Investment Articles

People get stupid in different types of economies. In a strong economy, collectable investors seem to be overly confidante and frivolous. In a weakened economy, those same investors seem to be timid and stubborn. I am sure this sounds all too familiar to many of you, and personally, I have been accused of being both. Such simple actions and behaviors may contribute to questions about the causes of a weakening economy, and its duration. In a strong economy, most collectable investors tend to over-spend for single collectable investments. When the economy inevitably weakens, these same investors are stuck with single investment items because other buyers are unwilling to purchase items that are either over-priced or that have a selling price that is too high for a single collectable item. Without a doubt, strong buying continues in the collectable market, even in a sagging economy; however, as collectors become smarter, they are staying with lower-end items to protect themselves against adverse economic situations. I am confident in stating that although the total unit numbers for collectable purchases has increased every year since I began collecting in 1975, the prices per item have decreased recently, due to the sagging economy. This scenario of increases in total purchases and decreases in overall prices per item has created huge investment potential. I am not suggesting you go out and be a bull collectable investor in a weak economy. I am saying that your collectable investing needs to be balanced and adjusted based on your own personal economic situation. Your investment strategy should always be the same, regardless whether you are buying stocks, houses, Hall of Fame trading cards, coins or comic books. Your strategy for purchasing collectable investments should contain two key components: assortment buying and buying lower-cost collectables. Both components will protect your collectable investment potential.

How does assortment buying protect investments? Buying assortments of collectables is your best tool for protection from the bad choices we can all make when buying the collectables we enjoy. Let me keep this strategy simple. If you buy one collectable item and it goes down in price, you are working at an investment loss. If you spend the same amount of money on ten different items and three go down and the other seven go up, you are working at an investment gain. In the ten purchases scenario, you can make three bad choices and still come out ahead, verses the one purchase scenario, where you will have an investment loss.

Farmers are smart people. Remember the old adage: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” An example of this, as it pertains to trading cards, might be that if you spend all your collectable investment money on a football rookie card, or on a football player autographed 1/1 card, and when a 300-pound lineman falls the wrong way on the leg of your investment cards’ player on Sunday, YOU’RE BROKE! Think before you buy and try these two strategies, instead. Buy an assortment of your favorite players that have already played the game and established a great career and who cannot get injured in a way that can hurt your investment; or, use part of your collectable investment money for buying newer rookies, and part of your money for purchasing Hall of Famers that have already accomplished a career. Buy your collectables in a variety to protect yourself from bad collectable investment mishaps that you cannot control. Keying on one player, in one moment in time, is as absurd as taking all your hard-earned money and betting one number on a roulette wheel. I understand that works on television. The TV star always hits it big or has a rich relative who bails him out in the final minutes of the show, but that’s just not real life.

The second component in your investment strategy should be the purchasing of lower-cost collectables; that protects investments. The reasoning behind this is simple. More people have one dollar in their pocket than one thousand dollars. I know this may be simplifying this strategy; however, you must think when you are buying collectables that one day you may want to sell the items you are buying. This does not have to be your total focus when buying, but it should be part of your decision making process. Let say, for example, that when the time comes to sell, your marketing strategy is to sell your collectables at a trade show. If you were to poll each buyer at the show on how much money they want to spend on collectables, you would have an assortment of different dollar amounts. Some buyers will be willing to spend twenty dollars, a fewer number will be willing to spend fifty dollars, even fewer will be willing to spend a hundred dollars, and so on. One thing remains constant with each of the trade show buyers. The few buyers who are willing to spend a thousand dollars will also be willing to spend only twenty dollars; however, the buyers who are willing to spend only twenty will not spend a thousand dollars. To conclude this simple point, if you have a twenty-dollar collectable, your potential greatly increases to sell it if every buyer at the show has that minimum amount to spend on a collectable. If you have a thousand-dollar item to sell, your pool of potential buyers decreases astronomically if that is the maximum amount only certain buyers at the show have to spend.

