Investment Support

Smart people sometimes make dumb mistakes when it comes to investing. Part of the reason for this, I guess, is that most people dont have the time to learn what they need to know to make good decisions. Another reason is that oftentimes when you make a dumb mistake, somebody elsean investment salesperson, for examplemakes money. Fortunately, you can save yourself lots of money and a bunch of headaches by not making bad investment decisions.

Dont Forget to Diversify

The average stock market return is 10 percent or so, but to earn 10 percent you need to own a broad range of stocks. In other words, you need to diversify.

Everybody who thinks about this for more than a few minutes realizes that it is true, but its amazing how many people dont diversify. For example, some people hold huge chunks of their employers stock but little else. Or they own a handful of stocks in the same industry.

To make money on the stock market, you need around 15 to 20 stocks in a variety of industries. (I didnt just make up these figures; the 15 to 20 number comes from a statistical calculation that many upper-division and graduate finance textbooks explain.) With fewer than 10 to 20 stocks, your portfolios returns will very likely be something greater or less than the stock market average. Of course, you dont care if your portfolios return is greater than the stock market average, but you do care if your portfolios return is less than the stock market average.

By the way, to be fair I should tell you that some very bright people disagree with me on this business of holding 15 to 20 stocks. For example, Peter Lynch, the outrageously successful former manager of the Fidelity Magellan mutual fund, suggests that individual investors hold 4 to 6 stocks that they understand well.

His feeling, which he shares in his books, is that by following this strategy, an individual investor can beat the stock market average. Mr. Lynch knows more about picking stocks than I ever will, but I nonetheless respectfully disagree with him for two reasons. First, I think that Peter Lynch is one of those modest geniuses who underestimate their intellectual prowess. I wonder if he underestimates the powerful analytical skills he brings to his stock picking. Second, I think that most individual investors lack the accounting knowledge to accurately make use of the quarterly and annual financial statements that publicly held companies provide in the ways that Mr. Lynch suggests.

Have Patience

The stock market and other securities markets bounce around on a daily, weekly, and even yearly basis, but the general trend over extended periods of time has always been up. Since World War II, the worst one-year return has been 26.5 percent. The worst ten-year return in recent history was 1.2 percent. Those numbers are pretty scary, but things look much better if you look longer term. The worst 25-year return was 7.9 percent annually.

Its important for investors to have patience. There will be many bad years. Many times, one bad year is followed by another bad year. But over time, the good years outnumber the bad. They compensate for the bad years too. Patient investors who stay in the market in both the good and bad years almost always do better than people who try to follow every fad or buy last years hot stock.

Invest Regularly

You may already know about dollar-average investing. Instead of purchasing a set number of shares at regular intervals, you purchase a regular dollar amount, such as $100. If the share price is $10, you purchase ten shares. If the share price is $20, you purchase five shares. If the share price is $5, you purchase twenty shares.

Dollar-average investing offers two advantages. The biggest is that you regularly investin both good markets and bad markets. If you buy $100 of stock at the beginning of every month, for example, you dont stop buying stock when the market is way down and every financial journalist in the world is working to fan the fires of fear.

The other advantage of dollar-average investing is that you buy more shares when the price is low and fewer shares when the price is high. As a result, you dont get carried away on a tide of optimism and end up buying most of the stock when the market or the stock is up. In the same way, you also dont get scared away and stop buying a stock when the market or the stock is down.

One of the easiest ways to implement a dollar-average investing program is by participating in something like an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan or deferred compensation plan. With these plans, you effectively invest each time money is withheld from your paycheck.

To make dollar-average investing work with individual stocks, you need to dollar-average each stock. In other words, if youre buying stock in IBM, you need to buy a set dollar amount of IBM stock each month, each quarter, or whatever.

Dont Ignore Investment Expenses

Investment expenses can add up quickly. Small differences in expense ratios, costly investment newsletter subscriptions, online financial services (including Quicken Quotes!), and income taxes can easily subtract hundreds of thousands of dollars from your net worth over a lifetime of investing.

To show you what I mean, here are a couple of quick examples. Lets say that youre saving $7,000 per year of 401(k) money in a couple of mutual funds that track the Standard & Poors 500 index. One fund charges a 0.25 percent annual expense ratio, and the other fund charges a 1 percent annual expense ratio. In 35 years, youll have about $900,000 in the fund with the 0.25 percent expense ratio and about $750,000 in the fund with the 1 percent ratio.

