Let’s do some easy math to illustrate the hazards of a long position. At 2.7% (the average of the S & P 500 dividend yields), it will take almost 37 years to ‘break even’, at a zero percent tax rate, if you never sell. You must understand this number (almost 4 decades!) to be the realistic time of investment.

If you are not going to be alive for 40 more years, then you should reconsider this investment strategy. If you never sell, you have to wait 50 to 75 years for your break even period, when accounting for taxes on those dividends.

Certain companies in their respective industries are relatively certain income generators that pay dividends. They are also large enough that if the company mis-steps, fraud and accounting issues aside, you can always sell before being ‘wiped out’.

Technology companies like IBM, HP, and Oracle; certain energy companies like Exxon or British Petroleum; certain retailers like Federated Department stores; should all be considered safe investments. They have sufficient internal and external controls where the chance of a huge fraud that wipes out shareholders instantaneously is extremely unlikely.

The caveat for equities investing is that you absolutely need to follow that company in the news and look at the required quarterly SEC filings. You must sell when you and/or others feel the company is running an unsustainable path (i.e. headed towards bankruptcy). This is the only way to ensure a significant sale price such that, when accounting for dividends and taxes, you net positive income from the sale.

When selling stocks, you don’t necessarily lose money just because its sale the price is lower than when you bought it. Tax accounting aside, you lose money only when the difference between buy and sell price is more negative than the total you earned in dividend income.

If you do not earn dividend income, then you can make money via short selling: sell shares you don’t own, buying them later from a different seller at a lower price, and delivering them to your buyer.

If not a short sale, and not through dividend income, then the only way buying and selling stocks can make you money is if you buy at alower price than what you sell.

Yet, since EVERYONE is trying to buy low and sell high, you have an extremely SMALL chance of success with this strategy.

The longer you hold a stock that is paying dividends, the lower its final sale price can be and, overall, you are still a winner. To account for income taxes, though, you will need to earn dividends far longer, depending on your tax bracket.

Thus, bulls point to dividends as to why to go long, but share price needs to maintain significant value on that final sales day, even decades from now, or you will effectively ‘wipe out’ all of that dividend income over the years.

Whether investing in stocks, real estate, oil and gold futures, derivatives, rare collectibles, or US Treasury bonds; at some point, there needs to be a transaction that leads to cash income.

Whether that transaction is from ongoing operations and sales (as in a restaurant or Broadway play), or a one-time payoff through property asset liquidation, is key to making money.

So, let’s quickly analyze a few common investments available today by examining what conditions need to exist to make positive income.

The conditions we need to consider are the amount of investment required (i.e. how much?), and when will a transaction that generates positive income occur (i.e. how long?).

Individual Equities – Going Long

Whether you are a bull or bear (bet long or short) on a stock is almost irrelevant. Everyone knows that when you go short on a stock, you are counting on any price improvement to be temporary.

The short holder only needs to sell when the stock makes a small move, up or down. What people don’t often realize is that even when you go long on a stock, dividends aside, the sale of that stock is still required to realize net positive income.

Due to the global financial crisis of the past year, this has become the key question on everyone’s minds these days.
The really simple answer is: investments today are as safe as they’ve always been.

There have always been snake oil salesmen, fortune tellers, and wandering story tellers able to talk (or print) up an elaborate story of opulence and wealth. Good fortune almost always comes to the teller; but in the long run, those seeking guidance and following the advice rarely fare as well.

Even those who are deemed completely ‘above board’, ‘transparent’ and ‘ethical’, often devise and negotiate terms that allocate disproportionate sums for those able to dictate the terms of the transaction, while leaving crumbs for the rest of the stake holders.

To better understand and actually determine the unspoken and unwritten (i.e. hidden) motives, read Jeff Hamilton’s “Investment and Financing Strategies: Knowing When Angel Investing Is Good for Investor and Business Alike”. The paper is available as an instant download, under the downloads tab on the technology-leadership.com web site.

This paper outlines how investors can be ’swindled’ of their cash, and those anticipating/receiving funds can be ’swindled’ of their assets, hard work, and ultimately their dream; even when investment funds are received.

Once you understand motives and have reasonable confidence in the integrity of the investment or investor, you have to understand how the investment is to make money. One of the core principles of understanding an investment, as outlined in the Hamilton paper, is understanding the length of time, or duration of the investment. Knowing When Angel Investing is Good for Investor and Business Alike

FOREX trading tools
There are many products out there, both online and software based. Here are a list of the easiest ones to use, which we have heard a great deal of terrific things about, and which matches our own experience of using them:

IVY BOT-4 FOREX Robots do the work to make you money trading FOREX

FAP Turbo-Forex Robot that helps you generate REAL profits trading Forex

Guide to how to get the most out of FAP Turbo, by a top trader

FOREX DROID-Robots Trading for you-sellers calculate 92% accuracy in making money FOREX trading with this tool

And here is a new one we like the look of, though we have not yet totally peered under the hood to take it apart:
FOREX AMBUSH Software

They claim 100% accuracy through their Artificial Intelligence FOREX Trading Signals. You can get a free account and take it for a spin. And since you really only learn by doing with FOREX, you have nothing to lose except your small ‘mad money’ FOREX budget.

Remember, start small, be conservative, and don’t get carried away, and you should see your small PIPs add up over time to a nice little nest egg of success.