There are many strategies that come into play when dealing with collectable investment potential and I have only shared two. I believe these are the two main strategies that can help provide some potential now, as well as some protection against weak economic times. They can also help you capitalize on strong economic times in the future. The bottom line is that everyone will have possessions, and memories to go along with those possessions. Some of the key ingredients to collectable investing in a weak economy are the same key ingredients in life. If you balance yourself, you will find enjoyment and happiness. If you extend too far, you risk your balance and happiness. Think ahead. Live today. Cherish your love ones. Enjoy your hobby.

Billy May

http://cardsone.com

The point of a hedge is to make money for clients regardless of market direction. Hedge funds will buy and hold stocks, they will sell short, as well as buy and sell options. These particular funds differ from most traditional funds, which adhere to the buy and hold concept. In these particular funds, an investor will pay a performance fee as well as a management fee it performs well. These investments, which include foundations, college endowments, and pension funds are worth billions of dollars. Over 1 % of financial institution assets are comprised of these funds, with total assets around $2 trillion. Many large funds choose this type of fund because of their potential upside during a bull market.

These funds can offer some nice returns dependent on how the they are positioned in the market and how strong the market is performing. If investments of this kind are leveraged well, the investor will realize size able to returns as opposed to other funds. With this in mind, one must also be wary of the potential losses that can be suffered when the wrong investment vehicle is being leveraged. In short, take your time and do your research when choosing any type of fund. The crash in 2008 seemed to motivate large pension funds into direct hedge fund investing. A lot of people were hurt by the 2008 crash, lending to more hedge fund investing to recuperate some losses. The rules of hedge fund investing have become stricter since 2008, limiting participation to accredited investors, weening out the small, private investor.

A hedge fund managers uses the same information available to all investors. For instance, you did not need to be a hedge fund manager to evaluate some opportunities in Japan after the tsunami. However, the sheer size of these type of funds lends to significant research and investment opportunities that an ordinary investor does not have. However, on the same note, these large funds can sometimes find it difficult to find a place to invest billions of dollars. When this kind of fund takes a position in an equity, it changes the direction of the market. An individual investor can profit from studying a hedge fund, being aware of where the money is going. A lot of successful investors yield high returns by mirroring a successful hedge funds investment strategy. How available that information is depends on the individual investors savvy. Again, hedge funds move the market.

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There are two sayings I live by

1 – Money is just an idea, people who lack money simply lack ideas.

2 – Wherever there is a will there is a way, if you can’t find a way….you’re just not willing enough.

Living by these words has greatly helped me in my investment career. No matter how well you plan for something, you should expect that you will have some challenges along the way. Nothing in life is without some risk.

Well, now that I got that boring part out of the way, let’s talk about the fun part.

Investing for passive income can be a lot of fun and you can build a lot of wealth if you do it right. There are some keys to doing well and they are pretty straight forward.

1) Do your Homework – Learn before you earn

Most people get into money making ideas based on stories of quick payments and being able to make millions with little or no effort. Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to build massive wealth with little or no effort, but that happens after you get some knowledge on a wealth building strategy that suits you.

Jumping into something without any knowledge whatsoever is a sure way to failure, DON’T DO IT.

2) Don’t go after something ONLY based on the amount of money you will make.

Try to pick investment opportunities that suit your personality. For example, if you know you are an introvert or really shy, don’t go after opportunities that will require you to have a lot of face to face contact or make sales pitches. If you are an introvert, then those types of opportunities would NOT be great for you.

Another example, if you are a detail oriented person that likes to see data, then maybe there is an opportunity for you in stock options trading, or real estate investing.

Think about your personality, list your strengths and weaknesses, then match your strengths up with the appropriate investment strategy. This is how I got my start in internet marketing and stock options investing.

3) Be open minded to different ideas

The only thing stopping you is you. There are thousands, possibly millions of ways to build wealth with passive income or even active income. Don’t let people tell you that something cannot be done. If you have a strong passion or desire to do something, find a way to make it happen.

I will bet my monthly earnings (a lot of money) that if you asked all the millionaires if someone at one time told them they would fail, ALL of them would say yes.

