As the saying goes, everything rises and falls on leadership. As seen in several studies, the philanthropic nature of a business owner significantly impacts a company’s culture. For leaders who tend to have a more Ebenezer Scrooge approach to generosity, negativity, high turnover, and low morale often create the bulk of a company’s culture. For those who have the pleasure of working with or for a noted philanthropist like Golden Warriors owner Mark Stevens, sense of pride, connection to the world, and job satisfaction tend to run deep.
The Ups and Downs of Corporate Giving
After the recession of 2008, corporate giving noticed a sharp decline. Many companies were trying to stay afloat and turn a profit in a bleak and stalled economy. Higher than normal unemployment rates took a toll on charitable organizations across the country. Resources were spread thin, and corporate philanthropic efforts had slowed to a trickle. As national disasters have hit over the last few years, corporate giving is on its way back up. In 2017, overall giving had an 8% increase from 2016, totally around $20.77 billion dollars. The jump in giving was encouraged by over $405 million in donated funds to help with disaster relief efforts.
The Culture of Corporate Giving
There is a difference between the giving efforts of high profile businessman and a corporate giving program. A single individual has the power to control personal wealth and distribute it according to personal interest, while a corporate network has several individuals that get to make the financial decisions. However, when those at the decision-making level of a corporation decide to invest in philanthropic efforts, statistics reveal that an overall culture of giving is widely adopted by employees at various levels throughout an organization. Throughout the last few years, 79% of companies reported an increase in the participation rates of their employee donors, with 73% of organizations raising more money than in prior years. This giving mindset would be expected in nonprofit organizations, as more than 49% of nonprofit organizations indicate workplace giving as one of the hallmark areas in their growth strategies. For other companies, being able to partner with a nonprofit brand that is widely recognized and known having a local community impact is a move that can enhance their brand and increase their company’s impact on the community.
However, small nonprofits with a limited number of staff or with fewer resources to work with often have difficulty developing strong partnerships with corporate entities, despite the local impact such as relationship could have. On the corporate end, the pull to fulfill the organization’s social responsibility is often countered by a need to continually pull in new profits. As such, many of the choices for partnerships lean heavily toward to the entities that can provide favoriting public relations exposure or good marketing opportunities. The giving mindset, only to potentially return company growth, can seem disingenuous to those who are receiving on the end of corporate gifts and those who work for a company intent on charitable giving. As an alternative, volunteer efforts are becoming more popular.
The Volunteer Mindset
While some companies will donate corporately or have owners making donations on behalf of the company, the millennial mindset wants personal ownership in philanthropic efforts and taking care of the human family. Matching gift programs have been one of the easier ways for everyone in a company to get involved in giving. Around $3 billion each year of corporate donations is accumulated through matching gift programs. On average, 12% of total cash contributions from large corporations comes from matching employee donations. There is a slight downside to this method, as between $6-$10 billion in matching gift funds are left unclaimed each year.
Rather than simply giving many, the younger generations prefer to donate their time to help out humanity. Currently, about 60% of companies across the country offer employee paid time off for volunteer efforts. As more millennials and Gen Zers dominate the workplace, these companies are looking to expand their time off allowances to include release time over the next few years. The national average on employees who volunteer is about 30%, and these employees report that they feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally because of their volunteer efforts. The move toward skills-based volunteerism is growing, with mentoring, clinics, workshops, and camps proving opportunity one-on-one opportunities for interaction that rely on the skillset and talents of the employee volunteer. When business skills and expertise are contributed to nonprofit efforts, the employee is able to experience personal growth in areas of leadership and professional skills.
The Way to Get Involved
Around 86% of employees expect their company to provide opportunities that will allow them to engage in their community, and an equal number of employees want to work for an individual or company that supports causes and issues that an employee values. In order to maximize employee involvement in philanthropic or charitable efforts, have a leadership team that sets an example by making the first move to help others.
Many business owners are continually looking for ways to cut costs, increase productivity, and streamline business operations. Accounting software is one of the tools that can help you achieve these goals.
Accounting software like Wave is designed to help business owners and accounting professionals manage accounts and streamline the financial operations of their company. Accounting software ranges from basic essential functions like record-keeping to more complex ones that manage accounts receivable, payable, salaries, ledgers, and even business assets.
There are many reasons why many businesses today are switching to using accounting software. Read on to find out why.
Data Accuracy
Manual bookkeeping involves a lot of calculations and data by hand. This makes businesses prone to many errors by accountants and auditors. Inaccuracies in the financial statements harm your business.
Accounting software automates the process of bookkeeping and leaves very little room for errors. You will only need one accounting entry for every transaction, instead of two or three for a manual system.
However, computer systems are not immune to errors that may arise in the data entry or during interpretation.
Enhanced Decision-Making
Accounting software significantly helps businesses make better decisions. With a manual bookkeeping system, you might experience difficulty understanding your business’s financial situation.
However, an automated accounting system provides you with the numbers that will help you know where to cut costs and where to invest more. When you have a straightforward overview of the financial state of your business, you can develop smarter strategies and efficiently allocate your resources.
Cost-Effectiveness
Accounting software helps businesses save money in their budget. The minimization of the costs of services is one of the reasons why automation of financial operations is gaining popularity.
A digital accounting system is more cost-effective than any other method of bookkeeping. The system is faster and helps you save time as you concentrate on different aspects of your business.
Also, hiring a professional to manage your business’ books is an expensive affair. Regardless of how well trained the professional is, you will still be required to pay a salary and other forms of compensation.
With a digital accounting system, the only charge may be the initial installation cost. Also, you might be required to hire someone to operate the system if you don’t know how to.
Financial Data Security
Even when your manual bookkeeping records are secured, you are likely to lose everything in case of an accident or a robbery where someone goes away with your financial records. Imagine losing years’ worth of financial data and having to start from scratch. This is why you need automated accounting software.
With digital accounting, you can always back up your financial data by storing it in a system protected by firewalls. Also, you can back up the data on a server or in the cloud. This means that you can access the information even if anything goes wrong.
This also means that only you and other authorized parties can access your important business records.
Simplified Tax Compliance
Filing the tax returns for your business can be a frustrating process. This is because it requires you to monitor all your business records and transactions well.
An automated accounting system keeps you compliant with your local, state, and federal tax laws. Other than showing you how tax is payable to the revenue authority, you can also prepare specific reports at any time.
For example, you can generate a report of how much your business has paid the government in taxes over a specific period. This makes it easier to gather the data you need to file any required government tax forms. Some of the systems even allow you to directly submit your tax returns.
A Streamlined System
With a manual accounting system, you have to store your data in various places. Recording data and managing the books may not be that much of a challenge, but gathering the information and using it to create a report or summary will be a challenge. Also, balancing the figures in your trial balance requires a lot of hard work.
An automated accounting software stores all your information in one area. This means that as a business owner, you have real-time access to business information and other essential details.
You can access financial data, such as cash flow and balance sheets, by just a few clicks.
Usability, Productivity, and Speed
This advantage comes from the ease of accessibility of data. One of the vital aims of technology is the ease of use in all processes. Digital accounting software provides business owners with comfort and convenience in comparison to a manual accounting system.
The core purpose of recording all financial data is to:
Keep a record of all monthly and yearly transactions.
Analyze this data to make business decisions
With manual bookkeeping, it might take up to an hour to compile this information and create cash flow. Also, the associate costs may take a lot of time from the business. The automated system enables you to run any financial tests with readily available data. It will take you just a few minutes to get the data.
In addition to that, digital accounting brings about efficiency and productivity. This means that if your business has a digital accounting software, you will have more staff available to assign to other essential duties.
The software also has analysis tools for compiling these reports in a lot less time than you would. You can tell how well your business is doing in just a couple of minutes. The reports can also indicate how much money your customers owe your business.
Final Thoughts
Accounting software makes it much easier for business wonders to manage their financial operations. They can perform financial tasks correctly and use less time. This improves employee productivity and cost-effectiveness on the business side.
Unlike manual bookkeeping where records and information are prone to errors, going digital will improve data accuracy. You are sure to get efficient reports, cash flows, and other summaries. Digital accounting systems help you get a complete overview of your business’s state so you can make better financial decisions.
Peter Brooks
Peter Brooks is an accountant by profession who shares his knowledge with the public by writing articles online. Most of Peter’s articles are geared towards startup businesses that do not have any idea how to establish their policies on accounting.
Whatever your reason to get into forex trading, there are a few things you ought to know before you begin. You don’t want to run before you can walk – you don’t want to play fast and loose with your hard earned cash, not just yet anyway.
Before you start trading you need to learn all you can about forex, about the markets as well as try out different trading strategies. Which is why a forex demo account is a great tool.
Because if you jump in and try and learn on the job, it can be an incredibly costly mistake. But before we get to that, let’s start at the beginning.
Why do you want to trade
One of the key questions to answer before you begin trading any money for real is: what is your reason for trading?
What do you hope to get out of trading? Is it something you want to do regularly? Every day or a couple of times a week?
There is no right answer here, it just helps to know what you want to get out of it, in order to know what to put in.
Choosing your forex trading platform
As a trader you’ll need a broker to facilitate your trades. A broker is the link between you and the sellers
When choosing your broker, you’ll want to know a few things, namely:
How secure is your investment – is the broker a registered member of their country’s regulatory body?
Canada: Investment Information Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC)
Their internet presence – you’ll want a reputable broker with a good standing.
The fees – such is life, no matter what kind of forex trader you are, you’ll always be subject to transaction costs. Every trade you make you’ll have to pay for, so check the broker’s fees beforehand as you don’t want to hand over all your hard traded money. Understand the fees and charges that they’ll apply to each transaction so you can make the most out of your investment. Don’t forget, sometimes you might have to pay a bit more to guarantee a more reputable broker.
Access to your funds – do you have easy access to your funds? Can you deposit and withdraw cash without any hassle? There’s no reason why it should be hard for you to get access to your profits, the only reason you deposit cash with a broker is to enable your trading. So if they are making life difficult, walk away.
Their trading platform – in online forex trading, all of your trading will happen through your broker’s platform, so ensuring this is user-friendly is vital to your success. Does it give you a free news feed with up to date information? Are their charting tools easy to use and read? Is it intuitive for you to trade properly?
What is their training like – if you’re a beginner to forex trading, having a broker who can guide you through the process and teach you the tricks of the trade is going to make you feel confident in what you’re doing.
