Archive for September, 2010

How I Reduce My Investment Risk?

There are several types of investments you can make like long term ones or short term ones. Some investments can be in the form of stocks, shares, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, and savings. No matter what your investment is, the expectation is always there that you should get more returns. However, there is no type of investment that comes completely risk free. Some amount of risk is present everywhere.

However, there are ways through which you can reduce these risk factors. A lot of the precautions work well for shares and stocks. The DCA or dollar cost averaging technique is one of them.

When investing in stocks, the DCA technique ensures that higher priced shares are bought in smaller numbers and the lower priced shares are bought in higher numbers. This rule applies for just a month and every month is calculated individually. You are actually spreading the risks by investing in different types of stocks or shares. The profits always get maximized through this technique. However, the risk is when the time period is stretched.

The DVA or the dollar value averaging is another method used to cut risks. In this method the value of the portfolio and the sum total is increased by adding shares which offer greater returns. Using this method, the portfolio balance increases by a set amount immaterial of the way the market performs. When the market slumps, the investor ends up contributing more money and when the market performs well, the investor contributes less money. So, when the market is more the investor is actually contributing less and when the markets are higher the investor is contributing more. This method is preferred more by investors than the cost averaging method because the investment goes down since the value of the purchased share increases.

How to Get Free Credit Scores

Due to the recent credit crisis and housing collapse leading rules have changed dramatically. Despite historically low mortgage rates, most people cannot qualify for them without a really good credit score. This is why it is very important to get your free credit scores and know where you stand and know where you have to improve to get the lowest mortgage rate.

So where can you get free credit scores?

Several sites now offer free “credit scores” which are based off of scoring formulas similar to the national credit bureau formulas at TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. The accuracy of these scores is debatable. Comments on a recent Wall Street Journal article stated these scores are not reliable when it comes to mortgages and refinancing.

These sites are credit.com, creditkarma.com and quizzle.com. They can provide you with an estimated score range instead of an exact score and you can expect loads of advertisements all over the site with many offers you are encouraged to sign up for.

Why doesn’t the government provide free credit scores in addition to free credit reports?

The easy answer is they were not part of the arrangements with the credit reporting agencies who are now required by law to provide them for free. They are only required to provide your free credit reports and that’s just what they do. They can still make money selling you the credit scores and that’s just what they do.

You can expect to pay around $8-$10 for each credit score so that’s around $24-$30 each time you want to check your scores. And then the experts tell you to check them every few months so you can easily spend over hundred dollars over the course of a year.

So where does that leave you?

You can go to sites that you see advertised on TV and sign up to get your free credit reports and scores from all three credit reporting agencies.

Doing this will allow you to monitor your credit score on an ongoing basis so you can check your credit worthiness in less than a minute instead of having to sift through 20 to 30 pages of your credit reports trying to decode all the abbreviations.

Getting your free credit scores this way does not lower your score because it is a soft inquiry instead of a hard inquiry which can lower your score. And you will be able to keep track of any suspicious activity in your credit report that could affect your score or result in identity theft.

The Snowball Effect of Living With Bad Credit

Living with bad credit can be very difficult when you add in the snowball effect of mounting fees and charges. As we look at a couple of the bad aspects and the high costs associated with living with bad credit, we will also see that it does not have to be that way forever. The biggest roadblocks to recovery are the fact the interest rates you are charged are higher and the availability of new credit is almost nonexistent. After we look deeper into the bad parts, we will look at the brighter side.

Once a person is saddled with a low credit score, also known as living with bad credit, the credit card companies you have accounts with raise your interest rate. When the interest rate goes up, it means that less of the money you pay each month goes toward the principle. The other fun thing when you have a low credit score is that when you pay down your balance, the credit card issuer lowers your credit line. This hurts because you not only have less cushion on your credit availability, but also the percentage of credit card balance to available credit Affects your credit score as well. When we think about available credit, it is not easy to get.

Obtaining new credit when you have a low credit score is hard to do in an average economy. Now that we have been in a credit crunch for awhile, it is almost impossible. Many people with bad credit have to have such a huge down payment to buy things on credit; they often cannot make the purchase. The other fun fact about applying for and being turned down for credit purchases is that when there are inquiries but no new accounts on your credit report, that lowers your score as well. Living with the snowball effect of bad credit can be very intimidating, but you can get out of it.

Climbing out of the credit hole and breaking up the snowball effect of living with bad credit can be done. It will take time and you will need to make some wise choices. The first step is to obtain a copy of your credit report from free online companies. Just do not sign up for the additional services they push, as you just want a copy. Inspect all three reports for errors and contest any that you find. List out to whom you owe money, how much money and the interest rate you are being charged. Set up a budget and look at how much you are paying monthly for credit card payments. Pay the minimum amounts on the higher balance cards and as much as you can on the lowest balance. That way you will feel better as you see the balance going down. Once that is paid, go after the next lowest. If they are all similar balances, go after the account with the highest interest rates.