Heres another example: Lets say that you dont spend $500 a year on a special investment newsletter, but you instead stick the money in a tax-deductible investment such as an IRA. Lets say you also stick your tax savings in the tax-deductible investment. After 35 years, youll accumulate roughly $200,000.

Investment expenses can add up to really big numbers when you realize that you could have invested the money and earned interest and dividends for years.

Dont Get Greedy

I wish there was some risk-free way to earn 15 or 20 percent annually. I really, really do. But, alas, there isnt. The stock markets average return is somewhere between 9 and 10 percent, depending on how many decades you go back. The significantly more risky small company stocks have done slightly better. On average, they return annual profits of 12 to 13 percent. Fortunately, you can get rich earning 9 percent returns. You just need to take your time. But no risk-free investments consistently return annual profits significantly above the stock markets long-run averages.

I mention this for a simple reason: People make all sorts of foolish investment decisions when they get greedy and pursue returns that are out of line with the average annual returns of the stock market. If someone tells you that he has a sure-thing investment or investment strategy that pays, say, 15 percent, dont believe it. And, for Petes sake, dont buy investments or investment advice from that person.

If someone really did have a sure-thing method of producing annual returns of, say, 18 percent, that person would soon be the richest person in the world. With solid year-in, year-out returns like that, the person could run a $20 billion investment fund and earn $500 million a year. The moral is: There is no such thing as a sure thing in investing.

Dont Get Fancy

For years now, Ive made the better part of my living by analyzing complex investments. Nevertheless, I think that it makes most sense for investors to stick with simple investments: mutual funds, individual stocks, government and corporate bonds, and so on.

As a practical matter, its very difficult for people who havent been trained in financial analysis to analyze complex investments such as real estate partnership units, derivatives, and cash-value life insurance. You need to understand how to construct accurate cash-flow forecasts. You need to know how to calculate things like internal rates of return and net present values with the data from cash-flow forecasts. Financial analysis is nowhere near as complex as rocket science. Still, its not something you can do without a degree in accounting or finance, a computer, and a spreadsheet program (like Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3).

Trade finance is an important part of the business. It offers various aspects of managing finances for the company. Trade finance helps to generate, manage and establish various finance practices like working capital, factoring solutions, banking solutions, loans, guarantees, discounting, etc.

Various trade finance companies help to provide credit finance, export finance, credit protection, invoice collection services, etc. Trade finance companies help to reduce marketing cost and increase your trade profitability. They also help in increasing the sales by promoting the products, services or the website around the world. Trade finance companies also help in broadcasting the trade leads, generate new business and promote the company to new business groups or business ventures. Trade finance companies help in eliminating most of the commercial and political risk normally retained by the company or any small or medium business owner. These trade finance companies also provide 100% financing solutions. Some of these companies or agencies are factoring agencies also that help in facilitating international trade through factoring and other related trade finance techniques.

Export oriented trade finance companies provide finance support system for enhancing cash flow, reducing finance costs. Export trade finance companies or agencies also provide information and support for export working capital, Export Import Banks, financing, loans, loan forms, guarantees and forfaiting. It is important to know about some of the export trade financing companies, agencies, or financial institutions like AFIA, Export Express, Factors chain international, etc. Some agencies with their special trade finance programs and techniques help small and medium business owners to find needed capital to succeed. They also help in pre-order financing of labor, materials, goods, machinery, financing of receivables, issuing letters of credit, etc.

Apart from companies and agencies there are several government organizations that assist companies with their export venture. These federal governmental organizations offer services that range from export loan guarantees to loan assistance. They also serve as specialized associations that offer advice and counsel to interested small and medium business owners. Moreover, they also organize and provide seminars, lectures, convocations and publications on topical areas of trade finance techniques. They also server as a medium to exchange information between organizations, companies, agencies, that indulge in trade finance. Professional trade finance companies and institutions seek to promote good and moral trade practices amongst the trading parties.

Trade financing be it for the local market or the international market for exports, begins from the first stop at the banks. It is important to identify the source that provide trade finance or risk mitigation. Factoring, forfaiting, loans, bank guarantees, letters of credit, export financing are various trade finance practices.

Factoring allows the business owner to calculate the present value of future amount due or sale of a firm accounts receivable to a financial institution known as a factor. Invoice factoring helps the small and medium business owners to obtain immediate cash required for business without owning and debt or transferring business equity. These business owners sell their invoices in order to receive money today.

Forfaiting is a practice of trade finance, which is used as an alternative to the export credit or insurance cover. It allows exporters to obtain cash and eliminate their risks by selling their receivables on a ‘without recourse’ basis. These trade finance practice act as resources of fund management, credit management, loan elimination and increasing profitability by cutting administration and marketing costs along with the overheads.

