LET YOUR MONEY GROW

There is one simple thing that separates the rich from the poor – this one principal is the reason the rich build more and more wealth, and the poor get even poorer, and traditional streams of education fail to teach our youngsters meaning most are faced with having to figure it out for themselves… and most never do.

But first, let’s look at defining the problem in simple terms so we’re all on the same page – what’s needed is some basic definitions of common terms that are often misunderstood.

One of those big problems we face as a society in this modern age is debt. More specifically – bad debt.

There are two types of debt you can have – good debt and bad debt. The difference? Well, the simple defining difference is that bad debt is credit you obtain and then use to purchase liabilities – or several liabilities. This could be taking out a loan for a new car, or purchasing this years holiday on your credit card. Good debt is credit that you leverage in order to purchase assets – this could be taking out a mortgage to purchase a rental property that’s going to return you a second, almost passive income.

The first thing we should probably clear up is the definition of an asset and a liability – they are not what most people think they are! For example, the house that you own and live in – is it a liability or an asset? Let’s make the assumption that you’ve been lucky to pay off your mortgage and you own it outright – how would you answer that question bearing that in mind?

Most people believe their home is an asset – especially if they have no mortgage on it. How can it be a liability when I haven’t got any credit to support it’s ownership and I have a store of value in the property’s equity? Well, according to Rich Dad Poor Dad, the simple definition of a liability is something that costs you money to own, and an asset is something that you own that provides an income over and above the expenses incurred to own it.

So, in the case of your house, unless you’re renting it out and making a profit, it’s a liability – it costs you money to own it and live there! You pay water and electricity bills to keep it operational, you pay council tax for the pleasure of it existing within a certain jurisdiction, and you probably pay insurance to protect the potential downside. If you’re not charging rent to someone to live there over and above YOUR costs then it’s costing you to own it. It’s worth mentioning also that if you rent it out but don’t make enough from the rent you’re charging to cover the expenses then it’s still a liability – the defining difference is whether it achieves positive cashflow or not.

Hold on, I hear you cry, but I don’t have a mortgage and I can sell my property for hundreds of thousands of pounds if I wanted to so it’s an asset because when I sell it I’ll make lots of money! Erm, not quite. You see, you only realise the paper value stored in a property like that once you sell it… and you can only sell it for what someone is prepared to pay. For example, you might have been unfortunate in a relationship and going through divorce where you need to sell quickly – you’re a highly motivated seller, and there are no buyers in the market for your type of property who are prepared to pay what you want to sell it for. All of a sudden, the value in your assets diminishes considerably simple because of someone else’s perception of value.. which could be drastically different to yours! You only realise the value in an asset like that at the point of sale, and there’s no guarantee you’ll find any buyers at the time you’re looking to sell, and there’s no guarantee that if you find a willing buyer that they’ll want to pay what you think it’s worth. This doesn’t sound like a very reliable asset to me – especially given the potential return can so easily change based on multiple variables that are completely out of your control. Yes – you might sell and make a profit, but you might equally have to sell at a loss, and you won’t know which it’s going to be until the point of sale.

Now that we’ve clearly defined good and bad credit, and the definition of an asset and a liability, let’s have a look at the key problem most people face when it comes to finances – financial education.

The one key difference between the rich and the poor is this; the rich know how to master their money and create assets that provide multiple streams of income – more simply, they understand the art and the science of putting their money to work in a way that means their money makes them more money without the controlling person having to exchange time for more money.

But this is exactly the opposite of what we’re taught in school, where the focus is on finding a skill, becoming qualified, and then finding a position where you can exchange your time for money for the rest of your life.

Okay, but what’s wrong with that?

Well, nothing if that approach aligns with your values and allows you to achieve your goals in life. However, the key limitation with this approach is this – you only have 24 hours in a day like everyone else, so what happens when you reach a point where you’re exchanging all those hours for an hourly wage? Well, when there’s no more hours in the day to exchange, you’re not only burnt out and unfulfilled because you have no time to direct towards the things you love in life (let’s face it, most people are far from doing a job they love), but you have now hit your earnings ceiling. How do you earn more when there’s no more time to exchange? This is the key limiting problem with this approach.

