The Rule Of Thumb:

The rule of thumb is that bonds go in tax-deferred accounts and more tax-efficient equity funds should go in taxable accounts (assuming you don’t have enough room for both in your 401k).  The reason for this is that taxable bonds have much higher yields than even the most generous high yield municipal bonds.  That said, most investors will eventually hit a point where they simply don’t have enough room in their tax-deferred accounts for the quantity of bonds required to fill out their asset allocation.  Part of this is due to the fact that the longer you invest, the larger your portfolio will naturally become.  But most of it is due to the simple fact that as we grow older, we usually become more conservative and wish to allocate a larger percentage of our portfolio to bonds.

The Taxable-Equivalent Yield Formula:

So you have no choice but to own bonds in a taxable account.  How do you decide which is better, tax free municipal bonds or taxable bonds?  The formula is actually pretty simple.  Note: If you buy municipal bonds from the state you live in (for example California if you live in California, etc), the interest earned on them is also exempt from state income tax, which you should factor into the formula below.

Taxable-Equivalent Yield = municipal bond interest rate / 1 – (federal tax rate)

If the taxable-equivalent yield of a particular muni bond fund is greater than the yield on a comparable taxable bond fund, you are better off owning municipal bonds.  If it’s lower, you’re better off owning taxable bonds even after paying tax on the income.

Related posts

• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• Understanding the IRA Rules (0)
• Save Your Money When Investing In Long-Term Growth Stock Picks (0)
• Investing in Real Estate (0)
• How to Invest in a Gold ETF (0)

A fully revised, new edition of one of the bestselling real estate investing guides of all time

Through its five previous editions, Investing in Real Estate has shown investors how to intelligently build wealth with their investments in houses, condominiums, and small apartment buildings. Unlike many titles in this genre, Investing in Real Estate steers clear of the hyped-up “no cash, no credit, no problem” promises. Instead, it provides sound, real-world advice and instruction that reflects the author’s time-tested wisdom and experience. This book shows you how to invest profitably, safely, and reliably as you navigate the risks and opportunities of today’s property market. It covers all the topics investors need to master, including how to find, negotiate, finance, lease out, and manage your property acquisitions. Plus, you will discover how to add tens of thousands of dollars of value to nearly any property. Whether you plan to start investing or move your current investing strategy to a higher level, two decades of sales success testifies to the fact that this investing guide stands superior to any others that you will find.

This new edition covers all the recent changes in the market, including the latest housing rescue legislation from Congress, a historical review of how to profit from property cycles, and insightful new ways to gain from the current excess inventories of for-sale properties, foreclosures, and REOs.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

Related posts

• Getting Started in Real Estate Investing (0)
• Cheap Stocks – What You Should Look For (0)
• Bad Investment Advice (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• Investing Online For Dummies (2)

Essentially, these are gold-based funds that allow you to get a little piece of the action of a number of gold mining firms that are operating successfully today.

But how do you invest in a gold ETF? First, you have to figure out which type of mining company you are more interested in going with.

Considering Market Vectors Gold Miner ETFs

For those investors who would like to take advantage of a gold ETF for the purpose of mirroring the gold market right now, the best choice is to go with a large ETF. The Market Vectors Gold Miner ETFs allow this, as you get a piece of the most successful and established mining companies today.

Some examples of companies that will be included in this kind of fund are Barrick Gold, Goldcorp, and Newmont Mining. The thing to know about these companies is that they have the largest market shares possible in the industry, so their stock success will usually rise and fall with the price of gold. The risk of external factors is lessened when you go this direction.

Risk vs. Reward for Market Junior Vectors

These funds have less market cap, but they offer a potentially higher return for those people who have some tolerance for risk.

The nice thing about all gold ETFs is that they are outpacing the value of gold at the current time. That means that over the short term, you can truly take advantage of the rising gold value better with ETFs than with any other type of gold investment.

With junior mining companies, you also open yourself up to good possibilities, like hitting it big with a fund that includes a company that is bought out. These offer a bit more risk, but the fund-based aspect makes them less risky than investing in individual gold stocks.

Overall, the market for gold ETF funds is very inviting. Figuring out your tolerance for risk is the first step, then you can invest in these funds through either an online broker or your standard financial planner. Of course, you can also find other ways to invest in gold, such as gold bars, gold coins, or even gold mining stocks.

