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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

eToro Snags a World Finance Award for Most Innovative Trading Platform 2010

eToro Snags a World Finance Award for Most Innovative Trading Platform 2010

The eToro platform, already a trader favorite, has now received a nod of appreciation from the financial trading industry as a winner of one of World Finance's prestigious annual awards.


eToro's (www.etoro.com) innovative approach to financial trading has been making waves for quite some time now among traders worldwide. The platform's user friendly graphic interfaces and wide range of ground breaking community tools have captured the attentions of novices and experts alike, who now take part in eToro's vibrant and active social trading network. With its open and daring approach, eToro has now managed to not only become one of the most popular trading platforms online, but to also receive a seal of approval from an already established financial institution.

“Our vision is to become the first global market place for everyone to trade and invest their funds in a simple and transparent way”, said eToro CEO, Johnathan Assia. “eToro already transformed the way people trade today, and we thank our community of over a million traders for helping us win this award that recognizes eToro's achievements in the financial trading arena”

World Finance magazine launched its annual World Finance Awards in 2007 with the goal of identifying industry leaders that represent the benchmark of achievement and best practice in the financial and business world. To determine the winners, World Finance magazine used an independent panel of judges headed up by Editor Alexander Redcliffe. The Panel followed up on the countless nominations, suggestions and contributions of World Finance readers to explore and analyze new trends in order to unearth the best and the brightest pioneers in the FX marketplace.

“We couldn't be more thrilled and honored to win this particular award,” said Assia. “To know that our platform was nominated and then chosen out of the hundreds of nominations is a sign that we must be doing something right. It is especially rewarding to know that our push towards innovation, which has been one of eToro's core values from the start, hasn't gone unnoticed. The challenge now is to keep innovating so we can have a shot at next year's award as well!”

As for eToro's community, they will certainly be thrilled to know that their platform of choice is leading the way in cutting edge trading technologies, and intends to continue to do so for years to come.

Open a free trading account with eToro to explore the benefits of financial trading

Important Investment Lessons for Young People

By Dan Goldie

If you are an investor under the age of 40, you have one big advantage over everyone else: you have an incredibly long investment time horizon during which to grow your investment dollars. Here is how to take advantage of it.

If you are an investor under the age of 40, you have one big advantage over everyone else: you have an incredibly long investment time horizon during which to grow your investment dollars.

The power of compounding is one of the great wonders of investing. The benefit of an extra decade or two can make a huge difference to your ending wealth. To capture this benefit, you have to start investing early and intelligently, and with consistency and discipline. After all, it is only with regular, long-term success that financial goals are realized.

For most investors, staying focused over the long run is challenging. The temptation to speculate can be high, and there is plenty of noise and distraction vying for your attention, making it easy to get sidetracked. Some of the confusion is caused by Wall Street hoping to get your business by playing to your hopes or fears. Some of it is the financial press trying to get catch your attention to sell advertising. Other noise is generated by the very nature of financial markets themselves, and the vast amount of information all around us. Now, more than ever, it is difficult to keep disciplined and stay the course.

The bottom line: it is not the day-to-day fluctuations of markets that should concern you. The primary risk you face as a young investor is the constant threat of inflation eating away at the purchasing power of your assets. For example, at just 3% per year, inflation will reduce the purchasing power of a portfolio by one-third after 14 years, and one-half after only 23 years. Your most important task is to invest your assets to protect yourself from this erosion.

A successful, long-term investor knows the difference between comfortable portfolio and a safe one. A comfortable portfolio does not fluctuate much in value. It might be invested in stable things like bank CDs with an expected return not much more than the rate of inflation. Alternatively, a safe portfolio has expected returns well above inflation. It is invested predominately in stocks and highly diversified. This equity oriented portfolio fluctuates with market movements and can be uncomfortable — especially during stock market declines — but it provides for long-run inflation protection.

As a young investor, you may not have made a lot of investment mistakes. That can be good and bad — good because you haven’t lost money; bad because you haven’t learned any lessons the hard way. As one of my colleagues likes to say: the market is a great teacher, but it charges a steep tuition. You can skip the tuition payment by learning how to invest prudently early on.

Remember that the stock market is not a zero-sum game. There are not winners and losers in these markets, with the winners taking all the spoils and the losers going broke. Capitalism generates positive returns overall, and, although some win more than others, everyone can succeed. The elegant truth of economics is that the return on capital is exactly equal to the cost of capital. In other words, in the aggregate, the return to investors is equal to the payment required of those entities — such as governments and corporations — seeking to attract investment capital.

