Stock Market Questions and Answers

Explaining the Money Market by William Smith

2006-12-09T01:56:00.000-08:00

The Money Market is the financial market for short-term borrowing and lending, usually up to a time span of thirteen months. This contrasts with the capital market for longer-term funds that feature within the Market.

This is the place where banks lend to and borrow from each other, short-term financial instruments, for instance certificates of deposit or enter into agreements, repurchase agreements are taken place.

It provides short to medium term liquidity aspect element within the global financial system. Money Market derivatives include forward rate agreements and short-term interest rate futures.

The Market is a subsection of the fixed income market. We usually think of the term fixed income as being synonymous to bonds. In reality, a bond is just one sort of fixed income security.

The difference between the Money Market and the bond market is that the money market specializes in very short-term debt securities that is debts that mature in less than one year time span. Money investments can also be termed as the cash investments because of their short maturities.

Money Market securities are essentially IOUs issued by governments, financial institutions and large corporations. These instruments are very liquid and are considered unusually safe. As they are extremely conservative, Money Market securities offer significantly lower returns than most other securities.

Comparing the Money Market with the Stock market

The major difference between the Money Market and the stock market is that most Money Market securities trade in very high denominations. This, in turn restricts access for the individual investor.

Furthermore, the Money Market is also a dealer market, which means that firms buy and sell securities in their own accounts, at their own risk. Comparing this to the stock market where a broker receives commission to act as an agent, while the investor takes the risk of holding the stock.

Another characteristic of a dealer market is the lack of a central trading floor or exchange. Deals are transacted over the phone or through the use of electronic systems.

These accounts and funds pool together the assets of thousands of investors in order to buy the securities on their behalf. However, some Money Market instruments like the Treasury bills can be purchased directly and if you fail to acquire that, they can be acquired through other large financial institutions with direct access to these types of markets.

Understanding the Money Market better

There are tons of different instruments within the markets that are offering various returns at various risks, which is an aspect element within the sections that take a look at the major Money Market instruments.

Also a better-known place for large institutions and government to manage their short-term cash needs is the Money Market. However, individual investors have access to the market through a variety of different securities.

These types of markets specialize in debt securities that mostly mature in less than one year. These securities are very liquid, and are considered very safe and as a result, they often offer a lower return than other securities. The easiest way for consumers to gain access to the Money Market is through a mutual fund.

Some terms that are used in the this markets are the T-bills, which are short-term government securities that mature in one year or less from their issue date and are considered to be one of the leading safest investments - they do not provide a fantastic return.

Another term that is used in the Money Market is a certificate of deposit, which is a time deposit with a bank. Annual percentage yield takes into account compound interest, annual percentage rate does not.

Certificate Deposits are safe, but the returns aren't wonderful, and your money is tied up for the length of the deposit. Commercial paper is an unsecured, short-term loan issued by a corporation. In the Money Market returns are higher than T-bills because of the higher default risk.

The banker's acceptances are negotiable time draft for financing transactions in goods. They are new in international trade and are commonly only available to individuals through the funds.

The Eurodollars are U.S. dollar-denominated deposit at banks outside of the United States. The average Eurodollar deposit is very large and the only way for consumers to invest in this market is indirectly through a Money Market fund.

Hence, we can now understand that a Money Market can surely make a difference in the financial matters of a country.

About the Author

William Smith the author provides much more financial information on many subjects as well as the secret to his success in the market along with 5 Free power stock picks emailed daily so grab your Free subscription on his website at Money Market (All is Free)

Hedge funds - establishing a new frontier - by Tony Reed

2006-05-02T01:19:00.001-07:00

It is difficult to provide a general definition of a hedge fund. Initially, hedge funds would sell short the stock market, thus providing a "hedge" against any stock market declines. Today the term is applied more broadly to any type of private investment partnership. There are thousands of different hedge funds globally. Their primary objective is to make lots of money, and to make money by investing in all sorts of different investments and investments strategies. Most of these strategies are more aggressive than than the investments made by mutual funds.

A hedge fund is thus a private investment fund, which invests in a variety of different investments. The general partner chooses the different investments and also handles all of the trading activity and day-to-day operations of the fund. The investor or the limited partners invest most of the money and participate in the gains of the fund. The general manager usually charges a small management fee and a large incentive bonus if they earn a high rate of return.

While this may sound a lot like a mutual fund, there are major differences between mutual fund and hedge fund:

1. Mutual funds are operated by mutual fund or investment companies and are heavily regulated. Hedge funds, as private funds, have far fewer restrictions and regulations.

2. Mutual fund companies invest their client's money, while hedge funds invest their client's money and their own money in the underlying investments.

3. Hedge funds charge a performance bonus: usually 20 percent of all the gains above a certain hurdle rate, which is in line with equity market returns. Some hedge funds have been able to generate annual rates of return of 50 percent or more, even during difficult market environments.

4. Mutual funds have disclosure and other requirements that prohibit a fund from investing in derivative products, using leverage, short selling, taking too large a position in one investment, or investing in commodities. Hedge funds are free to invest however they wish.

5. Hedge funds are not permitted to solicit investments, which is likely why you hear very little about these funds. During the previous five years some of these funds have doubled, tripled, quadrupled in value or more. However, hedge funds do incur large risks and just as many funds have disappeared after losing big.

About the Author

Tony Reed is the author of "Hedge funds - establishing a new frontier", please visit his website Hedge funds for more information.

How to trade in futures market? - by Tony Reed

2006-05-02T01:19:00.000-07:00

The futures market offers the opportunistic investor the option of using small amounts of their own money to control large amounts of products, including gold, currencies, and agricultural commodities.

A futures contract is a legally binding contract to deliver, if you are selling, or to take delivery, if you are buying, of a specific commodity, index, bond, or currency at a predetermined date or price. A futures contract can include everything from a standard size amount of wheat, oil, or a country's currency. The amount and date of delivery of the contract are specified, though in almost all cases delivery is not taken as contracts are bought and sold for speculative or hedging purposes.

Futures are utilized by both those who use the actual commodity and by investors. For example, in May a farmer plants some corn, but doesn't know what corn will be selling for in November. He can sell a futures contract for November and "lock in" the future selling price today. On the other hand investors can buy a futures contract if they believe the price of a security is going to appreciate, or they can sell a futures contract if they believe the price of a security is going to decline.

Futures are often thought of in the same category as options. While they are both derivatives, in that they derive their value from some base security, there is one very important difference. While options give the right, but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying security, a futures contract is a legally binding obligation to buy or sell that same commodity. Thus, while options limit your loss to the price paid for that option, futures trading could lead to a loss of your entire investment and more to meet that obligation.

Another difference between the futures and the equities markets involves the use of word margin. Although the contract sizes for currencies are large (often the equivalent of over $100,000 for a single contract), an investor does not have to buy or sell a full contract. Rather, a margin deposit on the contract is maintained, which is actually a "good faith" amount of money to ensure your obligations to the full amount of the futures contract. Minimum margin requirements vary by broker, but are typically only a fraction of the contract's total value, and are not related to the actual price of the contract involved.

Futures trades must be made through futures brokers, who operate both full-service and discount operations, and may be related to the stock brokerage that you already deal with. However, popular discount stockbrokers do not handle futures contracts.

About the Author

Tony Reed is the author of "How to trade in futures market?", please visit his website futures trading & futures market for more information.

Success in selling your web hosting company - by Eric Furlow

2006-05-02T01:18:00.000-07:00

Steps owners of web hosting companies can take to increase the probability of selling their company for the highest price and under the most favorable terms. TO SELL OR NOT There are a number of reasons to sell. For most business owners their wealth is tied up in the business. People sell their companies or even divisions when they want to move on with life, want to focus on another venture, or they believe the market value is high for what they have.

Businesses are not liquid A share of Exxon stock can be sold in 5 seconds, while many businesses are not even sellable. Any interest expressed by a company in the acquisition mode is worth listening to. The only time owners are 100% ready to sell is when the business is in decline and rest assured, they don't like the valuation when that occurs. I know too many people who regret not selling when they had the opportunity and actually wanted to, but were too tough on price.

Companies seeking growth through acquisitions will almost always find something to buy. Whether it's your company they acquire or not, it's sometimes actually up to you. Many times sellers do their best to run buyers off, and don't even realize it. Buyers will acquire a company they believe is a good strategic fit. You can't control this aspect. However, with organized, timely, honest and decisive communication sellers can create a much more appealing deal.

Seller communication * It's ok to tell someone, "Yes, I would entertain offers for my company." This simply implies that it would be a good use of their time and money to explore your company further. It's not a sign of desperation. * Playing "hard to get" usually informs the buyer the opposite. * Be realistic with yourself regarding price. Potential buyers can be lost forever to unrealistic expectations of "home run" offers. * Bottom line ... buyers will not beg you to sell your company. There are simply too many other companies out there which are for sale.

BEING ORGANIZED

Business plans and business sales books There should not be a significant difference between a business plan used for internal management, raising money and planning, and a business sales book used to sell a business. Both of these documents should be 90% complete at all times. They give a wonderful first impression to a buyer. Never forget the buyer is the one with the cash and who is taking most of the risk. He is looking for any reason at all to walk away from the deal. Being organized and having the ability to give the buyer information in a timely manner is the MOST IMPORTANT and easiest thing you can do to increase the chance of selling your company for the highest price. Ideally, every time the buyer asks for information, it should be delivered in a timely manner, in electronic form, accurate and up to date. Try to refrain from providing 1990's dreamy type pro-formas. They're not in vogue anymore. One final point; buyers do realize that the last piece of due diligence information received is usually what the seller doesn't want anyone to focus on.

Preparing the company for sale: Run your business like you plan to keep it for the long term. When sellers attempt to prepare their company for sale, many times they avoid making needed investments in the company. If you invest cash into a project that has yet to pay off, then get credit for it in the valuation.

Other thoughts: * Would you be willing to sell parts of the company or just the whole? * Do you want to stay on with the buyer or leave after closing? And why? * It is more attractive to buyers if there is someone at your company who can run the show upon your post closing departure. * Stock vs. cash for consideration? There are way too many variables regarding stock to be covered here. However, keep in mind you may prefer $900,000 in cash and $300,000 in stock, as opposed to just $1,000,000 in cash. If treated correctly, stock deals can be beneficial in many ways. THE PROCESS

The initial communication with a prospective buyer: In the first or second communication, the seller should determine who the buyer is, what they are looking for, and basically how they value it. Don't pin the buyer down for exact valuations initially, because he doesn't know what you have. Every business is a little different. There is no harm in telling a prospective buyer what you have in regards to number of sites, domain names, servers, employees, etc ... after all it's not your customer list. Inquire about their business and don't forget many times the small fish eats the big fish.

Selecting an attorney: Find an attorney who has industry specific experience in mergers and acquisitions and understands the appropriate tax implications. Ask them how many deals they have done in the industry, how much they charge, etc. Please, don't use your brother in law who is a great divorce attorney. Deals get stalled and even cancelled because an inexperienced attorney delays the process. There is a fine line between being thorough, and taking so much time with documents the buyer walks from your deal and seeks another company to acquire.

THE DOCUMENTS

The letter of intent should be short and sweet. The purpose is not to map out every single issue, rather to come to a gentlemen's agreement on the very basic aspects of the proposed deal ... without spending too much time or money. The basics which should be covered are stock vs. asset purchase/merger, valuation, consideration, assets included or not, timelines, etc. If everyone agrees to the letter of intent then each party, at their own expense, should start working on the purchase and sale and other closing items. If both parties cannot agree on a 1-3 page letter of intent within a week they typically will never make it through the entire process.

The purchase and sale agreement will spell out every aspect of the deal. If both parties agree on the letter of intent, then they should work on the purchase and sale while all of the other aspects of the due diligence process and pre-closing issues are being handled. Most of these events can and should occur simultaneously. Don't forget, some variables are more important to the seller, while others are more important to the buyer.

Every once in a while there is a real "tough guy" on one side of the table or the other. This guy just has to have every variable to go his way or there's "no deal!". These guys kill mutually beneficial deals all the time and rarely accomplish anything. Hire "tough guys" for the collections department.

On a final note, always be honest and fair. This world is becoming smaller every day.

About the Author

Presently, Eric Furlow assists individuals and corporations both acquire, merge, divest and value technology companies. He has experience in over 150 transactions in the paging, SMR, cellular, tower, local phone, long distance, software, ASP, MSP, ISP and web hosting industries. He has a Masters in Finance from Bentley Graduate School of Business in Waltham, MA. Before heading up Furlow Consulting Corporation, he was the Mergers and Acquisition M

The First Step You Have to Take to Get Rich In the Stock Market! - by Dr. Scott Brown, Ph.D.

2006-05-02T01:12:00.000-07:00

I am widely recognized as a leading expert in the stock market and especially at teaching you how to become your neighbor's millionaire next door. I didn't start out as knowledgeable and skilled as I am now. I started out knowing nearly nothing. I was so inexperienced in my early twenties that I could only stand by when a full service stock broker stole $85,000 from my eighty year old grandmother. I watched the nationwide stock brokerage protect the interests of the full service broker and my grandmother lost everything.

The pain of this was so intense that it drove me to complete my Ph.D. in finance -- less than a hundred of us graduate in this degree worldwide annually because it is so mathematically difficult. My frustration and anger at the big rich forces behind Wall Street drove me to become a modern day master of money. This is what you have to do -- wake up!!! Wake up to the fact that you can make it as a stock investor. Wake up to the fact that you control your destiny and that you can stop handing all of the control over to the Wall Street machine that could absolutely care less about your financial future. This is the first step -- take full responsibility for you earnings, savings and investment.

I learned years ago from a friend of mine, Dr. Van Tharp, Ph.D., that if I didn't take full responsibility for my investing that I would never progress -- I would simply break the fragile feedback loop that allows all of us to learn from our mistakes. Any time you blame anyone for a financial mistake you destroy the opportunity to learn and thrive from the situation. The simple decision you must make is to deeply, totally, firmly, and finally, say to your self, "I am the master of my universe -- I am in control -- Wall Street has no power over my mind" is the key critical change you must make in your thinking.

Some people will think that you are arrogant but just blow them off and laugh all the way to the bank. Stop listening to people -- are these nosy little bug a bugs in your life that so quickly nay say your investment dreams paying your bills or giving you money to move ahead -- no so blow them off! They just want to give you bad advice so that you fall into their same financial loser traps. In terms of investing become an island unto yourself and very carefully cultivate relationships with people who really do know what they are doing in investing. This is exactly what I did. I started seeking out people who really understand the markets. I found them over time and I asked them lots of questions.

Dr. Scott Brown, Ph.D. a.k.a. "The Wallet Doctor" holds a doctorate in finance and can teach you how saving the daily price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks can make you a millionaire in the stock market through long term stock investing. Dr. Brown's website is: http://www.walletdoctor.com/

About the Author

Stock Trading Psychology - by Tim Renolds

2006-04-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

Many of today's highly successful traders will tell you that the general key to success in trading is to be able to comfortably take a loss. It is general knowledge among experts in the trading psychology field and among traders that the market is not predictable and it is safe to say that it never will be. In the world of trading, it is expected to take a loss; even those who are highly skilled traders know that it is inevitable. With that said, let us have a look at things you as a trader should be aware of, how you can take a loss effectively and use it towards the greater good of your trading world.

Trading psychology tells us that when a trader loses he begins to become somewhat of a perfectionist in his dealing. Many traders think that in trading, a good day will always be one that is profitable. Trading psychology experts tells us this is not true. A trader should define a good day as one where they have extensively researched and planned with discipline and focus, and have followed through to the entire extent of the plan. Yes, when a trader has mastered the art of accepting losses and working through them with a well thought out plan then good days will become profitable in time.

Because the art of trading in an unpredictable market fluctuates so greatly from one day to the next, experts in trading psychology believe that it is important that you concentrate on what you can control, instead of things that are beyond your control. Looking into the short-term you cannot expect to be able to control the profits of your trading. With that said, look at what you do you have ability to control.

You do have the ability to control the difference between good and bad days. You are able to control this factor by extensively researching the strategies you implement within your trading experiences. By learning to research your chosen strategies, thus controlling the amount of good and bad trading days you experience, you will, in the long-term begin to generate profits, which is the ultimate goal of every trader.

Trading psychology experts tell us that it is important to become realistic in trading instead of becoming a perfectionist. Perfectionist traders, relate a loss with failure, and will become obsessed with the failure, focusing only upon it. Realistic traders understand the unpredictability of the market and taking a loss is simply part of the art. The main key you must remember in trading psychology to be able to effectively limit your losses, instead of becoming obsessed with them. A common thing seen within the trading psychology world is that traders who are obsessed with their losses often have a hard time bouncing back from them, thus losing in the end.

Experts in trading psychology have organized three basic strategies you can use to effectively stop losses. These strategies are:

* Price Based * Time Based * Indicator Based

Stops that are priced based are generally used when the other two have not functioned. To make this work you will need to make hypothesis's about the trade and identify a low point in that particular market. Then you will set your trade entries near your points, thus making sure that losses will not be overly excessive if the hypothesis fails.

Time Based stops constitutes making use of your time. Designate a holding period you allow to capture a certain number of points. If you have no achieved your desired profit within that time limit, you should stop the trade. If effectively used you should stop even if the price stop limit has not been achieved.

The Indicator based stop makes use of market indicators. As a trader, you should be aware of these indicators and utilize them extensively within your trading experiences. Look at indicators such as, volume, advances, declines, and new highs and lows.

Experts in trading psychology say that setting stops and rehearsing them mentally is a good psychological tool to use and will help ensure that you follow through.

About the Author

Tim Renolds is a contributing author at our website where You can get a free Homeowner Loan Quote right now. Take a moment and see for yourself.

Can You Get Rich Investing? Yes, But Think Differently! - by Denson Kelley

2006-04-21T02:47:00.000-07:00

Remember back in the 1990s when a lot of people either retired early or became wealthy? It was relatively simple. With stock prices going up, up, up, I knew a lot of people who simply invested part of their paychecks. They ended up with several hundred thousand dollars in profits from their constantly rising stocks.

I knew others who had already amassed several hundred thousand by the time the stock boom came along. They were millionaires by the time the 1990s ended.

Ah yes, those were the days. Today most people will tell you it's a lot harder. Stocks don't seem to do much any more. You have to invest in risky emerging countries to see much return. And that chance can evaporate overnight taking your money with it.

When the stock market won't bring you any return, most people turn to real estate. But housing prices have peaked in most cities, meaning you can't just buy a house and sit on it for several years to earn a fat nest egg.

So does that mean we have to give up on ever getting ahead and just learn to be satisfied living the "average" life our jobs can provide?

