Consumer Rights,Finance,Make Money,Online Investments

Archive for June, 2008

Picking the right strategy for online trading is one of the points of differentiation between successful traders and people who burn out abruptly. Picking the right online investing strategy for yourself is a matter of knowing yourself. Socrates maxim of “Know Thyself” applies more than you might think to trading.

How much do you want to work? How much do you want to be tied to your computer screen running numbers? How easily distracted are you? These questions, more than anything else, will determine how successful you are at managing any kind of strategy. We’re going to cover most of the basic strategies here and highlight the personality traits that are needed to make them thrive.

The first basic strategy is day trading. This is a strategy built around making short term buy and sell orders and often uses leverage to increase the amount of money made. Day traders focus on a specific segment of the market and then look to maximize their daily profits. Individual company performance is less important than volatility and making the best deal for the day.

The personality type that thrives at day trading is an aggressive obsessive. The money that can be made regularly day trading is incredible, and if you’re good at it, job offers often follow and can be quite lucrative. The downside is that the workload for day trading is 12 hours a day, five days a week, with next to no breaks. Day traders can burn out quickly, and need to have a short memory for failures. If you can’t get over a bad decision rapidly and move on then this is NOT the strategy for you.

The second basic strategy is to make long term positional trades. This is the best strategy to have if you are attempting to preserve overall capital while making measured gains. It has the benefit of lower work loads, but more up front research is required. The classic example of the positional trader is Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway. He advocates a buy and hold strategy and then reinvesting the dividends received into more shares of consistently profitable companies.

This strategy is more focused on what a company does, what they make, and what their long term revenue stream is rather than the share price going up or down. The required temperament for this strategy is patience. You are in it for the long haul.

Stop loss and margin trading are something of a hybrid compared to the other online investing strategy. You care about the volatility of the market, but with each stock you buy, you have a dedicated selling point in mind. You are less concerned about the ride up to the maximum share price so much as you are working the split of getting off the share before it comes down.

In some ways, it embodies traits of both of the other two investing strategies as you have to be patient while occasionally experiencing the adrenaline rush of a day trader. That being said, it is a good middle strategy for someone looking to build assets quickly and then transition to a long term positional portfolio.

Individuals and small businesses sometimes balk about using personal finance and small business accounting programs like Microsoft Money for online banking or online investing. However, the sign-up process is usually very straightforward. And–and here’s the good news–the signup process is usually the only task that requires any true effort on your part.

Signing Up for Online Banking

To sign up for online banking, you need to talk to your bank. Specifically, you need to get the bank’s online banking application form, complete the form, and turn it in.

After you have turned in the form, your bank will send you a letter that explains how to connect to the service—this is really very easy—and give you a personal identification number, or PIN, that you’ll need to supply to Money so it can communicate with the bank’s online banking system over the Internet.

NOTE Your PIN may come in a second letter for security reasons.

Typically, once you’ve signed up for online banking, you use the service to pay bills, transfer money, and get up-to-date account information from your bank.

But let me make a quick observation. Although online banking can be a very helpful tool, the feature isn’t so powerful that it warrants switching from one bank to another. Switching banks is a headache.

You definitely don’t want to move from a well-run, convenient bank to a poorly run or inconvenient bank. What’s more, while online banking might save you time, it isn’t quite the silver bullet some of its proponents would have you believe.

Signing Up for Online Investing

Online investing services work roughly the same way as online banking services. To use online investing, you need to sign up for the service with your online broker. This probably means you complete an application, and then receive and follow instructions on how to set up Money for use of the service.

One clarification: You don’t actually buy and sell securities from within Money. Money’s support of online investing works like this: You buy and sell securities in the usual manner—probably using your web browser and an online broker’s web site. Money helps with your investment record keeping for this activity. What you may be able to do, what you should hope you will be able to do, is have the online brokerage web site automatically send investment transaction information to Money. By doing this, you won’t have to enter transactions in the Money investment registers. The online broker’s web site will do it for you. This is a great time saver—especially if you are an active trader.

If you are looking for ways to increase your monthly profits, then you should definitely consider online investing. Whether this is the first time you are considering this opportunity or you have some previous experience in trading, it is a good idea to go online and find out more about transacting virtually. You can discover a wealth of online resources, discover Forex advantages and take advantage of some pretty interesting opportunities.