Yes, most of us will have to start with this inefficient exchange in order to generate our first income, but it’s what we do with the fruits of our labour that really defines where we’re going to mature into wealthy people or poor people. For those of us who have been lucky enough to have some financial education, we start to do things with our money that let it grow all on it’s own. For those who don’t, they spend all their spare money on holidays, new gadgets, and toys – aka liabilities!

This behaviour sends us into a downwards spiral that can be extremely difficult to get out of. You earn money, and use that money to buy liabilities. Those liabilities increase your monthly outgoings, meaning you have to exchange more time for money to increase your income so you can continue to service the new liabilities you have purchased. You increase your income further so you again have some surplus (but you’re now working 12 hours days and barely seeing your family), and then you use that surplus to purchase more liabilities… and so the vicious cycle continues. Can you see now why this behaviour is so destructive to people’s finances? Can you see why we have such a problem with bad debt these days? All because financial education is considered unimportant by our educational institutions. This needs to change, and this change starts with you educating yourself, so you can go on to educate others and set the next generation up for greater levels of financial success.

So, how do the wealthy grow their money?

There are multiple strategies people use, but they can all be classed as one form of investment or another. You could invest in stocks and shares that not only appreciate in value but that pay you a dividend throughout the year whilst you own them. You could invest in the wild west market of crypto-currencies and benefit for the massive bullish gains we’ve seen in those markets in recent years (I was trading Bitcoin at $900 at the start of 2017, and it’s now broken right through $10,000 – all in under 12 months). You could put your money into cash-flowing investment properties, or you could either start your own business or invest in one.

There are so many strategies you can employ to make your money work for you, rather than you working for money. All it takes is the commitment to educate yourself in whatever vehicle you choose and get started.

I’ve written several blogs on trading and investing that you can find by searching those tags so please feel free to check those out to get some more information on these strategies – there’s also loads of great resources on-line, but there’s also a lot of shit. Be careful and do thorough research from reputable sources.

You can also join my trading education group on Facebook by clicking the following link: LG Trading

You can find some of my trading and investing blogs at the links below:

• Trading: The Basics

• Understanding The Stock Market & Trading

• Financial Wealth: What, How & Why

Enjoy! Please drop me a comment if there’s additional content you’d find value in me covering on this subject!

Source: https://littlegreysays.com/2017/11/29/let-your-money-grow/ 

Today is Your Most Important Trading Day

Had a bad run of trades? 

You sat down at the computer last week with your cup of coffee and your favourite pair of lucky slippers on, just another trading day. You were making good progress, and there was a little whisper from way back in your head saying, 'I think we can do this. We're getting there...'

And then you went into self-destruct mode. Trade after trade of emotional trading, the monster coming out of nowhere and taking control, firing off orders like a stereotypical office-manager flipping notes at the pole-dancer after one too many drinks.

It hurts. Hurts like hell.

But tomorrow will be different, right? You sit in the corner of the room after the trading destruction derby and feel awful about yourself. You go for a walk and try and figure this shit out. It needs to change and YOU need to change.

You get revved up and ready. Tomorrow will be different. You're going to change and become more disciplined.

Right?

Except, you've been saying that for six months, a year, longer even.

Until you come to realise that you only ever have TODAY to trade effectively, you are going to continue making excuses and mistakes.

Every day when you wake up and sit at that computer, that is your most important trading day. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today.

You want to be a trader? You need to be willing to focus yourself TODAY. The discipline needs to be there TODAY. The ability to follow your rules ODAY and never mind how long your setup is taking, or the loss you made yesterday that you want to make back.

It sounds like it should be easy, but it isn't. We all have 'off' days. You know the ones where we wake up and it feels like a greyness has settled over the world. We don't want to work, we certainly don't want to do anything difficult.

But guess what? Today is the most important trading day. And when you are feeling like that, you should underline those words on a post-it and stick it to your computer monitor. Because those are the days when the damage tends to be done.

When you feel like that, try this... Just don't trade.

I'll give you a minute to get over that ground-breaking statement. It can be hard to grasp.

Today is your most important trading day. And every day, focus number one is protecting your account. If you feel like rubbish, the best defensive move can be to simply stay away.

Approach every day like it is your only trading day. Don't allow yourself to slip and then assure yourself that tomorrow will be better. In trading, you don't have a guarantee of tomorrow. That damaging behaviour you keep carrying out WILL one day pull your ability to trade from under you. The account will disappear and you will be left with nothing. It won't matter what you tell yourself on your walks or when you're rocking back and forth in the corner of the room. Because you will have allowed yourself to forget that TODAY is your most important trading day, and that will have finally caught up with you.