Not necessarily. These days you have to think differently to get ahead. For example, you've noticed how manufacturing and jobs are heading out of North America to foreign countries. That's bad news for many workers, but it's GREAT news for some segments of the Foreign Exchange Market.

You see, when we buy products from China, or Japan ships products to England, all kinds of currency has to change hands and be converted. There is BIG money in that process.

FOREX, the foreign exchange market, handles 2 TRILLION in transactions EVERY DAY. That's far more money than what Wall Street handles. Just about anybody can jump in and pull out quite a profit for themselves by participating in the FOREX process.

Does all this sound a bit new to you? Most North Americans have heard very little about FOREX. They've got BILLIONS of dollars sitting in savings accounts and low yield investments that could make them a LOT more money in the Foreign Exchange Industry.

If you're thinking helping all those millions get their money transferred to FOREX is a HUGE opportunity ripe for the picking, you're RIGHT!

I hope my article has opened your eyes to some of the terrific opportunities that are being created now. Rather than looking back to the good old days of the booming American stock market and waiting for those times to return, refocus your attention on what is really happening right now. Your fortune lies in seeing more clearly the awesome opportunities at hand.

About the Author

See Denson Kelley's online video presentations that explains FOREX and how you can profit from it.See http://freedomrocks.com/10543 Try his free demo system that lets you practice trading on FOREX without any risk. He also has a completely automated business opportunity. Reach Denson at DeKelAssoc@aol.com.

A Mini-Guide To The Managed Forex Account - by Dan Ho

2006-03-26T22:21:00.000-08:00

A managed forex account is forex made easy. It is especially tailored for those investors who do not have the time or desire to monitor their own forex account. Many different companies offer these accounts to their clients. A managed forex account is often chosen by individuals who wish to take advantage of the high liquidity and high profitability of the forex market without taking the time to "learn" forex trading.

The world of forex trading is highly complicated and success requires education and familiarity with terms, charts, signals and indicators. With a managed forex account, the investor can rely on someone who is already familiar with and successful in the forex world.

One type of managed forex account utilizes robots to trade the investors account. To the investor, no human hand means that there will be no emotional trades. These automated systems are designed by experienced traders and take into account all the indicators and statistics of any good forex trading system to signal the robot to trade. This is really forex made easy.

Another type of managed forex account attempts to take the difficulty out of self-trading by allowing the investor to employ a professional trader to make the trades. These accounts remain solely in the individual investor's name, meaning that money can be withdrawn at any time, unlike conventional stock trading. In other words, a managed forex account is not merely combining one investor's money with numerous other investors' money to obtain results. These managed forex accounts are actively traded by individuals for individuals. Forex made easy for individuals.

Perhaps you are looking for forex, but you wish to trade your account yourself, for fun or as a hobby. Without a managed account, you must follow all the rules of successful forex trading. Forex education is absolutely necessary. There is no way to trade a forex account successfully without education because this is a complex financial undertaking. In fact, professional advice is highly recommended. Try a "demo" account, before you invest real money. Software, seminars, daily newsletters and much more is available for the new trader. If you are not looking for a managed forex account, you are not really looking for forex made easy. You are looking for the tools needed to maximize your chances of success.

Forex trading is a risky business. According to statistics, only 5-10% of new traders make it through their first six months with their initial investment intact. Even less make a profit. A managed forex account is a way to reduce the risk and increase the profit.

About the Author

More information about opening a forex account and other currency trading educational material can be found at http://www.forex-trading-reference.com

What Is Forex Signal Trading? - by Dan Ho

2006-03-26T22:20:00.000-08:00

Designing a forex signal trading system requires technical analysis of market indicators, statistics or trends. Without a forex system, a trader tends to let his/her emotions get in the way. Forex signals are used to take the "emotion" out of the equation.

A new trader can design his own forex signal trading system after getting some education and practicing with a "demo" account. Most websites with trading platforms offer daily newsletters which they post on their sites or send to the traders e-mail address. These newsletters are generally from a professional trader, broker or market analyst and can prove very helpful, whether the trader has a forex system or not. The ultimate goal, of course, is to make successful (profitable) trades by using all available information.

The type of forex trading signal or strategy that a trader uses depends largely on the type of trades that he/she is interested in making. There are short, medium and long-term traders and each have advantages and disadvantages.

A short term or day trader capitalizes on very small changes in rates that they expect to happen each day. The forex system for the short term trader will focus on the study of daily charts, indicators and even time of day. A long term trader needs large amounts of capital to cover daily fluctuations and his forex system will focus on long-term fundamental factors. A long-term forex trading system will be quite different from a short term forex trading system and the indicators that signal each to make a trade will be quite different.

The majority of traders fall in the medium term trader category. These traders have the least risk and generally need less capital than the other types, but their trading opportunities are limited. Forex signal trading for the medium term trader involves all of the indicators used by the day trader and the use of additional indicators and studies to find the best entry and exit points. Generally the more indicators used in a forex system, the more reliable the system should be, but fewer trades will meet the traders criteria.

There is an enormous amount of information available on the web to help new traders design a forex system. There are seminars, newsletters written by pros that include entry and exit signal points, free charts, and much more. There are chat rooms and blogs to get an idea of what current traders are doing and to hear about their successes and failures. Reports say that 90-95% of all new traders will lose their initial investment in the three to six months following their first trade. To reduce that risk, new traders must educate, practice and use forex signal trading to take the emotion out of the equation.

About the Author

Get an edge with forex signal trading by learning about the best courses and newsletters written by professional currency traders at http://www.forex-trading-reference.com

What is Forex Trading? - by Richard Stranberg

2006-03-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

FOREX, (FOReign EXchange market) or FX, is an international exchange market where stocks and shares are not traded, but currency. The return for the investor is not in the value of the currency per se, but rather the relative exchange value of one currency against another currency.

Therefore, Forex trading is always expressed in pairs such as Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY).

By simultaneously buying and selling pairs of currencies, the investor, or speculator, hopes to profit from a favorable exchange rate change. Unlike the American stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ), Forex trading is more predictable than stocks.

One strategy that the Forex investor uses is a technique that stems from the assumption that all information about the market and a particular currency's future fluctuations is found in the price chain. In other words, an investor simply looks at what has happened to that currency in the recent past, and predicts that the small fluctuations will generally continue just as they have before. Another strategy for the Forex investor is to analyze the country of the currency's economy, political situation, and other possible rumors. The investor can also anticipate such things as political unrest or change that will also have an effect on the market. Forex is the largest financial market in the world handling between 1.5 and 1.9 trillion US dollars a day. The combination of rather constant but small daily fluctuations in currency prices, create an environment which attracts investors. Because of the the liquidity of the market, unlike some rarely traded stock, traders are able to open and close positions within a few seconds as there are always willing buyers and sellers.

What are the risks?

Because of the sheer scale of the Forex Market, it ensures greater price stability and greater leverage. Also, with built-in protections such as safety margins, automatic limits for buying and selling, and other risk protection measures, the likelihood of ending up in the red even when the Forex market is volatile is drastically reduced. Furthermore, because of its' size, it is near impossible for a single investor to significantly affect the price of a major currency.

However, all Forex traders should be aware that the market is one of the most liquid around and subject to strong currency trends. While leverage figures of up to100:1 are possible, without adequate risk protection in place the gap between profit and loss can be dramatic. Even veteran Forex traders can be caught out from time to time and take large hits. With this type of investor speculation, the golden rule must be: don't risk more than what you can afford to lose.

About the Author

Richard Stranberg is a contributing author to the Forex Trading Guide. Visit the Forex Trading Guide at http://www.forex-trading-guide.us

Do You Understand These Critical Aspects of FOREX - by Jimmy Cox

2006-03-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

FOREX, also known as the FX market or the foreign exchange market, is largest and oldest financial market in the world. It is also the biggest and most liquid market in the world, a market that runs 24/5, circling the globe with financial transactions.

There has been some sort of foreign exchange for as long as people have needed to exchange currencies to do business. Technically, if you are a tourist travelling in a foreign country and you use a traveler`s check to pay for a transaction, you are engaging in foreign exchange. However, traders are not interested in that type of foreign exchange. They are concerned with trading foreign exchange, which occurs when one currency is traded for another on the market purely to make a profit.

In the past, foreign exchange trading was limited to banks, major currency dealers and occasionally to very large speculators. Only these groups were able to take advantage of the currency market`s fantastic liquidity and the strong trending nature of many of the world`s primary currency exchange rates. However, recent technological advancements and the development of various online trading platforms have made it possible for small traders to take advantage of the many benefits of FOREX trading.

Foreign exchange market brokers are now able to break down the larger sized inter-bank units and offer individual traders the opportunity to buy or sell any number of these smaller units. These brokers give any size trader, including individual speculators or smaller companies, the option to trade at the same rates and price movements as the big players who once dominated the market.

Transactions on the FOREX market are performed continuously by dealers at major banks or at FOREX brokerage companies around the world. FOREX is a part of a worldwide market, and it is active 24 hours a day. Dealers at major institutions work 24/5 in three different shifts. Traders may place orders with brokers for overnight execution, without waiting for the opening of any market.

Because of this continuous activity, price movements on the FOREX market are very smooth, without the gaps that occur on the stock market. The daily turnover on the FOREX market is somewhere around $1.2 trillion, so there is never any danger of an investor being unable to enter and exit positions whenever they want to. The fact is that the FOREX market never stops. Even on September 11, 2001, you could still get your hands on two-side quotes on currencies.

These currencies are on a floating exchange rate, and they are always traded in pairs such as Euro/Dollar, or Dollar/Yen. About 85% of all daily transactions involve trading of the major currencies. Four major currency pairs are usually used for investment purposes. They are: Euro against US dollar, US dollar against Japanese yen, British pound against US dollar, and US dollar against Swiss franc. They appear on the market in this form: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, and USD/CHF. As a note, you should know that no dividends are paid on currencies.

If you feel one of the currencies in the pair you are trading in is undervalued, you can buy more of that currency (by selling the other). If everything goes as you expect, you later sell back the currency you bought (buying the currency you sold in the beginning) for a profit. Trading on FOREX utilizes margin in such a way that an individual trader is able to profit well from trades such as these. The market is one where high profits are accessible to all types of traders, and the market is also big enough to ensure that there will almost always be a good trading opportunity.

When you compare them, you will see that the currency futures market is only one per cent as big as FOREX. In addition, currency trading is not centered on an exchange, unlike the futures and stock markets. Trading moves from major banking centers of the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand, to the Far East, to Europe and finally back to the U.S. it is truly a full circle trading game. As you can see, the foreign exchange market has come a long way. Being successful at it can be intimidating and difficult when you are new to the game. However, once you understand the market, you will be able to realize your potential to be a highly profitable trader.

About the Author

Who Else Wants To Learn A Simple, Step-By-Step System For Generating Quick & Easy Profits, Trading Forex? - FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME - http://www.forextradingstrategies.org

How to make $2m trading weekly stocks part-time - by Dr Alexander Chambers

2006-03-26T22:11:00.000-08:00

Nicolas Darvas invented his Darvas Trading System back in the late 1950's and it still works today.

It's genius is in it's simplicity. Darvas was completing a travelling tour round the world as he was trading stocks and was only able to access volume and price data as he moved from location to location. Remember that there was no internet back then - Darvas had to rely on outdated information in the form of a newspaper and daily telegrams on selected stocks to acquire information for his trading system.

Darvas' broker mailed him a copy of Barrons newspaper each week which contained weekly prices of stocks together with volumes for the week. Darvas used a top down approach to investing - he only watched stocks from futuristic industries. In the 50's these were credit card industries and the jet age. Darvas realised that the expectation of earnings was one of the greatest lures to raise stock prices higher, and together with the futuristic industry screen, these were the only fundamental factors used in his Darvas Trading System.

Once he had satisfied his requirements for fundamentals, he tracked technical data in the stock. He liked stocks that were:

1) At or near their all-time high

2) Bouncing up and down in their Darvas Boxes

3) Had price patterns of boxes stacked on-top of each other like a pyramid

4) Showing an increase in volume with advancing prices

5) Priced greater than $10

He used a new method of tracking trading ranges called "Darvas Boxes" as a way of entering and exiting stock positions. A buy signal was created if the price just pushed through the top of a Darvas Box and the price reached a new all-time high. He created a simultaneous stop loss at the level of the previous box top.

I've been using this strategy to buy/sell stocks for a few years ... and it works brilliantly! In fact, I'm so passionate about it all that I've dedicated a website to Darvas' methods.

You can read more about it here.

About the Author

Alex Chambers is a UK medical doctor who likes to buy profitable shares. He also likes to read books, use the Internet, dance (although not professionally!) and lie in bed.

Is A Stock Market Investment Club Right for You? - by Jimmy Cox

2006-02-22T01:38:00.000-08:00

Should you go it alone, or be part of a group? The stock market can be an intimidating and confusing environment for a beginning investor, and many people find stock market investment club to be an ideal place to start. But finding a club that is accepting members can be difficult. You may want to consider starting your own club. However, let`s consider whether a club is right for you. There are various personal and group benefits to being part of stock market investment club.

The first benefit is the ability to take advantage of combined stock market investment knowledge. When you work with a group of people who have a similar interest in the stock market you`ll have a large amount of combined knowledge working in your favour. Even complete newcomers to the stock market will have valuable opinions and pieces of information that can come in quite handy. With a democratic approach to decision making, a groups stock market investment choices will always be able to take advantage of this knowledge base. However, if you`re unable to function in a group atmosphere where the majority will rules whether or not your choice is in the majority, stock market investment club may not be for you.

Recent studies of stock market investment clubs have also shown that when a group of people make investment decisions after a series of discussions and debates, the potential for profit is greater than when individuals make their own decisions about where and how to invest their money.

Along with these combined knowledge resources comes reduced risk. Even though the money that your club has to invest can be quite large, your own personal contribution can be small, allowing you to learn how the stock market works with minimal risk. You can still make some great stock market investments but your loss factor will be more manageable. Keep in mind that when your club makes a profit, no matter how small, the amount will be distributed throughout the membership.

Investment clubs have the ability to invest in the stock market even when the market is dropping, or is slow. Because the money in spread out among a group of members the chances of a large personal loss is unlikely, as a part of a group of people you can also diversify your stock market investments, and not be limited to just one or two market choices. As well, since most members are part of stock market investment club as a learning opportunity, there will be more room for reinvesting the gains and dividends that are realized from successful investments. When you invest on your own, you often won`t be as willing to part with those profits.

While these are all positive aspects of belonging to stock market investment club, there are also some individual benefits you may want to consider. These can include:

++ Building your confidence. A stock market investment club is a safe place to get started. Being a part of a club ensures you will receive support from like-minded people, and a chance to learn the market with greatly reduced risk.

++ It keeps your stock market investments low. If you only have a small amount of money to invest each month, such as $25 to $60 dollars, then stock market investment club is perfect for you. You can invest small amounts of money, such as these, into the larger combined total of the entire club.

++ It`s fun and educational. A stock market investment club combines the all the social aspects of a good club with a chance to learn more about investing. The regular meetings will give you the structure to keep learning more, and the social aspect will keep it from being a classroom-like experience.

Investment clubs have been a fun and effective way for many investors to get started in the Stock Market. They have existed for many years, and their numbers keep growing. There is likely to a club close to you that will fit your stock market investment style. If not, consider starting one.

About the Author

Who Else Wants To Learn A Simple, Step-By-Step System For Generating Quick & Easy Profits, By Starting An Investment Club - FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME - http://www.clubinvestment.net

How To Find Top-Selling eBay Items - by Jason James

2006-02-22T01:23:00.000-08:00

Unless you are willing to pay for software that finds top-selling ebay items, you will have to conduct your own research by hand. Luckily for you, there is a simple method you can use to perform market research for ebay.

If you are already selling on ebay, you probably have a general idea of what you want to sell. For instance, you might know you want to sell collectibles, jewelry, or consumer electronics. However, what you might not know is what you want to sell within those categories or what you should be selling within those categories to maximize your profits per sale.

Your goal should be to select products that have both a high demand (high search popularity) and a low supply (number and quality of sellers). In business, this is generally referred to as a "niche." If you want to maximize your profits, you should search out a number of niches within your ebay selling sub-category.

You can start this process by going to http://category-keyword.ebay.com/all_categories.html and clicking your current selling category and then sub- category. Drill down and build a list as you go of potential niches by recording the "commonly searched words" for each level.

Continue to drill down until you have the ebay search results for a given niche. For instance, if you continue to drill down for jewelry, you can eventually get results for "white gold rings" or "sapphire gold rings." Spend some time analyzing the raw amount of results (i.e. 4300 results for "white gold rings") you get for a given keyphrase, the quality of the sellers within the niche, and the prevailing market rates within the niche.

If supply is low and demand is high for that given ebay selling niche, prices will be inordinately high, allowing you to maintain high profit margins until your niche fills out with more sellers.

In order to assure consistent profits, you should select a number of profitable ebay selling niches and sell within each. When you pick a good niche, your sales will reflect it: your merchandise will move fast and you will consistently sell over the ebay market values.

If you find a good niche, but do not have sufficient stock to sell within that niche, you can simply find a dropshipper or an affiliate program to do all of the work for you. You can sign up at places like www.cj.com, www.linkshare.com, and http://www.megagoods.com for free and immediately start selling items as an affiliate.

About the Author

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with no business experience how they can make huge profits selling products at online auctions. Claim Your Free eBook: "Top 10 eBay Secrets for Successful Selling" below: http://Auctionresource.Opportunity.com

Easy Tax-Free Income - by Paul D. McDonald, MBA

2006-02-22T01:13:00.000-08:00

Municipal Bonds are bonds issued by cities, counties, and states. Currently, the federal government has declared that "dividend income" -- money paid to the owners of the bonds -- is free from federal income taxes.

Municipal Bond Funds are professionally managed collections of money that invest in these bonds. Therefore, the income from these mutual funds are also tax-free.

Consider this idea: place a portion of your money into municipal bonds to provide immediate tax-free income, and place the remainder into other investments that might provide a higher return. Any gains that come from your more aggressive investments can then be used to "feed" your secure municipal bond funds.

Congratulations! You have now achieved a growing base of secure, tax-free income and still have the ability to participate in any long-term market gains. Plus, because you have your secure income, you don't have to worry about the stock market fluctuating.

Mutual funds will fluctuate in value and the amount received when sold may be more or less than the original investment. Before investing in any mutual fund, please read the prospectus carefully regarding fees and expenses.

About the Author

Paul D. McDonald, MBA is a financial professional specializing in working with seniors and business owners. He assists people in making decisions on retirement planning, investing, insurance, budgeting, debt management, and many other critical financial decisions. Paul welcomes calls on the subject at the toll-free number 1-877-711-1264 or you can visit his website at http://seniorfinances.blogspot.com/.

