I’ve been an active investor since 1998, but my track record hasn’t been good. I will in the next few months provide the juicy details of how I lost dosh on the stocks. I already wrote about the NAT story. Well, I’ve got a few others to share. Right now, though, my focus has been on generating money for purchasing dividend stocks, including those on the DJIA index. I particularly like stocks whose dividends increase over time. That’s the best way I think to play the dividend game.

Living overseas has also introduced to me the concept of foreign exchange. I’ve noted that quite a few Japanese expatriate workers here play the “carry trade”, borrowing in low-interest Yen, then converting to dollars, pounds or similar currencies, and investing in bonds, cds, or whatnot at much higher rates. Of course, this isn’t the best way if you’re playing with needed cash as exchange rates can be volatile and wipe out your gains.

Still others use forex trading as a way to earn money, by arbitraging the differences in exchange rates or by buying and selling within hours or days, as the currency pairs that they purchase move up or down. In forex trading, of course, one of the ways to make a killing is to leverage your cash, in some cases upto 400x the original amount. Of course, with leverage like that, small moves in currency prices can result in big losses or gains. So the risk factors are quite high. For example, if you had $1000, with such large leverage of a 100x, you could trade upto $100,000, and a 1% change in your favor would double your money, while a 1% change the other way would wipe out your capital.

Futures trading also provides a good option for investors looking for insurance or for greater returns than traditional stock investing. For futures trading, you are purchasing the obligation to buy or sell at some point in the future. Since most of us would be speculators, the aim is to ‘buy on paper’ rather than take delivery of the commodity that is being traded. Such commodities include oil, gold, currency, but also a wide variety of other products and even financial instruments can be traded.

The screenshot on the right here highlights the platforms that Global Futures operates for traders in either futures or forex. For those of you who are interested you’ll notice that there are a number of demo or simulated trading accounts that can give you an idea of how the whole thing works. So if you would like to try out any of these or you have any questions, please email GlobalFutures@GlobalFutures.com if they have any questions about how they can get started with as little as $250.

As in all investing, there is a risk of losses as well as gains, so you need to be aware that both futures and forex can and do create opportunities for both tremendous gains and losses. Do not invest money in futures, options or forex that you cannot afford. And do your due diligence on any service, product or investment that you make.
There is risk of loss trading Futures, options and forex online.

Sponsored by GlobalFutures.com.

VoIP is all the range these days, and for people who are making their money online these days. If you are interested in finding out what these tech toys can do for you, then click on over to the Vonage VoIP Forums which provide a lot of support to users and prospective users of Vonage who are investigating the service. VoIP works in quite a simple way. The devices attach to the phone unit and your broadband connection, without a PC! You can make a phone call over the Internet without turning on the PC. Voila!

You can find lots of opinions on the forums as well. Also, the forums are full of ways to solve some quite surprising problems, like faxing over Vonage, connecting your DISH network, etc.. You can find also information on some of the newest features such as 911 Dialing, 3 way calling, Caller ID Return and Blocking, and even Telephone Number portability.

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Today when I went shopping, I found myself looking at fire extinguishers in the supermarket. Not the ones that you buy but the ones set aside as emergency equipment by the store. As I looked, I noted that each of the four extinguishers in my vicinity had a label with a number on it. Each number was different, yet the numbers contained a regular pattern.

So I got to thinking: how does a large supermarket chain, like Safeways or Carrefour or TESCO, or indeed any large company, create and administer inventory labels across hundreds of stores, in dozens of states or countries, for equipment like fire extinguishers, etc.? My own business is quite small, so we can pretty much recall everything in the business by memory down to the dusters and markers. But that’s because we literally bought everything ourselves, item by item.

In essence, our heads contained an ‘unofficial’ database of the fixed assets. In a larger business, a solution like fixed asset software would be the most appropriate way to handle the situation.

With IMSolutions.Net, you wouldn’t just get the software though. If you have a large inventory, they will do an actual inventory for you as they did for Ben & Jerry’s St.Albans plant when they provided on-the-factory-floor support in the planning and execution of their asset tagging project. The kind of support they can extend for physical inventories included software, training, scanners and barcoding equipment. In fact, the supporting staffing required for the project ensured that Ben & Jerry’s manufacturing team could focus on their own job while the entire process was conducted.

Now you are wondering why you might need to do an inventory at all. In fact, for all business, keeping an accurate track of the fixed assets is essential. It will allow the business owner enough depreciation on equipment and assets purchased, thereby creating an accurate assessment for tax purposes. Also, it will help you control your business costs more accurately when you purchase business insurance to cover your business assets. Lastly, and not least, you will know much more clearly the assets that your business has, thereby allowing you to make better decisions on purchasing, maintenance and administration of your fixed assets. A good example of how such information helps directly would be the annual insurance premiums that you pay: you would be able to avoid spending money on excess premiums, allowing the saved cash to go straight to the bottom line. Now that’s bound to bring a smile to your shareholders’ faces.
A good inventory therefore can help you save money in at least three ways: from taxes, insurance costs, and administration costs over the life of the business. Do you know where your fixed asset inventory is? If not, why not?

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