Archive for September, 2007

by Melanie
Valuing a bond might seem like a strange topic for a stockmarket publication. But there are some very good lessons and analogies for share investors, so stick with us. A bond is simply a tradeable debt security. While the stockmarket is a place where investors can easily buy and sell equity, or ownership of businesses, the bond market is a place where investors buy and sell debt, or loans. Actually, more specifically, it’s a market for longer-term debt, as short-term debt falls under different markets, namely the bank bill and treasury note markets.

Borrowing long-term gives borrowers the certainty that short-term funding cannot provide. On the flip side, however, many lenders have little interest in actually locking up their money for very long periods—and this creates an imbalance. A bond solves that problem by giving the borrower long-term funding whilst giving the lender the flexibility of a security that can be sold at short notice—although it could be for a big profit or loss depending on how interest rates have moved.

Let’s look at an example of a bond with three years left to run. It was issued as a 10-year bond exactly seven years ago, in a time of higher interest rates, and therefore carries annual ‘coupons’—or interest payments from the borrower—totalling 10% per annum. While most bonds are semi-annual, or pay coupons twice a year, for simplicity we’ve assumed this bond pays one annual 10% coupon, or $10 a year on its $100 face value.

Visit The Intelligent Investor for the rest of this article on share trading to find out more on selling shares.

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by Andrew A Karasev
Medical staffing and placement industry investment notes: medical professionals contracting & outsourcing, staffing challenge for small healthcare organizations, and more.

If you plan to invest into healthcare industry, which itself has long term growth potential, we recommend you to make a research on nurses and medical professionals staffing sector, which is relatively new and growing segment within Healthcare industry. In this small publication we would like to give you some highlights on medical staffing investment opportunities:

1. Workforce outsourcing & contracting. Nowadays businesses have to concentrate on their main product lines, and by doing so they have to outsource everything else to contractors. In healthcare outsourcing from one hand and placement and staffing from another are very important. Hospitals, and especially smaller healthcare organizations can not afford diversified staff of medical professionals, they would rather use it on as-needed basis, without indefinite commitment.

2. Flexible working hours. To healthcare professionals: doctors and nurses, medical staffing organizations offer flexibility opportunities — work as many hours per week as needed, take short term or mid-term contracts, decide on taking beneficial contract nationwide. These flexible options are important for working woman, especially in the maternity period

3. Staffing challenge for small healthcare organization. There are many small, private companies that are addressing the rapidly expanding needs of the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, due to their relatively small capitalization, they are unable to maximize their potential, obtain outside capital or expand. By consolidating well-run small private companies into a larger public entity, Healthcare staffing agencies intend to facilitate access to capital, the acquisition of technology, providing greater diversity of client services and expanded distribution that, in turn, drive internal growth

4. Sunbelt States. These states have growing population in the retirement age. You should expect growing need in the nursing, elder population care and living assistance services, which gives additional workload to medical staffing organizations

5. Information technology challenge. Healthcare placement organizations have to provide excellent timelog entry system to their health professionals, supported by immediate paycheck issuing capabilities. When making your investment research, you should analyze the investment into placement company ERP

Andrew Karasev is technical writer at Crdentia Corp. (CRDT.OB) http://www.crdentia.com 800.803.1777, one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare staffing services. Crdentia seeks to capitalize on an opportunity that currently exists in the healthcare industry by targeting the critical Nursing, Physician and Allied Health shortage issue. Crdentia has locations in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas.

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by Adriana Giustra
Like others growing up, I was instilled with the philosophy (through my parents), that in order to make a lot of money I had to get a good education, a high paying job and then save my way to the millionaire rich list. I didn’t believe there were any other possibilities, so I just followed on through life with this self belief- searching for my high paying job, whilst my finances were suffering.

I had been working in the customer service sector for almost all my working life, and I came to the point where I needed a change in my working environment. I wasn’t enjoying my role at work and started searching for others ways I could earn a higher income.

In April 2006 I meet an incredible individual who led me to the path of Jamie McIntyre. He was successful enough to retire at the age of 29, all due to Jamie McIntyre’s wealth creation strategies. He had the millionaire mindset, and was taking massive action in becoming financially independent.

When I heard his story I was definitely excited at the thought that I could finally secure my financial future, and never have to worry about money again! I was eager to learn more and follow in my successors footsteps; however I was also a little skeptical.

I began my quest, to track down any information leading me to Jamie McIntyre- after all, I had never heard of him! The 21st Century Academy Homestudy Program (where Jamie teaches you his investment strategies on how to replace your income with share trading and property investments), lead me to read more and more amazing accounts of how his successful graduates had changed their lives around by achieving their financial goals.

