Archive for March, 2009

by Forest Parks
If you’re interested in purchasing gold as an investment, you are in good company. There are many people getting into gold now, for gold is the traditional hedge against risk for investors, especially since the U.S. was taken off the Gold Standard by President Nixon and the Congress in 1971.

Gold is real wealth. It is the ancient standard of money along with silver. Whatever the original reasons for this, today we see it as a precious metal with real value. The value of gold will fluctuate with the market’s activity, but it stays strong when abstract currency is weak. As a Dollar loses more and more off of the amount of gold it can buy, gold itself becomes that much more valuable.

World central banks have hoarded gold to fortify the value of their currencies. The United States is estimated to have far and away the most gold of any single nation. The fact that so much gold is removed from circulation and into the vaults of central banks keeps the value of gold high in accord with the laws of supply and demand.

Purchasing gold leaves you many options for acquiring the gold.

You can buy gold coins. Gold American Eagle coins, first minted in 1999, have become more valuable in the last near-decade. In August of 2008, the United States Mint laid said that its vendors were “not able to supply enough one ounce gold bullion blanks to meet the unprecedented demand we are experiencing.” In other words, the production of the Gold Eagle coin has been declining, but demand has been rising–and that always drives up the price (trade value) of something. Furthermore, the later Gold American Eagle coins contain a little less gold than the earlier ones–they are still mostly gold but more and more mixed with some silver. So if you get the coins from 1999 or 2000 you are getting the more valuable ones.

Gold bullion is also rising in value as ability to meet demand is shrinking. Gold supplies aren’t really shrinking, but there haven’t been any new mines of any significance discovered in the last several years, and world demand is rising. You can invest in gold bullion directly or through gold ETFs on the stock market.

Gold ETFs, or electronically traded funds, represent the power of leverage. You buy shares in the fund, which each share being worth just a fraction of an ounce of gold. The share prices track the value gold on the global market. You don’t have to worry about taking bullion delivery and you might be able to afford this entry into the gold market whereas you could not afford it at gold’s spot prices.

Gold futures. These are contracts that speculate on what the price of gold will be at such and such a date in the future. You pay a premium and are given temporary control of X amount of underlying gold. In simple terms, you agree today to pay or be paid a certain price for the gold at a point in the future before the expiration of the contract.

So, there are you main options for purchasing gold. You should not look to gold jewelry as an investment, by the way, although in a pinch you could sell it and get money for yourself.

Check out my site if you want to learn more about How To Buy Gold and Silver and what is the Current Value Of Gold

Article Source: Purchasing Gold

by Forest Parks
Gold stock trading takes two major forms these days: Gold ETFs and gold futures contracts.

ETFs, or Exchange Traded Funds, are one inexpensive way for investors to get into gold stock trading. An ETF tracks an underlying bundle of stocks from which the fund derives its value. They are like an index fund but they get traded just like an individual stock. You can sell gold short, buy it on the margin, and even buy just one share. You usually command only the value of just a fraction of an ounce of gold per share. This makes it a lot more affordable for the average person to get in on the action, instead of having to invest directly in gold at its full spot price. You can get in on one of these funds if you have only a few hundred dollars of investment capital.

Gold stock trading with ETFs means you can get in on the action of buying and selling gold without having to take physical delivery of any gold bullion, since what you actually own and trade is the derived value of the gold reserves that the particular find has ownership of. Gold ETFs were first introduced in 2004.

On the other hand, In August 2008 the SPDR Gold Trust fund was the number one traded gold ETF, and at that time it had accumulated gold reserves equalling 659 tons, according to the website ExchangeTradedGold.com. In comparison to the world’s total gold reserves of 120,000 to 140,000 tons, that’s precious little; but, the SPDR Gold Trust is widely regarded as the most liquid of all gold ETFs.

There are some other flaws with doing gold stock trading using ETFs. For one thing, they can be taxed as collectibles, even though there is no investment in gold coins or gold for numismatic or jewelry value. There is no ownership of actual gold by the shareholder, either. But this is what the IRS said in 2008–how surprising, huh? For another thing, there is risk to you the shareholder which has to do with company risks rather than the actual price of gold on the open market. And, there are a lot of fees in these funds–you may like your gold ETF is being nickeled and dimed to death.