A Luxurious Drive - by Pamela Hewitt

2006-01-25T05:02:00.000-08:00

The 2006 Lincoln LS is only available in one trim only, and that is the V8 Sport. It is crafted under the Lincoln brand as a luxury sports sedan with four doors, and can accommodate a passenger capacity of five people maximum. It is equipped with the standard 3.9 liter V8 engine with 280 horsepower and this can achieve 18 mpg in the city and 25 mpg while driving on the highway. Also standard is a 5-speed automatic transmission with overdrive. This vehicle is a freshened version for this year.

During its first production, this was introduced as a midsize, rear wheel drive luxury car at entry-level. It has the Ford DEW98 platform that is also used by the Jaguar S-Type and the Ford Thunderbird. Its main competitors in the market include the BMW 3 series, the Lexus ES, the Mercedes Benz C-Class, the Acura TL, and the Cadillac CTS. This vehicle was first introduced in the early part of 1999 and this was the first Lincoln vehicle that offered a manual transmission. It was a definite attractive alternative to European and Japanese sports sedans. However, come 2006, the Lincoln LS model for this year had been moved from the entry-level luxury segment to the bottom of the mid-level luxury segment, thus having a change in competitors. This time, it had the Mercedes Benz E-class, the Cadillac STS, the BMW 5-Series, and the Lexus GS as its main competitors.

Even if the Lincoln LS shares the very same platform that the Jaguar S-Type and the Ford Thunderbird is using, this vehicle still differs in its styling and equipment. This vehicle comes with a 280-hp V8 engine with a 5-speed automatic transmission with manual-shift capability, ABS, traction control, and 17-inch wheels. What is also made standard are the front side airbags. It also features and has options like head-protecting curtain side airbags, an antiskid system, power-adjustable pedals, a rear-obstacle detection system, a navigation system, a THX sound system, an AM/FM radio with in-dash 6-disc CD changer, an upgraded sound system, a power sunroof, heated/cooled front seats, heated rear seats, a tri-coat paint, metallic paint, chrome alloy wheels, and xenon head lamps. Rumors have it, though, that this year could be the last time that the Lincoln LS would be rolling off the manufacturing plants.

As per its fuel economy, the Lincoln LS has averaged 17.7 to 19.0 mpg. Lincoln, thus recommends regular-grade fuel in this vehicle model. Although it is less composed than its European rivals, the Lincoln LS has a ride quality that is comfortable enough. Its expansion joints are fairly well-masked and hidden. It is also capable and balanced in aggressive cornering. Its steering and handling provides a good grip and steering feel. The brakes also have a moderate body lean and are strong. It is not really hushed up, however it could be quite enough for the only noise one could hear would be the low wind and minor tire roar on coarse pavements.

Lincoln Parts and Car Parts online store contains a stock of high quality and well-crafted Lincoln LS parts and accessories.

About the Author

Pamela Hewitt is marketing consultant of a successful auto body shop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This 39 year old is also a prolific writer, contributing automotive related articles to various publications. She is also an offroad enthusiast.

Stocks double all the time - by Steve Hoven

2006-01-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

Did you know that $1000 Invested one time, if it returns 100% a year would be worth over $1,000,000 in 10 years? Here is how it breaks down

Start $1,000

End of Year 1 $2,000

End of Year 2 $4,000

End of Year 3 $8,000

End of Year 4 $16,000

End of Year 5 $32,000

End of Year 6 $64,000

End of Year 7 $128,000

End of Year 8 $256,000

End of Year 9 $512,000

End of Year 10 $1,024,000

That is doubling your money every year.

Of course that scenario doesn't include taxes etc.. However if you had a 401K you wouldn't get taxed on it.

Maybe you have seen that before but that shows that the person with a Long term strategy can make a great deal of money from not a big investment. 100% a year isn't a lot when we are talking about HYIP investments but how many of those are going to last 10 years as well? NONE

Did you know a good percentage of Stocks double each year? I just did some quick research on this with the newspaper. I opened up the Stock Market section for the Nasdaq/AMEX. I decided to check the 52 week high and 52 week low for some stocks. What I was searching for is how many stocks under a certain letter were at least double from its 52 week low. In other words for a stock like "Hansen" (I have NO IDEA WHAT THEY DO OR ANY INFO ON THEM THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE) This company (Hansen) had a 52 week HIGH of $44.25 and 52 week Low of $8.51 and was trading above $44. So from the low of $8.51 to the high that is over 5x increase. Point being their are a LOT of stocks that move up 100% in a year, Hansen moved up 400%+!

I did research on a few different letters. (I only looked at letters that had a small # of companies just to show you the research. I didn't want to do like the letter "S" which would have hundreds of companies)

I did the letters "H", "J", "O", and "XYZ". In my paper the letter "H" had 33 companies listed for the Nasdaq/Amex of those 33 companies 16 of them had a 52 week hi/low difference of at least 90%. 17 of the companies did not.

The letter "J" had 9 companies that had a 52 week hi/low of 90% or better, and 5 companies that did not. The letter "O" had 27 companies that had a 52 week hi/low of 90% or better and only 15 companies that didn't. The letters "XYZ" had 17 companies with a 52 week hi/low of better than 90% and 6 that did not.

So of those 6 letters listed above companies under those letters had companies with a 52 week hi/low of 90% or better 69 times and not 43 times.

My point of this is MANY stocks each year double in value no matter what the overall stock market does. All you need is to find 1 a year that can double. That could go from .50 cents to $1. Or $5 to $10 or $20 to $40. You ONLY need 1 stock!

One stock I mentioned on our Alley Cat Trading Newsletter went from .26 cents back in late November to almost $1 in early January. That more than doubled in less than 2 months!The stock was CYGX. I am sure there are many stock trading newsletters online and off. Do some research on them and the companies they recommend. Remember you only need 1 good stock a year. You could very well have a situation like with CYGX where it doubled in a very short time You take your profits and go hunting for the next stock. You don't always have to be in a trade. If that trade took you 2 months you are 10 months ahead of schedule take your time to find the next stock that could turn. Maybe that stock ends up taking 14 months to double.

About the Author

Steve Hoven has had years of experience trading. check out his free newsletter at http://www.alleycatnews.net

The Rich are Making Big Money in Real Estate - by Mike Colpitts

2006-01-12T00:05:00.000-08:00

The over-whelming majority of America's wealthiest families have made their fortunes in real estate, according to a new study.

The survey, conducted over a two-month period before the end of 2005, indicates those surveyed made their fortunes investing in real estate. The study was conducted by Real Estate Add, which is an information driven website.

Many start out investing in single family homes, par-lay their profits into other real estate and discover wealth in investment real estate. The stock market has produced many wealthy individuals, but not like real estate. Only eleven percent of the 500 respondents surveyed said they made their fortunes in stocks or other investments.

An over-whelming majority of 83% of the Nation's wealthiest families surveyed made their wealth investing in real estate. Only 11% made their first million dollars in the stock market or other investments. The full report may be read on the Real Estate Add.com website.

Fifty-one percent bought their first few investment properties and waited long enough for the real estate market to appreciate to make substantial profits. Nearly all got financing to start. Some 92% said long term planning was the key to their success.

Only 10% indicated they made great profits by buying fixer-uppers or other properties they made repairs to and sold quickly.

Flipping properties, which is buying real estate and making either repairs to the property or taking advantage of a rapidly appreciating market without making any changes and selling them for a great profit, is the exception to the rule rather than the norm, according to the study.

Most real estate investors who are in the investment real estate market for more than 5 years, which is considered a long term investor in real estate, make their profits over more than double the initial amount they invested. That's understandable when there are real estate markets like Portland, Oregon, which has tripled in price in the last 10 years.

Other places like Destin, Florida, which is a resort real estate market and as such is leading the real estate industry growth in the second home market, has seen property values double in the past five years. The Silicon Valley, home of the high tech industry in San Jose, California has seen prices increase at even higher levels.

There are many places like that in the Nation's real estate markets from coast to coast. However, there are still some great buyers markets where there are shortages of investment real estate for tenants to rent.

Real Estate economists compare the trend to other forms of investing, but caution investors to have a long term plan to cover expenses in case there are unexpected periods of vacancy. Some investors in today's real estate market have purchased properties without sufficient funds to cover expenses in case tenants suddenly move out.

About the Author

Mike Colpitts is the publisher of Real Estate Add. com, which provides up to date real estate market information on residential real estate for all 50 states at http://RealEstateAdd.com Mike has been counseling real estate investors since 1989.

FOREX Trading Strategies - by Terrence Tully

2006-01-12T00:03:00.001-08:00

FOREX Trading Strategies

To be a successful FOREX trader you need to develop and adhere to a trading strategy. There are many different strategy's available and no particular one is good for all traders; rather, each trader needs to develop his or her individual approach to the FOREX. We each have special skills that separate us from others and the FOREX trader needs to find what works best for him/her. Some traders rely solely on technical analysis while others prefer fundamental analysis, but many successful FOREX traders use a combination of both to get a broad overview of the market and for plotting entry and exit points.

Technical analysis, or charting, relies on one key concept: Prices move by trends. The common saying in FOREX and stock trading is 'The trend is your friend.' If prices are moving in one direction, the strength of the move can be observed by looking at the chart. Market movements have identifiable patterns that have been studied for many years and a thorough understanding of these trends and how to use the trends to make FOREX trading decisions form the basis of a good trading strategy.

There are many analytical tools available to study market movements. FOREX traders can use computer software or even pen and paper to perform their own analysis. Books abound describing many of these strategies. The beginner FOREX trader should study each one well and acquire a working knowledge of the concepts. Study each method until it is mastered, then use itthe strategy to fully learn it. Once mastered, move on to the next strategy and repeat. It is a simple practice to "trade" FOREX simply on paper, without entering any actual trades. In fact, this method is highly recommended until the beginning FOREX trader builds some confidence.

Support and resistance levels are used in many FOREX trading strategies. 'Support' refers to the price level that is repeatedly seen as the bottom - when the price reaches this level it tends to rise. Prices will seldom fall below the "support" line. At the opposite spectrum is the Resistance levels. Resistance appears to be the peak that a price will reach when buyers and sellers seem to agree. At this apex prices will move up no further. The space in between "resistance" and "support" is known as the "trading range". Prices can move back and forth within this range for some time. The longer the time frame spent in this range, the more important the signal triggered when prices move outside of the range.

When currency prices break through either support or resistance levels, the prices are expected to continue in that same direction. As mentioned, the longer prices stayed in a trading range, the more significant the "breakout", if prices move above "resistance" or "breakdown", if prices fall below "support" For example, if the price rises above the previous resistance level, it is seen as bullish - the price should continue to rise. This signify's that more buyers have entered the market and this increased "buy" pressure will move prices higher. Conversely, when sellers are too many and buyers few, a "breakdown" could signify prices moving lower again until buyers and sellers once again reach equqlibrium. To find support and resistance levels, price charts need to be analyzed for unbroken support and resistance levels. Charts can be analyzed in any time frame; short term traders will study daily or even hourly charts while the long term trader will use weekly or monthly charts to easily see the long term trend. Traders can use support/resistance levels to determine when to enter or exit a transaction.

Moving averages are another common tool in FOREX trading strategies. If a trader only uses the closing price of a currency at the end of the day as a guide, it is hard to establish the true direction of the move. Moving averages "smooth" out the large moves and give us a much clearer look at the currency price. One average used is the simple moving average (SMA) shows the average price in a given period of time over a specified period of time. A 10 day SMA simply takes the past 10 day closing price of a currency and averages out the 10 day data. Another popular moving average is a weighted moving average. While similiar to the SMA, the WMA puts more emphasis on the last several days trading. So while still showing a 10 day average, more weight is added to the last couple of trading days to better reflect the true trend. When prices are above the MA, they will tend to stay above the MA line. When the MA is below the line, price decline can be expected as well.

These are examples of trading strategies that can be used individually or in combination. In practice, the FOREX trader should have a repertoire of trading tools to examine market conditions and to support the findings of one trading method or another. Experienced traders will rely on several, rather than one, key indicators to base their trading decisions on.

Similarly, fundamental analysis can be used to reinforce technical findings, or vice versa. The FOREX trader will study currency valuations, inflation rates, and other key financial indicators to decide whether a currency is "cheap" or "expensive" Ideally, the FOREX trader will use several indicators into account when plotting a trading strategy.

Every trading strategy should provide clear guidelines about when to enter a trade, what to expect in terms of market movement, when to exit a trade, and how much loss can be accepted in case the deal moves against the trader. Following these simple guidelines and learning about technical analysis can help you become a successful FOREX trader.

About the Author

Read more of this informative series designed for the beginning FOREX trader at http://www.informationisthekey.com/forex

Investing vs. Trading: Who Cares Anyway? - by Francis Kier

2006-01-12T00:03:00.000-08:00

The mutual fund industry requires customers that buy their funds and never sell them. So naturally, they disseminate a lot of editorial decrying any trading, market-timing or re-allocating that includes selling their mutual funds. This non-selling concept gets more ridiculous and hypocritical every year as scandals continue to trickle into the news regarding brokerage firm and mutual fund behavior. It turns out that the professionals running the mutual funds do a lot of trading, market-timing and re-allocating everyday, but somehow if you do this on your own, you'll ruin your portfolio.

Since an unfortunate vestige of mutual fund sales material is: "you need to invest for the long-term." and "That it is OK if your investments are going down because these are long-term investments." These phrases and beliefs destroy portfolios and compounded returns.

To me, investing is simply day-trading in slow motion. In my view, when people don't have an investing plan they use the excuse, "I'm investing for the long-term." But, I find that all the successful trading rules that apply to a professional currency trader with a leveraged $250 million position also apply to someone with $25 in a mutual fund. If the mutual fund owner calls it investing, he thinks he is immune from all the decision-making required of all ownership; ignoring the fact that every structure require maintenance.

Let's take a closer look at maintenance; look at a home - everything but the dirt needs to be maintained. Time, weather, and events take their toll on the floors, appliances, roof, windows, landscaping, etc. The same rules apply to owning a rental home. And the same rules apply to owning a strip mall, or an airport or manufacturing plant. The same rules actually apply to every business; the building, the equipment, the employees, the vehicles, the marketing plan, the product design, and the websites. Now if investing or trading is a business (or you are trading or investing in businesses) what makes you think your portfolio doesn't need to be maintained just like everything else? I am here to tell you that it does need to be maintained. In spite of long-term investing theories and cautions from your stockbroker or magazine headlines, most of the time you spend on investing would be considered maintenance. More reference material for this article is available at http://investing.real-solution-center.com.

How I define maintenance is continued review, evaluation, and action in alignment with your investing goals. Now the maintenance that they need is continual review. Is it meeting your expectations? Maintenance means information review: changes to your market view, interest rates, inflation, recession, the industry, a new federal law, an inter-country trade dispute, etc. Maintenance also means portfolio review. For example, , if a run up in real estate has unbalanced your portfolio, you may want to sell off weaker real estate holdings or, instead, sell off the strongest real estate holdings if the market prices are starting to fall back. Maintenance is also the mechanics of setting up alerts if a stock has fallen too far and you want to place a stop-loss order to get out, or an alert for a profit target that is about to be reached. Maintenance could simply be a monthly review to evaluate whether the stock is still above its 200-day moving average price.

Whatever the manner you want to address investment and portfolio maintenance, you need to start building your own trading rules, checklists for what to do before you enter a trade, and what could possibly trigger your exit of a position. Keep a journal to see how your rules are growing your account to notice which of them needs to be changed, eliminated, or updated. All of this is the maintenance required for the $25 mutual fund investment - so that it doesn't become a $0.25 investment from neglect.

To the axiom: "A fool and his money are soon parted", I would add this corollary: "An amateur investor and his long-term investments are soon parted." Amateur investors that are not willing to perform the ongoing duties required to grow their investments rarely perform well. While a professional trader who carefully analyzes and executes his trading rules can count on the continued successful growth of their portfolio.

About the Author

Francis Kier has an MBA in finance and shares his two decades of experience with investing and personal finance. More of his articles are available at http://investing.real-solution-center.com.

What's it Worth - Pricing your stock photo - by Henry Bateman

2006-01-11T23:56:00.000-08:00

Out of the blue a business contacts you wanting to use one of your pics. They have seen it at your web site, on your blog or at an exhibition and are requesting availability and price. After the warm glow wears off how do work out what it is worth? What can you ask for and still get the sale? But you don't want to give it away, do you?

Firstly they are not buying a print. They are requesting the right to use your pic a multiple number of times in a way that will enhance their business and their sales. They will handle the printing side of things you are just providing the image. So the question really is what is it worth to them?

To determine this you need more information. What is its intended use: Advertising or editorial? Specific use: Newspaper & magazine ads, packaging, point of sale, brochures etc for Advertising (remember if it is for advertising you will need model releases for any recognizable people); Books, newspaper or magazine story illustration, news letters etc for Editorial. Size and Placement: Full page, ½ page, ¼ page or spot, front cover, back cover, inside. Distribution: How many impressions and/or times will it be used. If in a newspaper or magazine what is the circulation? If it is packaging, how many bottles of wine will your image label? Exclusivity: Can you sell the image to a competitor or does the company want exclusive use and if so for how long?

Once this information is in place you are in a position to calculate the value of your image to the company. There are several places on the net that can help, Stock Photo Price Calculator is one. Use of this calculator will get you a high, average and low price based on current market expectations which you can use for your negotiations.

When I contact the enquiring business for the above information I usually ask, in that initial email, what their intended spend is on the project. Mainly to get an idea of how professional they are. If they indicate the overall budget for the project, 20% to 25% will be for resources, just be aware that your image is part not all of the resources. If they don't have a budget, mmmmmmmmm.

If the business is unknown to you or it is your first dealing with them, asking for your money up front is not out of the question. It can also be a face saving tactic when being pushed for a lower price that you feel is their top offer. If you are offering payment at a later date, it is essential that you include on your invoice "licensed rights are not assigned until the invoice is paid in full." This will give you some sort of fall back position if the money never arrives.

Beware of the old chestnut of "we will be buying a lot more of this type of image in the future, can you do something about the price". My response to this one is along the lines that I give discounts to regular buyers and a regular buyer is one with a history of 5 or more purchases. To the exposure I will get, just think of the dollars in the bank in the future, argument my response is I have to pay my bills now. I mean who really does the read the photo byline on a wine bottle label?

Don't forget this is a business negotiation, the buyers job is to get the image at the lowest price they can, your job, apart from making the pics, is to get the best price you can for your image.

About the Author

Henry Bateman is an artist/photographer and his work can be seen at www.pissedpoet.com and at pissedpoet pics

Investing in 2006 - A Speculator's Perspective - by Explosive Speculations' Staff

2006-01-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

This coming year looks to offer some exciting investment opportunities. Alternative fuels, the housing market, inflation, gold, silver, and auto manufacturing will be economic headlines for the year 2006.