It was quite clear to me then, the endless potential that his information could give me and that Jamie McIntyre, the successful, Aussie millionaire was certainly no scam! The FREE E-book by Jamie McIntyre, ‘What I Didn’t Learn at School But Wish I Had’ had then started me off in the right direction to give me my basic education about wealth creation.

Who would have ever thought a female, aged 29 could learn to trade in the stock market? I had no prior knowledge of what a share was let alone earn an income from it!

With a lot of perseverance and determination, (even though sometimes I wanted to give up!) I am now share trading, and it has become my primary source of income. I am no longer employed in an unfulfilled job and I have the spare time to do the things I love to do. I have now set outcomes and purposes, and I picture myself in the future achieving the things that I only dreamed of.

Even though I am at very early stages of becoming financially free, it’s motivating me to see the results. I have realised that nothing in life is easy, but all it takes is one simple decision to make a change and follow it through by your actions. Pushing ahead and completing The 21st Century Homestudy Program was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I’m really looking forward to the day where I will purchase my very first property investment, whilst building up a successful online business and living off my passive incomes.

If I can do it, then you can too!!

For your copy of Jamie McIntyre’s FREE E-book go to http://www.thewealthage.com

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by William King
An option gives you the right of buying and selling. It however need not be an obligation to accomplish a deal. You can always choose to let the expiry date of the option go, after which the option has no value. If you let the period expire, you let go the entire amount that you invested to book the asset. The underlying assets in most cases are either stock or index funds.

Options are classified as ‘calls’ and ‘puts’. ‘Call’ refers to the right of the holder to buy an asset within certain period at a particular price; ‘calls’ have a long position on the stock. ‘Call’ buyers hope that the prices of the stock in which they invested increase rapidly before the expiry of the option.

A ‘put’ is the right of the buyer to sell an asset within certain period at a particular price; ‘puts’ have a short position on the stock. ‘Put’ buyers hope that prices of the stock decreases rapidly before the expiry of the option.

There are several advantages of choosing right options. An investor must use options specifically to speculate and hedge.

Speculation: When you are speculative, you do not make profits only when the market is buoyant, but also when it is down. Speculation efficiently enables you to track the direction in which the stock is moving and determine the movement’s timing and magnitude. Consequently, you get a fair idea about how much is the stock’s price likely to change and within what time frame. Hence, there are chances of your predictions being right and you make really big bucks.

When you are a large institution and control as large as a hundred shares with one contract, you are bound to book substantial profits with the slightest upward movement in process. With the right options you are sure to hit big time.

Hedging: Options offer excellent hedging mechanisms that serve almost like an insurance policy for the underlying stock. You can insure your stock against any downturn in the market just as you can insure any other asset of yours such as car, house, and even your life.

In financial terms, hedge refers to an investment that is made to minimize the potential risks in another investment. Hedging means a strategy that is specifically designed to limit a stock’s exposure to any sort of business risk, while allowing the business to continue to reap benefits from the investment.

A hedger may invest in a security that, according to him, is under-priced in relation with its fair value, and then combine it with a short sale of one or more related securities. The hedger, therefore, is concerned only with under-priced security and its appreciation in relation with the market.

Some risks are inherent for specific businesses and are inevitable. For instance, fluctuations in oil prices are inevitable for oil companies, as the price of crude is benchmarked to international prices. However, other risks are unwanted and must be hedged; for instance, inventory in a shop must be hedged against fire or any other disaster through a fire insurance or other suitable contracts.

Hence, choose the right options to limit the downside and leverage on the upside of your securities.

William King is the director of Wholesale Suppliers & Wholesalers Products & Dropshipping Directory, Pakistan Property & Pakistan Real Estate Portal , and Dubai Property & UAE Property & Dubai Real Estate Portal . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion and marketing.

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by rossjohnson
Are you or someone you know thinking about investing on property abroad? If so, then don’t be discouraged from doing such because there are many of reasons that you should invest property abroad. But don’t forget that there are also some precautions that you will need to take.

When you are investing property abroad you should consider searching long and hard, because investing property abroad is not something that you will be doing in your everyday life. You will be spending a numerous amount of money on investing property abroad. So what you will need to do is a lot of research, so what if it will be taking a lot of time, it is well worth it.