The level of support – whether you’re a newbie or an old hat at trading forex, no broker platform is perfect and so you need your chosen trading platform to have a decent level of support to assist you, should any problems arise. Check out online reviews about the level of their customer service, because they may be all smiles and charm to get you to open an account, but have awful customer service once they’ve got you onboard.
Their demo account – every broker has an online forex platform, this is the technology that you’ll be using to trade. It enables you to view quotes, to see the charts, to do your research and to place your trades. Make sure you test out various platforms and open a demo account with them prior to choosing your broker.
Forex demo accounts
As you narrow down your selection of online forex trading platforms, you’ll want to play around with their demo accounts. A Jordan forex demo account will allow you to practice forex trading risk free. It’s a paper trading account where you can practice trading or test out a new trading strategy without having to risk any actual money.
A forex demo account is where you can learn to trade using live buy and sell prices, where you can understand how to place your trades, how to manage existing trade positions and tweak your trading strategy.
Why do you need to test and adjust your trading strategy?
Because one approach won’t work for all trades. You’ll want to figure out your prefered strategy and test it out using fake money trades and analyse the results of your trade to see if your chosen strategy is likely to produce you a profit, when done for real.
If a particular strategy doesn’t work, then you’ll have lost nothing and learned how not to do it.
But saying that, making a large return on your fake investment doesn’t necessarily translate through to the real world. Just because you made money once, doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to do it again – real money profits might not come as easily.
Finally
Forex trading is not just exciting, it can be incredibly lucrative.
However, don’t forget, at the end of the day your investment can go down as well as up. And you need to remember that.
Learning to trade is one thing, but practice makes perfect and you’ll want to practice, practice, practice with a forex demo account if you don’t want to lose money making silly mistakes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the stock market and caused a sudden crash. Even major stocks are in decline, which nobody expected as we entered the new decade.
In this article, we’re going to share some recent updates about the coronavirus pandemic, its effects on the stock market, and what to expect for stocks in the future.
Past Gains
Amidst the economic chaos, the stock market saw some enormous gains since falling back at the end of April. The S&P 500 increased by 13%. Some say it was the best month for stocks in the U.S. since 1987.
It isn’t unheard of for Wall Street to see an improvement before Main Street. That’s because the stock market is different from the economy.
However, there’s still a risk, and investors may not be ready for the upcoming economic and health challenges.
Investors dumped a lump sum of liquidity into the financial markets and earned big because of it. We aren’t likely to see a significant selloff in the stock and bond market since the people who wanted to cash-out are looking for ways to enter back into the market for bonds and stocks.
Recent News
In volatile trading, stocks fell on Friday, and Wall Street closed out on its worst week since the end of March. Amidst the downpour of economic reports, tensions between the U.S. and China are growing.
This week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were both down at 2.7%. Nasdaq dropped 1.9%. The U.S. monthly retail sales dropped by 16.4% during April.
Recent data also shows a positive effect on consumer sentiment. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rose at the beginning of May. The U.S. fiscal stimulus has improved consumers’ financial health and attitudes about shopping.
But, the conflicts between China and the U.S. are affecting market sentiment. Trump’s administration moved to block semiconductor shipments to a Chinese company called Huawei.
The aim is to strategically halt Huawei’s acquisition of the semiconductors that are a product of U.S. technology and software.
Hu Zijin, the editor-in-chief of a Chinese state-run publication, tweeted that China would limit or investigate some U.S. companies, including:
Qualcomm
Cisco Systems
Apple
Additionally, semiconductor manufacturers AMD, Skyworks Solutions, and Nvidia fell more than 0.8%.
The Federal Reserve
Because of the lockdown, the Federal Reserve has delivered a massive stimulus to combat the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic.
The Federal Reserve is erring on the side of caution, holding firm to what biotech analysts and virus experts are saying.
All we know for sure is that the virus poses a serious risk to the economy. Smaller companies going bankrupt will start to affect production capacity, and unemployment could continue to rise.
Late-March lows include Facebook (F.B.), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and Apple (AAPL). S&P 500 traded about 19 times its anticipated earnings for 12 months.
Valuations are at risk of worsening because analysts aren’t finished with their estimates. The market valuation goes higher the more they cut, even if the stocks don’t move.
Based on the past, stocks aren’t known to rise when earnings decline. The economy will recover eventually, but the data doesn’t match up with people’s expectations.
Investing During Coronavirus
2020 has posed some unexpected challenges, especially for those investing during coronavirus. Investors are on edge, and they’re at risk of making serious mistakes.
Many investors are too reactive and prone to “availability bias.” The term refers to the human tendency to overvalue the importance of current events. As a result, investors start to rely on headlines to help them make decisions about investments.
Always think about your long-term strategy and think through all of your decisions with your plan in mind.
Remember that we are in a bear market:
Bear markets are bad if you want to sell stock or need immediate access to your funds.
However, if you want to invest long-term and hold your shares for an extended period, take advantage of the bear market. You may be able to increase your returns in the long run.
Regularly investing is important, even if it’s a small amount. If you still earn a steady income, there are few reasons not to start investing. The sooner you start to invest, the more you will benefit from compounding.
If you already started investing, don’t pull money out of the market and lock in your losses. If you are in a difficult situation and have no other means of staying afloat, of course, you should dip into those funds.
That’s why it’s essential to prepare for times like these, no matter how unlikely they are. If you save and invest money routinely, you may not have to be in this type of position again.
Here are some more things to keep in mind when deciding whether you should invest:
Do you have enough money in your emergency savings?
When do you need access to this money?
How much risk are you willing to take?
How much money do you actually have?
If you want to invest, but don’t want to dive into the stock market right now, consider making larger contributions to your retirement accounts. That counts as investing too.
Consumer Trends
The main reason why the S&P 500 index has seen gains is because of major tech companies:
Microsoft
Amazon
Alphabet
Facebook
Apple
In April, these companies accounted for around 20% of the S&P’s total value.
The reason these shares are experiencing such a significant rebound is that these businesses have benefited from stay-at-home orders. For example, the Nasdaq composite wiped away its losses for 2020.
Amazon and Apple are two more prime examples of how some companies have found new ways to motivate consumer spending.
In late April, Apple said that its revenue grew by about 1% within the first three months of 2020, and it was able to recoup after declining sales in China.
Business is booming for Amazon as consumers are making more online purchases and spending more on cloud-based computing.
Amazon reported that it reached $75.5 billion in sales during the latest quarter (an increase of 26% from a year earlier), although profit fell around 29% ($2.5 billion).
The surge in cases would be a result of thousands of cases acting as the source of a massive spread, rather than a small number like last time.
COVID-19 would jump around quickly. The country needs to have a vaccine or another type of treatment before lightening up on social distancing measures.
If social distancing measures don’t change, many businesses can’t operate how they used to. Even when allowing people in limited capacities, companies can’t sustain normal operations. The safety of the public is paramount, but it will affect the economy in drastic ways.
Final Thoughts
Experts say the pandemic is far from over, and that it might pick up again after summer. At this point, it’s tough to keep hope alive.
With so much money pumped into the financial markets, and the lockdown measures becoming less restrictive, some states are creating guidelines for reopening.
Nonetheless, the economy isn’t expected to rebound anytime soon. Investors buy shares based on forecasts of what will happen later in the year, not what is happening right now.
When the economy reopens, it will take a lot of trial and error. Some employees won’t be able to return to work, and large venues like stadiums, amusement parks, and concert venues will have to remain closed or limit their capacity. Wall Street economists expect the second-quarter data to show a 40% shrinkage of the American economy.
This figure is making a lot of investors panic, and people are jumping to sell. As a result, buyers can purchase stocks at low prices.
At some point, the market will reach a bottom, and the bad news won’t shock people and cause a huge selloff. That’s usually a sign that there is a rebound coming. Hold firm and remember that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
Although the stock market may continue to tumble and see big drops, it will recover at some point.
Bio: Chris Muller
Chris Muller is a financial writer and digital marketer – he started a digital marketing business in 2015 that focuses on freelance writing, content marketing, and SEO – all while working full-time and playing dad to two kids.
The Forex market is enormous, you will hear lots of different news about the market from different people. You need to understand that you can’t control anything in the market, the market moves according to itself and it doesn’t follow any specific moving pattern. In a nutshell, the investment industry is dynamic. Those who can adapt themselves to the dynamic changes of this market can survive in trading. Those who don’t have the skills to assess the complex condition of this market, are always losing money.
Making a decision based on emotions, experience and gut feeling is often known as psychological biases. Biases will help you to identify more about the condition of the market. In this article, you will find some common biases which influence traders when they make their trading decisions.
1. Self-awareness
If you found yourself losing any trades, try to change the trading system in your future trades. Losing is also a part of learning, you should always learn from your previous mistakes. Many traders try to make their trading processes by observing their recent results of trading. You need to focus both on your previous and recent trades to make any decisions. Instead of relying on emotions, try to find a mathematical reason for why you are losing money. Within a few days, you will realize the importance of the rational approach in the trading profession.
It is seen that the traders become too emotional after they lose in any trades and get scared to make any new trades. Some of the traders also become over-confident if they win in a few of the trades. You should always be aware of how you react to your trading results. Always trade with a high level of awareness.
2. Take trading as gambling
Many new traders start trading like its gambling, they try to trade consistently in the hope of making more money. You should not trade in the market out of greed, greed comes when you treat the market as if it is gambling. Be aware of all the moves you make in your trades. Those who find it hard to control the emotions can open a an account at social trading platform like Zulutrade. With the help of a practice account, they should develop the skills to control the emotions. Without having the skills to deal with emotions, you are not going to become a fulltime trader.
You will not always win in your trades. You need to accept the fact and try harder in your next trades so that you can win. Never treat your trades like gambling and don’t trade out of greed. Believe in your trading method and use a simple trend trading strategy instead of executing trades with emotion.
3. Maintain few rules
The market has its own rule of working, it doesn’t follow any specific pattern while moving. So, you should always trade according to the market and don’t forget that the market keeps changing continuously.
Use your strategies and skills according to the market’s condition to make profits in the trades. The most important rule that every trader should follow is to make their trades by checking their previous trades. By observing your previous trades you can easily find out your mistakes and rectify them according to the market’s condition to make profit in future trades.