So, you can look to doing your gold stock trading with gold futures. Futures have low expenses–you pay an up-front premium to buy a type of contract which will, for a temporary period of time, enable you to either buy or sell gold on demand (but you don’t have to take physical delivery of gold; your monetary results simply show up in your margin trading account). The contract is for command of a certain amount of underlying gold; the premium you pay is non-refundable, but the amount of gold you can temporarily control is far, far more than what paying that same premium in the form of an ETF investment would buy you, meaning you have far greater upside profit potential for the same money. The downside of gold futures is that you can possibly lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Gold stock trading is big these days as the Dollar is being devalued. It could be for you!

Check out my site if you want to learn more about How To Buy Gold and Silver and take a look at the best gold stocks.

Article Source: Gold Stock Trading

by Bernz Jayma P.
No investor looks forward to a bear market, but they are a part of the market cycle. Sot if you plan to be a long term investor in the stock market, t is better to plan how to survive the bear markets that you will encounter than to think you can avoid them. Here are some tips to get you through a bear market cycle with minimal losses.

The most important point to remember is: don’t give in to the temptation to sell low thinking that you will cut your losses. More often than not, this results in a permanent loss rather than the temporary loss on paper that a bear market often represents. Unless you desperately need the cash, its usually better to leave your stocks alone and wait until the market rebounds.

Instead, if you have the resources, consider the bear market to be a buying opportunity. If your strategy is long term, the bear market may prove to be a good time to invest in stocks that are down because of the overall market and not because of poor management practices. Of course, you will need to do the research so that you can tell the difference. But a bear market is good time to add stocks to your portfolio that you may not have otherwise considered when their prices were higher.

When considering buying stocks at their low points, it is important not to get greedy and confuse speculation with investment. A bear market is not a good time to purchase risky stocks thinking that you can make back your losses by having a big win when the market turns around. If the bear market persists longer than you expect it to, a risky stock is more likely to fall even further or collapse entirely if its company goes out of business as a result of insufficient cash reserves.

A better strategy when buying stocks in a bear market is to identify the companies which have long term performance histories and sufficient cash reserves to ride out a prolonged bear market if a worst case scenario happens. You will be better off investing in companies that are financially robust enough to withstand a long market contraction.

Also look for industries that are relatively recession proof, like food, health care, recycle and waste management. No matter what the market is doing, people continue need to eat and dispose of their waste. Health care is a necessity rather than a luxury. And recycling becomes a growth industry as consumer discretionary spending declines.

Author and entrepreneur Bernz Jayma P. is the owner of a financial blog dedicated to helping people expand their knowledge on personal finance. You may visit his blog at http://www.Invesmint.com.

Article Source: Bear Market Survival Tips

by deepak kulkarni
If you are searching for information related to offshore investments or any other such as trade stock, capital investments, turner investments or international investment banking you have come to the right article. This piece will provide you with not just general offshore investments information but also specific and helpful information. Enjoy it.

Making money though investing is an age old process but still this has got new flavors and dimensions in the recent years. Now there are smarter ways to make investments. For many people making investments on stock and share markets is the most profitable option. This is because the shares of many large companies increase day by day although the risks of the dropping of shares suddenly are also there. Nevertheless, still many of the share market maestros who have much intellect and expertise of making investments for years still enjoys the same. That’s because they can gain much profit and less losses.

Understand tax implications of foreign investment earnings. Make sure that you speak with a knowledgeable tax attorney or accountant so that you understand your tax obligations regarding foreign investments and the earnings you receive from them. Carefully plan your investments and keep track of how you need to pay taxes on them. A good money manager needs to understand the tax implications of his or her decisions, and make sure that everything is done according to law.

The key is volume. Invest in several at a time, and make more money. You will certainly not make any money if you take it one investment at a time. While some people may be ok with making 5 dollars here and 20 dollars there, the average person needs to make as many monies as they can with the money they’ve got. It is possible that one small investment of 5 dollars may make you 20 dollars. If you can make 10 of those 5 dollar investments at once, then you will make a profit of 100 dollars. The more you can afford to invest in different cheap investments, the more you should be investing.

If as related to offshore investments as this article is, and it still doesn’t answer all your needs, then don’t forget that you can conduct more search on any of the major search engines like Google Dot Com to get more helpful offshore investments information.

The difference between both types of investment is that the short term investments tend to yield higher returns in a short space of time but in some cases is riskier while the long term investment is designed to last a few years while gaining a gradual growth. A closer look at both investments types goes thus:

We have always restated that investors should hold manifold of investment portfolios, each catering to a particular need or objective. This again highlights the significance of tracking investments as it has a direct bearing on your future aims. For you, keeping a usual track of their investments provides you with the opportunity of identifying washout in their portfolio. As a result you can avoid failures and non performing investments. Therefore, if you’re looking for a way to turn that 1000 into more, this is a great way to do that. Don’t let the stock market numbers fool you because there are some great opportunities to make yourself some serious cash no matter what.