If you are looking online for property to invest abroad and if you find the property that you actually like it is a known fact that you should go to the country where you are investing the property because you don’t want to end up investing property abroad that turns out to be a real downer and in real bad condition, or even worse you could end up investing property abroad that ends up not even being there! So be sure to go there in person before you pay for the property, or if you are not able to go to the country where you are investing the property you could always have a family member or a friend that you trust with all the money to go and look at the property before you buy it, you could even have the take pictures of it or video cam it for you so that you will be able to see for your own eyes.

When it comes to investing on property abroad this can be a real good thing, because you will not have one place to stay, but you will have a getaway house where you can go to for special occasions such as anniversaries, Birthdays, or holidays, or perhaps you could just use the property you have invested abroad to go to when you feel like you need a break away from things,

Perhaps you are looking to investing property abroad so that you could have some extra weekly or monthly income flowing into your bank account. You could invest on property abroad then turn around and rent it out to tenants. You have to be careful about this because you may want to make trips to the property at least twice a year to make sure everything is all right with the house.

Written by Ross Johnson. Find the latest information on Investment Property Abroad as well as Cape Verde Investment Property.

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by Jo Scher
We all know that there are many advantages of investing in property abroad. When investing in property abroad you should always be aware of the country that you will be dealing with, familiarize yourself with the country, language and with the rules of the country you will be investing property in.

When investing in property abroad you will be buying property from another country and renting it out to someone else. This will bring some extra money to your already earned income. Surely this is an advantage to almost anything. First, you have to have the money to invest in, other than that investing in property should be easy.

Another advantage to investing in property abroad is that you get to go to different countries to look at different houses, this means that you will get to learn how different cultures are and maybe even get into learning a new language. Along with all of this you will also get the advantage of maybe meeting someone new and making new friends in another country besides the one you reside in.

When investing in property abroad you may just find that the property is cheaper in that country than it is in your country. Prices on houses vary in different places; this means in different countries, this could be a big advantage when you are dealing with money.

When it comes down to it, it is all about the money, and that is something that you will more than likely be doubling if you are renting your property investment out to someone another quality that matters is the relationship that you will be building with the person you will be renting the house out to, both are a big advantage when it comes to investing in property abroad.

Written by Jo Scher. Find the latest information on Investment Property Abroad as well as Cape Verde holiday homes

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by Len McDowall
With the increase in personal wealth in Australia in recent times, many individuals who are classified as ‘wholesale’ or sophisticated’ investors, don’t even know it. More importantly they could be missing out on some investment opportunities simply because of their investor status.

Firstly, what exactly is a sophisticated or wholesale investor? Well, in the eyes of the Corporations Act 2001, a wholesale/sophisticated investor is someone who meets at least one of the following tests:-

• Has net assets of more than A$2.5m and supplies an Accountants Certificate confirming this

• Has income of at least A$250k over the last two financial years and supplies an Accountants Certificate confirming this

• Is investing $500k or more into the opportunity

If you don’t meet at least one of the above, you are deemed as a retail investor (unless you can meet one or more much more stringent tests which most investors would not qualify for).

So what is the advantage of being a wholesale investor? How does this help with your investing?

The answer is simply that in the eyes of the Corporations Act, someone who has met one of the above criteria, is more knowledgeable when it comes to investing. Therefore they can invest into pretty much anything.

There are quite a number of investment products that are only available to wholesale or sophisticated investors. The reason being that they are more complex that the average IPO or managed fund.

The other reason why these opportunities are only available wholesale investors, is because wholesale investors are exempt from the 20/12 rule. The 20/12 rule limits the number of retail investors who can invest into a particular opportunity to 20 within a 12 month period.

Usually there is no limit to the number of wholesale investors who can invest, which is why they are preferred by certain promoters of opportunities.

Also, the fact that wholesale investors can usually invest a larger amount of money makes them all the more attractive to promoters.

Some of the opportunities available to wholesale investors are:-

Pre-IPO offers

This is where a company does a capital raising usually within about the last 12 to 18 months prior to going public. Shares are usually offered at a discount to the IPO price. These opportunities are available through certain brokers, investment banks and corporate advisory firms.

Private Placements

This is where a publicly listed company wants to raise more funds, usually for expansion or for an acquisition. Say they are raising $4m, rather than going to lots of small investors, they go to 8 wholesale investors who invest $500k each. This is a much easier and faster way of raising the capital. The benefit to the investor is that, in most cases, they receive their shares at a discount rate to the current trading price. Say the stock is trading at $1.00 on market. The private placement may be priced at $0.80. Meaning you make 20% return on day one.