Make no mistake, the currency crisis is coming.

Rather than sitting back and letting it happen, protect yourself and profit from an economic upset that could basically render your dollars about as worthless as the paper they’re printed on.

We saw a preview of this kind of debacle quite recently. In early 2006 a currency plunge triggered an avalanche of sell orders in emerging markets from Brazil to Indonesia. The Icelandic krona plunged nearly 10 percent in only two days, dragging down Icelandic stocks and bonds with it and subsequently spread to Brazil, Mexico, Poland and Turkey.

A precursor to this was the Asian Currency Crash of 1997, which sent stocks south like ducks in winter. Banks, insurance companies, real estate and bonds also fled the scene. The only viable option left was gold.

In the event of another such decline in currency values, gold will be worth at least 10 times its current value.

How is this possible?

Simple: Since gold cannot be made or printed at the whim of greedy politicos, it can’t be devalued as quickly as the paper money that is printed whenever need arises.

When a currency is backed by gold, $1 in paper money has to be backed by approximately one dollar’s worth of gold. Once a currency is no longer backed by gold, governments can print as much as needed. Naturally, most world governments have gone off the gold standard and that is why paper money has no intrinsic value.

As a result, most major institutions only speculate short term between those currencies and associated local values, such as stocks or bonds, and then they convert their profit into gold.

This is where we at Forex Super King excel. We specialize in global trading and diversification.

Our money is made in both currency trading, where we average 1,000 pips (price interest points) per month, and U.S. small stocks that recently acquired dual listings with the European exchange.

As a result, our clients can experience a short-term windfall from 50 percent to 400 percent by tapping into the heavy buying power of European investors with holding time from a day to a month. We then convert half of our profit every month into gold.

We’ll show you how to get set up so that you can hold your funds in several currencies, even if you only have $500 to start.

We can also show you how to not only diversify internationally but how to trade the international markets as well as currency markets to realize substantial profit, short term.

Parkbridge Capital Has Eye on the Prize Retirement Communities

A slumping housing market, high energy costs, and turbulent financial markets are causing many baby boomers into more prudent choices for their retirement. Today’s retirees consider a longer, more active lifestyle than previous generations, and now, with homes adjusting downward in value, many will have fewer financial resources than previously perceived. There is an answer for many of the upcoming wave of retirees: the new generation of manufactured homes, where quality, safety, comfort, aesthetics and value exist. Many people are turning to the up-scale manufactured home communities. “The benefits are not solely in the home itself. The community offers great benefits and value,” states Lee Meekcoms, President of Parkbridge Capital Group, Inc. (www.parkbridgecapital.com), a privately held real estate investment, acquisition, and brokerage firm. With more than twenty-five years in real estate sales, acquisition, and development and a baby boomer himself, he understands this market well. “The boomers seek a lifestyle that is secure, fulfills needs, and provides enjoyable activities with friends in the retirement years,” says Meekcoms.

Today, many manufactured home communities feature resort-living, sporting everything from gated entrances, to swimming pools, spas, recreational centers, clubhouses, community events, wireless internet, cable TV, activity coordinators, BBQ and dining areas, fitness centers, seasonal events and more. “The people that live in these communities are happy, creative and really enjoy the place and all that it offers,” says Meekcoms, “staying at home is not really an interesting option”.

These 77 million baby boomers, or 35 percent of all U.S. adults, have long known how to flex their real estate muscle. As the top breadwinners in the American economy, baby boomers have a strong relationship to their home and consider housing and real estate to be their best financial investment. Baby boomers also account for roughly 50% of all vacation homes according to the National Association of Realtors.

Trends in both manufactured home communities and RV resorts (which can have the same set of amenities as the manufactured home communities, and often, more amenities) are strong indicators that these properties are a wise investment; the reason why Parkbridge Capital has focused on this market. “We’re confident that buying, upgrading, enhancing operations, and expanding existing properties will result in very good investor returns, while providing Americans with an affordable, or even a quite luxurious way to achieve the lifestyle that they desire.”

One might expect that skyrocketing gas prices would discourage RV traveling or seasonal living elsewhere. However, Parkbridge Capital has found the opposite to be true. “Research indicates that those who own RVs overwhelmingly feel that RV vacations are much less expensive than other travel options,” he says. “Observers of this phenomena note that RV owners are spending less time on the road and more time at their destinations. We’re seeing a lot of growth in the “park-model” (resort cottage) sector of the RV market. The retiree simply drives their smaller RV, their car, or arrives by air travel, and remains for the season at the resort.” Meekcoms expects that this trend will continue for many years.

