Beginners Guide for Business and Financial | Thesecretmeeting.com

Archive for June, 2010

Although it makes sense to get in touch with a life insurance company to cover your dependents in the eventuality of your untimely death, there are integrity issues surrounding the insurance companies and agents. Broadly there can be 3 ways your life insurance company is scamming you. We have enlisted them for your benefit.

Selling Coverage that you don’t need!
The insurance companies thrive on the fact that most people don’t understand their life insurance needs. With standard products, they try to sell you coverage that you might not need, but, which are lucrative for them. The insurance agents expedite the process so that you skip the fine print and sign up for a coverage that is ill-suited to your needs. The trick is to play on your fear factor and sell you heavy insurance, even if you don’t have dependents.

Coaxing you to pay ‘Cash’
We strongly suggest, do not pay your premium through cash to an agent. Further, do ensure that you get a receipt for the payment. There are numerous fraudulent entities posing as genuine insurance agencies that extract hard cash from you in lieu of insurance premium. They ask you to sign at blank spaces in a form, assuring you that it is just a formality. Once you have fallen for their trick, you are left without an insurance coverage. The worst part is that most victims only come to know of this scam, when they have met with some mishap and there is not insurance to cover them.

Luring you with benefits!
Insurance agencies and agents have a way of promising you unbelievable benefits out a life insurance policy. Life insurance agents might offer you plans, with a guarantee that the policy would run premium-free for a specific period. Some agents play it smart and offer you great discounts for signing you up for a new policy, while replacing an old policy. The trick is that the old coverage gets terminated and new coverage does not get initiated due to the cumbersome procedural bottlenecks. Thus, exposing you to risk without cover.

Futures trading offers a good opportunity for other people to invest in. trading in futures contracts offers people the unique opportunity to invest in something other than stocks. Although sometimes they also operate in the same manner, futures trading presents a different method of earning revenues for the amount invested on it.

There are certain advantages that futures trading offers to interested investors. One of them is that such instruments are considered highly leveraged investments. In order for an investor to own a futures contract, he only needs to invest a small fraction of the value of the contract. Most investors only invest about ten percent of the contract’s value in exchange for trading them. This way, investors may be able to trade larger amounts of commodities than if he ever bought the commodities outright.

If he predicted the movement of the prices of the commodities traded correctly, the investor has a great chance of profiting ten-fold for an initial investment of ten percent of the actual futures contract’s value. That is how leverage works to the advantage of the investor in futures trading.

Another advantage of futures trading is that it is basically a paper investment. Although futures trading involves certain commodities, the investor doesn’t have to worry about how to take care of the produce himself. Trading is done with the futures contract changing hands instead of the commodity itself. This makes it quite convenient since the investor doesn’t have to worry about where to store and keep the commodities being traded for the meantime.

Another advantage of futures trading is that futures trading is that the futures contracts being traded are considered very liquid. This means that there are huge amounts of contracts being traded in the market on a daily basis. Orders can be placed quickly and they can be bought or sold in a similar fashion. There are always quite a number of available buyers and sellers for the futures contracts, whatever commodity it might be.

One good thing about the futures trading market is that it enjoys fairer trading as compared with stock and share trading. Trading in the futures exchange can be very vocal as trading is done in the midst of shouting of “Buy!” or “Sell!”. Another thing is that it is more difficult to get insider information in futures trading that seems to be a big problem in the price manipulation in stock trading.

Commissions on futures markets tend to be smaller as compared to other trading markets. The commissions are usually paid after the position has ended. Depending on the level of service, the commissions for brokers can be as low as five dollars to as high as two hundred per transaction.

For an investor, it may be quicker to make money on futures trading. Aside from the leverage provided by futures, the markets tend to move more quickly as compared to cash markets. But this can also work against the investor since the quick pace of the market can also lead to quick losses for the investor for incorrect predictions on their positions.

The more we live the more we find out that we are dependent on many things besides our wits. Smartness will only get us so far, but unless we make use of systems set up for our convenience we are apt to fail. This is so with the Forex market. The way how the market works means we have to work through a broker or a market maker to get our trades started and completed. You can find Forex brokers in every part of the world just as you will find currencies traded in almost every corner of the globe. However, you should consider a few points when you go out shopping for the right broker to help you with your trades.

1. Qualifications. Probably the most important thing of all is ensuring the Forex broker you use has the correct qualifications. Therefore, choose a broker registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM). This means that you have legal protection against any abusive trading practices and scams that may arise.

2. Is the broker regulated? This means that when you sign up to use their services you will have protection and insurance against any internal fraud. Also, your funds will remain separate from the broker’s operating funds.

3. What business model does the broker use? Some brokers are market makers while others are ECN brokers, providing a dealing desks for many traders.

4. Look at the types of spreads they offer. The spread is the difference between the bid and ask prices of the currencies you trade. Brokers do not make a commission on your trade, instead they take the spread as compensation. Your broker may also offer fixed or variable spreads, and they can be different for large accounts and miniaccounts.

5. Slippage. Can they provide you with details of just what slippage they would expect to occur during normal and fast moving markets?

6. Margin requirements. What is their margin requirement. That is, what percentage of the investment in your trades do they expect you to pay to open a trade. You also want to know about their margin calls, and the time you need to respond to such calls.

7. What is their Rollover Policy? Do they have any minimum margin requirements which they use to earn interest on any overnight positions? Plus, do they have any other requirements or conditions about you earning interest on any rollovers.

Once you have done your research and have selected one or more Forex brokers, then it is time to set up your trading account. When your funds clear you can begin trading. Remember to read
carefully the trading instructions to know how the broker can help you manage your trades. If you overlook some relevant details, you can lose money on your first trade. So take the time to read the details and ask the brokers or their support staff any questions you may have before you open your first trade.