Conclusion
If you are new, you should always learn from the pro trades but never imitate them in your trading. Every trader has a different way of trading, so even you should make your strategies and skills according to the market to make profits. There are many more biases that occur in the market but the above ones are the most common. Always trade by observing the market’s condition so that you don’t lose in the trades. The market’s condition helps the traders to identify whether to trade or not in the market.
People always think they will live their dream life. Millions of people are working day and night to secure their financial freedom. But everything comes with a price. You can’t create a steady source of income without being a specialized person. The key reason why rookies in Singapore are losing money in trading is the lack of knowledge. They don’t spend enough time educating themselves, as a result, they take trades with wild guesses. But things don’t work like this in the investment business. If you can trade with the standard protocol of investment business, you can become a millionaire. You will forget about the day job and trading will be your Holy Grail.
There are a few reasons why you should learn to trade ETFs. Let’s get into the details and start learning about the exchange-traded funds.
Ability to use the leverage
Leverage is one of the reasons to trade the financial instrument. By using the leverage, you can turn a small capital into a big one. But it needs special skills to speculate the price movement. If you speculate wrong you are going to lose big money due to leverage. So, leverage can increase risk. Provided you have a strong set of skills, you can even create steady income sources by investing less than $10K in the exchange-traded funds industry.
When you open an account, make sure you choose a reliable broker. Experienced traders love to use Saxo because they always offer premium service to their clients. Without getting a premium service it is a very tough task to make some serious profit from this industry. So, get ready to work hard to find a great broker.
Be your boss
Being a trader, you can become a boss. Many senior citizens are leading their dream life just by trading ETF. They have spent years learning the details. You don’t have to retire to learn to trade. Start with the free resources and use a demo account to see how things go. Once you become good at analyzing the price details, you can control the profit factors. It’s like running your business. Remember the fact, every successful business owners are much disciplined. So, if you are not committed to the rules, you are going to lose money in most cases.
Create a simple trading routine and follow it properly. Never try to secure a big profit by using the shortcut. If you take a shortcut in the investment business, you might lose your savings. Take some professional courses on money management so that you manage the cash flow like a real trader.
Part-time trader
Those who have the skills to trade the ETFs, they can become a part-time trader. You don’t have to spend a huge amount of time learning the details of this market. By using some of the most basic concepts of trading, you can start earning millions of dollars. Thousands of traders become fulltime traders after becoming successful as a part-time trader. There is nothing wrong to trade the financial industry with small capital. If you feel the urge to learn new things, take things to the next level. If not, stop trading the market.
Conclusion
Depending on just one income source is very risky. You never know the future. Having multiple income sources reduces stress and help you to make wise decision in every aspect of life. Things might be challenging for the new traders but once they become skilled at analyzing the price details they can make some serious cash in the trading industry. But never go for a shortcut or buy an expensive trading system. Use your intellect and trade with your unique strategy. Learn from your mistakes and never lose confidence. Last but not least, be a disciplined trader.
It may seem odd that Internet companies are able to make considerable profits every year despite selling their services at no expense. Companies involved in Internet businesses have gradually increased in number over the years as more users use the Internet to buy goods and services, communicate with family and friends, look for work or obtain access to knowledge, and news about nearly every topic.
Most of the content delivered by these Internet providers are open to customers at little or no expense, so consumers have become accustomed to free access to data contained on the internet.
The reality is that businesses like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and many others have many methods of raising money while continuing to deliver their exclusive services to users at no cost. The main method through which such businesses generate revenues is by advertisements.
Advertising
One of the most popular ways Internet companies earn an income is by advertisement sales without charging consumers for access to data online. Since content on social media platforms and search engines are available to customers at no expense, millions of people visit websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google every day and invest time online. All thanks to the ISPs like Spectrum internet that work as a pipe, making it possible for you to access these sites.
Organizations that want to be exposed to prospective buyers may purchase advertising space on no-cost web platforms in an attempt to target users they would otherwise not be able to reach for marketing purposes. Sites charge other e-commerce companies fees for providing certain consumers with a particular promotional post, either as a large or personalized advertisement campaign. By higher placements in search results, companies can get greater reachability to their particular audiences through advertising on free platforms.
Data Collection
Advertising space reserved by e-commerce companies is a lucrative endeavor for free web outlets such as high-traffic websites, social media platforms, and search engines owing to its exposure to millions of people. Free Internet service providers, though, are still able to earn income by gathering data from certain customers and transmitting this useful knowledge to businesses who use it or require it.
Data is compiled and processed on the millions of people who invest time on free web pages like individual user positions, surfing patterns, online purchasing, and special interests. This data obtained may be used to support e-commerce firms to customize their marketing strategies to a certain array of customers. User data is also useful when used as a marketing analysis for companies that sell products and services on the Internet. This data collection makes a company consider how often its customers appreciate a product or service, what different goods those buyers may be interested in, and how effectively the company is delivering its marketing message. All these features make it extremely important for e-commerce firms to gather data from free web pages.
Privacy Concerns
Not all online service providers explicitly receive profits from selling the data that they obtain from customers. All Facebook and Google officials went on record claiming they ‘re not making profits by selling data of their customers to other firms. In April 2018, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to the way his business manages customer data before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee and explained how there are misconceptions regarding them making money by selling their customers data. His indictment came as a result of the announcement that Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy company, had accessed personal details of at least 87 million Facebook users without their permission. The controversy had culminated in intense regulatory criticism about how Internet firms handle consumers’ data that they accumulate.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entered into effect in May 2018, a comprehensive package of rules governing the handling and collection of data from people residing within the European Union (EU). The GDPR allows websites to alert visitors of the data they are gathering and to allow visitors the right to decide to gather details.
Other Ways of Income
Though advertisement is the primary revenue stream for several Internet businesses providing free content, others are seeking to grow alternative sources of revenue. Diversifying into other areas makes sense considering the intensified rivalry among other Internet firms for advertisements and the intensified concern regarding privacy concerns, resulting from the data collection needed to produce ad revenue.
While Google’s parent company, Alphabet produces more than 70 percent of total revenue through Google advertisings, the organization is extending its efforts to other fields as well. Other revenue streams at the business include license fees for Android, cloud storage, subscriptions, and apps. The organization is in the midst of designing high-tech products — such as self-driving vehicles and online gaming systems that may bring considerable value in the years ahead to its bottom line.
Wrapping Up
Despite offering free services online worldwide, Internet service companies still make millions through a lot of ways, out of them the foremost way of generating revenue is by advertisings. However, these companies have created various other revenue streams in the form of cloud storage, applications, and online gaming systems as well.
Buying real estate can be a challenge. Whether you are looking to acquire it for your next home or as an investment, one of the most important things to know is whether the market that you are looking to buy in is a buyer’s or a seller’s market. This is because in a buyer’s market there are more properties to buy than there are buyers, making it more advantageous for buyers.
Here are some of the key factors for determining if a real estate market is better for buyers or sellers:
The Amount of Property Inventory
One of the first things that you should do when determining the status of a particular real estate market is to check the number of months of available inventory. You can do this by dividing the number of properties for sale by the number of sales in the past 30 days. A market that has 50 properties for sale and 5 sales within the last month has an inventory of 10 months.
A market with 4 or less months of inventory is considered a seller’s market while a market with more than 7 months of inventory is considered a buyer’s market. A market with 5 to 7 months of inventory is considered balanced. This means that the market favors neither buyers or sellers.
To find the list of properties for sale in a given location, you can use a website such as Trulia.com or Zillow.com. You can find recent sales in a particular region or zip code through Realtor.com.
Mortgage Rates
Another important factor in determining whether a real estate market is better for buyers or sellers is prevailing mortgage rates. When mortgage rates are low, more people have the ability to purchase real estate. This tends to lead to more buyers and the creation of a seller’s market. Conversely, when mortgage rates are high, less people can afford to buy a house and this can lead to a buyer’s market.
You can find current mortgage rates at a variety of websites. You should also pay close attention to financial news that can determine whether mortgage rates will go up or down in the immediate future, such as when the U.S. Federal Reserve raises or lowers its interest rate.
The Performance of Comparable Properties
If you are looking to buy or sell a particular type of property, such as a condominium or a multifamily dwelling, you may have to look at the real estate market at a more granular level. This is because in any given real estate market, some types of properties may be in higher demand than others, and sometimes this difference can be significant.
You can research and compute the value of property as an investment by:
looking only at properties that are comparable to one that you want to buy or sell,
and by considering other important determining factors such as popularity and/or market volume.
The Stability of Prices
When researching a particular real estate market, it is important to look at more than just property prices at any given moment. You need to look as well at the stability of these prices. If properties have been experiencing many price cuts while on the market, this can be a sign of a buyer’s market. Conversely, stable prices (or increases) can mean that it is a seller’s market.
How Long Properties Are Staying on the Market
You should look not only at how many properties are available in a specific market but also at how long these properties have been on the market. If the average property spends many months on the market (or longer), this can be a sign that it is a buyer’s market. On the other hand, if properties are selling within weeks of being put on sale, this likely indicates a seller’s market.
The Volume of Distressed Properties
The volume of distressed properties can indicate the health of a real estate market. A distress property includes the following:
foreclosed sales
short sales
auction sales
A high amount of distressed properties in an area can mean that it is a buyer’s market while having none or few of these types of properties can mean that a seller’s market exists. In a distressed market is also important to consider the health of the local economy and its ability to rebound.
Summary
Understanding the status of the real-estate market can help you determine whether it is a good time to buy or sell. By following these outlined factors, you can effectively come to a more educated and well-rounded market synopsis.
The currency exchange market is one of the most well-known online markets all over the world. However, there are a few things that everyone should be conversant with before you think of financial trading.
In this article, we have explained a few tips on currency trading for beginners that we think will be of help to newbies.
Know the markets
Of course, as a beginner, you need to familiarize yourself with the forex market. Take your time to study and analyze the currency pairs trends and, of course, factors that would affect them before risking your money.
Formulate guiding rules and plan
By creating guiding rules, they help you to stick to your goals. We say in online trading, one of the critical components to successful trading is creating a trading plan. The plan should include profit goals, methodology, as well as risk tolerance strategies.
Practice
As the philosopher says, practice perfects. You need to practice, even if it calls of using a free demo trading account. One of the benefits of the practice is that you get experience, and you are able to learn new ideas every time. On the other hand, you get to learn and analyze market trends.
