Investing Guide

Recently, I was reading through some questions posed by newbies. Many of the questions essentially boiled down to this:

Are penny stocks the fastest way to make money or lose money?

Some newbies were more interested in how to make money fast from penny stocks and others were expressing more concern about losing money if they attempted to trade penny stocks.

From reading through the answers they received, I found there were two camps on each end of the spectrum with virtually no one taking a position in the middle. On one end, people flat out said things like, “Don’t trade penny stocks at all…it’s like gambling.” On the other end of the spectrum people said things like, “…just dive in…sign up for my free newsletter….my free e-course….and you’ll make tons of money because everyone knows there more profit potential in penny stocks than with other stocks.” Continue reading ‘Are Penny Stocks the Fastest Way To Make Money Or Lose Money?’ »

?With all of the buzz surrounding commodities these days you are probably wondering just how does a penny stock trader gain exposure to something as potentially disastrous as the commodities futures market.

What exactly are futures?

Growing up in an area dominated by agriculture I used to watch the lunchtime agricultural news with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. What exactly is a lean hog future? I remember my father explaining that from his perspective no hog on any farm he ever saw had much of a future. What on Earth is a pork belly and why would anybody buy a barrel of oil? It was all rather mysterious. The image I had in my mind’s eye wasn’t entirely incorrect.

In investment terms, a future is a contract between a supplier of a commodity and a buyer. Continue reading ‘Commodities Futures and Options Explained’ »

Your investment has grown beautifully. However, you want to wait to sell the stock for tax reasons. However, the stock’s earnings report date is approaching, and you are apprehensive. If the report is disappointing, your stock could be easily downgraded. This short article describes a trading strategy for protecting and increasing your profit if the stock takes a dive.

Let’s consider a fictitious stock named ABC. Assume you bought 100 shares of ABC on July 30, 2010 for $29.48. Let’s say that it is now worth $51.35. Your gain is close to 75%, $2187.00. For tax reasons you do not want to sell now. In addition,, its earnings report is due to be announced before the open. Continue reading ‘Planning for an Earnings Report – A Protective Trading System’ »

A friend of mine recently came to me with a question about helping her mom do a Roth conversion as part of her estate planning. You see, her mother wanted to be able to leave the monies in her individual retirement account to her heirs, without using any of the funds, herself, for retirement.

Before I could give her an answer, I had to ask a couple of questions.

First, I needed to know how old her mother was. This information was important because the laws governing traditional IRAs require the owner to begin taking minimum distributions from the account at age 70 ½. Her mom was 68, so she still had time to do a Roth conversion.

Now, I needed to know if her mother was married and, if so, was her spouse her sole beneficiary? My friend’s father was still living, so there were a couple of things her mother needed to consider with regard to doing a Roth conversion. Continue reading ‘Estate Planning With a Roth Conversion’ »

The moving averages are lagging indicators (MA) that most traders both professional and novice, will have probably used at one time or another.

Although there are a number of MA indicators, the most common used are the Simple Moving Average (SMA) and the Exponential Moving Average (EMA).

In this article, we will focus on these two indicators which traders use as technical indicators to forecast market trend movements to make their decision in trading. Continue reading ‘Using Moving Averages As Technical Indicators’ »

The 401(k) retirement plan is a great retirement account for the employees available at present. The plan allows the employees to collect certain amount of money during their career by saving money to get reasonable amount as pension for the retirement life. The contribution limits of the 401(k) plan include catch-up limits, total contribution limits, pre-tax and the limits applicable to the highly-paid employees. There are certain 401(k) maximums which do not allow exceeding certain amount while making contributions to the account. The maximum money you can contribute to the account depends up on the age of the employee.

