If you are looking for a loan then you may benefit from a secured loan. Secured loans are typically easier to receive than traditional loans however that doesn’t mean that secured loans are the best option for you. The following information will inform you just what a secured loan is and provide you with the information you need to know about whether this is the best option for you.

What is a Secured Loan?

A secured loan is a loan that is approved for you because you offer some form of collateral. Many times a secured loan is secured by your home, which is known as a second mortgage or home equity loan in many circles. The amount loaned is anywhere from a few thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars. This really depends on the value of the home used as collateral as well. The repayment term of the secured loan may be anywhere from three years to 25 years or longer in some cases. The equity in your property also affects the interest rate and the amount of money you are loaned.

Advantages

The advantages of a secured loan are that it is approved more readily since you are providing collateral. This is especially true for individuals with bad credit. You will also be approved for a larger sum of money that has a longer repayment period than any other personal loan that you might be able to obtain. If you are sure that you will be able to repay the secured loan and that your home won’t be at risk then a secured loan really is a good option if you need money for college, home repairs, a new car, or any other large purchase. If you know you can pay back the loan and won’t default then you can really accomplish a lot with a secured loan of this nature.

Should You Apply?

A secured loan is a great for some individuals and it is the downfall of others. You should evaluate your personal situation before you make the decision to apply for a secured loan or not. If you have bad credit and the means to repay your loan then it is a good idea because you may not be approved for financing any other way. However, if you aren’t sure you will be able to make the payments then it is not worth risking your home for the secured loan.

These are the basic facts when it comes to secured loans. However, you should really consider your personal situation and the loan terms offered to you before deciding whether a secured loan is for you or not.

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To find money to invest for your future, you need to make sure that your outgoing expenses are less than the income that you are receiving. You need to develop an excess that you can have free to invest.

Now before you start to think….”well I don’t have any excess left…if I was earning more money….then I would have some free”. Let me dispel this myth…and tell you that it is a known and excepted fact that the amount of money that people earn has little if any bearing on whether or not they have an excess left to invest. The only way to create an excess it to spend less than you earn, instead of spending all that you earn.

Even doctors and lawyers, who earn well over $100,000.00 per year, often end up at retirement with little more Net Worth than factory or office workers.

Net Worth is calculated by deducting the value of all the liabilities or loans you have from the income-producing assets owned to give you the net value of your income-producing assets.

Why aren’t high-income earners retiring wealthy? Why don’t they end up with a greater Net Worth than someone on a low income? It is quite simple. Human nature seems to dictate that whatever anyone earns….they spend….some even spend more than they earn and charge it on their credit card.

The higher your income grows…the more you spend and the only way to get out of this cycle is to realise that it is happening, and make a concerted effort to reverse this habit….and to begin reducing your expenditures so that you can free up money to invest.

The best way to do this, is to try the 10/90 plan. This plan simply means that as soon as you receive your pay….you put aside 10% of it for investment….and then use the other 90% to live off of. Put aside the 10%, and then pay all the bills and do the grocery shopping….and then after that whatever is left over you can spend.

Most people do it the wrong way around…they pay the bills, do the shopping and spend what is left over, never leaving any left to save or invest. By taking the investment money out first you will alleviate the temptation to spend it.

The road to wealth is not determined by how much you earn, but by how you utilise the income you have and how much you save and invest.

You need to take control of your finances. One of the best ways to start having more control over your money is to find out where it has all been going, and then amend your spending habits to allow you to live within the 10/90 plan.

If you write down a list of your monthly net income, then in another column write down a list of the essential items that you have to spend money on. You should be able to work out an average for telephone, gas, electricity, insurances and rates, from your previous bills. Work out an average of how much is spent on grocery shopping and petrol. If there are any other necessary utilities include them as well. Then deduct the second column from the first – and this will give you the maximum potential savings for each month.

It can be quite startling how high this figure can be and make you wonder where all the extra money went.