Wealth is created when natural resources, labor, intellectual capital, and financial capital combine to produce economic growth. As an investor, you are entitled to a share of that economic growth when your financial assets are invested in and used by the global economy. This is not a free lunch. It is your fair share of profits as compensation for putting your money to work.

One of your main goals should be to capture as much of the global return on capital as you can. Cut your investment costs, make sure you have a widely diversified portfolio, and stay disciplined. Investing this way, you can have a successful investment experience!


Dan Goldie is a financial advisor and financial planner working with high net worth individuals and families. He is the co-author of the new book, The Investment Answer: Learn to Manage Your Money & Protect Your Financial Future. Investment advice provided through Dan Goldie Financial Services LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor.
Article Source:
http://www.articlebiz.com/article/1051379224-1-important-investment-lessons-for-young-people/

Three Basic Ways to Make Money

 By Steve Gillman

There are a thousand or more ways to make money, but they can be roughly classified into three categories. These are fast ways to make money, basic ways to pay the bills and long-term wealth-creation strategies involving building a business. Lets take a quick look at the three, based on the assumption that you are starting from a desperate position with no money. If that is not the case, you can skip ahead to the "paying the bills or "wealth creation" part.

The instant-cash ways to make money can be further divided into three categories: turning assets into cash, borrowing, and making money. The first is about selling whatever you have. Almost everyone has something that isn’t really needed and can be converted into cash. This might be a CD collection, a bunch of tools that are never used, an office full of books or something else. You have eBay, pawn shops and friends as potential markets, although the latter two are easier and faster.

Borrowing can also be done at a pawn shop, in which case even things you don’t need can be converted temporarily into money. You might also have a car you can borrow against, a home that can be used for a second mortgage loan, or credit cards that you can use for a cash-advance. None of these are ideal ways to raise money, but provided you have a plan for repayment they are better than nothing. You might also borrow from family and friends.

The third instant-cash method is finding jobs or businesses that pay quickly. For example, if it is winter and it just snowed, you might borrow a shovel and make $100 cleaning a few driveways today. Friends or acquaintances may need yard work done, or other work they’ll pay cash for. You could go out and cut a dozen small trees and carve them into walking sticks by this afternoon, wholesaling them to a gift shop for $8.50 each to make a cool $100.

Once you solve your immediate cash shortage you can move on to paying the bills. That means getting a job or starting a small business. If that snow shoveling worked out you can do that until the landscaping season starts. Otherwise you can move building to building asking if they are hiring (seriously, this works--do it day after day and you won’t go a month without a job).

Long term ways to make money are all about real business. A solid business is not a job where you happen to be the boss of yourself--that can be as bad as working for other people. A good business allows you to eventually run the business itself rather than do all the work within the business. This is why you have to charge $30 per hour for trimming trees, for example--so you can eventually pay an employee $15 per hour and still make a profit. If you want to avoid having money problems in the years to come, this is a worthy goal. The instant-cash ways to make money and the ways that just pay the bills are just steps on the ladder of financial success.


Copyright Steve Gillman. Learn more Ways to Make Money, and get free money-making newsletters and courses at: http://www.EveryWayToMakeMoney.com
Article Source:
http://www.articlebiz.com/article/1051420450-1-three-basic-ways-to-make-money/

How To Make Money Online Without Investment Starting Today

By Wisey Lim

This article will share with you how to make money online without investment. Everyone wants to earn " internet money". The best way is to do this is with no experience and with zero cost. Imagine this, you could have multiple sources of online income. This will increase your streams of income. Get rid of the myth that you need to own a web site, you must have online product to sell or you must acquire the technical skills or "internet savvy" for your to earn "internet money".

You could still earn "internet money" if you are not a web designer or a marketing genius. You are still wondering how to make money online without investment? Explore the following ways.

1. Online Writing

You could certainly earn "internet money" if you love writing. There are article directories or websites which pay you money if you submit or contribute your writing to them. Explore these sites, for example, Helium, Hubpages, Squidoo, Snipsly and Info Barrel. Start writing and sharing and start making money online without investment.

2. Affiliate Marketing

This is the best online business model for a beginner online marketer. Basically, you promote some else's product online and you get paid a commission by successfully done so. You could get the affiliate products for free at the affiliate networks. You could use article marketing or even blogging to promote the affiliate products.