Forecast the Market Trends
You have an option to trade on various financial trading instruments. But, most successful traders prefer to trade based on news and other financial analysis. In one way or another, for you to become a successful trader, you must be willing to gather as much information as you can. Learn all tricks that minimize your risks by forecasting market movements.
Know your limits
Of course, this should be your guiding principles, because it’s very critical to your future success. Your guiding goals should clearly indicate the extent of how much you are willing to risk. Remember, never risk more than you can afford to lose.
Keep it slow and steady.
One of the key to successful trading is consistency. Of course, traders lose money, but you must maintain a positive edge. You must stick to your trading plan, and that calls patience and being disciplined.
Never forget to use the Demo account.
With all the trading platforms all over the world, every broker provides a demo account for one to practice. Don’t be afraid to use the Demo account since you won’t lose any of your money. Perhaps, it perfects your skills.
Don’t be afraid to explore new ideas.
Do not be afraid to learn and explore new ideas. However, time to time evaluate your trading plan if things are not going your way. Change your plans from time to time as your experience grows, and at the end of the day, all we want is to earn profits.
Conclusion
We are in a competitive world, and people are learning new ideas every day. The market trends change from time to time; that’s why the currency trading market has grown worldwide. However, the trading websites have offered well-organized currency trading for beginners by generating a platform that offers them to gain experience by providing them a free demo account.
Financial spread betting, as the name implies, is a form of betting. It started in the UK and was introduced to the world as a speculative way of changing gold prices in the 1970s.
Notwithstanding, it’s more than a betting game; it is a tax-free method of trading. Through a spread betting platform or spread betting brokers like Pepperstone UK, investors get to make their forecast concerning a global market known, then trade to that effect.
In spread betting, you get to speculate on the upward or downward trend of stocks, shares, assets, etc. without having to go through the stress associated with the traditional trading system. Spread betting allows you to receive higher returns on your trading investments. It is highly flexible, giving you access to diverse markets with just one account.
Unlike the traditional share trading, spread betting investors don’t need to pay anytax, broker’s fee, or commission. The only fee charged in spreading is already added to the quoted price you are speculating on.
The Origin of Spread Betting
Spread betting started via the idea of a young stockbroker named Stuart Wheeler in 1974. Wheeler introduced the concept of speculating on the price movement of gold as an index (even without having the gold physically).
This birthed the company called Investors’ Gold Index. Due to the objection of the Bank of England to the previous name, the name remained so until it had to be changed to IG Index. Before long, IG Index spread its service tentacles to include foreign exchange and significant commodities.
The popularity of the trading system made it a new yet profitable market. This encouraged the springing up of other similar companies. By the late 1980s, the spread betting market had found its footing.
What is “Spread”?
The spread refers to the speculation options: “sell” (Bid) or “Buy” (Offer). A spread is made around a market price (e.g., the actual price of gold or another financial product). You get to make a forecast and bet on whether the market price of the asset chosen will rise or fall.
This means that you make a profit if you predict the movement correctly. If the market doesn’t move as you speculated, you lose money.
What is “Stake”?
The amount of money you wish to bet is known as the “stake.” The amount betted is based on the “per point” movement of the financial product’s price. The size of a ‘point’ varies depending on the asset being betted on. There’s no limit to the minimum or maximum amount to be staked.
Spread Betting Markets
The spread betting platform has various markets, and the investors aren’t restricted to any of the markets. An investor could decide to speculate on the forex market, CFD trading – click here to read more about spread betting vs CFD trading – the stock market, or even financial commodities, such as gold, silver, crude oil, Google company shares, etc.
Spread Betting System
When you bet, you can keep the end date open or set a time limit. The time limit could be within a day or even up to three months; the end period is the close of the trade. Every time the points move in your favor, you win multiples of your stake.
Similarly, every time the points move against your prediction, you lose multiples of your stake. This means that, depending on the market trend, the longer it takes you to close your trade could either work for or against you.
Your profit or loss is the difference in the amount you opened trade with and the amount you accumulated at the close of your trade. As long as the money accumulated by the end of the trade is more than what you started with, you made a profit. If the reverse is the case, then your trade was not profitable. This is why you need to trade with minimal amounts.
If you notice that you’re on the losing end, you can place a stop on your trade. This is a double-edged sword, though. This is on two accounts.
Firstly, if you place a stop on your trade before the due date, you are selling yourself short and can only get a minimal amount back out of the amount you used in initiating the trade. Secondly, you could end trade only for the trends to start moving in your favor. By then, your stop trade would be irreversible, and you again short-changed yourself.
Styles of Spread Betting
Future: Also called the long term-bet,this trade is usually opened at the beginning of a quarter and closed at the end of a quarter. The stakes in this method are typically placed on the point movement of a financial product for a year’s quarter.
The spread trading companies’ trade closure usually comes about during the same period as the Stock Exchange trading quarters. Generally, this trading style is the riskiest and also the most profitable.
Daily: This trading style is the most common and also the most straightforward. Daily spread bets are usually placed at the start of the day and closed at the end of the day. They could also be opened and closed at any time within the day.
Rolling basis: This style is also quite straightforward. This trading style usually rolls into the next day or even days, instead of being closed at the end of the day. This is great if you want to trade for more than a day, but shorter than the quarterly three months.
How To Get Started on Spread Betting
1.Spread Betting Demo Account
Start by registering for a spread betting demo account. The demo account is your guide to learning how to trade. Use this to practice and understand the diverse markets.
The demo account is highly effective because you get to understand the workings of the account without losing money. Only after you’ve understood the operations of the demo account should you set up a real account.
2.Set Up a Real Account
The first step towards becoming a spread betting trader is setting up a real account. Research the best spread betting company and platform that suits your needs. There are diverse varieties of spread betting platforms.
The most major ones are as follows: Web-based trading platform, downloadable trading platform, and mobile app trading platform. After making your pick based on its suitability, set up an account with the platform’s company. It’s imperative to understand your chosen trading platform. Without fully understanding this, losing is inevitable.
You may want to stake several spread bets at a time. Remember not to stake a bet with more than a minimal portion of your capital. Also, keep in mind that there are times when you would win, and there are times when you would lose.
Benefits of Spread Betting
Option to Speculate Up or Down: You get to determine if you want to speculate the product going up or down, hence you aren’t restricted to betting just up.
No Limit to Trading Amount:Spread betting allows you to trade with low amounts when compared with what investors in the real market put down. Also, spread betting is a margined trade, so you only need to deposit a small percentage of your capital to trade.
This method helps protect you even if you lose any trade. This means that even if you lose a particular trade, your major capital is still intact.
Less Time-consuming: After understanding the trade workings of the spread betting platform, it’s less time-consuming to navigate through. You can keep doing this while still holding on to your full-time job.
No Commission/Tax/Broker’s Fee: With spread betting, you get to initiate the trade process all by yourself without needing to pay the broker’s fee to a middle man. Also, spread betting is tax-free.
Asides this, no commission is removed from your profit. The only amount that the platform benefits from is a meager amount, which is added to the spread on the quoted price that you stake on.
Access to Financial Market: Spread betting allows you to speculate and make money from diverse financial markets that you otherwise wouldn’t have had access to.
Market Flexibility: You get access to various markets with that one account you have. You could decide to bet on the stock market, on shares, commodities, etc. all with one account.
One Account – One Currency: With spread trading, you do not have to worry about expensive exchange rates since you can trade in either Pounds, Euros, or Dollars.
Additional Spread Betting Tips
Use a free Demo account to get the hang of the trading system first.
Familiarize yourself with the risks involved in the spread betting platform before you start trading.
You can also consider seeking the expertise of a spread betting specialist before you start trading with substantial money.
You could also take online courses, read books, listen to talks, and watch videos about the spread betting platforms as well as how to make money through them.
React quickly yet efficiently to changing market patterns.
Trade responsibly with just a minimal amount.
How to Reduce Your Risk
Naturally, spread betting, just like other similar trades, is highly risky. The reason is that the prices quoted move rapidly, reflecting actual market conditions; this could be for or against you.
The complicated system means that you need to understand how the system works. Without understanding this, you’re like a student who went for an exam intentionally prepared to fail.
Here are some strategies that help reduce risk in spread betting:
Stop Loss Order: One good strategy for reducing your risk is the use of trading order accounts. This reduces loss by automatically adding a Stop Loss order to your trade to help reduce the risk of money loss. It could also recommend that you manually add a Stop Loss order to your trade. This does not guarantee a loss-free trade, though.
Structuring Entry and Exit: Structuring trades to fit with the price movement pattern of your financial product is an effective way of reducing your risk. You need to understand the highest possibility at stake for your entry and exit plans.
To understand the price movement pattern, you should follow the news of your financial market to know the general market index.
News-based Strategies: Following the news allows you to know economic changes that could affect the price movement of your underlying asset. A drastic change in the known commercial pattern could help you realize that prices are bound to nose-dive. This would give you a winning possibility.
Market Experience: This comes after you have known your way around well. Due to the experience, you must have accumulated trading on the platform; you would come about new personal strategies that would help boost your wins. With this, you would know the right kinds of assets to bet on at each specific time.
Do well to review your losses. Analyze the wrong moves you made and learn from it. This builds your market experience, helping you to carve your own winning moves.
Money Management Strategy: Don’t take excess financial risks at any point, even if you sense a high possibility of you winning. It could be tempting to put in huge money to win big, but this is a highly risky move. If the odds go against you, your money is gone.
Swing Trading Strategy: This is also known as the positioned trading strategy. This strategy means that the trader looks towards multiple trades in various markets and decides on their winning points. It is called swing strategy because the trader is taking a swing at multiple markets.
After identifying the possible highs and lows, the trader places stake on the price quotes of all the financial products chosen in the various markets. This is a very risky trading strategy as it could result in multiple losses. Notwithstanding, this strategy is very profitable if harnessed correctly.
Understanding the longer-term trend pattern is essential to stay afloat with this strategy. This strategy is not for the faint-hearted neither is it suitable for the jumping jacks. It is suitable for well-experienced traders that can painstakingly analyze the various markets and their trends for positive use.
Conclusion
Just like forex trading and CFDs, spread betting is a high level of risk investment. It’s essential to understand the market system and trading strategies well in order to stay on top of your game. Look beyond your losses, but learn from them to help gain more profit.
