Saturday, October 28, 2006

Investing Strategies: Aggressive And Conservative

Investors who have different risk profiles, investment objectives and time frames will adopt different investment strategies in order to achieve a similar result. Basically, there are two types of investors; aggressive and conservative.
An aggressive investor will take a shorter time period to achieve the desired result as his risk attitude should reward him with a higher rate of return, given a dynamic portfolio investment style and a well drawn up investment philosophy.
For any reasonable portfolio management exercise to be meaningful, you must have at least $50,000 to start with. If you're looking at a portfolio of shares or unit trusts, $50,000 will be a good starting point. As for property investment, $50,000 should be sufficient in most cases for down payments.
Where the money should be invested will very much depend on the prevailing market cycles and opportunities. However, this will have to change throughout the portfolio management process, which is fundamentally based on your investment philosophy and the changes in your financial statements and life goals.
However, always take into account two things when investing; a well-correlated portfolio and the market cycles. Having all monies in the same asset class at any one time may not be prudent, so, the other area to look out for is the equity market. For more disciplined and market savvy investors, investing your money in stocks can help to double your initial capital.
It's advisable to put only a small allocation of just 20% of your available funds into carefully chosen stocks. Pick the ones that have good net tangible assets and price-earnings ratios. Study the highest and lowest prices for these stocks over the past one year and discuss what price levels will be prudent for a buy and sell.
Another option to look at is unit trust funds. Choose the fund house based on the umbrella of funds available to you for the purpose of portfolio management. Two factors are important to determine that a fund performs; your investment strategy and who is managing your funds directly and indirectly. However, of course there are risks in unit trust investments too, though less when compared with direct stock investing
On the other hand, the conservative investor should be more patient as he will need more time to grow his money. Conservative investments like fixed deposits, bonds, money market or income-yielding instruments have yields below one's personal inflation index and thus may not be a meaningful tool for wealth accumulation over the long term.
Choose a well-managed balanced unit trust fund that has a combination of fixed income securities and equities and is dynamically aligned to suit the various events and market cycles over time.
Consider opting for a regular savings plan using the balanced fund as a base to invest, as this will help smooth out the volatility of events and cycles over time. There are many regular savings plans available in unit trust funds but be careful when choosing one. When you invest regularly, you may push the dollar cost upwards or downwards and if the fund you choose is a highly aggressive one, the upward and downward dollar costing exercises may eventually prove to be less effective than investing regularly in a more stable fund like a balanced fund.
Last but not least, you may also want to look out for opportunities in some direct stable and established stocks that provide high dividend yields. These yields will provide a cushion against market and specific risks, which will not worry you too much as a conservative investor. Some unit trust funds have their core holdings only in high dividend-yielding stocks and they may prove to be of good value in your portfolio.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

