Posts Tagged ‘letter’

A Beginners Guide To The Forex Markets

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

The main function of the foreign exchange market is to support the trading of assorted global currencies. Although the majority of trades concern only a small number of currencies, including the U.S. Dollar, Yen, Euro, Swiss Franc, Pound Sterling, Australian Dollar, and Canadian Dollar, many other different types of currency are exchanged on a smaller scale. Over 90% of all exchanges on the forex markets involve the U.S. Dollar.

The forex market is, despite the popular impression, a composite of several contrasting markets, each of which sustains its own rules and regulations, with no one centred market in which all currency trading takes place. Because of the different time zones the major markets, which are located in the U.S., London, and Tokyo, open during different hours. When the New York market opens, and while the European markets are still operating, is when trading is heaviest and nearly two thirds of the trading action happens during this convergence.

An Individual exchange rate for a given currency does not subsist since there is no centred market. Whilst they are normally reasonably close to each other, the bid and ask rates for a currency can deviate among dissimilar geographic markets and market makers because of the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of the markets.

Each currency has an international currency code which is displayed by trio of letters and since the price of a currency must be given in relation to another currency, it is expressed in the form XXX/YYY. The price of Euros in U.S. Dollars is written as EUR/USD, for example. The strongest currency when the pair was created is generally the first in the pair and known as the base currency, and the other currency is called the counter currency. Typically rounded to the nearest ten-thousandth of a unit the actual prices themselves are displayed in decimal form.

Approximately $1.9 trillion changes hands every day in the forex markets and it constitutes the biggest marketplace in the world. With nearly 80% of trades lasting less than a week forex trading is largely a speculative, short-term market. With the many traders encompassing the globe and the very high daily turnover it is an exceedingly liquid market, much more so than equities.

Nearly three quarters of total dealing volume, however, involves the top ten most active traders. Known as the interbank market and made up of international banks, the trading activity that takes place between them supply the market with bid and ask prices that are far tighter than retail clients can anticipate.

Forex futures contracts, that are derivative instruments that are also actively traded was inaugurated in 1972 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and are responsible for approximately seven percent of the total foreign exchange volume. Another popular hedging strategy that has also taken hold is foreign exchange options. Investors often buy these derivatives, which are contracts to purchase currency at a certain price on a future date, to counterbalance the decline in the price of a currency and any possible losses they might endure.

An additional means traders are capable of mitigating risk is through an exchange, in which both parties agree to switch one currency for another for a set period of time, and will then reverse the transaction after the period runs out.

The foreign exchange market is a fast-paced, international currency exchange that is without competition amongst financial markets.

International companies, prominent banks and financial organisations will ensure its huge popularity continues and its growth is guaranteed into the future.

You can access more information about forex trading at http://www.forex-revealed.info, a popular website that provides tips and advice to achieve success in the forex market.

Trading Smart in the Forex Market

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

Hundreds of thousands of individuals have already joined the FOREX market. If you are
interested in a way to invest your money with quicker returns, FOREX may be perfect for you.
But before you can begin earning money, you should thoroughly understand the FOREX market.

Investing Methods

To better understand the FOREX market, you can compare this investing method to trading
stocks. In the stock market, you can buy shares of many different corporations in the hope that
stocks will rise, earning you a profit. Well, the FOREX market works in the same way, except
you are not buying shares of a corporation. Rather, you are buying and selling currencies. The
aim is the buy a currency and sell it when the currency rises, thus earning a profit when the
currency is more valuable.

As with the stock market, the FOREX market consists of those who invest a small amount as
well as those with millions to invest. Any individuals with any capital can join in on the action.
Because of the wide variety of FOREX brokers available today, you can become a FOREX trader
with as little as two or three hundred dollars.

Predicting Results

But like the stock market, the FOREX market is full of risks. When you are investing any money
there is always a risk of some loss. To minimize loss, many FOREX traders thoroughly educate
themselves through classes, online courses, books, and other materials. There are many kinds of
trading methods that will help you analyze current conditions and enable you to predict results.

The FOREX market is constantly changing, with drops and rises in currencies, 24 hours a day.
The trick is to predict these trends before they occur, so you can buy currencies low and sell them
when it is higher than the original cost. Sometimes, this means buying a dropping currency, and
waiting for that currency to take on an upward trend. This forces you to keep up to date on the
FOREX market conditions.

