My Finance Blog » Investing

Wholesaling Houses: Where should you start FIRST? — Real Estate Investing Tips & Training

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:10:54 +0000

The-Flip-Man.com ……… ……. Wholesaling Houses Where should you start FIRST? — Real Estate Investing Tips & Training …… I will personally Teach & Mentor you on How to Flip Houses with no credit or cash. Enjoy the videos and audios of deals I’ve done and FREE REAL ESTATE…

Real Estate Investing Training Video – How To Wholesale Houses Part 2

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:11:45 +0000

Real Estate investing video training www.localmentor.com Michael Jake discusses how to simplify wholesaling houses. Simple Steps to Wholesale a House for Cash in less than 2 weeks (more)

How do you go about investing in a stock?

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:15:52 +0000

I am in my early twenties and want to get started with investing. What are some resources that are available to learn about investing?

Is putting the work into investing in the stock market worth it?

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:13:30 +0000

Keep in mind I am 17 years old. I’ve heard plenty of stories of those who’ve made millions through the stock market, but I don’t want to invest every free hour I have in an attempt to make money, which may not even be that profitable. Do you think the hard work and time involved in investing into the stock market is worth it?

Wholesaling Houses: Where should you start FIRST? — Real Estate Investing Tips & Training

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:36:27 +0000

what is the best way to start investing on a fixed income?

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:11:23 +0000

My wife and I are both on Social Security.We dont have alot of money,but enough to invest $50 to $100 each month.We are in our early 40′s and would like to have a little nest for the future.I am very green when it comes to investing.I am a little leary about investment firms. I have heard some bad things.Dont know which ones i can trust.I would like a deversified portfolio just dont know how to safely deversify it.Also could you recomend a good book to get me started in understanding the investing world a little better.(stocks,bonds,mutuial funds,401′s,Ira’s)ect…A little advice would be greatly apriciated. THANK YOU TRENT& GINA. SAC, CAL.

Tips and Techniques to Successful Investing

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:41:12 +0000

The main objective of any investment is to make money and gain from a profit. Experienced investors usually study market trends before investing. However, inexperienced investors depend on the advice from financial advisors and brokers to guide their investments. Money always grows with time in the stock markets. A successful and profitable investment involves a lot of patience and constant monitoring of market fluctuations. In order for an investment to be profitable, it is important to adopt flexibility and diversification of funds. Listed below are some important points-to-remember:
Flexibility: Investors need to be flexible with their investments. Investment strategies involve regular analysis and reviews of the financial market. Amateur investors should seek help from financial advisors on their investment portfolio. Long-term planning and asset allocation are very important to an investment portfolio. Mutual funds, variable annuities and variable universal life insurance or VUL products provide good ground for investment flexibility. Another type of investment is Survivorship Variable Universal Life Insurance or SVUL. SVUL covers two people in one life insurance policy. The benefit is payable after the death of the last surviving insured person. The investment portfolio should be designed to help diversify the investments.
Diversification: Diversification involves making different investments to gain from higher returns. This risk-management technique of investing helps to diversify the investments in stocks, bonds and cash. It does not waive off the risk of loss totally, but it definitely creates more avenues for profit. The investor can invest in a number of different companies, foreign securities and mutual funds. Even if one company declares a loss, the investor still has the other investments to fall back on. Diversification is a good method to counter the risk involved in the total loss of an investment.
Simple Approach: It is safe for amateur investors to follow simple guidelines for investing money. Immature investors should not invest in companies that they are not very sure about and haven’t researched. A simple approach to investment is to stake money in recognized companies that offer high returns and show a consistent growth pattern. It pays to conduct a research on the company before making an investment.
Be Disciplined: Market trends fluctuate due to several reasons. An investor’s judgment should not be based on momentary instability. It is not advisable to make a change in the adopted strategy mid way. However, regular analysis and timely reviews help to keep abreast with important information of the stock market.
Invest Smartly: Investors need to be well informed and alert all the time. Cautious long-term planning is as important as being patient. Investors ought to be methodical when following an investment strategy. It is equally important to understand and monitor the economics and trend of a company. The investor should be updated regularly on business, political and stock related news to learn the political implications that may affect the company in future.
Investments carry the element of risk and therefore investors are advised to investigate before investing. It helps to follow the general guidelines of investment and invest smartly.