How To Maximize Your Profits With Autosurf Programs
If you have not heard about Paid Autosurf programs yet, you are about to hear of a great way to earn extra money using your computer and a web browser. If you have heard about them and thought these programms can’t be real, then you’re in for an eye opener as well.
Paid Autosurf programs are offered by advertising companies that pay you to surf their members websites and get paid for doing so. These companies have advertiserss that purchase advertising packages that allow their websites and promotions to be shown to members who surf their exchange. Their hope is that as you surf, you will be interested in their offers and make a purchase or at least capture that all so coveted e-mail address of yours so they can try to up-sell you later.
The Paid Autosurfs are quite simple. They accept both free and paid members for their service. Free members are able to generate free credits to have their websites shown to other members to help increase their sales. Paid memberships also get their advertisements shown to members but they also earn money for each day they surf in the exchange. Paid members get paid for the days they surf. If they do not surf, they do not get paid.
Paid members are charged membership fees for Upgrades they purchase and earn a certain percentage daily for the days they surf. When these Upgrades expire, members get paid. Upgrade durations vary between programs. Some may have 4 day Upgrade sessions where others may have 365 day (1 year) Upgrade packages. The percentages paid can range anywhere from 1% to 12% each day and more.
If you understand the rules of these Paid Autosurf exchanges, the members do not gross the high percentage gains advertised, since initial membership fees are not returned. For example, if a Paid Autosurf program were to pay you 12% each day, after deducting the initial membership fee from your 12% earnings, your net profit would be approximately 3.66% per day. This is still a fantastic gain on your money, but it is a far cry from 12%. Is not marketing a wonderful thing?
So many people wonder how these Paid Autosurf companies can afford to pay their members such high daily gains. There are many ways these companies make money, from paid advertisers, to Forex (foreign exchange) trading to playing the odds. The facts are that many people who join these programs do not understand how to use them. Many of these people lose money. As I mentioned before, the membership fees you pay to earn your daily gains on are not returned. You earn money from your membership fee amount. So if you invested $30 and never surfed a website, then guess what? You are out $30. If you only surfed half of the days, you lost money. If you do not have the time to commit to these programs, do not join them. You need to have daily access to a computer with a web browser to earn money with these programs. If you do not, then these programs are not for you.
Programs like these are always accused of being some type of scam, or money laundering, funding terrorism or whatever else. If people would just learn more instead of crying scam at everything, they would understand how these can be very profitable businesses for the companies running the Paid Autosurf and for their members.
You do need to be careful however, since there are so many well respected Paid Autosurf programs around today, there are many more that are not. Most are pure pyramid or Ponzi schemes setup to look like Paid Autosurf programs and their main objective is to close up shop one day and take your hard earned money with them, and do it all over again. You need to be careful and you need to do your homework. Do not be fooled by promises made on some flashy website. Search online and do some research. Bad programs will soon have lots of bad press about them. If you find many people complaining about the same program, do not join. Also beware of brand new programs as they pop up on the internet every day. If a program is very new, they may not have been around long enough to earn a reputation; good or bad. If that is the case, then my suggestion is to stay away.
There are not many programs available today to help folks earn extra money without taking high risks. If you diversify over a few of these programs and limit your investments to very small amounts at first, you can quickly get back your initial investments and start earning more money with your gains. You will quickly be earning more money with no financial risk and you will be on your way to generating a substantial extra income for yourself.
What's Better Residual Income Or Passive Income?

Most of us have been taught to go to school and get an education. Ideally you graduate from high school and further your education through college or a trade school. Some go on to achieve their Masters or PHD allowing them to command more money for their time. Ultimately, one must choose what they intend to do for a career, earn a living and be productive in soceity. Not that you or anyone else needs a "diploma" in order to be sucessful but some would consider it to be a "marker" of discipline, as to whether one may finish the task or do the job required.
Residual income is known as money that is received on a regular basis from efforts already sown. Could be thought of as money that is "left over" from an initial purchase or ongoing installment. Its nickname or also known as (AKA) "mailbox money" and can be obtained by anyone, graduate or non graduate.
Usually to keep receiving residual income, one must still be "active" within the company or organization. Should they leave or break "policy", you can expect to stop receiving any further residual money. Replacing the mailbox money with a final termination letter and ceasing any more paychecks as the residual return comes to an end.
Passive income is similar to residual income but with one major difference. With passive income you can now be an "inactive" party. Qualifying you to "retire" from your venture an yet still keep on receiving your expected paycheck. Not to be confused with a pension but giving you the freedom to maintain your preexisting standard of living, while NOT having to work for it (the paycheck) any longer.
You hear a great deal of individuals giving testimony to having a residual income, which is what most people strive to obtain and rightly so. This is to be expected when working within a home based business environment or any other self-earned income opportunity. However, if you can build your residual earnings into an ongoing passive income, you will be better off once you choose to STOP acting (or working) to get the paycheck.
Whether it be residual income or passive income, once you get a taste of either one you will most likely want to continue in this manor and grow it to unlimited heights. Allowing you to experience a lifestyle unlike others they may need to report to workplace at a certain time each day, week after week and year after year.
If you are curently representing a company or thinking of joining a company that offers residual income as a form of payment. You should check into their company policies and learn how your earned paycheck may be treated, should you choose to move on to another business opportunity. Losing a residual income after spending your time and energy creating it, could be devastating if you are not aware of its tenure ahead of time.