Online Trading

To become a FOREX participant, you should at least read a book, if not take a course. Because
real money is involved here, you must proceed with utmost caution. Many FOREX investors sign
up with FOREX related websites to receive newsletters, advice, and to keep up with currency
trends. Some investors even sign up to receive trends on their phones and PDA’s to stay in the
game.

The good news is that you have the opportunity to practice with play money before you put any
of your hard-earned cash through the FOREX market. When you sign up with a brokerage firm
that offers the option to trade online, you can use play money to test and understand the software.
You can use this valuable opportunity to put your research to the test by trying out different
trading methods to see if your predictions and analyses are correct. While the money may not be
real, the conditions are, which allow you a stable playground to learn and adapt to the FOREX
market.

Stay informed to stay on top of your game; your FOREX profits count on it. By remaining
vigilant, you’ll be able to pull in great profits through the FOREX market.

Get the latest in forex market know how from the only true source at http://www.forextradingline.com Check out our forex market pages.

Things You Probably Won’t Do Again - If You Discover the E-Mini

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Most of us learn to think early on that the Stock Market is:

1) Some mysterious place where rich people gamble; then…

2) When we learn a little about it…. we see it as a place we can put some of our money and it has a chance to grow (over time);

3) Even though our money is always ‘at risk’, still the stock market produces better than a bank savings account or CD ever does. (Usually, that is.)

When you were a kid in school, and even through college, were you ever taught anything about the stock market other than the bare essential of ‘investing for the long haul’?

‘Investing’ is always the key word. Have you ever heard or read a brokerage firm or a Mutual Fund’s advertisement that talked about anything but investing? Investing is the only thing most folks know as to financial planning. The mutual fund ads have convinced you that you aren’t capable of doing your own planning, though…let alone your own investing. They blatantly tell us that [we] should leave [our] planning to the ‘professionals.’ Namely, them.

Some 80-million Americans buy into their sales pitch…turning their financial planning and retirement hopes and dreams over to them. Those who want to get a little more involved, and learn a little about what’s going on, soon begin discovering one ‘eye-opener’ after another. Once you do, you’ll never do things the same way again.

First of all, you’ll learn that:

1) The Stock Market historically (since its beginning in 1896), has averaged 10-15% annual growth…even with all of the bad times averaged in! In other words, if one truly went for the ‘long haul’ their portfolio would have grown. Regardless of depressions, Wars, 9-11…..and even Sept 2008(!) The stock market always has and probably always will, beat anything the banks offer.

2) The second big ‘eye-opener’ would be discovering that trading (verses passive investing) allows one to take advantage of the UP’s and DOWN’s the Market is constantly experiencing;

3) The third is that the ‘Insiders’-those stock brokers and mutual fund managers, are the one’s who really know how to make the Stock Market pay off for themselves: They trade all day everyday! But, they preach only ‘investing’ to their clients. If you understand ’shorting’ and the full nature of the agreement you signed when you opened your stock account or mutual fund, (acknowledging that your money is ‘at Full-Risk’), then you’ll recognize whose money it is that makes it possible for them to trade everyday at the levels they do! But, you and your portfolio? One can only hope that the stocks you think you are a long-term investor in, do grow over time. If they don’t? Oh, well…you acknowledged that you were ‘at full risk’ so the ‘manager’ is protected no matter what. He can trade with your stocks (sitting in their ‘house account’) and you’ll never know the difference. (He might even get real greedy and trade in your actual account. But then, that would be called ‘churning your account to collect extra commissions’. He might get his hands slapped if you noticed it and complained.)

4) The fourth and greatest ‘eye-opener’ of all is that -with a little bit of knowledge, you can enjoy the same tremendous advantages of being a ‘trader’ yourself - right along with them!

Thanks to the Internet and the personal computer, the Stock Market has been changed forever. With these tools and a little trading knowledge, the playing field with them has been leveled for you. Instead of long-term hoping, you can now make it your daily cash flow machine, just like they do.

Oh, they don’t like it! Vested interests in the status quo never welcome change.

It’s much more than just losing those big commissions you paid your stock broker or mutual fund manager that’s worrying them. Perhaps they are beginning to see where the Internet and PC might make them ‘museum pieces’. To fight it, they never talk about it.