Screws Continue to Tighten On Energy
2006 will see oil prices rise upwards due to increased oil demand from the world's fastest growing economy, China. This rise in price is also due to increased oil supply falling short of meeting increased oil demand. This will force economies around the globe to seriously consider alternative fuel.

These alternative fuels will mainly be Synfuel because of Synfuel's ability to integrate with the world's existing infrastructure. This will become the cheapest and most efficient method of combating rising energy prices while being able to appease environmentalists. While new alternative fuel plants will not necessarily be brought online this year, steps will be taken to promote Synfuel technology.

While Synfuel solves the problem of continued oil demand, nuclear power will ease the natural gas power plant problem. U.S. Congress will continue to seriously consider the benefits of nuclear power.

Suffering in the Housing Market
2006 will set the trend for the housing market for the next few years. Look for the price of an average house in major cities to drop because of higher energy prices, increased unemployment, outstanding debt of the average American, and more houses for sale than houses being bought. Continued fed rate hikes might be the initial push into housing's decline in value. When the housing market runs into trouble expect more media coverage than the O.J. trial because most people own a home, whereas if the stock market runs into trouble most people don't invest. One can expect congress try ineffective - even counterproductive - methods to ease suffering in the housing market.

Bernanke vs. Gold
With the ascension of Ben Bernanke to the throne of Federal Reserve Chairman, expect Bernanke and The Fed to continue interest rate hikes until a piece of the U.S. economy experiences disaster. Coupled with Bernanke's philosophy of monetary inflation, this will bring utopia for gold investors and other sound money advocates.

Not only is the value of gold moving up against the dollar, gold is moving up against most currencies world-wide. Because gold and sound money policies have been ignored by the world over, and the decline in currency value, investors - private and public alike - are beginning to purchase solid assets. Therefore expect the price of gold to continue in the up direction.

Silver - Icing On the Cake
Silver is gearing up to be this year's sleeper investment. This is due in part because silver could not be purchased at a better value. Also, silver is being used faster than it is being mined creating a supply and demand imbalance that could likely lead to a shortage. World stockpiles of this precious metal have already diminished to a multi-decade low. Investors leveraging their money in the silver mining sector should experience reasonable gains on their investments.

Driving Around In 2006
Another big story for 2006 will be the thousands of layoffs experienced by American auto manufacturers. Look for business restructuring including a strategy of bringing cost effective and fuel-efficient vehicles to market. U.S. auto manufacturers' stock value will continue to decline throughout 2006. Serious automobile investors will look towards Japan, especially companies like Toyota, when evaluating auto investment opportunities.

This coming year will provide profitable speculative investment opportunities. Explosive Speculations Newsletter is designed to capitalize on the economic weakness that 2006 will likely bring. Don't miss out on valuable information that can help bring that "extra something" to your investment portfolio.

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About The Author tag is left in tact and hot links included. Questions and comments can be sent to info@explosivespeculations.com

About the Author

Explosive Speculations Investment Newsletter is geared towards informing investors about investment opportunities that have a chance to double and triple over the next few years. To find out more about Explosive Speculations please visit www.explosivespeculations.com or email us at info@explosivespeculations.com

A Primer on Making Real Money Online - by Austin Shufelt

2005-12-19T02:27:00.000-08:00

With the advent of the internet the world has seen the birth of a new platform for entrepreneurial escapades. All the web pages that exist, or at least any that matter, exist for the sole purpose of generating income. Think about it, if a page isn't directly selling something to the visitor, it is still making hard cash via offering advertising space. In fact, those sites which look to be non-commercial in nature actually are some of the most profitable enterprises out there.

The inevitable question, no matter the specific details, is: how do I make actual, hard cash, online? Everyone dreams of becoming a bathrobe-billionaire, but how does it happen on today's internet? The only way to make any money online is to have as many "qualified" visitors as possible. Qualified? Huh?

All I mean by qualified is that they are searching or looking for what you can offer. This is different in every case, for example if you ran a website that sold hand-crafted jewelry you would want people visiting your site who wanted jewelry. If you ran an information based site which sold advertising space and your site was centered around heart health, you would want visitors seeking information regarding heart health. Common sense, no? Now that we know what we want (qualified visitors), all we need to do is figure out how to get it.

There are two ways to drive traffic to your site: 1. have people place a link to your site on their site, and 2 (which is made easier by doing #1), have the larger search engines display a link to your site when the search engine is queried (searched). The math makes the priority list simple to assemble; with Google alone receiving over 200,000,000 searches per day, the need to have search engines include your sites is enormous. But more than include your site, you want the major search engines to have preference for your site over your major competitors. Alas, the art of search engine optimization, or SEO, was born.

Any site which wishes to make money on the web, irrespective of how, must be fine tuned and managed in a way that caters to the expectations and wishes of the major search engines. The idea is to make the search engines rank your site as highly relevant in as many beneficial categories as possible, therefore it is imperative that one understands how a site gains a high relevance ranking.

The first and arguably the most significant way to improve your standing with the major search engines is to have as many link-backs to your site as possible. A link-back is where someone places a link to your site on their site. Every time a search engine sees another site linking to yours it counts it as a vote. The more votes your page acquires, the more relevant your site is, according to the major search engines.

The second, and arguably equally effective form of SEO art is to get the search engines to love your content. Information is power in the online realm, and he who has most, wins. The more relevant your content, and bluntly, the more of it, the greater the odds of the mega-search engines liking your site. Also, the more frequently updated your site, how it 'grows' contributes to the search engines giving you preference.

But isn't content like that hard to produce in the volume needed for the profit driven venture I'm interested in? Easy answer: it can be. There is really no such thing as free money. Yes, people all over the world are making in upwards of $20,000+ per month online, but trust me, they earned it. Don't despair, there are tips and tools to make this hard work a little easier.

First, pick a topic that you actually care about. If you construct website centered around issues that are of importance to you then the work will go smoother. Work isn't as hard when it concerns something that interests you. Also, your personal knowledge base is likely to be greater on topics that matter to you, and your drive to discover more may be equally as significant.

Also, when choosing a topic; the more specific the topic the better. For instance, a site on "Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia" has a far better chance of receiving a high relevance rating than a site on "cancer." The reason being is an obvious one: less competition. The more focused your content, the more relevant your site (according to Google, et al).

Next, choose a domain name that is relevant to your desired subject matter. For instance if you have a site devoted to Matchbox cars and your domain name is happysurfing.com, then your site is on an irrelevant domain. Also, in your domain name you should try to make use of a relevant keyword, if at all possible.

The last major tip to get search engines to like your site is to use keywords consistently throughout your content. Keywords are words that people frequently use when querying search engines. Your keywords will vary from site to site as the focus of the site changes. For example, a site that focused on exotic flowers would use different keywords than a site dedicated to Chocolate Labs, but there should be keywords in each. How does one find keywords on any topic? Go to Yahoo's http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ and type your site's premise/theme in (i.e., cancer, diabetes, etc), you will receive the 100 top keywords associated with that term. It is advisable that you make a separate page for at least the top 10-15 keywords associated with your chosen term. Another place to find keywords is via Google's https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox. Also, it is advisable to not wait to install Google Adsense to your pages, or whatever other revenue stream you want. The sooner you have something on your sites that has the potential to make you money, the sooner you are going to make money.

Once you use all of those tips and have a site up and running, the last step is to start all over. The more sites with excellent content you manage, the more money you make. The most anyone can even dream of making on a single domain is $2000/month, but $500 is a realistic goal.

Now, all the tips are free, but the tools usually aren't. I mean of course you can find free tools out there to make a website template, graphics, etc, but when it comes to filling those templates with real content, the free-tool section is limited. I personally am involved with, and am 100% bias to, a website platform called Dynamic Content Router (http://www.dcrouter.com)***. This is a content management system that takes care of inserting keywords, delivering relevant articles, and it can manage not one, but all of your sites from one easy console. DCR can generate as many pages as you wish, using any template you can conceive of, and it delivers as much unique content as you desire. The Dynamic Content Router is like a profit-driven website's operating system; it is like Windows but exclusively for making money online. These tools are worth the investment, because they allow you to increase your overall efficiency and enable you to generate more profit-geared websites.

After all above is accomplished, the only thing left is to not be discouraged. Allow your web-based business to start off as a hobby and grow naturally. Don't worry if you don't see money coming in the first day you start your business, allow yourself a minimum of 60 days to see a profit, but in as little as 30 days you should see some returns on your investment of time. Once your sites start rolling, start receiving the visitors you need, then it becomes far more of a passive enterprise, wherein you do updates to keep your site "fresh," but for the most part your enterprise runs autonomous and unassisted.

***NOTE: DCR may not be available by the time you read this article as we have limited the number of licenses for sale and we are selling out quickly.

About the Author

Austin Shufelt is currently involved with revolutionizing the online advertising industry via creating a platform to automate and simplify the most tedious and time consuming tasks. Find more info at: http://www.dcrouter.com

Preparing Your Business For January - by Adam Senour

2005-12-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

Why Worry About January During the Holiday Season?

Over the first couple of weeks of December, I have been in meetings and had telephone discussions with clients who have no interest in targeting their promotional efforts for the holiday season. They have, instead, chosen to focus their efforts on promoting websites during the month of January.

At first, I found the logic very confusing based on a common misconception. Why market during the month of January? Most people tend to have a "post-holiday hangover". They've spent hundreds, and in many cases thousands, of dollars on presents. They've spent time with their loved ones. The parties have come and gone.

Upon thinking about the logic from a different angle, a unique opportunity for the savvy North American marketer revealed itself.

The month of January presents a unique opportunity for intelligent entrepreneurs. Because of the increase in business that the holiday season provides, most businesses tend to neglect or reduce their marketing efforts throughout the winter months, electing to focus their energy on the spring and summer months instead.

Many companies will launch new campaigns during the Super Bowl in order to take advantage of the international mass exposure created by the annual NFL football climax. However, this is a highly expensive proposition and as a result of the budgetary constraints and risk such advertising presents, these companies will often elect to minimize or halt all other advertising efforts until the Super Bowl itself.

Since the Super Bowl occurs on either the final Sunday in January or the first Sunday in February, a huge 4-week marketing gap occurs for a company that chooses to take advantage of it.

Companies with business-to-business products and services can take advantage of the month of January to release these products and services as well. Many companies and organizations, such as school boards and some manufacturing plants, give their employees a paid 2-week Christmas vacation. As a result, these employees return to work rested, alert, and more receptive to new ideas and ways to better improve efficiency. In fact, many companies use the winter months for the purposes of making their operations more efficient and profitable.

This article will focus on two companies as case studies. The first company, Hibiscus Florals, is an online silk wedding florist targeting North American brides-to-be. The second, Innovolve, is a Canadian conference, event, and association management company specializing in sustainable business growth.

Hibiscus Florals

Hibiscus Florals (http://www.hibiscusflorals.com) co-owner Mark Morkowski has been an extremely busy man during the last few weeks. "Many of our brides begin preparations for their weddings just after the holiday season," says Mark. "This means that the first three months of a new year are a peak season for our silk wedding flowers, and it is crucial that we are prepared to both attract and accept the potential business that can be generated in this period."

"The month of December is being used exclusively to prepare for the New Year."

Some of the things Hibiscus Florals are doing to prepare include:

1. Online marketing and promotion. "We're doing everything in our power to make sure our website is visible in as many ways as possible," says Mark. "Our market has such a large geographic base that we cannot possibly reach all of them via conventional offline means."

"We have customers from all over Canada and the United States, from Hawaii to Newfoundland, and our website and email marketing efforts are crucial to our overall business plan."

2. New products. "We're in the final stages of preparing some unique new collections for our brides. We've decided to create more silk flower wedding packages, based on the feedback we have received and some commonalities among customer requests."

3. Visiting suppliers. "Many of our suppliers have beautiful new products that are now available to us, and we need to stock up as much as possible to ensure that we have enough supply to service our customer needs over the next few months."

4. Updating prices. "Fluctuations in the base cost of our products, such as the rising costs of natural resources and transportation, have led to the need to adjust our prices for the 2006 year."

5. A Christmas vacation. "We want to be well-rested and alert for the New Year, so we're going to take some time off ourselves to recuperate our minds and bodies and be better able to serve our customers."

"A rest at Christmas time isn't always for businesses to recover from their holiday rush. It's for businesses to prepare for a rush as well."

It looks like Hibiscus Florals will be very well-prepared for January.

Innovolve

Dr. Anthony Watanabe is the president of Innovolve (http://www.innovolve.com), a progressive young conference management agency. The month of December is being used as a reorganization and preparation month for Innovolve, in order for the company to be prepared for their upcoming conferences and other projects.

What types of things are Anthony and Innovolve doing to prepare for January?

1. Rebranding. "We're redoing all of our marketing materials, such as our logo and website, to ensure that our image and core beliefs as a company are accurately reflected. We look forward to the launch of our new-look corporate image in 2006, and we believe our target market will be very receptive to our message."

2. Finishing of existing projects. "We're in the final stages of completion on our Sustainable Business Resource Centre (http://www.sustainabilityincubator.com) website, and we'll be launching it in late 2005 to early 2006."

3. New and existing client preparation. "We're going to be working on some exciting new projects involving graphic and web design for forward-thinking companies, as well as organizing unique and informative conferences in such fields as sustainability, green building, and business networking."

4. Marketing preparation. "When we're done with our rebranding efforts, we look forward to promoting them both online and offline. We're in the process of developing a campaign to that end, as well as for those clients whose sites will be completed in the New Year." Hibiscus Florals and Innovolve are two companies that are prepared to take advantage of the unique opportunities that preparing for January provides. Shouldn't you be taking advantage of these opportunities as well?

About the Author

Adam Senour is the owner of ADAM Web Design, a leading web design and development company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Visit http://www.adamwebdesign.ca for more information on ADAM Web Design products and services.

Stock Trading Signals, How to Buy, When to Sell - by Anthony Trister

2005-12-09T00:39:00.000-08:00

Many of us spend years looking for the holy grail trading system. Signal services can be a great way to use someone elses carefully developed system. By following a trading system, market condition will at times be favorable to buy and at other times be favorable to sell. Clearly defined conditions give 'signals' that the educated investor can read and act on. Signals are not as crucial for the long term investor. For these people, market conditions and the value of particular companies can be watched on a daily basis. For day and what we call active traders, however, signals are crucial for acting quickly on stock market movements.

Investors who treat trading as a full-time job have the time to watch the market movements for signals. Oftentimes, however, signals can be automated and integrated into trading software. The investor can choose which signals to be alerted about and they will automatically appear on screen. Software signals are usually only available by subscription and some services charge hundreds of dollars a year for a complete package. This includes trading software and access to up-to-the-minute charts for the latest information about the stock market.

Investors who don't have the time to watch the market closely can subscribe to services which publish signals on a daily or hourly basis. These services may employ market analysts who may follow several indicators to arrive at a particular signal. More commonly, however, their systems are completely automated with signals being generated by software which examines market conditions. Some of these services have a better track record than others - make sure you get a free trial before purchasing. Also, make sure you paper trade some of the signals first and see if they truly match up to reported results. This is the best test before spending your money on more books and software.

With any third-party signal provider it pays to know how the signals are being generated. Since there are such a large number of market indicators some of them may contradict each other. In addition, a particular indicator may send out conflicting signals depending on the time frame.

Market conditions also play an important part on the accuracy of indicators. During upswings in the market, for example, trend indicators will send out buy signals but longer-term oscillator indicators will view the market as being overbought and send out a sell signal. Generally speaking, trend indicators are most accurate during trend conditions and oscillators are best during times of transition. Both types of indicators are often in variance with the other.

Depending on the type of service you sign up for, signals can be delivered by email on a daily basis, available for viewing on a website, or be integrated into your trading software so that popups appear on your screen for particular signals that you are watching.

Companies which provide signals usually offer their services on a monthly basis. Some are quite expensive - as high as several hundred dollars a month. These are obviously aimed at the professional trader but other services are also available at more reasonable costs. Keep this in mind. We have frequently seen peoples with $1,000 to invest pay $200 a month for a system. That system might be great, but is it really going to make enough every month (20%+) to cover just your fees? If your starting capital is small, so must be the investment you make in signals.

The value of these services has to be weighed by the individual investor. They can be a great time saver but they may also encourage laziness when it comes to analyzing the market. A knowledgeable trader should have the tools necessary to judge the effectiveness of a signal system and do some of the calculations himself to keep on top of the market. Finally, make sure your signal service provides an exact strategy when to sell. When to sell is usually what is the difference between the small number of super successful traders and the larger numbers of unprofitable traders. If there is no exit strategy, you do not have a system and you'll want to move on. The best signal services give non-subjective entries and exits.

About the Author

Anthony Trister provides stock trading analysis and investing advice and reviews at http://www.stock-trading-resources.com

eCommerce - A Plan - by Richard D S Hill

2005-12-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

Planning an ecommerce website is like building a house - architecture and budget need to be agreed before the decoration.

AN AGREED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION MUST BE DRAWN UP AS THE FIRST STAGE BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS DONE - ANY OTHER APPROACH WILL ONLY LEAD TO CONFUSION AND WORSE.

Once an AGREED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION has been agreed then solutions need to be evaluated and costed against that specification are:

- Project management - Hardware - Web design and software - Site marketing - Project management:

All aspects of the project need to be managed. Decide who is going to do it and properly plan the requirements, activities, outcomes, milestones and timings.

Hardware:

Your choices here are a managed service or your own server. The security and disaster recovery aspect that is achieved by hosting with a major provider is very important. Only go with your own server if you have the experience and facilities.

Design and Software:

Site design

Develop site templates and test them with real people. They have to be easy to use and navigate. Don't let "design" drive the site; let ease of use and sales drive the "design". Think how the customer thinks.

Software

At least 5 solutions need to be considered.

- Updating - Shopping cart - Forum - Email - Statistics

Updating

There are 2 realistic routes here. Either an online or an offline, PC based content management system (CMS). The online CMS can be either an Open Source CMS (Open Source means any application that has been made available, generally free, to developers to view and modify freely. Examples of Open Source applications are MySQL and PHP) or commercial.

There are pros and cons to both routes. An online system is available to anyone with relevant security clearance anywhere any time. A PC based system is, obviously, limited to the PCs running the licenses. An example of a PC based system is Macromedia Contribute which integrates with Dreamweaver. There are a whole range of online Commercial and Open Source options such as SuiteWise™, Drupal, Joomla, and Website Baker etc. However, even this is complicated by the fact that some of the shopping cart solutions also contain CMS that may be sufficient for many companies' requirements.

