Investor Diversification 101

By Michael Swanson

For most people the old adage about not putting all one's eggs in one basket makes perfect sense. Most people can see how this applies to their investing decisions. We by our very nature can be very cautious people and dislike the thought of losing money on investments. However does investor diversification really work for the smaller investor?

Where we are at any point in our investment life cycle will have a huge bearing on our tolerance for risk. Some people are naturally risky, others much more cautious. For those starting out in their working careers the money they invest is very limited and they don't want to lose any of it. For those in the wealth accumulation years they tend to be much more risk tolerant. For them there is a bigger base so a small loss isn't as important and they have years to recoup any losses. For those at the end of their working lives or in retirement, the risk profile is probably much lower. All these factors mean that as individuals, our attitude to diversification will be different.

The problem with diversifying is that while you may limit your risk, you may limit the gains you can make as well. If all your money is in stock picks and the property market has a boom you will not participate in any of these high returns.

Another problem for the small investor is the smaller pool of funds he has to play with. It would be great to have a portfolio of property, a wide range of stocks and bonds, bank deposits and investment art. But to buy into all of these areas the small investor risks having such tiny investments in each that it isn't worth the effort.

There are commentators out there who use the examples "Henry Ford didn't diversify, neither did Bill Gates". But in the end these are two successful examples. For all the successes there are countless failures where investors have been wiped out by over reliance in one area.

In the end each small investor has to assess his risk profile and manage his investor diversification appropriately. - 23229

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Forex Transactions and Wall Street - A Boiled Down Narration

By Keith Byington

Approximately 25 percent of large companies that are exposed to foreign currency fluctuations don't do anything to hedge their risk. Larger companies however do hedge in the currency markets.

Any large international company stationed in the U.S. can be adversely affected by a strong dollar. Strong foreign earned revenues can be negatively impacted by currency fluctuations. Information within the pages of a Wall Street Journal subscription will reveal this data.

By some estimates, five to ten percent of Forex activity is the result of pure hedging activity by governments and business. The rest of trading activity is blatant speculation.

Warren Buffet, George Soros and other celebrity players have made fortunes consistently off Forex trades. Speculators love large liquid markets where they can trade in and out of without fear of getting locked out.

Currencies are traded 24 hours/day. Since every country has different times the hours when the currencies are most liquid coincide with their daylight hours. The heaviest activity occurs in New York from Wall Street.

Make money in Forex is made by having a formula that predicts price movements of a currency pair. Have an exit strategy that is effective can capture a profit often a few times a day.

Professional Wall Street traders usually use a system that allows them to place trades several times a day. Because they trade several times a day, they are called day traders.

There are many financial news services to choose from. The Wall Street Journal's reputation for acute accurate market coverage is legendary. In order to stay abreast of the constantly changing financial landscape, it pays to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. - 23229

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Acquiring timely financial information you know is dependable as well as profit from on is paramount to investors. Secure a Barrons subscription or buy Wall Street Journal subscription now. Barrons, Investors Business Daily and the Wall Street Journal have led the way for unbiased reporting and analysis. Your subscription gets you miles ahead of the crowd.

Understanding The Gold Standard

By Alyssa Rogers

The gold standard refers to the use of gold as the "insurance" to back what a country's paper currency was actually worth - if there was no physical asset to support the value of the paper, well, the dollar bill in your wallet was worth just that - paper. The gold standard has been in use in one form or another since the earliest days of coinage when rulers minted coins and the value of a coin was the intrinsic value of the gold or other precious metal contained within it. Stamping the head and name of the king or emperor whose treasury issued the coinage was not just a political statement as to who was boss, but also a symbol of quality control - you have one of my coins, I am saying it has this much gold included in it!

Pirates operating in the Caribbean raided Spanish treasure ships taking gold cargo back to the Old World - the problem was that their ill-gotten gains were too large a denomination to spend, especially when it came time to settling their bar tabs. As the gold was in a form which meant uniform purity and weight, the pirates and landlords of the inns they frequented would break the large standard gold coins up in to eight pieces - this is the origin of the pirate phrase, "Pieces of Eight".