Self-trading and the ‘e-mini’ are the last things in this world they want you to discover. As a note of interest… a 2005 study of the ‘value of a broker or mutual fund manager to his client vs the amount of money he makes’ revealed that the average mid-level manager makes $742,000 a year; The client is fortunate (yes, happy as all get out) if his portfolio gains 10-15% appreciation a year.

Doesn’t the Stock Market average that on it’s own? None other than Warren Buffett said that “equity investors could do better if they listened to no one.” (Cover letter to tlhe Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2005)

All things considered… Is it any wonder that when the ‘e-mini’ was introduced by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1997 as a financial instrument that average folks could afford to learn to trade with on their new computer and via the Internet, that 11 years later, everyone seems to [still] have never even heard of it, yet?

If you would like to learn more, there’s a ton of FREE information available at my web web site and blog.

http://www.emini-forex-trader.com (Mel’s web site)

http://blog.melhardman.com (Mel’s blog)

Forex Trading System Advanced!

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

The Fibonacci and Elliot wave:Best currency predictive tool.

The system comprises of the following indicators:
1.Fibonacci
2.Elliot wave
3.candlesticks formation
The Fibonacci retracement levels:0.382,0.250,and 0.750 are very important because trading currencies with Fibonacci tools has been some traders strength in the forex market.

Elliot wave:The primary reason for introducing this powerful trading strategy is to prove the power of Elliot wave theory because it is one of the best indicators that could be used to determine the markets movement from down to top and back down.I have discovered why many traders lose money and also trade the currency market without confidence.The Elliot wave will take traders to the highest altitude and build their confidence from wider viewpoints;it also shows traders how the market is operating.

The Elliot wave is an analysis of the underlying structure of the foreign exchange market.It helps to know the tops and bottom of the market.The wave sequence consist of fives corrected by threes.The sequence remains constant no matter what degree of wave is being analyzed and the wave rhythm is observable as long as there is a minimum amount of trading volume.

Elliot wave could be stretched or compressed(both in time and price)but the underlying form remains constant and,the movement will unfold in it primary direction in series of 5 waves,labeled 1 through 5 waves.

A5 wave movement is normally corrected by a 3 wave movement in the opposite direction.The movement waves(1-5)are called cardinal waves while(1,3,and 5)are called impulse waves.The corrective waves are designated with small letters (a,b,c,d,e).

In real time you are only right when you make money.learn more about Elliot wave and Fibonacci to make more profit in your trading.

Happy trading.

Discover trading strategy that i use with success and more visit http://www.freeonlinetips4u.blogspot.com

Profitable Product Funnel Creation - You Can Create Them

Friday, October 24th, 2008

What if you learned how to create your own product funnel starting today?

There are some secrets that will help you to create your own quality products with ease.

Here are 5 simple steps that will help you to develop a line of products that will make you rich.

Step 1 - Define Your Niche.

Step 2 - Judge Your Expertise.

Step 3 - Quality Rules the Web.

Step 4 - Drive Traffic.

Step 5 - Provide Exceptional Customer Support.

The purpose of this article is to make sure that you create products for your website visitors on continuous basis starting today.

Here are step by step details to get you started today.

Step 1 - Define Your Niche.

It is important to know what your niche wants before you go about creating your products on the net.

There are many ways to evaluate your niche to be successful on the net.

For this first step you can do is visit forums in your nice and ask people out there as to what are the most pressing problems of people in your niche.

Once you get a list of the problems you can then focus on hunting out solution to their problems and convert it into a killer solution in the form of a product.

Make sure that you first evaluate your expertise.

Step 2 - Judge Your Expertise.

Tap into a niche where you are at an expert stage and you can create quality products out there.

If you are not aware about the niche inside out, the best bet you can do is to study the niche by visiting online forums and getting hold of some content websites in your niche.

Once you know your niche, you can easily tap into it and get hold of your share out there.

Quality rules the web.

Step 3 - Quality Rules the Web.

If your prouduct is not of top notch quality then it will become exceptionally difficult for you to sell it online.

And if at all you get successful in selling junk products you will get a whole lot of refund requests along with charge backs.

So make sure that whatever you do, you keep a quality mark on your products and services.

The next step is to drive traffic to your products and services.

Step 4 - Drive Traffic.

It is extremely important that you drive traffic to your products and services to make money online.

To drive traffic to your products all you need to do is to get expert in some traffic generation tactics.

