http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/ Articles at The Article Planet en-us http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/strategic-investing-tips-and-advice.html http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/strategic-investing-tips-and-advice.html Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:34:05 -0500
We have experience with a major brokerage already. Unfortunately, we discovered that the service we were provided was impersonal. We received general market summaries with no real outline upon asking for advice. The newsletters from this large firm seemed outdated and matched reports from the market months earlier. We missed learning about trends and news in-depth and on-time.

We realized the brokerage's research was not good enough to invest our money off of. After a while we started to understand that to truly build our stock portfolios quality we really needed to do all the research ourselves.

Shortly after we started doing our own research we realized we did not need to be in business with the brokerage at all, we just felt like we were not gaining enough to be paying out for a lower level of service then we could provide ourselves. If you were doing all of the research, and coming up with your own plan of attack, you would also feel resentful if someone was taking a huge cut of your pay.

Financially things are starting to change. We found great new tools on MyStrategicForecast.com's website. With the accurate investment research from My Strategic Forecast you really can succeed with investing. As soon as we inquired with them about their services they sent over an accurate sample report that showing the direction the market was headed. We soon started contacting them for their financial input and investing advice once we realized their research was so accurate. We then felt we could start investing strategically investing of trying to guess if our research was complete and accurate.

My Strategic Forecast's reports come in the form of stock and investing financial newsletters. My husband and I were surprised and excited when we discovered that their research analysis not only discusses up to the moment market events, but provides a historical background to help us understand why the market is moving in that direction. We felt well prepared for what the market may bring.

With My Strategic Forecast providing our investment research, I felt that I was receiving information that wasnt just a prediction or a hunch. Things like economic trends, political conditions and other interesting elements go into their financial forecast newsletters. I mean, why should non-economic factors really be part of investment research? My Strategic Forecast realized that financial markets are not only driven by economics, and that other investment analysts seem to forget that fact. ]]> http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/self-managed-super-funds.html http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/self-managed-super-funds.html Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:54:22 -0500
There are numerous reasons as to why people may decide to establish a self managed super fund. These reasons basically include you have complete control and flexibility when it comes to aspects such as investment decisions, it also allows you easy estate planning and works out to be highly cost effective. There are a few things that you should however keep in mind when it comes to this, which includes the fact establishing one and of course operating one can be a major financial decision. The reason that I say this revolves around the fact you would have control and responsibility over all your fund's investment decisions. On top of this you would also be responsible for managing the fund's legal, accounting and compliance responsibilities.

There are however a number of requirements that you need to adhere to when it comes to setting up a super fund borrowing, for starters you need to ensure it has four or less members and that each member of the fund is in fact a trustee. On top of this it is vital that you ensure no member of the fund is an employee of another member of the fund, with one exception, which is if they are related. It is also vital that no trustee of the fund receives any payment or salary for the service that they provide.

As I have previously mentioned, setting up this type of fund can be highly time consuming but they can also be expensive, the reason for this is down to the fact there are a lot of costs involved in running one thanks to legal, accounting and compliance fees. If you are hoping to set this type of fund up it is generally advised that you have around $20,000 to use for it. This money will not only help you set it up but will also help with aspects such as ongoing investments, the economy and changes in legislation.

I mentioned earlier that an SMSF can be set up by four members; well when it comes to these four members there are no restrictions when it comes to asking your spouse, partner, children, other family members, relatives, friends or a mixture of these. Meaning you can basically get whoever you want involved in it. These four members have various responsibilities which includes managing their own fund and of course getting it right in the process. It should be noted however that there are a number of rules and regulations surrounding this, however it is important to remember that these are in place to simply protect your retirement income.

If you are planning on becoming involved in a self-managed super fund then it is important that you keep the above in mind as a means of ensuring that everything goes according to plan so make sure you keep them in mind and get your fund off to a successful start.
]]> http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/us-dollar-index-explained.html http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/us-dollar-index-explained.html Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:01:31 -0500
The Federal Reserve Board had introduced the US Dollar Index in 2003. The index is the result of the Smithsonian Agreement that had replaced the Bretton Woods Agreement. The US Dollar Index is similar to the Feds Dollar Index which is a trade weighted index. The Fed gives value to each individual currency in the index based on how much it trades with the US.

However, the value of US Dollar Index and the Feds Dollar Index is different and it should not be confused with one another. The futures contract expires on March, June, September and December. The minimum tick on the US Dollar Index is 0.1 and equals $10.

The overall value of the contract on the index is 1,000 times the value of the index in dollars. Delivery is physical. It means that you receive dollars based on the value of the index on the second business day prior to the third Wednesday during the month of the expiring contract.

Delivery day of the US Dollar Index Futures Contract is the third Wednesday of the contract month. No trading limits are placed on the US Dollar Index. Trading hours are from 8.05 AM to 3:00 PM. There is overnight trading also from 7 PM to 10 PM.

The US Dollar Index was modified at the inception of the Euro. It is weighted in a way thats similar to the Feds trade weighted index as follows: Euro 57.6%, Japanese Yen 13.6%, Great Britain Pound 11.9%, Canadian Dollar 9.1%, Swedish Krona 4.2% and Swiss Franc 3.6%. The US Dollar Index is best used as an indicator of trends in the currency markets.

However, you must keep this in your mind that as compared to trading currencies, the US Dollar Index is not a good trading vehicle. The best way to trade the index is by using the currency mutual funds. There are a few good currency mutual funds that you can find. You should know that one of the secrets of knowing trading success is understanding what kind of personality you have. You should know whether you are weak nerved or strong nerved.

