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Archive for the ‘Finance’ Category

If you’re trying to build a nest egg that won’t crack, it’s important to establish a safe and dependable investment strategy. Yet last year alone, millions of Americans lost their life savings through investments that looked safe. In some cases, people lost both their jobs and their pensions when companies failed.

So, is there a safe place to put your money? Analysts say yes, but it’s important to learn a few facts first.

For instance, real estate has long been known as a secure, tangible investment because it generally appreciates over time. But most would-be investors are not real estate experts, and many of us don’t have enough money to fund the purchase of an investment property-let alone to fix up a run-down home. However, there is another strategy. It’s called cash flow investing and it allows people to benefit from secure and profitable real estate investments without buying or selling properties.

Put simply, a real estate cash flow note is a private mortgage created between two individuals instead of between a buyer and a bank. What many people don’t know is that one in 13 American homes is sold this way. Much like banks, which buy previously created mortgages, private individuals can buy cash flow notes to build returns of 20 percent or more. Here’s how it works:

Let’s say I sold a house for $100,000 and my buyer had $50,000 to use as a down payment. I can draw up a contract that takes $50,000 down and finances the remaining $50,000 over 30 years. I now have a cash flow note that generates monthly payments of $299.78 each month secured by real estate.

As a note holder, I have two options. I can take advantage of the monthly income and interest, or I can sell the note to another investor for instant cash. This is where you, as an investor, come in to make money. Let’s say you’re an investor with $35,000 to invest. I might not be willing to wait 30 years for my money, so I’ll sell you my $50,000 cash flow note for $35,000. Many investors find they can buy notes at great prices just because the original note holder wants to “cash out.” Now you’re receiving a steady monthly income of almost $300 and you’re in a position to make a 30 percent return on your investment-even before interest.

Best of all, unlike stocks and bonds, your cash flow note investment is secured by real estate-one of the most solid investments in the world.

When I first became interested in trading Futures I had no idea as to where to go to get information about trading.  I didn’t know anyone that traded the Futures Market.  In fact when I talked to anyone about Futures all I heard was  “don’t trade Futures, it’s way too dangerous, you will lose everything you own”. Indeed you can lose money fast in the Futures market, but you can also make money fast because the leverage is fantastic and that’s what interested me.  I knew I had to have a good system, but where would I go to find one.

At that time brokers would send you information, and maybe they still do, from various Exchanges about different trading strategies and how one might use them in a particular Futures Market.  Well, this information looked pretty good!  All I had to do was get a charting service and I was on my way.

I guess I wasn’t as bright as the person that gathered the information for the booklets because I simply could not make these indicators work for me.  Surely someone was trading successfully using this information I thought, otherwise why would they publish the booklets. With this thought in mind I felt I just needed more information.

Books had to be the answer. Like I said previously, I guess I was not very bright because after reading thirty or forty books thoroughly, some two and three times, and having applied the techniques learned from the books, I was not able to trade profitably on a consistent basis. I’m sure some are capable of using these techniques to trade successfully, but I was not able to do so.  While having a book burning party a few years ago, I decided to keep one book to remind me of my experience.  It’s on my bookshelf and I glance at it once or twice a year to keep this experience fresh in my memory.  There may be some great books out there that show you how to trade successfully on a consistent basis, but unfortunately I never found one.  I wasted years on this endeavor.

By this time computer trading was getting popular. I received an advertisement about a program where I could actually write my own system and back test it to get results before actually trading it. Wow!  This was great and it was only $4,500.00.  They advertised anyone would be able to program this thing.  Well they must have meant anyone with the exception of me.  I wasted hundreds of hours trying to write programs unsuccessfully.  I didn’t know the program language and I wasn’t able to get enough information to learn it so I decided to be intelligent about this situation and bought another program at only half the price of the first one.  I was able to write a few programs that produced very well in back testing, if one could stand twenty point stops in the S&P. I really liked this idea but finally had to admit that it was not going to give me what I was searching for.

For years now I had been studying charts every single day plus weekends and evenings.Of course I was aware that all indicators, strategies, systems etc. started with price. None of these things can be made without price moving first.  Price can’t be wrong because it is what it is, therefore it is always right.  So I decided to put all of my energy into the study of charts, or price and its movement, and finally I found it.  It was right there in front of me all these years and I just didn’t see it.  After another year or so of perfecting entries and exits and how to read where price should go, and if it would continue on or turn at that point, I finally had a system.  This system will give you profits consistently. I found that price will tell you where it is going and where it is likely to turn, and if it doesn’t turn there it will tell you in advance that it will likely continue.

