I can with great confidence predict that the stock market(s) will… gyrate wildly throughout 2008. Whether the stock markets finish 2008 higher is a real crap shoot. The stock markets have risen recently in anticipation of economic …
There are a vast number of investment opportunities available to potential investors, but not all of them are right for all purposes. The most common types of investments are stocks and bonds. Stocks are shares of individual companies, while bonds are government-issued investment funds. Both can be great for starting in the investing market, but you should know a little about the difference between the two before making your investment.
Stocks
Stocks can help balance out a bond-heavy portfolio by providing diversification
Stock dividends also receive more favorable tax treatment than bond payouts.
If you make the decision that stocks may be the place for you to put your investment dollars, you must now determine the primary purpose of your stock investment.
The two primary stock investment goals are income and growth. You can have a combination of the two in one stock investment, but the features are almost never equal. In other words, although growth and income may co-exist in a particular stock investment, the investment choice you make should take into account the primary strength of the stock.
Growth Stock vs. Income Stock
Growth stock is stock in a company that doesn’t pay cash dividends, but instead reinvests its profits into the company. The idea behind this strategy is that the company will continue to grow and become more profitable, driving the stock price up.
Income stock is stock in well-established companies that do not need to reinvest their profits into their companies and therefore use their profits to pay dividends to stockholders. Income stock is often more expensive because the income stream and security of the investment is greater.
Mutual Funds
Many investors invest in the stock market through mutual funds. Mutual funds are professionally managed and are easier to diversify your investments in, which makes them less risky than investing in individual stocks. You still have to research what type of stock will best suit your goals, but the average investor finds it less stressful to invest in the stock market through this method.
Bonds
Bonds, though some consider them “safer” than stocks, still come with risks. Some bond funds offer enticing payouts but may take big chances to do so, including venturing into lower-quality and longer-duration credits; if your funds’ bonds lose value, you could see your principal shrink even though you’re pocketing a healthy yield. Checking a fund’s quarterly losses can be an easy way to see whether you could stomach a given fund’s short-term losses. There’s nothing wrong with making room for some higher-yielding bond funds around the margins of your portfolio, but consider these income-heavy funds to be side items because of their greater potential for volatility.
And while paying for high-quality financial advice can be money well spent, think carefully before paying a sales charge for a bond fund. If you’re paying a 3.75% load to buy a bond fund (and that’s a pretty low load), you’re surrendering most of your first year’s income payments from the get-go.
Individual Bonds vs. Bond Funds Many investors prefer to invest in individual bonds rather than bond funds. While that’s a reasonable tack if you’re buying Treasury securities or perhaps even extremely high-quality corporate bonds, it makes sense to opt for a professionally managed bond fund for every other type of fixed-income security. Not only will a mutual fund offer you much more diversification (and therefore lower risk) than you could obtain by buying individual bonds, but smaller investors who are buying and selling individual bonds are also at a big disadvantage when it comes to trading costs.
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John Mussi is the founder of Direct Online Loans who help homeowners find the best available loans via the www.directonlineloans.co.uk website.
Forex, the Foreign Exchange Market, is a worldwide market for buying and selling foreign currencies. The major currencies that are traded include the U.S. Dollar (USD), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBP), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Australian Dollar (AUD), Japanese Yen (JPY), and the Swiss Franc (CHF). The purpose of this article is not to go into the details of how Forex works, but to compare the benefits of trading in the Forex market versus trading the Equity (American stocks) or Futures markets (Commodities).
The Forex market is the largest market in the world with over 2 trillion dollars traded every day. This compares to the 200 billion dollars traded daily in the Equity and Futures market each. Because of this, the Forex market benefits from fairer prices, price stability, and better trade execution.
Forex has the advantage of being open 24 hours a day. The Forex market opens on Sunday afternoon and remains open until it closes on Friday afternoon. The Equity and Futures markets are only open Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. This gives Forex traders the opportunity to trade around their personal schedule. Also, liquidity in the Equity and Futures markets are reduced after regular trading hours.
When trading Forex, you will not incur the commissions or transaction fees that exist in the Equity and Futures markets. You pay a spread on the currency pair you are trading and costs are very low, especially when compared to the other markets.
Investment leverage in the Forex market can be as high as a 200:1 margin. In the Equity and Futures markets your average margin is 4:1. This means that you can control $10,000 worth of currency with only a 50-dollar margin.
In the Equity and Futures markets, investors are expected to fund several thousand dollars to open a trading account. In the Forex market, you can open a mini account for only 300 dollars and begin trading.
In the Equity market, short selling is very risky and comes with limitations. In the Forex market, you are able to buy long or sell short any currency pair with no limitations or difference in risk.
As an investor in the Forex market, you are able to concentrate on only a few major currencies. There are seven major currencies yielding four major currency pairs that most Forex investors concentrate on. Whereas in the Equity market, investors have over 40,000 stocks to choose from when contemplating where to invest their money.
There are many factors to consider when deciding on which market you want to spend your time and money. The Forex market provides many benefits over the other major investment markets that will allow you, the investor, to make larger profits, take less risk, and spend more time with your personal life and less time investing.
If you want to learn more about trading the Forex market, you can find tips, news, analysis and a great FREE ebook, Forex Freedom - How To Turn a $300 Investment Into $30,000 In As Little As 6 Months, visit http://www.tornadoforex.com
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So, you have the money to invest, but you dont know whether to buy Stocks or try something new, like FOREX for example.