Investment Clubs for Kids: Investing Isn't Just for Grown-ups

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:12:32 +0000

Investment clubs can be a fantastic opportunity for kids to learn about investing. As they learn about investments they will develop a better understanding of money.

How to get started

The first step is to find a kid-friendly investment club. Browse investment club websites to determine if there are special sections devoted to teaching children or teens about investing. Speak with your neighbors, friends and colleagues to find out if they know of any investment clubs for kids. If you can’t find a suitable club you can start your own. Consider getting together with other parents to start an investment club for kids.

Choosing a portfolio

One of the hardest things with any investment club is deciding on the specific investments to make. Children have less money to work with than adults so it is important to stick to stocks that are well within their budget. What is most fun for kids is to choose stocks from companies they are familiar with. Think about clothing, food, computer, game software or other companies they use products from.

Learning about stocks

Before deciding on what stocks to invest, teach your kids to learn more about the companies they are considering. Children can learn more about a company from its website, by reading its annual report or by looking at its daily stock reports and trends.

Finding money to invest in stocks

Children can start by saving their allowance to invest in stocks. Open a savings account at a local bank so they can easily make periodic deposits. Teach children to save part of the money they receive as birthday or Christmas gifts. Older children can be paid extra for completing additional chores around the house. When children are old enough to work outside the home encourage them to take on a part-time job. Parents can help children by setting up a matching program where parents will match the investment amount the child has.

Keeping track of investments

Choose an investment club that offers interactive charts and reports. This will allow you and your child to record and keep track of their investments. Set aside a certain day of the week to spend an hour looking at how the stocks are doing. Make sure to stay on top of the investments and sell stocks when necessary. Follow the market trends using the newspaper or Internet to determine how you think the chosen stocks will perform. Teach children to make a connection between current events and stock trends.