Some of the top traffic generation tactics out there includes article marketing, pay per click and publishing ezines or newsletters.

Now provide amazing customer support.

Step 5 - Provide Exceptional Customer Support.

It is important that you provide great customer support to your niche.

If you do this your customers will be open to do business with you in future on regular basis.

Customer support builds trust and relationship with your niche and this will take you to the million dollar status you have dreamed on the net.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article writing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide’

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Writing

Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click here: Secrets of List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.

Customer Segmentation Needn’t Create Poor Customer Service

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

A popular way to segment customers is by revenue or profit generated, with “A-list” customers receiving more perks and personal service than “lower” categories. There are right and wrong ways to do this.

Doing it right means cultivating customers so they all feel appreciated, by developing or improving products to meet each customer segments’ needs. Result: pleased customers and higher profit.

Doing it wrong creates risk of sub-standard service for “unimportant” customers, making them feel unappreciated and resentful. Result: missed profit opportunities and disgruntled customers.

Brand Image

When deciding how to service each customer segment, remember that every point of contact with a customer reflects on the brand, regardless of customer “importance.” Over time, this has an impact on brand image and company reputation.

With the Internet so prevalent today, each individual has more power to voice his/her opinion than in times past, which directly impacts brand image and goodwill associated with the name. Each mistreated customer has the means to tell the world of her/his experience on Web sites that allow reviews (such as bizrate.com and Amazon.com) and online discussion forums.

An Example of Bad Service From the Customer Viewpoint

The way each of my credit card issuers treats me is a prime example. I always pay my bill in full (often early) and belong to the “cash back” rebate programs, so I imagine I’m in a similar customer segment for each and would expect to be treated similarly by these three competitors.

Not the case. Two of the companies make me feel like a valued customer. The third made me feel so unappreciated I closed the account. How the three companies handle “suspicious” activity on my account demonstrates the varying degrees of service:

- Discover card has a fraud specialist (or customer service representative) call me in person to ask that I review recent transactions with her/him.

- Citibank’s computer calls me with an alert, asking that I call a number or go online to verify transactions through a computerized process.

- Advanta locks the account and sends a letter informing me they have done so. In my experience, the letter arrived a week after the incident and I was not notified by telephone (I called them when the “offending” vendor notified me of the decline). I asked customer service to allow future charges from that vendor, but they could not do so. Presumably, this meant an account freeze each time my authorized vendor attempted to process a legitimate charge.

All three of my card companies require that I take some sort of action to verify suspicious charges, which is to be expected. The approach, however, leaves a very different impression. Citibank and Discover both apologize for the inconvenience of transaction verifications and — while I have to go through an extra step with Citibank — both fall within my subjective definition of quality customer service. Advanta, however, does not apologize for the hardships of declined transactions and a frozen account.

To be fair, I do not know that my negative experience would have been handled differently if I were in a more profitably customer segment. It could have been result of badly trained customer service representatives, or perhaps this is standard procedure on all accounts.

Tips for Segmenting Customers Without Sacrificing Service

Customer segmentation is a good thing. It helps you recognize how customers are different and it should draw your attention to needs of different segments, prompting you to better meet those needs. Some ideas on successful segmentation:

- Segment by need rather than profit or revenue. A low-profit customer today could be high-profit tomorrow if you offer products and services that fill her/his needs.

- Look for ways some customer segments can effectively be more “self-service,” which cuts costs for the company while meeting customer service needs.

- Build in ways to create exceptions in automated customer service processes, so as not to alienate those with special situations (in my example, by allowing a way to pre-authorize account activity).

- If offering promotions, rewards, or other incentives to some segments but not others, “spell it out” for customer service representatives and structure your Web site and promotional mailings accordingly. By taking steps to assure customers receive consistent information across all channels of communication, you avoid customers being exposed to offers for which they do not qualify.

There are ways to segment customers without lowering customer service. By doing so effectively, you nurture business growth and reputation.

Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing. You can find more of her free marketing planning articles at her marketing plan site, WebSiteMarketingPlan.com

The Federal Reserve and its Role as U.S. Money Cops

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

The Federal Reserve is easily one of the most powerful–and misunderstood–of all American institutions. The Federal Reserve’s steady hand as America’s “central banker” has been especially critical to U.S. economic performance during the past 25 years. Why?