If you want to succeed, in trading or anything else, you need to come to terms with the fact that all you have is today to make it happen. Your focus and your drive and your determination needs to be there today. Not tomorrow. Not yesterday.

Think of the constant dieter. Always tomorrow. Always next week. And in the interim, they continue on with the destructive behaviour that continues adding to their problem and making it more difficult to overcome.

Now think of the person who loses all the weight. They decided that TODAY is their most important dieting day. All of their focus and determination went into it and they stuck with it on every today.

If you want it, whatever it is, go get it TODAY.

I hope you've all had a great trading week!

James Orr

Source: http://www.thinklikeatrader.co.uk/2018/05/today-is-your-most-important-trading-day.html

Dealing With Quiet Periods by Decisive Trading

There are always quiet periods when trading - times when the market just isn't lining up with what it is your trading plan identifies as your trading edge. The problem is that this is the time when most people undo all of the hard work they have done during the 'good' period. In this trading Vlog Decisive Trading explain the importance of remaining patient, and also ways to reframe those quiet periods into a positive!

Compounding - The Tortoise and the Hare - The True Secret of Trading Success

Have you ever heard the story about the Tortoise and the Hare? I am sure you have. But what you probably didn’t realise is that the story can be linked to trading. In fact, the Tortoise and the Hare is pretty much how I would categorise the successful Trader (the Tortoise) and those who never seem to get anywhere (the Hare).

In this blog post we are going to look at compounding. I am going to explain to you how it works, and beat the marching drum for it, in the hope that some of you fall into the slow march.

There are two categories of Traders out there. We have the get rich quick, fast cash brigade first. This is the Hare. This person wants to become a Trader and they want to become a millionaire and watch their account swell. They want it NOW. Sadly, this is the predominant type of person learning to trade. There are thousands of websites

that cater to them, promising ‘secret strategies’ and ‘financial freedom’ and ‘fast results.’ This type of trader has wild swings on their account. Sometimes they DO make large amounts of cash. But they lose it just as fast. They spend months and oftentimes years banging their head against the wall of Fast Cash and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Sadly, the result is always that eventually, they are forced to stop trading. They either lose too much money and can’t afford to continue, or their body has taken such an emotional beating that they are forced to retreat.

Whereas the Hare lost his race by being cocky and taking a nap, the Fast Cash Trader loses because instead of going at a sustainable pace, they try to go faster and faster until their heart gives out and they keel over. The answer to problems for the Fast Cash Trader is to increase risk, to trade more, and to attack markets until they get what they want.

They don’t understand one of the REAL secrets of trading – which is compounding. Instead, they want to make 100% per month. They want to make this amount because they need to make this much so they can live off of their trading income. Remember, they want to do that NOW. They need to make a certain amount each week for their wage. There is no future planning, they just want the money. If only someone could show them that by demanding the Fast Cash, they are instead making it impossible to succeed.

Now let’s look at the Tortoise. This Trader isn’t particularly exciting. They think in terms of years, rather than short term. This Trader understands that by taking a long-term view, and by allowing one of the true secrets of trading to work its magic, they can achieve their trading goals.

To understand compounding, I’ll tell you a quick story I was told when I was a teenager. My Dad told me a story about a man who went to play a game of golf. The person he was playing against said, to keep this interesting, let’s bet some money on each hole. We will start with £1 and double the risk each hole we play.

Now, that sounds absolutely fine, doesn’t it? A friendly game of golf with some risk between friends. But how much do you suppose they would be risking by the 18th hole?

By the 18th hole, they would be risking over £131,000.

And that, is the magic of compounding.

Now, I was around seventeen at the time. So, in all honesty, it blew right over my head. I was more interested in what my friends were doing at the weekend and what house party we were all going to so I could try my best to chase girls (and fail miserably as always).

But, once I found Trading, I understood the real power behind compounding.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to sustain huge Trading returns. I did a video about this on the YouTube channel called – The Most Common Trading Scam I see and the Number One Reason Beginner Traders Fail. I am not going to touch too much on it here. But rest assured, if these idiots promising even 50% returns per month could be believed, you would be the richest person in the world in a couple of years starting with only a modest account. It just isn’t possible. Sorry to burst your bubble, but if it were, banks and hedge funds with multi-billion pounds of spending power would be doing it, not some idiot sitting in his bedroom on his laptop. Instead, you’ll be back to being the Hare – running really fast and going exactly nowhere, over and over again.

