Insurance Problems and the Economy

By Rick Amorey

The very concept of insurance is getting a lot of trouble recently. What should be considered as a way to lower financial risk is ending up as the factor that increases it. And with the downhill economy that we are currently experiencing, insurance companies that are declaring bankruptcy is truly frightful for the people who have business with them.

So, what are the reasons for the distrust laid upon insurance companies? There are those who speculate that it is because of a company's direct refusal to hand over the insurance to someone who has a high likelihood of loss. Persons who do extreme contact sports, for example, may have trouble finding life insurance. If you are someone with a high-risk profile, then chances are good you won't get legally insured. To a lot of people, this seems to be contradictory to what insurance should be.

Now this brings us to the question: What is an insurance company supposed to be? Many people invest in insurance without even understanding how it'll affect one's finances. With anything that concerns money, blind investment is a serious risk.

At it's core, buying insurance is a confirmation of a definite loss of assets (in which case, the payment of a periodical premium) so that the risk of a larger, and more devastating loss is lessened. It must be accident; an insured person must not purposely cause anything that will harm him or herself. It's quite understandable that there are a number of scheming people out there who want to make a quick buck by deliberately hurting themselves for insurance money.

This is where problems come in. The concept of mitigating an accidental loss becomes an issue if the company suddenly declares bankruptcy. If so, you would definitely feel like you accepted a devastating loss without no compensation whatsoever. And this is what angers a lot of people. - 23212

About the Author:

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Let Forex Robots Trade Your Money without Fear or Greed

By Richard U. Olson

When you are involved in the world of investments you more than likely already know there are two conditions that cause the majority of investors to do what they do when making their moves. These two conditions are greed and fear. They are the most basic and strongest of all the human emotions. Greed may turn to being foolishly risky and fear can turn to panic. However, such strong emotions do not govern successful Forex traders.

You see, successful Forex traders use managed Forex trading. They make use of tried and true Forex trading strategies like those based on mathematical algorithms. They might make use of a Forex auto-trading system and trading software. And, some of them might even make use of a Forex expert advisor to guide them in making buy, sell, or stop-loss decisions or setting their trading parameters.

But whatever may be the case, Forex traders who are making money are not merely acting - or reacting - on emotions. This does not mean that they are unfeeling. These traders still don't like taking losses and they do desire to make more and more money (hence, that makes them "greedy"). However, whatever they feel about a momentary loss or a stroke of greater profits than they had anticipated is subsumed by them. In other words, if their feelings would cause them to do something that is not in their investment trading plan, they ignore their feelings.

No matter what sort of dire financial news comes out that day, no matter what sort of day you've had, you should not let these factors make your investment decisions for you. Stay to a carefully thought out Forex trading strategy and try to discount your emotional response to market movements.

It's discipline which is the key to Forex trading success. When you are immersed in your emotions as a trader, you are about to drown. You become one of the "sheeple". Your fear causes you to take profits or put up a stop-loss when you shouldn't, so you miss great profit opportunities. Your greed causes "irrational exuberance" and you risk too much so that you take heavy losses when you should have had good profits instead.

So a Forex trading discipline has to be based upon tried and true trading principles and strategies that have been proven to work. It has to be based upon real history.

A successful trader actually makes a lot of their money at the expense of those who make their decisions on an emotional basis. The movements in the market which can cause many to panic or become overconfident can bring large profits to the savvy Forex trader.

Sticking to your investment strategy in the Forex market is perhaps most easily accomplished by using automated Forex trading software. This software will use mathematical modeling to predict market movements based on past behavior and can keep you focus on your investment goals without the risks posed by emotionally based investing. - 23212

About the Author:

Richard U. Olson uses the state of the art Fully Automated Trading System and he recommends it to make consistent profits in the Forex markets. Grab his FREE e-course on The Crucial Facts On Forex Trading to achieve your financial freedom.

How Much & Where Is The World's Oil

By Terry Stanfield

When you are looking into oil and gas investing it is important to understand about the reserves of oil around the world. There are three classifications of reserves. Oil is all over the world but not all of it is even obtainable. This is very important information if you are interested in investing in any gas investments.

Proved oil reserves are claimed reserves that are verifiable. There are many techniques to verify that oil really exists and the certainty is at least 80%-90%. In order for a country to meet the definition of proven oil reserves for oil and gas investments they must have capital investment, have gas compression installed, and bring the oil as gas to the surface.

When you consider oil investments you also should understand the term of unproved reserves. This type of reserve is not proven and the confidence that the oil actually exists is only 50%. This means it is a possibility that the oil might exist. The unproved oil reserves are used for planning purposes and gas investments.

There are strategic petroleum reserves that are controlled primarily by the government.. Strategic reserves are not even counted when the number of nation's reserves is given.

There are over 1.4 billion barrels of oil in strategic reserves that are not counted by the nation today. The proved oil reserves in the Middle East is over 580 million barrels. South and Central America and Europe have just less than 100 thousand million barrels of oil. Asia has around 77 thousand million and the United States has less than 50 thousand million barrels of oil. South and Central America have the larges amount of oil that is not proven or it is not recoverable. The United States has almost 400 thousand million barrels of oil that is not recoverable also. Non-recoverable oil is a term you should be familiar with when it comes to oil and gas investing.

