Crash-Proof Your Investments With a "Permanent Wealth Plan"

You probably don’t believe me. You probably think that successful investors have impressive IQs and "whizz kid" math brains. Some do. But, believe me, most don’t.

The common thread among most successful investors is far more mundane than that. What they have is discipline and an ability to conquer their emotions. Or as Warren Buffett puts it, "To invest successfully does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding the framework."

If you’re still skeptical, think for a moment about poor Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most intelligent and influential men in history. Newton may have built the first refracting telescope, laid the groundwork for classical mechanics, and developed differential and integral calculus…but he didn’t have much luck when it came to investing.

Guide to Retiring Before You’re Tired Or Fired! (3)

Which is better: planned or forced retirement? That’s easy to answer, you say. But think again. Do you remember any of those trick questions in your school days which seemed to be asking what was so obvious and you rushed to answer them first only to be told by your class teacher that you didn’t get the answer right?

This is one of such questions. Now, don’t get into an argument with me on this. Just patiently read every line that follows. And at the end of it, you’ll see what I mean.

First, what is a planned retirement? It’s a retirement that you set a date for and put a time-table in place that will terminate on the date you set. And, having done that, you do everything you needed to do to ensure that you’ll be ready to take off when that date arrives.

And forced retirement? Well, that’s the one that you’re told about a couple of hours after addressing a group of people, telling them in glowing terms how you plan to take your division to a higher level in sales in the next two years and the standing ovation you got from the audience was still ringing in your ears.

The Secret to Protecting Your Portfolio From the Bears

If you are like most people on the planet, you covet your positive investment returns and are scared to death that you might give up those returns in this tough market climate. I believe this is why a majority of individual investors missed some or all of the recent stock market ascent off the March 2009 lows and 60%+ move higher.

I think this is why a November 2009 survey of high net worth investors by Investment News, showed that only a slim portion of the wealthy feel in control of their financial lives, an even smaller number (fewer than 9%) enjoy thinking about financial matters and only about a quarter feel successful in investing.

So what is the secret to feeling better about your investments and protecting your portfolio from Mr. Market’s bears? The answer is to have a plan to identify and hedge your portfolio when market conditions clearly show a change in market direction may be coming.

Are Mutual Funds Or Stocks Better?

To hit the gym, to do an at home program, to hit the wild out doors or to do a combination of all of them, that is the question. When deciding where to workout the choices can be endless. For some there is no question as to which one is right, but if you are like me all of them can work but sometimes finding the right one for right now is the actual problem.

This same problem can occur when looking at stocks or mutual funds for your investments. So how do you decide what is the right answer for you? Using three easy steps you can make your choice and move forward!

Research

The first step is to research each option and get the basic facts. The more information you have the better informed your decisions are. Create a list of traits that you want to discover and can eventually transfer to a pros and cons list. So your research on gyms could include the cost, the time commitment to travel, and hours open. With mutual funds, you may research what you need to do to invest, and what you need to know.

How the Stock Market Works – Stock Trading Basics

Option and stock trading can fulfill a whole a new world of income possibilities for generating some extra money. Despite a potential great source of income, understanding how to invest stock options is always help up by a large amount of risk. Considering this, it becomes imperative to familiarize yourself with how to invest stock options. Educating yourself on how to invest stock options incorporates these essential practices:

1. Understand the fact that investment trading is no pastime activity.

Since you will be dealing with substantial income losses or profits, make sure that you consider it to be a real business. Understanding how to invest stock options incorporates studying your own investment results and even the corporations of your investments.

2. Utilize a program for investment management.

Since we live in a world of great technology, a basic internet connection and a trading management and investor software won’t cost much to obtain. As far as stock trading goes, you will need two kinds of software. First of all, personal management software for income is incorporated to track losses, profits, brokers, subscriptions, and everything else you need. Finally, you can get software for following fundamental and technical analysis, company news, stock and find prices, and etc.

Investing, Retirement, and a Home Based Business

Investing and planning for retirement is one of the hardest things that most of us will ever do in our life. Most investors and families around the world have no idea of what to do because of all the options that are available.
There are a few questions that typically come up and they are as follows:

· Should I invest in an registered or a non-registered account?
· Should I invest in individual stocks, bonds, Exchange Traded Funds or mutual funds?
· Should I invest in a rental and buy an investment property?