The advent of the Internet technology has helped a lot of people, that is certain. They’ve learned how to rely on the Internet technology and earn nice sums of money through online investing. Fortunately for them, there are specialized companies that make it easy for anyone to enter the trading market. Beginners are recommended to take things slow and learn how to appreciate the balance between risk and reward. Trading is not something that has immediate results and it is highly important that one understands that. As for the rewards, they may come at a later point and only after a series of informed decisions. There may be many Forex advantages to benefit from but they will not appear as benefits unless you do a little bit of research at first.

Why go with online investing and not resume to traditional methods? There are numerous benefits when it comes to trading over the Internet, starting with the fact that you can do it right at home. It does not take too much of your time, thus being both free of complications and convenient. Thanks to the World Wide Web, you can do as many transactions as you desire, without being worried that you are not safe or secure. Your privacy is completely respected and you can always find out more details on the subject from a professional broker.

You may be wondering about the Forex advantages everyone keeps on talking about. First of all, you should know that Forex stands for the Foreign Exchange Market. This is the place where trading happens continuously, where foreign currencies are bought and sold at various prices. It does not matter where you are from, as Forex is open to all people from various time zones. You may be from Austria, South Africa or any Asian country for that matter. If you have a high-speed Internet connection and a small amount of knowledge regarding online investing, then you are all set. So, you see, one of the major Forex advantages is related to it being open all the time and to anyone who desires to enter the world of foreign currency trading.

There are many things you should know about Forex before actually going through with trading. This is the sort of online investing that guarantees valuable rewards but only if done right. Many Forex advantages are not known by those who trade and thus they end up losing important points. For example, one of the most attractive things about Forex is represented by its being one of the most liquid markets in the world. What does this means? Liquidity is an essential attribute, meaning that you are at complete liberty to modify the trades you make at any moment. Other Forex advantages include enhanced access (thanks to the Internet technology), no-commission trading and instant trade execution. You will have to discover them one by one, enjoying the advances made in today’s technology.

FROM A CONSUMER TO A PRODUCER



“Think Truly And Thy Thoughts Shall The World’s Famine Feed”.

–Horatio Bonar

The Border-line

Friends! We are once again on the border line between two periods. The period when to use is to lose, and the period when not to use is to waste.

The first period comes with the sense that the more we used the less we have in the reserve. This period also marked the birth of the beautiful and timely concept of “Sustainable Development”; which is generally defined as the “ability to use current natural resources to meet the needs and aspiration of the present generation without jeopardizing the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs and aspirations (possibly) from the same resources”. That is, improving living standards today without foreclosing the opportunities of future generation to meet their own needs.

The second period which we are about to move into (particularly in these period of global economic recession) is the period where we learnt enough to plant our supply as a recurrent crop instead of a slowly diminishing original store of natural resources.

But the time is coming (and now is!) when instead of being afraid of wasting our resources by using them, we shall be afraid of wasting them by not using them.

Like Henry Ford said in the early 19th century, “I see the stream of supply so full and constant that when people worry it will not be the worry about not having enough, but about not using enough”.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this has been our reality in the past years. Since the advent of the oil boom, all other resources, from Agriculture, to solid Minerals and everything in-between including the greatest resources of all- Human resources have been begging for attention and use.

With hundreds of thousands in the un-employment market, and much more under employed, it is very obvious, that the stream of supply of human resources (the greatest resource since creation) is so full and constant now that my (of course; our) worry in no more about not having enough but about not using enough.

How much wealth is available?

Dr. Mary J. Ruwart, in her book “Healing our World” asked the question; Just how much wealth is available? She concluded by saying “Since human creativity and “how to” ideas is boundless; our wealth is unlimited”.

Imagine the total wealth in the world 2000 years ago.

Did even the richest of the ancients have access to antibiotics, anesthetics or surgery when their children had appendicitis? Could their entertainers give them the same quality selection and special effects that are now available on television?

Could they find out about events on the other side of the globe a few minutes after they occurred? Could they “reach out and touch” family members who had migrated to far away lands?

Could they visit their distant relations after a few hours in the “friendly skies”? Capital No!

Even the wealthiest of the ancients did not have many of the things we now take for granted. A great number of people than ever before now enjoy a lifestyle that our ancestors could not even imagine. Our wealth has increased greatly.

But where did we get all this wealth? The earth certainly did not get an additional endowment of natural resources between the ancient times and the present!

Artificial wings fly us all over the globe. Mass production, assembly lines, and robotics help to replicate the wealth creating ideas. The new wealth allows creation of still greater wealth. One idea leads to the next. We see that specific ideas on better uses of existing resources and the replication of these ideas are the sources of wealth.