3. Blogging

You don't need to have a website and you don't need to know about web designing for you to set-up and blog. You could even set up a blog for free within minutes and start posting. Place ads for free on your blog and you will get paid when the visitors click on the ads. You could even place your affiliate link on your blog and promote the affiliate product through your blog. Again, share you story, your passion or whatever interesting topics through your blog and earn money online without investment.

How to make money online without investment? Explore the above now and integrate online writing, affiliate marketing and blogging and start making "internet money". Isn't it wonderful for you to be able to earn money online without investing a single dime?


Ready to start making money online? You want to learn more about how to make money online? Go To http://www.internetbusinesssecret.info for your FREE eBook that reveals "The Secrets...".You may share this article, republish, reproduce it or make it as a source of reference with the condition that the contents of this article and resource box are intact.
Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Monday, April 25, 2011

What the economy brings to Businessmen who FAIL

By Rohn Springfield

Investing and Finance advising is a very successful field that endures many young people who are looking forward to living a life that brings them in a big paycheck.  This paycheck will only be coming in the mail if you continue to make money for your company.  Not everyone in the business world turns out to be successful.  Though every person in the world has bad luck or struggles at some time during their career, keeping this downfall to a minimum is your best bet at keeping your job.  Even the greats, like Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch went through struggles to get where they are now.  The reason they became so rich is because their gains outweighed their losses by a lot.  They made plenty of risks, just as all businessmen will during their career.  That is what makes the big money in the first place, taking risks and making much more than you would of if you played it soft.  Don't be scared to take these risks when your young either.  Being young and restless gives you the advantage to go out and make the big risks without much to lose.  When you get older and have more responsibilities like putting food on the table for your wife and kids, you won't be able to make the same risks.  I want all you young investors to live by a statement that I try to live by everyday.
"Think Big, Win Big"

Better Money Management in 5 Steps

By Randall Stewart

How well do you manage your money? Ultimately, your financial success depends on your ability to take better control of your financial affairs.

Here are 5 positive habits to help you become more effective in managing your money, no matter how much you start with:

1. Start by involving your whole family in the learning process.

Engage your whole family in learning about how to effectively manage money. Don’t keep your financial affairs or investments a secret. Ongoing communication about your financial matters is an absolute must if you would like to establish trust, accountability and a sense of financial peace within your household.

2. Reduce your debt load and expenses while increasing your savings.

Could you decrease your expenditures and be content with getting by with a little less? List three to five areas you could cut back on right away that would allow you to reallocate the money not spent to increase your savings over time.

Reducing your debt load may be a long-term goal, but once you eliminate the heavy burden of bad debt, you can begin accumulating wealth.

3. Gain peace of mind with your emergency fund.

There is nothing like being worry free of knowing how you will pay for the next crisis down the road. Your goal should be to build up enough reserve funds over the course of the next year to cover three to six months of your normal expenses.

Start by opening a savings account or money market account that doesn’t penalize you for deposits and withdrawals. Eventually, you will also be able to set aside additional savings for long-term projects such as vacations, post-secondary education or projects around the home.

4. Create balance in your money management plan.

The following money management plan allows you to build up your savings and rewards you every month for your efforts. Start by setting up separate accounts for each of the following categories and allocate funds in accordance with the recommended amounts:

10% of your net income for investing in your financial freedom

Your goal is to set aside money every month, building up your capital in various investments.

At no point in time should you spend the capital that you have already invested. You may reallocate capital to finance a project that is going to create wealth, but avoid the temptation to pay off any expenses.

10% for your education

Your financial literacy is fundamental to becoming a wise investor. This knowledge may be gained from a variety of sources, such as home self-study courses, workshops, seminars, books, CDs, websites and investment clubs.

10% for giving

Giving not only brings joy to others; it also brings you a sense of gratification in knowing that you are adding value to other people’s lives. Get into the habit of supporting your community and helping those in need.

10% for your emergency fund and future projects

As outlined already outlined, set aside money to cover any unforeseen expenses.

10% for play

Life should be enjoyed now and through retirement. A secret to managing money well is establishing balance between hard work and rewarding yourself. Your play account should be spent each month on ways that rejuvenate your body and spirit such as a weekend getaway for two, a meal in a classy restaurant or a day at a health spa.

50% for necessities

The majority of your monthly financial obligations or expenses fall into this category. Make a concerted effort to reduce your expenses in the early goings by cutting back on certain luxuries or desires. A key factor to getting ahead is coming to an agreement with your spouse about how you will manage your financial affairs, including your long-term financial goals.