North America and the Asia Pacific have the least amount of verifiable and accessible oil in the World. However, North America has a lot of oil, it is said that it is not verifiable and it is not recoverable. The Middle East says to have almost 900 thousand millions barrels of oil with over 850 accessible. These numbers are important when you are considering oil investments.

Gas investments are tough to consider when you are looking at the different reserves around the world. You need to know which oil reserves are proven and which are not. In addition, you might not want to begin oil and gas investing if a business claims to be drilling in a location where the oil is not proven or it also shows to be not accessible. - 23212

About the Author:

Visit Evans Energy's site for information on investng in oil and gas and oil and gas investment benefits.

Have You Ever Traded Forex Options?

By Hass67

Have you heard about George Soros; The legendary manager of Quantum Hedge Fund who had made a cool $1 Billion profit from a single bet. In the early 1990s, one day he was sitting in his office discussing currency markets with his associate. Both of them were of the opinion that the British pound was overpriced and Bank of England could not sustain its price for long.

He decided to purchase $10 Billion of puts and calls options by using all their funds assets as collateral. George Soros was willing to gamble everything on a single bet.

He was convinced that the Bank of England cannot sustain the overpriced British pound. In a short time, other speculators also joined action. There was a huge selling pressure on British pound. In a matter of just 24 hours, Bank of England had to take British pound out of the European Monetary System and let it float freely.

British pound plummeted in the currency markets. George Soros had won his bet. He became famous as the man who broke the British pound with his pictures in all the famous newspapers and magazines.

Daily more than $3 trillion are transacted in the currency markets. You as a forex trader can profit from the volatility in the currency markets using a number of methods. Forex options is one of the methods

You as a retail forex trader can trade any one of these contracts: spot, futures and options. Two more contracts are traded in the currency markets primarily for hedging by large institutions like banks, corporations and hedge funds. These are forwards and swap contracts.

What are forex options? Options are derivative instruments that allow you to buy or sell an underlying asset at a price known as exercise price before or on a certain date called strike date. There is no obligation on you to actually buy/sell the currency like that in futures.

Currency is the underlying asset in forex options. You can purchase a forex options on payment of a certain premium. This is the price that you pay for getting the right but not the obligation to buy/sell a certain currency.

When will you profit from purchasing a forex options? If the market price of the currency is above/below your strike price, you can buy/sell that currency by exercising your option of buying/selling the currency at the strike price and make a decent profit.

However, in case, the currency market price is below/above the strike price of the forex options; you need not exercise your right to buy/sell. By not exercising the forex options contract, you only lose the premium.

If you want to try forex options then there is a very good forex options strategy that lets you profit regardless of the direction in which the currency market is moving.

This method is guaranteed to give you profits with an ROI of 30-50%. Try this method. It is risk free. - 23212

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in investing, options and forex trading. Read more about Forex Options Non Direction Trading System. Discover a revolutionary new Forex Robot

Retirement Savings - How Much Control Do You Have?

By Gnifrus Urquart

The retirement industry in Australia is second to none in the world. It forces us to save money in a very comfortable way, a way that doesn't impact our disposable income, so we all have a big pool of money to live off in retirement.

One of the things I don't like though is the way you lose control of you money in the Australian Superannuation Industry. It is getting better, but for me there is still a very big issue here. You generally do not have a big say in how your money is invested. This is why I set up my own DIY Super fund.

All a DIY Super fund is, is a legal structure you can use to manage your own superannuation money. There are a number of responsibilities you must take care of, ensuring the fund meets its obligations in as much as superannuation laws go. Once set up though, you can be as involved as you want and outsource the parts you are not interested in managing. The things that need to be taken care of include:

Firstly, someone needs to be the trustee. The trustee takes legal ownership of and responsibility for the fund, and all the assets there within. Time wise, it is not onerous, its more of a legal responsibility.

b) All the housekeeping. Someone needs to do all the book keeping and accounting work. This includes preparing all the annual tax statements, balancing the books and lodging tax returns.

Thirdly the fund needs to be audited. Each year, it needs to be checked by an independent auditor to ensure you are keeping within the superannuation regulations. This is what will ensure you get to keep receiving your superannuation tax concessions.

Finally, you need to invest the money in a way that responsibly improves the pool of funds for your retirement. The investment decisions have to be within the superannuation regulations as well as the investment strategy as outlined in the SMSF trust deed.

Personally, I was just interested in managing my investments. All the rest was outsourced. I just wanted to be able to ensure the investment decisions I made were mine so I could feel responsible for any losses or gains that I made. There is nothing worse than when your retirement investments decrease over a year and you have no control whatsoever in the decisions made. I wanted to avoid this. Also, getting control of this meant that I could make investment decisions giving my whole portfolio consideration and not treat my retirement investment as if it were an island, completely separate of other investments I have. It is all part of my estate after all.

All other responsibilities I outsourced. To me, they were time consuming tasks which were better undertaken by experts in the relative fields. This left me with more time to research and make investment decisions. - 23212

About the Author:

Gnifrus Urquart appreciates controlling his retirement savings, as well as the leisure time outsourcing his DIY Superannuation Administration affords him.