The 3 Tools EVERY Real Estate Investor Needs

By Doc Schmyz

I am always being asked. "Doc what advice can you give me that will help me with investing. What tricks of the trade or inside tidbits can you share with me?? The best answer is you need to develop a "toolbox".

Now before you go nuts scratching your head, let me define the areas of the tool box. The tool box has three areas.

1)In your head tool box: This is all about how your thinking process works when it comes to investing, and more importantly how open minded you are about investing information. Are you willing to think outside the box in order to look at investment opportunities or must the investment fall within a cookie cutter method you having? In your head means you need to read books, articles, partake in discussions, and basically interact with that big grey hunk of goo that is in your skull.

Simply put..it is the mental list you use when you start thinking about investing. the "what's, where's and how much's".

IMPORTANT FACT: Any bookstore you go into has a billion books on Real estate investing. Buy them all...ok not all but you should have a EXTENSIVE collection of them. Why you ask??? Simply put...if you have a understanding of the information and tactics that are being read by other investors...you will actually understand the factors that they are using to buy/sell/screen potential investments. Knowing what information someone is useing to make a decision gives you and advantage.

2)Your on-line tool box: Most investors use the web daily. Its a great information source, but most investors also have tunnel vision when they are on the web. we get stuck using a few websites that we think are the best at that will cover all our needs. WRONG answer. This causes a type of blindness I call "INFO INPUT SHUT DOWN".

Ok so how do you avoid Info input shut down? You have to open your tool box up to get some fresh tools.

Just go to the free email server of your choice...create a new email address that you will use to collect email updates/newsletters from various websites. then go thru them at your leasure.

Once you join an email list..no matter what stay with it for at least 6 months. (Not all great investment tidbits are sent out at first.) Email lists to get on are for: investment clubs, investment blogs, investment reference sites, etc, etc.

I ,myself, avoid most ad based emailing lists. however, that doesnt mean that all of them are a waste of time. review a few and decide for yourself if they are worth keeping.

Other online Tool box sites are certain "E tools". These go way beyond having a mortgage calculator online. We are talking about tools that you are almost chomping at the bit to try. (I have to admit I have a few of these in my Tool box?I use them every day) When you find these tools you will just know it, find them and BOOKMARK them!

3) Actual physical tools: these are the tools you can actually touch and use when you?re making offers, inspecting property, or doing any one of the other hundreds of things that a good investor does before making an investment commitment. Most of these tools fit in a small briefcase or shoulder bag. These tools can be anything from flashlights, small inspection tools, to calculators etc. So in a nut shell that is all there is to a tool box.

Thats about it. so go build your toolbox. pdate it often. Use it daily...and happy investing. - 23208

About the Author:

Doc Schmyz has invested all over the US and Canada. His website shares Real estate investing information for all over the US. Find Real estate investing information by state

Lotto, Is This The Best CFD Trading Strategy

By Jeff Cartridge

The two critical numbers to know when you are trading is the risk reward ratio and the winning percentage or hit rate. Understanding these numbers will go a long way to improving your trading.

The risk reward can be calculated by averaging all the wins and dividing by an average of all the losses. The risk reward clearly displays how large your profits are when compared to your losses. The hit rate is simply how often you win and is a count of the winning trades divided by a count of all the trades.

Lotto versus CFDs

Judging by the number of people that play lotto this is the way to generate wealth, but is it really?

Putting at risk just $10, you stand the chance to make $10 million when playing Lotto. This is excellent odds with your wins 1 million times the size of your losses giving a risk reward of $1 million to 1. This is an exceptional number and unlikely to be repeated anywhere in the investment world.

However if it was that easy we would have all won lotto. This is not the case and while the risk reward is exceptional, the hit rate is lousy. Assuming that the lotto draw requires 6 balls out of 40 to win then the chance of buying the winning ticket are 3,838,380:1.

What this means from 3,838,380 games of lotto you could be expected to win $10 million only once and lose the remaining 3,838,379 times. The cost of winning $10 million would be $38,383,790, so your net result is a loss of $28,383,790.

So buying Lotto tickets is not going to make money based on the averages. This does not mean that you will necessarily win on the last ticket that you buy. You may be lucky and win on your first, twentieth, or two thousandth ticket, but successful trading is not about luck. Find a profitable opportunity and exploit that advantage.