10 Surefire Ways To Make An Investment Fortune, Part I

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:12:49 +0000

People have often asked me how I always pick stocks that end up with 20% gains in a couple of months or triple-digit gains in a year. They ask me is it luck? Maybe with a couple of stocks it may have been luck, but luck doesn’t play a role in buying ten or more stocks in the same year that earn more than 80% returns. The key is not to follow the herd, stop listening to the investment talking heads, and to learn an investment system and then be unwaveringly courageous in applying your system. There have been times family and friends have asked me for advice, and I have told them, “Buy this stock. I guarantee you, you will not lose money.”
Now I know that there are no guarantees in the stock market, but if you follow certain strategies, you can be 90% sure that the stock will appreciate. With this particular agricultural stock, it was almost the perfect stock, and I was 99.9% sure that the stock would produce monumental gains. Sure enough, the stock exploded almost 130% higher in about a year. And this stock was not some risky penny stock trading at less than a dollar a share. This stock was trading at about $70 a share at the time I advised my friends to buy it. So below are the 10 surefire rules I employ to build enormous gains in investment portfolios.
(1)Buy When Fear is Rampant, Sell When Mania is the Greatest
Every investing course should be accompanied by a psychology course as well. The most difficult thing to do in investing is to buy more when fear and panic is rampant and to sell when mania is the highest. Stock markets and asset classes cycle in peaks and troughs. Most people will not buy stocks until after stocks are plastered all over the news and after they have just risen by 30%, 40%, 50% or more, believing that they will rise higher forever. Buying at the troughs when nobody is talking about a stock or during steep corrections provides a low-risk, high-reward setup for your portfolio.
(2)Learn What Your Neighbor is Doing, Watch Investment Shows on MSNBC and Bloomberg on TV, Listen to the Recommendations of Your Financial Consultant – Then Make Sure that You Don’t Have a Single Thing in Common With Their Strategies
If you are one of the thundering sheep herd and perpetually follow the mindless actions of others, you are virtually guaranteed to lose money or forever relegate your portfolio to average to below-average returns. The surest way to build an investment fortune is to buy asset classes and stocks when nobody is discussing them and to sell them when everyone is talking about them. This requires a nose for market timing. Is market timing impossible as all the global investment firms always tell you? Hardly. Learning what asset classes and individual stocks are poised to skyrocket every year just takes a little bit of time, but is really not that difficult. Since time is a commodity that Private Wealth Mangers and Financial Consultants employed by large commercial investment houses lack, they tell you that market timing is impossible merely because they don’t have the time to perform the necessary research.
However, purchasing stocks that are likely close to cyclical bottoms instead of believing that market timing is impossible and indiscriminately buying stocks will easily add another 10% in returns to your portfolio per year. Do you really believe that you can make a fortune by buying any stock that is advertised on a TV program watched by millions of investors worldwide? Ultimately, if you own the same stocks as your neighbor to the right, your neighbor to the left, the talking head on TV, and the talking head at your commercial investment firm, then are doing something the proper things to build an investment fortune.
If you don’t seek out stocks and asset classes at times when nobody is considering them, you will never make serious money in investing. You may make 10% a year or maybe even 15% a year but if you want to enter the world of the big boys and earn 25% or more in annual returns, you have to dig a lot deeper than your investment peers. Just a couple of months ago (June 25, 2007) this email landed in my inbox from a big investment newsletter publisher. “Over the past week, I’ve crisscrossed northwestern Canada looking for the next great investment. I’m up here to find out what everyone’s invested in. And after attending an investment conference in Vancouver last week, I can tell you absolutely that no one is interested in gold…Base and minor metals will continue to be the best place to have your money over the next few years. Gold, as a virtually useless metal that has few industrial uses, appears to have hit its peak and could be running sideways for years like it has many times in the past.”
Then, in August, when the HUI (the major AMEX gold index) took a sharp hit in response to global market corrections, everyone proclaimed that gold was no longer a safe haven and that gold was “done”. Now, just a one-month later, on September 26, 2007, a lot of people are talking about gold’s strong rapid surge. So was the newsletter that ended up in my mailbox that proclaimed gold as dead in June right in June but terribly wrong in September? The answer is neither. The only person that is wrong is you if you blindly listen to talking heads that end up in your inbox or that you watch on TV. The fact is that little-discussed asset classes and stocks are ignored because perhaps 1 out of 1000 investors truly understand them, and even the ones that parade as experts on TV have been more terribly wrong about their calls than right. So it’s up to you to get off your proverbial bum and learn how to invest for yourself. Chasing stocks higher and buying when everyone else is speaking about them is a sure way to lose money. And so is listening to talking heads. Learn a system that teaches you to buy assets when everyone is ignoring them and you’ll outperform everyone else.
(3)Concentrate, Don’t Diversify
If you’ve read the paragraph above, you already realize that Private Wealth Managers and Financial Consultants are in short supply of time as they partake in the race to gather as many assets as possible for their respective firms. Thus, this is the reason they employ the rule of diversification for your portfolio. U.S. Navy SEALs will tell you that during an operation exfil exercise, the easiest way out is rarely the safest way out. The same holds true in investing, yet diversification is by far and away, the easiest investment strategy that anyone could possibly teach to tens of thousands of financial consultants. Certainly, diversification cannot be a complex strategy if tens of thousand consultants from varied backgrounds and industries can all efficiently apply this concept to their clients’ portfolios with very little training. Diversification is the biggest cop-out investment strategy of all time. It screams of incompetence and lack of skill – “I have no idea what asset classes are going to perform well this year so I’m going to invest you in everything under the sun.”
Assume everyday, a NBA coach looked at his active roster of 12 players and said, “I have no idea who are the best players. Because I don’t know, and don’t care to take the time to figure it out, I’m going to ensure that all 12 players share equal time every game.” This coach is unlikely to win many games versus the coach that takes the time in training camp to assess who his best 5 players are and then consequently plays these 5 players the majority of minutes during every game. This is the difference between diversification and concentration. The coach that diversifies may win some games based upon pure luck because maybe he has a couple great players that can make up for the deficiencies of the poor players he puts on the court every night. Still, most nights, the deficiencies of the poor players will drag down the performance of the excellent players.
However, the coach that concentrates and puts his best players on the court every night will be able to field a team every night that has an excellent chance of winning. This is why we concentrate in investing. To give us the best possible chance of winning. Diversification
will never achieve this.Study the best investors in the world. The best investors in the world always manage their own money and they concentrate their portfolios in the best asset classes every year. Don’t believe the hype about diversification – diversification stinks, it doesn’t protect your portfolio, and it certainly will never make you wealthy.
(4)Learn Everything You Can About the Relationship Between Politics and Stocks
On September 18, 2007, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut the Federal Funds Rate (the rates banks borrow from each other and the rates the rates banks loan to customers) by 50 basis points. The U.S. stock markets soared that day, followed by strong surges in Asian markets the following morning. The interest rate cut undoubtedly was not just motivated by a desire to manufacture stability and confidence in the U.S. economy, but also motivated by politics. If you don’t understand what I mean by this, then you have homework to do.
Governments and corporations in every major global economy in the world have formed relationships that have since been coined as “corporatocracies”. Politics has a major hand in all of the following: interest rate cuts, interest rate increases, the price of oil, the price of gold, the valuation of the Euro, the valuation of the dollar, the valuation of the Pound Sterling, permits to mine uranium in Australia, defense spending for national security, decisions to go to war, and contracts awarded to corporations. If you don’t understand politics, you cannot possibly understand global macro-economic trends and what asset classes and stocks offer the best low-risk, high-reward opportunities year after year. The lack of understanding of politics is what causes Chief Investment Officers of major commercial investment houses to make poor calls in the direction of commodity prices and the direction of global economies. Understand politics and your investment returns should increase tremendously.
(5)Learn Everything You Can About Gold as an Investment.
Gold, as an investment, is perhaps the most misunderstood and poorest understood asset class in the world. Some people believe that the physical commodity is the only way to invest in this asset, and as such, only put money into the paper gold ETFs. Other people that invest in gold stocks don’t understand the differences in price behavior between the juniors and majors; explorers, developers, and producers; hedged and unhedged companies; and the political risk of operating in different countries. Therefore, they never understand the risk-reward quotient of their gold portfolio, sell out during steep corrections, always lose money, and think that gold investments are speculative and stink. Furthermore, they don’t understand that short-term manipulation of prices of the underlying commodity and stocks can’t change the long-term outlook and performance. However, learn how to buy and sell this asset class properly and you will be rewarded as no other asset class can reward you
Article continued under same title, part II. To read the rest of the article, merely perform a search for “10 Surefire Ways to Make an Investment Fortune, Part II) or visit us at http://www.theundergroundinvestor.com

