There is a question which is sometimes asked by those new to the financial markets, and even occasionally debated
Because both trading and investing – when one considers them from the perspective of the financial markets – are performed in very similar fashions, they are often thought of as interchangeable actions.
Both trading and investing, after all, are at the most simple of levels application of capital in the pursuit of profits. If I buy XYZ products I expect to either see the price appreciate or earn dividends – perhaps both.
What separates trading from investing, however, is that generally in trading one has an exit expectation. This might be in the form of a price target or in terms of how long the position will be held.
Either way, the trade is seen to have a finite life. Investing, on the other hand, is more open-ended. An investor will buy a company’s products with no predefined notion of when he or she will sell, if ever.
We can use examples to help demonstrate the difference. Warren Buffet is an investor. He buys companies which he sees as somehow undervalued and holds on to his positions for as long as he continues to like their prospects. He does not think in terms of a price at which he will exit the market .
George Soros is (or at least was while he was still actively running his hedge fund) a trader. His most famous trade was shorting the British Pound when he thought the currency was overvalued and ready to be withdrawn from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
The position he took was based on a specific circumstance. Once the Pound was allowed to float freely, and quickly devalued in the market, Soros exited with a handsome profit. That meets the criteria of having a predefined exit, making it a trade, not an investment.
There is another way one can define trading as set against investing, though. It has to do with the manner in which the applied capital is expected to produce a return. In trading the appreciation of capital is the objective.
You buy products at 10 expecting it to go to 15 and thereby produce a capital gain. If dividends or interest are paid out along the way, that is fine, but likely only a minor contribution to the expected profits.
In contrast, investing looks more toward income over time. That makes income production, such as dividends and bond interest payments, the major focal point. Do investors experience capital appreciation? Sure, but unlike in trading, that is not the prime motivation.
With these definitions in mind, consider what many people refer to as their single biggest investment – their home. Based our second definition of investing, however, a home is generally not an investment because in most cases is does not produce any income. In fact, it produces considerable expenses in the form of mortgage interest payments, utility bills, and upkeep.
If anything, a home is a trade. We buy it and hope for its value to rise over time, increasing our equity. And the fact that many people expect to move in only a few years and sell at that point makes it even more of a trade rather than an investment. (Of course own rental property can certainly be viewed as investing, unless one is flipping it, which would definitely be more trading.)
As noted earlier, for many people trading and investing seem like the same thing. The mechanics of buying and selling are basically the same. Sometimes the analysis one does to make those decisions is identical as well. It’s the intention and definition of objectives which separate trading and investing, though.
Why Investors May Not Be As Diversified As They Think
When more than 1 million college graduates entered the work force last fall, they began the first of what could be seven job moves during a 40-year working career, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics1.
In fact, according to a recent study by Fidelity Investments, one-third of today’s new work force could be compiling a series of stand-alone retirement savings accounts, which may not be as diversified as they think.
With each job change, millions are faced with the increasingly challenging task of managing their workplace retirement savings accounts.
“As American workers continue to change jobs, our survey tells us that approximately 32 million have left behind retirement accounts with past employers,” said Jeffrey R. Carney, president of Fidelity Personal Investments.
“Our research also shows that 41 percent of investors with multiple retirement accounts believe that maintaining separate accounts makes for a more diversified portfolio.
While Americans are more savvy about investing, many have lost sight of what ‘diversification’ really means -; spreading out money over different types of investments such as stocks, bonds and cash to manage risk -; which can’t be assured simply by having multiple accounts.”
In reviewing the portfolios of nearly half a million investors over the past year, Fidelity found that many need to be reminded of three basic tenets for managing a diversified portfolio: Know what you own; know how much you’re paying; and know when it’s time to seek guidance.
Many investors who maintain multiple accounts don’t realize the makeup of their overall investments and may be heavily overweighted or underweighted in a specific type of investment sector or security.
Keeping accounts scattered not only creates additional paperwork, it can cost more when maintenance fees are assessed by multiple providers.
“Many investors are surprised to find that they are holding a variety of mutual funds with above-average expenses or paying more in fees by maintaining several smaller balance accounts,” Carney said.
Managing and monitoring multiple accounts through numerous statements and Web sites can add increased layers of complexity for investors. In fact, nearly a quarter of those with multiple accounts reported trouble keeping track of them.
Investing Goals The Number One Tip For Making Profitable Investments
Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and Tiger Woods were great for a reason, they had goals. The same is true of those entering the investment field, have a goal in your career and set your mind to reach that goal. Before even making your first transaction in the world investing you should ask yourself, what are you expecting to achieve?