Funds

There are certain funds that are only available to wholesale investors. Private Equity funds are one such example. They are specifically set up to accept money from high net worth individuals and institutional investors. These funds have a target IRR (Internal Rate of Return) of around 25% pa.

To learn more about wholesale or sophisticated investor opportunities, contact your stockbroker or private wealth manager. Alternatively you can establish a relationship with a investment banking or corporate advisory firm who specialises in wholesale opportunities.

© Len McDowall, Integral Capital Group 17th September 2007

Len McDowall was previously inaugural Chairman and Managing Partner of Bird Cameron Chartered Accountants (now known as RMS Bird Cameron), which employed 1000 people in 50 offices in Australia and Hong Kong. Len McDowall now director of Integral Capital Group (www.integralcapital.com.au) has extensive experience in all facets of financial management specializing in structuring & negotiating joint ventures, assisting with IPO plans & raising venture capital for private & public companies.

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by Andrew A Karasev
Investing is risky by its nature, so here we would like not to assure you that some industry is “better”, but rather give you pluses and minuses of healthcare temporary staffing and when it is good idea to invest and when to avoid investing to this industry niche. This article is written in FAQ manner for quick and convenient reading and we recommend it to private as well as professional investors for industry and its top performers evaluation

1. Economy Cycles Immune. Healthcare in general and medical placement typically do not follow economy booming and recessing. So, you can consider it as investment diversification instrument when economy is booming as well as selling off high risk high tech stocks and adding more healthcare shares when economy is in the slow down and recession

2. Double digit growth. Medical placement industry itself was and is showing strong growth in late 1990th as well as in 2000th. There are obvious reasons for the growth: shortage of nurses in sunbelt states and high medical professional certification standards; contractual nature of nurses engagements to name a few

3. Mergers & Acquisitions. In Medical placement this is natural way of growth. There are small privately held healthcare staffing companies in the regions and in such situation to start from scratch is not feasible

4. Cross-Selling marketing strategies. Nationwide medical placement companies often have specializing offices in the regions — pharmacists placement office in Michigan, for example. In this case it is possible to include Michigan location in offering other services to healthcare organizations in mid-west: per diem, allied nurses, medical professionals placement, etc. This strategy gives nation-wide placement company advantage over small regional firm and it is one of the reasons of industry consolidation

Andrew Karasev is technical writer at Crdentia Corp. (CRDT.OB) http://www.crdentia.com 800.803.1777, one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare staffing services. Crdentia seeks to capitalize on an opportunity that currently exists in the healthcare industry by targeting the critical Nursing, Physician and Allied Health shortage issue. Crdentia has locations in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas

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by J Dawkins
Introduction

Traditionally investing has been seen as the preserve of the wealthy and has a reputation for being a minefield to the uninitiated. As western standards of living continue to increase, more and more people are beginning to realise the benefits investing even small sums can bring. This article seeks to explore some basic principles to help you get started with investing.

1. What’s the basic premise of investing?

The Collins English Dictionary defines the word invest in the following way; “To lay out, for profit or advantage.” To layout refers to the fact that something of value is needed in the first place in order to generate more wealth. In essence investing is a means of taking a pre defined sum of money and using it in such a way as to increase its original value, therefore generating a profit.

2. Why Invest?

This is one of the most fundamental questions that any person looking to invest needs to ask. The general answer is pretty obvious, to generate a profit, but the reason behind the investment are far more important and will directly influence how and where you chose to invest. In addition the answer will also determine the level of risk you are willing to expose yourself to and which will be explored in more detail later.

Reasons as to why people invest are varied and may include some of the following; to build up a nest egg for retirement, to provide a financial safety net, to pay for future education or university fees for children, for fun because of the buzz investing can create.

3. How Should I invest?

This is also a deeply personal question and will depend upon the amount of money an individual has at their disposal. It is important to stress that investment takes many different forms all of which facilitate differing levels of investment. A single mum might decide to invest $20 or a business entrepreneur $1 million but both will seek a return on their capital outlay and how they go about achieving their investment goals may differ substantially.

4. What level of risk should I expose myself to?

Such a decision is very important as ultimately it will dictate the profitability of your final investment. In many respects this question will also be determined by the answer to the previous question, why invest? If an investment is being made to safeguard a financial future the level of risk taken may be lower than an individual investing for fun.

Generally investments are made in three distinct categories low, medium and high. Low risk investments include Government bonds and savings accounts. Medium Risk investments could include certain types of shares or property. High Risk investments will almost certainly include shares in rapidly expanding companies exploring new markets. The dot.com crash in the late nineties, in which thousands of newly established technology companies went bust, is an example of a high risk investment going very wrong.

