Investment Articles

If you have been investing in the stock market the past few years, I can readily understand why you are looking to invest in gold and other precious metals. While the stock market has taken a dive (although recovered a good bit since 2009) the precious metals market, and in particular gold, have been soaring. The good news is, it has only begun to boom! Many are forecasting a further rise in gold and silver prices in the near future, so there is plenty of time to get in on the action.

So what do you need to know to make money in the gold trading market? Not so fast, let’s go over a few basics right away. First of all, I would never tell anyone to put 100% of their money in anything, even gold or other precious metals. No one that I know of can predict the future, so it is always good advice to diversify your portfolio. Where have you heard that before? From every stock broker worth his salt, probably. So with that said, realize now that only a part of your total portfolio should be in gold, how much is up to you. How much can you risk? How quickly do you need to get the money back in a crisis? There are many more questions that I hope to answer here.

The allure of gold has been with us since at least Egyptian times, and probably before that. It’s shiny, beautiful, valuable, and holds it’s value better than most things. But gold has had it’s up’s and down’s over the years, to be sure. Why is it going up right now? There are several reasons, one of the main things is they aren’t making more of it. Gold has to be mined, and the vast majority of it has already been found. Of course some major gold mines are still operating and producing tons of new gold every year, but a finite product that is in high demand will always retain it’s value. Another reason it is going up in value right now is that some very large countries seem to be buying a lot of it, namely China. China is one of the richest countries in the world besides the U.S. right now, and they are buying obscene amounts of gold and stockpiling it. Are they investing in it? Or is it a safeguard against massive inflation they see coming down the road? That is up for speculation, but either way they now own more gold than all but 6 other countries. Of course the U.S. is still numero uno, but that could change in the future.

Making money in the gold trade can be done in several ways, you don’t have to buy the stuff and worry about where to store it. Unless of course, you really want to! Buying gold bars isn’t really recommended, but hey, it’s your money. And your back if you want to carry that stuff around. I would find another way to cash in, frankly. Especially since there are many other methods that don’t entail any physical labor. Here are a few:

1) Buying gold bars – Instead of owning a paper asset, you can actually go buy gold bullion and either keep it at your house or a certified storage facility.
2) Of course another option is to buy gold coins, which are an indirect investment in gold since the coin itself has value depending on it’s interest from collectors.
3) Gold mining stocks – You could always buy stock in a company that mines gold, with the idea that if gold is going up in value then a well-run mining company would also have a rising stock price. The best mining companies already have been in business for many years, and have a profit built in. Some newer companies are speculative however, and owning their stock would also be considered speculative.
4) Investing in mutual fund and ETF’s – In order to spread out your risk and even manage it better you could purchase shares in a mutual fund that invests in gold assets. Certainly there are many to choose from and some are quite profitable. An ETF is just like a mutual fund, only it can be traded like a stock
5) Futures – Futures, or futures contracts, are paper assets that can be purchased from a futures exchange. A futures contract is nothing more than a promise to obtain a commodity at a standardized quantity and delivered at a specified date in the future.

Well there are the basics of what you can do with gold investing, as always learn as much as you can before investing in anything and know your risk, as well as your rewards.

Are you tired of losing money in the stock market? Or do you just want to learn how to diversify your investments by adding gold or precious metals to the mix? Learn more by visiting us at online gold trading website.

Certificates of deposit or CD’s are extremely well-liked by personal traders. These are much like bonds, however they possess a couple of unique benefits over that fixed investment. CDs have just 1 structural distinction to the typical bond, and that is that interest is paid out on maturity instead of sporadically through the existence of the account. But you can find other distinctions to retain in thoughts, such as that interest on CDs are completely taxable and that CDs are obtainable only via banks and thus carry FDIC protection. A well-liked use of certificates of deposit is by the exercise of making laddered CD investment portfolios, which offer an extremely tailored and risk-free way to create income streams.

You can find two methods to start buying CDs. A simple way is immediately via a financial institution, which can be fairly simple and you will find no commissions. Typically speaking, banks provide various estimates of return based on their individual demand to draw consumer deposits. Furthermore, FDIC insurance policy only safeguards a limited quantity of cash per lender. Which means you might have to shop all over to obtain the most effective rate and completely guard your assets.