But we are interested in the Tortoise. And it is important because it can help you take a HUGE amount of stress off of your shoulders as you learn and start to find consistency. By putting an arm around the shoulders of compounding and by accepting trading as a long-term venture, you can achieve your goals.

Let’s say you are at the stage whereby you are finding consistency as a Trader (If you’re not there, then that is fine also. You are still in the learning phase. Just take your time and protect your capital. The compounding can come after you learn. Crawl first, then walk). Now, when you start to become consistent, the danger is there that you suddenly ‘want to be a Trader’. And by saying that, I mean you want to quit your job and live life on a beach. The problem is, to do that in most instances, you would need to take on huge risk. And that will drop you right back down to being a Hare. Most people start with a smaller account, it is simply the truth of life. And the hard fact of life is that a small account is not sufficient to sustain you as an income source.

But let’s look at that long-term view. We will start with a relatively modest account of £5,000. And we will use compounding over a five-year period.

The problem with trading initially when you have a small account, is that you ARE looking at the monetary returns. You make a few hundred pounds in a month and instead of realising how well you have done, you think, ‘I can’t live on that’. So, you beat yourself up and try and do more. If you only took a proper view on it, you would understand how well you are doing and how you are setting yourself up moving forward.

Let’s now say you decide to risk 2% per trade. Your target is 5% per month. And you are going to let compounding do its work. So, that means you will need to be ‘up’ by around 2.5 trades per month (if looking for 1:1 risk reward). You don’t need to take ten trades per day; you don’t need to double your account every week. Just 2.5 solid trades per month.

If you only focused on the monetary return, it would be easy to get disheartened. By the end of 12 months, you would only have £8,942 in your account. Again, you start to think that you can never live on those sorts of returns. This is where people go wrong. Again, the desire to up your risk comes in. Disaster ALWAYS follows. What you should be focused on is the fact that you are making great returns in percentage terms. And you are building your trading knowledge and your discipline. JUST KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

By the end of year two you are at £16,060.

By the end of year three you are at £28,841

By the end of year four you are at £51,795.

Do you see the power of compounding in action? What if you decide to go for another one year?

By the end of year five you are at £93,000!

Now, do you think by the end of four or five years you have not only the ability, but thanks to compounding, also the account to look at trading as a more serious venture? And here’s something else that you can do – at the end of that time, take a look around at all the Hare’s who were chasing the fast cash and the huge returns. I can guarantee you they won’t be trading full time and will either be running through another cycle of ‘ok, this time I got this. I am going to make so much money!’ Or else they will have stopped trading altogether.

The problem with compounding is that people don’t let it have the time that is required for it to work. It is a snowball, that grows exponentially the more you roll it down the hill. You start small and you just stay focused on the process, not the outcome.

Five years. You can either ignore it and keep running full speed ahead like the Hare, lots of pace but never getting anywhere. Or, you can accept the reality of the task at hand and start building your foundation for the rest of your trading career.

I hope you’re all having a great trading week!

Source: http://www.thinklikeatrader.co.uk/2018/02/compounding-tortoise-and-hare-true.html

Financial Advisor Told Me To Invest Instead Of Paying Debt

That's a big question - is it better to invest my money and pay of my debts with my returns, or should I get my debt cleared first?

You'll get different advice from different people - so who's right?

Check out this great video that should answer this very question for you!

Alternative Ways To Invest In Stocks (That Don’t Require You To Be A Stock Market Expert)

There are lots of alternative ways to invest in the stock market. Some are certainly more complex than others and may require a financial degree to get your head around, however others are relatively simple. Not only that – you don’t need much money to try out these investments. Here are just a few unique ways to make money out of stocks.

Use a robo-advisor

Many people hire a stockbroker to identify the best places to invest, however stockbrokers won’t always guarantee you the best deal – many will choose stock based on the commission that they get from the exchange. Fortunately, there are now robo-advisors that can offer unbiased advice on investing based on hard facts and figures. These are essentially pieces of software that monitor all the stock prices out there to find you the best deal for your needs. It takes all the confusion out of shopping for stocks whilst not having to rely on a commission-hungry broker. That said, most of these programmes aren’t free and charge a small fee for using them. Others are free, but require a minimum account balance. Comparison guides can help you to find the best robo-advisor for you.