Everybody likes to be charitable, but it has a place and a time and neither is found in the world of investing.
Most investors simply want a good return on their investment. But what is considered a good return? Enough for retirement? If it is based on what they want for retirement the question becomes how long is it until retirement age? If it is in two years your investment strategy will be much different than for those who are retiring in 15 years time.
As an example, let’s use me as a typical investor. 40 years old with a decent income and the ability to invest $300 per month. We’ll have to change my circumstances just a bit and imagine I have nothing in my portfolio but I want the ultimate dream – I want $1 million dollars to retire with. The question is, if I have the $300 available right now, is my target something I can hit?
Assuming that I can match – if not better – index return wich is running at 10.4% annually, my sum would be worth roughly $380,000 by the time I get to retiring at 65 years young.
Damn – missed my $1,000,000 target!
To hit that level – I need to invest more than $300 per month. (To hit that I’d need a return of at least 17 – 18% pa.
Okay – an index fund isn’t going to do it for me, especially as the history of these shws it won’t better much more than the 10.5% mark!)
Okay – let’s look at another scenario for me shall we?
Let’s imagine that I’ve actually been working away at my investments and funds for a while (must have listened to my dad!!) and I have a touch over $100,000 saved away.
Can I hit the target million with that amount as a lump sum starter?
Well, if I am set in using the index funds as my investment vehicle of choice, the answer is Yes!
So long as no major market upheaval hits and remains (ignoring the standard fluctuations you’ll get over an extended period of investing) I should have over the $1,000,000 mark by the time I retire – and I won’t have to add a cent more to my savings either.
But what makes this possible for me to hit my target? The fact that I HAD a target.
Goals – targets – aims, they all help us to focus on getting to the end of the race with the result we want.
Goals to help you focus on your investment are what help you design your investment plan.
Do you need to be aggressive and look for a major return or can you simply protect your savings and earn a more modest return to reach your goal?
Set yourself a (realistic) towards it, keeping it in mind always.
Be modest and be focused.
Best ways of Finding A Good Investment Property
Rental real estate is slowly becoming a good investment endeavor although there are some skeptical few who still thinks that it’s a daunting undertaking. Well we just can’t blame them since searching for a good investment property is really hard. However, for those few optimists rental property is great way to accumulate wealth.
Just like any type of business undertaking it is important that you have a concrete plan or strategy on how you are going to develop your rental real estate into a money-making endeavor. Otherwise, you will end up losing all of your investment.
You need to do some painstaking research and probably have some connections to find a profitable rental property. This is because your objective is to make profit within the shortest time possible. This is also the same reason why you should find a seller that is willing to give you free equity.
Why Gold Remain A Solid Investment
Make no mistake, the currency crisis is coming.
Rather than sitting back and letting it happen, protect yourself and profit from an economic upset that could basically render your dollars about as worthless as the paper they’re printed on.
We saw a preview of this kind of debacle quite recently. In early 2016 a currency plunge triggered an avalanche of sell orders in emerging markets from Brazil to Indonesia. The Icelandic krona plunged nearly 10 percent in only two days, dragging down Icelandic stocks and bonds with it and subsequently spread to Brazil, Mexico, Poland and Turkey.
A precursor to this was the Asian Currency Crash of 1997, which sent stocks south like ducks in winter. Banks, insurance companies, real estate and bonds also fled the scene. The only viable option left was gold.
In the event of another such decline in currency values, gold will be worth at least 10 times its current value.
How is this possible?
Simple: Since gold cannot be made or printed at the whim of greedy politicos, it can’t be devalued as quickly as the paper money that is printed whenever need arises.
When a currency is backed by gold, $1 in paper money has to be backed by approximately one dollar’s worth of gold. Once a currency is no longer backed by gold, governments can print as much as needed. Naturally, most world governments have gone off the gold standard and that is why paper money has no intrinsic value.
As a result, most major institutions only speculate short term between those currencies and associated local values, such as stocks or bonds, and then they convert their profit into gold.
This is where we at Forex Super King excel. We specialize in global trading and diversification.
Our money is made in both currency trading, where we average 1,000 pips (price interest points) per month, and U.S. small stocks that recently acquired dual listings with the European exchange.
As a result, our clients can experience a short-term windfall from 50 percent to 400 percent by tapping into the heavy buying power of European investors with holding time from a day to a month. We then convert half of our profit every month into gold.
We’ll show you how to get set up so that you can hold your funds in several currencies, even if you only have $500 to start.
We can also show you how to not only diversify internationally but how to trade the international markets as well as currency markets to realize substantial profit, short term.
