I doubt that you are going to hear what really happened with the current loan debacle on the boob tube or in too many other places for that matter.
So, I thought I would bring this to you so that you have a better understanding of how the Loan Crisis became a Crisis.
Informative and good for a laugh and there might be a play or two in there.
Do not let the intro or the name fool you. I am going to post two of them today and post the rest of the series over the next few days. Enjoy and let me know what you think.
My goal with this story is to open your eyes to Alternative Investment Arenas. By Arena, I am talking about other countries. However, in order to do that, you need some way to measure and compare major metrics so that we are comparing Apples to Apples and not to Bananas or Cashews.
Talking about Cashews is apropos as some of what I am going to talk about is just plain nuts in more ways than one.
In researching this story, I have discovered a somewhat startling theme here in that almost every bit of the Stupidity that we need to avoid and Smartness we need to go after for your portfolio is Political in nature.
Here are some metrics that are commonly used to look at different countries for investment potential. A good source to help you with them is The Heritage Foundation which has compiled a top 10 List, as well as a list of 160 countries for Economic Freedom.
Going to put in sell orders tomorrow on the 5 contracts of the APVGK’s.
Also going to sell all 39 contracts of the APVGRs that are still in the portfolio. Nope, I did not look at these today so I did not have a chance to get out at $5.20 …whoops, my bad.
Also, if you look back at the either or scenario, we could have gotten either 16 if we took out are original investment or 39 if we played up. Well, I went with the played up version….I really need to watch my portfolio a bit closer… So, if these get sold tomorrow on the original $6,000 investment, they should bring in right around $31,000 or $12,880 on the 16 contracts that I discussed. So, not too bad aye? (more…)
Apple pushed past 161 today. Not really a big surprise for anyone keeping up with my trades here. The July 155 Calls APVGK are now bid at $17.50. So the 5 we have free and clear are now worth $8,750. Since we originally purchased 10 contracts for $6,000 and then sold 5 contracts for $6,000 and got all of our equity back, we are now holding these contracts with a ZERO cost basis. The questions is, what is our ROI?…..Exactly…like in the movie “The Toy Story” to infinity and beyond!
Our Apple July 190 Calls APVGR are now at $4.65. I have to go back and look at the trades but I think I might have sold half of them at $5.20. We got into those at $2.60 so we are fine there. I am going to put an order in to sell them all for $5.20 so that I can get into a different play. (more…)
My buddy Ryan from way across the pond in Australia is doing a launch today with his new product for those of you that have a website for your business and want to be shown how you can make more money from it right away.
Just so you don’t waste your time, only go there if you interested in making more money from your website, do not go there if making your website more profitable is not important to you or if you don’t have one. You can click on the graphic to check it out.
If you just sign up for his FREE content, you will find that it is better than 99.9% of high priced information out there and that much of it has never been shown before.
Ryan has been involved with a number of million dollar website launches i.e. where the website brings in millions of dollars in just a few days or weeks after it is launched. Hie is one talented Aussie which is why I work with him.
I am going to let you in on something else. He and I are also working on another project that I truly believe is going to radically change how people create a profitable web presence. Will let you know when we have it ready for Beta.
In the meantime, go sign up for Ryan’s Freebies and see what he has to teach and show you. There is some great usable information in there that you can implement right away. If you like that info, go grab his Dressed2Convert package, it is well worth it.
I had the chance to interview the founder and CEO of Richard Branson’s latest venture, Virgin Charter, Scott Duffy yesterday afternoon.
We spoke about Virgin Charter, the how and why of the opportunity they have, why it makes sense for people to use their services, and advice on how to invest in what is perhaps your own best investment, investing in yourself.
What Virgin Chart does in a nutshell is that it works with operators of private jets and and helps keep them filled with paying passengers. Quite often, a jet will take a people to their destination, and end up flying back to home base empty. So, rather than flying empty with no paying passengers, Virgin Charter lets people bid on these otherwise empty trips.
You can book jets like a Citation, Lear, Gulfstream and everything else in the modern jet fleet.
The jet operator receives basically found money and the new Virgin Charter customers get a great deal on travel. How is that for a win-win situation?
In a truly free capitalistic society, inefficiency usually gets solved by someone making a profit for solving it! –Andrew Anderson
This is a much more efficient use of resources don’t you think? You can also book a regular charter flight there as well. So if you have an aircraft or use charters, you should definitely look into what they have to offer.
Also, if you have never flown by private jet, there is nothing like it. It can literally save you a whole day when traveling. You are normally able to fly directly into smaller airports which are usually closer to your actual destination. There is no delay or hassle with running the security gauntlet while they pat down old ladies in wheelchairs and you don’t have to jostle for a cramped seat next to someone that has not discovered that new invention called deodorant.
You can actually get work done while flying. It is nice to arrive fresh and ready to go close that deal. If you ever want to make an impression with a potential client, have them pick you up at the airport as you step off your charter. They don’t have to know that it did not cost an arm and a leg, or better yet let them know that it didn’t. They will probably appreciate the tip the next time they travel and be impressed by your thrift and efficiency.
If you are traveling with a group of 8 to 10 people with your company, this can really be an economical way to travel, especially with last minute trips.
While if you have watched any of the Media coverage on the Housing Market by the so called “Experts” or even the Stock Market, or Analysts of certain stocks, have you ever wondered why if they were such experts, how come the changes in markets always seem to take them by surprise?