Related posts

• How Anyone Can Buy Gold Coins (0)
• Free Subscription to SFO Magazine (Stocks, Futures and Options) (0)
• Bonds: The Unbeaten Path To Secure Investment Growth (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• How to Invest $50-$5,000 (0)

Many online brokers are available, but no two are alike. Many of them advertise on other websites, and have such pitch lines as: 100 free trades, 4 dollar trades, and $1.95 options contracts. These sells lines are good for drawing business in, but they do not tell the whole story. For instance, the 4 dollar trades line is the headline of many sharebuilder or ing direct ads. This company does in fact offer 4 dollar trades but only if they are not real time trades. Real time trades, which are trades executed the moment you place them, run a standard rate of $9.95 on sharebuilder.

Also, anytime you sell your position on sharebuilder, you will be charged the base rate of $9.95. The 4 dollar rate applies to trade that are made in advance or set up to occur in the future. When trading in this manner, you may not get the stock at the price you want. However, overall sharebuilder is a fine site for the beginning investor or infrequent trader.

Other online investment sites such as e-trade.com are better geared towards the more experienced trader. The technology behind e-trade is for those who understand advanced Wall Street jargon. E-trade is also designed in general to be used by day traders, or those who trade in and out of stocks on a very frequent basis. They are the site well known for ads reading “100 free trades”. This offer of 100 free trades is applied to accounts that sign up others to the e-trade site. In other words, you have to work to get your free trades. E-trade is a better choice for those who are well experienced in the ways of Wall Street.

These are just two of the online investment sites, however these stock tips should give you a good idea of the variety on the web. As a general rule, investors should use websites that are well known, such as the two mentioned above. Searching for the best possible trading price may lead you to scam sites, and this should be avoided at all costs.

Related posts

• Cheap Stocks – What You Should Look For (0)
• Bad Investment Advice (0)
• How to Invest in a Gold ETF (0)
• Bonds: The Unbeaten Path To Secure Investment Growth (0)
• Save Your Money When Investing In Long-Term Growth Stock Picks (0)

What exactly is a cheap stock? Cheap doesn’t just mean that the trading price of the stock is cheap. That is criteria we will look at, but not the only one. Stocks valued at $100 or $200 can be called cheap if they meet certain conditions. You could even call Berkshire Hathaway cheap last year when it fell from a high of $140,000 a share down to about $75,000 a share in 2009. It has since rallied to over $120,000 a share since. Why would have been deemed cheap? The underlying businesses that make up Berkshire Hathaway were still fundamentally sound and throwing off cash. The stock tanked due to investors being afraid of the economic situation last year.

So that is one thing we are looking for. Stocks that are in good shape whose share prices are taken down, but the business is still good and profitable. It’s tough to invest in a scenario like that, buying when everything looks bleak, but if you are able to, you can make a lot of money. Warren Buffett has said he likes to be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.

Let’s use Warren Buffett for another example. Early in his investment career, he found a stock trading for about $45 a share. This was back in the early 1960”s and $45 a share was a lot of money then. Just based on the trading price of the stock, you might have concluded it wasn’t cheap. What Buffett would do is to closely exam the assets of companies. He discovered this $45 stock had over $65 a share in cash and liquid investments! Imagine buying something worth $65 for $45. That would be a classic example of finding a cheap stock.

These are just 2 examples of looking for the best cheap stocks. They are out there, its up to you to research and uncover them.

Related posts

• Bad Investment Advice (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• Investing Online For Dummies (2)
• Investing in Real Estate (0)
• How to Invest in a Gold ETF (0)

The best way to really understand what you are getting yourself into is by carefully evaluating a couple of the basic forms of annuities available. An annuity contract is simply an arrangement between an insurance company and an individual investor. This contract defines a price in which the investor is willing to pay for a future stream of income. The price is the premium payment to the insurance company, and the stream of income is that premium annuitized.

The two basic forms of annuity contracts on the market are immediate and deferred. And while there are countless variations of each of these two types, annuities more or less must fall under one of these scenarios.

An immediate fixed annuity is an insurance contract in which the income streams to the investor begin shortly after creation of the contract. More specifically, the immediate annuity begins distributions one time period after the contract date. This will vary depending on the type of product and the frequency of payments.