Low-risk investments are those investments that are not likely to suddenly drop in value, largely because the company that offers them is quite stable and generally maintains a certain price level on their shares. Because of the lower risk of sudden price drop, the value tends to increase rather slowly though a slow increase is still an increase.

Many people that searched for offshore investments also searched online for online banking, high yield investments, and even investment management ltd.

So here is chance to get your free tips on investments and in addition to that get basic information on saving money visit fidelity investments 401k

Article Source: Offshore Investments- Interesting Roadmap For Investments

by Bernz Jayma P.
The most important thing to know about investing in the stock market is that is involves some risk. In fact, there is no such thing as an investment with no risk. And don’t think that you can avoid risk by not investing either. Because even if you hide your money in a shoebox under the bed, you are still taking a risk that it may be stolen or that its value will decrease over time due to inflation. So the best you can do is learn how to minimize risk, and make good decisions based on your risk tolerance. Here are some tips to help you identify your risk tolerance so you can make smart investment decisions.

First, identify your investment goals. Are you investing $100 dollars of each paycheck so that you will have money for retirement in 10 years or 30 years? Or are you investing a $5,000 gift that the grandparents contributed to help pay for college for your kids in 15 years? Or are you investing every spare cent that you have for the next 3 years in order to be able to buy a house? Each of these goals involves a different beginning and ending amount, and a different time frame.

Generally, the longer the time frame, the more risk the investment portfolio can absorb, because theoretically there is time to recover from the ups and downs of market cycles. That means your age and the length of time until your retirement might be a factor when you determine the types of stocks to include in your portfolio (for example, growth stocks versus income stocks).

But the time that you have available to recover from losses is not necessarily an indicator of your own personal risk tolerance. Other important factors come into play, like your ability to tolerate stress, how much you worry about finances, how much savings you need in the bank to feel comfortable. And if you have a spouse and children, you need to factor in how your decisions would affect them.

Experts advise people to have 6 months worth of liquid assets on hand to weather cash flow emergencies like job loss or illness. So when you are determining your risk tolerance for investing, the most conservative approach is to figure out your security needs first, and make sure that you have those funds in safe and insured assets. After that, let your time frame inform your decision of whether or not you can afford investments with a little more risk.

Author and entrepreneur Bernz Jayma P. is the owner of a financial blog dedicated to helping people expand their knowledge on personal finance. You may visit his blog at http://www.Invesmint.com.

Article Source: Investing If Your Risk Tolerance Is Low

by Palmer Owyoung
Types of Vertical Spreads
A spread by definition, is when you sell one option and you buy another option that is correlated to the one you sold. This way if one loses value, then the other gains value and vice versa. This reduces the volatility and is in many ways much safer than purchasing a put or call alone. The way you make money with spreads is when one side of the spread gains more than the other side loses.

The Debit Spread
There are two types of vertical spreads, a debit spread and a credit spread. With a debit spread you will incur a debit when you place the trade. It involves purchasing an at the money option and selling an out of the money option.

Let’s take a look at the exchange traded fund (EFT) on the Nasdaq (QQQQ) as an example:
Let’s say that it’s the beginning of February and we are Bearish on QQQQ, so we decide to purchase the June At The Money Puts. The ETF is trading at $30.00 so we purchase the $30.00 June Put for $2.80.
We then sell the June $20 Put for .45 giving us a total debit of $2.35 (2.80-.45). So our maximum loss here is what we paid for the spread $2.35. If at the end of options expiration the ETF has fallen to a price of $20.00 or less we would have realized our maximum gain of $7.65 (High strike price-low strike price) - (Debit) or ($30.00-$20.00) -(2.35) =$7.65. So our maximum possible gain is almost 3 times our maximum possible gain here.
Maximum Profit = (Higher Strike- Lower Strike) - net debit
Maximum Loss = Net Debit
Break even for call spreads = lower strike + net premium
Break even for put spreads = higher strike - net premium