Another good learning experience is to simply write down for a fortnight every dollar spent and write next to it what it was for. You will soon find that there are a lot of unnecessary expenses, often caused by impulse buying, where you have spent money on items that you neither needed or really wanted, and could easily have gone without.

When you can begin to recognise these areas, and start to consider whether or not you are spending your money wisely, before you hand it over, then you will be beginning to take control over your money and are well on the way to embarking on your investment journey, which will enable you to have a financially secure future for you and your children.

Debra Lohrere is an author of several books on property investment and how to create financial security. Please visit. debra.lohrere.com/home.shtml debra.lohrere.com/home.shtml

Debra Lohrere works as a Commodity Trading Logistics Administrator. She previously spent over ten years working in an Accounts Administration position with her primary roles being collections and financial forecasting. She also ran her own computer retailing business for many years.
Knowing the vital importance of cash flow in business led her to begin investigating the benefits of personal investments. She decided six years ago that it was time to start taking control of her personal finances and begin building a wealth base for her future.
She began researching the powerful medium of property investment as a means of bringing financial independence into a reach and began to build her own property portfolio.
Within the space of four years she was able to go from renting a house, to owning her own home and three investment properties, while having contributed very little of her own money to secure these.
She built up a large base of contacts with fellow property investors, which has proved to be an invaluable source of information.

According to the study of US General Accounting Office 2001, the credit card for college students are very advantageous especially on medical emergencies, traveling and on cashless transactions. Another study showed that 77% of college credit cardholders use the card for personal expenses while 67% for occasional and emergency expenses.

With these results, is it alarming that college students are allowed to apply for credit cards even without employment yet? Well, we should not overlook the responsibility of these students to handle their finances. Even if they don’t earn the amount that they are spending, surely they care about the labors behind these.

And for the college students who wish to have or who are already using the credit cards, here are some tips to a smart way of handling your credit:

First, you should understand that every amount that you add into your balance should be paid on or before the due date to avoid penalties. So learn to take charge of your account so that you would not reach to the point when you are already thirty years old and yet still paying for your accounts when you were seventeen. Sounds exaggerated? Well, it could really happen. Don’t let this misfortune ruin your goals.

Study the terms and conditions governing the credit card that you are currently using or the one that you plan to apply. You should know that your purchases via the credit cards are not free! There are in fact additional charges that you pay other than the principal amount that you have spent for your shopping. Some of the fees are finance charges, annual percentage fees, cash advance fees and late payment fees. The finance charges are given to the unpaid account each month. The annual percentage fee is the yearly charge of the credit card provider for membership, so better look for a low rate APR when applying for a credit card. And the late payment fee is of course the charge when you don’t reach the due date of payment.

When you receive your allowance for credit card payments from your parents, make sure you settle your accounts promptly. Delaying of payment or not completing your monthly bill can cause your bill to hike. And if this happens, gradually you’ll find it hard to meet your chain of debts. Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t end up here because the credit report will reflect to your credit history. Surely, you don’t want a bad credit name when you apply for a job after graduation. Ideally, employers check on credit history before hiring and before promoting employers to a higher position. You certainly have to establish your credibility and better start it with your good credit name.

Manage your credits. When you shop, don’t shop like it would be the last shopping that you will do. Set your priorities and know what you basically need. And since credit cards for college students primarily aim to support and cushion you in times of emergency, don’t overuse the card for unnecessary luxuries.

And lastly, prove that you are worth the trust. When you were allowed to apply a credit card, the credit card company assumed that you could carry out the responsibility. So be credit wise. Consider the effect of this in your long run.

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The Royal Shakespeare Company recently announced that over 100 million has been gathered to transform the Royal Shakespeare Theatre into “the best theatre in the world for Shakespeare.”
“This,” remarked Lady Susie Sainsbury, chair of the international campaign along with Dame Judi Dench, “is a truly historic project.”

Meanwhile, KS3 students in Warwickshire, another part of Shakespeare s county, have been questioning why Shakespeare is part of the National Curriculum questioning why Shakespeare is still receiving such support and celebration, 391 years after his death questioning whether he should still be studied at all.