Most importantly, trade wisely and responsibly. Don’t trade with large amounts that you can’t bear losing. Finally, prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.
Beginning to understand the world of stocks and shares is a true joy. The mapping of the peaks and troughs, the thrills at the highs and the learning from the lows. Watching the world change numerically, it truly is a wonder. The beginning stages are a steep learning curve, so you’re rewarded richly along the way. However, when it comes to understanding the minutiae of the stock market, the rewards become fewer and further between. That’s when these key attributes make themselves known. If you hone these skills and qualities then you might just have what it takes to succeed in the stock market.
Always Being One Step Ahead
If you’re looking for a career in stock broking then ensuring that you’re always one step ahead of the game is an essential skill to develop. Many stock brokers also make excellent poker players as the two both involve strategic and quick thinking. Shuize Cai used his stock broking experience to out-think the competition at his first ever poker tournament, which would be impressive enough alone, without the prize pool being a massive $165,000. This ability to keep cool when the stakes are high is a talent that some people naturally possess, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn it too. These two skills combined are perhaps the most valuable to have in your arsenal, with a cool head and a one step ahead strategy, you’re much more likely to be successful.
One quality that almost anyone at the top of their game possesses is incredible self discipline. Whether it’s professional boxers sticking to a rigorous diet and training regime, or competitive chess players cramming in hours upon hours of practice, self discipline is an essential habit. Truly understanding the stock market takes time and dedication. Set yourself a daily schedule, for checking shares, seeing how they’re moving and trying to spot useful patterns. Perhaps you could wake up an hour earlier and spend some time studying before the rest of the world is even out of bed. If you’re more of a night owl, then do the same but once everyone else has gone to bed. Total peace and quiet will help your studying no end; it’s these habits that will truly make the difference.
An Eye for Detail
Whilst some people are naturally blessed with an eye for spotting patterns, the rest of us have to learn that skill. During your studying time, you’ll likely spend more than a few sessions scratching your head, wondering why you can’t see the things that other people seem to be. Don’t be discouraged though, these sessions are by no means wasted, they’re simply warming up your skills. After a while, you’ll start seeing patterns more quickly. Practice does pay off and before long you’ll have developed that eye for detail. You’ll notice things falling, or perhaps annual trends, well ahead of the competition – and that’s where the big rewards could start coming in.
And Finally? A Passion for it
One of the attributes that is often overlooked in great stock brokers and businessmen, is their passion for the subject. Think back to school, perhaps you were gifted at physics, but never achieved your full potential because you simply didn’t find the subject interesting. On the other hand, you may have found mathematics a little mystifying, but you stuck at it because you were enthralled by the subject and thus, you succeeded. Although passion alone is not enough to be truly successful, it makes it an awful lot easier to develop all of the other skills. If you are full of the need to understand the stock market, then you’ll invest yourself in studying strategy, looking for patterns, listening to people talk about it and that self discipline we mentioned earlier? It will come naturally, because the study won’t seem like a chore. Let your passion develop as you begin to understand the fascinating world of stocks and shares – that’s the secret to truly becoming an expert.
It is fair to say that the decade hasn’t gotten off to the greatest start. Beginning with China alerting authorities of an unknown virus, no one would have been able to foresee how this virus would end up impacting on the economies of the world and the state of Forex Trading. When the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the recently named “novel coronavirus” a global emergency in late January, it became scarily apparent that the ramifications would be felt around the world, not just in China. The director of WHO, Tedros Adhanom, clarified that the emergency was now to be considered global “because of what is happening in other countries.”
Impact Among Countries Being ground zero of the virus, it was expected that China would experience a considerable drop in the market. In addition to the decline in the strength of their currency, they have seen a spark in volatility. Another country which has seen its economy be badly hit is Australia. Whilst it is managing quite well with the virus itself and maintaining a low amount of cases and deaths, its economy is experiencing extreme volatility and has seen a 17-year low, with the AUD/USD dropping to 0.57 which is a bigger drop than in the worst days of the Global Financial Crisis. One of the main reasons for Australia’s issues is the fact that it relies on China as its biggest trade partner. The charts below illustrate the recent volatility of the Chinese and Australian currencies. Europe has been hit hard by the virus, causing severe impact on their local bourses and currency prices. The EUR/USD has mainly experienced a downward trends since the arrival of the coronavirus. Despite efforts by the European Central Bank to repair their disrupted economies, the US dollar is seeing more investment than the Euro.
The United Kingdom has seen a decrease in the value of its currency. Their approach to the novel virus, more specifically their delayed reaction, has caused much doubt amongst both its citizens and investors around the world about the foreseeable strength of the UK market. Compounded with the ongoing ambiguities regarding Brexit, the Pound Sterling saw a steady decrease throughout March. However, their belated approach did help avoid volatility in the early stages of the virus.
Despite becoming the new epicentre for the virus, the United Stated Dollar has actually seen an increase in strength. This is mainly due to the fact it is considered the world’s reserve currency. Investors are still willing to place their trust in the USD for this reason, even if their economy has taken a hit. The USD for this reason is always considered a safe-haven for traders during crises such as the current coronavirus pandemic.
What does this mean for traders?
While the US dollar seems an obvious choice to invest in, it is still experiencing an unusual level of volatility. Its current strength may not be able to withstand the devastating effects the coronavirus is having on US healthcare and financial systems. The future timeline of the virus will be difficult to determine. The current state of forex trading is quite challenging. It can be difficult to predict the peaks and troughs of exchange markets during these times of high volatility. However, this does not mean that one cannot trade effectively. As news about the virus continues to develop and the state of the world is changing at such a rapid pace, it is imperative to be cautious when trading. Conducting research and making sure to stay on top of the latest developments will allow traders to be more confident with their investments. Justin Grossbard is a Co-Founder of Compare Forex Brokers, a business that guides Forex traders with tips and trips on how to select the right broker and platform for them.
For many, the idea of forex trading might seem like a distant dream – something that only finance professionals working in a big institution can achieve. But, like many occupations today, the internet has opened this sector out to virtually anyone with the drive, commitment and interest to make it happen.
There’s also a wide range of tools and other aids to help would-be traders on their journey. Armed with these, along with those well-established habits needed for investment success, a successful career should be within many people’s reach. Plus, the seven steps we’ve outlined below should be of great help too.
Prepare with a demo account
While it’s definitely accessible, forex trading can also seem quite complicated, especially to novices. Taking advantage of one of the many demo accounts available is an excellent first step. Most brokers offer them, and they will give you the chance to start trading risk-free. Such accounts are generally only available for a limited period so try to choose the one which gives you as long as possible to practice before you move on to the real thing.
Choose your broker with care
In reality, you can have any number of demo accounts, which gives you the chance to try out a number of brokers. Different ones have different styles, fees and methods of working so it’s a question of finding the one that suits you best. Several online brokers offer bonuses to encourage new forex traders to sign up, and this can be like having free money to invest. Keep in mind that certain such bonuses require a deposit on your part, while others don’t. Whichever one you choose, make sure that you understand the terms and conditions to be confident that you can take full advantage of them.
Follow the bloggers
You’ll find bloggers online covering every single subject imaginable, and forex trading is no exception. Some will be experts while others will be people who want to share their own forex trading journeys. All will have something worthy to say, though, to help you with your own trading. There are also several online forums where you’ll be able to find advice, opinions and a wealth of other information that could well prove to be invaluable.
Do your research
If you’re looking for expert advice then it’s a good idea to turn to brokers who have proven themselves to be successful in the field. Just a quick scout around will find you innumerable books and e-books packed with advice about forex trading. It’s also well worth looking out for online learning opportunities like webinars where you’ll be able to also ask any questions you might have. Several of these are available for free, too.
Try out social trading
Another great way to gain an advantage from following the experts is by signing up to one of the many social trading applications available online. This means that you can precisely shadow a highly-accomplished trader. Such a move allows you to closely emulate their methods and investment choices. However, before you start doing this, make sure that you’ve thoroughly checked out their track record and success rate – and keep an eye on developments too.
Sign up to an academy
Source: Pexels
Of course, one of the very best ways to get a thorough grounding in the ins and outs of forex trading is to enroll in an official trading academy. The courses range from the short to the considerably longer, depending on the time and money that you want to invest. You’ll also be able to be confident that the tuition you’ll be receiving will be from experts. Plus, you’ll benefit from their personal attention and feedback, as well as support that may well continue after the course has concluded.
Keep your finger on the pulse
Finally, remember that the real world always has an effect on currencies, so keeping fully abreast of financial, economic and political news is essential. Even small nuggets of seemingly inconsequential information could help to inform your moves – so make sure you stay in the loop.
Armed with this information, you’re undoubtedly in a good place to start making your first tentative steps into forex trading. But remember that you have to walk before you can run, so take it steady and start planning for the long term now.
One of the key drivers of any successful forex trading strategy is the depth and variety of the analysis carried out by an individual trader. The factors which can be analyzed include everything from external news events to economic interventions on the part of governments and the constant stream of signals which indicate emerging trends in the market. One aspect which is often overlooked, particularly by novice investors, is the important role which time frames play in developing an investment strategy. It should go without saying that having a wide ranging, flexible and firmly embedded strategy is a must for anyone who takes their forex trading seriously and utilizing multiple time frames in a manner which chimes with your wider investment style should form a key part of that strategy.
In simple terms, time frame analysis encompasses monitoring the movement of a particular currency pair across what are known as time compressions. Time compressions are simply periods of time during which the movements of currencies in relation to each other can be tracked and analyzed to reveal trends which are currently impacting and predict those which are likely to emerge in the future. In general, three separate time frames should be sufficient to give a trader a broad and detailed reading of the market. Anything less than three-time frames may mean that details are being missed, and the reading of the market that emerges is less effective than it could be. The specific duration of these time frames will be driven by the type of trading strategy being operated in general. A trader who prefers long term trading which involves holding positions for weeks or months at a time will have little use for time frames which are only minutes or hours in duration, for example, and the converse is true if a trader prefers trading quickly and repeatedly. Of course, the appeal of forex trading as a whole is largely driven by the fact that the currency market are highly liquid, comparatively volatile and accessible 24 hours a day. All of these facts come together to create an environment in which the best and most successful traders are those who know how to work with time frames in order to support the type of trading which they specialize in.