In these types of situations, investors frequently work with a brokerage house instead of looking from financial institution to financial institution so that you are able to conserve time. Simply because brokerage houses don’t sell CDs, only dealer them, any CD bought via a broker can be traded just like a bond and commissions tend to be included. By itself, this exercise is harmless, but when you offer using a commissioned merchant or investments markets, warning is justified.

You have to be on the watch for all points when working with brokerage houses, the very first of which can be how commissions can have an effect on the yield to maturity (YTM). Even though a CD might pay out a stated quantity of interest, the precise YTM might be reduced based on fees. Next, you also have to be mindful of what may occur might you have to liquidate your CD prior to maturity. This really is a thing brokers frequently don’t mention until right after the purchase is concluded, or never in any way, and it may charge you.

Get started with a CD account and earn higher rates of interest. Learn more about CD accounts at http://CDAccounts.net.

Managing an investment portfolio is in many ways no different than managing a business. If you want to get the optimum return on your investment, you need to measure how well you are doing. If you run a business without measuring the growth in profits and assets and what has contributed to or detracted from that growth, then you won’t have sufficient information to know when or how things need to be changed in order to improve the return. Exactly the same principle applies to managing your investment portfolio.

If you are an investor rather than a speculator, your aim will be to optimise your return over a long time frame, say 5-10 years. Your investment time frame ends when you spend your capital, not at the point when you need income from your portfolio, so even if you are retired you will still be a long term investor for at least part of your portfolio. The total return on your portfolio is sum of the income received from the portfolio by way of interest, dividends or distributions, and the change in value of the portfolio which comes about from a change in the price of the investments you hold. This return should be measured on a quarterly basis. If your portfolio is partly invested in growth assets such as shares, then its value will move up and down over time – some years it will perform well and some years it will produce a negative return. A portfolio made up entirely of fixed interest investments should have a consistently positive return. However, risk and return go together and as an investor, your choice is between a stable portfolio producing a consistent but low return and a more volatile portfolio producing a variable return in the short term but a high return over the long term.

If your portfolio contains growth assets, don’t make the mistake of comparing the performance year by year with a fixed interest portfolio because to do so is to compare apples and oranges. There is one thing certain about a volatile portfolio – there will always be some years when a fixed interest portfolio would have done better. The problem is, we only know with the benefit of hindsight which years that is true for. For a growth portfolio, it is the average return over the period of investment that you should focus on, not the year-on-year return.

In the short term, the performance of each asset class in your portfolio should be compared against the market index relevant to that asset class. Your aim is to do better than the market. If your share portfolio dropped in value by 5% but the share market index went down by 15%, you did well with your shares. In the long term, your overall aim should be to produce a better average return after tax and fees than you would have achieved by leaving your money in the bank for the same period. With a well diversified portfolio, the more you have invested in growth assets and the longer your investment time frame, the higher your return is likely to be.

Liz Koh is a financial planner and the author of the best selling book – Your Money Personality: Unlock the Secret to a Rich and Happy Life, Awa Press, 2008, available from http://www.awapress.com.

For Liz’s best tips for financial security, visit her website http://www.moneymaxcoach.com to receive your free e-book “8 Steps to Financial Freedom”.

When starting a business or making plans to increase and expand a business there are certain guidelines that should be followed to ensure the changes in growth are coming at the right time, and that fiscally, the business owner is responsible for managing the acquisition of new equipment and keeping costs within tolerances that the business can handle. Through capital planning investment control business owners can look ahead to see the needs of their growing enterprise and calculate the appropriate time to make new acquisitions or expand their employee base without putting a strain on the organizations finances.

By following a business and marketing plan organizations are able to prepare a roadmap with specific goals and benchmarks that are design to outline the growth and success of a company. Regardless of the industry or the enterprise capital planning investment control examines the available resources of a company and makes recommendations as to loans and leases for equipment and the plots the advantageous approach to business so that successful incorporation of the business plan will be in line to meet the set forth goals and objectives of the organization in a responsible and timely manner.

By consulting with specific partners and financial advisors the business, government agency, or non-profit organization can establish and meet their goals for the development of their organization within the capital planning investment control restrictions that have been set up to keep the enterprise moving in the direction that the owner and board of directors sees for their future. With a plan for the financial strength and grow of the company established following the business plan becomes as easy as conforming to a road map for success.

