Archive for currency trading
Investing In Gold – It’s Time To Get Involved
Posted by: | CommentsGold is real money, real wealth. It has endured the test of time, like no other currency. For thousands of years it has been relied upon as a measure of wealth, and for good reason too.
Currencies all over the world, every single year, go down and down in value, and that’s why every single year prices of goods and services go up. The money in your pocket or in your bank is effectively worth less and less each year. Your money is now buying way less than what it would have bought you 100 years ago, whereas an amount of gold bought a 100 years ago would now buy you way more.
Those who have been wise enough to already invest in gold have been making huge profits. At the moment, an ounce of Gold costs a record $1150; compare that to the $34 an ounce it cost in 1970, and it’s not difficult to see why it is such a good investment. There’s no need to think that you’ve already missed out on the opportunity though, and that it has already peaked in value, as the last year alone has seen a 30% increase in the value of gold, and big investment firms are predicting that the $2000 ounce is not so far away.
You have two main investment opportunities as far as gold is concerned – bars or coins. Gold bars are what most people think of when they think of gold and whilst they are a great investment, the upfront cost for them puts them beyond the reach of most investors. Gold coins on the other hand are valued in the same way, are an equally good investment opportunity, yet are much more accessible and affordable.
You can purchase gold coins through either a specialist local coin store, or an online gold coin specialist. There are plenty of both around, and you can find them through a few simple Google searches. Always seek reviews and testimonials before making any purchases though, and ask for certification that proves that what you are buying is real gold. Don’t be afraid about asking a lot of questions; it is only natural and reputable sellers should always be more than willing to answer them for you.
One final point, just in case you’re not yet convinced about the prospect of investing in gold – recent reports have shown that a $1000 investment, made in 1970, in rare gold coins, would now be valued at nearly $60,000.
For more information on the best places to buy gold coins visit http://www.gold-coins.com.au, where you can also see the latest gold price.
Trading Forex Options
Posted by: | CommentsA forex option is very similar in nature to a stock option, therefore investors with data of the stock exchange may have a headstart during this area. A forex option is quite simply a contract between a buying trader and a selling trader. During this agreement, the buyer has the power to shop for or sell a currency at a pre-specified worth and through a selected date. So as to induce this leveraging power, the buyer also says the vendor a premium.
Forex futures and forex choices are 2 contract investments that are often confused, however they are not the same. With a forex future, each the client and seller should fulfill the terms of the contract. But with forex options, only the vendor is obligated to satisfy the contract.
Another distinction is that there’s no premium price for forex futures; the only value is the particular value of the contract. With forex options, the buyer pays a premium in order to induce all the benefits of the contract.
One of the most benefits of forex choices is the flexibility that they offer. Forex options can be modified and altered to suit your options or strategies. You’ll be able to select forex options that have terribly reliable, low risk currencies involved, or you can opt for additional high-risk currencies. This ability to customize the forex choices permits the trader a ton more control over their trading.
Another benefit is that the power that the buyer gains with these contracts. And not only does one get the power, you own got no obligation or commitment to fulfill the contract. This can let you avoid a ton of losses. Forex choices are commonly used with forex hedging strategies. These methods also allow a trader to safeguard themselves against a lot of losses.
The high liquidity of the forex exchange will present a downside with forex options, since there could typically be an occasional demand for prime-risk means. They are additionally very complicated, and even the foremost experienced trader can generally get a little lost. If used correctly forex options will be a nice asset, or present even more risk.
Learn more about Forex options and Forex pips
Index Options Trading (Part I)
Posted by: | CommentsThe options market has caught the fancy of many investors and this is not surprising. The beauty of options is embedded in its very name. You have the options but not the obligation to buy or sell stocks at a given price by a given time. Now for options buyers this option unlike futures limits their maximum liability to the option premium they had paid at the time of buying the options contract.
In’78, Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) began options trading on popular stock indexes such as the S&P 500 Stock Index. The CBOE options trades in multiples of $100 per index point. This is much cheaper than the $250 multiple per index point for the S&P futures contract.
An index option allows the investor to buy the stock index at a set point within the given time period. Let’s take an example. Suppose the S&P 500 Index is at 1100 points. You have a bullish opinion of the market and are of the opinion that the S&P 500 Index will go further up.
There are options Greeks that you need to understand. Time and volatility are two very important factors for an options contract. In case of an index options, what this means is that if any time for the next three months you decide to exercise your call option, you will get $100 for each point the index is above 1150. So you decide to purchase a call option at 1150 for three months for 50 points. In other words you paid an option premium of $5000.
So when an options contract loses value, you only lose the premium that you had paid while buying that contract. In that case you will only lose the premium of $5000 that you had paid to buy the call index option. Now, 1150 is the strike price of the index option. In case the S&P 500 Index does not rise above 1150, you can simply decide to not exercise your call option.
So for you to make a profit with this call option, the S&P 500 Index will have to rise above 1200 point within the next three months otherwise you will lose your premium. Contrast this with S&P futures. Call options are considered to be bullish.
