Investing Archives

The Top 8 Best Short Term Investment Options for Your Money

Investing isn’t always just a long-term financial strategy. When you want to see returns on your money in a shorter time frame, say a couple of years or even a couple of months, then implementing a short term investment strategy with the best short term investments is very achievable! Perhaps you’re saving up for a goal with a relatively close deadline. Maybe you’re accumulating enough funds for a down payment on a home within 5 years, paying off a significant chunk of debt that your current income is dragging on, or taking the family on vacation overseas. Whatever the reason, you want to have the best short term investments possible to earn a high rate of return on your investments … Read more

How Fantasy Football Is Just Like Investing in the Stock Market

by Guest Contributor

How Fantasy Football is just like the Stock Market

The following is a guest post by Ben from YoungMoneyFinance.com about investing in the stock market. If you would like to write an article for Money Q&A, please visit our Guest Posting Guidelines.

A lot of us shy away from the stock market. It’s almost like we’re afraid of investing in the stock market. Sure, we know that we should invest our money, but a lot of us get nervous when it comes to doing so in the stock market. Too many ups and downs, too unpredictable.

Most of us write off our inexperience and lack of knowledge and decide to stay out of the market. However, we do spend a lot of time and energy on our fantasy football teams, and if you think about it, playing fantasy football isn’t all that different from investing in the stock market.

How Fantasy Football Is Like Investing In The Stock Market

LendEDU published the results of a very cool survey while we’re on the topic of fantasy football. Here are some of the interesting results…

The average season-long fantasy football player spends $286.84 on league-entry fees, while the average daily player (DraftKings, FanDuel) spends $272.52 on related fees.
The average player spends nearly 8 hours a week on fantasy football and 4.31 hours a week of work, or $1,186 in lost productivity if you factor in the U.S. median wage.
89.6% of season-long players expect a positive ROI this year, while 92.41% of daily players expect a positive ROI. Nothing wrong with a little confidence! Can we say confidence bias?

Just like managing a good stock portfolio…

1) Depth and diversification are key. A good fantasy team is made up of a number of different players, each playing a different role. A good stock portfolio also has different stocks playing different roles. You’ll have your growth stocks (ones you expect to grow in value) and your value stocks (less price appreciation but lots of dividends). You’ve invested in different industries, just as you wouldn’t have a team full of RBs.

2) You have your core players and ones you can easily trade. Your fantasy team is made up of several core players (what up Peyton!) and then your TBD players. Some weeks you’ll pick up a new player and give them a start or two and depending on how they do, you’ll either drop or keep them. Your core players, though, are your winners.

They’ve proven themselves time and time again and you’d never trade them. A good portfolio will have your winners and then stocks that you’re testing out. Don’t be afraid to buy a couple of stocks and then trade them out when they don’t live up to your expectations.

3) Perceived value. We each learn how to notice and pick up undervalued players when we see one. It earns us ultimate bragging rights. Conversely, we’re quick to trade a player while he’s still ‘hot’ when we know he’s going nowhere but downhill. Stocks are the same way.I’m always on the lookout for quality stocks that have taken a hit by the market. Perhaps some big investor has been trash talking them, or the company made a dumb mistake. It doesn’t mean they’re not a good company – rather, just that they are a good buying opportunity for me!

4 Unique Ways to Trade the Financial Markets

by Guest Contributor

Ways Investors Are Trading the Financial Markets

The global financial markets can be an intimidating place for a novice. For starters, there is the stereotypical Wall Street trader who is perceived as ruthless, self-serving, and virtually untouchable.

Many of us at the grassroots level have been fed the narrative that the big banks and financial institutions on Wall Street control global finance and economic activity – irrespective of macroeconomic variables, regulations, and monetary policy.

There is probably an inkling of truth to all perspectives on the markets. However, there is plenty to go around for everyone. Provided you play your cards right, read market sentiment correctly, and hedge your bets, you can come out ahead in the financial markets.