Rugby Versus CFDs

The Crusaders have dominated the Super 14 rugby series in New Zealand in the last 10 years as they won 7 years out of the last ten.

A large bet of $100,000 was made that the Crusaders would win a particular game. The payoff if the Crusaders won was $108,000 so the gambler would receive a profit of just $8,000. With a downside of $100,000 the risk reward is very poor at 8:100 or 0.08.

Despite the lousy risk reward the probability of success is very high. If the probability was greater than 90% that the Crusaders would win then this could be the basis of a profitable strategy.

If the odds were 95% then the gambler would lose only once out of 20 games so he would make $8,000 times 19, $152,000, and lose $100,000 once. His net gain is $52,000. As an investment even though the risk reward is lousy, this could be a profitable strategy if the hit rate is high enough to justify the investment.

To trade CFDs successfully it is vitally important to have a strategy that overall you expect to win because the combination of risk reward and hit rate are in your favour. - 23208

About the Author:

Jeff Cartridge has been trading CFDs since they were first launched in Australia in 2002 and created the website LearnCFDs.com Find the Best CFD Trading Books

Know Major Stock Indexes (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

There are hundreds of ETFs and HOLDRS covering key industry benchmarks such as the various Standard & Poor Indexes, Russell Indexes and the Dow Jones Averages or other less well known narrow based sectors.

For example SPY tracks the Standard & Poors 500 Composite Index and is the largest of the ETFs. You should know the major indexes that are either key benchmarks or have ETFs tied to them.

Standard & Poor: Standard & Poor (S&P) has been providing independent and objective financial information, analysis and research for nearly 140 years. It is the financial services segment of the McGraw Hill companies.

It is also the provider of equity indexes and these S&P indexes are also used as the basis for wide variety of financial instruments such as Index Funds, Futures, Options and ETFs. Investors around the globe use S&P Indexes for investment performance measurement.

S&P 500 Composite is one of the most popular indexes in the global financial markets. Hundreds of companies around the world have licenses with the Standards & Poors for their index products. The influence and name recognition of S&P 500 is unparalleled. It is also used as a key benchmark for money manager performance.

The S&P 500 is a capitalization weighted index that tracks the performance of 500 large capitalization issues and each year thousands of money managers have the single minded goal of outperforming the S&P 500. S&P 500 represents more than 75% of the capitalization of the entire US Stock Market.

The stocks in the S&P 500 are determined by a nine member committee in accordance with the general guidelines. 30 years back most of the stocks in S&P 500 were from the Industrial Sector. Over the years, the complexion of S&P 500 has changed. By 1970s, six of the top companies were from the Oil Sector. In 2000s, technology composed about one third of the capitalization of the index.

The other Standard & Poors indexes are the S&P Midcap 400 Index. It measures the performance of the midsize companies of the US economy. It is based on 400 chosen domestic stocks and is also capitalization based.

S&P SmallCap 600 is also capitalization weighted index and is of interest to institutional and retail investors. The S&P SmallCap 600 Index consists of 600 smallcap domestic stocks and these stocks are chosen for market size and liquidity. There are also sub-indexes based on these S&P Indexes.

NASDAQ: You will often hear in the media that the Nasdaq market being up or down on a given day. NASDAQ Composite Index contains more than 4500+ companies. It represents a market capitalization of trillions of dollars in the US economy.

There is another Nasdaq Index called the Nasdaq-100. NASDAQ-100 is composed of the top 100 nonfinancial companies in the Nasdaq Stock Market like Microsoft etc. It is a modified capitalization weighted index. The QQQ is based on the Nasdaq-100 Index. - 23208

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading stocks and forex. Know Candlestick Charting. Learn Forex Trading!

Investors Look To Brazil

By Michael Swanson

How has Brazil been able to achieve no economic drops? Their economy actually grew in 2008 while others were experiencing losses, up 5.4% in fact. Not a bunch, but when you look at the economy in other countries you see nothing but plight.

Investors state that Brazil is by far the strongest economy when compared to several of the other past leaders. Their inflation rate even dropped, and surplus was up to $3. 6 billion dollars. What a fantastic leadership role President Lula has taken on.

