Today, Wednesday, gold continued it’s climb on making a new high. today’s gold price is $1663.09 I expect it to continue to gain momentum over the remaining part of 2011 and quite possibly all the way to the elections.

Throughout the rest of this week, economic reports will be released and I wouldn’t expect anything good out of any of them. Initial claims, non-farm payroll, unemployment rate and consumer credit are the last of the major ones to come out this week. With these reports coming out as well as the looming condition of the country’s rating, gold will continue to climb and make wise investors a ton of money. Friday’s U.S. GDP data showed the economy stumbled in the first half of 2011 and came close to contracting in the first quarter.

We are not even into the recovery stage of this recession no matter what any politicians tells us. Some investors worried about the risk of a recession that could prompt the Fed to use more stimulus, feeding inflation. As it is, the Federal Reserve is already talking about what they can do to help get the economy moving again. With that thought alone with the possibility of QE3 and keeping interest rates low, investors are moving into the commodity sector. Silver has gained 3% in the last few trading days as well as other precious metals. The commodity (mainly gold) has always been a safe-haven for investor who are concerned about economic havoc.

The DOW has lost a lot of it’s gains made this year. The DOW lost 266 points on Tuesday and only gained back 30 point today. So now is the time to stop thinking about investing in silver and gold start owning silver and gold today.

If you’re not sure where to start with your precious metal purchases, take a look at a company I’ve been using for some time. Click here for my review of Straight Silver.

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If you’re a beginner investing in the stock market and have very little knowledge of how it all works, I would say no. Investing in stocks isn’t like it was back in the day when you either bought shares and held them or when the economy was on a tear and stocks climbed a regular basis. With the current situation (2011) we have, there are too many factors involved to try to make the easy money. Even a solid company with good fundamentals will be dragged down by the rest of the market.

Let’s look at Apple Inc., (NASDAQ: APPL) who is one of the leaders in their industry. The stock price is being pulled down because of the economy. Yes people are buying Macs and I-phones as much as they were in the last two years, but investor’s are concerned about their investments. They’re not sure if in the next quarter or even this fiscal year, if Apple can beat the expectation of the analysts. Three weeks ago, Apple shares were at $353.00 and closed today at $325.16 with a day’s low of $318.33.

Investing as a beginner isn’t easy. It’s hard enough in a good stable market, but these days it’s not the situation. If you want to invest money to help prepare yourself for the future, look into commodities like gold and silver. The U.S. economy is struggling and the dollar is not strong. Many rating agencies like Moody’s are thinking about lowering the credit rating of the United States. Gold and silver have been climbing at a steady pace and I don’t see it coming down like we see in the equity market.

Tread lightly before diving into buying equities. If you waited this long to start investing, then my advice to you is to wait a little longer until all this shakes out. We (USA) need to see a real turn-a-round in employment. Congress has to rein in the spending that the current administration is on and the housing market is far from becoming stable and secure. So what’s the rush? Use this time to study the different trading styles. Learn how to read charts and trends better. This way when the time is right, you’ll have more knowledge to be a better investor.

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Growth Investing Defined

When we talk about growth, we are not just talking about any positive % return.  The reason why 2-3% return doesn’t work, even though it is a positive number and technically your money is growing, is because of inflation.  If there is 2-3% inflation every year, than you aren’t making much money.  So even for nominal growth in your investment portfolio, you need more than a 4% growth to make it ‘grow’.

Growth is often paired agains value investing on the other side.  This investing style looks for fundamentally good companies with good business models and financials.  It looks for growth, but in solid companies that are undervalued by the market.

Small Cap Stocks

One of the best ways to get good growth is investing in small cap stocks.  Small caps have room to grow unlike large cap companies like GE or Wal-mart.  Think of small caps as getting in on the ground floor of an investment opportunity.

Small cap stocks are companies that have a market cap of between $300 million and $2 billion.  The market cap is calculated by taking the number of outstanding shares and the share price and multiplying them together.

Small Cap Funds

If you don’t want to go out and look for these individual stocks, you can invest in small cap funds that use this strategy.  If you go the ETF route like investing in the iShares Russell 2000 index fund ETF, it will be relatively cheap compared to a mutual fund and you won’t have to do the stock picking yourself.

If you want to go even further, there are mutual funds and ETFs that have an explicitly aggressive growth investment strategy.  These funds will be very volatile so you need to be willing to stay for the long haul to smooth out it’s dips.

Emerging Markets

If you want to go even further than that, you can invest in small caps in the emerging markets.  This sector of the global economy is growing at a faster rate than the developing world’s economies.  That makes it a tide that is raising all ships.  Likewise, small caps will have more potential for faster and more growth than large cap stocks in this sector.

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After testing some lows in 2010, the Dow seems to want to go up again and apparently, people don’t want to get left behind. They might have been watching AAPL stock go way up or they might be aware of the year end Santa Claus rally that often happens but whatever the reason, there are a lot of people interested in buying stocks online right now.

