Sell Your Gold And Silver To Weather The Recession

By Eric Hoover

Times are tough. Those who haven't already lost their jobs are concerned they might in the near future. Meanwhile, the cost of living is rising for millions of families. You may be a college student who needs funds for tuition and books. Or, you might be a stay-at-home mom trying desperately to make ends meet. Whatever your circumstances, there may be a solution hidden in your dresser drawers: gold and silver.

Many people have old jewelry, tooth fillings, and coins that contain a healthy store of value due to their gold or silver content. These items sit at the bottom of drawers and are all but forgotten. If you need cash to weather the recession, selling these assets may be the quickest solution. Below, we'll explain why more people than ever are selling their gold and silver. We'll also give you a few tips for selling your precious metal.

Stability In A Volatile Economy

Regardless of the economic climate and the fluctuations of currencies (for example, the U.S. dollar), precious metals experience little variance in value. Of course, prices have risen and fallen over the years, but most economists agree that gold and silver tend not to deviate much from their normal price band.

If you own precious metals, there's a good chance they are worth as much or more than their worth at the time you acquired them. They are a store of value, especially during a recession. Close observers of the market will have noticed that the prices of gold and silver have climbed over the past few years. Now may be the time to sell both for extra money.

Where To Sell Your Assets

There are several ways to sell your precious metals. Many people do so through online auctions and gold parties. Auctions are a hit-or-miss event; your assets may fail to generate interest. Gold parties are usually organized by a host who gathers a group of people along with a local buyer. The buyer will weigh each piece brought by attendees and make an offer.

Selling to online buyers has become far more popular. The process is simple and low-maintenance, and sellers usually enjoy better prices.

Getting The Best Deal For Your Assets

In a way, the online market is similar to a swap meet. There are many buyers who are willing to make an offer for your precious metals. Some will offer a better price than others. Some will be more trustworthy than others. One of the advantages to selling online is that reputable buyers list the prices they're willing to pay. It's easy to compare them.

One note of caution: don't choose an online buyer solely on the merit of the price they're willing to pay. Remember, some are unreliable. Sending your assets to them can be risky if you don't conduct a bit of due diligence. Call them on them phone to personally speak with them. Read the agreement on their website. By taking a few precautions, you'll receive a competitive price while enjoying a problem-free experience. - 31869

About the Author:

The best online resource to sell coins or sell palladium can be found at www.refinity.com

Details Of The Gold Rush Of Australia

By Jack Wagon

A Gold Rush can make an ordinary person a millionaire in just one moment. It can be defined as a time of passionate colonisation of labour into a region where there has been a detection of enormous amounts of gold. Gold rushes happened in'th century in Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United States.

Gold rushes are generally marked with the upbeat, and optimistic feeling of something that is free-for-all. This makes it possible for anyone to become absolutely prosperous instantaneously. The definition given previously is what a gold rush was. A lot of people link gold rushes to the Californian gold rush, although it is a fact that the Australian gold rush remains to date as the richest gold rush of the world.

In'51, the Australian gold rushes began, when Edward Hammond Hargraves went to Lewis Pond Creek with his guide John Lister. When they filled and washed a few pans, and then they got to know that the pots had gold. This information was spread over the world, and then during the next few weeks, large number of people from every where were seen digging, as if their living depended on this.

Hargraves did not get an immense luck from gold. However, Hargraves named the Bathurst goldfield Ophir. Afterwards, James Tom, who was a planter, stated that it was not Hargraves, but actually he, himself who discovered the gold. Even then, the decision of the government went in opposition to him. Hargraves was known as the Crown Land Commissioner of New South Wales. William Tom, and John Lister detained one more enquiry, just earlier than he died in'99, and then it came in support of the maintenance alleges that were made. (According to brother of James Tom)

The first discovery was in New South Wales, followed by Clunes, Ballarat, Buninyong, and then Bendigo Creek. Soon gold was found in all of the other Australian states. The first gold license was issued in Victoria on'51. Varying amounts of licenses were issued through out the country.

The Victorian gold rush, after the Californian gold rush was the most immense amongst gold rushes of Australia. The gold rush had a massive significance, since it proved to be a turning point in monetary and political growth of Melbourne, and Victoria. During'51, more or less 250,000 ounces of gold was found.