I had a hard time learning to trade without a mentor.  It actually took years of commitment, hard work, and a lot of wasted money.  If you are new to trading Futures, or any market, and you don’t have a mentor with a good system that will give you consistent profits, then by all means that should be your first endeavor.  It is said that 90 of everyone trading in the futures market loses.  Make sure you’re in the 5 that are winners.

I am chartist and a technical trader. I believe that the first line of analysis is to find patterns. Line drawing and straight line analysis is the standard. It has been and continues to be the base line tool. Moving averages and range bands are more recent developments and are observatory. Straight line charting has modeled and been used to define patterns and set targets for an awfully long time, and I believe that you can’t throw a pile of lumber of a cliff and have it land in the shape of a house. If it looks like a house, some one has manipulating the lumber.

I want to show you a study that is remarkable in that it shows obvious pattern trading but not in a single stock rather an entire index, in this case the NASDAQ. The slides here are chronologically sequential and can not be put together after the fact to make a point. They were annotated and posted as they happened and were charted in my Trader’s Talk Live training sessions. I have a group of students who subscribe to spend several hours per week charting and being trained to read and trade off chart patterns. What you will see is the break of a trend and the steps it takes to morph into a new trend.

Note that the lines were drawn before the pattern fully developed, demonstrating that the pattern was recognized and laid out before the price played into the lines. Now the pattern could have broken at any time. The lines did not dictate what the stock / Index could or could not do. Rather the lines showed the pattern and the targets that would be reached if the pattern continued. Each pivot point that was reached gave an opportunity to trade off the price reaction to a critical decision point.

Feb 23rd the index dropped to recent support rally with the up trend line just below. A lower top also was formed. We identified the support and noted that the long term line was just below.

Now, notice that the next day held support but reached down intraday to bounce off the trend line. As it moves up it stalls in line with lower tops forming a wedge pattern. Now it is a powerful pivot point as descending tops collide with a long term support trend line. A move to the upside is a break out the target will be 2155. A break in the support line gives weight to the developing down trend.

The next day drops right to the support line the break down signals the end of an uptrend that began in March 2003 and changed angles in November 2003. It moves on down to the bottom of the trading range of the new trend. This set up is another Obvious Bracket Trade. The Resistance line is defining the current trend and the Support and resistance lines show that there is attention being paid to the target points. The pile of lumber is taking the shape of a nice house.

As a double bounce / bottom pounds the support line, the upside target is the top of the range at about 2020. The downside targets would be sliding down the support line or dropping to the next hard price support of 1900, the last major rally point.

Two days later, the big gap and drop to 1900 signals the recognition of the support area. Returning to previous rally points is a common pattern. From here, the market sentiment can be accurately tested. The public is not the critical catalyst here. The big traders here will be testing to see if the public is finished selling off. If there is equilibrium, the public / market may be ready to follow a lead to the upside.

Try as you like, you will not find news to explain what happens the next three days. To quote an analyst on CNBC who speculated at length about what prompted the big move last Thursday,” I guess we don’t really know”.

Well, I will tell you this. The folks who lit that fire were careful to choose that day to test fire the rocket. All of the markets had reached support levels from a trend line / straight line analysis point of view (see the commentaries for the last three weeks).

In our Trader Talk Live sessions we chronicled this as it happened and had opportunities to trade the many stocks that were doing the exact same dance steps.

This morning we are right at the next target. We moved there in the first hour and stopped. It has been an hour so far and it is still there. Gee, do you think that maybe the traders already knew that 1995-2000 was the limit of the current pattern and that many traders would be very ready and willing to take profits here at an obvious pivot point? Now will they? I don’t know… I am not on the floor. But I don’t have to be there to see the targets. When they get there, there will be a struggle to test the waters. If the buying frenzy will not give way to some shorting or profit taking there could be a test above the mark to see who wants to play. Either way… the pattern speaks volumes to the premise that in the midst of what may seem like randomness there appears to be a guiding hand. Look folks, there is too much money on the line not to have serious efforts to create some predictability.

Most all indicators and averages etc. are following and at best interesting after the fact. Some are predictive and highly accurate in reflecting behavior but Pattern Analysis of the price action and the targeting the next likely TEST of the market sentiment is the closest and most accurate way to get close to the game. You are likely not the Key trader in a stock or an index fund. Most likely you are not one of the Professional institutional traders that follow the Key Traders or the Fund managers that pick up on the momentum building on the floor. The masses take their Queue long after the test and subsequent direction has begun and your participation in the end will be necessary to move the stock or market on toward the testing point.