The Credit Spread

Within a credit spread there are two types. The bull put spread, which you’ll use if you think the markets will go up and the bear call spread, which you’ll use if you think the markets will drop. In the case of a bull put spread you sell a put at the money and buy a put two or three strike prices below. So let’s say the Nasdaq Stock ETF is selling at $29.00 and it’s January. You can sell a February $29.00 Put for $1.60 and buy a February Put for .90 bringing in a total of $70 per contract (.70 x 100) If the stock closes above $29.00 at options expiration in February (3rd Friday of the month)then you will keep the full credit. If it ends at $28.30 ($29.00-.70) you will break even. If it ends at $27.00 or below you will lose $130 per contract ($29.00-$27.00)-.70. Depending on the number of contracts that you use you can easily earn anywhere between 1-10% a month using this method. The beauty of it is that as it gets closer to the expiration date the options will begin to lose value, which is what you want to happen. Because once they go to 0 you don’t have to do anything, but keep the money that you’ve already collected.
Why Trade Spreads?
The simplest reason to trade spreads is that they are less volatile and thus less risky than trading options or stocks. The flip side is that by taking less risk you also reduce the amount of potential reward

If you’d like to find out more about options trading and credit spreads click on the link in the resource box below and sign up for a free 10 part course.

Palmer Owyoung is the Founder of http://www.OptionSpreadTrades.com a site dedicated to helping the average investor earn 5-15% a month.Free lessons, and free forecasts.

Article Source: What is a Vertical Spread?

by Raj Parmeswar
Silver Dollar Coin Value moves in tandem with silver prices in the international market. And it is important that you keep a track of metal values if you are buying or selling silver dollar coins and make profit out of the current Silver Dollar Coin Value.

There are several factors that decide the movements of international commodity prices including that of metals, oil etc. The movements in metal prices/ silver prices will have a telling impact on Silver Dollar Coin Values as well.

Theoretically, the market prices are decided by supply and demand factors, which in turn are at the mercy of internal as well as external factors. These include socio- political and economic factors that affect business / investor confidence and consumer sentiment.

The world economy is passing through a difficult phase. Most of the advanced economies have entered recession, which is expected to stay for some time according to experts in the world bodies like IMF, World Bank etc. It is said that right now, the business confidence level reached at its lowest level in several years due to fall in asset prices, business loss, lack of credit, loss of employment and income and so on.

Unless there is a recovery in these areas there will not be increase in economic activity that could spur demand. So the sluggish commodity market is only reflecting the fragile consumer demand and confidence. And at present, metal prices barring gold are consolidating. This is also an ideal opportunity for value buying, experts say. Once the economy shows an indication of recovery there is every chance for the commodity prices to jump from this level.

So your investment in gold coins or silver dollar coins will return you value in the future. And at the current silver dollar coin value , you can build up your asset value by buying the gold or silver coins in smaller units.

Raj Parmeswar is a writer on related topics. Please visit his site www.goldbullioncoinstore.com to know more about silver dollar coin values, silver eagle coins etc.

Article Source: Silver dollar coin value- Is It Consolidating?

by Property Banker: Property Investment
With the world’s economy in recession, where is the best place to invest our hard earned cash?

Should we be risking our hard earned money on the stock market? Share prices have plummeted in recent months and savings accounts have next to no interest so where is the best place to invest.

Some say that property is the safest investment to make. Even though the housing market is in decline at the moment this will certainly not last forever. But the question is if you buy now will you get a bargain or will the price fall even further?

If you are interested in property investment buy to let is a great way to curb your bets. It can be a solid investment if you have tenants that are able to cover the remortgage payments. Flipping a property by buying a rundown property, developing it and benefiting from a rising market is no longer possible; so buy to let looks like the only way to profit from property at the moment.

To invest in a buy to let property you do need a deposit and you should look to purchase in an area that will allow you to quickly rent the property out. Buying a student property in May could mean that it is empty until September. This might be good if you need to do some work on the property.

Another reason that points to buy to let being the best investment is people will always need somewhere to live. First time buyers are a) unable to get a mortgage or b) waiting for prices to fall further which is causing a rise in the rental market.

There is also another thing causing a rise in the rental market which is also a by product of the recession and that is a rise in repossessions. Hard times are among us and the rate of repossessions is on the up.

This is actually a benefit for property investors as there is a large amount of repossession property on the market which is cheaper as the banks want to sell this property as quickly as possible. Also with repossessions on the rise there are a lot of sell and rent back schemes helping people out of financial difficulty so plenty of opportunity there for investors to pick up a below market value property.

Visit Property Banker for sound property investment advice.

Article Source: Where is the best place to invest?

by Scott Downing
There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about short selling and the “uptick rule.” In fact, some believe that the steps towards reinstating these rules have helped bolster stocks of late. What is the uptick rule and why is the mere mention of doing away with said rule possibly creating a rally? Let’s take a look.

First, a brief refresher on short selling. The textbook definition is when an investor sells a stock that he/she doesn’t own. The seller’s investor loans the stock in order for the investor to sell it. At some point, the seller has to buy the same number of shares they sold short (known as “covering”) in order to return them to the broker. Money is made when the stock that was sold short falls and is bought back at a lower price.

