managers adhered. Unfortunately, recent experiences in the capital markets have led both academics and professional investment practitioners to rethink portfolio construction. With the increasing interconnectedness of global markets and investment pools, we have seen that correlation structures among various investment assets are not always stable.

In fact, assets that typically exhibit low correlation with one another can dramatically change direction and begin exhibiting increased correlation during periods of market distress. The increased correlation leads to a reduction in the power of diversification and thus to increased risk in the overall portfolio. Unfortunately, this upward shift in correlation happens at exactly the time when an investor needs correlation the most: market distress.

As a result, investment managers need to be exceedingly careful in constructing portfolios that are able to withstand the dynamic nature of correlations, especially as the market experiences large disturbances. These “disturbances” are becoming much more commonplace: the Asian currency crisis of 1997, failure of the major hedge fund “Long Term Capital Management” in 1998, the burst of the “dot-com” bubble in 2000/2001, the terrorist attacks of 2001, the burst of the real estate bubble in 2007/2008, and the credit crisis of 2008/2009. In nearly every case, correlation structures among various assets increased at precisely the time when investors needed protection the most.

The best portfolio construction techniques have an appreciation for the fact that correlation structures may change during different “states of the world” or regimes. By incorporating these state-dependent correlation structures into portfolio design and optimization, investment managers can move to better protect portfolios during times of market distress.

Sharath M. Sury – Founder and Executive Director of the Sury Initiative for Financial Innovation & Risk Management (SIFIRM) at Santa Clara University, Sharath Sury devotes his time and energy to bringing together thought leaders who can address the development of real-world solutions to the current economic climate. Sharath Sury has worked with some of the brightest and most experienced experts in finance and risk management and aims to bring a greater sense of ethics and responsibility to his profession. Through his efforts, Professor Sury has established this invaluable forum for the research and discussion of new developments in the world of economics and finance and has attracted a renewed spirit of innovation to the industry. Sharath Sury also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of California and Adjunct Professor of Finance at DePaul University in Chicago. Sharath Sury’s interest and experience in wealth management began as an Associate and later Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. He later founded and worked at S4 Capital, where he earned numerous accolades for his work.

http://blog.suryonline.net
http://everything-finance.net