It takes a lot to impress me these days, which I guess is a good thing. But, this has to be one of the best uses of the Internet from a practical standpoint to demonstrate a product that I have yet seen.

On this site, you can actually start and control a diesel engine from you computer. It just goes to show you what can be done using remote technology.

First, it is a great demo for their product, secondly, it shows how one person can monitor and control situations remotely rather than have someone monitoring on site.

Why this is not done more often I have yet to figure out. The technology has been around for years. I can think of dozens of applications where this could be used to help bond customers to your product or actually reduce employee costs and or add to safety and efficiency of an operation.

The Product is the Dems-1000 engine management system. You can even control it via your cell phone!

Click Here to take a look and play with the engine. It will probably scare Chuck their computer programmer too. He said he is often alone in the warehouse there. He says you never know when the darn thing is going to start up. LOL

Here are some specs:

• 
  

  Oil Level	Vibration
  Oil Pressure	Engine Overspeed
  Oil Temperature	Battery Voltage
  Water Temperature	Alternator
  Fuel Pressure	Air Filter Monitor
  Fuel Flow	Water in fuel
  Fuel Tank Level	Auxillary Inputs
  Manifold Pressure

• Remote and Local Keypad Control
• Access from Internet, cellphone, RS485, or twisted phone pair.

This is the type of thing, that could end up being a fairly large product in my estimation. Who knows, they might just be looking for investors or new distribution channels. In any case, it could be worth keeping an eye on.

Anyway, go ahead and start the engine and give Chuck a start too.

Getting Good At “It”

So maybe you have dabbled with different kinds of investments, say stocks, bonds, options, even Real Estate. But the big questions is, have you gotten good at any of them?

I know we are often taught to work at making our weaknesses better but, what if instead you concentrated on making what you are really good at even better? You know, if you are really good at stock picking, just concentrate of getting even better at it, become great at it. The same goes with any of the investment mediums.

If you are wondering at the wisdom of this, take a look at Tiger Woods. Does he put most of his effort into learning how to play tennis or does he put the vast majority of his time into Golf?  What do you think of his results?

I think of this every time I hear about balanced portfolio funds. Why would you have a good chunk of funds in Bonds and Stocks at the same time when 90% of the time when one is doing well, the other is going to be doing the opposite?

This is a recipe for mediocre returns before you even put the investments in the oven. Moreover, to even further mix metaphors, that is just what I want in a meal. I want to start with a recipe for a meal that I know is never going to be better then OK. No, thank you, no!

That is not to say that you cannot have more than one type of investment or spread risk. However, how about if you get really good at one type of investment on a consistent basis and then move on to another type?

This does not mean that you have your broker do this for you. You need to get involved as well.

In addition, the next time you speak with your broker, ask him or her if she is worth over a million dollar and did she make it trading whatever she might be recommending you do? If not, why are you listening to her?

Anyway, just some food for thought. I think that I am going to go back to my recipes for comfort food this week.

The Play Of The Day

With Coal as high as it is, might be a good time to play it short. It has shot up around 40% recently and the winter will not last forever.

Yahoo, well not so much. With Yahoo saying that they think their stock is worth $40, it is a bit like like trying to fob off an abused Rental Car that has had the odometer turned back as brand new one some unsuspecting old lady. If the company is worth that much, then why hasn’t the current management convinced million of stock buyers of that fact?

Do they think that Microsoft is really that stupid? The fact that Yahoo has not been able to capitalize on it’s assets says it all.

This is what I love about Capitalism as a whole!

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Well, what a group of names that is and what does it have to do with Investing? Quite a bit actually, and for those of you that do watch TV, you would undoubtedly recognize this cast of characters from “Celebrity Apprentice”.

As you may know by my previous story, The Apprentice, Gene Simmons & Kodak
my favorite of the bunch Gene Simmons got knocked out early because he chose to stick to his ethics rather than agreeing with some execs of Kodak and not acquiescing with Donald Trump’s not so subtle hints about bringing back in Nely Galán with him so Donald could fire her. (more…)

Once again we are showing what could be a vastly different number for home sales than what the NAR or National Associate of Realtors just released for December Home Sales according to Bloomberg. My spot number shows that there appears to be as much as a 4.5% increase in homes sales from November to December rather than the stated 1.5% decline in home sales.

If you go back to my other article about how the data is pulled by the NAR, they only use homes that are listed with Real Estate Agents and not those that are sold privately, and as I showed you using data from the Franklin County Ohio Auditor’s own conveyance numbers this number is off by several factors. (more…)

While we all know about stocks and bonds and such, have you ever thought about doing what the big boys do? You know, where you buy out whole companies or enough of one to make a difference?

I want to go over a type of investing that many investors overlook and that is investing in small, privately owned companies or even startups. These can be anything from Websites, to your local niche retailer that is doing well who wants to open another location, to the guy down the street with the next latest and greatest invention.