The management of fiscal policy (taxation and spending) during the majority of those years by various Administrations and Congresses was less than admirable. As a result, the enormous and irresponsible buildup of Federal debt remains, for now, our collective lasting legacy.

Today’s Federal Reserve–under the control of Chair Ben Bernanke–enjoys a very high level of credibility as an inflation fighter. In the world of central banks, there is no loftier objective…nor any greater success.

Inflation Control

The Federal Reserve’s number one responsibility is to maintain American price stability. It has been largely successful over the past 15 years in doing so, with consumer prices rising at an average annual rate of 2.7% since 1991. More comprehensive measures of inflation have risen at even lesser rates. In contrast, U.S. consumer prices rose an average of 6.2% annually during the ’70s and ’80s, with a painful bout of double-digit inflation in 1979 and 1980.

Today’s Fed is very concerned that higher energy prices now impacting the economy will contribute to a broad series of price increases for thousands of products and services across the economy. Such a pass-through of energy costs keeps Fed officials awake at night.

Add in volatile commodity and gold prices, the fear of further terrorism in the U.S. and abroad, enormous purchases of U.S. Treasury securities by foreign investors, and a handful of other topics, and one gets a feel for the life of a Fed official. It is not for the faint hearted.

In its efforts to maintain price stability, the Fed many times is called upon to…

1) “take the punch bowl away from the party” (to slow the economy) when it gets a bit too rowdy

2) administer preventive “medicine” to its patient (the U.S. economy) when necessary in order to minimize the chance of a more serious “inflation disease” later, which would require even more drastic action (more painful medicine)

Note: Most changes to monetary policy are enacted by the Fed adding reserves to or withdrawing reserves from the banking system through a process called open market operations. The result of such moves is to increase or decrease the Fed’s most critical interest rate, the federal funds rate. The federal funds rate is the rate at which commercial banks and certain other financial institutions invest excess funds with other commercial banks on an overnight unsecured basis.

The federal funds rate is easily the most important of ALL short-term interest rates. Changes in the federal funds rate immediately impact the level of all other short-term interest rates, including the prime lending rate and various short-term investment rates. The discount rate, the other rate controlled by the Fed, is now almost irrelevant in today’s conduct of monetary policy.

The “Dog” and the “Tail”

While many of the Federal Reserve’s official responsibilities remain unchanged from earlier years, the nature of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy flexibility has changed markedly during the past 25 years. In my opinion, the Federal Reserve is no longer the primary determinant of when monetary policy changes are necessary–the U.S. bond market is.

Since the Federal Reserve’s creation in 1913 until perhaps the late 1970s, the Federal Reserve solely determined monetary policy. The nation’s bond market–much smaller during those times–then quietly fell in line. During that era, the Federal Reserve was the “dog,” while the bond market was the “tail.” This relationship has now reversed.

Today’s reality is that the Federal Reserve, to a large extent, provides the monetary policy mix that is demanded by a powerful and very inflation-sensitive bond market. The market is now the “dog,” while the Federal Reserve is the “tail.”

Today’s inflation-wary bond market provides the Federal Reserve with less monetary policy flexibility than at any time in its history. Any future Federal Reserve attempt to over-stimulate U.S. economic growth with “easy money” would be met with rising long-term interest rates (to protect lenders/investors from impending higher inflation) and cries of Federal Reserve irresponsibility.

Conducting Monetary Policy

How is proper monetary policy determined by the Federal Reserve? The Fed is clearly concerned about the inflation implications of today’s historically tight labor markets and the wage pressures that could result.

In addition (and figuratively speaking), today’s Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy using an old-style balancing scale with four trays.

In separate trays, the Fed balances:

1) Criticism from the “hawks,” who see inflation under every rock. The hawks are typically critical of the Fed, noting that the institution is not aggressive enough in diffusing inflationary expectations

2) Criticism from the “doves,” who constantly argue that monetary policy is too restrictive. The doves argue that the Fed has usually gone too far in monetary tightening or not eased policy enough, and that the Fed frequently threatens the economy with the “r” word…recession

3) Recent price performance of gold and various other commodities. Price movements in these commodities can serve as inflation red flags, as well as signs of monetary policy that is too restrictive

4) The current shape and slope of the U.S. Treasury yield curve, including the most recent direction of 10-year U.S. Treasury Note and 30-year U.S. Treasury Bond yields. Such information provides a clue as to the bond market’s collective view of inflation expectations

Only when all trays are in “relative balance” does the Fed consider monetary policy to be appropriate.