How to Start a Student Investment Club

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:11:16 +0000

Investment clubs are a terrific way for kids to learn about investments even at a young age. You can start a student investment club for your own child or for your students if you are a teacher. The student investment club can help kids learn about money and teach them invaluable lessons about making decisions.

Starting a student investment club begins with the desire to invest. An adult should start and run the club and provide structure and guidance along the way. Properly used, however, the student investment club will be a good learning experience for everyone.

1. Begin with a simple goal to provide kids with limited ability to search and select stocks to invest. Ensure that younger kids have their parents permission to participate. Come up with weekly or monthly goals for investing.

2. Write rules and stick to them. Investment clubs need rules and regulations and the student investment club is no exception. This helps to establish order and ensure that things are handled properly. Write the rules in plain language that can be easily understood by the age group.

3. Limit the investments. Children have limited funds so there should be low limits on the participation requirements as well as limits to the amount the child can invest. Get the buy-in of the parents before you begin. Always consider the amount of money available to students before you choose investments.

4. Make investments fun. The idea of investments can seem somewhat a dreary subject. Spice it up by allowing kids to invest in companies that they know or have heard about. Think about popular toy or video game companies, food or restaurant companies or clothing companies. Investing in a stodgy company they never heard of and dont know the nature of business will make the club boring and kids will lose interest quickly.

5. Encourage kids to use their own money. When appropriate the students will learn better when they use their own money. Whether its from their allowance or from a part-time job, using their own money will force kids to be more interested in the investments.

6. Invite guest speakers. Whenever possible try to add interest by inviting guest speakers to meetings with the students. Find members of the local community to speak such as investment bankers, finance counselors or accountants.

7. Divide students into smaller groups. If you have a large group of students, it may be wise to have them form smaller groups. Allow them to form a corporation for investing and even let them name their company. Have them choose a president and then let them vote on investment choices.

8. Track investment performance. Teach students to use charts or graphs to track their investments and keep abreast with market trends in the newspaper or on the internet. Determine a specific day in a week to review investments with the students.