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How to Invest in Gold – Alternative Investment Series

Since April, gold prices have continued their meteoric rise, with many institutional investors seeing gold as portfolio insurance that will provide growth as the value of other assets in their portfolios fall. Some Family Offices are reported to hold up to 15% of their portfolios in the precious metal, although many are now also taking profits to invest elsewhere in other tangible alternative investments like farmland or forestry.Why invest in gold?There are two main reasons for investing in gold; firstly, as already mentioned in this article, gold is traditionally viewed as a safe haven when equity markets are volatile and is therefore perceived to be a good capital preservation tool. Secondly, gold investments are seen by many to be a hedge against the US Dollar. Many investors believe that US economic dominance will wane and the value of the dollar falls, so then the price of gold will rise.As gold does well when inflation is high and markets are volatile, it is no surprise that prices have rocketed in recent times as markets experienced the worst falls on record and central banks pumped new money into economies creating inflation.Gold is also a relatively liquid investment asset, allowing investors to trade in and out with relative ease. Also, supplies of gold are limited and production of the precious metal peaked back in 2003, since then production has fallen yet demand from investors and demand for gold from wealthier classes in developing nations such as China and India has increased year on year.Some analysts have predicted that gold will continue on rising and pass $2,000 per ounce, other have even gone so far as to quote and eye-watering $5,000 per troy ounce. Another set of thinkers believe gold to be overvalued and prices will fall back as confidence returns to traditional markets and investors sell their gold to repurchase equities.Long-term returns from gold investmentsOver the longer term, the investment performance of gold has been outstanding, outperforming many other alternative investments.Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown sold off around 395 tonnes of the UK’s gold in a series of auctions between 1999 and 2002. This amounted to over half of the United Kingdom’s gold. The $3.8 billion raised from the sale would now be worth over $25 billion if it were kept in gold, costing the UK economy over $20 billion, or about $2 billion per years since.Gold Investment Funds and SharesInvesting in traditional equities can be a risky business, especially when the investment is speculative as is the case with gold mining companies as their result reply on finding more gold reserves to harvest. Shares in gold mining companies have not fared as well as the price of physical gold.One particularly popular gold investment fund is the Blackrock Gold & General fund, previously referred to as the Merrill Lynch Gold & General. Graham Birch is the Fund Manager and has over 20 years of experience. The fund mainly invests in gold mining companies.Ian Henderson is another credible gold investment fund manager. He manages the JP Morgan Natural Resources fund which has broader investment remit, investing in global companies involved in the production and marketing of commodities and is heavily weighted toward gold investments.Another choice is the First State Global Resources Fund which buys shares in companies connected to the global natural resources and energy sectors. This fund has a large proportion of assets under management invested in precious metals, including gold.Blackrock have two prominent choice for the gold investor; The Blackrock World Mining investment which invests in a range of precious metal commodities, and the BlackRock Commodities Income investment trust which again has a large percentage of its investments held in gold.Physical GoldInvestors may choose to take actual ownership of physical gold in the form of investment grade bullion bars or coin.There are a number of advantage to holding physical gold as some gold coins are still legal tender and therefore do not attract capital gains tax.There are a number of gold brokers that are set up specifically to deal with investors and will arrange the sale and purchase of physical gold on behalf of the investor. Some will also offer secure storage facilities for investors not keen on keeping their gold at home.

3 Proven Steps to Making Money Online

The advent of the internet has paved way to a lot of things. As a matter of fact, it has significantly changed the way people make business. Nowadays, you can make money right at the comfort of your own home. You can make money online, manage your own time, and be the boss of your own business. If you have the knowledge, skills, dedication, and perseverance, then you can certainly make money online. There are so many ways to make money online. If you are one of those people who want to make money online, then all you have to do is to follow these steps.1) Find a niche that buysThere are so many niches that buy products and services online. If you have a small business, the best thing you can do is to fine tune your products for a selected group of people. You have to establish your promotional strategy so that you will be able to introduce your business to the right market. First and foremost, you should distinguish whether the products and services you offer require a niche market. It would be a big help if you are going to participate in the different online forums and discussions. Through this, you will be able to know more information about your target market. You also need to ensure that your products and services are really marketable or else you will end up wasting your time and money.2) Find the common problem and create the solutionTo be able to make huge money online, you have to distinguish the common problems faced by people online. To be able to do this, you should conduct a thorough research, join forums, discussions, and blogs. After distinguishing the common problems, the next thing to do is to come up with the best solution. Finding a solution to the common problems may seem difficult, especially if you don’t have the right knowledge and skills. But if you have the dedication and zeal, then you will be able to create a perfect solution thereby increasing your chance of generating money online.3) Build trust in your nicheOne of the efficient ways to promote your product and services are through niche marketing. With the right niche market, you will easily target the right market and literally thousands of online marketers use this strategy. To stand out among your competitors, you should work on establishing trust in your niche. There are plenty of ways to build trust on your business and one efficient way is to make your website look like professional. If the site is professional looking, then there is a high possibility that more customers will be enticed to patronize your products and services.The amount of money you generate online primarily depends on the aforementioned factors. It depends on the degree of your dedication, skill set, and trust. These skills cannot be learned overnight, but if you are truly interested in making money online, then you will be more than willing enough to dedicate your time in mastering the art of making money online.

Make Money Online – Do Not Be Fooled!

Most frequent in multi level marketing or MLM is the make money online scams. It is true that a lot of people are now engaging in working from home through the Internet and so online scams are also more popular than ever. Truth of the matter is not all online jobs are scams. You just have to be watchful in choosing the right online job for you so you will be able to be one of those people who have earned millions just by staying at home.If you are an online marketer, chances are you have come across these online scams without even noticing it. Online scams are raging and it comes in different forms. Most of these online scams even have a great way of getting money from the one scammed in most unsuspicious way. Online scams can lessen your chance of getting more and more income online. The more popular online scams are: clicking banners, answering surveys out, checking your electronic mails, chatting and shopping online.Make money online scams is really popular with MLM. Using the multi level marketing, these scammers are given the opportunity to scam other people with the use of the following: MLM directories, MLM sites, MLM companies, investment clubs and online training courses.Another type of scam that is most common and tops the online scams is with home-based jobs. This type of online scam comes with ad forms. The tactic is that you are required to pay a certain registration amount and then after getting that sum of money from you, they completely shut down their system. You will be surprised but an online scammer who is very successful at his job has an income of $10 to $70, 000!Spam e-mails are also one type of scams. You have probably seen thousands of these go to your e-mail every single day and they are even unsolicited. It means that you never signed up for any subscription to their services or whatsoever. These scams simply attack your e-mails and the whole of your e-mail inbox. Some scams cannot simply be deleted by pressing the empty tab or delete tab in your mail server. Most of these scams mails will require you to click a certain link so you will be able to remove them from your inbox or spam folder. This is where they earn hundreds and thousands of dollars.These scammers also make money by rummaging through your e-mails and then getting important information about you like your credit card bills, your name, your address and even your social security number. These scammers simply use your credit cards without you knowing it. You’ll just be surprised when your monthly credit card bills arrive.Make money scams are really unfair especially if you have been working so hard for you to earn your money. Do not add up to their income by simply clicking on buttons that pop-up in your screen. To avoid scams, you can earn legitimate money through Zero Friction Marketing.