Stocks
Before we describe what are the benefits of FOREX, lets remember what are Stocks. Stocks have been a popular investment for hundreds of years. Companies issue stocks to raise capital for expansion and new projects, and each share of the stock represents a partial ownership in the company. Basically speaking, when you buy stocks you invest in the company and in the market it is working in.
Hence, when the company does well and makes a profit, the value of the stocks rise and you can sell your shares for a profit or hold on to the stock for even more gain in the future. Sometimes companies will issue dividends part of the profits that are distributed to share holders, another way for you to make a profit.
Stocks are traded on Stock exchanges. Most stocks are bought and sold through brokers (agents) who charge a commission or fee for this service. American stock exchanges include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ). Most stocks are only listed on one exchange, although large companies may have listings on several exchanges.
Stocks were traditionally seen as long-term investments. So-called ‘blue chip’ stocks - those having proven value over many years - may form the backbone of an investment portfolio. Short-term traders (Day traders) exist, but it is a relatively new phenomenon made possible with the advent of Internet trading. Day traders attempt to take advantage of large daily fluctuations in the market by buying and selling many times in one trading period. It is relatively risky and broker commissions charged on each transaction reduce any profits realized.
Stocks may sometimes be bought on Margin, meaning that the investor borrows money to buy the stocks. Margin rates are usually around 50% - the investor can borrow as much as half the value of the stock.
FOREX
The Foreign Exchange Market (FOREX) is quite different from the stock exchange. In contrast to the stock exchange, the FOREX is primarily a short-term market. Most traders enter and exit deals within a 24-hour period sometimes within a few minutes. Many FOREX trades can be made in one day without building up a large brokerage fee because FOREX trades are commission free; hence, you keep all of your profit. Brokers earn money by setting a spread the difference between asking and selling prices.
FOREX is the largest financial market in the world. It is handles transactions worth $1.5 trillion every day ($1,500,000,000,000). By comparison, all the American stock exchanges combined handle daily transactions worth about $100 billion ($100,000,000,000), 15 times smaller than FOREX. It is not located in any one location, but in the virtual space of the Internet. Trading markets are located world-wide and because of difference in time-zones trades can be made 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Trading begins in Sydney, Australia on Monday morning (Sunday afternoon New York time) and continues non-stop until Friday afternoon New York time.
The huge volume of FOREX and its around the clock availability, means that it is one of the most liquid markets in the world. There is always a buyer and seller for any type of currency because the world economy relies on the movement of goods from country to country. Stock exchanges have more limited trading hours. While it is possible to trade on exchanges worldwide, each exchange is independent and operates for just 7 hours a day. There is no way to buy or sell a certain stock that is only traded on one stock exchange when that exchange is closed.
FOREX has even more advantages compares to Stocks: It is more predictable than stocks, it follows well established trends, it allows high leverage typically 100:1 instead of 2:1 on the stock market; and it doesn’t require a large investment mini accounts as small as $250 can get you started in FOREX.
The big question is what is Best for you? Are you looking for a Day-Trading constant activity, with its advantages, or a long-term investment. Know the answer and you know the nature of your next investment.
More FOREX articles can be found at http://forex.beyogi.com - The Foreign Exchange Market Explained.
About the author:
Ofer Shoshani is the Editor of beyogi (http://forex.beyogi.com) - The Foreign Exchange Market Explained where many more articles like this one can be found.
If you are looking are thinking that Penny Stocks are a ?Get Rich Quick Scheme?, I?m sorry to disappoint you. Although great fortunes can be made from penny stocks, people can also lose everything they invest in Penny Stocks. The most important investment you can make at the start of your investment career is to invest in education.
Why Education and not stock?
Diving head first into the stock market is a great way of losing your money which is why we don?t recommend it. The best thing to do is to read, read and read some more before investing. One of the best places to get free information on penny stocks and trading methods is from the internet.
Forums, websites, news sites and eBooks are a great way to improve your penny stock investment education. There are some great books that you can borrow from libraries or purchase cheaply from shops.
When reading on the internet, please be cautious of stock recommendations and strategies and methods. Stock recommendations and opinions from internet forums can be biased and cannot be fully trusted without doing your own research. Similarly, eBooks with strategies which promise great returns usually do not work as suggested. The reason for this is, even if the strategy worked well for the author, there is no guarantee that it will work for everyone else because everyone is different although you may learn something that you did not already know.
Google News has a business section which is group for free up-to-date information on stocks. Yahoo Finance also has good news section and also provides free charts and company information.
No matter who you get advice from, whether it?s from a financial consultant or friend, you should always carry out your own additional research. You should make decisions based on facts rather than opinions.
When you feel confident enough you can try some ?test trades?. You can either keep a record of your trades on paper or you can use a stocks simulator website where you invest with ?fake? money. There is a website called Champion Investor (ChampInvest.com) which is great for this purpose as it also calculates profits and losses automatically. Also, if you the top performer of the month, you will be rewarded with ?1000.
Using a stock simulator means that you will not lose your hard-earned cash if you make a bad investment. Instead, you will learn not to do it again without losing your money.
If you are consistently able to make a profit with your ?test trades? then you can move onto the real thing. Keep your investment strategy exactly as it was when you were making profitable test trades, but instead of using ?fake? money, you will be using your own money through a stock broker.
So, to summarise - if you are looking to get started in penny stocks, please do not dive in head first without investing your education first.
About the Author: Sam Chim is an experienced penny stock investor. For more great penny stock advice, please go to his site: Penny Stock Advice