Understanding All The Components Of The Investing Arena
Well, you say you’re ready to being investing, on your own. No stockbrokers, no financial advisers, just you and the open market. What a thrilling prospect. Wait, are you seriously considering this proposition?
Please allow me to give some advice: Don’t do it. I speak with some experience, having lost my fair share in the “open market” as a do-it-yourself investor. The odds of success in this kind of investing are comparable to the odds of wining the lottery. It’s a crap shoot.
Unless you are willing to take the time to investigate, investigate, and then do some investigation. Successful investing is not a privilege of the stock broker and the financial analyst, alone. It is an area open to voluntary participation from any walk to life. The catch here is that you must be knowledgeable, or you will lose.
Take the time to understand all the components of the investing arena, before you risk losing your nice little nest egg in ten minutes or less. What you have spent a lifetime saving can be gone in as little as ten minutes. Now, that should be a scary thought for any sane, rational, investor.
If you still intend to invest alone, here are a few tips and guidelines to help ensure your success. If you are going to invest, at least hire some form of investment professional to give you advice. It’s not necessary to let them do the investing, but use common sense, here. They know things you do not, and have not had time to learn.
Another piece of advice: if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Hands down, dream investments do not exist. If you know someone who acted on a friend’s great tip, you can bet that someone worked hard for that information, and it probably isn’t going to produce the mega return promised.
You must be patient when investing. Investing is like saving, it takes time to accumulate real returns. Don’t panic, take the time to step back and look objectively at your investment and the market indicators. Panic will cost you money.
Hand in hand with the patience, there must be some read education about the investing process on your part. If you’re going to invest, take the time to learn the process, learn how to read a prospectus, how to calculate and distinguish a healthy business from one that is about to fold. Your knowledge will be your ticket to successful investing with a show of real returns.
It can be done, it is done everyday, by people just like you and I. You just need to understand the enormity of the commitment necessary to become a successful investor.
Bullet Theory Of Investing You Must Know
Sadly, too many people believe that the successful in our society got that way through luck. So their financial plan is based not on earning and investing money, but waiting for their fairy godmother to show up.
Some “miracle” roads to riches:
The Lottery
What better way to get rich, but to play the lottery. Even though the odds are 200 million to one, somebody’s got to win – right? Why not you?
The ancillary to this is gambling. Go to Vegas or Atlantic City and blow the paycheck at the blackjack table or, even better, the roulette wheel.
Or go to the track and try to hit the trifecta.
Most gamblers will blow their winnings away sooner or later. They really aren’t in it for the money.
But lottery winners, those who get checks for millions of dollars, apparently have the same problem. I have read that the majority of lottery winners blow all that money away with five years or so.
Get Rich Quick Schemes
You get a letter in the mail or you see an ad on the internet. Just send in a few bucks or a few hundred bucks or a few thousand bucks and you too will be raking in $35,000 a week while you lounge on the beach.
Other variations are: $100 an hour stuffing envelopes; $500 an hour for filing out forms on your computer; or buying a pre-made website and sitting back while watching your bank account fill up.
Don’t forget to check out those government grants for paying off your debts.
In this case, the ones making the money are truly lucky – for finding another sucker to fall for their schemes.
Why not go down to Mexico and pick up a kilo of cocaine to sell on the streets. The markup – and your legal fees – will be tremendous.
Or give all your savings to the guy you met in the bar whose paying out a “guaranteed” 50% a month interest. You brother-in-law is in on this deal, so you know it really works.
Anybody ever heard of a guy named Ponzi?
The Government Will Take Care of Everything
There’s no such thing as a free lunch and, even though the government hands them out to anyone who asks, someone has to pay, in this case the taxpayers.
Did you know that the percentage of people not paying income taxes in the US is approaching 50%? If nobody’s paying, where does the free lunch come from? There are only so many “wealthy” taxpayers left to soak.
In New York City, the low income clients of the Housing Authority are being asked for “givebacks” in the form of higher fees. Social Security is on the ropes. The golden goose is beginning to run dry.
All government handouts come with strings attached. If the government gives you something, it will then want to tell you how to live. Are you ready for the trade-off?
Great Expectations
The long term average return of the stock market is 10% a year. However, if you do a little calculating, you see that you will never reach your goals at that rate. So you figure a 15% return.
There are many people who successfully beat that the stock market year after year. It takes a lot of work to do so. Even the pros have a hard time.
If you have acquired the learning and are willing to put in the effort, you may be able to safely make that assumption.
But don’t base your financial affairs on a simple assumption, hoping your dreams will come true through, just because you’ve been lucky all your life.
You can steal money or inherit it. Most people have to work for it and they have to work even harder to make it grow.
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What a great pics
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