In the middle of the Second World War, the Allies and most everyone else who was not on the German/Japanese side, met and thrashed out the Bretton Woods Agreement which laid out the financial foundations for the world for after the hostilities. Underpinning every country's currency was a tie to a "gold standard" - and within the range that was established a country could only issue so much currency in relation to its gold reserves. This arrangement continued until 1971 when gold lost its luster and Black Gold - oil - replaced it as the effective asset backing many of the world's currencies including the US Dollar.

The need for gold to support the "real" value of the paper currency issued meant that country's had to accumulate and maintain bullion reserves of gold. You may remember the James Bond film, Goldfinger and an audacious plot to raid Fort Knox in Kentucky. Though it was a fictional film, Fort Knox is certainly not and along with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, the US maintains enormous gold reserves required to support the US dollar - but it is not only the US that stores gold at these locations, friendly countries with close trading ties also maintain their gold reserves at these locations to, and while the gold standard does not apply as it once did, these reserves of gold bullion still play an enormous part in the global economy and how nations do business with each other.

The last country to be tied to the gold standard was Switzerland who dropped the standard in 1999, but after the recent economic upheaval and the almost total, global banking collapse, there are renewed calls for the gold standard to be re-introduced once again. - 23229

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Exit Strategies In Trading Systems

By Maclin Vestor

Many good trading systems use multiple exit strategies. In normal trading system, you need to know when to exit from a gain, and when to exit from a loss. Generally you want to be cutting your profits short, and letting your profits run. At a minimum, you generally want nearly a 3:1 gain to loss. This means you should take profits at 3 times the percentage amount as you cut your losses short. We will use this system and do the following

1) Exit stop at a 7% loss. This stop-loss should sell ALL of your shares. The simple method is to just set the stop and leave it. There are dangers of this because people may be able to see someone make the stop order on the floor, and if they have enough money, they can take advantage of that, selling lots of shares of the stock, pushing the stock price down below the stop, then forcing you and others who may have stops out, and then buying the stock below your price, so the stock will stop out, and then quickly rebound. The more advanced mode is to just watch it, and if it is going to CLOSE below your stop, only then will you exit 10 minutes or so before the markets close. The sophisticated way is to just not use stops, and instead buy puts. this increases the cost of the investment and thus limits your win, but you give up a fixed amount for protection against large losses.. This would insure that the stock doesn't drop overnight. A failed breakout is signaled if a stock drops 7% below breakout point. If you are buying stocks on the pullbacks, a 7% drop should signify a breaking of support.

2) Set a profit target at 20%. You can use a limit sell order to sell here if you would like, particularly for those who don't have the time to watch the stock. You should be willing to wait a full 4 months for it to hit it's target. If it hits the target, you should sell 1/2 to 2/3rds of your shares, and let the rest ride. Also, if your stock hits the price target within 8 weeks (2 months), this signals that your stock is a good one, and you want to hold onto your winners. There is a simple strategy and a sophisticated strategy. The simple strategy is to hold onto your stock until the entire 8 weeks is up. The sophisticated strategy is to sell most or all of your shares, and convert them to an option that you should own at strike price, or very close to it. You should ensure that this transaction is such that in a worst case scenario, you still will have a 5% gain. Generally, you will own say 100shares, sell 100, and buy 1 call contract at the same strike price the stock is at, and secure a profit, while still maintaining the same upside leverage minus the cost of the option and the transaction.

3) Set a trailing stop of 25%. This should serve as a function primarily to exit the remaining 1/3rd to 1/2 of shares that you let ride after you hit your price target of 20%. It is possible that the stock goes up near your target, which will raise this stop to 5% below where you bought it, or if you aren't using a limit sell, it could spike way up to up 35% from where you buy it, and then quickly come down, and sell out a small portion of your shares for a small gain. This is fine. In this case, either the stock will then proceed to drop below your buy point and go and hit the 7% stop-loss, or it will then bounce and gain until it hits your 20% target. In either case, you will sell the rest of your shares. Of course, if this all happens in a short amount of time, you may attempt a swap as a sophisticated strategy, but generally you should be done with it.