A typical traditionalist argument, as put by Robert Eaglestone in his study guide “Doing English”, is, “That because everybody is moved and affected by Shakespeare s plays, Shakespeare embodies universal values and has something to say to all people at all times and in all places. Anybody seeing or reading the plays feels that Shakespeare is speaking to them and their innermost thoughts.”
Providing students the chance to read a Shakespeare play, which they might not otherwise do, allows them to hear what Shakespeare has to say to them.

In contrast, Cultural materialists argue, “class, ethnicity, gender, age, education and so on make a great deal of difference. Some people might even feel the text doesn t speak to them at all.”
If students feel no connection with Shakespeare then this is one reason they would find it hard to respond to his work. It is indeed unlikely that, out of the entire population of earth, every single person will find something to like about Shakespeare. Not even all people alive during Shakespeare s era loved his work so in a time when society has since changed, it is even less likely. The traditionalist argument cannot be supported by evidence however lovely the idea of everybody sharing a passion for Shakespeare is. This cultural materialist argument applies to every text, so why not study Shakespeare, which stretches minds into considering the use of language?

Some students have complained that Shakespeare is dull, but the reason for this is very likely that they have switched off to the text because it takes more time to understand. For instance, the first line in “Romeo and Juliet”, “Gregory, on my word we ll not carry coals.” Would immediately discourage some students. An English and Drama teacher, Mr Song* responded to remarks about Shakespeare being boring with, “His language takes time to access, but not due to any negative feature of it, the English language has just developed naturally over time.”
When students find something boring they lose sight of the use in studying it. The language used by Shakespeare does have uses though. It demonstrates the use of old English and of Standard English. Standard English is necessary in the world of work and studying texts that promote using English correctly, and get students thinking about how to say things properly, is helpful. For example, in Act 4, Scene 2 of “Macbeth”, the Son asks, “Who must hang them?”
In today s slang this would be said, “Who s gonna hang em?”
The first sounds much more polite, and somehow more sensitive.

British politician, Michael Portillo, quoted Shakespeare s play “Troilus and Cressida” in a speech in 1994 to explain, “how order in society depends on a series of relationships of respect and duty from top to bottom.”
Yet how can students with a “you can t tell me what to do” attitude be expected to gain and appreciate this message from Shakespeare if they have not yet received and understood it from the influential adults in their lives?

As some say, “The values we see in Shakespeare depend upon our own ideas.”
However this works both ways. Many students may find Shakespeare inspiring and somewhat relatable. One student, Anne*, found King Lear to be so because, “it s about not giving up when times are bad.” She also liked how in Shakespeare s plays, “there always seem to be a few characters that stick together throughout anything that happens to them. [Many of his plays look at] the whole issue of loyalty.”
For every student having at least one reliable friend throughout the school years is extremely valuable and receiving messages of the importance of loyalty may remind them about being a good friend themselves.

A very important thing, which students should consider, is that there are many characters in Shakespeare s plays that are now our common ideas of magical creatures, such as the witches in “Macbeth”. Some of the witches lines are now common sayings hissed through warty masks on Halloween, for example,
“Fair is foul and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air.”

And,

“Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

Wouldn t it be wrong to take Shakespeare out of the curriculum, leaving his creations in modern circulation but with future generations having little or no knowledge of the origin of these sayings and characters?

*Names adapted from real names.

Introducing the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card, the credit card with the flexibility to earn the rewards you really want. You can earn anything from airline travel to gift certificates to statement credits and more.

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Child identity theft is when someone steals or uses a minor s identifying information as their own. They might use it for financial gain, in which case they ve obtained a minor s social security number and use it to get credit. They might also use it to help them get a driver s license. There have also been instances when people have obtained a minor s identity and sold it to illegal immigrants or people who want to change their identity to avoid arrest or some other negative consequence.