Shopping cart and CRM

There are also 2 realistic routes for the shopping cart - Open Source or commercial.

There are excellent Open Source shopping carts such as OSCommerce and Zen, but also excellent commercial solutions such as Actinic and Customer Focus Quick Order Portal (which comes with a complete CMS).

There are other factors to consider with the shopping cart:

- Does it have its own or does it easily integrate with your exiting stock control systems?

- Does it integrate easily with accounting systems (e.g. Sage, QuickBooks)?

- Does it have or integrate easily with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that may be proposed in future?

Forum

Many CMS have good integrated forums but if they do not our recommendation would be to use a good Open Source package such as PunBB or phpBB. They are free, robust and easy to integrate and customise into any site.

Most CMS, shopping carts and forums have email solutions. However, some solutions are very basic. If the chosen shopping cart solution that best meets the ecommerce and other requirements does not have an effective integrated email solution and if the same be true of the CMS and forum solutions then stand alone Open Source applications such as PHPlist are one alternative solution and the other is an online solution such as Constant Contact or many others.

Statistics

This is arguably the most important part of the package. If you do not know how visitors to your website and in the shop are behaving, what turns them on and what turns them off then it is far, far harder to improve sales and site profitability. Commercial applications such as WebTrends and ClickTracks need to be evaluated for best fit.

SITE MARKETING

There are 4 major areas to consider here.

- Offline marketing - e.g. in-store. What works most cost effectively to drive traffic and orders via the web from non-web activities.

- Site optimisation - how to make sure technical structure, copy, content, back-links and a range of other factors are initially and remain optimised so that as many high search engine placements on relevant searches are obtained.

- Pay per click and other online marketing - how to get traffic from advertising against key words and phrases used in search engines and from adverts on other sites.

- Email - how to grow the email list and use it to grow profitable sales.

In summary:

- Manage the project - Think how the customer thinks - Get excellent software to make finding product and price easy - Make terms clear and payment simple - Ensure you are in stock and and have achievable delivery timescales - Make sure you have a good CRM system and clear communications - mail, phone, emai - Market the site appropriately - Know what's going on - use your stats to test, track and try

Cost ............ well how long is a pice of string, but you could be up and running for far less than the cost of new premises!!!

About the Author

Richard Hill is a director of E-CRM Solutions and has spent many years in senior direct and interactive marketing roles. E-CRM - http://www.e-crm.co.uk - helps you to grow by getting you more customers that stay with you longer. We provide practical solutions that pay for themselves. We help you to make sure that your marketing works.

Cash In With A Cash Back Credit Card - by Peter Kenny

2005-12-08T04:54:00.000-08:00

A cash back credit card is a fantastic way for you to make some cash, while all the time spending! Although it does only suit the customers who pay their bill in full at the end of each month.

A cash back credit card will give you the chance to earn as you spend. A percentage is returned to you on an annual basis for every pound that you have spent. This is usually set at between 0.5% and 2% depending on how generous the credit card lender is. And as I have said already and I cannot stress enough is you should be able to pay off your credit card statement in full each month as is the only way that a cash back credit card will work for you.

A cash back credit card is not for everyone...

If you are a borrower then a cash back credit card will only cost you, even though you will be earning a little back, you will find that this will be eaten up and more by the interest charges, which are usually on a higher scale of APR.

By not incurring the interest payments, then every pound that you spend on the card will see a little winging it's way back to you and if you do pay your credit card bill off in full and never have worries about doing so, then why not switch to a cash back credit card. If you don't already have one, there are only a few ways in which you can get money from a credit card lender, rather than the many ways in which they abstract cash from us.

Do not transfer any balances...

There is a word of warning that will come with this though, if you decide that you want to balance transfer an amount from your existing credit card company on to a cash back credit card, then you should try and avoid this, in fact avoid it altogether. As any payments you make to the credit card will only go on to pay the amount transferred and interest will mount up on any purchases that you have made on the credit card, which will leave you paying back more than the cash back card is making you.

There are a few good deals on the go right now, with the Amex Blue cash back card the Amex Platinum and the First Trust Bank cards worthy at a look if you decide that a cash back credit card is for you.

Remember...

1) Pay off your balance every month 2) Cash backs are repaid annually 3) Avoid transferring a balance to your cash back card

So if you have a clear statement at the end of each month then go for it and make that bargain in the sales save you even more cash.

About the Author

Peter Kenny is a writer for creditcards-gb.co.uk.?For additional articles and an extensive resource for everything about credit cards, please visit us at http://www.creditcards-gb.co.uk and http://www.creditcards2go4.com For credit card advice please visit here http://www.creditcards-gb.co.uk/creditcardadvice.html

Business Opportunities - Why Pre-Packaged BizOpps are Not Worth the Money - by Charles Phelan

2005-12-08T04:52:00.000-08:00

Pick up any "business opportunity" magazine at the local newsstand, and you'll see a glossy, attractive publication designed to attract people who are actively seeking ways to earn extra money, buy a franchise, or open a business of their own. After all, it's the American Dream to own your own business and get rich, right?

You've probably heard the old saying, "Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money." Common sense tells us that we're not going to get rich working for someone else (with the possible exception of the lucky folks who started with Microsoft or Google in their early days and got rich through stock options). The average American employee lives from paycheck to paycheck, with barely enough income to cover living expenses, leaving nothing for investment toward building wealth for a comfortable retirement. Hence the allure of the "Business Opportunity."

As you flip through one of these "BizOpp" magazines, you'll see a wide variety of advertisements for different types of businesses, ranging from simple "starter kits" for around $29 all the way to sophisticated franchises costing $100,000 or more. For most people, it's impossible to raise enough capital to consider opening a true franchise. The franchise fees alone are often prohibitive, running into tens of thousands of dollars even for the lesser known businesses, or several hundred thousand dollars for better known companies. And that's not even including the outlay required to actually open the doors for business.

At the other end of the scale, most people are aware that the cheap starter kits and "business in a box" packages are basically junk. But that leaves a whole host of medium-priced business startup concepts, ranging in price from around $500 on the low end to $10,000 on the upper end. I refer to these as "pre-packaged business opportunities."

To explain why pre-packaged businesses are usually a waste of time and money, I'll use windshield repair as an example. As I write this, I'm looking at an ad for a training program that costs $3,000, including starter materials. In case you don't know what I'm referring to here, the basic idea is that small chips, cracks, or holes in automobile windshields can be repaired using a special liquid material that seals and repairs defects. This is obviously much cheaper than replacing an entire windshield. Hence the "opportunity" to start a business that helps people save money on their windshield repairs.

Now, in case you're thinking, "There's no way I would want to be in that business," please bear in mind that I'm just using this as an example out of hundreds of possible different business concepts advertised in the same fashion. And of course there are many people who would be attracted to such a "business opportunity" -- people who really like cars, people who already know quite a bit about auto repair, and so on. Plenty of individuals are attracted to a business idea like this, which is why this particular "opportunity" has been around for decades.

Now, here's the real question. Can you seriously expect to shell out $3,000 for some starter materials and training in the windshield repair business, then put a sign out, and expect to start earning money right away? Of course not! This is the #1 flaw with pre-packaged business opportunities: you still have to figure out how to market the product or service on your own.

Let's take a closer look at the windshield repair business. Let's say your goal is to make $50,000 per year in net income. If we assume that you can charge around $50 per windshield repair, at a material cost of around $10, then you have a gross profit (not counting your labor) of $40 per repair. To make $50,000 net, you'd need to find 1,250 windshields per year that required fixing. That translates to more than 100 repairs per month, and you'd need to keep this up month in and month out to meet your income goal. That works out to 3-5 repairs per day, depending on how many days per month you work.

Now, if you had 1,250 cars lined up down the road, all ready for the repair work, it would be nice easy money, right? But FINDING those 1,250 cars and then SELLING those 1,250 car owners on your service will be the real problem. In other words, you don't really have a windshield repair job here. You have a SALES job, pure and simple. Most of your time will be spent finding business. Obviously, finding one car at a time will be totally impractical. Instead, you'll need fleet accounts with major car dealerships, auto repair shops, car rental agencies, and so on. And you can bet that a number of other people (some of whom bought the same pre-packaged business that you did) have also solicited the same companies for their windshield repair business.

So again, what you really have here is a sales job. If this were a truly profitable business, then the company selling you the "opportunity" would not be making all their money selling pre-packaged businesses to people like yourself. Instead, they would be making their money by rolling out the service across the country and selling windshield repair directly to fleet accounts on a nationwide basis. But they know that there is actually more money to be made in the BizOpp world, preying on people who have the dream of starting their own business.

The message here is that any pre-packaged business opportunity that sells in the $500 to $10,000 range is typically worthless and a complete waste of your time and money. Please bear in mind that these numbers are just a guideline, and you must always exercise good judgment when evaluating any business opportunity. Just because a "hot" pre-packaged opportunity is selling for more than $10,000 does not mean that it is necessarily legitimate. Many rip-offs cost a lot more than that. But generally speaking, the promoters of these schemes realize they are aiming at people who can't pay a lot of money to get started in business. So the packages are marketed in a way that will maximize the number of people that can afford to buy in.

If you are serious about starting your own business, then a pre-packaged opportunity is not the way to go. It might seem like an easy answer to your problem, but the very fact that it's being sold as a packaged business probably means that there's no real money to be made without a long hard sales grind. You're much better off doing your own research, coming up with your own business ideas, and then testing your ideas with small advertisements to see if your concepts have any real potential. That's how many businesses get their start. You'll have a much better chance of making it in the world of business or self-employment if you ignore those BizOpp magazines entirely!

About the Author

Charles J. Phelan has been helping consumers become debt-free without bankruptcy since 1997. A former sr. executive with one of the nation's largest debt settlement firms, he is the author of the Debt Elimination Success Seminar™, a five-hour audio-CD course that teaches consumers how to choose between debt program options based on their financial situation. The course focuses on instruction in do-it-yourself debt negotiation. Visit www.zipdebt.com

Get Rich Scams Uncovered! - by Mark Davies

2005-12-07T03:06:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be nice to make a bundle of money quickly, with very little effort, working on your computer at home? YOU KNOW IT WOULD BE!!! I know for me I also would love to have money constantly going into my bank account day after day while working only a few hours each week, This way I could have more quality time to enjoy my wife and kids, without my nasty boss always pushing me and having to deal with that horrible daily commute and those difficult co workers!!

Whether it's real estate investing, using classified ads, investing in the stock market or internet affiliate marketing programs, or other online types of businesses, All of us are constantly bombarded by the fantastic claims of people selling "get rich" programs that they are selling in which they CLAIM people are making tons of money, AND how they can show you how to do do the same thing FOR A PRICE! I can tell you right now , with great certainty that 99% of these folks and programs are total scams! You like me may have even been duped into believing and buying one or even more of these "get rich now " products .I have bought way too many of these products that I have forgotten how many!! (100'S at least!) What it waste of time and hard earned money! I don't know why, but I guess it has to do with the fact that I believe that most people are basically "good", and as a result I was "sold" by these hyped up marketing schemes again and again, even after being scammed by yet another ! Ouch that hurt! Finally after being consistently let down and scammed again, I just got FED UP and PISSED!! I then decided to finally get to the bottom of of this fascination we all have with these "GET RICH" products programs and services, and to find out if there really were any REAL and most importantly CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE programs for making money on the internet!

I have actually contacted the people behind every "get rich" website I could find in my extensive research. I posed as an investor and managed to persuade the owners that I was someone intent on buying their website business. This way, once the big dollars were being dangled in front of them, they would give me free access to their members areas to review the websites and products I would be buying!, Well as I mentioned before I was completely repulsed and disgusted by 99% of what I found! (no big surprise after the 200th website I investigated!) You know what ? Most of the owners (91%) boosted about how many people bought their bogus programs! Here is what I continually found time and again:

* Links in their products that did NOT work

* links to their other websites asking for MORE MONEY!

* no help for customers after buying the ebook

* No email support after purchase

I realized that these so called "GET RICH" products and websites were completely misleading SCAMS and worthless. And you know what? The owners totally knew it! But they told me they were very happy and gleeful on their way to the bank! (laughing all the way!!!) Surmise to say I failed to reply when I was contacted about purchasing their websites and products!

Interestingly while doing all this extensive research on all these bogus websites and rip off programs I did find a few reputable business men that sold PROFITABLE programs that actually do make money for their customers.

I found that the business owners were just every day people similar to you and me that had found strategies that worked to make money online regularly and consistently. I read their ebooks and I was very impressed with the wealth of current and practical strategies and information that they provide. Their products work! Their ebooks on making a living on the internet are making people a $100 to $300 per day using their computer at home and doing very little work. I did some further research on their ebooks on various online forums to see if what I was told was true, and you know what? People were very pleased and highly recommended these ebooks, They told me they were making good money REGULARLY! It was wonderful to find out that after all my research I actually had some real products that I could in good concise recommend to people who want the freedom that a real online business can provide. Please don't just believe me check out the links below and see for yourself! you will be glad you did! Please check out my website for the 5 programs that REALLY MAKE MONEY!

SO my search for real PROFITABLE "GET RICH" programs has come to an end, finally!, I must say that I was so disgusted and angry with 99% of what I found that I highly and completely encourage you not to waste your time and your hard earned money joining any program other than the five I have listed below! I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do, and hope the financial freedom you seek for you and your family comes to you SOON!

wishing you all the best,

Sincerely, Mark Davies

About the Author

Mark Davies the owner of Best Internet Businesses Review com the #1 site for reviews of INTERNET BUSINESSES THAT REALLY MAKE MONEY. Mark has been reviewing internet businesses for over 5 years and has over 8 years of experience selling and marketing products on the internet http://bestinternetbusinessesreview.com/

How to Make Money Selling Animal Jewelry - by Randy Wilson

2005-12-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Selling Animal Jewelry is fun, profitable and exciting. The demand for this kind of jewelry is growing consistently day-by-day. When pursued in right way, it will earn you handsome revenues. However, like any other line of business, it requires intelligence, focus, the will to do proper research, and educated decisions. The initial investments in time and attention may seem steep, but once you have learned the ropes you shall find that it is one of the most worthwhile things you can do if you're considering running a business from home.

Understand what your business is about:
Simply put, selling Animal Jewelry deals in jewelry items shaped like animals. Why are these products in demand? It is because every animal has a unique personality and attitude, and many people like to express their own personalities through animal shapes.

Think of a common animal like a dog. What does it make you think of? Dogs are faithful and friendly. Now if a person wants to advertise the fact that he or she is a friendly and faithful person, he or she could do this by wearing a piece of animal jewelry shaped like a dog. Likewise, cat jewelry can express grace and sleekness, wolf or tiger jewelry can speak of power and aggression, and so on. In the Animal Jewelry Business, you need to be attuned to the customer's needs, and learn a good bit of animal symbolism.

Target Market:
When starting your Animal Jewelry Business, you first need to identify your target section of the market. What animal motifs you want to stock shall depend upon that. For example, if you're thinking of setting up a shop for children or young females, cat jewelry is a good idea. Children generally like cats, and young women admire a cat's smooth and sexy appeal. On the other hand, if you're expecting more male customers, you shall want to concentrate more upon animal motifs that exude confidence and masculine power - lions and tigers, bulls and rhinos.

If you're setting up an internet-based Animal Jewelry Business, however, you had better keep a little of everything. To be able to say 'yes' in answer to animal motif enquiries, it's important to have an understanding of the different reasons people buy and wear animal jewelry. Some may simply want to wear their star sign - so you'll need to store fish motifs for Pisces, sheep motifs for Aries, Lion motifs for Leo and so on. Others may want to make a statement about animal conservation, so also stock famously endangered animals like the panda or the African cheetah. Some motifs are attractive simply for their bright looks - so don't forget about parrots and the macao.

Essential Equipment and Success Tips:
At the very beginning, you need to decide what kind of Animal Jewelry Business you shall be doing. What are your product sources? If you're artistically inclined and have the necessary skills, you may of course fashion your products yourself. This is the cheapest option in terms of monetary cost, but not in terms of time or labor. You shall need sculpting tools and animal-shaped casts, and a heating apparatus.

Others wanting to set up an Animal Jewelry Business will prefer to buy the finished goods at wholesale rates from a larger shop, and sell retail. This is by far the easiest way to gain entrance in the business, and is ideal for small start-ups. An even more profitable approach is to establish direct contact with the manufacturer, and import the goods if necessary. This method, though yielding greater profits, may not be suitable for first-timers and start-ups, because it involves legal hassles and overseas duties. Another excellent strategy for a newcomer is to become an affiliate with an existing Animal Jewelry Business. This is the lowest-cost approach, and sets you up in terms of both experience and finance, for starting your own full-fledged enterprise later.

Estimated Start-Up Costs and Financing Sources:
The Animal Jewelry Business can be quite low-cost if you plan it right. Usually you can launch one with your own money, since you don't need advanced equipment at the very beginning. Even if you're fashioning your product yourself, the cost of the associated hardware is minimal. But if you still can't manage it out of your savings, money lending institutions like banks shouldn't be reluctant to lend to you, because it's a good investment for them - they should know that the Animal Jewelry Business is more likely to succeed than not.

Income Potential:
As the demand for animal jewelry grows worldwide, your Animal Jewelry will provide you with huge income potential. Provided you keep your prices reasonable and your jewelry attractive, there's virtually no end to the profits you can make.

Advertising, Marketing Methods and Tips:
Selling your product need not be difficult if you're willing to do a little research. Festivals, fairs, craft shows and other community events are a great place to begin testing the market for your Animal Jewelry Business. Gather info on which event attracts what kind of crowd, and base your selection on that. First-timers will do well to go for small, low-cost booths (usually under $100) until they gather more confidence and experience.

You may also try out your products at home parties, and test the waters in terms of quality and acceptance. Other cheap options include putting them up for auction or sale on Ebay or Yahoo. Opening your own Animal Jewelry Business website will involve costs like domain name rentals and hosting fees, not to speak of search engine optimization costs and Video tutorials and stunning templates show you designing fees. So it may be best to try out a few low-investment methods before going into it in a big way.

About the Author

Randy has dozens of home based business articles such as Medical Billing Business. You can also sign up for Randy's free newsletter and 8 different FREE e-courses:Profitable Home Business Newsletter.

Online Shopping for Newbies - by Regina Pickett Garson

2005-12-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

Everyone is talking about online shopping. It's easy and takes a lot less gas and hassle than a trip to the mall. Online shopping puts unbelievable choice right at your fingertips. From large department stores to specialized boutiques, the latest designer fashions and closeout specials, it's all there. You'll find toys, high-end art and collectibles, cutting edge computers and electronics, flea market finds and auctions galore. In fact, you can find just about anything imaginable online, and some things that truly are not.