Dale Poyser has been investing for over a decade and has done meticulous research on how to build wealth. His primary focus is on strategies that can create low risk residual streams of income.

Not only does Dale personally practice the methods he writes about, he has also coached many others in these methods to show how easy it is to make money with passive residual streams of income. You can read more about Dale’s strategies at http://bestresidualincomestrategies.com/

With the coming of the new year it is time to look back at what worked and what didn’t work with your investments. With the high level of ups and downs in the global markets, here are your keys to success for 2012 if you are serious about wealth creation.

Look for low risk strategies.

First and foremost, steady does it in the game of building wealth. In certain markets, it is OK to swing for the fence on every try, but eventually this will catch up to you. In a volatile market that moves around a lot, a fast moving investment strategy can quickly go against you if you hold onto it too long.

Take the approach of a marathon runner and look to make returns on low risk strategies. Ideally look for strategies that will allow you to build wealth by generating passive income payments on a periodic basis. I look to make returns on my investments at least once a month. I currently target 10 – 15% per month in the stock market although I could easily make this 20% with some added risk. As I get older I’m all about low risk, conservative gains. You should do the same with your investments if you really want long term success.

The stock market has had a nice run up in the last year (2011) so my guess is that it may be due for a correction. You might still be able to do OK in the stock market if you go for stocks that have not had huge runs but pay big dividends and are profitable. For example McDonald’s is a good stock and has been steadily rising ever since (over two years) I have been tracking it.

In the stock market, focus on stocks that are moving in tight price patterns. Look for stock charts that show steady trend lines. These will be the stocks that will be profitable for you in the long run. Stocks for profitable companies that move no more than 1 or 2 per day are the perfect for low risk investing strategies.

Making money online is very lucrative right now and very popular. You do have to do your research to make sure you don’t get scammed but there are possibilities out there. Consider buying websites that already generate monthly income. In the world of wealth building, cash flow is king. Any investment that can add to your monthly income is an investment you want to look into.

Commodities – gold had a nice run but it is cooling off a little bit right now as the economy recovers. This gives you the opportunity to buy gold at bargain prices before it takes off again.

If you don’t have the money to buy gold, consider buying some gold stocks and mining companies as they closely track the price movement and pattern of gold.

Dale Poyser has been investing for over a decade and has done meticulous research on how to build wealth. His primary focus is on strategies that can create low risk residual streams of income.

Not only does Dale personally practice the methods he writes about, he has also coached many others in these methods to show how easy it is to make money with passive residual streams of income. You can read more about Dale’s strategies at http://bestresidualincomestrategies.com/

When it comes to making long range investment goals for your future many first time investors want to jump in head first without having any prior knowledge of what they are doing. Eventually and unfortunately many of these investors never become successful investors and usually just give up. Investing in itself does require some level of skill and it takes time coupled with your ability to learn.

It is important to understand and remember that every investment that you make is not a sure thing in itself. There is always a the risk of losing money. However, your risk can be minimize if you take the time to learn and know when to take a loss and run! Before you dive in head first it is imperative to not only find out more how the investment game works, but to determine what your investment goals are.

The questions that you should ask yourself before taking the plunge are, what are the reasons that you are investing. Are you investing for long term or short term reasons? What are you trying to achieve with your investments? Are you investing for your children college education? Your retirement? A vacation? Buying your first home, etc? Before you part with a single red penny, think about these questions and write down what you hope to achieve by investing. Knowing what your long and short range goals are will help you make smarter and wiser investment decisions for you and your family.

All too often people invest their money with pipe dreams of becoming an overnight millionaire. I have been there too! I am quite sure that it has happen for a few people, but overall those types of opportunities are rare indeed. It is not a very good idea to start your investment portfolio with unrealistic dreams and goals of becoming rich overnight. It is always best to invest your hard earned money in such a way that it will increase slowly and safely over time where it can therefore be used for a child’s education or your retirement, etc.