The gold rushes of Australia gave a lot of support in the development of the main areas of the city. It was a time when most of the telephone lines, and railway lines were constructed. The huge population of people gave rise to multi-culture, and racism

In'52, more or less 370,000 people entered into the state, and resulted in the boost of economy. In'50s, approximately one-third quantity of the gold was discovered from Victoria. In two years, the population of the area increased from 77,000 to roughly 540,000. An interesting truth that should be mentioned here is that the number of immigrants that came into the area was far more than the entire number of criminals that entered in past 70 years. Hence, the number of people in the area rose three times between'51 and'71. - 31869

About the Author:

Jack Wagon is a gold investment expert. You can buy pure gold bars and get complete information about buying gold bars at his recommended site at http://www.goldmadesimple.com/.

Using LEAP Options

By Ahmad Hassam

One person who made history with options was George Soros who is famously known as the man who broke the Bank of England. Great Britain was finding it difficult to stay within the tight exchange rate band set by the European Monetary Union (EMU).

George Soros had this intuition that the Bank of England would be forced to devalue British Pound. So he bought call options on German Marks and put options on British Pound. He made a bet of $10 Billion by leveraging all the assets in his hedge fund.

Bank of England had made a number of public statements regarding its intention of staying within the EMU. When George Soros made his bet on the intrinsic weakness of British Pound, other currency speculators followed suit and placed their bets too. This build up an immense selling pressure on the British Pound! Bank of England was brought to its knees as it was unable to sustain the immense selling pressure on the British Pound within a few days of the speculative attack on the British Pound. Bank of England was forced to devalue British Pound in a few short days.

George Soros made a cool $1 Billion profit on his bet in a matter of a few days. When you a strong intuition, you should go for the big kill. Can you make such a bet? Maybe not but this one example show the immense power options have if used correctly. Options are risky; there should be no doubt about it.

Most people who trade options lose money, plain and simple. Options give you the right to buy or sell an underlying security like stocks, futures, commodities or currencies at a price before a certain date. This price is known as the Strike Price. This date is known as the Expiry Date. However, in European Style options you can only buy or sell on the expiry date not before that.

Trading options without training is risky. You need to learn the Options Greeks. One of the important things that you need to learn while trading options is the importance of time factor. Time factor is very important when valuing an option. Further out the options contract is from expiration, you will have to pay a higher premium. As the options contract approaches the expiration date and if it is out of money, it loses its value very fast.

LEAP options are basically long term options. Leap options can help you profit over the long haul. You can use LEAP options in options strategies like the covered calls, straddles, spreads and so on. LEAP stands for long term equity anticipation. It basically means that the option is much like the regular option except that the timeframe to expire is greater than 1 year.

LEAP options can be incredibly profitable if used correctly. However, LEAP options are risky because the option writer usually demands a hefty premium for taking on the long term risk. The buyer of the LEAP options has the right to exercise the option prior to expiration should the price of the underlying stock move in the money. Long timeframe means that the possibility of the LEAP options moving in the money is always high hence a high LEAP options premium.

See, closer the out of money option is to expiration, faster its value drops. What this means is that the buyer of the options loses the premium that was paid for getting the right to buy or sell the underlying security. LEAP options can be a great trading vehicle for swing traders as they mitigate some of the time decay that is inherent in short term options. - 31869

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Learn Candlestick Charting! Know Fibonacci Retracement!

Commodities Benchmark Gives Investors More Profits

By Selwyn Petrov

A commodities benchmark is some type of standard which you can compare an investment by. A standard is very helpful for people trying to figure out how much profit they are making compared to other investments. People looking for high rates of returns may want to use other standards than those looking for long-term and safer purchases.

The type of commodity you choose is also important. If you choose to trade crude oil, then you will want to compare your trades or investment to indexes that are made of energy commodities. This will give you a more accurate picture of the value your investment holds compared to the rest of the market.

When you are trading crude oil, you will want to compare your investments to an energy index. If you are trading in a soft commodity, then you will want to compare your trades with an index weighted to soft commodities. You will also want to compare your investments to investments that are similar in size to your investment. So an ETF in gold should be compared with a precious metals commodity index while an ETF which follows agriculturals like wheat should shadow an index weighted to agriculture.

A very common index used to compare various commodities is the Rogers International or RICI, while others include the CRB, the Goldman Sachs and DJ AIG commodity index. Using these indexes allows you to measure how your investments are doing compared to the whole market. By knowing how your investments are doing compared to the whole market, you will know if you are in the right area of the commodity market. This will be able to help guide you to the right place for your money. By using this strategy, you will be able to put your money in the most profitable parts of the marketplace.

When using a commodity benchmark, you should always keep in mind that you want a relevant investment index for comparison. This is important, because the risk and growth factors are very different in various investments. If you are placing your capital in sugar, then you would not want to compare your investment to LME aluminium prices. If you did this, your sugar trade would appear to have a low return, even if it performed better than the industrial metals.