In more than half of the cases, a relative or close family friend is the identity thief in child identity theft cases, but it s not always someone who knows the child. As a parent you must be diligent in protecting your child s information. Never put your child s social security number on non-essential forms such as sports registrations and always shred any documents that have account numbers and social security numbers. Another thing you can do is check your child s credit report once a year to make sure there is no strange activity taking place.

People who want to begin using someone else s identity turn to children as prime targets of identity theft for two main reasons: One, they often have spotless records so people are able to use the information to gain credit. Two, identity thieves are often not detected for years because most children don t have any reason to check their credit reports. The Identity Theft Resource Center reports that only 4% of reported identity theft cases are for people under the age of 18, but they also explain the number is probably much higher because many cases have yet to be detected.

Your teenagers might be sorely disappointed when they head into the DMV to get their driver s license or learner s permit and are told that they cannot get one because there is already a driver s license issued to their social security number. Even worse, your child might not find out about a theft of his or her identity until he or she is a young adult and trying to apply for a loan. Probably the worst case scenario would be when the police show up at your door with an arrest warrant in your child s name because someone committed a crime using your child s name. While this is a very extreme case, if someone uses your child s identity for financial gain, at the very minimum, be prepared to spend years working to clear his or her record of the stains left by the thief.

There are some signs that might tip you off that your child may be the victim of identity theft before it comes to that, however. (If you experience any of these signs, it s very important to have your child s credit checked to see if there is any unlawful activity and to report any known incidences to the police.)

- Your child begins receiving pre-approved credit card offers or bank statements in the mail.

- Your child begins getting calls from telemarketers that directly ask for them.

- Your child is denied the right to a driver s license because someone already has one under his or her social security number.

Five Tips to Help You Prevent Identity Theft (for you and your family)

1. Limit access to your family s social security numbers by never providing it on non-essential forms and by finding out why people are asking for it. If they want it for identifying purposes, simply request that they assign your or your family member a different identifying number.

2. Always shred any papers that have social security and account numbers.

3. Never give out your personal information over the phone or internet.

4. Protect your credit card numbers and checks when shopping so that people are not able to see them and memorize the information while waiting in line behind you.

5. Teach your children to not give out personal identifying information to anyone, especially over the internet.

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In these days of finance available easily for every purpose, falling in bad debt trap is considered normal. None of your personal works should therefore suffer because of your bad debts. To meet financial needs borrowers have an effective option in bad debt secured personal loans.

There are numerous purposes the borrowers can put bad debt secured personal loans to use such as buying a new model car, going to holiday trip, doing home Improvements, meeting education and wedding expenses. Even previous debts can be cleared.

A person having bad debt or bad credit is called so because he has gone through at least one or two cases of payment default or County Court Judgments against him or has filed for bankruptcy.

Bad debt however does not come in the way of taking loans once the borrowers have decided to offer any of their property as collateral with the lenders. The collateral gives adequate security to the lender about the loan amount. Home, vehicle, bank papers etc serves the purpose of collateral well. While on the collateral, it is important to note that greater amount of loan and interest rate depends to an extent on the equity in the collateral. Equity is value of collateral minus borrowings of the loan seekers. Higher equity will ensure greater loan amount with further lowered interest rate on it.

With the loan fully secured, lenders have no hesitation in providing larger loan. Usually, borrowers can take anywhere in the range of £5000 to £75000 under bad debt secured personal loans. The loan is available to the borrowers at lower interest rate. But instead of taking whatever interest rate the lender offers, one must compare different loan packages on offer online from as many lenders.

Borrowers can repay the loan as per their convenience. The loan can be repaid in 5 yo25 years. One should prefer clearing the loan in shorter term so that debt is not carried for long years and another bad debt is avoided.

Make efforts to show improvements on your credit report. Clear easy debts which dramatically improve your credit report based credit score. Lenders consider credit score of 620 and above as safe for offering the loan. Borrowers should try to bring credit score nearer to the acceptable level so that they can avail larger loan if need be and at comparatively lower interest rate.

Never forget to pay the loan installments in time in order to improve your credibility which you need the most. Take extra care in picking up the loan offers and shop for lower interest rate.