Manage Advantage, Inc. ( http://www.manageadvantageinc.com/ ) is a small, woman-owned business, to serve the needs of executives in large organizations, particularly the Federal government executive and capital planning investment control.

Today’s topic is a bit more 201 then 101 for subject matter, but good nonetheless for real estate investors of any experience level. You see, there are two basic types of private money investments: deal specific and what I call time period specific. And each has its own thorns to avoid. Some private money you bring in will be tied to a specific deal. You raise money to flip a house, the house sells, and it’s time to pay the investor back. Other deals involve money being invested for a set period of time (whether loans or equity investments). The return is paid on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

A lot of times, when you first get started raising money, you’ll tend to go the ‘deal specific’ route. You may find it easier to have someone commit funds for the time period of a deal, which could be a few weeks to a few months or possible (such as with an apartment building) a few years. It’s important to build the investors expectation the right way from the beginning. You should avoid investors who want to place funds with you as some sort of a high yield holding tank for their money. I’ve seen it happen before (it’s happened to me) where a potential investor wants to place funds for 3 or 6 months but then has an immediate home for that money after their investment with you cashes out. This is what I call “temporary” private money and it can really put you in a tough situation. It does beat hard money or not doing the deal at all, so keep than in mind – but they type of investor who cannot place funds for more than a few months isn’t one you can work with long term. So…back to our main question, which was: when is the best time to roll private investors back into the fold? What I mean is – as an investment is about to cash out or the time period for an investment is about to expire, how can you work to get the investor to roll their money back in?

First, you have to be proactive. Find a home for the money before it comes time to start talking to the investor about what they want to do with it. A lot of your private money investors will want to “keep a good thing going” and just roll the money back in. I suggest beginning discussions with investors at least 4-5 months before their investment matures. For deal specific investments, it helps to broach the subject at the beginning of the first deal. Make sure they are open to future investments if they are happy with this deal.

One big thing you have to pick up from all of this is what I call THE PROPER CARE AND FEEDING OF INVESTORS. I’m borrowing this from a Dr. Laura book my wife has, but it applies to private money investors. You have to make doing business with you an absolute joy the whole way through. You can get a lot of money re-invested and also get a lot of referrals to other investors this way too. Don’t automatically expect your investors to just roll their money back in. Actively work for it the entire time it’s invested. It sure beats going back to the well again (especially when you don’t have to).

Why not go back to the well for MORE money instead of just replacing existing funds?

Adam Davis is a real estate investor, author and speaker. He teaches real estate investors how to raise capital. Adam has completed hundreds of deals- from single family house flips to apartment buildings. He has raised millions of dollars from private individuals. For a FREE audio program on how to get private money go to: http://www.UltimatePrivateMoney.com.

According to research carried out by Unbiased.co.uk parents are wasting £63 million in child trust fund tax breaks. The research shows that only 24% of parents are adding to the fund themselves, with a miniscule 1% adding the maximum allowed amount of £1,200 a year.

The Child Trust Fund scheme sees parents of new born children receive a £250 CTF voucher from the government to invest on behalf of their children, and then receive another £250 voucher when their child turns seven. This can be added to by family and friends up to the amount of £1,200 a year, and the child receives the accumulated amount plus interest when (s)he turns 18. If fully taken advantage of the accumulated amount is over £22,000 before interest, a big helping hand to an 18 year old.

Was it ever realistic though that many parents would be in the position to add £1,200 every year? To a lot of parents this is a large amount of money; the equivalent of £100 a month. This is simply not affordable to many and the reason why the percentage adding the full amount is so low.

Supporters of the child trust fund will be disappointed that only a quarter have been adding anything at all. When the scheme was introduced it was expected that more would contribute something. Some may have taken the attitude that if they can only afford a small amount then it would not be worthwhile spending money on it, and better to support their children financially in other ways. Those with more than one child, or those who plan to have more children in future, may be thinking they will not be able to do the same for all their children, so don’t add to the child trust fund of any.

It has been suggested that many are unaware of exactly how the scheme works. According to Unbiased.co.uk 1.2 million parents haven’t invested the original child trust fund voucher. It is thought that many of those who have still don’t understand the specifics of how the scheme work and how it can benefit their children.