Another strongly advised decision would be to talk with a financial planner before you make an investment. A financial planner can guide you in the right direction and help you determine the type of investments that you are looking for that will help you reach your financial goals that you have set. He/She can give you a realistic overview of the type of returns that you can expect and how long it will take to reach your specified goals.

Again, remember that investing for your future will take time and effort and your willingness to learn. Never entrust your financial and investment future to someone else. You must also do your due diligence and learn investment strategies for yourself as well. It will take your delving into and doing your research and acquiring knowledge about the stock market and other types of investments if you hope for your investments to be successfully.

M. Cunningham Is the owner and webmaster of Investment Top Tips. You will find lots of information and investment advice and tips plus loads of FREE products.

Click here to learn more about the basics of investing at…. http://www.investmenttoptips.com

An investor and trader must be able to define market volatility in order to produce a profitable trading strategy. The market is always changing and often you will find it difficult to monitor all market activities. To develop the best trading decision you need to comprehend the timing of different markets especially those that have a big influence on your trades and those in which you are doing trade.

These various markets are affected by various market situations. Though all currency pairs are liable to market volatility, a lot of currencies change its volatility depending on certain schedules in a day. It is your responsibility as a trader to have understanding of various time zones of currency pairings, currency trading system and factors that affect their volatility.

The approach on volatility reflects a variable’s degree of uncertain change over time. To a lot of investors, risk signifies the variability of an asset’s cost. It is generally defined as the standard deviation of the alteration of an asset over specified period which is commonly a year. It therefore gives you an idea of the risk you take when choosing a certain asset. Investors tend to avoid assets with higher volatility since they understand how risky that asset can be.

A better understanding of volatility can tell you that it is more than the standard deviation of an asset’s cost over a period time. It is really an analytical input in giving importance on options and other derivative tools. Historical and prospective measurement of volatility has a big effect on the worth and rewards of a lot of financial instruments from interest rates to futures. It is also useful as a benchmark for an investor’s emotion in a way that low volatility can show an investor’s desire to take risk while higher volatility can show an investor’s nervousness.

Wise investors see the appealing purchasing opportunities in market lows. A long term investment strategy can relieve you with your worries and provide rewards from present conditions. Don’t let market ups and downs affect your decision.

To play it safe, you can choose regular investments since these investments allow you to purchase lesser securities when prices are going up and purchase more securities when prices are going down. This strategy in the long-term can decrease the average cost of the securities you purchase that you can never experience in a once a year contribution. This strategy can lessen the difficulty in forecasting market timing and movement.

There are already advanced tools that can give you understanding on market volatility. Though these tools can make analysis faster, the human decision is still the main contributor to an investors’ and traders’ success. Learning is a never ending process and the more knowledge and info you have on the market, the higher your chance to succeed.

Though John Conejos has only done few trades and investments, he has already gained huge rewards by making good trade and investment decisions. Now you can make quicker and more effective analysis of market strategies with the help of Derivative Trading Systems advanced software tools.

DTS’s tools are designed to help with analysis on market strategies such as the yield curve, volatility, correlation, derivatives and other strategies. Visit http://www.derivs.com/horizon-start.html and try DTS’s tools for FREE. Everyone deserves to profit in the market and this is possible by learning techniques that help make better investment and trading decisions.

Probably the second most common New Year’s resolution is to do better with finances (the top one is to lose weight). If one is looking to lose weight, obviously it is better to get advice from that friend who lost 50 pounds and kept it off than to ask the one who is overweight and keeps going on yo-yo diets. With making and keeping money, the people to follow are the wealthy who hold onto money – not the friend with the fancy car who is up to debt to his eyeballs. Unfortunately few of us know many wealthy people since the average person is deep in debt.

Luckily, in his book “The Millionaire Next Door,” Mr. Stanley has given us some tips drawn from actual millionaires. These are people who became wealthy and stayed that way. If your resolution is to do better with money, here are some tips from them:

1. Control your money. This means having a budget which says what you will do with every dollar you get for the month. This should include all of your expenses, money directed into savings/investing, and some money to be spent as desired (you need to have some freedom). If needed, use a system of envelopes and cash with labels like “groceries,” “clothes,” etc… to make sure you stick to your budget for each area. While it may seem restrictive, you’ll generally find that you have more money than you thought if you stop blowing money on unplanned purchases throughout the month.