Dealing with the snowball effect of living with bad credit can be depressing. The rising rates, the lowering of credit limits and the unavailability of new credit all work together to keep you depressed. The light at the end of the tunnel is that you can get out from under the tagline of bad credit. Just hang in there and make wise choices.

Why Derivatives Are “Weapons of Financial Mass Destruction’

When I managed national real estate and construction for the then ‘Tiffany’ of investment firms I learned from the CEO that should the 1932 Glass Steagall Banking Act ever be rescinded-it was certain that speculators would game the system and cause another Great Depression.

Wanting to know more I became licensed on all exchanges-and started paying close attention when derivatives were de-regulated in 1992. Gold at the time was $300. Today it’s over $1,000 with China, Russia, France and the UN calling for the USD to be removed as the reserve currency, a status that has long shored up our economy.

In 2003, Warren Buffet termed derivatives ‘financial weapons of mass destruction created by mad men’. At that time their ‘value’ stood at $9 trillion. Today, that number has reached $1.4 quadrillion and continues to expand geometrically.

Can you picture even $3 trillion? In stacked-up dollar bills it would reach from Earth to the Moon 238K miles away. If you’d spent a million dollars each day for 2,000 years ago–even that would ‘only’ amount to three-quarters of a trillion dollars!

A quadrillion is a thousand trillion. A trillion is a thousand billion. A billion is a thousand million. The relative scale of the world’s financial engines in relation to those $1.4 quadrillion derivatives follows in U.S. dollars:

1. The U.S. GDP is $14 trillion.
2. The Global GDP is $45 trillion.
3.Global real estate value is $65 trillion.
4. Global stock and bond markets are $74 trillion.
5. Global derivatives exceed all combined global wealth by 31 times.
6. The global population is 6.8 billion people. The derivatives market is equal to $206,000 USD per every person on the planet.

‘When I Ruled the World’:

The public is right to be angry at the US Big Banks that caused the meltdown: Citi, BofA, JP Morgan, Chase, Wells Fargo–and both sides of Congress that are in their pockets. The banks are still using customer deposits protected by FDIC insurance to speculate in derivatives, instead of lending to small business. They’ve not paid back taxpayer bailouts, and have rewarded themselves with billions in bonuses while raising customer fees.

It’s up to the people to stop feeding the monster banks. Check out the ‘Move Your Money’ online movement. Find out how to determine which local banks and credit unions are well managed, and stop supporting the big banks that are endangering us all, and are turning America into the Coldplay lyric ‘When I Ruled the World.’

Investing in the ASX Share Market? Don’t Invest Without This!

So you want to increase your wealth by investing in ASX Shares? You’ll want to read this: start out on the right foot and you could eventually supplement the income from your job. But make one of a few fatal mistakes and you could see yourself right out of the market, never to trade again.

What do I mean? Let me give you an example: Let’s say you started putting $150 a month into ASX Shares in 1980. That’s around $5 a day. It earns an average of 15% per annum over the years including dividends. If you re-invested all your returns, today it would be worth over one million dollars – $1,038,490 to be exact.

But not everyone makes it that far. In fact statistics show that over 82% of traders lose a large portion of their capital and never trade again. If you are investing for the long term, your odds are slightly better (although 2008 scared a lot of investors out as well). But the thing is – now they miss out of the rest of those gains, on that million dollars that we discovered.

So here is the important part – what you need to know when trading ASX shares. It is often the most overlooked part of trading or investing: It’s your Trading Plan. In fact, don’t trade shares without one. But finding a trading plan can be a daunting task. Where do you start?

Well, if you take 100 different people, you will probably get 100 different trading plans. We are all individuals, and we all have different thresholds for risk. Therefore a good place to start with a trading plan is the following:

1: Your Rules for Buying and Selling – these are the rules you have tested that determine when you buy and when you sell a share. Whether it is buying for fundamental reasons, like company earnings or book price, or whether it is for technical reasons like crossing a trend line or Dow theory it doesn’t matter: so long as it suits you.

2: Your Money Management rules – these rules tell you how much you invest in a single share, and how many positions you invest in total. Here it is important not to risk too much in one share – if it tanks you will be in trouble. Usually the optimum is between 6 to 12 positions. This way you are diversified, but also not too diversified. Having too many positions can actually have a negative effect.

While some people can spend years determining the right trading plan – it doesn’t need to be complicated. With these rules you are well on your way to success in ASX shares.