While I do use a very few indicators (MACD, WRSI, Stochs) they are consultants and are never reason I trade. The actual movement across a trigger price, whether it agrees with the indicators or not, dictates the trade. Now the indicators I use are highly accurate but guess what folks… they are never as accurate as the price. I routinely train my students to trade with out any indicators and they are surprised that they consistently make money by only trading price action and patterns. However there is one tool I insist on trading with and that is Candle Sticks. They is not an indicator, they are my hidden camera in the competition’s board room. But that discussion is for another day.

The pattern tells me when we reach a pivot point (significant price); the indicators give their best intelligence on the disposition of the trader’s momentum and attitude. That lets me set up legitimate criteria to make a trade. If /Then for the upside and If/Then for the down side. Armed with all that, I sit back and let the Stock / Index do what it will do. The key traders engage the masses and the spark either lights a fire or it doesn’t. I can’t know for sure what they will do and while I could say “my indicators suggest …so I am going in”, is would be a glorified guess that screams “I don’t know how to wait for the stock to tell me it’s time. I will trust the indicator that seems to be right a lot of the time and cross my fingers”. I’ll tell a secret, the Key Traders, and the Pros that will follow them, are not looking at range bands, moving averages and overbought /over sold indicators. Their actions are making those indicators say what it says. They are doing a delicate dance with the real momentum of the market, the masses. They do not want to go against the public sentiment. They want to test / read that sentiment and drive the leading edge of the next cycle of the pattern.

I love this stuff! I have many maxims that I use to help keep perspective. “The stock will never listen to you, but it will speak if you learn to listen”, “Find the pattern and play it till it breaks”, ” If there is no pattern, there is no trade”.

Not all stocks and or indexes have easy patterns to follow but where there is big profit potential, there will be a pattern. Just because you can’t see it, does not mean it is not there.

The NASDAQ price action over the last year is a very beautiful house and that pile of wood did not land that way by random action. While some Technical indicators are often accurate at predicting price action, the market is right ALL the TIME! Find the Pattern and play it till it breaks.

Jumping into Forex trading with both feet? Here are five must-know tips on forex trading and mini forex to help you stay afloat in the Foreign Exchange currency market.

Know your forex trading market.
Educate yourself about the currencies that you trade. The more you know about the country whose currency you’re trading in the forex market, the more accurately you’ll be able to predict which way the money will move.

Pick a forex trading system – and stick with it.
Savvy forex traders will tell you that system is everything. Forex trading by system lets you automate your trades based on history, following the traditional peaks and valleys. Set up a system and live with it to make the most of your forex trading.

Practice makes perfect – but it’s not the real world.
Practice forex trading accounts are great for learning how a particular trading account works – but they’re not the real world. Many experienced traders recommend starting off with a mini forex account to minimize your losses while you get acclimated.

Keep your eye on the margin.
Margin trading is a great way to lose a lot of money quickly. Stay away from forex margin trading until you’re sure you know what you’re doing.

The only win that counts in forex trading is the bottom line.
In forex trading, the bottom line is how much money you made at the end of the day. Don’t count won or lost trades – only dollars and cents.

Fix-a-Form International, the licensor of the multi-page label system, has signed a new licensee agreement to cover Poland in Eastern Europe.

The new agreement is the latest licensee signing for the company that produces Fix-a-Forms in 23 countries.

IWACO, the company’s Scandinavian licensee, will manufacture the Fix-a-Forms for exclusive distribution to Poland.

Stephen Jarrold, Fix-a-Form marketing manager, commented: ‘Eastern European countries are becoming prime targets for international market development. Poland is regarded as a doorway to much of this potential and has been an obvious target for Fix-a-Form for some time.

‘Local supply is of paramount importance if Fix-a-Form is to be accepted by countries like Poland where companies are struggling to manufacture and compete,’ Mr Jarrold continued. ‘They need locally supplied materials and services, rather than high priced imported goods, to help them beat off competition from other countries.’

Fix-a-Form managing director Andrew Denny added: ‘Fix-a-Form International provides a comprehensive back-up service to licensees and this move into Poland will be no exception. We have arranged for Stephen Jarrold to join representatives from IWACO to help introduce the on-pack communication device to the new market. They will be conducting a series of seminars across the country.’

Poland, Mr Denny emphasised, was a key market for Fix-a-Form. ‘It takes us into a completely new geographical area.