Offshore investing - Leveraging overseas tradingWritten by Jakob Jelling
In today’s climate of a falling dollar and emerging economies all over world, offshore investing can be an attractive option. Before looking at investing overseas, however, you should understand your financial goals, potential pitfalls of overseas investing, and how best to leverage your investments.First, you have to understand your own financial goals. It can be tricky when you’re ready to divest yourself to pull your money out of a foreign fund; therefore, offshore investing should be done primarily with money earmarked for a long-term goal, such as retirement or college for your infant daughter. Short-term investing should remain domestic, where you can access your money relatively quickly. Next, you’ll need to determine where you want to get into offshore investing. No matter how tempting economy, it’s a bad idea to invest in a company in a country that doesn’t like your country of origin. Your funds can be frozen or even seized by a foreign government, winding up with you losing everything. And there’s no way to insure against this. You should understand political situation in your chosen country. A country prone to coups is not a good risk; a country that’s held in high esteem by World Bank is probably a good investment property. No matter how tempting profits that can be made, you should never invest in a country that violates your country’s laws (for instance, if you’re American, you shouldn’t invest in a country on American terrorism supporting countries list.) You could find yourself in serious criminal trouble for financing terrorism or some other heinous crime against your own country. And if you invest in a country that subsequently goes to war, suffers a coup, or undergoes some major problem, you could lose everything.
| | Investing online - Day traders and othersWritten by Jakob Jelling
With inception of Internet, many people experienced and inexperienced in stock trading have begun signing up with online trading companies and buying and trading their own stocks. Investing online in this manner is growing in popularity, especially with sometimes-apocryphal stories of people who’ve made tons of money doing it. But how do you know what stocks are right for you? How do you start? How do you keep from losing your shirt investing online? First, start small. View your first few months as a learning experience, and only invest online with money you can afford to lose. Smaller sums are easier to handle and track, and manipulating smaller amounts will get you used to how online exchanges work. Only when you’re very confident with money you’re investing should you add more money to your account. Diversification is as important to investing online as it is to investing in regular stocks. Make sure you purchase stocks with a wide variety of risk, in a wide variety of industries. The more you spread your money around more you reduce your risk. You should learn as much as you can about where you’re putting your stocks, and keep up with what’s going on with those companies. Many online trading companies offer some great news resources, so you can keep up with latest developments in your companies and your industries; but you can also use Yahoo news and other online news services to search for information on your stock holdings. Hold onto mutual funds, even when you’re investing online in great stocks. Mutual funds are a great form of stock market insurance. They’re invested by professionals who have time to keep up with all industry trends. View your online investing as a way to make extra money with money you can afford to lose. Although costs listed on online brokerages may seem low, associated fees, especially with multiple trades, can be significant. Know what your chosen online services will really cost you before investing online. You should also know rules concerning capital gains tax and other federal and state rules that may affect your profits.
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