2. Get rid of payments. Rich people don’t buy things on payments. If you are paying interest you are paying more for things than they cost and you will never have nay money to save and invest. Rich people save up and pay cash.

3. Build your pipelines. Rich people buy assets – things that grow in value and pay them money. Things like stocks, bonds, and real estate. This means that every month you’ll have more money coming in than simply what you earn from working. Use some of the money you get from these assets to buy more assets, and you’ll be putting your wealth growth on turbocharging!

4. Only buy what you need. Rich people don’t buy lavish houses, relative to their net worth. While Bill Gates has a multi-million dollar house, his net worth is also many billions. People with 1-10 million dollars don’t have McMansions in general. They have solid, well-built houses in established neighborhoods. They know that too much space means more maintenance and cost.

5. Spend your time at your profession or with your family. Rich people don’t fix the car or mow the lawn unless they enjoy doing it or it is the only way to get the job done right. Rich people would rather spend the hours they would be doing such tasks making more money at their profession and hire professionals with the right tools for such jobs. Spending extra hours at work can also help you get ahead – spending all day fixing a water heater will not.

6. Find ways to make money that can multiply your time. If you rake leaves in yards for $50 per yard, you can only make about $200 per day since you can only rake so many yards. If you hire people to rake leaves, pay them $40 per yard and keep $10, you can make as much money as there are yards to rake. The easiest way to become wealthy is to do something that can multiply your time. Write a book. Start a business with employees. Invent something.

Everyone can become wealth. Make it your New Year’s resolution to start on your way.

To learn more about stock investing, stock picking, and growing wealth, please visit the Small Investor: http://smallivy.wordpress.com. Find hundreds of articles on investment strategies, tips, and tactics for investing and growing wealth.

The primary measure of farmland investment performance in the United States is the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) Farmland Returns Index. The index provides investors with a measure of the investment performance of a large pool of individual agricultural properties acquired in the private market for investment purposes. According to the index, US farmland returned 8.6% in 2010, and 5.85% to quarter 3 in 2011.

Regional U.S. farmland growth figures vary from state to state. A new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City showed a 12.6% increase in mountain states farmland values over 2011.

The Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank District reported farmland values as of second quarter 2011 up 17% from the same period a year ago, while the Kansas City District reports farmland prices up 20%.

Nebraska has seen one of the largest increases, with non-irrigated land up 30%. Oklahoma ranchland, suffering from a prolonged drought, saw values up just 6.4%, with what increase there was driven by oil and gas exploration.

There has been some concern amongst the agricultural community in the United States that land values have spiralled out of control, with demand for assets fuelled almost entirely by Investors seeking to diversify out of the stock market and into tangible assets. Don McCabe, an accredited farm manager with Soy Capital Ag Services said recently at an investment forum that, about 60% of all farmland is being purchased by active operators, with 15% purchased by nonlocal investors, 13% by local area investors, 7% by institutions and investment groups and 5% by other entities.

In Canada, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) monitors the value of a basket of 245 benchmark farm properties every six months. On average, Canadian farmland increased 7.4% in the first six months of 2011, and 9.5% for the year ending June 2011. Saskatchewan farmland led the nation in farmland price increases, up 11.6% in the six months ending in June, and up 14.3% year on year.

New York-based TIAA-CREF, the largest U.S. pension manager for teachers and academic researchers with $469 billion of assets said in October 2011 that farmland investments may return 8% to 12% per year as global food demand increases. The company has $2.5 billion in farmland investment assets and owns about 600,000 hectares.

Investors considering farmland investment should consult with an experienced Advisor in order to plan the most relevant and effective farmland investment strategy, identify suitable opportunities and identify and mitigate risk.

David Garner is Partner at DGC Asset Management, an alternative investments boutique specialising in property transactions in the agriculture and renewable energy sectors.