5. Track your cash flow and your net worth.

Your cash flow analysis

An important aspect of controlling your money and being successful in the world of finances is keeping tabs on your cash flow on a regular basis. Your cash flow analysis is a written plan of how you spend your money. It is a simple cost-breakdown of your expenses, as seen in most budgets, and involves tracking your income and expenses on a monthly basis. Your cash flow analysis should take into account several important factors, such as:

• your budget priorities as a family, based on your passions and dreams

• the impact of your specific family values on your cash flow

• specific short-term budgeting plans, as well as long-term projections over a six-month to one-year period.

One easy way to keep track of your cash flow is to use an electronic spreadsheet.

Your net worth

Besides monitoring your cash flow, it is important to periodically assess your net worth. To calculate your net worth, you need to total up the assets you possess and subtract your liabilities. Assets typically show up in categories such as:

• investments,

• bank accounts,

• pension plans,

• chattels or

• equity in your personal residence.

On the other hand, liabilities include such categories as:

• credit card debt,

• long-term loans,

• home mortgage,

• taxes owing or

• unpaid bills.

Calculate your net worth right now and then monitor your net worth every three to four months. The simplest way to keep track of your net worth is with an electronic spreadsheet.

In summary, by implementing these 5 positive money management habits you will begin to realize your dreams for a better future. Keep in mind that what you focus your attention on will increase.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

How To Invest Money Wisely

By Bill Ingram



How to Invest Money

How to invest money wisely is the question that many people ask themselves, but very few really understand the process of investing money. Anytime that you invest money, there is some amount of risk involved. Before you decide to invest your money, you need to evaluate the risk against the potential return that you will receive. It is best to both invest and save your money at the same time. The difference is that when you invest, you have a much higher possible return, but also an increased risk.

Every day you are making financial decisions that impact your life. In order to be a thriving investor, you need to make investing and saving a part of your daily routine. Many ask how to save money to use for investing. You will be surprised how little savings it takes to begin your path to riches. You might invest $20 or you might invest $1000. You need to invest an amount that you feel comfortable with after all of the bills are paid.

But you wonder how to invest money wisely? There are two types of investors. You can be an active investor, where you or your broker picks your own stocks, bonds, and other investments. Or you can be a passive investor. This is when you follow the advice of an index created by some other party.

If you are investing a small amount of money, probably the best route that you should take is with Dividend Reinvestment Plans, or DRPs. This is when you do not go through a broker, but you directly pick stocks from the companies or their agents. There are thousands of major companies that offer stock plans. If you are just beginning with investing, this is a good starting place. You can eventually even set up an automatic payment plan.

DRPs are considered a safe way to create wealth over a long period of time. However, it is very important for you to keep all of your records for tax purposes. There are many ways to invest money with imagination being the limit. Do your due diligence and research before doing so.

Another method if you want to know how to invest money is to use index funds. This is a good choice if you have a few hundred dollars to invest. Index funds normally track an index, such as the Dow or NASDAQ. Some indexes permit you to invest less than $250, but you should not use this if you are investing more than $100. The biggest benefit from an index is that they are inexpensive because they just track the index. Two of the most popular index funds are through mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds.

If you have a little more money to invest, you might want to consider a discount brokerage account. This is when to pay an expert to buy stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or other investments. You should only invest money in the stock market if you have reason to believe it will go up. It is a risk, but with the advice of your financial advisor, you could end up making a lot of money. However, keep in mind that the stock market is so unpredictable, so it is also possible that you could lose everything that you have invested.

Forex Trading is also a good choice if you have a considerable amount of money to invest. This is when you purchase one currency at precise exchange rate and then sell it when the exchange rate goes up. Forex Trading is basically when you make a substantial number of small transactions each day. In order to complete Forex Trading, just find a broker and get them to open the accounts for you.

It is important to research your options on how to invest money, so that you can make the best decision based on your needs. Go online and look at all of the possibilities, and then choose wisely.

With the economy like it is today, the stock market fluctuates frequently. Therefore, it is important to make wise and thought out investments, so you can be sensible with your money. Because investing sounds complicated, you may feel you do not know how to invest money; however, it is really quite simple and rewarding if you have the patience and take the time to be well informed and educated on the strategies involved.

Having said that there is a website that can give you more ideas on how to invest money. To help you achieve your financial goals go to http://www.howtobecomeamillionaireonline.org.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bill_Ingram

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