Tim Kelly is an expert in finance having completed his LLM in Finance (Master of Laws in Finance) from Institute for Law and Finance at Frankfurt University. He is currently working with BadDebtPersonalLoans as a financial advisor. To Find Bad Debt Unsecured Personal Loan, Bad Debt Loans, Bad Debt Personal Loans, Bad Debt Secured Personal Loans in UK that best suit your needs visit baddebtpersonalloans.co.uk baddebtpersonalloans.co.uk

Whether you have a 2 year old who is just starting to learn numbers or a 10 year old that knows subtraction or addition, it is never too early or too late to learn about counting or math games. Children that are young benefit from games that teach them how to count objects and recognize numbers whereas older children benefit from games that help them learn how to add and subtract and build the basis for learning about algebra.

Aside from the obvious board games where you roll the dice and move your game piece a certain number of spaces, there are plenty of other counting games that you can play. Dominoes can keep kids busy for hours. I recently spent over 1 hour playing with dominoes with my two year old. We counted the numbers of dots. We counted the dominos as we stacked them or put them in or out of the container. We lined them up and counted them together. After they were all lined up, I let him push the first domino to make them all fall down.

Hide things in your house such as blocks, plastic eggs or marbles. Before you hide them, count them with your child. Then, they can go find them all. Once they have been found, they can count them again to make sure that they have all been found. Older kids can add or subtract to figure out how many they have left to find. In order to encourage sharing, have two or more children hunt the objects. At the end of the hunt, count the number in each kid s bucket. Then work together to make sure that everyone has the same amount in their bucket.

Drop objects in a bucket or plastic containers that are lined up next to each other. Count how many objects are in each bucket. Count the number of objects that did not make it into a container. Once again, take the opportunity to incorporate addition or subtraction with older children.

Young children love learning about eyes, ears, fingers, toes, etc. Count body parts together. For instance ask, “How many eyes does Mommy have?” or “How many fingers do you have?” Count familiar household items such as pets, shoes or pots and pans.

Children also love to eat snacks, so incorporate counting with snack time. Ask “How many Cheerios do you have?” or “How many Goldfish are in the blue cup? How many are in the red cup?” Count out snacks to make sure each child has the same amount. If one child has two more Cheerios than another one, teach them to give the other child one of their s so that they have the same amount.

Be creative in teaching your child to count. They love to count and learn, but they also want to have fun too. It is possible to incorporate both in daily activities. Lead by example and show them how you count things. You don t want to have them counting and reciting numbers all day long, but at the same time there are so many opportunities to help them learn their numbers. Work with your children to come up with your own fun games and counting activities.

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Equipment you will need: Aquarium, Aquarium gravel, Aquarium filter, Replacement filter media, Heater, Other decorations (such as fake or real plants), Aquarium test kits to test water parameters and monitor the infamous aquarium nitrogen cycle, Fish food, Aquarium vacuum, Fish net, Aquarium Glass Scrubber, 5-gallon bucket, Pasta strainer,

Realize the responsibility involved. Learning how to set up a fish tank is not all that difficult, but there are some steps you should follow. First, you must realize a few things about an aquarium setup. A tropical fish tank is just like having a dog or a cat when it comes to the amount of effort on your part. In order to have a successful freshwater tropical fish tank you will have to work at it. Once a week, or at most once every two weeks, you will need to perform some kind of maintenance on the tank. Most of the time you will be performing water changes. You will also have to feed your fish at least once a day. If you are up to the challenge, please proceed!

Decide on an aquarium size. It’s a good idea to have in mind what kind of fish you want to keep before you purchase an aquarium. Some fish only grow to be an inch or two, whereas other types of tropical fish can grow 12 or 13 inches or more in length! Knowing what kind of fish you want will help you decide the size of the tank they will need. If this is your first time with an aquarium, it may be a good idea to start with a 10 or 20 gallon aquarium setup for now and stock it with some smaller and hardier species.