Around 225,000 people are added to the global population every single day, all of whom require food and fuel. At the same time, incomes in developing economies are rising, causing a shift toward a more expensive and more resource intensive westernised diet based on meat. Considering that 1kg of meat requires the input of 7kg of grain as animal feed, this combination of more people and higher consumption per capita adds tremendous strain to already stretched agricultural productivity.

The amount of farmland on the planet is actually falling. Urbanisation, soil degradation, water scarcity and climate change all converge to reduce the stock of land suitable for growing the essential crops we need.

In light of this on-going and increasing disparity between supplies of farmland and demand for agricultural commodities, investors are turning to farmland in order to capture financial gains as food prices rise and productive land becomes intrinsically more valuable.

There are a range of farmland investment strategies to consider, from simple acquisition of land and leasing to farmer, through to sharing crop revenues in a joint venture under a contract framing agreement. But certainly the most profitable agriculture investment strategy is greenfield development; the acquisition of land with agricultural potential and converting into productive agricultural assets through the establishment of infrastructure such as irrigation, storage facilities and road, as well as amending the soil profile to ensure maximum productivity.

Greenfield farmland developments add substantial capital value to previously unused land, as well as positively impacting the current black hole in agricultural productivity that leave over 1 billion people hungry around the world each year. Investors also benefit from on-going income from crop revenues as newly converted land produce an annual yield from the production of crops.

The majority of future growth is widely expected to come from developing regions including Asia, Africa and Latin America, where economic growth outpaces that of the west by a huge margin. It is these key growth regions that the appetite for agricultural commodities will grow the most. In fact, in Germany the population is expected to get smaller in the next 40 years, whilst in China the population is expected to expand by some 30% in the same period.

It is fair to say then that agriculture investments based on the development of suitable land, in close proximity to key growth regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America offer investors the best opportunity to capture not only short term appreciation through development, but also long-term growth and income driven by population growth and rising incomes.

David Garner is Partner at boutique alternative investments boutique DGC Asset Management Limited.

Newspaper headlines of late are quick to detail what little sign of national economic stability they can; some job growth here or a sign of stock market recovery there. And while it may be true that the S&P 500 is up 77 percent from the lows of March 2009-especially good for big-time stock market gamblers-median household incomes are falling at faster rates during this so-called “recovery period,” than they were during the actual recession years. As you can see from the chart below since the beginning of 2009 the median income has dropped sharply while unemployment rises significantly.

In the meantime, the National Association of Realtors (NRA), in addition to providing evidence of continued decline in home sales, also reported a record-high affordability index, which when taken together simply do not add up. How are homes more affordable when the median income continues to decline? Another example of how the media, along with agencies like the National Association of Realtors try to make things look better than they are. Low consumer confidence and tight lending policies by the banks pose definite difficulties, however there is more to be gained than lost as the cyclical nature of the economy will not provide such optimal investment opportunities for long. Now is the perfect time to start to invest in real estate as rates are low and you can make a great return on your money due to cash flow.

There are also great opportunities to purchase property with built-in equity as the banks continue to liquidate their inventory. Taking control of your future is more important now than it has ever been. As median incomes continue to decline the middle class will be pushed into poverty IF they do not do something about it. There are plenty of available resources and alternative investments the middle class can make right now but education is the key. Unfortunately the media is controlled by stock market advertising dollars which control the education base of the American public. Now is time to get educated about alternative investments instead of putting money in the stock market where all one has is hope the values will continue to climb, which is highly unlikely in the current volatile economic times. Stop hoping and enact an investment strategy that works. Stop investing for capital gains and invest in cash flow. A cash flow investor can weather economic instability much more than capital gain investors.

Owens Consulting Group founder Mathew Owens is a California licensed CPA and a full time real estate investor. He has completed over 100 transactions in the past three years, representing approximately $10 million in real estate, most of which has been sold to cash flow investors. He does multiple live educational events and online webinars. Find out more info about him and his blogs at http://www.ocgproperties.com