These are all good questions and unfortunately not easily answered. Each individual is very unique and their circumstances are all different. I have found that the best way to answer these questions is to follow a 6 step plan that forms the foundation of every good financial plan. I know that this sounds a little boring but let’s put it into perspective. If you do not know where you are going, how do you know what path to take! There are six steps that people should be focusing on when planning an investment strategy:

How Diversified Should You Be?

One of the most common questions investors ask is "how many stocks should comprise my portfolio?" Let’s take a look at the reasons behind diversifying stock positions, investigate the answers and actions of some well-known investors, and then see what the Magic Formula Investing strategy has to say about the topic. In the process, hopefully we can come to a conclusion on a good number of stock positions to be sufficiently diversified (without over-doing it).

So, first, why diversify at all? The simple answer is to reduce risk. In investing, there are two basic categories of risk, which we will call "macro risk" and "micro risk". Macro risk are systematic concerns that can affect all stocks negatively. Examples of this would be recessions, military conflicts, inflation, high interest rates, and so forth. Micro risk, on the other hand, applies only to a single company or a number of related companies. For example, the FDA’s loss-of-smell warning on Matrixx Initiatives’ (MTXX) Zicam nasal products caused that stock to plummet 75%, but did not really affect any other stocks. These micro risks can also affect a handful of players in a particular industry or geographic area.

Holding a number of different stock positions cannot protect you against macro risk, but it can certainly help protect from micro risk. Going back to the MTXX example, if you were an employee there who held all of your 401(k) in company stock, your retirement nest egg would have been largely wiped out. On the other hand, if you had diversified evenly into just 2 stocks, the hit to MTXX would have brought your portfolio down "just" 38% (assuming a constant value for the other holding, of course). If you held a portfolio of 10 stocks, your total portfolio value would be down just 7.5%. Since no investor has a perfect crystal ball into the future, diversification is an important protection against micro risk.

Basic Ingredients to Look For in Stock Buying

The first step in buying stock is making a decision on the type of organization you want to buy your stocks from. It is important to realize that you can buy stocks from any corporation that is held publicly.

By this, we mean that the public has some control over the corporation. You should not buy stocks from a closely-held corporation or a privately-held corporation, because these will either be controlled by an individual’s small group or run by family members and close friends.

It is very fortunate that large companies that deal in stocks are usually publicly held, and that you can make the decision of buying from them. When you are selecting the company you want to invest in, ascertain that it is in an industry that is strong. Another thing that you should be sure of is that the company you are investing in has good growth.

Four Stock Trading Tips to Follow Before You Trade

Every trader can do with several stock trading tips. Even experts need these if only to remind them of what they can do to cut losses. Here are four essential pieces of advice that you have to make a mental note of before making any trade decision.

#1 – Loss is always a part of trades.

It goes without saying that the main appeal of dealing with stocks is the prospect of achieving tremendous wealth. This is why lots of people either leave their day jobs to trade or make deals on a part time basis in the hopes of earning enough to eventually quit work. It is true that there is a great potential to earn in the market. It is also worth noting though that loss is and always will be a part of every trader’s life. Even market legends like Nicolas Darvas and Richard Dennis have not been able to escape this reality. It is therefore an invaluable trading tip to always accept the possibility of loss in any deal regardless of how promising it seems.

3 Keys to Getting the Best Home Investment Program

Today there are several different stock programs on the market which will generate analytically picked stocks which are set to go and profitable trends so that you can invest accordingly without needing the experience or time to invest yourself. These programs are modeled after programs which professional traders use to anticipate market data but are available on a home based scale.

All you’ve got to do is invest in the corresponding picks which they generate to make reliable money. Not every home investment program is as good as the next, so here’s what to look for to get the best stock program for the money.

First, look for the home investment program you go with to focus entirely on cheap stocks. Penny stocks perform with much more volatility than greater priced stocks as it takes virtually little trading influence and send them skyrocketing value. Some home investment programs exclusively target cheap stocks for this reason, because if you can find a cheap stock which is set to go on a profitable jump you can make far more money on it than an initially greater valued stock.