In the new book, ” Get Rich, Stay Rich, Pass it On: The Wealth -Accumulation Secrets of Amercia’s Richest Families ” by Catherine McBreen and George Walper jr. they suggest that you invest up to 25% of your portfolio in enterprises that that develop products and services or invent break through technologies. (more…)

I would guess that most of you have heard of Private Mortgage Lending or PML, but unless you are involved in it, I am willing to bet that you did not realize how large of a market that it has become, nor just how lucrative it is for the players involved in it.

While this is a hidden underground market, it is estimated that it is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It is big enough that the intrepid Billionaire Richard Branson of Virgin fame just started a company to service it. Think there is no money in it? I will have a more detailed story on that shortly. (more…)

Why are we here? Not the big, big question, but the smaller one, Why Am I An Investor?

Well, I have been thinking about it and here is what I came up with and see if you agree.

“As an investor, I want to make as much money as fast as I can ethically, and repeat this formula consistently on a regular basis for the rest of my life”.

How is that? Does that about cover it? Well if it does, then you came to the right place. I have been on a quest for the above since I was in 3rd grade when I started selling combs and Christmas cards door to door. (more…)

Opportunities abound in Chaos and Kevlar Umbrellas

I recently wrote this for another website I work on but, I felt that it really has much more relevance for us investors. This was originally published for readers of the Muse Blueprint which helps people start their own business or want to take an existing one to the next level.

If you listen to the news and I suggest that you don’t very often, you would think that the sky is falling with the economy. Well, parts of it actually are but it does not have to be so for you. I suggest that you think of yourself as the person selling Kevlar Umbrellas, like I do.

While you should be aware of economic trends such as the US dollar’s values falling like a rock with no end in site, it does open up opportunities.

I will give you just a couple of examples. As gas prices keep going up (and they will but more on that later) , it is going to make locally made products and services more competitive against those that are not local.

Do you have a product or service that can save people from driving for instance? Do you know where one is to invest in?

Here are two of my Muses or other Businesses that I have recently picked up (another strategy I will cover is buying small businesses) that do exactly that, www.888360Pixs.com and www.888EZToOwn.com . The first is a service that provides pictures, virtual tours, and Videos of Real Estate, Boats, Cars and just about everything else. The second provides FREE Real Estate Advertising.

Ok, time out here. Here is the Definition of a Muse from my Book, The Muse Blueprint.

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So, I live a somewhat sheltered life in a certain sense but I recently just heard my all time favorite definition of RICH by Robert Shemin. It is this

“Residual Income Creates Happiness”

No truer words have been spoken for sure. Do you have residual income?

If not, I will be showing you some novel ways of getting some.

While it is fine to examine what you are doing and figure out the best way to do a trade of any type, it ultimately comes down to taking action and doing it. This can be actually buying the stock or option, or even selling it. No matter which way you are going, you never make money sitting on the sidelines.

That is not to say that you have to trade all of the time, but you do actually have to trade sometimes. This may or may not sit well with some of you, but after you have done all of your homework and all of the information has had time to gel, then it is time to let you gut tell you to do the trade. When you have the feeling you should, 9 times our of 10 I have found that it is right. Whether it be buying that put, selling a call, or putting an offer in on a piece of Real Estate, if you gut tells you to, you should do it.

If you are doing proper risk management, then you do not have to be too worried about. Get in the habit of doing, and the results will follow. There are a millions armchair quarterbacks that always talk about the woulda shoulda’s they have not ever done.

Be one of the actual doers and you will be much happier for it.

The Real Estate Data being used by most of the financial media and in many economic reports could be off by at least 120% in many areas and in one major metropolitan area (Central Ohio), the number used for home sales alone could be off by a whopping 374% (see chart) . To put it another way, this means that possibly only 1 out of every 5 sales are being reported.

As the Real Estate market as a whole is a major part of the US economy, this finding could have a major impact on the world markets. The questions first asked are, how could this have happened and how could this be?

It all comes down to this. Statistics = lies, lies and damn lies.

I will show you how this happened, how it became possible and the ripple effect it may have on almost every major market out there. As to the why, you will have to decide for yourself.

Since Real Estate in the US has been used as the reason for a lot of the good and bad in the markets world wide recently, with the very real possibility of the data being off by not just 10%, 20% , or even 50% but by well over 100%, this needs to be examined closely. With the Real Estate data being possibly wrong by over 100%, what does that mean for you as an Investor?

As a Real Estate Investor I have surmised that the figures were way off for at least 10 years now and started really looking into it a couple of years ago to prove to myself that my theory that housing and Real Estate sales were being grossly under reported was indeed correct.

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Everyone seems to talk about the best investments, which one, which type, which market and without a doubt the best investment you can make is in yourself.