When choosing the time frames to work with, a good rule of thumb is to first select a medium-term frame which represents the average length of time for which trading positions are held. The short term time frame to be selected next should be a quarter of the medium term, while the long term time frame should be four times the medium term. It’s vital that the initial medium-term frame synchs with the general approach to trading. A day trader who, as a rule, doesn’t hold positions for longer than a day will benefit very little from time frames as long as a day, week or month, while long term traders will derive very little of value from 15 minutes, 60 minute and 240 minute time frames. Although every trader is an individual with their own trading style – determined by factors such as whether they trade as a full-time profession or merely an addition to actual employment, how much experience they have of trading and whether they are temperamentally suited to the concentration and quick-fire decision making needed to open and close multiple positions rapidly – it’s safe to say that traders, on the whole, can be divided into three distinct categories; day traders who rarely hold positions overnight, swing traders who hold positions for longer in order to take advantage of larger-scale fluctuations within the forex markets, and long term traders who may hold positions for months and even years.
The time frames used by a trader will be determined by which of these categories they fall into, and it’s perfectly possible for a single trader – albeit one with the time, resources and experience needed – to work over several different time periods at once, by having some positions which are traded quickly and some which are held for longer periods. Depending upon the strategy being pursued, the time frames used can range from a one-minute time frame, through five minutes, an hour and four hours, all the way up to a day, a week, a month or even a year. By choosing the time frames which coincide with their wider strategy a forex trader can build a picture of the trends impacting a pair of currencies over the short, medium and long term, as those periods apply within that strategy. Another tool which might be used by extremely short term traders – also known as ‘scalpers’ – are tick charts which, rather than having a set time period between data points, show data points which are created when another criteria, such as a certain number of trades being made, has been met.
One useful piece of advice for novice traders to bear in mind is that swing and trend trading are probably the best strategies via which to learn how the market works, develop your trading instincts and come to understand the value of multiple time frames. Scalping and even day trading both require high levels of concentration and the ability to absorb losses at the same time as generating profits, while a longer-term strategy is one which can be planned carefully in advance and then left to play out. Swing traders generally make use of technical analysis in order to determine the entry and exit points of trades in a way which takes advantage of price patterns which play out over multiple days. Trend trading takes this approach even further, with the trader having identified what they believe to be an overall trend in the market, taken a position relevant to that trend and then waited for the trend to play put. Traders of this kind tend to look at the fundamentals of economic activity and base their decisions on factors which can take weeks, months and sometimes even years to deliver their full impact. A novice trader adopting a trend or swing outlook won’t be hampered by the fact that they are unlikely to have the kind of fast reaction times employed by the best and most successful scalpers and day traders. By working with time frames such as an four hours, a day and a week, a forex trader relatively new to the practice will learn how to operate strategically, how to interpret the different movements of a currency pair in order to determine what the short, medium and long term prospects for the pair are, and how to choose positions on the basis of that information. A longer-term trader, for example, could use a weekly chart in order to analyze the long term trend for a currency or currencies and daily and four-hour charts to determine exactly when to enter trades. By utilizing a combination of time frames a trader will be able to spot both the longer-term trend and the smaller shifts within that trend, meaning that they can take up positions in line with the trend and do so with the timing needed to maximize the chances of making a profit.
Discover the fundamentals of trading with a small account
Small accounts have pros and cons. Limited funds make trading more stressful. However, these tips may help you gain profit even with a modest deposit.
Every
aspiring trader dreams of million-dollar volumes. However, many players are
stuck with modest sums. Sometimes, accounts only suffice to meet the margin
requirements. Getting to impressive trade volumes is no piece of cake. Luckily,
ForexTime broker has a few expert
tips that can help you.
Small
accounts are offered by most brokers, and they have their own benefits. Newbies
are often daunted by large volumes. After all, these require adequate skills
and financial acumen. Starting small is a reasonable choice for the least
experienced. Usually, it is a stage in their transition to serious trading.
Generally,
the less you trade — the more vital your risk management. Small accounts are
associated with a lack of protection against losses and errors. Supposing you
deposited $600, just enough to meet the margin requirement. If your trades
bring $650 in loss, this renders the account unusable. Until you deposit
additional funds, trades may not be resumed.
Small vs. Large
The
difficulties of the small trading stem from the absence of buffering. Holders
of large accounts take advantage of special features and tactics. These can
safeguard their funds from errors, unforeseen losing streaks, and even
incompetent traders. Besides, the considerable size of funds opens access to
any available market.
With
a modest account, you are limited in terms of both marketplace and strategies.
For access, you need to pick platforms with low tick values and margin
requirements. Counterparts with large accounts are flexible in their practices.
For example, they may trade multiple contracts at once. Meanwhile, your choice
is very limited.
Psychological Effects of Small Sums
Finally,
there is a psychological dimension. The more protection there is — the more
comfortable you feel. It is important to understand how limitations may affect
the quality of judgement. This connection may be observed in other spheres of
life. When you know you must make a profit, you have to be laser-focused.
Here,
a single mistake will result in untradeability. This is the last thing anyone
can wish for. Overall, the emotional pressure is therefore immense. For many
people, this impairs decision making. Just think of a stressful situation when
you were pushed to make a decision. How reasonable was your choice? In this
regard, undercapitalized accounts are for the most stress-resistant.
Loss
is a normal element of every trader’s life. It is impossible to ensure all
strategies you pick are profitable. Therefore, it is vital to follow these
tips. Aside from the obvious downsides, small accounts have their own benefits.
After all, they are still traded profitably by many. Even pros may use them.
Tip 1. Use Leverage
This
feature allows you to boost trading volumes. In essence, you will be using a
portion of funds from the broker. For small accounts, this means access to many
more markets. The ratios depend on the broker’s policies.
For
instance, leverage of 1:100 gives you $100,000 volume with merely $1000
deposited. As long as you meet the margin requirement, potential gains are
incomparably bigger. In the realm of stocks, the options market only requires
you use 15% of your cash for trading.
It
should always be remembered that higher volumes bring higher risks. Hence, as
your volumes are ramped up, you may lose more than you could without leverage.
This is why newbies are urged to practice in the risk-free demo mode before
venturing into the world of real-cash trading.
Tip 2. Conservative Approach
As a holder of a small account, you do not have the luxury of opening high-risk positions. There is no room for error. You should always analyze your risk-to-reward and win-to-loss ratios. This is because stop-loss tools allow exceeding the targets only slightly.
Tip 3. 1-Percent Risk
This
rule is simple yet highly useful. Not only does it give you the much-needed
buffer. The scope of protection is comparable to that for larger accounts.
Trading errors are much less scary and disorienting. In general, the technique
is applied by traders of all account types. Learn from the mistakes of others
and apply the wisdom accumulated over the decades.
What This All Means
Although
small accounts are often deemed unprofitable by definition, there are paths to
success. Dealing with undercapitalized accounts requires foresight and
experience, but failure is not inevitable. When managed wisely, even modest
funds may bring returns. You must:
Be aware of the psychological toll that may hinder your judgement.
Focus on risk management.
Pursue a consistent 1% strategy.
Thus,
here is the most important takeaway. If you want to trade wisely with a small
account, remember these simple aspects. When followed rigorously, they may
change your trading performance dramatically — even with only a small account.
If this type was doomed to default, it would not be used by millions of rookies
and pros across the world.
To help schools transition to distance learning this Spring, we put together our complete Distance Learning resource pack for teachers across North America. We’re opening up most of our premium resources to use for free, with how-to guides to help all teachers hit the ground running.
Distance learning best practices webinar – using examples from our premium Personal Finance Lab version.
The Essential Distance Learning Lesson Plans
Our flexible, customizable, 100% online Lesson Plan library is now available for all teachers! Previously only part of our premium Personal Finance Lab library, these lessons have articles, videos, built-in assessments, activities that use our Stock and Budgeting games, and more. Just pick out which activities you want to use for your class, and go!
Lesson plans are supplemented with pre-built PowerPoint/Google Slide presentations, quizzes/assessments, and other 100% online activities for your class!
We normally charge $10 per student for our Budgeting Game, but we’re making it 100% free for our National Challenge!
Your class will take on the role of college students with a part-time job, managing their variable income and expenses, building up their credit score and quality of life, and finding ways to save up a healthy Emergency Fund!
If your HTMW stock game is ending soon (or already ended), now is the time to extend it! If it is still running, you can extend the dates from your “Edit Contests” page – if it already ended and you want to open it back up for the rest of the year, ask our Support Team for help!
Of course, if you don’t already have a stock game set up for this semester, now is absolutely the time to get one! This is an entirely free resource, keeps students completely engaged, comes with built-in forums and online lessons, and more reasons to sign up than we can list!
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A full premium license for all of our resources is normally $15 per student, but from now through May 31, you can sign up your class for just $5/student. Keep in mind: this is only for the full customizable, ad-free version – all of our other resources will remain completely free!
If it takes more than 10 seconds to explain a
theme, then it is probable that it was never a theme to begin with. This is the
main principle of thematic investing and what is certain is that this type of
investing is sweeping the financial industry by storm. Over the next 5 years,
likely you will hear more and more brokers offering Thematic Investing. It is
one company though that is at the forefront of this trading revolution and here
is why.
TRADE.com the European licensed multi asset
brokerage house, in addition to its many other exciting, high probability
products offers Thematic Portfolios. But before we learn about this product,
let’s first understand why people would want to trade thematics.
Thematic Portfolios are more of a longer term approach to the markets then other trading types. Generally trading focuses on the here and now, with traders concerned over a pip here and there. Thematics though, focuses on a trend or an idea, something that may capture the hearts and minds of the investor. Examples of this may be meatless meats, which is now becoming a monster of a trend. If you had invested in this theme only a year ago, you would be smiling today. TRADE.com offers a selection of different themed portfolios and you will select those that resonate with you, or that you think will go on to perform stronger and stronger over time.
One of their portfolios is Robotics & AI, another Cybersecurity and a third and fourth Water Technology and Clean Energy. These are important industry sectors and they are becoming ever more important as time goes by. How do you know? Well simply take a look at the performance of Water Technology over the last year. It shows 32% growth in the last year. Will this kind of growth continue? That is up to you to decide.
So how can you invest in these key ideas? Quite simply, start by opening an account with TRADE.com Thematics. Verify your identity and then click on the type of portfolio you’d like to open. Here we have stuck with the theme of Water Technology and the image below shows you what the portfolio looks like. You have the choice here to stick with the default settings or to change the amount of units of each company stock inside the portfolio.