Which is awesome, in fact the banks are still in possession of the mortgages, where 70% of the Brazilians actually own their homes. It seems that the success is due to Lulu making his top priority that of the economic growth of his country.

The president is the direct reason behind this good fortune, swearing he would make the economic development of Brazil his number one priority. He's done a fantastic job, and has helped in pulling in other Latin nations to support US ideas.

This growth has also allowed Brazil to be able to pay off their International Monetary Fund ahead of time. A year in advance, something that isn't heard of normally even. President Lulu took the funds for the final payment of 15. 46 billion dollars from the reserves.

Though many people will always complain about things, and this is a case where that is to be true too. People complain that only the people in higher classes are receiving the benefits of the economy being so much better. And another cause of frustration seems to be not enough energy or focus is being placed on the education system.

Helping out relations with the United States and other Latin countries, Brazil has made up three different organizations for this purpose. A shining star in the days where the economy has hurt most countries, perhaps we should all take a few lessons from President Lula and his ideas. - 23208

About the Author:

Michael Swanson is the editor of the WallStreetWindow BRIC countries report.

How to Trade Forex? It's Simple!

By Steve Maenshel

How to trade Forex? Trading Forex is a piece of cake. It is really not as hard as it seems to be. Forex trades involve entering the trade at the right time, as well as exiting also at the right time. All you have to do is select a currency pair, select the desired amount of the base currency that you wish to trade and choose whether you would like to sell or to buy. Next you will have to wait for a profitable time to exit your transaction, and there you are. In order to learn how to trade Forex and to start consistently choosing the winning transactions, you will have to practice on a demo account for several months.

Trading with a Demo Account

The easiest way to learn how to trade Forex is using a demo account. Any mistake that you make while trading on a demo account will not incur any losses. For example, if you buy or sell the currency at the wrong time, if you click the "wrong button" while trading, and so forth. Give your demo trading enough time. Jumping into live trades before you do your homework will merely put you among the 90% of the day traders, who fail in Forex.

Currency Pairs in Forex Trades

How to trade Forex with the best currency pair? Which currency pair to go with? It is better to first go with the most traded currency pair - USD/EUR: Trade with this currency pair, until you know it like the back of your hand. Do not start trading with other currency pairs until this one becomes your "friend". All currency pairs are different; they are all tied to different countries and different reasons behind fluctuations, such as news, political situation and so on. Try to get a feel for one currency pair at a time, starting with the most traded one (USD/EUR).

Currency Quotes

Understanding currency quotes is extremely important in order to learn how to trade Forex. Understanding currency quotes is essential, because the trades are performed based on the quotes. Each quote has two sides. The bid price and the ask price. Bid price is the price at which you can sell the base currency at the same time buying the counter currency. Ask price, is the price at which you can buy the base currency at the same time selling the counter currency.

Each currency quote consists of two currencies. The first currency in the pair is called the base currency and the second one is called the counter currency. The value of the first currency always equals one, while the value of the second currency is calculated against the first currency. Forex prices are expressed in pips, being the fourth decimal of the price. Understanding quotes is vital in order to learn how to trade Forex.

Margin and Leverage

Leverage is what your dealer is willing to give you based on the amount of your margin. Trading on margin often sounds very appealing for the novice Forex traders since in this case, leverage would allow you to make substantially larger profits. However, you should realize that your losses in the case of trading on a margin may also become colossal. Dealers often offer 100:1 ratio of leverage to margin. Such a large leverage would allow you to trade with a lot of lots at the same time raising your chances of both profits and losses 100 times. How to trade Forex and stay calm? Do not trade on a margin.

Unfortunately brokers, just like banks do not really care whether you win or lose in your Forex trades. You will still have to pay them back. If you lose the money that they gave you. It is better not to trade on margin at all, and to only trade with your own money.

To learn how to trade Forex, understand currency pairs, currency quotes, and trade on a demo account for a few months. How to trade Forex without large losses? Do not trade on margin and only use the money that you can afford to - 23208

About the Author:

The author: Steve Maenshel can you help you understand how to trade the forex markets. For more information, visit his forex resource center.