Try micro-investing apps

Micro-investing apps are great for anyone regardless of your budget. They save up your spare change in a savings account and then use this to make small investments in available stocks. These apps recommend the best places to invest and you get to choose whether or not to invest in them. They’re essentially robo-advisors on your phone that also encourage you to save up money to invest with.

Try spread betting

Spread betting isn’t so much a form of investment but rather a form of gambling based on how much you predict a stock will rise or fall. Spread betting in the UK is becoming more popular and there are software programmes out there that can help you get into the swing of it. Such programmes can weigh up the risk of whether a stock is likely to rise or fall. You can do spread betting with commodities like gold and oil and foreign currencies.

Join an investment club

Investment clubs allow you to put money in each week into a pot. This money is invested with and the profits are then shared out amongst everyone. By teaming together, investment clubs are able to take advantage of stocks with high minimum investments that might otherwise be too expensive to invest in alone. This is only one form of crowdfunding and there are all kinds of other groups such as mutual funds groups and real estate investment clubs for investing in property. Some investment clubs may be aimed primarily at the rich and may require high weekly contributions, however others may only require a small contribution each week.

Collaborative Post

Source: https://blog.themoneyshed.co.uk/alternative-ways-to-invest-in-stocks-that-dont-require-you-to-be-a-stock-market-expert/

How to master trading psychology | Brett Steenbarger

Trading and investing is such a great way to grow your wealth... if you know what you're doing!

But it's not just all about reading technical price charts and fundamentals... the psychology behind being in the markets is the main thing that so many people miss, and what causes most to fail.

Master your psychology with these great tips!

Is this the Beginning of the Big Stock Market Crash?

Written by Andy Tanner | Friday, February 23, 2018

Read time: 5 min

Where we are, where we might be going, and how I plan on profiting no matter what direction the stock market decides to go

I’ve had some requests to explain a little bit about the recent roller coaster activity in the market. There have been a lot of big drops and then big rises.

I’ve spoken a lot about how I am skeptical of the high price of this market. I still am. People are asking me, “Andy, is this the big drop you’ve been talking about?” To answer this question that seems to be on everyone’s mind, I want to explain what I think is happening right now in a way that anyone should be able to understand.

Looking at current charts of the market, I do see some spikes in in volatility. This shows me that the market’s unpredictability is increasing. But do I think that this is a big one? No, probably not. However, I think there are some things that we should start watching more closely.

When I say that the market seems to be too expensive or overvalued, here’s what I mean: How much does it cost us in price to earn a dollar of profit? It’s another way of looking at the idea of earning a return on our investment.

In the stock market, there are many big investing companies (“institutions”) that buy and sell huge blocks of stock. These institutions are probably the biggest force in the market to affect prices. When the market is going up rapidly like it has been over the past year, these institutions want to ride it as long as possible. But at the first sign of trouble, the institutions will start selling immediately. These days, this is usually the cause of our big market drops.

What can this mean for the average investor like you and me? Well, I think it’s very important to know as much as possible about any type of investment you want to get involved with. So let’s spend a few minutes to understand how a company or a market gets valued.

Suppose you had a money machine. When you turn the crank on your money machine, it spits out a dollar for you. These dollars you create are your earnings.

In the world of business, there are all kinds of money machines. If the company is Apple, the action that turns the crank is the devices they sell. If the company is Pfizer, they turn the crank through the sale of pharmaceuticals. The more the crank gets turned, the more money they earn.

For investors like us, our two main questions are:

• How much does it cost to buy a particular money machine?
• How much earnings does that money machine generate?

When we know the answers to these two questions, we can do a little math to come up with the Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio).

If you are familiar with real estate investing, this is very similar to the Cap Rate (except the values are flipped). Overall, it’s a way for us to quickly understand if a particular investment is a good value, or if it’s too expensive.

In the world of stocks, many investors keep and eye on the Shiller PE index, a price earnings ratio based on average inflation-adjusted earnings from the previous 10 years,. The median Shiller PE Ratio has historically been around 16 - 17. It’s a good barometer of what value we should be targeting. Again, a PE of 16 means that it costs us about $16 for every $1 of earnings we receive from that stock.