Decide on the aquarium’s location. Place your aquarium in an area where the light and temperature of the tank won’t be affected by external sources such as windows and heater vents. Sunlight that enters the room through an unshaded window could affect the temperature of your tank. This could also lead to green algae problems for your tank down the road. You will want to place your aquarium on a stand that will be able to hold its total weight. You also want to be sure that the floor is able to support the total weight of the aquarium and stand. A good rule of thumb for determining the total weight of a full aquarium is 10 pounds per gallon of water. For example, a 55-gallon tank will weigh approximately 550 pounds when filled with water!

Buy your aquarium and equipment. Now is a good time to decide on the type of aquarium filter you will want to use. You will also need to purchase a heater capable of heating the tank size you have. Buy the gravel, plants, a power strip and other decorations. A good rule of thumb for the amount of gravel that you will need is 1 to 1.5 pounds of gravel per gallon of water.

Set up your aquarium and stand. Wash out your tank with water only! Do not use soap or detergents. Soap residue left behind will be harmful for your tropical fish. If you are going to use an under gravel filter (not recommended) now would be the time to set it up as well.

Wash Gravel, plants and decorations. Be sure to wash the gravel thoroughly before adding it to your tank. An easy way to do this is to put some of the rocks in a pasta strainer and wash them out in your bath tub. Then place the clean gravel in a clean 5-gallon bucket for transport to the aquarium. After adding the gravel you can place your plants and decorations.

Add water to the aquarium. To avoid messing up your gravel and plants, you can place a plate or saucer in the middle of your aquarium and direct the water flow onto the plate. Use room temperature water when filling. To remove the chlorine and chloramine, use something like Tetra AquaSafe for Aquariums. Don’t completely fill up the aquarium until you are sure of the layout of your decorations. Otherwise, when you place your arm in to move stuff around water is going to spill over. Doh!

Set up equipment. Install your heater but don’t plug it in until the thermostat in the heater has adjusted to the water temperature. This usually takes about 15 minutes or so. Hook up your filter and any other equipment you have, then top off the aquarium water to just under the hood lip. Place your hood and tank light on the aquarium and then check your power cords to be sure that they are free of water. I would also recommend using a drip loop on all of the power cords to be extra cautious. For more information on safety, read this great article on aquarium electrical safety. Plug all of the equipment into a power strip and then “turn on” the aquarium.

Wait, wait, wait and then wait some more. I know, you want to add some fish. But, in order to do this right you must wait until your aquarium has cycled before adding any fish. There are ways of speeding up this process. Check out the nitrogen cycle to learn more about starting the nitrogen cycle and how to speed it up. If you must use fish to cycle, try to get a hardier species like the zebra danio or cherry barb. You may notice your fish tank cycle kicking in gear if you start to get some white cloudy aquarium water after a few days.

Add tropical fish. Only add one or two fish at a time. Adding a couple fish at a time gives your filtration system the time needed to take on the increased biological load that the new fish introduce. When you bring the fish home let the bag float in the tank for about 15 minutes so that the fish can become acclimated to the temperature and pH of the aquarium water. After 5 minutes of floating the bag you should add some of the aquarium water to the bag so that the fish can become acclimated to the pH level in the aquarium. This will help reduce the amount of stress imposed on the fish. Stressed fish often leads to dead or diseased fish! Don’t feed your fish on the first day. They probably wouldn’t eat any food on the first day anyway. Let them get acquainted with their new home.

Get ready for regular maintenance. Be prepared to spend some time once every week or two to clean your tank. Performing regular water changes will reduce the nitrate levels and keep your tropical fish happy and healthy. As you can see, the steps for how to set up a fish tank are not that complex and hopefully you now have your aquarium setup and running! Have fun, take care of and enjoy your fish!

Keith Londrie II is the Webmaster of fish.about-animals.info fish.about-animals.info A website that specializes in providing information on fish.about-animals.info fish that you can research on the internet at your own pace.
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Over 80% of all individual investors lose money in any given span of ten years. This figure is likely to be higher, given most people’s reluctance to reveal their losses. This article provides a broad outline of this financial landscape. It reflects the author’s personal views as an individual investor and author of a stock charting software with the experiences learned from the University of H.K. (hard knocks). Do not consider this article as any form of financial advice. Financial advice are available from licensed individuals and companies as required by law in your respective country.