You want to make sure that your index has similar goals and strategies for the investors who purchase them. If you are looking for high growth, then you should compare your investment to high growth indexes.

For commodities investments, you will want to compare your investment to commodity indexes. This will show you if your investment is as profitable as other investments that are of the same risk level.

If you want a broad view of how an investment is doing compared to commodities, then you will want to use a commodities index. This will give you guidance as to how your investment is performing compared to other investments of a very similar nature. When you use properly chosen benchmarks to judge your investment's performance, you are able to guide your capital to the most profitable investments available for your money. - 31869

About the Author:

The author, Selwyn Petrov, pens articles exclusively on commodity trading and associated matters. Learn more about the interesting features of commodities benchmarks here.

Using ETFs & Mutual Funds

By Ahmad Hassam

You will have to do a lot of research while selecting yours stocks for swing trading. Why not piggyback on the research done by wealthy fund managers and large financial firms. Name of the game is to find stocks that are not popular but have a great swing trading potential. Easier said than done! How do you find such stocks? Here is a very simple strategy that you can use to choose the hottest stocks best for swing trading. When a large financial firm builds an ETF, the first step is always to choose an index of stocks that is expected to outperform the market. The premise of the piggyback strategy is to use the large dollar research of the major financial firms to come up with new and fresh swing trading ideas.

Large financial firms spend millions to choose the index on which they will base their ETF. The ETF is then based on this index of stocks. The price of the ETF then changes as the basket of stocks within the index moves. Why not piggyback on that research and save yourself a few millions? Cool, huh!

So what is this ETF piggyback strategy all about? How do you implement this ETF piggyback strategy? Have you been investing in ETFs before? No! Then you need to do some research to find the best performing ETFs. Your first step should be to analyze ETFs. You need to make a list of ETFs that have outperformed in the last 3 to 6 months. This will give you an idea where the big money is flowing and which ETFs have buying momentum behind them.

Mutual funds are supposed to be a safe investment. You can also piggyback mutual funds while picking stocks for your swing trading ideas. Now ETF piggyback strategy is still the best keeping in view the fact that only 20% of the mutual funds beat the passive benchmark over the long term. You can ride on the coat tails of fund managers who fall into this 20% category. However, ETFs are better than mutual funds as investment vehicles and in recent years have become highly popular with the investing public so stick with ETFs. After making your list of top 20, narrow it down to the five top performers and choose a few areas worth trading. Choose the best performing ETF in your opinion to begin with. Now you need to analyze the top ten holdings of that ETF.

How do you research an ETF? You can do it yourself or you can subscribe to the newsletter of Big A, a former fund manager who recommends the hottest ETFs. If you want to do it yourself, just go to the website of the ETF. You can also use ETF connect.com. Etfconnect.com is a great resource for information on ETFs and closed end funds. With thousands of potential stocks to choose from, the piggyback trading strategy allows you as a swing trader to choose stocks that have a buying momentum behind them. What makes this trading strategy great is that it often generates fresh ideas for swing traders.

Now another advantage of this piggyback strategy is that it can identify stocks that may not be household names to the average trader. With this strategy you will come across many stocks that may not be household names but have a great swing trading potential. ETFs can be utilized to find stocks for swing trading ideas that are based outside the US.

There are thousands of ETFs in the market now. Some are country specific, some are industry specific and some are market specific. So you will have a lot of option in choosing the right ETF for your investment. The way to do that is to use the ETF piggyback strategy with either single country ETFs or regional ETFs. The single country ETFs invests 100% of their assets in one country. A good example can be the iShares MSCI Mexico ETF (EWW), an ETF that invests only in companies headquartered in Mexico.

You can choose industry specific as well as market specific ETFs as well. Country specific ETFs and region specific ETFs have been just used as an example to illustrate how to hedge your risk. Hedging your risk is what a good investment strategy is all about. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, you should try to diversify your investment. A regional ETF covers several countries concentrated in a region. The iShares S&P Latin America 40 ETF (ILF) invests in Brazil, Mexico and Chile. So if you want to find international stocks for your swing trading strategy than you should begin by picking the region or the specific country.

Are international stocks safe? You must be thinking why you need to think outside of US Stocks. International stocks also give you the ability to create some hedging strategies in combining US and non US Stocks into a pair trade in addition to volatility that you need as a swing trader. The traders who refuse to consider international stocks only hurt themselves because with the US in the mature business cycle, the real growth and volatility that you need as a swing trader can only come from international stocks. - 31869

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account!

Autotrading Exposed

By Ahmad Hassam

Can autotrading make you rich? Well, it depends on your autotrading system. Many hedge funds and other entities that manage money through forex trading use some form of autotrading in their daily activities. Autotrading is common in the currency trading.

