Trading Winner

Added to My Portfolio: Growth, Value and Oil

My Portfolio Grows

My portfolio page was a bit out of date. I’ve added some new gems to my portfolio of stocks and investments.

I wanted to buy something long term (1+ years) and exchange traded funds (ETF) were the perfect fit for me. All three ETFs I bought are PowerShares exchange traded funds. My three ETFs cover different goals: Growth, Value and Oil

Growth

For growth I purchased PWB. PWB is the PowerShares Large Cap Growth ETF. My goal with PWB is to capitalize on the gains of future stock trading. PWB ETF invests in companies that are poised for growth. Growth is one element my investing strategy.

Value

Value is very important to me and is my most useful investment strategy. PWV is my value choice. PWV is the PowerShares Large Cap Value ETF. Large cap value finds stocks that are at a comparitively lower valuation than other stocks in their sector. The thinking is that buying stocks at a low valuation will hopefully blossom in to a very fruitful tree in the future.

Oil

I am betting on oil prices going up in the US to the $4+ per gallon range. In order to take advantage of higher oil prices and gas prices, I bought PXJ. PXJ is the PowerShares Oil & Gas Services ETF. As oil and gas prices rice, so too will the price of PXJ.

Investing Strategy: Creating a Stock Market Investing Plan – Introduction

Introduction: Creating a Stock Market Investing Plan

We all need a plan for investing our money. Ask yourself: Do you want to work for money? Or, do you want money to work for you? I know I want my money to work for me. If we’re going to be successful at trading and investing, we need to come up with a plan.

Our investing plan likely includes many different types of investments and strategies for maximizing our gains and profits. This article is an introduction to building our investing plan and will be followed by more in-depth discussion on creating a solid plan.

What can we invest in?

We can invest our money many different ways. Here are some of the more popular investments:

Stocks
Bonds
Real Estate
Mutual Funds
IRA
Trust Funds
Money Market accounts

Investing Strategies

Just as we have numerous avenues of investing, we also have many different strategies of utilizing these avenues to increase our investing potential.

The more popular investing strategies are:

Growth Investing
Value Investing
International Investing
Real Assets (real estate, gold, silver, other precious metals, diamonds, etc)

Find the Right Balance

A good investing strategy uses combinations of investing avenues and investing strategies.

We want to formulate an investing strategy which includes long term investments that are likely to grow over time (growth investments), and also stocks or mutual funds that are very good value investments – where we are buying in a good price.

Our strategy should also include investments which pay us money on a regular basis, such as dividend paying stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, and even real estate. With real estate, you may own an apartment building where tenants pay on a monthly basis. We can use these payments and dividends from our investments to pay our bills or to reinvest and grow our total investments even more.

Thinking Long Term

When you make investments you must be prepared to hold on your investment for a long time. The greatest rewards from investing come as you hold on to your investments over a long time period. Your investment may initially go down and you will be tempted to sell it. Many successful investors would hold on to this knowing that the market always goes up in the long run. It may go down for a year or even two years, but history shows the market steadily rises. And as the market rises, so too do investors’ portfolios.

Book Review: The Way to the Top by Donald Trump

The Best Business Advice I Ever Received

I’m always looking to improve all aspects of my life. I hope we all are. I was browsing at the local book store and came across a great read: The Way to the Top: The Best Business Advice I Ever Received by Donald Trump

You can say what you want about Donald Trump. Everyone has their opinion of him. He’s extremely successful in many different areas of business and investing. I classify Donald Trump as a Winner when it comes to business. The Donald has a lot of knowledge we can learn by watching him on Apprentice and reading his books, but The Donald doesn’t know it all.

In The Way to the Top, Trump asks CEOs and Presidents of successful businesses to share a bit of wisdom and advice to those looking to improve their business sucesss. They share the same wisdom and advice they used to climb to the top of the business world.