What types of investment are there?

This is not an easy question to answer because in theory anything that earns a profit from an initial outlay can be classed as an investment.

There are however some common forms of investment that deserve further explanation.

a) Government Bonds

These are deemed low risk investments as money is invested in Government related projects and assets. It is unheard of in the western world for a Government to go bankrupt.

b) Shares

This is a means of holding a stake in a company trading on the stock exchange and investors benefit from its profitability. Whilst share dealing can be low risk particularly if you are investing in established companies in the FTSE 100, most share investments are deemed medium or high risk. This is because such investments have the potential to return excellent profits but there is also a raised risk of losing your total investment.

c) Antiques

Antiques are often a great source of investment given that they hold their value at the very least and have the added benefit of being easy to sell if you need a quick cash injection. In addition if you wish to leave a sum of money to family after your death they won’t be hit with inheritance taxes often associated with large amounts of physical cash. Perhaps one of the major drawbacks to investing in Antiques is the requirement of a level of technical expertise, or access to those skills, to ensure that suitable items are invested in.

d) Property

Property can also be a very lucrative source of investment as property prices continue to increase across the developed world. Generally property prices increase in value in the long term.

e) Savings

Whilst banks often make the distinction between savings and investments, in essence savings are a form of investment as the money you save with the bank is invested in low risk shares on your behalf, which ultimately enables financial institutions to make interest payments to you.

How to invest

Now that you have more information to help you get started with investment the next step is to speak to an independent financial advisor. These consultations are almost always free and you can get specific advice tailored to your individual needs concerning investing. In the UK there is an excellent site for finding Independent Financial Advisors called http://www.unbiased.co.uk

Summary

This article has attempted to provide advice to enable individuals to get started with investment. Discussion has taken place about the basic premise of investing and the profitability of such a decision, along with examining different reasons for investing. Attention has also been given to how much might be invested and at what level of risk this might be undertaken at. Finally we have explored the vast array of investment options available and what the next step is for a budding investor.

More Financial Planning Information available at http://www.friendsandmoney.co.uk/financialplanningarticles.html

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by Michael Abraham Scott
The majority of the population lives pretty much paycheck to paycheck and doesn’t plan for their future. Investing is actually a very simple process that anyone can participate in. In as little as 25 years you can literally become a millionaire and have financial security that will last for the length of your retirement years.
Short Term — The more money you invest, the more you’ll have when you retire. If you’re serious about investing, start saving up now and become a little more frugal with your money and you’ll be on your way. Here’s what you can do to get started:

1.Sell your car — With gas prices on the rise, try to drive less and you’ll save more than you probably realize you’ve been spending. If you must commute to work or have to drop off the kids at school, then sell your car and purchase a hybrid or something that gets a good amount of miles to the gallon. How about buying a Vespa motor scooter?
2.Eat at home — Eating out has its perks, but for the same amount of a single meal, you could get about 3 or 4 meals from eating at home. Spend more time grocery shopping, buy a new cookbook and enjoy some nice, home cooked meals.
3.Stop watching TV — Television nowadays does nothing but kill brain cells. Instead of paying for 2000 satellite channels, just subscribe to Netflix for $5 a month or buy an Apple TV and download only the TV shows and movies you want. If you need the news, you can always just log onto CNN.com.
4.Pay off loans — In the long run, you’ll end up paying thousands to nothing but interest on your loans. So, for the short term, make paying off any debt a priority. Get rid of any and all credit cards. Those payments may seem inexpensive now, but you need to look at the bigger picture.
5.Make your own coffee — This goes along with eating at home, but quite a lot of people nowadays tend to hit up Starbucks every morning. If you calculate it, this can become a huge expense. Even if it’s just $0.30 more for a Venti.

Long Term — A good goal is to be able to invest $1000 a month. If you keep thinking of new ways to save more money in the short term and long term, this will eventually be possible. It might be really hard to part with that much money every month, so you need to change your mindset. Just keep reminding yourself that you’re going to retire with $1 million in your bank account.
Investing — Look into an investment account and have money transferred from your account automatically every month. If you invest manually, you’ll be too tempted to not always pay the full amount, so make sure it’s automatic. Look for an investment account that offers close to 10% interest. If you put $1000 a month into an investment account with an interest rate of 10%, you’ll have over $1.3 million in 25 years.

Joanna Georgie Senior Housing

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