Previously these autotrading programs also known as Expert Advisors or Forex Robots were expensive costing like thousands of dollars and only wealthy individuals or big institutions like hedge funds could afford them.

However, the recent advancement in computer programming has made it possible for professional forex traders to team up with a software expert to develop their own autotrading systems. Many private individual traders have also begun to adopt autotrading to execute their thoroughly backtested and highly optimized forex trading strategies.

The price of these Expert Advisors has also come down to around a few hundreds that can be easily purchased by ordinary investors like you and me. Metatrader platform makes it real easy to program such type of Expert Advisors.

Recent advancements in computer programming has led to the development of trading platforms that allow an API ( Application Programming Interface) which connects the trader's system to the dealer's trade execution structure through the trading platform. So what is autotrading? You must have heard or read a lot about the benefits or advantages of autotrading.

The trading system needs to be ruled based and mechanical in nature with clear cut entry and exit rules. Once all of the trading rules and criteria are determined by the trader, programming an API can be relatively straight forward for anyone with programming experience. APIs requires programming skills on the part of either the trader or a programmer hired by the trader. After the specific trading rules and criteria are determined, the trading strategy is backtested with positive results.

Autotrading is almost as simple as flipping a switch to begin the trading process. When this occurs not only trades entered when predetermined technical criteria is met but trade exits in the form of stop loss and take profit rules can also be programmed into the API.

However, before an autotrading system is put on live trading, it is thoroughly backtested and forward tested to make sure the likely success of the autotrading system. This creates an entirely self contained autotrading system. So autotrading can actually execute real trades on current real time market prices. When a predetermined signal emerges, the software actually places a trade automatically.

In fact, autotrading is perhaps the best way to achieve it if the trader has optimized and perfected this type of black and white trading strategy that runs devoid of human judgment. Any nondiscretionary technical trading strategy that has clear cut, unambiguous rules is a good candidate for autotrading. Autotrading effectively eliminates all human biases, errors and emotions in the trading process.

The best two forex autotrading systems are FAPT and Ivy Bot. There are a number of successful autotrading systems now available in the market for the ordinary retail investors. - 31869

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account!

What is Backtesting? (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

What is Backtesting? You must have read a lot about the backtested performance of trading systems on websites. With Backtesting, traders can actually test their trading strategies and how well they would have done if executed in the past. Backtesting any trading strategy allows a trader to simulate its expected performance using historical price data.

What type of a trading strategy can be backtested? Any trading strategy that does not have any ambiguity in its rules can be backtested effectively. Example of a simple trading strategy that can be backtested can be as follows.

When the MACD histogram has crossed above the zero line and the DMI+ is above DMI-, go long when the 5 period moving average has crossed above the 20 period moving averages.

Sell short when the 5 period moving averages has crossed below the 20 period moving average and the MACD histogram has crossed below the zero line and DMI- is above DMI+.

Are backtested trading systems reliable? Why so much backtested performance is quoted on the websites to prove that the trading system is good? You must know that using the past price data to simulate future results often misleads traders into thinking that their backtested results will also give into similar results in actual real time trading. This one example is just meant to illustrate that any trading strategy having clear cut rules can be backtested with the historical data.

Many potential factors can and will make hypothetical performance and actual performance differ significantly. So you should not fall into the trap of thinking that Backtesting may be a perfect method for identifying the most profitable trading strategies.

One of the most important facts that you should always keep in your mind is that market change considerably overtime. A trading strategy that may have worked very well over the past three years may work in an entirely different manner for the next three years as the market changes and evolves.

Often technical indicators that have been giving profitable signals in the past are subsequently unable to replicate their performance in the future. This may frustrate you. But this is exactly what makes trading a challenging endeavor.

Secondly, real time trading and trading with the past historical price data are two different things. A trading strategy in real time may be much different from the way the trading strategy behaves on Backtesting in term of trade execution. These differences can potentially skew the results.

However, Backtesting is still the best available method for evaluating a trading strategy without actually trading it in real time environment. Backtesting can provide a trader with a reasonable expectation of the trading strategy's potential worth and usefulness.

Now let's discuss how to do Backtesting. Backtesting can be done by using two methods. The first one is the automated Backtesting. This is the most popular method. Automated Backtesting entails using a specialized program. The trader inputs the specific rules and criteria for the trading strategy into the Backtesting program.

An entire picture of the past performance is created with the help of that software program. The software automatically applies those rules to the past price data and tallies the past hypothetical profits, losses and other information. - 31869

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account!