How to Triple Your Investments Overnight With Cheap Stock Investments

Success in the stock market has long been a dream of many Americans who are looking to supplement their existing income and really just have the money to do what they want and when they want to do it. If you haven’t had a great deal of experience in the past, this article is going to explain how to triple your investments overnight in the stock market today on cheap stock picks.

The reason why professional stock traders are so good at what they do is their constantly analyzing real-time market data but also using analytical stock trend software to find trend overlaps. Market behavior is very specific and precise. For example, if you had a stock in the past which goes on a profitable trend or jump in value, if you have a current stock which exhibits similar behavior to that original stock, you had a very real idea of exactly what that current stock will do next. Professional traders rely heavily on programs which take the full range of the market into account and look for tiny overlaps like this because it’s virtually impossible to do without some sort of surveillance software.

The 3 Things You Need to Get Rich

If you are like me you have probably read all of the books, and invested a lot of time and money in figuring out how to get rich. Getting rich basically boils down to 3 things.

1. The Right Mindset: Your reality starts in your mind. Your thoughts are powerful. Your thoughts eventually turn into your words, which make up your belief system, which dictates the actions that you take, and your actions create the results in your life.

When we see specific results, those results trigger more thoughts, and the cycle continue.

Our thoughts are affected by programming. We are programmed by the different people and things in our life.

I call the person or thing that influences us the most our dominant influence. Your dominant influence could be a relative, a friend, a mentor, an enemy, a religious organization, a religion, a government, the media (i.e. television, radio, internet, newspapers, etc…), music, any thing or person that you listen to mostly, any thing or person that you see mostly, etc…

The Psychology of Investing Money and 5 Negative Personality Traits

Investing in the stock market, in options, in foreign currency, in commodities, or in other financial instruments will only be successful if you do technical analysis and fundamental analysis and when you have a trading strategy that incorporates risk and portfolio management. To be successful in investing money, you must understand the psychology of investing. One aspect of this is to understand the negative personality traits that investors have – these traits prevent investors from succeeding in their investments.

Tape watchers

A tape watcher is a person who sits all day looking at live data. If you are a tape watcher, whenever the price of the stock you have invested in is up, you will think you have make a good investment, and vice versa. This makes tape watching an emotional experience. You should set your stop losses and you should take the time to do research or to do other constructive things.

The uncertain

Some people are always unsure about the decisions they make. This is a bad trait because they are not able to take risks and since the greater the risk the greater the reward, uncertain people will not succeed as investors. If you are not sure about your investment decision, you should do fundamental and technical analysis and then you should trust your intuition.

Learning to Invest the Right Way

Investing can be an ideal option if you are able to save some cash from your income every month. Instead of just lying in your drawer or bank account you should learn the techniques of investing so that you can make some extra cash from it.

You need to have some set of rules laid out before you want to invest. These rules would help you in making decisions like when and how to make your purchase and sales. It would also determine when should you just stay calm and keep holding it on. Most of your rules can come out from your past experiences either good or bad. As an investor you should be able to learn from your bad decisions and not lose heart.

There are also people who invest based on the decisions and actions of other investors. It is recommendable that you should first carry out research and then demonstrate properly on your findings. This would help you decide your investing actions more accurate. It is important that you should stick to your personal investment rules and do not start doing things just because your friend or colleague is. Learn the techniques and implement them vigorously.

What to Do When the Market Corrects?

Correction is healthy for stock market and part of life. Any mature investor would welcome the correction as it gives opportunity to buy several good stocks at attractive pricing. Corrections tend to occur following a sharp run-up in stock values, but can occur any time, with little or no warning.

Stock market corrections announce a discount sale!

During festivals we generally get discount sale and the people use it happily to buy the desired things at discounted rates. But investors are seldom happy about the discount sale and generally avoid buying stocks when the market corrects significantly.