Online shopping is a godsend to shut-ins, busy working folks and anyone who, for whatever reason, cannot get out and do heavy-duty shopping. Now you can have a world-class selection of gifts at your fingertips and get most of your shopping done in a single evening without ever venturing into traffic, or trudging through crowded malls.

In many ways, online shopping is a return to the good old days when delivery services were a given. This alone can make the difference between sending token flowers and dispatching something great on special occasions. Your selections can be wrapped and on the road to delivery in less time than a drive to the mall. And for the times when flowers really are the right choice, you can now actually pick what you want and those selections are incredible.

Shopping online beats catalogue shopping without any trouble, too. Online you have incredible choices with far less time and effort than pouring through stacks of catalogues and sitting with a phone on hold only to be told that your color or size is not available. Formerly tiresome ordering tasks can now be done in minutes with the click of a mouse.

Although gift delivery is certainly a plus on special occasions, it doesn't stop there. You can buy a whole new wardrobe, even a wedding or prom dress, office supplies, a new computer, you can redecorate your home, or shop for a new one, dabble in the stock market, balance a checkbook, pay your bills and even buy a car at your computer. So, what's the catch?

Street smarts are the rule online and off. Everyone already knows when you go shopping, there are certain things you do and don't do when it comes to your money and your personal security. Online that goes double.

At the Computer:

In addition to a set of well-honed cyber street smarts, when shopping online you should first and foremost be comfortable with your computer. There are a few things to remember if you are new to online shopping. The first is to click the BUY button only "once." It may take a couple minutes for the transaction to process. If you click buy twice, you will be making the same purchase twice. There is not generally too much of an issue in clearing up the double purchase, but it can be a hassle. Double clicking is a common error for first-time online shoppers.

The second big rule is to keep copies of everything relevant to the transaction. Print out the pages with the description and prices of the items you order. Print out your credit card receipt. Most companies will email you a copy of the receipt as well. Keep that too, and make sure it matches your online information.

As all computer users know, sometimes a glitch will derail the best-laid plans. If your printer is down or goes down when you try to get your print outs, find the "Print Screen" key on your keyboard. Press it. Then go into your word processing or paint program and click "Paste." You should now see a picture of what was on your screen at the time you made your purchase. This is the next best thing when a printer is not available.

Okay, you are comfortable with your computer already. All possible glitches are covered and you are ready for some serious shopping. What about those so-called cyber smarts?

Cyber Street Smarts:

Smart online shoppers, just like those in the physical world, know there are certain things you do to take care of yourself. They know to be aware of the neighborhood where they are shopping. They know to be aware of the reputations of the places where they do business. They know to watch their wallets, and first and foremost, when they are around strangers, they know to be aware of who might be scrutinizing them just a little too closely.

Know Who You are Doing Business With:

Do a little research. Anyone can build a website. If you encounter an unfamiliar company where you want to shop, find out who they are. Look for an address. Be wary of any company that does not list one. An address is no guarantee, but you can use it to check references with the Better Business Bureau, BBB. Their online site at http://bbb.org/ has nationwide listings.

Sometimes you may want more information than the BBB provides. In this case, after the BBB check, use your favorite search engine and try an "about search." The difference in an "about search," and just looking for the site, is that you already know where the site is; now you want to find out what people are saying about it. Generally, just putting "about" in front of the company name will get you started.

For a very small purchase, you might want to dispense with all this investigating. But do use a low limit credit card. That way if anything does go awry, it isn't that far awry. Yes, we all know about the $50 liability limit, but the low limit card can be a hassle saver online.

You may choose not to use a debit card online at all. Many debit cards do not offer the same protections against fraud as credit card companies. You could be putting your whole bank account at risk.

While you are at it, be sure to check out the return policy and guarantee. Online and off, most good companies do accept returns, either by providing a cash refund or product exchange. Note, however, shipping costs are typically not refunded for online purchases.

Online Security:

After you've found exactly what you have been looking for, checked out the seller, and their return policy; the next thing you need to do is make sure the site is secure. Secure means your personal information is encrypted in transit to the seller's server. This prevents unauthorized (hacker) access and possible misuse of your credit information.

Examine the URL in the address bar. If the site is encrypted you should see an "s" directly after the http - like https://... The whole site will not be encrypted, but the order page for the transaction should be.

Other things to look for - depending on your browser, you may see either an open or a closed padlock, or a whole or broken key. If the key is broken or the lock open, you should assume that the site is not encrypted.

Sometimes security issues get tricky. Suppose you personally know the owner, it is a solid local business, but there is no encryption system in place and they expect you to transmit your credit information online. With small businesses, this is most often a case of not knowing better, that does not, however, mean that you do not. In cases like this, look for a phone number and call in your order. If there is no phone number and no mailing address, you should seriously consider whether you want to risk an unsecured online transaction.

Common sense is the rule online and off. Guard your personal information, including Social Security Number, bank account information and passwords. No reputable merchant has a need for your Social Security Number and it is not standard policy to ask for it when you buy your groceries for instance. Requiring this for a routine purchase should send up a red flag and you should immediately take your business elsewhere.

Some online crooks will do whatever they can think of, in all kinds of official looking ways, to get your private personal information. If you call, they may personally assure you that they do indeed need your bank account and password to sell you that computer game. No way, just because it looks good, and they sound sincere, doesn't mean that it is or they are, and you may not know there was ever a problem until you see your credit report.

Remember:

Online and off, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don't let the heat of the offer lull you into abandoning your good common sense. Of course, you could miss the deal of a lifetime, and that is exactly what the unscrupulous want you to think. Likely as not, online and off - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Shopping the net is destined to change the way we do business, but it is still a new frontier, with many of the uncertainties that go with it. The only way to really be secure online is to develop your cyber street smarts and sometimes, even that may not be enough. It will certainly level the field though, and by keeping your cyber smarts well honed, you should be able to safely shop the net.

About the Author

Regina Garson teaches at Virginia College in Huntsville, Alabama. For more about online shopping, you can visit her website at http://lafindz.tripod.com

Stock Market Course - by ProfitableStockMarket.com

2005-11-21T23:35:00.000-08:00

Stock Market Course ... ONLINE TRADING COURSE ... Stock trader course .- By ProfitableStockMarket.com

The stock market can present you with a lot of hot stocks every day. Many of them are new technology stocks that come from the nanotech, biotech, voip, healthcare, homeland defense or internet sectors.

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The Art of e-Commerce - by Karen Walker

2005-11-21T23:04:00.000-08:00

So you've got your website, and people can email you about your products and services. The next step, if your home business is suitable, is to start selling them directly online.

Why E-Commerce?

E-commerce can be a massive business booster. If you sell reasonably small, easy-to-ship products (or services that don't need shipping), it can expand your market from your local neighbourhood to the whole world! You will also find that you get more repeat business, since people can easily re-order from you without having to call you again, and you might find that you can afford to sell lower-value things in your web store than you could in real life, thanks to the reduced overheads.

Setting Up E-Commerce.

If you've already got a website, setting up e-commerce can be surprisingly easy. The only real requirements are that you get some e-commerce software (it's not that expensive, and some like OScommerce are even free), and that your web hosting will support whatever programming language the software is written in.

If you think that sounds a bit too technical, just take a look through the help section of your hosting company's website -- you should find something there that explains your specific situation. You never know: some hosts already have everything set up for you, and all you have to do is press a button!

Consistent Design.

It is important for the e-commerce section of your site to appear to be integrated into the rest of it. You should have clear links to your store on each page of your website, and the design of the store itself should be consistent with what has gone before. If your store looks out of place, it shouldn't be too expensive to get whoever designed your website to quickly adapt that design as an e-commerce template.

A Matter of Inventory.

Once you've got your 'shop' up and running, the next step is to configure it. This mostly involves telling it what you plan to sell, i.e. entering descriptions and prices for the items, as well as uploading pictures. Take some time with the pictures, and make them large and easy to see on the screen. The descriptions should list every feature and benefit each product has, and you might wish to set the prices 10% or so below your normal levels, as an 'online discount'.

It is important, though, that once you put your items on your e-commerce website you do not allow them to go out of stock. There are few things more frustrating for a customer than seeing something they want to buy and not being allowed to buy it -- or, worse, paying for something only to be told that it'll take weeks to arrive. Think like a customer, don't forget about your website, and keep things running smoothly. Delivery.

Depending on what you sell, your delivery methods can vary. We could be talking about a package in the mail, or perhaps just a follow-up email. Whatever you're doing, though, make sure you do it quickly. Customers will get very nervous waiting, and won't appreciate it. Keep your customers updated at all times on how things are going -- never leave them hanging.

Inputs and Outputs.

Once you get these things down, though, e-commerce is simple enough that it can mostly be left to run itself. It's like a system of inputs and outputs that multiplies everything put in: you spend an hour or two telling it what you've got, and out of the other end come orders and money. You'll find that almost all e-commerce stores easily pay for any time you put into them as soon as you make one or two sales.

Don't Forget to Advertise It.

You won't usually need any separate campaign for your e-commerce operation, but it's well worth mentioning its existence on your marketing materials. A few simple words before your web address on anything you hand out can work wonders: 'visit www.income-directory.com' becomes 'learn more and order online at www.income-directory.com'. You'll find that many customers will be more eager to check out what you're selling when they can do it as easily as typing in a web address.

About the Author

Karen Walker specializes in helping individuals, entrepreneurs, network marketers, and independent professionals generate substantial incomes with their own Work at Home or Home Based Business on the Internet. Visit her informational web sites: Cash Flow Quest | Work At Home Directory

"Get Rich Quick Scams Revealed" - by Jane Doe

2005-11-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

.....Wouldn't it be nice to make a bundle of money quickly, with minimal effort, working at home in your pajamas? Of course it would. I for one would love to have money flowing into my bank account, working only a few hours a week from home, so I'd have more time to spend with my kids & my husband, without any boss looking over my shoulder.

Whether it's real estate investing, selling by classified ads, stock market investing, internet affiliate marketing, or something else, we've all seen the fantastic claims people make about making tons of money, AND how they can show you how to do the same thing. I can tell you know that 99% of the people are frauds. You may have even fallen prey to one of these scam artist, selling you their latest "get rich quick" program. Me to. I've bought so many of these programs that I can'nt even recall how many. I don't know why, but I tend to find the "good" in people, and I was "sold" by these marketing schemes time and time again, even after being scammed by another. Finally, after so many disappointments, I got FED UP. I decided to get to the bottom of this fascination we all have with get rich quick programs, and find out if there really were any LEGITIMATE programs for making money.

I literally contacted the administrator of every get rich quick website I could find. Posing as an investor, I managed to convince the owners that I was seriously interested in purchasing their entire website and business. That way, once the dollar signs flashed in their heads, they would give me free access to their member's areas to review what i would be "buying". Well, I was disgusted with 99% of what I found. Many of the owners actually boasted about how many people bought their useless programs. I repeatedly found:

* outdated information * non-working links * links leading to other sites that asked for more money * no help section * no real email support * no refunds

I quickly realized that these so-called Get Rich Quick programs were totally useless. And the owners knew it, yet they were laughing all the way to the bank! Needless to say, I did'nt respond when they asked if I was still intrested in buying their websites. Surprisingly, while sifting through all of the scam artist websites, I was able to locate a couple of individuals that actually ran legitimate programs.

The owners were every day people like you and me that found a way to make extra money working from home on their computers. Their membership areas were impressive, with a good amount of quality information on how to make $100-$200 per day on your computer doing very little work. I even chatted with a few of their customers in several online forums, and they verified that they were making extra money thru the sites. It was like I found a few diamonds in the rough. But don't take my word fo rit, You can visit the 2 sites below. See what you think.

They do charge a minimal fee for access to their program, which is to be expected for any legitimate company that actually has people on staff who are dedicated to helping yopu get started. What a friendly group of people! Anyway, if you do decide you are intrested in either of the two programs below, I advise you to join quickly, as the owners have informed me that they are getting so many new members by word of mouth referrals, that they will be closing off membership completely in the next 2 days. (By the way, you didn't hear this from me!) They have a large enough staff to accommodate many more people, and thye are dedicated to providing excellent service to each person. Well, my search for legitimate Get Rich Quick programs has come to an end. I have to say I was thoroughly disappointed with most of what I found, and I strongly advise that you do not take chances joining any programs other than the two listed below! Whatever you do, I wish you a healthy, prosperous year for you & yours.

Finding Capital - by Matt Bacak

2005-11-16T01:59:00.000-08:00

Starting a business requires funding in the form of start-up capital and initial operating costs. Although personal savings and loans may be adequate to start a small business along with a great idea, some businesses require a lot more capital that can be borne by savings alone. Of course, with greater capital required comes a higher risk level as more sales and revenue would need to be generated by the business in order to support the repayment amount as well as to produce a healthy return on investment percentage.

The second option to obtaining capital would be from people that you know, such as friends, family and relatives. Equity financing could be obtained from there sources, or just as a low-cost loan payable over a certain period of time. This will be a great benefit to you as you won't have to adhere to conditions and the higher interest rates imposed by financing intuitions or other stakeholders.

The most common source of financing would be from lenders such as banks and credit unions. These organizations are in the business of providing financing and will impose a particular interest rate on your loan. Apart from that, they may impose restrictions on conditions on repayments and even on limitations on the usage of funds provided to you. This type of loans are normally known as debt financing, as obtaining capital from these sources increases the debt of your company.

Equity financing can be obtained by other shareholders or venture capitalists. Capital obtained from venture capitalists are regarded as an investment into the company and not as a loan. As venture capitalists are very selective in the projects that they fund, as they want to ensure that their investments pay off multiple-fold. Therefore, venture capitalist funded projects are subjected to scrutiny from venture capitalists in terms of management, decision making and accounting procedures.

The U.S. government has realized that the importance of funding to fuel the growth of small businesses and thus have launched the Small Business Administration organization for this purpose. There are various loans offered based on the nature of the business, the amount of financing required as well as the repayment period. Apart from that, certain types of loans are funded by lending partners of the SBA, with the SBA acting as a guarantor for the loan. This way, a longer loan repayment period can be obtained, with a lower risk on the lender.

There are also many other capital sources that can be obtained by a small business. This would be a loan from a credit card, employee stock ownership, home loan refinancing or even purchase order financing. All of these are just glimpses of the various ways in which money can be obtained to start a business, each of them with varying cost levels. Therefore, it is up to the business owner to decide on the type of financing source would be most suited for the business.

Once you have determined your financing source, you will then need to develop a business plan that you will propose to your potential capital source. This requires expertise in producing a viable and impressive business plan, and therefore needs to be as comprehensive as possible in provided business information, forecasts and budgets.

The first section of the business plan would be on the background of the company. Here, details of the name of the business, the physical location, the amount required for the startup and information on the business owners are provided. Then, the next section will be a holistic explanation on the nature of the business, its uniqueness, the long-term potential as well as the sustainability of the business. A listing of key success factors as well as the strength of the business idea would be ideal to be used to support the business plan.

After that, a listing of the management team of the company, their background and credentials as well as their stake in the company is drafted. Information on the industry and market of the business will follow, where the maturity and opportunities available within the industry is highlighted. Finally, critical financial information, incorporating forecasts and budgeting are listed. This would be an area of utmost importance to anyone evaluating your plan, and thus needs to be done with accuracy to create a positive impression.

About the Author

Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine's e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or http://promotingtips.com

Good to Know Stock Trading Information - by Ispas Marin

2005-11-08T01:57:00.000-08:00

Stock trading is a complex process that may be quite confusing and deceitful to a new trader. Therefore, if you plan to start investing your money in shares, you should first choose a stock trading strategy that is most suitable for yourself.

The major difference between stock trading strategies is based on timeframe. It means that an active day investor will act and react differently than a long term trader. Any stock trading strategy has its own pros and cons so analyse them carefully before starting investing your savings in stock shares.

The day trader is an active player; he is always buying and selling shares inside the timeframe of a day. This kind of stock trading has to advantage of saving you the trouble of facing any overnight risk. If a share's price is experiencing a sudden rise or drop, he can immediately take advantage of the situation. A day trader is usually targeting to get quick profits while facing small risks. The bad thing about this type of stock trading system is that it is very time consuming, you have to be permanently alert and focused on the stock trends. But the trading costs represent the worst thing. The commission tends to be very large when you sell and buy several times a day.

The swing trader is an investor who is focusing on longer periods of trading, meaning a few days or even weeks. This method has the advantage of having few commissions to be paid and the opportunity to experience some important changes in share's price. The main downside of this method is its higher risk due to the longer trading period.

The long term swing trader is an investor much alike the swing trader above. The difference between these two is the longer period of time, several weeks, he is targeting. This method has a good aspect: the long term swing trader is avoiding the inconvenience of being affected by minor trading swings. And the profit is bigger; experienced traders target even a 50% profit using this method.

But bigger profit brings bigger risks; you will be trading over a longer period of time, therefore you will be exposed to bigger trading risks. And it is likely for you to miss many short-term trend changes.

The buy and hold trader is the investor who is buying stocks and hold them for a very long period of time, even for years.

This type of stock trading can bring you a very good profit with a small effort. But be careful when you choose to use this method as it may turn against you if you don't have a good, strong investment strategy. This means that the secret to earn money out of this method is not just holding to the stock and hope for the best, but to analyse the stock trend, the market evolution and to set a profit target.

In conclusion, there are methods of stock trading for any type of person. You just have to analyse every type of method and use the one it represents you best. And remember that making profit on the stock market requires brains, instinct and luck!

Things You Should Know About Stock Trading - by Ispas Marin

2005-11-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

If you consider the possibility of trading stocks, there are some things you should know from the start. The first thing you should know is what exactly stocks trading mean. Well, first of all, stock shares represent a way companies raise capital for their business. A company issues new stock share, people buy them and the money goes into the company's bank accounts to be invested in the company's business. The public has access to these stock shares through a stock broker who is selling and buying them. One thing you should always keep in mind when you start buying shares: their price is constantly changing based on supply and demand balance for those shares. When the supply is high, the price falls; but when the demand is high, the price is going up. This is the golden rule of stocks trading. A raise of price brings money to your pockets.

Stocks trading have changed lately due to technological evolution. Internet has eased the selling and buying process. It is now possible to sell and buy shares instantly. Consequently, the stocks trading process has changed as people chose to sell and buy more often instead of just keeping the shares as they used to do years ago.

Stocks trading are a process that presents both advantages and disadvantages.

First of all, the profit is bigger when you are constantly trading your shares portfolio instead of just keeping the shares for years. There is a huge amount of shares available for buying on the market. But be careful, not all shares have price moving up. You just have to dig up and find those shares whose prices are bringing you profit.

If you don't know what company's shares are better to buy, you can always go for popular companies as Microsoft or IBM. They always bring a sure profit.