Because of economic fact, many baby boomers want to enjoy a flexible lifestyle at a cost that isn’t extravagant,” he says. “The properties that we acquire with our partners and clients are a perfect fit for mobile, cost-conscious boomers who want the best of all worlds.”

Parkbridge Capital Group has been involved with the purchase, sale or management of more than 100 properties worth in excess of one billion dollars in current value. More information can be found online at http://www.parkbridgecapital.com.

There are many many advantages over the various other ways of investing. First of all it is a 24 hr market, except for weekends of course. You have the US market then the european and then the Asian. One of the great times to trade is during the over lapping periods. The USA and European overlap between 5am & 9am eastern and the European & Asian between 11pm & 1am eastern. Usually the busiest time and best to trade.

The is also the risk factor for the accounts. With futures and options you can get margin calls that can wipe you out. If you get caught in a bad trade not only do you lose the money in the account but you may have to come up
with alot more from your pocket. It can be very risking.But not in Forex. Worst case senerio you could lose whats in you account. But you would have to do something really stupid. Like making a big trade on a Fundamental day and leave it alone. If market takes a bad move and you weren’t there. OOOPS. But That wouldn’t happen with a smarth trader.

Then there are the demo accounts which is an account where you can trade using all the right things, platform,charts,and information. But you are using play money, or what we call paper trading too.

Plus with Forex you have a mini account. Instead of needing thousands of dollars to get into it. You can open an account with as little as $300.00. Now of course you will be trading at 1 tenth of a trade. IN other words you controling 10,000 instead of 100,000.00 These are call lots. Which also means you will only risk 1 tenth too!

So if you would love to learn to do investing and not
have near the risk you really need to take a closer look at
Forex trading.

While the state of the economy has made numerous potential investors skittish, many with years of experience in real estate are bullish about today’s investment opportunities. “While great real estate investment opportunities exist in every economic environment, today it’s especially important to find niches that are low risk and more likely to bring in a higher return on investment,” says Lee Meekcoms, President of Parkbridge Capital Group (www.parkbridgecapital.com), a privately held real estate investment, acquisition, and brokerage firm. “Despite what we hear in the news, real estate continues to be a sound investment, when undertaken with the correct, risk-adjusted approach.”

Today’s oft-repeated economic narrative is that, with encouragement from Wall Street investment bankers, lenders started playing fast and loose with credit risk and mortgages, enabling an unprecedented number of Americans to buy homes at prices beyond their means. Lenders packaged and sold these subprime mortgages, allowing banks to minimize the risk and resulting in individual and institutional investors gobbling up inadequately underwritten and rated mortgage-backed securities. As mortgage defaults rose, the ripples in the economy turned to shockwaves, and the Federal Reserve had to step in as giants like Bear Stearns began to topple.

While Meekcoms acknowledges the country’s economic downturn, his 25 years of experience in the real estate industry greatly aid in capitalizing on societal trends. “One of the best bets in real estate today is the Baby Boomer side of life,” says Meekcoms. “The industry has recognized that Baby Boomers represent a huge demographic, but not all venues of real estate benefit equally from these prosperous individuals.”

Meekcoms asserts that resort and retirement communities are advantageous Boomer-related real estate investments. His company, Parkbridge Capital Group, specifically focuses on RV resort properties and retiree-oriented manufactured home communities. “We’re seeing that an increasing number of cost-conscious Boomers are tweaking the ’snowbird’ concept, and opting to vacation or live part-time in areas that are two or three hours from major metropolitan areas,” he says. “In addition, higher gas prices mean that people are spending less time on the road and more time at their destinations of choice.”

Traditional Sunbelt destinations, such as Florida, Arizona, and Southern California remain popular, but other areas are open as well. “We’re seeing more ‘Winter Texans’ migrating to the Rio Grande Valley,” says Meekcoms, “as well as interest in summer resorts in New England, the upper Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest.”

For instance, many view Florida as pricey; Meekcoms recognizes that the state’s geography makes even inland areas appealing. “Florida is, for the most part, a long, narrow peninsula, so you can be in the middle of the state and have only an hour and a half drive to the coast,” he says. “While the property prices are higher in the coastal areas, resorts are more favorably priced in the Panhandle, Ocala, Leesburg, and areas south of Orlando, all the way to the region surrounding Lake Okeechobee.”