The Conservative Party have vowed to limit the scheme to the less well off families as part of their cost cutting plans should they win the 2010 general election. This will decrease the percentage of parents investing in the scheme even further. It is thought that parents earning over £16,000 won’t be entitled to the child trust fund the Tories come into power. The problem here would be the demographic who typically take advantage of the scheme will no longer be entitled to it. The only ones who will still be part of the initive are those families who cannot afford to take advantages. It could be argued therefore, that there are two decisions that can be made; either to keep it open for all (the Labour policy) or scrap it all together (the Liberal Democrats).

Andrew Marshall ©

Jump Savings are a Child Trust Fund provider.

Your vision for financial freedom may make you wonder what can be the best opportunities for you to go for and get things right! I would say that having money saved up and seeing it grow all the time is one way to make your vision for financial freedom come true. This doesn’t mean that you live your life austerely at the present. Instead, good planning is what should be on the cards.

Proper Financial Planning?

Yes, that is the key. Almost every person starts with a separate bank account towards saving cash initially in their lives, and this never takes them far. The problem is, you will always have something to purchase and spend your money on as long as you have liquid cash available for yourself, at least this is how it works with most people. To be able to see real savings, a secured investment plan is what works.

So start with your plans. How much money do you need each month to support yourself, comfortably but not luxuriously? How much is left from your salary or daily income after that? Divide this remainder in two parts so that the bulk goes towards the secured long term investments while a bit of the remainder stays in your “savings” bank account to cater to any requirements or necessity that you may suddenly come across.

The Investments

Now there are a huge number of investment options. You can go for investments that will mature and offer you the returns after a short while (like a year), or you may go for longer terms as well. And of course there are plans that will let you get your money back even earlier! It all depends on how much returns you want, and how long you may afford to pay towards the premiums.

To fulfill your vision for financial freedom, you need to be assured of the fact that even after you have retired, you must have a monthly (or other periodic) source of income, and see money come in to support you regularly. These are called the pension plans and annuities, and are generally the very long term investments. They are very safe and you may expect complete peace of mind when you retire.

And you may also think about growing your money in the bank and live on the interests derived from it later on. That is also a good option. Consider all these possibilities and options and make sure you do your calculations right. I would personally advice you to speak to an investment company on this, and then decide what may prove to be the best option for you for building your way towards your vision for financial freedom.

If you are not satisfied with your present financial status and REALLY want to make a revolutionary move in your financial career towards a steady and wealthy lifestyle, you must not be late in visiting http://www.godfreykeys2onlinewealth.com and http://www.godfreygateway2wealth.com. Visit only if you are serious about fast money making and want to give your life a wonderful turn. This place is not for losers.

Well of course you can. In any number of ways. You could bet all your cash on the toss of a coin, and if you get it right (and you are betting with an organisation that pays out) you can double your money immediately. Easy as anything.

But perhaps the better question is “Can you double your money in a year while maintaining a controlled risk?”
And the answer, cheeringly, is yes, it is possible.

The sad truth is that most of us have no real idea about how to analyse and ‘price’ risk. Appearances can be deceptive.

BCCI called itself a bank. So we the public, rather naturally, thought it was a bank. Turned out it wasn’t a bank, (and the Bank of England knew it!). And people in the City commented afterwards ‘well everyone knew that it was a bit dodgy’. Everyone in the City, maybe, but how were the public supposed to know?

Icelandic Banks – well, if you used interest rate comparison sites such as moneysavingexpert.com, you would not have seen any warnings saying “Watch out, Iceland only has a population of 320 thousand, some cod, and an infinite supply of lava, so how on earth can it be financing such a large proportion of the worlds commercial activity?”

And then there’s Northern Rock – saved only by the generosity of the UK taxpayer.

Can you rely on analysis carried out by bankers?

When Robert Maxwell had his famous boating incident, he left 50 banks with huge losses. Had each and every one of these banks carried out a careful risk analysis? No. They had acted like a flock of sheep. Were the risks lending money to Robert Maxwell totally hidden? No, definitely not. Private Eye had run a continuous campaign about the Bouncing Cheque, and named the Maxwell boat the SS Pension Fund (as he had looted pension funds belonging to his employees).
Nevertheless, the banks kept lending.

