Investing, Assessing The Risks Of The Different Types

June 1st, 2008

Submitted by: Janet Schlarbaum

Author: Brooke Hayles

Each of the many different categories of investing that you can choose from have their own risks! As such they will suit different people with different requirements. This article looks primarily at the risks of the main different types, without delving into technical analysis or professional opinion.

Note: You should always seek professional advice with regard to your investment strategies.

Categories And Their Risks

A: Investing Money In The Bank - Risk Low

Barring major economic melt-downs there is little risk with this approach. However the returns are poor to pathetic and this is not really a serious investment strategy

B: Investing in Managed Funds - Risk Low To Medium (conditional)

These funds are perhaps considered amongst the safest of investments. But this doesn’t mean you can never lose money with managed funds, but generally because the funds are pooled together with those of other investors, there is a significant amount of buying power.

In addition, professionally managed funds have the benefit of providing access to an aggregated investment portfolio that offers numerous investing opportunities that individual investors would not normally be able to access.

Managed funds allow investors the ability to pick their preferred risk portfolio, diversify and spread their risk, and access international markets. As well, managed funds afford a level of convenience not found with more complex and hands-on investment vehicles.

C. Trading the Stock Market Yourself

You can either trade online or through a registered stock trader. The benefits and gains can be excellent, but the risks are self-evident. Unless you really know what you’re doing, you can lose a substantial amount of money, particularly if you’re using margin lending.

The best advice is to make sure you have a very comprehensive level of knowledge and try out your skills with some dummy trades before you put your money on the line.

D. Currency and Foreign Exchange (Forex) investing.

Similarly to stock market trading, significant amounts of knowledge and experience is needed in this area of investing to avoid substantial risk, but many people produce large monthly incomes working from home using this approach.

E. Real Estate

Even though real estate is regarded as “safe as houses”, the areas of risk can include:

- unexpected legal issues relating to boundaries, easements, etc.
- building faults not picked up in the building inspection
- periods of rental vacancy, when you are left having to pay all your interest costs with no rent to offset it
- market adjustments that cause your capital value to decline (if you bought at the top of the market cycle)

Financial Asset Management Systems

May 12th, 2008

Submitted by: Janet Schlarbaum

Author: Alison Cole

Financial asset management systems are also referred to as IT asset management services and are computer-run systems that keep inventory, track hardware and software assets that manages client’s technology assets. These include the procurement, leasing or eventual selling of these assets. Originally intended to maintain management systems, financial asset management systems have be revised numerous times and are now used to more efficiently work on preventing and predicting system maintenance, recording and tracking equipment, coming up with inventories for parts replacement, and even providing labor scheduling. It is the primary goal of financial asset management systems to make asset management more reliable, accurate and efficient. Centralizing assets making them at arm’s reach of the clients and even their suppliers as well.

There are a number of financial asset management systems available in the market nowadays. Although these systems may be quite costly, their popularity remains steadfast due to the rewards that companies may get out of their use. Before investing on a financial asset management system that works, companies must consider some important factors.

Because of the huge amount of data that is put into these systems, companies must consider the system’s ability to store them in such a way that information may be easily searched for when needed. This makes it more convenient for the companies and the suppliers alike when searching for the information that they need. Another important consideration when buying financial asset management systems would be ease of use. Systems which are user-friendly and are easily manipulated are more preferred than other systems due to obvious reasons. It also lessens the likelihood of having to train people specifically for the use of the system itself, rather it may be used by anyone from the company.

Financial asset management systems also provide real-time updating and superb archiving for added efficiency. They may even include added features such as reporting and cataloguing and may even be customized to fit the needs of the company that will be using it.

Investment Techniques For Creating Passive Income

May 11th, 2008

Submitted by: Janet Schlarbaum

Author: Mika Hamilton

There are many wealth creation strategies and investment techniques available to those who are looking to create a passive income. These fall into three main categories. Running a business, investing in property and investing in the share market. Although there are many options in each of these areas, finding the right wealth creation strategy for you is not that hard.

The formula for Wealth Creation is relatively simple. In order to increase your wealth, you need to increase your wealth generating activities. Most of us start out trading our time, for money. We get paid an hourly rate for doing a certain job. The problem with this is that in order to increase your income, you usually need to increase the amount of hours you sell to your employer or clients. Which in turn reduces the amount of time you have to spend on yourself, your family and doing the things you enjoy.

In order to increase your quality of life, the only realistic strategy is to increase your income, and reduce the amount of hours you work. How do you do this you might ask? By using time tested wealth creation strategies and investment techniques to create and then increase your passive income.

Creating a Passive Income gives you more time and money to spend on living your life.

Passive income is generated when you are making an income without having to work for it. For example if you own a business, that you have setup to run completely on its own, or if you own shares in a company that pays you annual dividends, or perhaps a piece of real estate that generates capital or rental returns.

All these investment techniques earn you passive income. because you are not limited by the amount of hours you can spend per day working on them. Instead of working for money, you now have money working for you. This is the true essence of any effective wealth creation strategy. Maximum return for minimum effort.

Another great way to leverage your investment capital is to use stock options. There are literally thousands of ways to use options, both as a speculation tool and but as a way to hedge your other investments. But options can also be used to create passive income through becoming an option ‘writer’ instead of a ‘taker’.

Writing options is a lot more like holding stock and making yearly dividends but instead by writing options you can actually make a passive monthly income and still be protected against any large market moves.

There are also hundreds of ways to setup these option strategies, and of course these is always some risk involved in any investment. But with a proper understanding of the strategies you are using and with vigilant risk management, the end results can be nothing less than spectacular.