He notes that the return on investment doesn’t depend entirely upon the appreciation of property values. “These resorts and communities are income producing properties. Because many residents have year-to-year seasonal agreements, as demand in the marketplace increases, rents can concomitantly increase. Residents continue to receive an outstanding value, while investors get the return they seek,” Meekcoms concludes.

Forex (Foreign Currency Exchange Market) has been used by international banks and large investment companies for years to make millions of dollars. However, with easy access to the Internet, it is now possible for anyone to take advantage of this powerful tool and make money the same way large institutions do, even with minimal startup funds at hand.

Even experienced investors seem mystified by Forex and have very little understanding of it. Forex is not much different from the Stock Market, often the same or similar techniques can be used to trade currency as is used to trade stocks and commodities. What make Forex so mysterious is the lack of available information and opportunities of training.

I have listed 10 good reasons why I prefer Forex to the Stock Market or any other investment option and why any individual, or small investor, should look at getting involved with Forex:

1. A 24 hour market. You don’t have to worry about running out of time because the Forex is open 24 hours a day, nearly all week.

2. Huge liquidity. Have you ever got stuck trying to get rid of some stocks or options? With Forex, there are always buyers, thousands of them!

3. No commission on your trading. This is specially important for individuals with small amount of money to invest. When using other investment vehicles the cost of the investment is often prohibitive no matter how attractive the investment itself is. Brokerage and other government fees can easily eat up your profit even before you completed a transaction. With Forex, there are no brokerage, government etc fees involved.

4. Low transaction costs. Typically less than 0.1%!

5. No middleman. The investor is dealing directly with the Market.

6. Instantaneous transactions. Forex is fully computerised and transaction can be completed in as little 2 seconds. The investor does not have to wait for trade confirmation to arrive by email, worst yet, by post. All ‘paper-work’ is in electronic format, easily viewed, search, analysed.

7. Huge leverage yet low margin. Both increase your profit. In most cases leverage of 10:1 to 100:1 is the rule not the exception.

8. Minimal startup requirements. Again very important for individual or small investors. With Forex it is possible to start trading with as little as $300.00 dollars!

9. Easy access to the Market and your accounts, online, 24/7. Since Forex is completely computerised, anyone with Internet access can trade online and easily access their account and trading history. Most trading platforms allow the user to export this information to other third party software for storage, graphing, analysis etc.

10. No insider trading. Because of the way Forex is ‘de-centralised’, it is almost impossible for anyone to fraud the system.

I could go on for ever about Forex, it is an amazing tool for investors and also a very exciting opportunity for individuals. I hope you’ll catch the fever, too.

Wishing you success,
Ference

Los Angeles is the counterfeit document capital of America ID theft business is booming in the Californian metropolis

Officials warn that the fake ID business is booming in Los Angeles. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America says the Federal Trade Commission. It is a practice that victimizes innocent people by using their Social Security Numbers. It has become an epidemic, leaving everyone at risk. And, to make matters worse, most people do not know if their identity has been stolen.

Thieves do that with the greatest of ease, computers make it very easy for them, says John Davis, a special agent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. The computerization of records has made it far easier than ever to gather not just hundreds but hundreds of thousands of identification numbers and other identifying information. “The document vendors themselves, they just make up random numbers,” John says. “To do this would take maybe about two minutes, tops.”

Ann Jordan is a recent victim of identity theft. She’s got some serious credit problems, but she can’t understand that. Because she’s 2 year old. “She’s basically got two loans out on her Social Security number and, I believe, a credit card out,” says Anns mother, Kim Jordan. “She’s got $15,000 in debt.”

How on earth was that possible?

It was possible because someone else was using a Social Security number identical to Ann’s. It’s part of a mushrooming problem in America involving criminals who make and sell phony documents.

John Davis says Los Angeles, with its huge population of illegal immigrants, is the counterfeit document capital of America.

NBC News asked Telemundo, its Spanish language sister network, to send an employee for a walk through Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. There he was approached four times in just 30 minutes by document vendors.

“They told me I can get everything from IDs to permanent resident cards, or green cards, Social Security numbers,” he says. “They have absolutely everything.”

Back to Anns case, the authorities have arrested a suspect. That was soon after the local TV station broadcasted a report on the theft of Ann Jordan’s identity. Jose Ramirez has been charged with identity fraud and forgery.

Undercover video, shot by agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service, was used to help convict another man of forging Social Security cards and other government Ids.
In spite of all the efforts to crack ID theft business down, this won’t be an easy job, especially in Los Angeles.