Looking back in time, we can see that there have only been a few times that the PE Ratio for the S&P 500 has been above this level. Before the crash of 1929, prices almost doubled and people were paying up to $30 for every dollar of earnings from the S&p 500. And during the dot-com boom people were paying HUNDREDS of dollars for companies that had zero earnings.

When the price of stocks gets really high, we’re forced to answer these questions: Are these high-priced companies cranking out enough dollar bills to still be valuable investments to buy? Are the profits worth the expensive price tag? The moment investors see that the PE ratios are too high, they will only continue to buy if they see growth. And if the outlook for growth becomes pessimistic, selling can insue.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the market is going to crash immediately. But as we look back historically, there have only been a couple of times in the past I mentioned before when investors have been willing to pay this much for stocks. As the dot-com bubble showed, when investors were paying $44 for $1 of earnings, they eventually said it wasn’t worth it anymore. That’s when the big crash occurred.

The Risk Of Having A 401(k) Account

Most people with retirement accounts such as a 401(k) have not been worried over the past few years. They hope the value of their accounts go up and up. For those who have these types of accounts, there are two things to keep in mind:

1. The value of your account does NOT mean you have that much money waiting for you. Instead, it represents the current value of all the investments that are held in your account. When you want to get money out of the account, your account manager will sell shares at whatever the current market value on the date you sell.
2. When the market goes up, the value of your account will go up with it. But when the market drops or crashes, your account value drops with it. There is no protection for you.

Protecting With “Stock Insurance”

Insurance is a great tool to protect things that you value. We buy insurance for our homes, for our cars, and for our health. We don’t need insurance every single day, but we buy it to protect us when those rare bad events happen. It’s impossible to predict exactly when a bad event will happen, but it’s easy to prepare for it.

One of the great tools available for stock investors is to buy “insurance” on your stock positions. This is what we teach our students every week in my Mentor Club. We show how to protect yourself from any anticipated market problems, and also how to turn that into cash flow. In fact, many times we can structure positions so that we generate enough cash to actually pay for this insurance.

The tool we use to buy this insurance is called a stock option. When we are educated on how options work, and how to maximize them for different situations, we can control our risk and predict our cash flow very accurately.

The key is to know when to buy the insurance. It’s a lot cheaper to buy insurance when you don’t need it than when your house is going up in flames. The same is true with stock protection.

Even though we don’t know exactly when a big crash will happen, we can spot early signs based on what has happened in the past. This allows us to buy insurance via options at lower prices versus buying in the middle of a crash. We call this kind of insurance a “hedge.”

Our Students Learn To Do This With Zero Risk

One of the advantages of learning to trade stocks and options is you can do it risk-free with a practice account. Also known as paper accounts, these allow you to make trades using real market prices and information – but you can practice and improve your skill without risking any real money.

Virtually every online brokerage allows you to open and use these types of practice accounts. They’re virtually the same, so you can open one with any brokerage you choose.

We teach these strategies and techniques in our Mentor Club. This is our weekly training service where you get to follow along as we find profitable trades, set them up, make adjustments as needed, and show you exactly how much we make or lose on every trade.

Our students learn how to set themselves up to profit no matter if the market is going up or down. They also learn how to protect themselves from big market crashes that hurt the typical stock investor who sits on a buy and hold account.

Anyone can join The Mentor Club risk-free for 30 days. It’s a great way to see if this type of cash flow investing is right for you. You can get full details at AndysMentorClub.com.

Source: http://www.richdad.com/Resources/Rich-Dad-Financial-Education-Blog/February-2018/Is-this-the-Beginning-of-the-Big-Stock-Market-Cras.aspx

WHEN THE SKY SEEMS TO BE FALLING

Posted by: Team Tony

Legal Disclosure: Tony Robbins is a board member and Chief of Investor Psychology at Creative Planning, Inc., an SEC Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) with wealth managers serving all 50 states. Mr. Robbins receives compensation for serving in this capacity and based on increased business derived by Creative Planning from his services.

“Global financial markets slip as oil price plunges to new lows” – The GuardianThe recent headlines about global financial markets are enough to incite panic – or at least concern:

“U.S., world stock markets slide as panic in China spreads” – The Washington Post

Volatility the new watchword for financial markets” – South China Morning Post

“S&P 500 off to worst-ever start to year” – USA Today

China’s stocks fell 11.6% the first week of the New Year, renewed tensions in the Middle East are causing the price of oil to dive, and George Soros is reporting that the current challenge reminds him of the 2008 financial crisis; all in all, it’s easy to wonder what this is going to do to your portfolio.