From the Inside Cover

The host of the hit reality show The Apprentice presents an invaluable collection of grounded, hard-hitting advice on business success, from people who have made it to the boss’s chair at some of America’s most thriving companies.

How can you find the way to the top?

Ask people who are already there.

A lot of the advice and wisdom in The Way to the Top may be common sense and I’ve heard some of the wisdom before. I did enjoy hearing each CEO’s different views and perspectives, and I did learn some new things.

Honesty & Integrity

The two most common pieces of advice: always be honest and always maintain the highest integrity. You want your coworkers and business clients to trust you and believe you are working in their best interest. In order for them to trust you completely, you need to be honest with them and treat everyone with respect. Integrity is to keep you on the same path and deal with everyone equally and fairly – never varying or faltering.

I agree with these CEOs. Honesty and integrity are two crucial elements in building solid business (and personal) relationships. And to make it to the top of the business world, you need to have solid relationships with coworkers, customers, vendors and basically everyone you meet. You may end up doing business with them in the future.

What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?

Leave a comment and let us know the best business advice you’ve ever received, including who gave you this advice!

Amazon

Zecco.com Offers Free Online Stock Trading

$0 Commission Trading at Zecco

I’ve been reading about Zecco for a few months now. They have created a free trading zone. This “free trading” zone means Zecco traders will pay no – zero – $0.00 – commissions to buy and sell stocks. Commission free trading for everyone is now available, in Web 2.0 style.

How Can Zecco Offer Free Trading?!

The answer is pretty simple. Zecco makes money through 2 major revenue streams: online advertisements and interest from margin accounts.

Zecco has built up a community area on their site with forums covering all topics of trading, investing, finance, and business, and an area for bloggers and blog readers including commentary on trading, investing, and analysis.

Zecco also realizes interest from margin loans to stock traders is much more valuable income than trading commissions fees. While commissions fees are great income, they are substituting commissions fee income with advertising income. And they’re still holding on the very valuable interest fees attached to trading stocks on margin.

You didn’t think you’d get 0% margin rates, did you?

I’m Opening A Zecco Trading Account

Yes, I am in the process of setting up a Zecco.com $0 commission trading account. I have to fill out forms and fax, as well as mail, the documents to Zecco. In two weeks I should be making my first trade there.

With Zecco, I am going to grow my dividend and value holdings. With free trading, I can reinvest my dividend payments easily, no matter how little cash I am reinvesting. Free online stock trading is very interesting to me and I am still formulating new strategies to take advantage of no commissions fees.

Forbes 400 Richest Americans: The Billionaires’ Club

The Billionaire’s Club

Forbes has announced the “Forbes 400 Richest Americans” which they call “The Billionaires’ Club”. Everyone listed in this years Forbes 400 is a billionaire. That’s $1,000,000,000.

Here’s a snippet from the Forbes article at Yahoo:

This year, for the first time, everyone on The Forbes 400 has at least $1 billion. The collective net worth of the nation’s wealthiest climbed $120 billion, to $1.25 trillion.

Once again the biggest gainer is casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, with a net worth up $9 billion. Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands stock is up 125 percent since its public offering in December 2004. He has made almost $1 million an hour since the 2004 Forbes 400 was published.

Another big gainer is Warren Buffett, who added $6 billion. That wealth, and the rest of what he has accumulated as a value investor, will be given away, mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

(from yahoo)

A Billion Served?

A trader I know posted this on a forum: “That’s just wrong, $1 million an hour. Half the world is starving, living on less than $3 a day, and some unknown fool is making a million US dollars an hour.”

The trader quickly added: “Adelson, if you’re reading this, give me an hour!”

I do not think we should simply take away some of this money these billionaires’ have worked hard to earn. But I do think there should be an additional tax on the super rich, such as these Forbes 400 billionaires. Any percentage tax on billions of dollars would mean tens of millions available to feed the hungry half of the world. I would be happy with this “special tax”, but I am biased since I do not have a billion dollars.