Why do you think that possibly, when a company misses the numbers as it were and the numbers themselves being a product of the Experts it is the company at fault and not the idiot that got the numbers wrong in the first place? Doesn’t that make the expert not such an expert?
What surprises me is that these Experts are given the airtime repeatedly. Be it in the housing market, the stock market, etc.
I have found that the average man or woman on the street if they have just a bit of horse sense are far better at predicting market trends than a whole room of experts.
The tanking of the Real Estate market in Florida could be seen two years before it happened by anyone that bothered to look. The same goes with Oil prices and most commodities as well.
In the US when you have over 85% of the Oil, Gas, and Coal reserves placed off limits by state and federal government edicts do you, think that is going to effect prices? When you have a growing world population that all wants to improve their way of life and rightly so, do you think that demand might continue to grow?
When you have radical environmentalists fomenting hysteria in anyway they can with their goal of sending us all back into the stone age and we have governments and other special interest groups giving the ludicrous accusations credence as facts and passing legislation to drive up energy costs, do you really see a huge drop in energy costs in the near future?
This with all of these artificial pricing forces and that of the Monopoly called OPEC seeing no need to drop their profits, is there really a scenario in which prices are going to ever really significantly drop anytime soon?
If there is, I do not see it. So, my suggestion is not to listen to the pundits and the “Experts” and to start doing just a little bit of research on your own and use some common sense and you will beat the experts every time no matter what market you are in.
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…)
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…)
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.
This is going to end up being a huge section. I will be evaluating a long list of Tools that can help directly and indirectly with your Investing.
This topic is going to cover a wide variety of products and services that range from keeping you organized, to communications and actual trading tools.
Rather than putting all of these items into one page, I will be putting them into one Category called “Tools and Resources”.
I want and need your feedback on the recommendations. So, please feel free to let me know what you think and if you have a Tool or Resource that you would like me to review, just post a comment here and I will be in touch!
Tool Number #1
Communications
Ok, here is the first Tool I am going to recommend. This not only has uses for your investing, but in all parts of communications. I have been using this for a while now and if you have never heard of this and you are not using it you should do yourself a favor and signup for it right now.
Skype allows you to make free calls to other members around the world and to any phone in the world at a low, low, price. You can also do free conference calls and free video calls. Want to record a call? You can do that as well.
They even have a business service that you can integrate with a snap. Sign up, it is FREE. Once you try it you will be amazed at the quality of the calls. I call Russia, Australia, and India on a regular basis and the calls sound better than most of my domestic calls.
In order to have an automated voice mail and to be able to have message follow you, after you get Skype, you will want to download Pamela below. It works seamlessly with Skype and adds more features. Oh, yea, you can download it for free too.
This is one of those services that I still find a bit amazing. How does this compare with Vonage? Well, most of it is free, and if you want to use a regular phone, it only costs your about $3 bucks a month, versus $24.95 a month. So, the question is, do you want to save $21 dollars a month and have more features or not?
As far as a stock play, I think that Skype and some of the other options I will be mentioning, could end up taking Vonage out of the market and is one of the reasons for their big decline in value. That and the fact that EBay owns Skype means they have some deep pockets to keep adding to their services.
I like Skype and I think you will too! Oh and I almost forgot one thing. You can also add a tool called KishKish which is a real time stress tester. So, you have a good chance at telling if the person your are talking to is, how shall I say this, taking creative liberties with what they are telling you. Not sure how accurate it is, but it is fun.
If anyone wants to test it with me, add a comment here.
A couple of other features that you get with Pamela and Skype.
Using Pamela, you can add notes to your call recordings. I don’t know about you, but it I had recorded every called in Trade I would have made I know that I would be tens of thousands of dollars richer just from missed or blown trades by various brokers.
It also allows you to transfer a call to another Skype user. Talk about a virtual office set up. You can even have callers leave you a video message and transfer files to you as well! It sure makes doing deals a lot easier.
These two products are definitely the dynamic duo. Look for more great tools like this. Click below to listen to the quality of the sound of the phone and messages.
It is my goal to make this your home for investing information from around the world. A place where you can sort out the hype from the real deals and find out what types of investments are right for you.This includes Real Estate, Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Options, Commodities, Futures, direct business purchases and a whole lot more. While I realize that this may be somewhat of a tall order, the way you eat an elephant is one piece at a time. Expect lots of pieces.
So, we are going to try and find some of the best minds in the business. Some you may have heard of, many you have not. Just because I am somewhat of a contrarian in that I learned at a fairly early age that if you want to become successful, than you need to watch what everyone else is doing, and pretty much do the exact opposite, or at least do something else.
I am looking forward to exploring the big, big world of investing with you.
My goal with this story is to open your eyes to Alternative Investment Arenas. By Arena, I am talking about other countries. However, in order to do that, you need some way to measure and compare major metrics so that we are comparing Apples to Apples and not to Bananas or Cashews. 
So, if these get sold tomorrow on the original $6,000 investment, they should bring in right around $31,000 or $12,880 on the 16 contracts that I discussed. So, not too bad aye? 
=$ 
I had the chance to interview the founder and CEO of Richard Branson’s latest venture, 
The Experts
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?
Why are we here? Not the big, big question, but the smaller one, Why Am I An Investor?
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.
This is going to end up being a huge section. I will be evaluating a long list of Tools that can help directly and indirectly with your Investing.