Sometimes the stock market goes up even though the economy is bad and that is called the wall of worry. When market conditions and news stories are all negative, you would think people would be more apt to sell stocks than buy. But occasionally people continue to buy and the market goes up when you think that everything indicates it should be going down. Right now is one of those times that the market might be climbing the wall of worry.

With the November elections just weeks away, people might be counting on Republicans winning and taking over more seats in Congress. Republicans are seen as more business friendly than Democrats and a win by them would be good for the market. People might be looking for the best stocks to buy right now in anticipation of that happening.

There has been a lot of money on the sidelines for quite some time and people have been waiting for an opportunity to buy. But on the surface this doesn’t seem like a great opportunity as the economy is still awful and unemployment remains high. Why then does the market keep bouncing back up and appearing like it want’s to go higher?

It might just be a case that people sense things aren’t quite as bad as the news stories say they are and they don’t want to miss out if it does continue to go up. People hate to miss the chance to make money and they hate being on the sidelines while the market rises. Greed is a powerful force in our lives and greed does play a factor in stocks. It is often why the market (and particular stocks) get bid up higher than it should before it comes crashing down. Lets hope that greed isn’t playing a part in the stock market moving higher right here and that it is just a case of the economy being better than it seems.

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Usually when someone is a beginner in property investing they will start off by purchasing a house and renting it out. You can use the rent money to pay for the mortgage and even make the rent payment a little higher so that you will be able to see some immediate profit. You can save the excess money up each month or you can apply it to the outstanding mortgage loan to get the house paid off a little faster. There are a few things that you will want to do in order to get started off on the right foot.

One thing that you will want to do is find ways to save up all of the money that you can. You will want to have as much investment capital as you can get your hands on so that you are able to make a sizeable down payment. You may want to go in and talk to your local banker about your plans and see how much money you will be able to borrow. Be honest and upfront about your plans so that if you are denied you will be able to find out the reason why and correct it before you try again.

Since you are brand new to investing in real estate you may want to take a professional real estate investment course. There are usually training courses that are held at your local convention center that will teach you some of the basics that you will need to know. If you get all of the information that you need you will be well on your way to successfully investing your money in real estate.

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For every stock that you own, you must spend at least one hour per week for each stock. Even though the balance sheet and the company’s growth was on the right path when you first bought into the company, that doesn’t mean it will continue on the same path. The company may decide to go into a different area to try and grow the business, It may work in the distant future, but that doesn’t mean that it will help in the near future as it ay reduce their revenue for the short term. Many other things can also and will affect the stock including the company’s competitors or even the overall markets.

Is the company is a sector that is in favor with investors? Is there another sector that will affect the one that you’re in? If oil goes up in price it will affect sectors like the airline industry in a negative way, but at the same time it could give the alternative energy sector a boost. Like I said, once you understand how sectors affect another you’ll be able to capitalize on the situation.

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Earnings reports are quarterly releases that a company will put out to their shareholders to inform them of their progress over a period of time. The period of time is three months (henceforth, quarterly) where the company did business and either made or lost money during that time.
Along with them reporting their past three month performance, they also give guidance to where they believe the company is going.

Wall street analysts who follow the company will put together their estimates as to what they think the company will announce in regards to their earnings. They look at the company’s past report to see if their estimations were correct and also take into consideration what the economy is currently doing. They look at if the company has had a new product come out during that time and how well that product is moving. They will also look at the company’s competitors to see if they are taking business away from them.

After all the information is put together, they release their estimate on what the earning per sharewill be for the company. If the company’s report is in-line with the estimate, it’s looked upon as a good thing providing that the guidance for their next quarter is a favorable one. The company can also, what Wall street refers to as “miss” their earnings report, which means that they made less than what the analyst predicted. When that happens Wall street will look unfavorable towards that and you will see the price of the stock drop and in some cases drop a large amount. If the company “beats” the estimate and gives a great guidance report as well, you will see the price per share jump by a big percentage gain.

This is where you can make some big money within your portfolio.

In the fall of 2007 a company by the name of Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) was about to release their earnings report. If you’re not familiar with the company, they are the manufacturer of the BlackBerry cell phones. I was following the company for a few months already and knew the the report would be a great one. The company didn’t miss their last four earnings report and their phones were selling like crazy during the summer months.

I went ahead and bought 200 shares of the RIMM stock a couple of days earlier when the priced dropped for just a day and waited for the report. When the report was released, it not only gave a great earnings, but also stated that it would exceed their previous predictions for the next quarter. In that day alone the stock went up $12 per share and continued for to climb for the next two days.

The reason I shared this story with you isn’t to show off, but to let you in on the different ways to make money in the stock market. Like I stated in the beginning of this post, there can be some costly mistakes as well and I’ve lost thousands of dollars in some of my other earnings report plays. The only way that I feel comfortable with trading on the results of earnings reports is during a bull market. My advice is always to do your research and due diligence on every company that you want to invest in.

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