In case the S&P Index had fallen to 1100 point, you would have recouped your options premium. Put options are considered to be bearish. A Put Index Option works in exactly the same way as a Call Index Option except that you make profit when the stock index goes down. If you had bought the put index options instead of the call index option in our example above, every point below the strike price of 1150 would have given you a profit of $100.
Options are highly dependent on the volatility of the market as well as time to expiry. As the options contract nears expiry, its premium starts decreasing. The more the options contract is away from expiry, the higher the premium you will have to pay. But the most important factor is the expected volatility of the market. Now the option premium that you pay is determined by the market and it depends on many factors like interest rates and dividend yield.
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try these cash printing Forex Signals from heaven. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot System! This and other unique content ” articles are available with free reprint rights.
Growth Stocks Investment
Posted by: | CommentsCapitalization or cap refers to the combined value of all the share of a company’s stocks. The division between large cap, mid cap and small cap are often blurry and not sharp. When you start looking for good stocks, you often come across these terms like large cap, mid cap, small cap, growth and value. Let’s discuss these terms for a moment.
Mid caps are companies with $1 to $5 Billion in capitalization and small caps are companies with $250 million to $1 Billion in capitalization. Anything below $250 million can be considered as micro cap. However the following divisions are generally accepted: Large caps are companies with over $5 Billion in capitalization.
What is the P/E ratio? The P/E ratio divides the price of the stock by the earnings per share. Suppose, company ABC stock is presently selling for $50. Now suppose that last year company ABC earned $5 for every share of the stock outstanding. This means stock ABC P/E ratio is 50/5=10. So the higher the P/E ratio, the more investors are willing to pay for the stock.
Now the higher the P/E ratio, the more growth the company is supposed to have. So it can be either the company is growing real fast of the investor have high hopes of its growth. Now these hopes can be realistic or foolish, you never know!
The lower the P/E ratio, the more value the company has. Low P/E ratio companies are not considered to be the movers and shakers in the market. Now, if you follow financial news than you must know that the large growth companies always grab the headlines. But do the growth stocks really make best investment? According to Fama and French, two famous researchers who did ground breaking research on stocks, over the last 77 years, large growth stocks have only seen 9.9% annualized rate of return as compared to 11.5% for the large value stocks.
So most of these growth stocks become highly popular in a small period of time! Everyone rushes to buy these growth stocks thinking that they are great investments. The most probable cause seems to be their immense popularity. Since most of the headlines are captures by high growth companies, investors seem to think that they are the best investments. Now intuitively you might have thought that growth stocks are better. What can be the reason for their lower performance over the years?
Think about Google, how its stock price shot up within a matter of weeks after it hit the market. Weeks after that it began to cool off. So large growth stocks tend to get overpriced before you are able to buy them!
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try these cash printing Forex Signals from heaven. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot System! You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.
MLPs (Part I)
Posted by: | CommentsInvesting in commodities may be something that investors thought of boring and dull only a few decades back but not anymore now. If you are interested in investing in companies that are involved in the production, transformation and distribution of commodities, than one of the best ways to do so is through investing in the Master Limited Partnership (MLP).
So how do you go about investing in an MLP? The shares that an MLP issues are called Units and the investors who own them are known as Unit Holders. MLPs are public entities that trade on public exchanges. An MLP issues shares that trade on an exchange just like a company stocks that trades on an exchange. You can invest in an MLP by buying its shares on an exchange. You can instruct your broker to buy the units of an MLP that you are interested in investing.
When you invest in an MLP, you are essentially investing in public partnership. There are tax advantages to investing in MLP. Unlike regular corporations, an MLP is only taxed once. Now most of the MLPs trade on the New York Stock Exchange. A few MLPs also trade on the NASDAQ and the AMEX.
Congressional Legislation, any MLP that derives 90% or more of its income from the production, distribution and transformation of commodities qualifies for this tax exempt scheme.
Tax exemption means that MLP have to generate a lower rate of return as compared to other companies competing with it in the same sector. Since an MLP has got the tax exempt status it will only have to generate only $1.54 for each dollar that you invest in it. Suppose you invest $1 in the stocks of a regular corporation and you are in the 35% tax bracket. Corporate tax is 30% of its before tax income. This means that for each dollar that you invest you need to get at least $1/ (1-0.35) =$1.54 just in order to breakeven. So the corporation will have to generate $1.54/ (1-0.3) =$2.2 for each dollar that you invest in order to return you $1 after tax profit.
However, most GPs do a good job of running the MLP as it is in their financial interests. Now you must know as a limited partner in an MLP, you have limited voting rights. This means when you invest in an MLP, you are giving away the keys of ownership to the GP. This means you are out of the decision making in an MLP.
Investing in MLP units can give you quarterly cash flows as well as appreciation of the unit price. An MLP is obligated to distribute all available cash back to its unit holders on a quarterly basis, so you will be getting a quarterly income from your units. Secondly as the MLP expands and grows overtime, its units may give you capital gain as well.
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Trade Dow Futures . Learn Commodity Trading ! You are welcome to reprint this article – but get your own unique content version here.