The Fed must also consider the inflation implications of U.S. dollar strength or weakness relative to other global currencies. The Fed must also consider the conduct of monetary policy by other major central banks including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan…

…not a task for the faint-hearted

Economic futurist Jeff Thredgold is President of Thredgold Economic Associates, a professional speaking and economic consulting company.

Since 1976 Jeff’s weekly economic and financial newsletter, Tea Leaf, has been helping people make sense of the tangled maze of the U.S. and global economy and financial markets in a light, approachable style. Sign up to receive the free Tea Leaf email newsletter and let Jeff Thredgold show you how to use this information to enhance your financial well-being for years to come.

Jeff is the author of econAmerica: Why the American Economy is Alive and Well…and What That Means to Your Wallet (Wiley, 2007), and On the One Hand…The Economist’s Joke Book.

His career includes 23 years with $96 billion banking giant KeyCorp, where he served as Senior VP and Chief Economist. He now serves as economic consultant to $50 billion Zions Bancorporation, which has banks in 10 states.

How to Protect Yourself from HYIP Frauds

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Don’t send them your money.

Yes, it really is that simple and easy — if you can control your greed-induced stupidity.

Yes, I know some people claim that some High Yield Investment Programs are honest and legitimate. Unfortunately, I see no evidence to support this claim — and find many good reasons to believe that all HYIPs and HYIP monitor sites are frauds from the get-go.

HYIP is short for High Yield Investment Programs. These are basically web sites which ask for your money in exchange for a guaranteed return on your investment which if true would shame Warren Buffett with his inadequacies and failures as an investor.

Returns of 1/2 to 5% DAILY! 6% weekly. 10% monthly. 730% annually.

Those are figures I just pulled from a small sampling of recommended HYIPs listed on an HYIP monitor site. Others claim more or less, but these are typical.

Hungry for returns like these? Most people are. They sure make ordinary mutual funds look weak and insipid don’t they? Makes you wonder why ordinary mutual fund managers earn millions of dollars when they can’t even guarantee a return of a mere 1/2% per day.

Even better — these returns are available to anybody. The minimum investments range from only $10 to $100.

If you were a trader who knew how to make such astronomical returns, would you want to be bothered with managing money for investors who can only afford to send you $10?

In the United States — and most countries have similar laws — all securities must be registered unless they’re placed privately with accredited investors. That’s people who have a net worth of at least $US 1 million and/or net annual income of at least $US 200,000. Needless to say, those people are not $10 investors!

By seeking funds for unregistered securities on a public web site, HYIPs appear to be violating these laws — even if the administrator has honest intentions.

But that’s not likely, because all HYIP administrators want your money sent in the form of e-gold, so it’s untraceable and nonrefundable. If they were honest, they’d accept your check.

HYIP experts advise doing due diligence before you invest, by investigating the administrators through their domain names. But if the HYIPs had honest intentions, they’d give you their names, physical mailing addresses and telephone numbers. Many HYIP sites don’t even pretend to tell you who or where they are.

And how do HYIPs achieve their extremely high but guaranteed results? Gambling in Macau casinos, forex trading, day trading, certificates of deposits, gold investments, investments on the NYSE and Nikkei, oil investments, manufacturing, venture capital, a single matrix multilevel marketing scheme that moved you up as people sent money after you, playing online Texas Hold ‘Em, the prime bank fraud and more. That’s what their sites claim, anyway. Some HYIPs don’t even bother to lie to you. They don’t even pretend they’re investing your money in anything.

As for the HYIPs that do claim to be investing in something legitimate (the majority) — what’s their trading edge that enables them to guarantee such high returns? They don’t tell you. They don’t brag about it. They don’t even give you a clue. You’re expected to simply accept their word for it. The lack of attention they devote to convincing prospective investors that their claims are credible is itself a show of contempt.

I’ve seen marketing materials for mutual funds, investment newsletters, investment books, trading software, investing courses and seminars — and all of them go to great lengths to convince prospects that their methods are successful. They don’t give away their secrets but they obviously believe prospects won’t send their money unless they first establish their credibility.

And no such marketing materials claim they can guarantee results every day, week or month! All trading systems have downs as well as ups.