For most normal “retail” investors, in order to short-sell a stock, they must have a margin account and their broker must “borrow” the stock from another one of its clients long margin account — so in some cases, no stock is available to short and the retail trader is basically unable to do so. Many Institutions / Professionals / Hedge Funds etc have not had to adhere to this method of “borrowing” in many cases in recent years, but that is a matter for a future article. Let’s now turn our attention to the uptick rule.

The uptick rule was instituted back in 1938 (as part of the reforms following the 1927 Crash and Great Depression), stating that a stock may not be sold short unless the trade before the short sale was at a lower price than the price where the short sale is executed. Simply put, selling short is only permissible if the stock ticks higher. The goal of the uptick rule was to keep short sellers from compounding and accelerating a stock’s downtrend. Note that the uptick rule does not apply to certain types of investing vehicles, including: market exchange-traded funds (ETFs), currencies, single-stock futures, and futures (but futures do have limit-down rules — circuit breakers and limit-down rules will also be the topic of a future article).

Why did the SEC repeal the rule? The rationale for lifting the rule was apparently a “test” by the SEC to see the effectiveness of the uptick rule. One would also likely assume there was some lobbying by major financial firms to have it lifted. And general de-regulation of the SEC and its powers over the past years likely contributed as well. Based on the above chart, one could conclude the “test” didn’t work very well. Many have attributed the incredibly rapid declines that many stocks in the Financial Sector have seen to the lack of an uptick rule — but this is a fairly complicated issue with other factors involved.

Nonetheless, recently Fed. Chairman Bernanke proposed examining re-instituting the rule, and Congress has recently acted (on March 10th, no less) to have the rule re-instated very quickly. See the following chart for these news events in relation to the market.

Bottom Line: Regardless of the actual effectiveness of the short-sale uptick rule (and whether it can be manipulated and/or ignored by many traders), the market performance after both the 2007 repeal and since the March 10th plans to reinstate are quite striking. Also remember that as a retail investor, you can participate in down-side speculation and hedging without short-selling stock through the use of Put Options, Short ETFs, and various Option Strategies.

Scott Downing,
BigTrends.com

Visit http://bigtrendsaffiliates.com/trendwatch/ to receive articles and bogs directly to your email.

Article Source: A Look at the Short-Sale Uptick Rule

by Johnny Hansen
The Forex market has changed recently. Long time ago there was only the major players in this industry, the large

financial institutions and other big companies with significant funds that were in this market. With internet, this market have changed also, and the currency market has become much more available to anyone in the recent years. The cost of entrance is now low and most people can really afford entering. However trading Forex has so far mostly been assosiated with lots of manual work, analysis, and many years of education and knowledge for making profit in this market.

This is about to change. Recently, several automated trading robots have hit the market, and even beginners in this industry can do quite well in terms of profit. However, several actors in this industry are making warnings about automated robots, and are making negative statements about this. They are claiming that robots cannot predict

the market well and will not make profit. These are some of the reasons for their attitude:

Several traders claim that the programmers of robots are overselling their products’ potential as they are reffering to back tests and demo trading as their only proof of profit. This is somewhat true, and that could be a legitimate point. However, the people behind some of the new software available also include live trading results in their sales pitches. This is somethinge new, and give customers the opportunity to examine the actual robot’s real performance before buying. My strong advice is to only consider robots with references to continuously updated live trading data.

Experienced traders often have years of education and trial and error, before they eventually have started to profit in this market. For some it may seem unfair that unexperienced traders, with little or no effort, can be as well as profitable as they are. This makes their past hard effort less worth, and would eventually lower their status as experienced profitable traders. As a result, a lot of these actors are endlessly picking on the users of robots.

A lot of actors in the Forex area are profiting on the beginners lack of knowledge. Either from (manual) trading, as beginners often looses money in trying to trade this way, or by offering expensive educational or advisory services to the beginners. Of course, these actors do not welcome automatic trading robots, as there will be much less need for their services. And as the beginners are getting profitable quite early, who looses? Yes it may be themselves indirectly, as they are still doing their manual trading and dont exploit the edge of a well performing robot.

At last, you have these people claiming that every software robot out there is a scam, of course expept from their own or the one they are promoting. You would not listen to them, as they have economic interests in making false negative statements about the other ones available.

You may want to check out my honest experiences with robot trading, and take a look on the live results available.

http://automated-forex-trade.com

Article Source: Forex Robot Software - 4 Reasons Why People are Negative