Ways Investors Are Trading the Financial Markets

First of all, it’s important to identify what you’re trying to achieve. Are you after short-term profits or long-term appreciation of your capital? This will invariably determine whether you are better suited to trading or investing. Traders are not interested in holding assets for the sake of holding assets for long-term appreciation. They are interested in turning over those assets to generate profits in rising and falling markets.

Traders are quick to the draw and don’t get sentimental about their purchases. Investors realize that markets invariably go through plenty of cyclical movements, trends, upswings, and downswings. Overall though, equities markets have a propensity to appreciate relative to other investment opportunities.

How to Get Off the Sidelines and Start Investing Again – It’s Not Too Late

by Hank Coleman

The stock market has had an amazing run lately, but too much money is still on the sidelines waiting. According to a recent survey conducted by Kiplinger’s magazine, almost half of all Americans do not even know that we have had a fantastic run in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index for the past 15 months. People need to get off the sidelines and start investing again. They thought that the stock market had been down in 2012 instead of realizing it was up 13%. And, still, others know about the stock market’s great and are still sitting on the sidelines waiting to get in the market or think that they have missed the boat. Many … Read more

Why the Big Banks Do Not Want to Fund Your Small Business

by Guest Contributor

James Cummings, the author of numerous books in the management space and Founder and CEO of www.dailyposts.co.uk. If you’d like to submit a guest post to Money Q&A, be sure to check out our guest posting guidelines.

28 million small businesses in the United States account for 54% of all sales in the country, are responsible for providing 55% of all jobs and 66% of new jobs since the 70s, and have added 8 million new jobs since 1990. With statistics like these, you might wonder why it’s so difficult for small businesses to secure loans from the big banks. Big banks are the preferred source for loans because they can afford to issue loans at lower rates than smaller banks, yet they are more frugal and more protective of their money.

Findings from a survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia show that only half of the small businesses that requested for business loans in the first half of 2014 were able to get any funding. Ironically, the banks need these small businesses as much as the small businesses need them, especially with the rising trend of online lending. Yet, this does not seem to make much of a difference.

The recession was the worst for small businesses in need of loans and while many expected the tide to change once the recession was over, that hasn’t been the case. In fact, since the beginning of the recession, we have seen a decline of 20% in the total dollar volume of loans from banks to small businesses. What’s more, the figures seem to keep declining even further.

Pivot Points vs Bollinger Bands – Which is the Most Accurate Forex Market Indicator?

by Guest Contributor

Competition in the forex market can be brutal. Trading on gut instinct alone isn’t the smartest market strategy when it comes to maximizing your profits. One of the first things most new forex traders learn is the importance of strategy combined with useful tools.

Some strategies are very complicated and beyond the scope of the beginner or even intermediate forex trader. Likewise, some tools necessitate programming algorithms using Python, C++, R, Matlab or other quantitative programming languages.

Pivot Points vs Bollinger Bands

Fortunately, there are a couple of tools that many forex traders use to enhance their trading. These are the Bollinger Bands and the Pivot Point Indicator.

Bollinger Bands

Bollinger Bands are a popular technical analysis technique. Basically, they are bands two standard deviations above the moving average and two standard deviations below the moving average. They are very useful in determining the trading range and volatility of a currency pair.

As volatility in the market increases, the bands expand, and when the market volatility decreases, the bands shrink. The bands also provide guidance as to pricing trends since prices tend to meet resistance as they approach the upper band and find support as they reach the lower bands.

Pivot Point Indicators

A pivot point is a price point that represents a possible change in pricing direction. It is calculated using a formula that includes the previous day’s high, low, and close. The pivot point represents a point of resistance or support in the market. By knowing where the pivot points are, traders can utilize several strategies to take advantage of them.

One of these is the pivot point bounce where traders can trade on the pivot point and take advantage of a change in price direction. Another is the pivot point breakout where traders can bet that their currency pair is going to break through the resistance or support and make significant gains.