So it is pretty difficult to assess risk, either doing it for yourself, or following institutions employing well remunerated ‘experts’.

But the other factor that should be taken into account when assessing any risk, is what level of reward will I receive in relation to the risk I am taking?

When it comes to banking, banks have a very simple way indeed of increasing the amount deposited. A mere 1% increase in interest paid per year will place the bank at the top of a comparison chart and attract a massive inflow of capital. 1% is really nothing, when compared to risk. £100 per £10,000 deposit. Insignificant. But enough to suck(er) billions of pounds.

Some banks are based on illegal activity – such as BCCI which had a lot of deposits from unsavoury sources. Some do not understand the nature of the risks that they are taking, failing to see that long term commitments cannot automatically and inevitably always be financed by short term borrowings. Some are just led by relentlessly ambitious and greedy individuals who are indifferent to the woes of those they shred. But whatever the reason for their collective incompetence (in protecting and growing the wealth of their customers, not in their ability to foster the growth of their own wealth), the public must now surely be aware that bankers cannot be trusted to steer us all to a financially secure old age.

So instead of ’safe’ deposits in a bank, how does ‘gambling’ sound to you?

“Very risky” is probably the thought, or “a mugs’ game”.

So are bookmakers and casino operators mugs, or do they have a better idea of how to calculate risk than bankers – and then do they stick to any winning formula that they have devised?

Take roulette. Pays out evens if for example, the ball lands on black. Is this a good bet? YES – BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE THE BANKER. Why? Because there are 36 numbers on the roulette table half of which are black. But there is also a 0, and if the ball lands on this, the banker takes all. So on average, one time in 37 the bank will win (the other times the chances balance out). This is what gives the bank the edge. And in Las Vegas, they double up their edge by putting another 0 on the table, and clear up 2 times in 38.

Do I want to ‘gamble’ at roulette? YES I DO, but only if I can be the banker (please do not follow the internet tipsters pushing the idea of doubling up on a bet – this is long term financial suicide which I go into in another article published elsewhere).

Placing your money in a bank and hoping that long term interest rates exceed long term inflation may be the biggest gamble of the lot. If you are interested in achieving higher rates of return on your capital, then you need to look outside the normal fixed rate deposit schemes, which are supposedly safe.

Are higher rate returns risk free? Of course not. But there are some available that do represent a far higher return relative to risk than the traditional ’safe’ options of fixed term investment vehicles – including treasuries and gilts!

The author is a trader and investor with varied interests from real estate to stocks. With international commercial experience, and an education in both law and economics, the opinions stated are personal and may be contrarian. Further information on which investments may work, and warnings on which investments will not work, is available at www.investmentadvice-online.com

Many major mints currently produce coins of a precious metal that have a token denomination. The real value of such coins is their metal content. But through desirable design, these coins have gained acceptance in the numismatic community. This acceptance can be enhanced by a small but significant addition.

If the numismatic value were to involve more than a slight surcharge over the bullion value, the mint producing the issue would reap a profit. While this seems to be an easily solved problem, it is not. The value of a coin depends on several factors, and beauty of design is minor compared with the coin’s availability. Reducing production would reduce availability, but such an action would not be in the mint’s best interest, and a multitude of low mintage coin designs is costly to implement. Yet there is a solution that both the Perth Mint and the Royal Canadian Mint have utilized for many years. The simple solution is to include a small, yet noticeable, mark on the coin called a privy mark.

A privy is a small mark that provides a tribute of recognition to something that often is otherwise totally unrelated to the coin. Perth uses these honor marks, as they are otherwise known, on its popular silver kookaburras, and the Royal Canadian Mint uses them on the silver Maple Leaf. These are much larger than a mint mark making them visible, yet small enough not to detract from the image on the obverse of a coin, where privy marks are typically placed.

Some typical privy marks that have been used by the Royal Canadian Mint include Chinese lunar symbols, the Titanic, and fireworks. Some privy marks that have been used by Perth include the state quarters of the United States and various foreign coin images. These are a few examples. These marks take a myriad of designs, and several different privy marks may appear for the same host coin in the same year. In fact, the Perth Mint has issued two Troy ounce silver kookaburras with all five United States state quarters issued in a given year honored by individual privy marks spread through the blank portion of the field on the obverse. These coins with multiple marks are rarely seen, but do occasionally come available.