In a 401(k) plan, it is crucial to remember that the contribution limit will change each year. The maximum limit to contribute is based on the living costs of the person in the previous year. The contribution limits are normally announced during mid October. The contribution maximum of 2011 is same as that of the last two years and the limit is $16,500 per year. The maximum may be increased in next year because the US government recalculates the limitation regularly due to the inflation. The rate normally increased is $500 each year. Continue reading ‘Contribution Limits of 401(K)’ »

Recent spikes in the price of oil have seen the price rise over fifty percent in the past several months. The current barrel is trading at around US $115.

This is concerning for investors because of the potential for high oil prices to further upset an already delicate recovery. Oil is a key component of almost every company’s cost structure, either direct or indirect, and sustained high oil prices will impact profit margins and business sentiment. It also threatens to put even more pressure on consumer spending, which is already weak.

We observe that if the current “Libya premium” we are seeing in the oil price is sustained, global economic growth could be reduced by about 0.5% this year (from our current estimate of approximately 4.3%). Continue reading ‘Oil Price Spikes – A Threat to Investors’ »

You can use your self directed IRA or 401k for great returns in real estate private lending.

Is your 401k looking more like a 4K? Are your IRA returns just breaking even? Are you sick of losing money yet? You need someone that can turn your losing accounts into 8%-12% annual returns for your self directed IRA or 401k! Imagine a world with multiple opportunities to choose from and you get to choose the best deal for you.

You need to become the bank and with your “self directed” IRA or 401k you can!!! Naturally, the best and most profitable loan for a lender is one that is short term with the highest possible interest rate. The best high interest rate loan with a short term period is a hard money loan! Hard money is typically secured with real estate. This is a low “loan to value” loan, not the high leverage loans of the recent past, so your money is protected. In the past people seeking this type of loan had limited options. However, real estate investors can afford higher interest rates because the returns in real estate are always much higher than the interest charged but again finding a loan when you have the opportunity has always been an obstacle. You need an expert that eliminates this problem by bringing everyone together. Continue reading ‘Self Directed IRA Investing/Lending Success’ »

This is a message to all new novice traders. Please don’t over trade. Over trading can wipe out your account big time. I’m not saying that just because that is what the professional traders say, but because it happened to me in demo and real accounts. And those experiences lead me to write this article on how to avoid depleting your trading account.

I had signed up for the Avalon FX Pro demo contest the summer of 2009, which started, with a demo account balance of $100,000. First price was a Mac Book. I wanted that Mac Book but more I wanted to see how I would perform trading with $100,000 (I don’t even trade close to that amount right now). Well, I was doing pretty well in the beginning. In fact I was able to turn $100,000 to $211,000 in two and a half weeks. My strategy was sound – trading trend line and horizontal support and resistance and taking advantage of momentum. I did some trades around news time as well (not recommended) which helped. I had profit goals as well that once hit I stopped trading for the day. Continue reading ‘Don’t Over Trade – Six Tips to Not Deplete Your Trading Account’ »

As we grow up in American, we are taught to work very hard to provide a decent income that will allow us to take care of our families, do our best to educate our children, and set goals that will provide a secure retirement. As time goes by, and the retirement age approaches, it would be wise to consider the following questions: Do I have enough money saved to retire? Will taxes have a major impact on our standard of living? Are our retirement safe in the monetary vehicles we are currently using?

I want to suggest looking into an Indexed Annuity. First off, an annuity is essentially a savings account with an insurance company. A very important benefit is that your principal investment and credited interest can never be lost due to index volatility. Indexed annuities are fixed annuities that allow a great chance to potentially earn a lot more interest than traditional fixed annuities and other accounts that are considered safe money alternatives. This is achieved by basing the interest earned on this particular annuity on an increase in equity or a bond index. You as a consumer have total control over how your annuity can accrue interest by choosing the index crediting methods on the anniversary of each contract year. The most commonly used indices are; the Dow Jones Industrial Average, 10-Year U.S. Treasury bond, and the S&P 500. When you purchase an indexed annuity, you own an annuity contract backed by an investment life insurance company; you are not directly purchasing shares of stock or indexes. Continue reading ‘Safe Money – Understanding Annuities’ »