Natural resources are like seeds that grow into wealth when they are nurtured and developed by individuals acting alone or in concert. For example, oil was once considered a nuisance that contaminated good farm lands, not until enterprising individuals discovered how to pump, refine, and use it did it turn unto “black gold”.

Even water must be “developed” before it can quench thirst! And the world still awaits the advent coming of other colors of gold. Just as the ‘black gold” has come we await, the “Green gold”, “Red gold”, “Blue gold”, and so on.

The world’s source of wealth

When we consider that most real wealth originates in individual minds in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. When we consider that Human resources, our “how to” ideas and the replication of these ideas, determines how much wealth is available at any point in time. Then, you and I can consider or imagine a country like ours, in which the sources of supply of the world’s wealth (human resources) is so plentiful that a few of us worry about not using enough of it, instead of worrying as we do now about using too much; with thousands joining the un-employment market almost every quarter.

We have long depended on the resources which nature long ago stored up, the resources which can be exhausted. We are entering an era when we shall create resources which shall be so constantly renewed, such that the only loss will be not to use them. The era is coming and NOW IS!

The wealth trapped in our Human Resources the greatest resource since creation is wasting because of lack of use!

Tapping from the source of wealth

The big question is: if most real wealth originates in individual minds in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways, how can we can tap into this wealth and bring it out from the individual mind into our streets, towns, states, industries and the economy at large?

The answer is simple enough: converting these individuals totally unaware of their own wealth and potentials from consumers to producers.

How? As that happened before? If it has happened before, its inefficiency and in-effectiveness must have accounted for it’s been replaced with better methods of exchange.

Well. Yes, it has happened before in history. Time it was, when everybody or at least every family were producers of at least something because without it they will starve and go without food. It is after the individual or family has produce enough of whatever they are producing for themselves that they exchange the excess for other stuffs they could not produce but they need or want.

Then it was called “Trade by Batter” and those who have no product or produce of their own will have to work for others to get what they need or want, then it was called labor.

In fact, labor was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased.

Adams Smith in his historic book “Wealth of the nations” states that “the annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and convenience of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labor, or in what is purchased from other nations”.

He also states that “whatever the actual state of the skill, dexterity and judgment with which labor is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must depend during the continuance of that state, upon the proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful labor, and that of those who are not so employed”.

Our reality now is that the proportion of the un-employed and the under-employed is almost in multiplies of those employed in useful labor.

Money

Then, later came the development and the use of money as a form of exchange for goods and services. Money came with so many advantages, chiefly among which is convenience. And naturally it became a measure of wealth, not wealth itself, and definitely not a replacement for labor.

Today we speak of labor and capital as if they are two separate and distinct classes. But capital is wealth, and wealth is a product of labor. Capital is an effect not a cause; and servant, not a master; a means, not an end.

Dr. Ruwart gave an illustration that perfectly explains the different between wealth and money. Imagine a person stranded on a desert Island without food, water, shelter, or medicine, but with a billion dollars in gold coin. Is the person wealthy? Hardly! Food, water, shelter, and medicine pre-requisites for physical survival are true wealth.

Money is valuable only if it can be exchanged for something of value, such as goods and services. Money is only a measure of the available wealth a person has access to. If no wealth is available money is worthless!

But over the years men have always fallen into this trap of replacing money for wealth and labor, leaving the real for the shadow. Running past the real and chasing the shadow.

Men are always quick to forget that money only came as a convent way of exchanging the products or produce which individuals have with that of others primarily to meet the needs and comfort of both parties. It (money) is not the produce itself.

And one major trait which characterizes this trap is that people usually shift from being the producers which they primarily were to consumers. They’ll want something in exchange for nothing. They have produced nothing of their own and yet want to consume the produce of someone else. So they go all out to get money, which in their understanding is the means of getting something for nothing.

And money has never disappointed; it always fails!

One of the record of the failure of money that quickly comes to mind is in scriptures in the book Gen 47: 15 “And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said give us bread: for why should we die in they presence? For the money faileth. 16: And Joseph said, give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle if money fail”. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph; and Joseph gave them breed in exchange for horses, and for the asses; and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year”

So it is that anytime money fails, people always go back to “trade by barter”, exchanging their produce with each other to meet their needs. They hurriedly go back to being producers and not perpetual consumers. They suddenly realize that money is a means and not an end.