If you are weak nerved than spot forex market is not for you! Suppose you fear that the market will move against you. You are afraid of taking a bathroom break or even a coffee for that matter. You cant even blink your eye afraid that you will end up with a margin call. In such a case you need to invest in currency mutual funds based on US Dollar Index and relax.

By trading these currency mutual funds you are taking away the big part of the risk involved in trading currencies. If you check the dollar index a few times during the day, then you have a pretty good idea as to how your fund is going to close at the end of the day. ]]> http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/financial-spread-betting-a-beginners-guide.html http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/financial-spread-betting-a-beginners-guide.html Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:00:55 -0500  
One way to invest in financial markets is to buy equities, or company shares.  This isn't hard to do, you simply need to open an account with a stockbroker and let them know how many shares you wish to purchase in any particular company.  Now, as the shares are traded openly on the stock market, the price of these shares varies from moment to moment.  Some things will cause the price to go up, and some things will cause the price to go down.
 
Let us say that you were interested in Company X, whose share price is currently 100p.  If you had £1,000 to invest, you could purchase 1,000 shares.  You buy those shares because - for whatever reason - you believe they will rise in price.  Sure enough, two weeks later the share price has risen to 125p.  You could then sell your shares for £1,250, realising a £250 gain.
 
Of course, this calculation has been simplified for the purposes of this example. In the real world you would have to pay commission and stamp duty of approximately £25 in relation to this transaction.  And if your annual gains exceeded your annual CGT allowance, you would also have to pay tax on the remaining gain at your highest rate of personal tax.
 
So what would be the difference with Financial Spread Betting by comparison? Well if you think the underlying financial instrument will go up in price you ‘Buy' and if you think it will go down you ‘sell'. So in this case you might ‘buy' a spread bet at £100 per point at 100p.  On the same equity noted above, two weeks later you would ‘sell' the same to close the trade, but at 125p.  And you gain would be £2,500, being the 25p improvement at £100 per point.
 
Once again the calculation has been slightly simplified to help explain the principle.   In reality there would be a ‘spread' price quoted to you of perhaps 99-101 (hence the name ‘spread' betting), which means you would actually buy at 101p rather than 100p.  And when you came to sell you would likely be quoted 124-126, so you would actually sell at 124. So the profit would be slightly lower.
 
Nevertheless, the gain is significant and there are further benefits here too. No commission or stamp duty is payable on spread betting.  More significantly, no UK tax is payable on gains either.  This could be a significant point if you make enough gains in a year to use up your CGT allowance, particularly if you pay income tax at the top rate.
 
An important thing to remember is that Spread Betting is described as a ‘leveraged' product. It is this leverage that allows you to make significantly greater gains out of your capital than with direct equity investment.  However this leverage can also cause your losses to be significantly higher than would have been with equity investment if you are not extremely careful.  Ensure you fully understand all the risk implications before undertaking any bets.
]]> http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/how-to-manage-your-own-investments.html http://articles.mychoicedeals.com/finance/investing/how-to-manage-your-own-investments.html Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:58:26 -0500
"Despite what most people might think, they can actually manage their portfolios as well as, if not better than, the most skilled money managers on Wall Street," said Bob Fischer, a senior portfolio manager at a national brokerage firm, who is convinced that anyone can manage their portfolios regardless of their market experience. "Investors have been led to believe for decades that they aren't smart enough, savvy enough or experienced enough to manage their own investments, but the truth is that people don't need an advanced degree or years working in the market to be successful investors. All they need is to adopt a clear set of rules on choosing investments, and the character to stick to those rules."

Fischer, author of The Naked Portfolio Manager by Abbalucci Press (www.thenakedportfoliomanager.com), believes that the conventional wisdom that people should always use mutual funds or money managers is neither conventional nor wise.

"Rules trump reason on Wall Street," he said. "Investors are constantly being told about this expert's advice or that expert's advice. They would do much better if they simply used a set of clearly defined, empirically based, transparent rules and followed those rules in a disciplined fashion."

These rules, called "Naked Strategies," are relatively simple, empirically based rules for selecting securities, he added. Naked strategies are completely transparent. The investor understands exactly how the securities in his portfolio are being selected.

"Traditional methods are opaque and based on a portfolio manager's judgment," Fischer said. "An enormous body of evidence indicates that rule-based decision strategies (which are called statistical or mechanical methods by researchers) consistently result in better decisions than expert judgment. When you employ these rules, emotion and gut feelings that often lead to poor choices are eliminated from the equation."

The key is being able to change your way of thinking about investments, according to Fischer.

"My daughter Abigail taught me a lesson about how to do that when she was seven years old," he said. "She came to me and asked, ‘Daddy, if God did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the apple tree, why didn't he put a fence around it? Actually, Daddy, why did he put the tree there in the first place?' Just as she was thinking critically beyond the religious dogma of the story of Adam and Eve, investors need to divest themselves of the dogma of Wall Street. This relates to how so many investors have been brainwashed to use mutual funds instead of selecting securities by themselves."

The key is for people to forget what they think they know about the market and start from scratch, or be "naked," according to Fischer.

"If you simply start with a blank sheet of paper, and assemble a set of rules that are based on empirical data - and stick to them - you'd be surprised at how much more successful you can be," Fischer added. ]]>