However, financial security is not out of reach. In fact, with the right preparation and strategy you can thrive in any economic environment. In the articles below you will find:

•    The exact portfolio of the world’s largest hedge fund leader

•    An explanation of risk in both inflation and deflation

•    A simple and effective breakdown of how to allocate your assets

•    A look into the buy-and-hold strategy

Volatile markets do not have to determine your stress level, and with the right strategy they do not have to disrupt your future plans, either. Take the time to understand these tactics and take massive action. Your future self will thank you.

Source: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/wealth-lifestyle/sky-seems-falling/

Million Dollar Traders (Full Series 1 of 3)

Can anyone become a successful trader in the financial markets?

Watch to find out!

The Crypto Craze Continues

Cryptocurrencies are becoming a popular way to pay for high-end real estate

If you turn on the news, troll the Internet or stand around the water cooler, you’re likely inundated with talk of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are so exciting because they are relatively new and highly volatile.

Some analysts are predicting that digital currency is the future of the world’s financial system, while others believe it’s merely a trend that will disappear. Only time will tell, of course, but its extreme fluctuations make for some very dynamic investments.

At the time of this writing, one Bitcoin is worth $10,854.42 U.S. dollars. As such, many people are buying fractions of Bitcoins—investing $50 or $100 to get their hands on a piece of this pie.

Using Bitcoin in Real Estate

Now, you might be wondering how to pay for things using cryptocurrencies—you can’t exactly use it to pay for a manicure or your skinny latte (yet). But you can use it to buy household products on Overstock.com or a hotel room on Expedia.com. In fact, there are a slew of places jumping on this bandwagon, and you can check out all the participating companies here.

But one of the ways in which Bitcoin is being used that truly fascinates me is in—you guessed it—real estate. I recently read a news story about the owner of a $45 million mansion who is willing to accept Bitcoin as partial payment for his 9,000-square-foot home. He believes that purchasing brick-and-mortar real estate might remove some of the volatility when it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies.

Part of his logic? “According to current situation, if you buy the property with cryptocurrency, it’s difficult to identify the cost of the real estate because it fluctuates so much,” he said. “The government will have a hard time to tax or put a property value on the house you are going to sell.”

That’s an interesting way of looking at things—the value of the Bitcoins he receives for the sale of his home could increase or decrease almost immediately, essentially putting him in a position where he’s getting more or less for his home than he realized.

Now, there probably aren’t a lot of potential buyers in the market for a home with this price tag, but there are more millionaires as of late thanks to cryptocurrency gains. And these new millionaires (and some are even billionaires) are no doubt looking for ways to reinvest their gains—and old-fashioned real estate may be the ideal route to go.

A Whole New Playing Field

Clearly, converting large chunks of cryptocurrency into a less-volatile asset—like real estate—is a logical choice. And it’s happening more often than you think.

Luxury real estate agent Tony Giordano says he’s fielding more and more requests to use cryptocurrency to buy and sell property—and now asks his high-end clients if they would be willing to accept digital currency. Why? More options equals more buyers. This is especially true in the luxury market, where buyers like to maintain a low profile and avoid tax issues. Remember, cryptocurrencies are still largely unregulated.

As such, it’s also important to note that finding an escrow service that handles crypto sales (vs. traditional cash) is not easy because technology is, unsurprisingly, moving faster than government regulation. So you’ll likely have to convert Bitcoin into cash in order to buy a property.

Now might be a good time to dabble with cryptocurrencies to get a feel for the market. There’s a lot to learn about digital currencies (including that Bitcoin isn’t the only game in town), so do your research and start your journey with a small investment—$20 is enough to get your feet wet.

While you may not be in the market for high-end real estate (yet), if you play your cards right, you could easily join the ranks of the new crypto millionaires popping up all around the world. And if not, you’ll get some experience buying and selling, monitoring your investments and having fun daydreaming about achieving your financial dreams.

Source: http://www.richdad.com/Resources/Rich-Dad-Financial-Education-Blog/February-2018/The-Crypto-Craze-Continues.aspx