4) You should always keep records. Record how many you bought at what price and which exit(s) were triggered. You want to check all these stocks in a year, or so, and see if you could have made more by adjusting your stops, or adjusting the size of which you sell.

5) Enjoy the profits.

If you are a good system trader, you will make sure that they trading system you use has an excellent exit strategy. At System Trading|Stocks Trading Systems you will learn that an exit strategy will allow you make sure that you have a trading system with greater returns on your average gains than you have losses on your average losses. This is only one small aspect of a trading system but it is a very important one. In fact, your exit strategy will be vital in determining how much capital you allocate when managing your money in a trading system.

In addition, if you can find a stock selection vehicle in combination with a good exit strategy, it will insure that any given investment has a positive expected value. In other words, with a good exit strategy and stock selection that picks winners often enough, you will win more than you lose, provided you manage your money right. Learn these tips as a system trader, and you stand a much better chance at being a profitable trader than someone who does not understand the importance of a good exit strategy within a trading system. - 23229

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about variousstock trading systems and has a course coming soon on finding stock trading system that may work for you.

Forex Training: The Key To Success

By Jacob Tremblay

A lot of people start trading Forex without really understanding what's going on - and that's a problem. If you don't know what you're doing, it is incredibly easy to mess up. That's where getting some proper Forex training comes in - if you can find someone to teach you the skills you need, you can dramatically reduce the time it takes you to learn. And the money you spend along the way!

So the obvious question is, where to get this training. Forex training is available from all sorts of sources, ranging from slim books of tips and tricks, to huge week-long seminars filled with information and practical advice. With so much on offer, it's easy to get lost and not know where to start. That's where I employ a technique I call "information overload", which has been incredibly helpful to me.

Information Overload is the process of completely immersing yourself in the data. Studying it constantly, and making it so much a part of your life that when it comes time to use your knowledge, you almost instinctively know what to do. I won't lie to you, this a hard path - but the rewards are worth it. If you just want quick, simple success, you can get a for robot, which will do most of the work for you. And yes, they do work, but for myself I prefer to be the master of my craft - not just someone using a tool.

The first thing you need to do is to find an initial information overload source. So, head out to the public library, and ask them for the Forex training books. Once you've found them, pick one randomly. And I mean completely randomly - just close your eyes and grab one, any one. Doesn't matter.

Great! You've picked out a book, and now you just have to read it. This trick here, is to read it fast - keep it with you all the time, and every spare moment (on your break, in a line, during commercials on tv...) you read it. Even just a little bit, even just a paragraph or two, it all counts. And, most importantly, read it just before you fall asleep - several pages, at least. This is essential.

This is because whatever you are thinking of last thing at night, is what your mind remembers most strongly. So when you're trying to learn about something, falling asleep thinking about it helps hugely. The purpose of this is not to study the book. Don't worry if you don't understand it, or if you don't get something. Just shrug your shoulders and keep going. The important thing is to get as much information into your mind as possible.

After you've done that book, go and get another one. Keep going until you've got enough info stored away, and you're ready for the next stage. It will be obvious when you're ready - you'll start thinking about Forex randomly, you're brain producing facts and figures, information you weren't consciously aware of. You might even start dreaming about Forex - don't worry, that's a good sign!

The second half of the process is to find a study guide book. Head back to the library, and this time try reading some of those Forex training books. You'll be amazed at how much you already know, without even putting any work into learning it. Let your instincts guide you here, and pick out a book that you think looks good, to really learn from.

By now you're full of information relating to Forex, and all you have to do is bring it to life. So go through the book carefully, and whenever you see something you don't understand, investigate it. You'll find that all the data stored in your subconscious will fall into place, allowing you to breeze through with almost no difficulty.

Well, now you've got everything you need, and if you really put your mind to it, I wouldn't be surprised to see you become an skilled Forex trader with only a few weeks of study. I can also suggest, if you can spare the funds, that you find yourself a Forex training program. Something that gives you some hand-on practice, so you can experiment as you learn. In the end of course, you have everything you need inside your own head.

Good luck! - 23229

About the Author:

Author Jacob Tremblay is an experienced stock market trader, who is now working on forex trading. Click here to check out his site, where he provides reviews of various forex training and trading systems.