Think about it, with all of the information out there on the net, you have better access to information than the best Analyst did just 5 years ago.

Granted there is a ton of info that is wrong and irrelevant but still, you have at your fingertips every bit of information that you need to make solid investment decisions.  My family has always been a big believer in self-reliance and who better to look out after you money than you?

Here is an illustration on what happens when you improve your rate of return by just 4% over a portfolio over a 10 year period.  This is a portfolio worth $100,000

At 8% compounded annually we end up with:  $278,474.45 

At 12%  compounded annually we end up with: $389,203.15

At 16%  compounded annually we end up with: $540,075.13

and finally at 20% compounded annually we end up with: $743,775.32

The payoffs can be very significant if you educate yourself on the various investing techniques and learn how to tweak your game even just a little bit as you can see.

I myself, never look at investment if I don’t have a chance at getting at least a 20% annualized return.  What is interesting is that you often get what you expect.  Frankly most of the time I far exceed 20% in many cases but even when I don’t, even if I fall short by 50%, I still do Ok.  But here again, it is all about what knowledge base you have and what you are willing to settle for, and what you expect to come out with.

The game is won over time and not with any one trade or investment.  So, you should play for the long haul with the preservation of capital being first and foremost.   Because if you don’t have any marbles you can’t be in the game at all.

So, perhaps take an extra hour or two a week put it into improving your investment knowledge and the payoffs can be large indeed.

You may just find that your best investment is yourself.

The Eeyore’s were on the run today. The Markets are going to need some time to settle it would appear but all of the doom and gloomers are a bit befuddled. What does this mean for most of us? Not a whole lot. Most people are not in a panic about the retirement funds or their holdings. The little guy is not selling off for the most part, nor going crazy buying either.

Overall, I give the individual for more credit than the news media does and they just can figure we all don’t act like idiots most of the time.

With the Dow up almost 300 points today it did put a stick in the spokes of the Bear unicycle for the time being.

Basically I think it is just some long overdue house cleaning. The good companies with solid earnings will probably continue to do well and the flash in the pans and those that are going along on a hope and a promise of big earnings are going to get whacked. Also, some of the Dinosaurs are going to become extinct if they don’t adapt. I can think of at least many examples in this category with two of them being GM and Ford. I think both could end up losing another 20% of their value shortly. But, we shall see.
While these two have been making strides, they really need to pick up the pace of change, cost cutting and just dealing with reality. If they don’t, their slide will continue and both may get no longer be in the top three and on the road to follow in the path of Edsel.

This goes for dozens of other companies that can’t or won’t change fast enough in the new fast moving economies of the world.

What this does is open up room for smaller more nimble companies that can change tactics, products and services quickly to meet customer and market demands.

This is where I see the best opportunity for growth. What new companies have a different way of doing things in some of the older more established niches?

Find them and you will be well rewarded. I will revisit this and give you a couple of examples that you might not have heard of. Do you have one that you think is a great play? Let us know and we will let everyone else know about it as well and let them know that you told them about it too.

Happy Investing

This will be the first in an ongoing series that I and others will be writing on the how and why of getting at least 20% returns.

For some of you this sounds like a pipe dream and yet for others, you stick you nose up at only 20%. But, if you are a serious investor, this a worthy goal for you to shoot for.

With some vehicles this is a bit easier than with others. Without going off on too many tangents, 20% is what Warren Buffet shoots for so, why not you?

If you can hit the magical 20% number you have a pretty good chance of retiring with a nice nest egg. For those of you that are a bit skeptical about hitting this number on a regular basis there are numerous ways to do so.

You can do it through and with or without leverage of various types. You can trade on margin, using options, or just plain borrow money, or last but not least, figure out how to purchase your investments on a wholesale basis. Then, you don’t even need to use leverage at all.

I am not going to attempt to go over every way to do this in the first installment but I do want to show you at least one way to do this in each one.

The first way that I will show you virtually anyone can do with a little bit of education and know how. The fact that it is so easy is perhaps that is why it is overlooked so often. That plus the fact that it is in no way shape or form sexy and does not make great copy. Well it does, but only for those of us that interested in results that end up in our wallet.

What I like about this is that you can do this tax free in your IRA or just pay taxes on it and do it however you want. The IRA is preferred way to do this though. I will touch upon this and get into more details later on.

The first way I will explain how to do this is with Real Estate.

Ok, quite yawning and don’t tell me that the Real Estate Market is tanking.

This is in fact one of the best times to do this. Have figured out that the best time to get into something is when everyone else is getting out?

This image to the left is from an actual deal that I was involved with late last year. Look at the numbers, they don’t lie. The truth of the matter is that instead of renting this out, you could easily sell it right away and gain at least 20% in less than 60 days. Yes, you can sell deals like this even in the current Real Estate Market.

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