Oh, yes — no HYIP has lasted over one year. Most go out of business long before that. Naive koolaid drinkers believe that some were started by administrators with honest intentions who just failed to make money, so they closed up shop without refunding any money.

If they were honest they wouldn’t make claims they couldn’t fulfil. They would give you their names and addresses. They would accept all legal forms of money, not just e-gold. And if they did go out of business despite their successful investment strategies, they would return as much money as possible.

They didn’t “succumb to the dark side” when their business failed. They were on the dark side when they started it in a deceptive manner.

But some HYIP investors make money — how’s that possible?

The obvious explanation for all HYIPs is that they’re plain and simple ponzi schemes. The first few investors and the traffic-generating HYIP monitor sites are paid with money sent by later investors. As long as the program continues for a time, the early investors can show a profit. When the flow of money from new suckers slows down, the administrator stops paying anybody and goes on a long vacation, before starting a new HYIP under a new name.

HYIPs rely solely on your greed — and that approach seems to be working.

I hope that now you understand that if you want a real return on your invested money, you need to put it in real investments — not send it to scammers.

Copyright 2007 by Richard Stooker

Everything you know about investing is wrong.

To learn more about HYIPs, go to: what are high yield investment programs or HYIPs

Capital gains are an illusion. Put cash in your pocket by learning the secrets of investing for income.

http://www.IncomeInvestHome.com

Bank Tidal Wave Douses Wealth Management

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

The collapse of mortgage lender and thrift IndyMac Bancorp in July may not have begun with letters of warning from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), but the financial services industry and the wealth management profession would do well to remember the subsequent events.

The senator’s letters to several banking oversight agencies, including the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), triggered an old-fashioned bank run on Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac. Eleven business days later, depositors had withdrawn $1.3 billion of the bank’s nearly $19 billion in deposits, before it was taken over by the FDIC.

That situation was just the beginning of a long weekend in the financial services sector. Mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, suffering from an ongoing crisis of investor confidence of their own, were given a lifeline from the federal government, in the form of a temporary increase in their long-standing lines of credit.

According to industry observers, the slow-moving storm wreaked so much havoc in mid-July that it should send a strong signal to wealth management professionals: Do not take the basics for granted.

Indeed, there is reason to believe that one investment strategy that has received attention lately-going it alone with no advisor at all-may get even more consideration now.

“In this market, everything is upside down,” says Michael Sonnenfeldt, cofounder of Tiger 21, a 160-member investment club for ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Financial advisors, he adds, have to maintain relationships with valuable clients at times like this. It’s one thing for wealthy entrepreneurs to lose money on their own bets in, say, gold or futures-or even on bets recommended by wealth managers-when those wagers come with well-understood risk. But with regard to what Sonnenfeldt says are structural issues-meaning holdings in cash or cash-like auction-rate securities or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-wealth managers are often as much in the dark as their clients.

“[Wealth managers] have a business to preserve and sometimes they are not fully disclosing what they know-or what they don’t know,” Sonnenfeldt says.

Members of Tiger 21 do not always invest on the advice of a wealth manager, he says. Those who go it alone rely partly on the club’s regular guest speakers and the collective knowledge among fellow club members. So as the troubles of mid-July unfolded, the reactions of Tiger 21 members were almost the same as they had been after two other recent blowups in 2008: They started communicating with each other directly.

One of those blowups unfolded over the spring, amid the freezing of the market for auction-rate securities. During that episode, some club members shared insights about the actions taken by their financial advisors to stabilize their portfolios. In some cases, Tiger 21 members received loans against those portfolios. Such information-sharing benefited the group because many other members were able to steer assets out of auction-rate securities before that market stagnated.

“A number of our members, in the last week or two, have been wondering whether the money-market funds that they had invested in were holding any Fannie [or] Freddie paper,” Sonnenfeldt reports. At press time, Tiger 21’s reaction to the current market woes was still unfolding.

Banking equity analyst Richard Bove, for one, was not quite ready to declare a material impact. “Wealth management is impacted by the markets, not bank-loan issues,” he says.

But even by that measure, things aren’t that great. By July 14, investors had spent a weekend digesting a diet of bad news about IndyMac, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-and watched that day as Treasury yields dropped on the 10-year notes and the 30-year bonds. Plus, investors were making a flight to quality away from volatility in other markets. Through mid-July, the S&P 500 Index had fallen 16% on the year; both the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had also dropped by between 15% and 16% each.