Leverage is stocks trading biggest disadvantage. This means that if you have a margined account, the maximum leverage you can get is no more than 4:1. Forex trading and even futures trading offer better deals than stocks trading. Another disadvantage is the fact that a trader who is doing more than 4 trades in a 5 days period is required to hold at least $25, 000 in his/her trading account.

The uptick rule represents another disadvantage of the stocks trading process. You are required to wait for the stock price to tick up before you are aloowed to sell it.

Another big disadvantage is the cost of stocks trading. Although the costs for online trading are low, they still count quite a lot at the end of a trading day.

In conclusion, stocks trading are a process which has its upsides and downsides as any other trading method. The best thing for you is to choose the kind of trading you consider is most suitable for you. But keep in mind that all trading processes (no matter if they are forex trading, future trading or stocks trading) have both advantages and disadvantages.

How to Make Big Money Safely in Stock Market - by Henry Lu

2005-11-04T03:58:00.000-08:00

(1) Stock Market is Tough Place to Make Any Money Consistently

NASDAQ or SP&500 averaged about -6% per year for 5 years between 1999 and 2003. Many individual investors who made killing in the internet bubble period got wiped out during those 5 years. Many who trusted Wall Street experts by investing their life savings into mutual fund had rude awakening after the huge loss and scandals in many of the famous fund names.

Numerous academic studies have shown that more than 90% of mutual funds failed to beat market over the long run and that more than 90% of individual investors lost money in the stock market. Too many people and too many Wall Street experts or mutual fund managers are buying and selling stocks like madmen, with no sound strategy or any hope of long term success. Ironically, they're the ones who create opportunities for prudent, long term oriented investors.

To be successful in stock market, you either have to become an expert yourself or to seek help from real successful experts. Stock market is such a brutal place that there is no room for half-expert or expert pretenders. The truth is that only a small percentage of disciplined and experienced people earn disproportionate huge amount of return, many times at the expense of the rest. It is an insult to "Wall Street expert" professional title when so many of such "expert pretenders" failed to beat index or merely stay break-even.

(2) Majority of huge performance claims in Ads by "Experts" are not real

Too many investment newsletters or hot mutual funds touted their huge past performance and went into disaster later on. Who do you believe? I have been in this stock market long enough to know that majority of their claims are not "real". I will tell you why below.

The first reason is simply due to "cheating". Let's be honest about many Ads. Many of them do not tell the whole and true story of their performance. For example, they would tout huge percentage of gains for certain winning stocks and hide the losing stocks. If you look deeper into their whole portfolio performance, their portfolio performance was not impressive at all. Many investment newsletters will have multiple portfolios in publication. In their ads, they will only mention the performance of the winning portfolio and hide the losing portfolio. The problem with multiple portfolios is that when you subscribe to their newsletters, you would not easily know which portfolio out of many will have best performance in the long run. Which portfolio do you follow? Most important of all, which portfolio out of many does the newsletter author invests for his/her own money? If the newsletter author or the mutual fund manager does not invest into a portfolio himself or herself, how would you trust their services?

Even if past performance of a newsletter or a mutual fund was pretty good, it may not indicate good performance in the future. Many hot technology mutual funds jumped up 100% or more in the 90's and dived to their death after 90% to 99% of loss. Certain investment methods such as growth stocks investing are known to be risky. Momentum investing or day trading methods are known to be extremely risky methods that can wipe out life savings over night. There is simply no free lunch. While a risky method can produce fabulous gain in relative short term, over the long run, a risky method is more likely to make people poorer rather than richer even if a short term gain was gigantic. Gigantic short term gain is just a dangerous stock market trap to lure the inexperienced people into the market. Dreaming for instant satisfaction of huge short term gain overnight with speculation is just a recipe for disaster ahead.

(3) Value Investing is the Only Proven Safe Method

Value mutual funds are well known to have lower volatility than growth mutual funds. Numerous industry and acedemic studies have shown that value stocks as a group performed far better than growth stocks in bear market. Many technology and internet so called "growth stocks" lost 90% to 99% of value in just a couple of years after 2000 while many value stocks went up during the same time frame.

In fact, the single most important element to obtain high investment performance over the long run is to maintain MARGIN OF SAFETY of a portfolio. That is why the greatest investor Warren Buffet once quote "Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.".

(4) Value Investing is the Proven Method to Make Big Money in the Stock Market

I know that I'm going to catch a lot of flak for saying this, and that many people will misunderstand what I'm saying. There are certainly other methods of investing or trading, which made people rich. There are certainly many under- performing value mutual funds, which give people wrong impression that value investing is equivalent of low performance with less risk.

However, I want to emphasize that in fact value investing is investment style that can obtain high performance with less risk. I want to stand by my above statement for the following reasons:

* In the early years of my investment career, I have studied and tried all kinds of well known methods of famous investors or traders, Short term trading, Momentum trading, Technical Analysis, CANSLIM, growth stock long term buy and hold, Random Walk theory, etc. I have been there and I have done there. Evidenced by my past investment performance, value investing is the only method that delivered gigantic investment return consistently for me over past many years. In 2003, I have made more than $150,000 in stock market with value investing method. In 2004, I have made even more money than 2003 so far. With the power of compounding, there is really no upper limit for the investment profit with value investing.

* In 1984, Warren Buffet gave a speech titled The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville, which categorized performance of many famous value investors who beat market year in and year out. Many of people mentioned in this article are legendary multi-billionaire right now. It is true that only a small percentage of investors can beat market consistently. However, it is not by chance at all that so many of students of Benjamin Graham became super riches in America while other methods have not produced that many rich people. It is also not coincident at all that the second richest person in the world is a value investor named Warren Buffet, a student of Benjamin Graham as well.

(5) Value investing will not distract your regular job

The nicest thing about value investing is that it will not distract your regular job if you choose not to stare at the stock market frequently in your office. In fact, it is quite healthy to forget about stock market in your office and worry about that only at your home after work.

Many newbies in the stock market still believe that if they stare at stock price quote closely, they can obtain better chances of winning. It will not. Staring at the stock quote is least important part of this game. In fact, staring closely at the stock price quote is more likely to create a loser rather than a winner because of greed and fear in the stock market. The more one is unable to resist the mad mood of Mr. Market, the more likely one is unable to invest successfully with value investment method.

I am not saying that successful value investing does not require time. The time you will need in value investing depends on the investment vehicle you utilize. If you invest with a value mutual fund, you will not need much time in stock market and you only need to follow up quarterly with your fund's performance. If you are a passive investor of my investment newsletter Blast Investor Real-time Plus and you follow my model portfolio passively, you will only need to pay attention to my infrequent trade alert closely and read my newsletter issues every 2 weeks. If you invest by yourself, you will certainly need hours of time every week to look at hundreds of value stock leads and do your own due diligence by reading 10Q or 10K SEC filling, or by listening to conference calls, or by talking to company's management.

(6) Successful Value Investing is Hard, But You can Do It!

I certainly do not want to make you to believe that value investing is as easy as reading couple of books. Value investing not only requires tons of knowledge and expertise in financial analysis, accounting, US tax law, US bankruptcy law, etc., it also requires real life training of right psychology to fight against greed and fear in the stock market. It is hard to do.

However, successful investing certainly can be done and I have done it over past decade myself. You certainly want to look at my investing articles of this web site for more information.

(7) You need to start early in value investing

Let's be honest about value investing, it is not a get-rich- quick scam and it takes time to really make living with value investing without need of your regular job. You need large starting principle if you want to make living from stock market investment than your salary.

By reading Warren Buffet's article above, you can pretty much guess that successful value investors can achieve 20% to 30% per year performance consistently over the long run regardless of whether market is bear or bull although it is possible to obtain significantly higher performance in earlier investment years due to smaller fund size and luck. 20% or 30% more consistent investment return is already very high return over the long run. Since Peter Lynch retired from Fidelity, you can rarely find a mutual fund with that kind of performance over past many years.

The best approach is to treat stock market investment as side business in addition to your regular job. Your regular job help you pay your bills and help you earn the initial principle for value investing. Once your investment net worth surpasses $100,000, sooner or later you will realize that your regular job salary can hardly keep up with compounded rate of investment return. Too many people naively believe that they can get rich quick with speculative trading method in stock market rather than a hard work with a job and value investing at side. It is a lot easier to make your first $50,000 net worth with a job rather than speculation in stock market.

Even if you do not have large sum of money right now as principle to make really big profit out of value investing, you still want to start value investing early so that you can learn in and out of value investing in your earlier years of investing in the stock market. Successful investment is long term process. The earlier you start investing successfully, the better off your pocketbook will be, and the quicker you will reach your financial freedom. Let's do a quick math, if your starting capital for investing is $50,000 and your annual compouned rate of return is 30%, you will need 9 years to surpass $500,000 net worth. However, to turn $500,000 net worth into 1 million, you only need 3 more years, think hard!

About the Author

Webmasters and Ezine Publishers: Free professional content - pre-licensed to you..

You are invited to use any or all of these value investing articles in your publication or website. The only requirement is the inclusion of the following, after each article...

* Article by Henry Lu of BlastInvest LLC, a premium investment newsletter publisher in Connecticut. Visit http://www.BlastInvest.com/ for FREE "how-to" value investing ass

Stock Markets Of The World - by Ron King

2005-11-04T03:54:00.000-08:00

"Stock Market" is a term that is used to refer both to the physical location for buying and selling stocks, and to the overall activity of the market within a certain country. When you hear "The stock market was down today," it refers to the combined activity of many stock exchanges.

The major exchanges in the US are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (Amex), and NASDAQ.

The correct term for the physical location for trading stocks is the "Stock Exchange." A country may have many different stock exchanges. Usually a particular company's stocks are traded on only 1 exchange, although large corporations may be listed in several.

Investing Around The World

There are stock exchanges located throughout the world, and it is possible to buy or sell stocks on any of them. The only restriction is the oparating hours of each exchange. Both the NYSE and NASDAQ, for example, operate from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.

Other exchanges have similar opening hours based on their local time. When you trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, your order will be executed sometime between 9:30 pm and 4:00 am New York time.

The locations of the major stock exchanges of the world are:

Japan (Tokyo Stock Exchange) India (Bombay Stock Exchange) Europe (London Stock Exchange, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, SWX Swiss Exchange) the People's Republic of China (Shanghai Stock Exchange) United States.

Stock Market Fluctuations

The economic health of a country will strongly influence its stock market. When the economy is doing well the market is bullish. Bull markets occur during times of high economic production, low unemployment and low inflation. Bear markets, on the other hand, follow downturns in the economy. When inflation and unemployment are rising, stock prices are usually falling.

Stock price fluctuations are also driven by supply and demand, which in turn are dependent to a great degree on investor psychology. Seeing a stock price rise rapidly can cause investors to jump on the bandwagon, and this rush to buy drives the price up even faster. A falling price can have a similar effect in the other direction. These are short-term fluctuations. Stock prices tend to normalize after such runs.

The stock exchange is only 1 of many opportunities for people to invest. Other popular markets include the Foreign Exchange Market (FOREX), the Futures Market, and the Options Market.

FOREX: World's Largest Market

The FOREX is the biggest (in terms of value) investment market in the world. FOREX traders buy 1 currency against another and can profit from small changes in currency value. Most FOREX trades are entered and exited in 1 24-hour span, and traders have to keep a close watch on the market in order to make profitable trades.

The Futures Market

The Futures Market is a market of contracts to buy and sell certain goods at specified prices and times. It exists because buyers and sellers of goods wish to lock in prices for future delivery, but market conditions can make the actual futures contract fluctuate considerably in value.

Most investors in the futures market are not interested in the actual goods -- only in the profit that can be realized from trading the contracts.

The Options Market

The Options Market is similar to the Futures Market in that an option is a contract that gives you the right (but not the obligation) to trade a stock at a certain price before a specified date. These options can be traded on their own or purchased as a form of insurance against price fluctuations within a certain time frame.

Stocks: Low Risk, Long-Term

All 3 of these markets are considered quite risky without considerable knowledge and experience. They also require close monitoring of market movements. Stocks, on the other hand, are less risky because movements of the market are usually more gradual. Although short-term investment strategies are possible, most people view stocks as long-term investments.

How to Choose the Right Bank Account for Your Needs - by John Mussi

2005-11-04T03:53:00.000-08:00

Opening a new bank account is a major step in your life, and as such it should not be taken lightly. Depending upon the use that you have intended for the account, certain options might be very beneficial to you while others might not be beneficial at all.

By taking a little time to consider exactly how you plan on using the new account, you might find that the account that you had in mind isn't the best option available to you... or you might confirm that the new account is exactly what you need.

Below is some additional information on some of the most common types of bank accounts, so that you can take the time to compare some of the advantages and disadvantages of each and decide which type of account is best to meet your needs.

Chequeing

One of the more common types of accounts, chequeing accounts allow you to write cheques or use a cheque card in place of carrying cash. The amount of the purchase is deducted from the balance of your account, and you are usually allowed quite a bit of access to the account over the course of the month if not unlimited access.

The main drawback of chequeing accounts is the fact that unless you keep records of all of your transactions it can be quite easy to become overdrawn which leads to fines and other fees.

Savings

Quite possibly the most common account type, savings accounts are designed to assist you in saving money for the future. These accounts usually offer decent interest rates and may have several options available concerning accessibility to the account... the number of withdrawals allowed each month is severely limited, however.

Money Market

A money market account, sometimes referred to as an investment account, uses the value of stock market investments to determine the interest rate on the account. These accounts are most often used to have a balance from which to make investments in the market, though some banks also use them as a separate account option as well.

The number of withdrawals allowed may vary from bank to bank, especially depending upon the intended use of the account.

Certificate of Deposit

When you want to find the best interest rates and terms on savings, you might want to look at getting a certificate of deposit. These accounts are designed for savings over a period of time... the term of the certificate is set when it is opened, and it gains interest until that period has expired.

Fines and penalties often apply for early withdrawal, though most certificates of deposit have a brief period each year that allows for withdrawal without the penalties.

Credit Lines

Credit cards and lines of credit are also common types of accounts, but unlike the other account types listed here they are actually forms of loans. When you open a credit line or receive a credit card, you are given a credit limit... this is the total amount that you can borrow at any given time.

Any items or services purchased using a credit card or credit line must be repaid with interest, though on-time payments are reported as a positive report toward your credit score.

The main drawback of credit cards and credit lines is that it can be easy to use them as an additional source of funds instead of merely a loan, and this sort of use can quickly build up into a significant debt.

You may freely reprint this article provided the following author's biography (including the live URL link) remains intact:

About the Author

John Mussi is the founder of Direct Online Loans who help homeowners find the best available loans via the www.directonlineloans.co.uk website.

What is "Shorting Stocks"? - by Cory Bain

2005-11-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

What is "Shorting Stocks"?

The whole idea of shorting stocks is to make money from stocks that are going down in price. When you short stocks, you are essentially selling stocks that you have borrowed, in other words you do not personally own them.

First, you need to have a margin account in order to sell stocks short. A margin account allows the broker to extend credit to you, based on Federal guidelines. You must have at least 50% of the amount involved in short selling the stock as cash in your account. This shows that you have sufficient funds available to buy the stock back should it go against you. Lets look at an example.

ZYX Co. is trading at $23.00

You would need $1150 in your account to short sell 100 shares. You would receive a credit of $2300 less commissions. Overall, you would have a credit balance of $3450 in your account.

ZYX Co. goes to $18.00

You've made $500. Your credit balance is still $3450, but the market value of the stock is only $1800. So your equity is $1650 ($3450-$1800). Your paper profit at this point is $500.

Although you will always pay interest on money you borrow from the broker, you may be able to negotiate a better rate if you're a preferred client or have a sizable account. You will also be charged by the broker for any cash or dividend payments on your short positions.

Assuming you are an average person without any insider information, the best time to short sell in general, is when the overall stock market is in a down trend. Even the best stocks go down in Bear Markets. If you're just starting out, take small short positions, never short a stock that is rising in price, and use stop-losses to avoid big losses on your short positions.

To learn more about various investing topics, checkout www.choose-to-be-rich.com

Tax Lien Investing - Secrets of the Wealthy - by Gregory Nirshberg

2005-10-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

Most people have not heard of tax lien investing. Yet there are millions of people across the country earning safe, secure, and most importantly, high percentage interest returns by investing in tax lien certificates. To put it simply, investing in tax liens is an easy, high profit way to invest in real estate, without needing large sums of money to do it.

So what are tax lien certificates?

Each year property taxes are due on all properties. The local government uses the money from property taxes to pay for various things in the community. If an owner doesn't pay their property taxes, the government still needs that money to be able to run their county effectively! So what's a government to do? They levy a tax lien against that property and auction it off at a tax lien sale. An investor, YOU, will purchase that tax lien with the understanding that you will earn a certain percentage interest rate. When the owner of the property finally pays off their taxes(plus penalty fees), the county then cuts a check to the investor for the principle amount invested, plus any interest or penalty fees accrued. The county makes out because they get the money they need to run things, the home owner or business makes out because they are given more time to pay off their taxes, and the investor makes out because they just earned a lot of money without really doing much at all!

Why should I invest in tax lien certificates?

Safety

Tax liens are sanctioned and run by the government. Your investment is protected by state law and secured by actual real estate! What other kind of investment option provides that kind of backing? Take a look at it from the other end. People do NOT want to lose their homes. So odds are they'll pay off their taxes, thus paying you off. And if they don't...you just may end up with a free property.

Minimal Competition

The great thing about tax lien investing is that, for the most part, it's a completly unknown investing option. Most people think that stocks, bonds, mutual funds, CDs, money markets, and traditional real estate investing are the only ways to invest their money. So what you have is a very small number of people "in the know" making tons of money in an extremely low risk form of investing.

High Return on Investment

Your return on investment will vary largely depending on what state and county you are in. But to give you a rough idea, interest rates will vary from about 5% to 25%. Now, given how safe and easy this is, these kind of interest rates alone would be worth the investment. But there's more. In most cases you won't have to wait a whole year to earn your 15% interest. If the property owner pays off their taxes in one month, you'll still earn that same 15% interest, but you'll get it one months time. Freeing up your money to invest again. Lets say you take that money, and each month invest in a tax lien certificate and get paid off right away. That's 15% interest, 12 times, giving you a final return of 180% over the period of the whole year. Because interest rates are always calculated over the period of one year, this is what's called your effective return on investment. This is why investors love tax lien investing. In a state like Texas your effective return on investment can be up to 300%!

Examining the alternatives

Here are some alternative investing options that the majority of americans invest in. Included with them is an average interest rate and the degree of safety of the investment.

Savings account - 1% - safe
Money market - 1-2% - safe
CDs - 1-4% - safe(interest rate depends on length of CD
Stock market - average growth 11% - unsafe, percentages vary wildly from year to year
Tax lien certificates - 5%-300% - Safe. Government run. Enforced by state law. Fixed interest rates.