Bookkeeping For Accounts and Taxation Purposes By Vish K S

For every small time business owner, the bookkeeping part is undoubtedly a heavy burden. But it is important that he establishes an efficient bookkeeping system from the start itself while conducting business. Managing a business which complies with the laws and business requirements warrants the setup and maintenance of some organised system of accounting. For an accounting procedure to succeed, it is fundamental that some mode of financial accounting like the receivables and goings be established, and that all these records present a true bookkeeping picture for analysis as well as for tax purposes.

Bookkeeping is an indispensable part of a business; one can state a number of reasons like: audit purposes, preparation of bookkeeping documents, as a basis for strategic decision making purposes and preparation of investor prospectus and other documents. All said and done, there are still a lot of small scale business owners that do not keep appropriate tabs on their business’ financial part. This can lead to larger headaches when the tax personnel comes knocking, eventually.

In order for someone to maintain sufficient bookkeeping records, one should adopt a policy of keeping the receipts as well as cheque stubs as evidences of income coming in and going out. These documents have to be compiled daily, entered onto a fundamental spreadsheet and have to be filed for later references accordingly. This is bound to enable one to prepare a fundamental cash flow account. It will show the monies coming in and the monies going out on a day to day basis. Keeping a tight tab on this can be of great assistance in dealing with the administrative part of running a business.

One has to make a monthly profit and loss account, and has to take into consideration the cash flow statements one has prepared and any other financial information snippets relevant to the business. Work out the gross profit; to begin with, by subtracting direct costs of sales of goods from the total sales figures. After that, one may continue to find the net profit figure by taking away all other expenses related to the business, including heating & lighting, salary and interest repayments. This will provide you with the net profit and will allow you to find out how much money you have made over the said period.

Finally, one should also embark on preparing the balance sheet as part of the accounting system. This system will keep an eye on all the assets and liabilities of one’s business process. In other words, only short term liabilities are taken into account in the deduction from total assets. The long term liabilities are put in as if they were regarded as assets. Keeping accurate bookkeeping records while conducting business is very vital for marketing and operation purposes, principally when one needs to submit statutory accounts and tax related documents. It is good for the business and one ought to make sure that one is up to date with the record keeping part and accounting documentation aspects so as to prevent problems like tax evasion and fraud.

Few Essentials For An Online Email Marketing Service

Email Marketing is one of the most important aspects of Internet Marketing. It plays a crucial role in impactful implementation of online marketing activities. But at the same time, it is also necessary to use online email marketing effectively. Let’s know about the elements that are most required to make email marketing effectual -

Use of Lead Capture Page – Lead capture page or widely known as squeeze page. This page is designed with sole aim to get subscribers. Lead page incorporates catchy headlines with interesting points in bullets and also, the subscription form. It is suggested to keep this page concise, as the more concise page is, the more it will earn subscribers.

Pre- sell activities – If you truly want to increase the conversion rate from online email marketing campaign, you must go for pre-sell tactics. This allures subscribers. You can do the pre-sell activity by providing them free information, free tips and reports too. As an instance, if internet marketing is done for promotion of Online Tech Support Service, you can provide some interesting tips to troubleshoot PC at home. This will tempt readers and provoke them to be user of products sold by you.

Email Personalization – try to give a personal touch to emails sent by you, as you can address the mail recipient with their name. This will prevent your mail from showing a mass-mail appearance; thus, increasing the chance of getting subscription.

A fine blend of promotional and informative content – Information is the primary thing, any reader look for. It not only connects the reader from the provided content but also help them in increasing their knowledge on particular subject. Hence, your online email marketing content must be informative and at the same time, appealing too. An appealing and informative content would make more impact on target audience.

Focus on sending emails on regular basis – If you want your subscriber to keep you in mind, you must send these mails once a week or month. This will also help your mail recipients to know more about your business and being updated with service offerings.

These are the key elements to be hooked up for a better benefit from online email marketing campaign.

Starting a Business Online Today Means Becoming an Internet Marketer

If you have considered of starting a business online you have to learn how to do internet marketing the most effective ways. This requires a lot of determination and commitment. In this article we will talk about some aspects of internet marketing, and a couple of ways how to promote your products online and develop a successful business.

Internet marketing means you are advertising and selling a product on the internet. This has become important to off line businesses as well as businesses online.

Email marketing has been a popular way to promote online businesses a long time now. One valuable piece of advice I can offer you is when starting your online business incorporate list building into it.

Driving targeted visitors to your website can be quite expensive. Usually people do not purchase anything during their first visit. The best thing to do is add a sign-up form where they can give you their name and email address in return for something valuable. You should consider offering a useful ebook or tips newsletter in exchange for this contact information.

You can make a lot more money using an autoresponder and following up with them this way than you can constantly working at driving traffic to your company website. One option to choose is outsourcing. Today you can outsource practically everything you are not comfortable doing yourself.