To be sure, not all high-net-worth investors will go it alone. Many of Tiger 21’s members, for example, have good working relationships with their wealth managers. But the club starts with the belief that wealth management is not a priesthood. “What our members are most concerned about is that the world has become more complex than ever before, more quickly,” Sonnenfeldt says. “Wealth managers who do not admit to that complexity and get on top of some of the core basics-and add transparency so their clients understand the risks-are in for some real trouble.”

One industry analyst explained the circumstances that connected the general-market downturns and the impact on the wealth management market by using history as a guide. In the wake of the devastating failure of the savings-and-loan industry in 1989, the Resolution Trust Corp. was formed, and ultimately purchased $125 billion in loans from the defunct banks and issued government-backed debt against them, Merrill Lynch economist Sheryl King wrote in a report dated July 14. That amount accounted for 2.25% of the prevailing gross domestic product.

In a worst-case-scenario of a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government might end up fronting some $300 billion, or about 2.1% of today’s $14 trillion U.S. economy, King wrote, adding that more phases in the financial crisis have yet to unfold. The housing market, for one, remains tenuous.

“The market is still dealing with almost a year’s worth of excess supply,” King wrote. “Home prices remain 15% to 20% overvalued nationally, in our opinion, and few cities can boast they are even close to fair range.”

Noting the impact of a previous 15% decline in home-price appreciation, King wrote that the next 15% drop is “unlikely to be any easier to swallow.”

Donna Mitchell is an author with On Wall Street magazine. For more information about this article, please visit http://www.onwallstreet.com

Marketing Strategies of Yanik Silver and Corey Rudl

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Yanik Silver

Yanik Silver is a well respected copywriter and consultant who specializes in selling tools to marketers. Before Yanik Silver got involved with direct marketing, he sold medical equipment. Yanik Silver has a great reputation in the world of marketing. Yanik Silver also provides excellent customer service unlike many others. Unlike a lot of the big players, Yanik answers his emails in a timely manner and he’s very polite. He actually answers questions himself which is unheard of in this industry. It’s nice to see a marketing instructor who is actually humble these days like Yanik. Yanik didn’t just pop up on the internet overnight and get instant success. Actually, he was already an excellent copywriter before he even arrived to the internet scene. Yanik Silver ran quite a few successful marketing campaigns back when he was selling medical products offline.

Since he already had plenty of copywriting expertise, Yanik just got a brilliant idea to create his famous products. Yes, Yanik Silver is the one who produced the very successful Instant Sales Letters website. At that site Yanik uses fill-in-the-blank style templates to help even beginners create effective sales letters, or for people that just can’t stand writing. There, he uses his most successful sales letters that received the greatest response so that you can be almost guaranteed the same great results he got from them. Yanik Silver has written several internet marketers strategies books each of them selling thousands of copies.

Corey Rudl

Corey Rudl (1970-2005) was a Canadian, and founder and President of The Internet Marketing Center. He was also an author, speaker, and software producer. Rudl started his first online business in 1994, turning it into a multi-million-dollar business based on Internet marketing strategies. In response to the demand for his advice, Corey founded the Internet Marketing Center, where he taught techniques and strategies that stemmed from his own experience. His Internet marketing guide is sometimes described as the “Internet Marketing Bible”. Rudl’s articles appeared in publications such as Entrepreneur.com, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s, the Direct Marketing Association, Marketing Profs, Opportunity World, Money ‘n’ Profits, Dig-IT Now, and Home Business Journal.

Rudl had an untimely death as a motocross driver, winning a 2002 Vancouver Molson Indy sports car event. On June 2nd, 2005, Rudl rode in a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT driven by Benjamin Miles Keaton, on a San Bernardino county track that was also being used by a local Ferrari sports club. When Keaton tried to avoid a queued car, the Porsche went out of control, left the inside track and careered onto the grass, hit a barrier at an estimated speed of 100mph and caught fire at 10:40 a.m. Rudl was the passenger and died at the scene. The driver, Benjamin Miles Keaton, 39, was airlifted to Loma Linda University Hospital, where he died about an hour later. Both men were not burned but died of crash injuries, even though both were wearing helmets and safety belts.

John Fagan is a top internet marketer who works with industry leaders from around the world. He has a passion for helping others achieve their goals, dreams and aspirations. To learn more about John Fagan and his team, and a Click Here.