How much money you spend on a renovation project really depends on what you plan on getting out of it. Are you doing it to improve your every day way of life, or are you planning on selling your house and want to increase the value. As a seasoned veteran in the remodeling industry, I am constantly being asked the question “What I can do to have the biggest impact on the value of my house?”.
While it is a common belief that any money you put into your house will add value to it, this is not always the case. There are really two different reasons that people invest money into their home- Repairs and Renovations.
1) Repairs- Projects like replacing your hot water heater, patching a leaky roof, repairing damaged siding, or sealing up cracks in the foundation are not going to show you a return on your investment but they are going to be required to keep up the overall condition of your home. Continue Reading »
There are many different trading types out there that can help you make money in the stock market today. If you are just starting out it can be confusing. You may be asking yourself how do I make money and what is the best trading system for me? Here I have composed a list of different trading systems that have been proven to make money in the stock market. Study them and find out which is the best for you.
1. Trend traders, these are traders that simply buy up trending stocks and sell down trending stocks. An up trending stock is a stock that keeps making higher highs and higher lowers. What a trend trader would do is get into this stock at their low and hold onto it until it stops making higher highs and higher lows. That is it. They do not necessarily have to look at the company’s fundamentals. If it is going up it probably has good fundamentals anyway.
2. Swing traders, these traders play off of support and resistance. Support and resistance are imaginary tops and bottoms of stocks. For example if a stock is bouncing between $51 and $60, $51 would be its support and $60 would be its resistance. What a swing trader would do is wait until this stock goes down to $51 then buy it. They might place a stop at around $48 so if it breaks lower they will only lose $3. Then the swing trader waits until it either hits his stop or resistance at $60. Let us look at what could happen here. If you are right you make $60-$51=$9 if you are wrong you lose $51-$48=$3. Continue Reading »
Ouch! The mighty Dow has fallen to within a financial heart beat of its 1999 high water mark, boasting an average per year gain of less than one half of one percent in spite of several interim manipulations designed to improve the performance picture. The S & P 500 Average, an equally prestigious indicator of broader market movements, is nearly 13% below where it was at approximately the same time. Both figures reflect no investment expenses at all. So, in spite of the mostly ignored fact that neither index includes any income securities (bonds, preferred stocks, REITs, etc.), a reasonable person could well expect his or her portfolio market value to be well below where it was nearly ten years ago! Now that’s a fairly dismal scenario, but it’s the in-your-face reality for most investors as we move forward into what we all hope will be a more spring-like investment climate. Continue Reading »
First the Disclaimer: This is a thought-provoking article that draws upon real world examples, articles, books and websites that are readily available to the public. This article is not intended to offer investment advice. Any actions that you take in the market place should be the result of your own financial education and consultation with a licensed professional.
This is the conclusion of my 3 part series that began with Home Ownership: The Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century and was followed up by parts one and two of The Stock Market: The Second Biggest Financial Scam of the Twentieth Century.
What is Cashflow? Cashflow simply put is the flow of money. Positive cashflow is the revenue or income that a person receives from a job, investment or business. The majority of people derive their cashflow from their jobs. To the extent that they come to derive cashflow from investments and or businesses is the extent to which they will become financially free when their working years are over. Negative cashflow is the revenue that a person loses due to an investment or business.
Most people are taught to invest for capital gains rather than positive cashflow. Investment success depends on appreciation of the underlying “asset” rather than income production. This is the basis for “investing” in a primary residence or the stock market for wealth creation. Yet, success of the capital gains investment strategy is by no means assured. No one can guaranty that an asset will appreciate in value, despite the tendency to quote historical gains as justification for an investment today. The current housing and market crises highlight the fallacy of depending on capital gains to create wealth. The housing crisis alone will destroy billions of dollars of personal wealth. From the October 25, 2007 Joint Economic Committee report: Continue Reading »