Deferred annuity contracts are also defined by the distribution phase. As the name implies, these distribution payments begin at a time at some point in the future, or are deferred until a later date. This can be designed to begin payments upon retirement age, or at a point in which the beneficiary requires the stream of income.

Another distinction of immediate annuities is that they typically require a lump sum payment of premium funds to the insurance company. In contrast, deferred products can either be done in a lump sum or through another series of premium payments. For this reason, many investors use an immediate contract to transfer a lump sum of cash into a series of distributed payments.

Related posts

• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• Tax Free Municipal Bonds Or Taxable Bonds? (1)
• Investing in Real Estate (0)
• How to Invest in a Gold ETF (0)
• Getting Started in Real Estate Investing (0)

In “Bonds: The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth”, two veteran investors expose the myth of stocks’ superior investment returns and propose an all-bond portfolio as a sure-footed strategy that can ensure results. The book, an expanded and updated version of “The Money-Making Guide to Bonds”, is designed to educate novice and sophisticated investors alike and serve as a tool for financial advisers as well. It explains why bonds can be the right choice and how to use them to achieve financial goals. It presents a broad spectrum of bond-investment options, describes how to purchase bonds at the best price, and, most important, shows how to make money with bonds.

The wealthiest investors and financial advisers use the bond strategies outlined in this book to maximize the the return on their portfolios while providing security of principal. The strategies can help you determine how to use bonds in your portfolio and take control of your financial destiny. You’ll be playing it smart while playing it safe.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

Related posts

• How to Invest in a Gold ETF (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• How to Invest $50-$5,000 (0)
• Free Subscription to SFO Magazine (Stocks, Futures and Options) (0)
• Cheap Stocks – What You Should Look For (0)

When seeking investment advice one will also have to be as cautious and weary about the individual or institution that he is doing business with. It is important that the person or the company is duly authorized and license, has considerable experience in the field and most especially working free from personal motives and interests. Some advisers just can’t help taking his own personal motives before that of the clients and that is someone we don’t ever want to have professional relationships with.

One of the common mistakes of an investment adviser that should give you a cue is him being involved in over aggressive marketing. This is characterized by his being restless while talking to you and doing everything he could to sign you in even if you already out rightly refused. Often in these cases, the adviser is guarding the profits that will go straight to his profit and not yours. There are also some investors who utilize and put up soaring leverage just to make up a certain deal, something really unlikely in a rightful investment transaction.

The worst case however is when you see that the adviser does not know half of what he is saying and he is just as clueless as you about the investment you are consulting to him about. You will have to turn your back against him the soonest time possible or you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Learning the stock market investing basics first will help you get on the right track.

Related posts

• Cheap Stocks – What You Should Look For (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• Bond Investing For Dummies (0)
• Learn to Earn: A Beginner’s Guide To The Basics Of Investing and Business (10)
• Investing Online For Dummies (2)

The focus on global and national news, commentary and methodologies in both equities and derivatives markets offers information readers can use to shape their personal investing styles and make the most of market opportunities. The content within the high-quality pages of SFO can’t be found anywhere else.

Get your free subscription by clicking the image below, or in the sidebar.

Related posts

• How to Invest in a Gold ETF (0)
• How to Invest $50-$5,000 (0)
• Bonds: The Unbeaten Path To Secure Investment Growth (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)
• Cheap Stocks – What You Should Look For (0)

Fresh, easy-to-understand insights into maximizing income while lowering risk. Investing for Income demonstrates the convincing reasons that bond funds are the nearly perfect investment. For the millions of investors who dream of earning high returns without subjecting themselves to stock market risks, this is the ideal book.

Using clear, concise language, it demystifies the bond market, from the basics of fixed income investing through more advanced investment strategies, and return and risk analysis. For ease of use, it lists top bond funds by category and covers how to assess a fund’s management team and select a fund. It also shows investors how to build a strong bond portfolio that complements stock and stock fund holdings.

Click To Purchase

Related posts

• Cheap Stocks – What You Should Look For (0)
• Beginner Investing: Mutual Funds (0)
• Bad Investment Advice (0)
• Zachs Investment Research Free Trial Offer (0)
• Who to Trust: Where to Invest Your Money Online (0)