Back to the Present

Is this not our story today? Where there is almost a universal reaching out for money. When some people manipulated The stock market to make millions of money for which nothing has been produced to exchange its worth in the economy.

Where politicians have chosen to steal money that even their third generation can not spend but of which there is no equivalent produce to justify its exchange in the economy. Where our youths have en mass turned into cyber crime to extort and defraud people of their moneys for which they have given no produce or value in exchange.

We have over the years been accumulating money and producing no wealth, making us nothing but perpetual consumers.

Right now we are staring face to face with the failure of money. I doubt if this generation of ours can imagine if money fails, but ask the Zimbabweans now and they can describe in details what inestimable value it is for a nation to be a producer and not a perpetual consumer. Why? Because they are witnessing right now the failure of money.

But it may take the failure of money for so many people to realize that money is not food, that it’s not edible! The ability to produce is the real source of wealth of any individual.

On what principle is all exchange based?

This is based on the great law of compensation; which is that the appearance of a given amount of energy anywhere means the disappearance of the same amount some where else. So we find that we can get only as we give.

No one has the right to render a service for which there is no compensation nor to receive compensation for that which he did not do. The compensation may not be of the same kind, but we must never forget the obligation of the law.

Biologists have told us of the ever going exchange between plants and animals; animals take or breathe in oxygen for their survival and breathe out carbon dioxide as waste while plants take in carbon dioxide for their survival and breathe in oxygen as waste.

This exchange must continue for either party to live comfortably and conveniently. And when there is a distortion in the equilibrium as we are already seeing today, the result is mathematically exact; Global warming!

We cannot get something for nothing; we cannot eat our cake and still clam to have it. If you receive a lift on the road by some passing driver, remember that you owe the dept to the next person you find in need of help. Only in this way can you maintain economic self-respect.

I wish someone could help get it into the heads of over teaming youths who have tuned into pursing fame instead of honor, riches instead of wealth and position instead of services. That premature riches or position cannot be retained because it has not been earned.

We get only what we give, and those who try to get without giving always find that the law of compensation is relentlessly bringing about an exact equilibrium.

Which has been technically called global economic recession?

Success is contingent upon an ideal higher than accumulation of riches. Success depends so highly on creative ability. The ability to produce has been found to be the real source of wealth of an individual. Premature wealth is but the forerunner of humiliation and disaster!

These young man and women who in their prime years have taken to fraud, cyber crimes and credit card scams are simply ignorant. They have missed the fundamental law of all exchange! They may not know it, but they are doomed to certain defeat, for the law of compensation will demand from them an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!

It is said that if you want a million dollar and you are very smart, you can have it in a few years. But it rest on two principle; the first is that you must have an idea or possession that is worth a million dollars to the world before you can go out and collect its equivalent justly. The second is that you can not have a million dollar from the world, which the Justice of Eternal Right governs. Unless in getting that million dollars you obey the law of compensation giving value for everything received.

Now You

The unit of the nation is the individual. The Government represents only the average intelligence of the units comprising that nation. Therefore, our work is with the unit. When the thinking and thoughts of the individual changes from that of a consumer to a producer, the collective Thought will take care of itself.

But we try to reverse the process, we try to change governments instead of individuals. But with little intelligent organized effort, the present perpetual consumption and getting something for nothing mentality could be readily changed into producing and exchange mentality in which case the situation would rapidly change.

Perhaps the most solemn question that can put a person today is, “Can you think? The test of individual efficiency and usefulness to the society centers on a man’s ability to use his mind.

Someone once raised a danger signal when he exclaimed: “Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on the planet”. If we could only harness the mental power of Nigerians today we could solve the gigantic problems of the world.

As an individual, ask your self: are you plagued by consumerism? The idea and belief that buying and selling of products is the most important or useful activity for an individual and a society.

To transit from being a perpetual consumer to a producer is also quite simple. Think like a producer.

Charles F. Haenal once said “money weaves that into the entire fabric of our existence, but engages the best thoughts of the but minds. The average person is entirely innocent of any deep thinking. They accepts the ideas of others and repeats them in very much the same way as a parrot.

Thinking is the true business of life, power in the result.

Every person in what he is because of his method of thinking did man and nations differ from each other because they think differently. There is nothing materials about thought yet no one will give up his or her ability to think for all the gold in the world.

Thought in the best of all that the individual has to give the power of thought if and when truly understood and correctly used is the greatest labor saving device every dreamed of!