The ultimate win/win situation

So what happens if the owner doesn't pay off their taxes? Well in many states you would initiate a foreclosure on the property. The property gets auctioned off at a tax deed sale, and as the tax lien certificate holder, you get paid off first. But in other states the property is signed over to you free and clear! That's right, your small investment geared to earn 15% just earned you a free house with which you can do as you please. Live in it, rent it out, sell it, whatever you want.

Conclusion

So why should you invest in tax lien certificates? Because it simply doesn't make sense not to. If you'd like to learn more about the ins and outs of tax lien certificates or specifically about tax lien auctions, more detailed information is available.

Contrarian Strategies: Selecting Small Capitalization Stocks by Debra Fiakas

2005-10-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION

Contrarian investors are often ridiculed by the rest of the investment community for their stubborn, illogical view on the stock market. When everyone else is running for the sidelines, contrarians are buying and when the rest of Wall Street is bidding up everything with a ticker symbol, contrarians are yelling Sell, Sell, Sell! As unreasonable as that behavior might seem, one has to ask what is logical about the mainstream viewpoint. Is it logical that a stock should become a better purchase as it becomes more expensive? Would you use that model to buy a car or a house?

In this paper, we take a look at the stubborn contrarian and compare his viewpoint to conventional investing methods. We also discuss contrarian strategies for investing in small capitalization companies.

CONTRARIAN STRATEGIES DEFINED

Those who follow contrarian investing strategies believe they bring much needed rationality to the otherwise emotional and temperamental market. To prove the rationality of their strategies, contrarians simply point to their success. For example, economists Werner DeBondt and Richard Thaler showed in a recent study that contrarian strategies that buy stocks with low long-term returns and sell those with high returns earn abnormal profits over a holding period ranging from three to five years. (1) Additionally, several recent papers have demonstrated that long-term contrarian strategies are not significantly riskier than average. (2)

Unfortunately, other than arguing that they are the most rational of investors, contrarians appear to have little agreement in defining their strategies. All contrarians believe they are true follows of the age old investment philosophy of "buying low and selling high." However, just how they identify low and high is open to considerable discussion.

CONTRARIANS PAST AND PRESENT

When asked how he became so wealthy, Meyer Rothschild, a German banker and patriarch of the legendary House of Rothschild, attributed his success to buying when "there was blood in the streets." The eminent financier said he waited for real panic to manifest before he moved. For the elder Rothschild, who lived through the Napoleonic wars, his reference to blood may have been as literal as it was figurative.

Thankfully, contrarian principals apply even without bodily harm. One quite famous and much more contemporary contrarian is Warren Buffet, founder of the Berkshire Hathaway investment company. Buffet is a "marshmallow" in comparison to Rothschild, but his success is no less impressive. Buffet has guided his fund to the highest share price in the U.S. stock market by looking for dividends among out of favor stocks. He has opined that he does not believe in the price/earnings multiple. Interestingly, Berkshire shares trade among the highest price/earnings multiples in the market, bid up by the cult-like following Buffet has accumulated.

George Soros, currently chairman of Soros Fund Management, LLC, is another closely-watched investor. Soros does not consider himself a contrarian investor, but his track record suggests he has a penchant for betting against the market. In 1970, Soros started the Quantum Fund with Jim Rogers, a contrarian investor-philosopher from Hungary. Soros is famous for going short the British pound and earning $1 billion in a single day in 1992, now known as Britain's Black Wednesday.

Anyone interested in the contrarian viewpoint might find Jim Rogers' book, Adventure Capitalist - The Ultimate Investor's Road Trip, an interesting read. Rogers, who always wore a bow tie at the office, based the book on his casual drive through a hundred-plus countries around the world between 2000 and 2003. The book is not a fast read, but Rogers tosses aside conventional thinking and gives a thumbs-down to investing in Russia and India. Instead, he picks China, Uruguay and Mongolia as preferred alternatives.

The Less-Than-Famous- or Astonishingly-Rich

Jim Rogers can afford to thumb his nose at convention. He started out as an immigrant with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and retired in his late thirties with billions. Not every contrarian investor becomes so wildly wealthy, but they do meet with success. For example, we found two online advisors for individuals, InvestmentU.com and GetFolio.com, which both tout strong performance track records that beat market benchmarks.

The number of contrarian funds proliferated in the U.S. in the mid-1990s. In 1996, Carl Marker, founder of IMS Capital Management, launched his own no-load mutual fund. Marker positioned the IMS Capital Value Fund as a value-oriented, contrarian fund focusing on Fortune 500 companies. Likewise Robertson Stephens started its Contrarian Fund in the mid-1990s. The popularity of the approach has not waned. Nor is it limited to U.S. funds. Tata Mutual Funds based in Mumbai, India launched their Tata Contra Fund in July 2005. They plan to invest in fundamentally strong companies using a contrarian approach to stock selection.

Lighthouse Opportunity Fund, which is managed by Lighthouse Capital in Houston, was once known as Lighthouse Contrarian Fund but the managers found that the word "contrarian" is commonly misinterpreted or is unfamiliar to investors. It was a change in name only and the fund managers continue to use what they describe as "contrarian thinking" by "looking in areas out of favor with the investing public." The fund still invests in undervalued companies that are technically aggressive, fiscally conservative and globally competitive.

Nonetheless, we found a number of funds using contrarian management strategies and not afraid to make it known. David Decker manages the Janus Contrarian Fund by investing "where others are not." Since inception in 2000, the fund has earned 8.1%. The Intrepid Contrarian Fund of industry giant JP Morgan has been a little more successful in its two-year history, returning just over 20% after sales charges.

CONTRARIAN STRATEGIES TO SELECT SMALL-CAP STOCKS

Widely accepted thinking in the capital markets is the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which holds that the market prices of public companies are reflective of all information and are therefore efficient representations of value. Security prices revert back to the mean as soon as public information becomes available.

We certainly do not disagree with the theory in principal. Yet we know that while the market may be perfect, communications and financial processes are not. Relevant financial information appears slow to diffuse into the marketplace for those companies with no research coverage, little sponsorship by investment bankers, or limited ownership by professional investors. Since these are often the circumstances for smaller companies, we believe the road to price efficiency is somewhat circuitous in the small-cap sector. Indeed, recent studies have shown that share prices will reflect new information more rapidly as the number of informed investors increases. (3) These studies show there is a delayed reaction to both common and firm-specific information among small firms, whereas large firms evidence more timely reaction. Analyst coverage in particular appears important in adjusting stock prices to new information. (4)

Since complete information diffusion is reached at a much slower pace for the smaller company, we believe the contrarian investor has time in the small-cap sector to ply his "stubborn, illogical" style. Indeed, empirical evidence has shown that contrarian portfolio returns are stronger for firms which have a lower rate of information diffusion. One recent study using NYSE and AMEX listed securities found that the average return difference between contrarian portfolios in the smallest and the largest capitalization quintile stocks was 0.46% per month. (5)

Out of Favor Stocks

The contrarian is interested in stocks that the consensus does not wish to own. The stocks may appear relatively inexpensive based on a discount to its peer group or the market average. Harry Domash's stock selection service, WinningInvesting.com, uses the number of analysts' buy/sell ratings as an indicator of whether a stock is in or out of favor as an alternative to the traditional valuation ratios.

Capitalizing on Overreaction

Many investors believe the stock market consistently overreacts to new information, resulting in dramatic price reversals. Some contrarians believe they can make substantial profits in the short-term by buying the apparent losers and selling winners. Investors using this approach may find helpful the book Stock Market Overreaction and Fundamental Valuation by Matthias Kulpmann. The book investigates evidence of reversals in the cross section of stock returns. Kulpmann finds that reversals in stock returns are paralleled by movements in fundamentals.

Avoiding the Crowd

While Meyer Rothschild took advantage of the mistakes or misfortunes of the crowd, modern day contrarians find reward in simply avoiding the crowd. John Summa has written a moderately entertaining how-to book for such contrarians called Trading Against the Crowd - Profiting from Fear & Greed in Stock, Futures, and Options Markets. Summa puts crowd psychology to use in spelling out a variety of practical trading strategies such as Squeeze Play I and II, Tsunami Sentiment Wave, and the Fourth Estate. (The names are the entertaining part.)

The Art of Contrary Thinking by Humphrey Neill is another instructive volume on investor sentiment. Neill described "the crowd" as most enthusiastic and optimistic when it should be cautious and prudent and fearful when it should be bold. He uses the famous Tulipmania case in late 16th Century Holland as an example of what happens when everyone thinks alike, i.e. behaves according to the crowd. Neill advocates that the successful investor capitalizes on knowledge of crowd behavior.

Deep Value

Perhaps a company looks expensive to the rest of the market based on earnings or return on capital. Yet a contrarian finds the company inexpensive on an absolute basis, trading at a discount to private market value. The deep-value contrarian looks beyond the obvious to the root cause of earnings weakness to determine if it is temporary condition and likely to reverse.

CONCLUSION

The contrarian investment style is heavily dependent upon intensive research that goes beyond the summary data provided by financial services or developed internally by summarizing company reported financial information. Investigating a possible investment involves communicating directly with company management, suppliers and customers to determine the company's competitive position. Relative to other investment strategies, it may be time consuming to initiate a position. Yet where pricing inefficiencies correct more slowly, contrarian investors have the time to complete the investigation that others are unwilling to undertake. We believe this makes the contrarian's "stubborn and illogical" approach particularly effective in the small-cap sector.

Debra Fiakas, CFA

Business Intelligence Advancements Transform Corporate Decision-Making by RL Fielding

2005-09-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

Companies have long considered data collection and analysis to be fundamental activities for long term strategic planning. Before the rise of the Information Age, most decision making was based on guess-work or trial-and-error practices. Businesses seeking to achieve a sustainable advantage over their competition quickly turned to information management systems for detailed data analysis. These systems and methods have evolved to what is now known by the broader term "business intelligence" or "BI". Business intelligence refers to in-depth analysis of company data for better decision-making. The technology and processes that make this analysis possible take unwieldy collections of information and translate them into organized, readily-accessible, human-readable compilations of data. With an effective BI tool, companies can easily track their own operations, their customers' activity patterns, and industry trends. These fact-based assessments help companies work toward specific goals with confidence.

The business intelligence process can be broken down into the following three stages:

1. Data 2. Information 3. Knowledge

Raw data is gathered and processed into information. The information must be filtered and arranged into meaningful patterns. The knowledge drawn from that data analysis helps to form the business intelligence of a corporation.

Business intelligence needs vary across industries. The functional area and particular processes under examination play a large role in the type of data gathered and the range of knowledge sought. Common functional areas include: Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, Operations, and Finance.

Sales and marketing departments track products, customers, demographics, promotions, sales force, order type, and other related fields. Human resources groups often look to measure employee, organizational, and departmental issues. Assembly speed, warehouse stock, manufacturer and supplier cost, and shift productivity are the domain of operations management. Finance departments will closely watch data on topics such as currency standards, account information, and industry trends.

In the field of business intelligence, staff organizational levels also come into play. Those in lower organizational levels are more likely to focus on measures of short-term, correctable performance while more senior employees may measure high-level trends instead of absolutes. Of course, both of these types of measures are important to gauging a company's relative success.

Good business intelligence means balanced information. Too much or too little data is not useful. Corporations can focus on the most crucial improvements by setting reasonable limits on the information gathered, coordinating the efforts around a company-wide strategy, and employing business intelligence systems.

Intelligence support systems can improve day-to-day business decision-making. Once a company has decided to adopt a business intelligence strategy, the first step in the process is to decide on goals for the initiative. After a central goal has been agreed upon, such as providing shareholders with a return above the industry-average, it is important to assess where overall decision making can be improved and to target the most valuable areas.

To facilitate their efforts, businesses may choose from a variety of intelligence support products on the market. Common tools include: data warehouses, business performance management, data mining or KDD (knowledge-discovery in databases), document warehouses, text mining, data visualization, scorecarding, and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing). These products work to sort through raw data and contribute to informed decision making. Some of these tools can produce compelling results when applied in tandem. For example, data and document warehouses used in tracking a store's inventory can be linked to show both company data on past sales trends and external articles containing consumer opinions, thus expanding the pool of information available for decision-support and providing a more complete understanding of the situation.

Software-oriented business intelligence is seen by some as the next phase in the movement. Companies with limited Information Technology (IT) resources or whose data is held in disparate data sources can rely on software such as DecisionCentric® or Decision Analyzer®. Both products are produced by Decision Technology, Inc.. They enable users to analyze data, create reports, and export files to other applications like Acrobat, Word, and Excel. DecisionCentric®, in particular, is a powerful business intelligence application for small to midsize companies. At its heart is an EII engine optimized for small and midsize organizations. This allows organizations to postpone data warehouse implementations or extend the power and reach of any existing data warehouse. Moreover, the software program offers a free-form reporting tool that does the heavy lifting of report design to make the end-user's job easier.

Business intelligence is prevalent in virtually every level of corporate dealings, in every industry. Technological advances require companies to make 'round-the-clock decisions at a moment's notice. The companies that can develop winning strategies in the face of increased competition and mountains of data will triumph over their competitors.

Business intelligence products guarantee companies the confidence of knowing the current fact-based information they need will always be right at their fingertips.

About Decision Technology, Inc. Decision Technology business intelligence software is the ideal solution for organizations with limited IT resources, and whose data are confined in disparate databases or operational systems. Since 1985, Decision Technology has provided organizations with intuitive, information retrieval software for decision support applications. Its newest business intelligence software product, DecisionCentric, provides Enterprise Information Integration with query and reporting tools optimized for small and medium size organizations. It enables users to integrate, publish and analyze enterprise data across disparate data sources - without expensive ETL technology.

How To Use Ebay To Grow Your Other Businesses. by Kirsten Hawkins

2005-09-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

Most of the people who make money from eBay don't actually make all of that money on eBay. There are all sorts of ways you can use eBay to give your existing businesses a helping hand.

The Supply Side.

If you have any leftover stock or used items from another business you run, then why not sell them on eBay? You can make this a regular thing, using it to get rid of things that won't sell for the premium you ask for in a shop, or items that are no longer in demand in the town or city where your business is based.

You can really make a lot of money this way, if you know what you're doing. You will, of course, already be an expert in the items you're selling, as you use them in your business, and you'll know that the items are of high enough quality to be sellable. This is a whole new market for your old inventory!

Not only that, of course, but remember that your good eBay reputation will make you a great buyer! If there's ever anything you want to get for your business, the chances are you'll be able to get it on eBay for a discount.

The Sales Side.

Here, though, is where the true power of eBay lies. eBay give you an 'About Me' page, where you can write anything you like and link anywhere you like. This means that you can get traffic to your business' website by linking to your website from your About Me page and linking to your About Me page from each auction.

To create an About Me page, just click on 'Community' on the toolbar, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'Create an About Me page'. You then get the option to either enter your own HTML or let eBay guide you through the process. All you need to do is write a little about your website, link to it, and you're done - you'll notice that more people start to come to your site straight away.

There are thousands of people who swear by this technique to drive traffic from eBay to their website - with a little persuasive sales copy on your site, they say, you can sell directly to buyers, cutting out the eBay middleman. What's more, all the traffic you'll get will be targeted - because the people who click through were interested in your auction to begin with.

This can be a really powerful technique, especially if you've already got an e-commerce site. Even if you haven't, you might find it worth your time to set up a website that does nothing but list your eBay inventory with a few dollars off each item, with a PayPal 'Buy Now' button for each item. Then simply make the link to your About Me page read 'Visit my website for even more bargains!', and you're done.

Now that you've seen how to drive visitors to your website, maybe you'd like a little help getting your auction in front of buyers. That's why our next email will show you the secrets of taming the eBay search engine.

Six Things To Do In A High Risk Market by Tom Mullooly

2005-09-28T05:01:00.000-07:00

When the market turns against you, what should you do? Sell everything? We discussed that choice in a recent column. Selling everything draws your "line in the sand" and announces that you have determined there is no future for you in the market.

There are other steps you can take when things start moving against you. Here are 6 actions you take today to help protect the money you've worked hard to get. In my next article, I will share several more ways you can help protect your stock market and mutual fund investments.

1. Decide at what price you will buy the stock or fund if it pulls back. Take a long look at where the stock has been the last few months. Has it gone up without any kind of break? It may be due for a pullback. WRITE DOWN your reasons for buying and the ideal price you'd like to own it at...and be patient. If you miss it, you miss it. Don't chase stocks.

2. Manage your stops. Re-examine where your stop orders are and decide if you can live with getting stopped out. These days, stop orders usually need to be renewed or revised every 60 days. If your stock has moved up nicely of late, you should move your stop up as well.

3. Buy puts on stocks. You may own a stock where you have a profit. You may really have no intention of selling the stock soon. But you know that the individual stock may have gone up too far, too fast. Buy a put on the position. It is considered protection on your original investment. If the stock falls, the puts should climb in value. This will offset the drop you have (on paper) in the underlying stock. And if you're right, and take a profit in the put, you may have enough cash from the put sale to buy more shares of that stock at a good price, now that it has dropped.

4. Buy half of what you would normally buy. You want to tread lightly in markets when the risk is high. Buy half of what you'd normally think of doing. You're automatically keeping more cash than usual on the sidelines, which is smart decision in a risky market.

5. Invest in a basket instead of an individual stock. Exchange-traded funds are a great way to do this. If you feel strongly that a current theme will work, but are unsure about the market, this may be your ticket. Thinking about swapping a single stock for a basket. You'll get diversified since you own a basket of names instead of one single stock.

6. When stocks start to fall, think about selling stocks short. It's not for the faint of heart, since being "short" leaves you on the hook, because your loss is unlimited. But remember, stocks don't just go in one direction. What makes it an interesting market is that stocks go up AND down.

One decision you won't see on the list is the choice to do nothing, and just "sit it out" or ride it out. You've worked hard to get where you are financially, the last thing you should do is sit idle and let the market take your profits away from you.

There are other methods you can employ to help reduce the risk in your account, which we will get into in the next article.

What is the stock market?

2005-09-14T04:58:00.000-07:00

Simple like that: What is the stock market?

There are multiple definitions for this and among the best I have found are the following:

General term for the organized trading of stocks through exchanges.
A general term used to refer to the organized trading of securities through various exchanges and through the over-the-counter market. A "stock exchange" is a specific form of a stock market, a physical location where stocks and bonds are bought and sold, such as the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ or American Stock Exchange.
A stock market is a market for the trading of publicly held company stock and associated financial instruments (including stock options, convertibles and stock index futures).

I have enumerated just three of them and I hope with the help of my readers we will find out more about this amazing part of the global economy.