Investment is a statistics game. You win sometimes and you lose most of the time. To stay ahead, all you have to do is to make sure that your gains are more than your losses. More importantly, how to limit losses and reduce the mistakes will be crucial in successful investing.

Take a typical fund manager. Out of ten positions, the fund manager may only win 40% of the time. Say, this manager makes an average return of 20% for each position. The rest are mistakes, but this manager capped the losses at 10% each. Do the simple math, and lo and behold, this manager is ahead with gains. This is a simple example – professional fund managers use complex variations of this simple theme.

Another example is the venture capitalist. Say, out of ten ventures, only one succeeded. The successful venture could yield returns of 2000%, perhaps more. The other nine ventures failed miserably and these investments are written off. Using this model, the venture capitalist is still ahead.

Headlines, the media, advertising hype.
Most of us are familiar with this typical headline: “Whiz kid makes stock picks that outperform the market than most fund managers”. When such stories becomes headline news on the popular media, it is likely that they appear towards the end of a great bull market. Stories like these typify the misconception that anyone can pick stocks at random and win all the time.

Perhaps, a more tantalizing advertisement with “How I make 2600% (annualized) on a winning trade” may make us interested. Any seasoned investor will be able to provide a handful of trades that has spectacular performance like 50% in a week. Annualize this and it works out to be 2600% a year. However such trades are few. There is no one in the world that has such a method or strategy that is consistent and sustainable.

It is prudent to treat media reports with a critical mind and skepticism. Rationalizing the possible reasons on why the story appears may provide some useful and not so obvious insights. For example, if you have a large position in a stock, then obviously you will only sing praises on why it will outperform its peers to encourage more buying momentum. The author remembers an analyst private statement: “I can write fantastic merits about a stock, conversely I can also write some damning things as well”.

Market gurus, financial astrology, divination.
Joseph Granville, a market technician, started his newsletter (Gransville Market Letter) in 1963 and is still going strong at age 80 . He was accurate to predict the market decline in 1976 but was wrong in 1982 and 1995. Given the statistical nature of investing, he had his successful calls and his fair share of blunders as well. The redeeming feature of this man must be his willingness to apologize for his mistakes.

Why do people continue to subscribe to his newsletter? This author suspects that his loyal customers are those who can form their own opinions and views on the market but, they are receptive to a different perspective or viewpoint they may have missed in their own analyzes.

It is the same with other reputable market gurus. It seemed the media and the public are intolerant of their success rates as being not good enough. The forecasts of these market gurus should be treated like a tsunami early warning system. Nine times out of ten, the warning turns out to be false and people accept it and go own with their normal lives. Every warning is taken seriously and the costs of taking precautions are minimal. When a warning turns out to be accurate, it will save lives. It should be the same with these market gurus’ predictions of market crashes. Investors just have to prepare themselves as they would with an impending tsunami warning.

After seeing a BBC program on Membrane theory, 11-dimensional worlds and parallel universes, financial astrology, feng-shui and other methods of divination may have some merit. This author encourages investors to have open-minds and more importantly, understand the strengths and weaknesses of any method. By capitalizing on the strengths, one can indeed enjoy the benefits.

The concluding part 2 will provide an outline of fundamental analysis, technical analysis plus some tips on successful investing.

You may freely reprint this article provided you publish it in its entirety, including the author’s bio and activating the link to the URL below.

The author, Stan Seecrets, is a veteran software developer with 25 years experience at ( seecrets.biz seecrets.biz) which specializes in protecting digital assets. He has developed real-time prices delivery systems and has witnessed stock markets collapse of 1987 and 2000/2001 in real-time. You can contact him via email (Stan at Seecrets.biz).

© Copyright 2005, Stan Seecrets. All rights reserved.