Have you ever played Russian Roulette, that deadly game of life and death? Well investing your money right now is not a whole lot different than that. You take a loaded gun with one bullet somewhere in the six chambers and you put it to your temple not knowing if it’ll blow you away or not. There’s a five in six chance of survival (or 83.33%), but there’s also that very large chance that you might just put a bullet through your brain. So, you have to ask yourself the question; do you feel lucky, punk? I’m guessing most of you just don’t feel that lucky. Or, you could look at it as an optimist and say that this is a half-full glass and not one that is half-empty. There’s a big chance that you will hit the big time and that you’ll be able to make a giant chunk of change for yourself.  [...] 

If you want to be a super-star at investing, you need to know it works. Very basic principle involves buying at lower price, and selling when it’s high (at least more than what you have got it for). If you breach this rule, you don’t earn. No, I ain’t deviating from the topic. We all do know much about investment and various instruments available in the market. However, one of the least known investment products is an Exchange-Traded Fund. When I talk to people about it, after listening for a while, they ask me, ‘What’s an ETF?’ But I know my readers are not ignorant. So, I would directly start with how you can earn money buying this investment product. 1.    Avoid Commissions Since ETF’’s are traded on major stock exchanges, you have to pay  [...] 

2010 is a good year for investors as markets are gradually rising after the crisis. It will take time to reach the peak. Hence, people can exploit the situation and extract as much profit as possible. Here are top ten investment tips for 2010. No Hasty Decisions Please Don’t get lured by those ‘once in a lifetime’ deals on real estate. There is no place for hasty decisions if you want to earn a substantial profit from your investment. Instead of believing the brokers, you must conduct a comprehensive research and invest accordingly. Think Long Term Investment is always long term. If you are putting money in for short term gains, it’s trading. Focus on investment rater than trading to have a secure future. Trading often incurs you a huge loss. So, don’t pour money in considering its  [...] 

None of the precious metals, not even diamonds, have gained so much respect and curiosity among investors ever like they are today. Financial experts are constantly compelling their clients to buy metals, while TV commercials are endorsing it more than any celebrity. Though sometimes it seems the world is having an overdose of precious metal promotion, they are promoting the right instrument. Stocks all over the world were plunging at 52-week low (some 7 to 8-year low), gold produced a ravishing 300% return on investment. What else can you expect from an investment? Is there any risk in owing gold? Since past couple of decades, gold and silver are known to be excellent hedges against inflation. They provide high returns especially when stocks and other investments are striving to gain handful  [...] 

When I talk to my son about investments these days, his reaction is quite fuming. Why? Because he lost most of his savings by selling all his stocks at lower price in fear of losing more money. My talks on ‘Buy and Hold’ policy always irritated him and he thought it’s a conservative method which helped in gaining nothing but a false assurance that you money is still intact. He is now gradually accepting this conservative method. So what if he had to learn it the hard way? It’s the lesson that matters. If you ask me to define ‘Buy and Hold’ in few words, it is the safest type of investment I have used to protect my funds since last 40 years. No, I am 58. I started investing when I was 18.   [...] 

When choices are many making a selection is a difficult matter. There are so many funding options that you could think of for investing in these days. You could think of investing in a mutual fund or an exchange traded fund or any other that comes up. There are about 9,600 choices today available for funding from which you could choose. You could consider opting for a funding company of which there are the independent and the non-independent types. These funding companies are associated with banks, financial agencies and brokerages. The choice is so confusing that many people buy funds from mutual fund advisors rather than directly from mutual fund companies. The brokers either charge a specific fee or take a percentage as commission on the money invested. These fees may or may not be obvious.  [...] 

Gold investments always seem to be on the high regardless of the economic condition. Of course, the recent recession did have a slight adverse impact on the investment rates in the last few months but now, again there seems to be an increase in the rates of gold investment again. If you ask SPDR gold trust, according to Herald Tribune, you’ll find that this trust has seen an inflow of $9.5 billion in investments from the beginning of this year to the month of September. The plummeting economy might have seen the investments a bit low in the present but on the whole its investment is on the rise. According to a Gold News report, Natalie Dempster, head North American investment, “A recovering global economy coupled with most major central banks keeping benchmark rates at record low levels  [...] 

If you are planning to invest major chunk of your funds in real estate, it’s time for you to hire a financial consultant. Real estate, which was once considered a safe investment, is not topping the priority list among investors in US since 2007. The world saw a tremendous business potential in the mortgage market in early 2000’s. The ever increasing pool of new homeowners and rising real estate price attracted numerous consumers to invest even more. This led the residential mortgage market to reach a tremendous size nearing $10 trillion by late 2007. However, since 2007 the same market has witnessed the biggest fall ever in US. Since US has attached itself to most of the financial markets in the world, the dilemma is now global. The UK’s Independent has predicted that the “UK mortgage  [...] 

No human is perfect and we do make mistakes when deciding upon what to buy and what not to buy; and that might cost you a fortune, especially when the times are so very financially tough. Here are some examples of such blundered investments that you could well avoid making. Buying Fancy Vehicles Many of us go crazy over new vehicles. College students are especially very prone to the temptation of owning the best car or bike in town. I’ve come across many of my college mates being obsessed with the idea of possessing the latest limousine or bike in town. One of my friends did buy a dandy car a couple of years ago. In a hurry to own the vehicle, she bought it at an auction for quite a bit. But the honeymoon with the car lasted for only a short time. After a year, one by one, the parts started  [...] 

The recession has taught all of us some lessons in investing that we cannot forget. Some of us had seen success while most were not all that successful. In either case we have emerged wiser about what investments we should make. You might know for yourself what works but sharing your thoughts with a similar interest group is going to help you in understanding what went right or wrong better so that you are better geared for the coming days when you’ll be facing new opportunities and have to make the most profitable investment. By the way, did you think that the US Treasury bonds were the best investments? You’re wrong my friend !If you’ve thought that running from the failing US stock markets to the succeeding Chinese markets was a smart move, let me tell you, that you aren’t all that  [...]