Most of the successful online entrepreneurs have an internet marketing blog. This is an excellent example about outsourcing. You can hire someone to build a blog for you. It is also possible to hire a freelance writer to write content to your blog. Outsourcing some parts of your business will help you to get started and develop your business much faster compared to that if you are trying to do all by yourself.

Building an email list with an autoresponder and starting a blog is two important parts of planning for long-term success with your online business. One very important part of internet marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). This means that you should target some specific keyword phrases that people can find your business through search engines.

Your blog is a good way to do that. Targeting long tail keyword phrases that relate to the theme of your business is a good way to generate organic traffic. Your blog articles do not have to be long, but they should be targeting specific phrases. Search engines love fresh and unique content and in this way you have much better chance to be found on the internet with these keywords.

When starting a business online you should make some kind of business plan. Whether you do it yourself, or outsource much of it, having a well thought out plan will be extremely helpful.

Consolidating Your Credit Card Debt

Consolidating all the debt you have accumulated on your separate credit cards is perhaps one of the best things you can do for your financial health and well-being. Consolidating your credit card debt is helpful for several reasons and we will look at some of the best reasons for doing so.

Consolidation

  • Makes it easier for you to improve your credit history and therefore, your credit score.
  • Helps you get better rates on interest should you wish to opt for a balance transfer or even a new credit card.
  • In fact, you can even get a more attractive rate on a consolidation itself. This helps you save quite a bit of money. For example, make a comprehensive list of the rates of interest charged on each of your cards. Then, calculate the average rate of interest by dividing the total accumulated interest by the number of credit cards you own. Compare this average rate with the new consolidated rate of interest you are being offered. More often than not, the new consolidated rate will be much lower than the average interest rates of the cards combined together.
  • Helps you move from higher rates to lower ones. For example, during your consolidation calculations, if you see that some cards actually require you to pay lower interest, then don’t include those cards in your consolidation. Only give up the more expensive cards in exchange for a consolidated card and keep the cheaper ones also. This way, your average interest will be much lower than the consolidated interest you have been offered.
  • Saves stress. Instead of paying several credit cards bills, you can pay only one consolidated bill each month.
  • Gives you an opportunity to come out of the debt trap. Consolidated debt helps you pay lower monthly instalments which means your monthly outgoings are lower, which translates into savings. It may not be much, but it is a beginning.

If you can surrender your other credit cards also, then your savings and expenses will increase because the amount you pay for one consolidated debt is much smaller than payments made to several cards at a time. If you can, then try to get a few months as an interest free period. This, you will see over time, will really make a dent and will reduce your debt amount substantially. While you negotiate, ensure that you are not paying any hidden fees or extra amounts as transaction or handling costs, etc. This will add to your debt burden.

It is important to realise that by consolidating your cards it is possible that you may end up paying a larger amount over a longer period. Additionally, after consolidating your debts you should avoid additional credit card borrowing as this may amalgamate the situation and reduce the benefits associated with consolidation.

Tips To Cut Your Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt is the main financial problem facing Americans today and it is one of the major factors in many divorces, credit card debt is just getting bigger and bigger and the banks couldn’t be happier they are making more and more money from your interest payments.

The trouble is credit card’s just so convenient in fact it has become impossible to carry out some purchases without using a credit card, so what can you do to help yourself if you’re worried about your credit card debt.

Here are eight tips to help you reduce or even do away with your debt.

1. If you have already built up a sizeable debt take a look at arranging a consolidation loan, this will enable you to transfer the high interest credit card debt to a lower interest consolidation loan. Then you can use the spare income to reduce the debt even quicker.

2. Establish a budget and stick to it, make sure you have allowed for all the essential items you must pay every month. Use any free cash at the end of the month to reduce your outstanding credit card debt.

3. Use a debit card rather than a credit card, that way you can really control your spending, if you have no money in your account you cannot spend it.

4. Only use a credit card for emergency purchases, arrange to have a very low credit limit so that you can automatically limit the risk of overspending.

5. Establish a plan to pay back your debt, then keep a careful record of your payments showing the declining balance of your debt, this can be a very motivational and help you in clearing your credit card.

6. If you find that you are tempted to use your credit cards when out shopping then just leave them at home, I know this sounds simple, but it also take some willpower and if you can do it you will find it really works.

7. If all else fails cut your credit cards up and go to cash I know its drastic but if nothing else works then you have just got to do it.

8. Finally the most important tip, if you are in significant credit card debt don’t be ashamed, don’t think other people won’t understand, get help and now consult a credit counsellor and sort the problem out before it becomes too large.

Credit card debt is like an open sore, the longer you leave it the worse it will get, try using the tips I’ve listed above they will help you, but remember the most important thing you can do to help yourself if you are facing this problem is to get help from recognized credit counsellor and take positive steps to reduce and remove your credit card debt.