Remember of course to make a deposit into your
wallet by clicking on the blue button you see above.
Here’s some tips to take on board when
investing in Thematic investing.
Diversity is
key when trying to manage risk. Choose a mix of different caps and
sectors.
Remember small
caps which are usually newer companies can bring higher risks as they need
to develop further, but rewards here are generally greater.
Try to evaluate the companies inside any
portfolio by doing your homework before you open a portfolio, take a look
at their fundamentals, their market cap and the equity summary score. Here
Thomson Reuters StarMine can really help know a company’s strengths and
weaknesses based on its performance. The higher the score the more
attractive the stocks are considered.
Timothy Sykes is regarded by many as one of the leading penny stocks traders in
the world. His revolutionary trading system is anything but conventional. He
outwardly eschews ‘slow growth’ investments in top performing stocks on the
NASDAQ, Dow Jones, and S&P 500. Rather, he focuses his energy on
over-the-counter (OTC) penny stocks, otherwise known as pink slips. Given that
he became a multi-millionaire in his early 20s trading penny stocks, his advice
is highly regarded in the trading world. In a series of interviews with leading
personalities on major news networks, Sykes explains how his trading systems
work.
He does not advocate get-rich-quick schemes;
his program is extensive and all-encompassing. It takes 12 months of
dedication, learning, and understanding to truly experience the power of the
newfound knowledge that you will gain. Naturally, the level of success that a
trader realizes from the trading program is dependent upon the trader. Markets
are volatile, and no trading system, or strategy can ever guarantee favorable
returns. In this review of
Timothy Sykes’s program, we can see how it differs from many other programs. It
is effectively a comprehensive education into the world of stocks trading,
particularly pennystocking.
When people reflect on penny stocks, they
typically think of the Leonardo DiCaprio’s rendition of the Wolf of Wall
Street. Jordan Belfort, a dishonest trader, employed cronies to sell pink slips
to unsuspecting buyers, only to dump the stocks when prices surged. This ‘Pump
and Dump’ scheme is not only illegal; it is the polar opposite of the methods
that Timothy Sykes advocates. He studies markets intensely, analyzes price
movements, learns about investments and upcoming announcements, and then makes
informed trading decisions whether to buy long, or sell short. These important
concepts are illustrated in depth in his ‘Tim Challenge’ program.
Tip #1 – There Is No Substitute for A
Comprehensive Education
Stocks trading required an in-depth
knowledge of the market. This is expressed in no uncertain terms in the course
material he offers. The Tim Sykes’ program does not provide a silver bullet for
every wannabee stock trader and investor. The coursework is intensive. It
mirrors the type of material you would receive at an Ivy League school for
equities trading. That’s the strength of his course. There are video tutorials,
webinars, guides, articles, and a community of traders. The entire course can
take up to 12 months to complete, during which time traders will garner a
thorough understanding of the financial markets.
Tip #2 – Don’t Believe Everything You Read in
the Media
Many people are mistaken about penny stocks.
They believe that these financial instruments, OTC companies, are all illegal
operations run by conmen and scammers. While there are many disreputable
operators in the mix, the penny stocks arena is peppered with many uncut gems
waiting to be unearthed. That’s why it is important to do the requisite
research into the companies, to understand their frameworks, mission, vision,
and impending partnerships with other companies. Timothy Sykes goes to great
pains to extol the virtues of this largely untapped market for mainstream
investors and traders. While it is extremely volatile, this is precisely the
reason it provides traders with opportunities to generate substantial profits.
Caution is advised: traders risk loss of capital.
Tip #3 – It Is Possible to Generate Profits
By Betting Against Stocks That You Choose
First-time traders, and even a large number
of established investors, follow a linear pattern when it comes to investing.
They believe that the only way to make money when buying a stock (or trading
stock) is when you buy low and sell high. With the Timothy Sykes trading
course, traders will learn that it’s just as easy to make money betting against
a stock. In other words, short-selling stocks. This occurs when a company’s
stock price is going to drop because of a host of factors. For example, if
Apple Inc was interested in a company that is a penny stock, but Apple has not
done anything with that company’s products or services, chances are the stock
price will drop over time. By betting against the stock i.e. shorting the stock,
it is possible to make money on the downside.
These
are but a few of the many valuable lessons that traders can learn through the
Timothy Sykes program.
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Whether you’re a beginner or well-versed in investments, you probably know that one of the “rules” is that you need to diversify your investment portfolio. So, say you’ve already got some property investments and you wish to branch out.
Cable seems like a good idea, but is it really? You’ve been hearing some rumblings that cable isn’t likely to stick around for much longer. After all, it’s dying and more and more, people are looking into alternatives.
It’s
important to do some thorough research before deciding to sink your money into
any particular venture, and this is no different. Allow us to consider the pros
and cons of investing in cable companies and whether or not they’re actually a
good idea for your portfolio.
People Are Leaving Cable Behind, But They’re Moving Online
The
fear-mongering whispers are everywhere: cable is dying! And it’s true –
subscribers are cutting the cord en-masse, because a lot of the time, the deals
are simply not worth it anymore.
The
prices are high, the packages are bloated, and there are better ways to get
your TV fix. However, just because they’re switching from cable doesn’t mean
they aren’t opting for other services within the same company.
If you
take a look at any of the major cable companies, they lost cable subscribers,
but they gained way more broadband subscribers. To the tune of millions, and
much surpassing what they lost with cord cutting.
Comcast
and Charter were able to cover their losses and then some. Others were not so
lucky: both DISH and AT&T gained broadband subscribers in place of the ones
they lost, but it wasn’t enough to make up for it.
Look For Companies Who Are Competitive
A
major part of a company’s long-term survival is their degree of
competitiveness. The market is big enough for a few different cable companies,
but the successful ones know how to distinguish themselves by putting out
competitive offers meant to attract customers. That supports them on the market
and gives them a bit of leverage.
Companies
who deal strictly with cable will not fare as well over time, because they are
limited in what they can offer customers. In contrast, other companies have an
entire range of services and holdings that can give them an advantage and a
boost over the companies that have a narrower range.
Companies
can also get a leg up on the competition by offering different service bundles
that can really set them apart and offer customers attractive services they
wouldn’t have normally been able to get.
The
point of offering bundles, deals, and extras is to incentivize customers to
sign up or keep their cable subscription. If they drop cable, they also lose
other services that come with it or they lose discounts and access to certain
things they want.
However,
if the price is right for the value they feel they receive, they will be
satisfied to keep the subscription, even if they might not be interested in
cable. It’s all about striking a balance in what customers look for and what
the company is offering them. The companies that survive are the ones that know
how to gain a competitive edge.
Who’s Adapting Based on Consumer Preferences?
The
choice to make when it comes to cable companies is all about who is flexible
enough to adapt to the new trends and consumer expectations. The interesting
thing with cable is that while customers may be giving it up, that doesn’t mean
they’re not still interested in the channels they were getting. They may just
not be willing to continue to pay for overpriced packages.
The
secret may be putting together packages for streaming
services – these packages tend to offer the best
of both worlds. The price is lower than a traditional cable package, but it
still retains all the channels customers are interested in.
The
trend is definitely skewing towards streaming services, as more and more
companies are creating their own. It is those companies that are likely to fare
well over the ones stuck in the past and only offering traditional cable
options.
Should You Invest in a Cable Company?
So,
all things considered, are cable companies worth investing in? Well, it really
depends on the company you are looking to invest in. Not all cable companies
are the same, and while some of them are not likely to produce a good return,
there are others that are projected to survive long-term. So, in short: cable
companies are worth investing in, as long as you pick the right ones.
The
ones to stay away from are the companies that haven’t been able to make the
transition successfully. Unfortunately, there are companies who are very much
stuck in the past and who continue to operate in the exact same way they did
twenty years ago. Because of the rapidly changing landscape, these companies
will not make it.
On the
flipside, we’ve also got companies who had the forethought to expand and change
with the times. There are, indeed, companies who have managed to integrate
streaming services and who’ve created packages
that are attractive and that incentivize both existing customers and new ones.
That
turned out to be a winning strategy for cable companies, because it allows them
to not only stay afloat, but actively generate more value and create more
profit in the long term.
Identifying
these companies who are looking towards the future and investing in them can be
a sound decision. They will continue to be at the forefront of the industry and
will continue to keep your money safe.
Do you want to be a great investor and have your portfolio consistently beat the market?
Most people think it is as simple as picking more stocks that go up than go down.
Well, it’s not quite that simple.
The real answer to becoming a great investor is to build a portfolio of stocks that outperforms the market every year.
We all have seen the data that says, over most time periods of 10 years or more, the stock market averages 8%-10% return. At that rate, your portfolio should double every 8 years.
But wait! Isn’t the goal to BEAT the market?
Do you realize that if you can get a 20% return every year do you realize that your portfolio will DOUBLE every 4 years and QUADRUPLE every 8 years?
Isn’t that what you really want as an investor?
Fortunately, you have come to the right place. The fact you landed on this page means you already know who David Gardner is and what his reputation is regarding beating the market.
Take a look at that chart again, which I pulled off their site on March 7, 2021.
Since 2002, when David and his brother Tom launched their first newsletter, called Stock Advisor, the S&P is up an average of 117%. While Tom’s picks are fantastic being up 286%, David’s are up 827%. Talk about beating the market!
David’s picks started outperforming Tom’s and so David launched his own newsletter called Rule Breakers that targets companies with high growth potential in high growth markets.
So if you want to get just David’s stock picks, you should take a look at that service.
Before I jump in and reveal some of David’s stock picks, let me give you a quick history.
What is the Motley Fool?
David and Tom Gardner started the Motley Fool in the early days of the internet in 1993.
Their goal is to help investors become smarter, happier and richer.
Specifically, their goal is to help investors beat the market buy finding undervalued stocks in high growth industries. They do say over and over again that you should plan on holding at least 15 of their stocks for 5 years or more.
Today, the Motley Fool runs a full suite of podcasts, webpages, and stock predictions.
It’s a full-service stock advising machine that helps people beat the market.
Their newsletter, “Stock Advisor,” has over 700,000 subscribers.
These guys claim that if you’d been picking stocks just based on the Stock Advisor, you’d beat the market by 507% to 117% over the lifespan of the newsletter.