Issue of Pledged Shares in the Recent Stock Market Scenario

Pledging of shares refer to the act of keeping the shares with the bank in lieu of a loan. Your shares would thence be referred to as pledged and the bank would term the agreement as collateral. During the period of pledging, you would continue receiving dividends, bonus, and all other related benefits. Once the loan is paid back to the bank your shares would automatically get released, but in case you fail to repay the loan amount, the bank holds the authority to sell off the shares to retrieve the loan amount from the market.

Shares are pledged by individuals as well as retail investors. They can even be pledged by companies or their promoters. It might happen that due to economic slowdown, companies might be so cash-strapped even for working capital that they have problem raising money from the market and have very few options left with them to raise money. In such a scenario, pledging shares might be one way out. This is therefore a reflection of the company’s financial health, its market perception and of the general economy.

Under such circumstances, suppose the company’s share valuation goes down then the company will have to make immediate payments in whole or parts to the bank or else will have to pledge more shares. In case, the company fails to do this, the bank again holds the right to sell off the shares to raise the money. Thus, in order to keep a cushion against the unforeseen circumstances, only 50-60% of the share value is given as loan against securities.

Day Trading Penny Stocks – How to Select the Best Online Broker

By Mike Singh

Trading today is very different compared to the trading that took place about 5-10 years ago. Access to quick online trade execution, which was a luxury about a decade ago has become a standard amongst most brokers today. Nearly everybody with some money has dabbled in trading stocks at some point because its fast, easy and cheap. For some its profitable and for others it can be a costly experience. Which category do you want to belong to?

If you said the first one, then lets discuss the criteria for picking the right broker especially if you want to make short-term trades:

Cost

You might be wondering why we have listed this first. Its not necessarily because we think cheaper is better. Its because that’s the first thing that every broker advertises and every trader looks at. So, lets get it out of the way shall we. When you start making your list of brokers, do not eliminate brokers solely on price unless the trade cost is way beyond your budget. Always compare the price of atleast 5 brokers before you choose one. This is because some brokers have lower prices depending on the number of trades you are going to make. As a rule-of-thumb you can assume that if you are just starting out you will make 10-30 trades in a month. If you are an intermediate investor, then you could be making 50+ trades a month. Keeping these numbers in mind, you can figure out what each trade will cost you.

How to Keep Total Control of Your Money and Investments

Don’t let anyone have control of your money or investments. You are the best person to handle your money. No one else cares as much or has your best interest at heart, then you. It does not take a lot of time or experience to do this. If you want higher returns than banks, CD’s, or money market accounts, I suggest you invest in the stock market.

You need to open a self directed account with a discount brokerage company. You will be able to use IRA’s or personal funds. The setup is easy and cost is very low. You than can invest your own money and have the flexibility you need to make very good profits from stocks.

The next thing you want to have, to be successful in the stock market, is a systematic plan of investment. I like for investors to buy low and sell higher. This can be done by using a chart or system that watches stocks that are under valued, have sales that are increasing, profits that are increasing and no owners or management that is selling large blocks of the stock. When you buy at a low your odds of making a profit increase and profits are magnified. Does that make sense to you?

What is the Best Investing Style?

This is arguably one of the most important questions to ask before you begin investing. Some investors have very well-defined investing strategies and can answer this question very quickly and easily. Others don’t and would struggle to answer this question. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, let’s briefly take a look at some of the basic investing strategies.

Do you like to buy stocks at a temporarily low price, and then sell them quickly within a week or two once the stock price has increased? If so, then you are not an investor at all. You are a trader. Traders like to look for short-term indicators that a stock’s price is about to increase and then sell the stock when the stock’s price has appreciated to a certain level.

How to Buy Penny Stocks – What Are Your Options?

It’s really amazing when you consider the times that we live in. Once we turn on the computer and log on to the internet, just about everything is accessible. Just about anybody has the ability to buy penny stocks, nowadays, in a matter of minutes. But as with anything else, you have to remember that their inherent risks when you trade the stock market, irregardless of what kind of stocks they may be.

Before you decide which stocks you want to buy, you need to make sure you understand how to buy penny stocks. You must walk before you can learn. There are approximately three different way you can buy penny stocks online. Usually they are either through your own research, a newsletter, or software. As long as you are open minded, you can make a decent profit on any of these kinds of methods.