Privy marks give a mint an opportunity to take a high mintage coin and offer several low mintage varieties, all issued in a single year. This also allows these special versions of coins to be packaged on mint cards, adding to their desirability. While mint cards are not always used for these issues, they have been used in some cases in the past.

In numismatics, anything that sets a coin aside as different, or as a rare variety, adds value, provided it is officially added by the issuing mint. A privy mark not only alter the value of a coin in a positive manner, but provides numismatists ample varieties of common issues to keep them happily collecting.

To find direct links to the mints mentioned here please go through the http://blackspanielgallery.com website. Black Spaniel Gallery happily provides numismatic information to the coin collecting community.

Henry M. Smith provides information and sells coins through Black Spaniel Gallery. The website is http://blackspanielgallery.com for both coins and information.

Twenty years ago, just prior to the 1990 recession, I wrote a little booklet for my subscribers which I titled ‘Bear Markets Are Best’. Its premise was not that bear markets are really better than bull markets, but that they are not something to be feared, and do have some advantages over bull markets. The same goes for corrections within bull markets.

For instance, if you position for them in a timely manner, not just by moving to cash to avoid losses, but to downside positions that go up when the market goes down, the profits can come faster than they do in rallies and bull markets.

That’s because the market moves down much faster in corrections than it moves up in rallies.

For instance, in the 1990 bear market the S&P 500 lost the gains of the previous 15 months in just four months of decline. An investor playing the downside could have made at least some portion of 15 months of gains in just four months, rather than giving back 15 months of gains. In the 1987 bear market the S&P 500 lost the gains of the previous 18 months in just three months. In the 2000-2002 bear market it lost the previous four years of gains in two and half years. In the recent 2007-2009 bear market it lost its previous five years of gains in just 17 months.

It’s an important lesson not just for buy and hold investors, but for all investors. When market declines take place, if no action is taken, previous gains can be given back much quicker than they were made. Just avoiding at least some of the decline is advantageous to long-term investing performance. In fact if even partial downside positioning is taken in time, further gains can actually be made from the market decline.

In the ‘old days’ prior to the introduction of bear-type mutual funds, and the more recent introduction of ‘inverse’ mutual funds and ‘inverse’ etf’s, investors could only stand aside in cash during market corrections, and then re-enter at lower prices to make some of the profits all over again.

Even that strategy produced significant market-beating performances.

In 1986 Norman Fosbach included a study in his book Market Logic covering the period from 1964-1984, in which he found that an investor starting with $100,000 in 1964 would have produced a gain of $775,000 over the 20-year period on a buy and hold basis, using the S&P 500 as the proxy. That’s a substantial gain.

However, his study found that if an investor could have timed only the major market swings over the period he would have turned the $100,000 into $13,810,000 over the same period. And timing only successfully enough to avoid the three worst downturns of that 20-year period would have turned $100,000 into $4,797,000, almost six times as much as the market made on a buy and hold basis.

In fact, Fosbach’s study found that any degree of success at all in avoiding even a portion of downdrafts had a tremendous effect on long-term accumulation of wealth. His study showed that if one was perceptive enough to sell short for only one-fourth of each of the three worst corrections during the twenty-year period, and remained invested through all the rest of the downturns, he or she still would have tripled the return of a buy and hold strategy.

I haven’t run the numbers, but given the market’s quick give-back of previous gains in the corrections and bear markets of the last twenty years, which I noted at the top of the column, I suspect it has been the same situation for the last 20 years that Fosbach discovered for the 1964-1984 period. Avoiding even a portion of the big losses, or even better, to make additional gains from downside positions during at least portions of big declines, can be a major influence on long-term investing success.

It might be something investors would do well to study up on now, to be prepared in advance, rather than wait until the next panic strikes.

Sy Harding is CEO of Asset Management Research Corp., author of 1999’s Riding the Bear and 2007’s Beat the Market the Easy Way. Sy Harding is editor of http://www.StreetSmartReport.com, and the free daily market blog, http://www.streetsmartpost.com.