Both David and Tom started the Motley Fool, and they both submit their separate picks to the Stock Advisor newsletter each month.
And while they get equal credit for being brilliant investors who have started a wildly successful stock-picking machine…
…David is the slightly better stock picker (so far).
David Gardner’s stock picks for the Stock Advisor have outperformed his brother’s picks by a wide margin.
Tom’s Stock Advisor picks have also beat the S&P 500.
Tom’s picks have gained 286%, while the S&P 500 has only gained 117%.
And as good as this sounds, David has done even better.
David’s Stock Advisor picks have gathered momentum amounting to 827% over the same amount of time.
If you were only picking David instead of Tom, you could beat the market by a lot more.
We bought a subscription to Motley Fool’s incredibly popular Stock Advisor service over five years ago to figure out just how good the stocks picks were.
Over that time, David picked high-performance stocks like AMZN, NFLX, DIS, BKNG, and SHOP.
All of those picks that were just listed have shot up over 1,000% in the timespan after he picked them.
David usually finds one stock each year that has an incredible performance.
Plus, if you get in on the ground floor when he recommends, you stand to make a lot of money.
The Motley Fool now also runs The Motley Fool Rule Breakers which is just for David’s picks.
Since Rule Breakers has launched, the those picks have beat the market by 6 times, or 6x!
David Gardner Stock Performance (Since 2016)
Not convinced yet?
Here are some highlights from David Gardner’s stock picks over the last few years, since 2016.
While it doesn’t give you an idea of just what the averages are, we’ll take a look at those below.
For now, just think what it would’ve meant to have any of these individual stocks in your portfolio. Returns as of February 5, 2021
January 2016 pick of PLNT is up 552%
February 2016 pick of SHOP is up 6,026%
March 2016 pick of SHOP again is up 4,815%
Sept 2016 pick of TEAM is up 712%
October 2016 pick of RMD is up 254%
Nov 2016 pick of ETSY is up 1,661%
Nov 16 pick of UI is up 508%
January 2017 pick of TWLO is up 1,277%
Feb 2017 pick of TREX is up 507%
Feb 2017 pick of TTD is up 2,393%
March 2017 pick of VEEV is up 508%
May 2017 pick of TTD again is up another 1,560%
January 2018 pick of AYX is up 379%
Nov 2018 pick of GH is up 337%
January 2019 pick of SKX is up 49%
Feb 2019 pic of GH is up 232%
March 2019 pick of ROKU is up 611%
June 2019 pick of NVCR is up 189%
Sept 2019 pick of TDOC is up 312%
Oct pick of DDOG is up 253%
Nov 2019 picks of ETSY and PTON are up 452 and 361%
For 2020, Jan PINS is up 262%, Feb SE is up 469%, Mar QDEL is up 166%, June HUBS is up 106% and Sept RDFN is up 64%
David Gardner vs. The S&P 500
Now, those are some hand picked stocks from the last few years that have way outperformed the market expectations.
While that isn’t perhaps the best statistical sample for you to see how well David Gardner’s stocks are performing, let’s compare David’s picks to a better sample.
The S&P 500 is a collection of 500 of the largest companies that are listed on the stock exchange.
A stock that plays the S&P 500 bets on all of these companies as a collective, which gives you a nice, stable stock that should give returns.
Here’s how David’s picks compared to the S&P 500 over the last few years (as of Feb 5, 2021):
2016 picks are up 686% as an average vs. the S&P 500 being up 98% since 2016
2017 picks are up 407% as an average vs. the S&P 500 being up 63% since 2017
2018 picks are up 235% as an average vs. the S&P 500 being up 49% since 2018
2019 picks are up 199% as an average vs. the S&P 500 being up 37% since 2017
and the 2020 picks that most don’t even have a year of history are up 88%
Look at those stats!
If you had just been buying equal amounts of the full set of David Gardner’s stocks since 2016 you have 6x the return of the S&P500. That is 323% compared to the market’s 54%! That stat alone is the single most compelling reason to follow David Gardner.
Usually the service is around $300 a year, but usually there are also deals and promotions that allow you to jump in for 50% off or at a lower monthly rate.
Follow this link to the Motley Fool Rule Breakers and you’ll get to see the latest promotion that they are running!
You should be able to try the service for quite a bit cheaper than the full price.
Usually they are also running a deal that allows you to take advantage of a 30-day cancellation period.
You’ll get a full refund and they give it to you without you having to explain yourself!
If you aren’t ready for the full service, you can check out David’s podcast, the Rule Breaker Investing podcast.
We’ve found that Gardner has beaten the S&P 500’s performance for every single 5-stock set that he recommends over the period of a year.
The podcast is a great way to get into the game without paying for the entry fee.
If you like the podcast and appreciate David’s approach, then you can get the full service to take full advantage.
5 of David’s 2019 Picks and How They’re Doing
in 2020
Let’s take a look at 5 of David Gardner’s stock picks from early in 2019.
We’ll see why David chose the stock in the first place, how the stock performed over time, and where the stock currently is in 2020.
David’s podcast gives you a look into the services that they offer.
We’ve selected this podcast at random so that you can see how you would’ve done if you’d listened to a random podcast and bought those stocks on David’s advice!
Pick #1: Carter’s (CRI)
Carter’s, with the NYSE index of CRI, is a children’s clothing company that has a bunch of stores.
They have multiple brands of clothing and have been around for a while.
It’s pretty likely that your parents bought clothing from Carter’s, and you may have done so for your own kids, and you kids might do so for their kids, and so on.
The company has been around, and David thought that it would stay around for a while.
The company has hundreds of stores and does a lot of international business, and also was a forward player in the e-commerce space.
They also have been pretty realistic about the future of retail and the ecommerce world.
They’ve been focusing on closing under-performing stores and driving more traffic online.
When David ran the podcast, the day of the show Carter’s was
trading for $78 a share.
How is Carter’s Doing in 2020?
As of today (1/21/2020), Carter’s is worth $110.38 a share.
That means that the stock went up by a good bit, by more than the market average for stocks.
The company has been successful in it’s closing of stores and the outlook for Carters looks solid.
Pick #2: Ellie Mae (ELLI)
At the time of the 2019 show, Ellie Mae (ELLI) was trading for $69.
The company runs the Encompass Mortgage platform, which a lot of industry leading mortgage lenders use to originate loans and lower costs.
The Encompass platform is a big deal.
The stock went down quite a bit over the course of the months prior to David picking it, but he thought that it was under-performing at the time and that it would bounce back.
A few weeks before David’s show, Ellie Mae said that it was going to move to the Amazon Web Services platform.
David thought that this would be a good move and that the stock had a lot of potential.
How is Ellie Mae Doing in 2020?
Well, this is a bit of a tricky question.
If you look up ELLI right now you’ll see that the stock isn’t worth any money right now, because the stock no longer exists.
But this isn’t because it crashed or because Ellie Mae went bankrupt, it is because the company was acquired.
If you had sold the stock when the Motley Fool Stock Advisory recommended that you sell before the acquisition, you would’ve made out with $98.99 per share, which is about a 50% increase in the original stock price at the time of the podcast.
So while we’ll call this a definite win for David, it
certainly has a bit of an asterisk on it because your growth potential is
capped at the time of the acquisition.
Pick #3: IPG Photonics (IPGP)
IPGP is a NASDAQ company. IPG Photonics was started by a Russian immagrant who now lives in the United States, and he’s got a long history of building companies that do really well.
He has built a ton of intellectual property that is moving the industry toward fibre lasers instead of different kinds of lasers.
Basically, he owns a better version of lasers that people are buying.
Now, David loved this stock because it had lost about half of the value that it had in the summer of 2018.
Which, for him, made it a bargain in the early days of 2019. At the time that the podcast was running you could’ve picked up IPGP for about $128 a share.
How is IPG Photonics Doing in 2020?
David once again made a solid pick.
If you had turned off the podcast and immediately made a trade for IPGP, you’d have seen your stock increase from $128 to $144.85 over the course of 2019 to where it sits currently.
It’s not a bad stock, and might even go up from where it is. IPG Photonics looks like a great long term pick that David could’ve gotten you in early on.
Pick #4: Mercadolibre (MELI)
Mercadolibre is something that David called in the podcast “one of my favorite companies.”
The stock was worth a solid $349 when David recommended that you buy it. What is MELI?
Well, it is the e-commerce leader of Latin America.
David thought that the emerging middle class in Latin America was going to continue to watch Mercadolibre grow with it.
He recommended that you go in and go in fast on MELI.
How is Mercadolibre Doing in 2020?
Suppose you listened to David’s podcast and thought to yourself that MELI sounded like a great bargain.
It represents something of the Amazon of Latin America.
Suppose you put all your money into this single stock?
Well, as of today (1/21/2020), MELI is trading for $658.46 a share, which would mean that you’ve almost doubled your money in a single year!
Now that’s a great stock pick.
Pick #5: Planet Fitness (PLNT)
When David told you to buy Planet Fitness, the gym phenomenon that is banking on relatable branding and cheap membership fees, the stock was trading at $58 a share.
The wellness space is continuing to boom, and David thought that one year ago, despite the rise of boutique fitness and hipster wellness, PLNT would be able to rise through the trends and be a solid bet.
How is Planet Fitness Doing in 2020?
PLNT has gone up from $58 a share the day that David recorded this podcast to $78.90 a share today (1/21/2020).
That means that if you bet on Planet Fitness like David recommended, you’d have made decent returns on your stock.
So How Much is a Subscription to the Fool's Stock Advisor service?
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Results of David’s 2019 Picks in 2020
Every single one of David’s Rule Breakers picks from the January edition of the podcast made money almost a year from the date that he picked it.
While one stock is no longer trading, if you continued to follow Fool advice, you’d have gotten out with some nice earnings.
The other 4 stocks are showing no signs of slowing down.
If you got in on MELI early in 2019, you would have doubled your money by this time this year!
Needless to say, David has a knack for picking great stocks and a crack team of analysts to back up the moves that he is advising.
Who knows?
If you pick David’s 5 stocks from an early edition of rule breakers from this year, you might see some great returns for 2021.
David’s picks are up 323% over the last 5 years vs SP’s 54%! His next pick comes out this Thursday! CLICK HERE to save $200. & get his next 24 picks for only $99