Charles F. Haenal once said “money weaves that into the entire fabric of our existence, but engages the best thoughts of the but minds. The average person is entirely innocent of any deep thinking. They accepts the ideas of others and repeats them in very much the same way as a parrot.

Thinking is the true business of life, power in the result.

Every person in what he is because of his method of thinking did man and nations differ from each other because they think differently. There is nothing materials about thought yet no one will give up his or her ability to think for all the gold in the world.

Thought in the best of all that the individual has to give the power of thought if and when truly understood and correctly used is the greatest labor saving device every dreamed of!

What result can you expect so long as you remain oblivious to this labor saving device which has been placed within your control? You make yourself a burden and better still a tool of those who think. Those who recognize and use their thinking faculty know that unless we are willing to think, we shall have to work, and the less we think the more we shall have to work and the less we shall get for our work.

With an upgraded thinking comes an upgraded level of proficiency. You achieve your greatest value and proficiency in your highest expression of you. How well you express your latent quality set your degree of proficiency and the worth of your product and service. Your first business is to find out how to set them free and get them into effective operation.

GOVERNMENT

Managing the transition of the citizen of a nation from a consumer to a producer requires the best of the brains of men.

If we require expatriates and foreign investors to explore and exploit our natural resources, then who or where would we get those who will helps us manage, explore and exploit the greatest and the most profitable resource on earth ever: human resources.

The realization that resources do not limit the creation of wealth is a liberating one. Our country’s wealth does not depend on the happenstance of her geographical boundaries, but on the self-determined thoughts and creativity of its populace

But the question is; can this present crop of politicians manage this highly intellectual task of transiting us from a consumer nation to a producer nation? That people are beginning to think is evident. People are now spending their time reading, studying and thinking, and the more they think the less satisfied they become.

There can be no argument on the assertion that our country is in need of constructive legislation and administration as never before. There never was a time in our history when sound judgment, broad vision, great knowledge, and practical initiatives were so necessary to the preservation and promotion of our national and individual welfare.

There never was a time when statesmanship and leadership of highest qualities were so essential to our advancement and prosperity.

The country has before it, and has long had, an impressive proof of the futility of mediocrity in government under the conditions that have oppressed us since independence. It has seen a congress without leadership, hopelessly confused by the tremendous problems that confront it, accomplishing little towards their solution and that little badly. There has never been a time, we repeat, when able, constructive statesmanship was so greatly needed and there never seems to have been a time when there was so little of that quality of statesmanship in office.

Whose fault is this? Who is primarily to blame for the fact that our resources seem so small when our needs are so great? Well there can be no other answer to that. The people, the citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The men who are responsible for legislation and administration are chosen by the people. Within the people vest the sole power of election. That is the fundamental principle of our government, and we have no right to complain when our affairs are badly managed if we do nothing to obtain better managers.

But what do we see in this perilous situation? Are the people seeking and supporting men whose brains and judgment and character justify expectation of improvement in our governmental conditions? Most conspicuous they are not, on the contrary, they are turning to men who are most lacking in the qualities needed for this emergency, to men, indeed, whose qualities are the opposite, men who are mainly distinguished, if distinguished at all, by their abilities as obstructionists and destructionists, or if they are new aspirants, by their capacity to condemn whatever is and to propose strange and weird political nostrums for popular enticement.

How is the government of the world’s most populous black nation, “the self acclaimed “Giant of Africa” to function greatly and maintain its greatness with such materials? How is producing the real need of this time, be accomplished by men who by themselves have been perpetual consumers all of their lives, having no single product, mental or physical attached to their name?

That there are numerous reasons for dissatisfaction is not to be questioned and their solutions can duly come from constructive minds. Yet it is not constructive but destructive statesmanship to which are trusting our affairs.

Well, greatness consists not in holding of some future or political office but really consist of doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life. He who can give to his city better streets and better side walks, better schools and more colleges, constant power supply, good pipe borne water, hospitals, more happiness, more civilization and more of God will be great any where and will have his footprints in the sand of History.

Upon education depends the future of Democracy!. Therefore, every loyal citizen, every self-respecting person, must utilize his opportunities to strength his grip on knowledge and to stimulate his mind. The truth has always made men free, and truth is available only for him who thinks. Not by appeals to prejudice and class interest, not by the hurling of epithets, not by the ready acceptance of half truths, not by superficial, but by careful, painstaking, scientific scholarly thought combined with wise and timely action, will our civilization be rescued and our future made secure.