Beginners Guide for Business and Financial | Thesecretmeeting.com

Archive for July, 2010

Motivation is the driving force behind life-enhancing change. It comes from knowing exactly what you want to do and having an insatiable, burning desire to do what’s necessary to get it. It keeps your dream on track as it is the power of motivation that keeps you going when the going gets tough.

Here’s 5 top tips to help you supercharge your motivation:

1. Create a picture board and fill it with images of your desired goals. The car you want to own, the house you want to live in, the area where you want to live yes, they’re the obvious ones. Others could be pictures of holiday destinations, trophies, first-class travel tickets, clothes you want to buy, fine restaurants you want to frequent – whatever you can think of that gets your pulse racing.

2. GET ANGRY. If you want to change your life for the better then get angry about where you’re at now. Having a blasé attitude towards change isn’t what’s needed and it won’t create a strong desire within you. So ask: “Why do I want to change?” Is it because you’re FED UP with debts? Does your job DRIVE YOU CRAZY? Is your life DULL AND PRECITABLE? Are you SICK AND TIRED of doing the same thing week in week out? Are you BORED BEYOND BELIEF by the dull, uninspiring, unhappy people you associate with? THEN GET ANGRY ABOUT IT. And I mean REAL ANGRY. Write it all down, all of the frustrating, unrewarding, miserable lot of it that makes every day a dull slog until your final days. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?

3. Speaking of your final days, start to appreciate the value of time. Time is one of the most precious resources you have and it is also a NON RENEWABLE resource. You can either use it fully or squander it. If you want to create change you’re going to have to invest a lot of time to make it happen. Start to reduce the time you waste on irrelevancies: Television, newspapers, lie-ins, weekends spent shopping, partying, dining out, visiting an endless line of relatives and friends – these won’t help you get what you want and all of them will rob time from you. Valuable time that you can use much more effectively by investing it in YOU. Remember this: You have a finite amount of time here on Earth. You don’t know how much time you have – no one does. But it’s how you use the time you have that counts. So make your time count and that means starting from right NOW.

4. Conformity. Are you a mindless little sheep who’s way too timid to pursue your own way? Do you have to follow where everyone else goes, doing exactly what everyone else does and therefore, who gets the same levels of happiness as all the other little sheep? Seriously, does this describe YOU? Are you too frightened to be different than all of the other sheep because they wouldn’t like it if you decided to follow a different path? So you dutifully trot along following all the other sheep because if they’re doing it then that’s how it is right? But if you do what everyone else does you’ll just get what everyone else gets. Do you want to be a mindless, timid little sheep who blindly follows all the other sheep? Or do you want to be a leader, a warrior who possesses the courage to be uniquely you and to do what you want to do and make your dreams happen? If so then this means you have to be more like a tiger than a sheep. Do you really want to be a sheep? I mean, haven’t we got enough sheep already?

5. Fear your fear. Fear is the force that is determined to stop you in your tracks and rob your dreams from you. But it can only do this if you let it. Are you going to let this cruel destructive charlatan trample on your dreams, steal your happiness and crush your spirit? Imagine this thought haunting your final days: “I didn’t do the things I wanted because I was too frightened to live”. And by then, it’ll be far too late to conquer fear. Refuse to let fear spoil your life and start taking action – now!

The world is waiting for your unique gifts. Why keep it waiting any longer?

Refinancing a first and second mortgage requires some extra considerations. Depending on your equity, you may find that combining the two mortgages results in a higher interest rate. You may also find that you have to carry PMI with the refinanced mortgage.

Will Refinancing Benefit You?

Refinancing two mortgages allows you to consolidate your loans into one payment, often lowering your monthly bill. You may also find lower rates under the right circumstances.

Those with a large amount of equity benefit most from consolidating loans since they qualify for the lowest rates. It is important to look at interest savings, not just monthly numbers which can be misleading.

However, if you have less than 25% equity, you may end up qualifying for higher rates. With less than 20% equity, you will also have to pay for private mortgage insurance. Even with these factors, you may still find that you will save money by refinancing.

Have You Done Your Research?

To see if refinancing makes sense for you, research mortgage lenders. You can quickly go online and request quotes and terms. Look at the different offers, and work out the numbers. An online mortgage calculator can help you figure out monthly payments and interest costs.

An easy way to compare cost is to first add up your interest payments for both mortgages. Use this number to compare interest payments with each potential mortgage.

You also need to factor in the cost of refinancing. Just like with your original mortgage, you will have to pay fees and points. You want to be sure that you can recoup these costs with your interest savings.

Why Do You Want To Refinance Both Mortgages?

While refinancing both mortgages is convenient, you may decide to refinance only one or both separately. With your main mortgage, you can expect to get low rates.

A second mortgage will usually qualify for higher rates, but you can lock them in. You may also choose to convert from a line of credit to an actual mortgage. Again, you will want to investigate financial packages before signing up with a lender.

Types of Orders
Placing orders is an art in itself. Beginners often do not know when to use market orders and limit orders. Different orders are used in different market conditions. But the limit order is the one that is most versatile. Understanding a limit order is essential to your trading success. I will only discuss the case for buying, the reasoning and mechanism is the same for shorting.

Market Order
In a market order, you are basically giving instructions to your broker to buy at the prevailing price. You cannot set what price you want to buy. Market orders might be prone to slippage in fast moving markets. For example, if you give a market order to buy 10 lots, 3 lots might be filled at $10, another 3 lots at $10.50 and the remaining 4 lots at $11.00. We usually use a market order when we need to get in or out of a market fast, such as when the market suddenly moves against you drastically.

Limit Order
A limit order is different from a market order in that you can specify the price at which you want to buy. For example, if you specify you want to buy 2 lots at $10, you will not get a fill at prices above $10. Hence a possible scenario is you get both 2 lots at $10, or 1 lot each at $10 and $9.50. The beauty for the limit order is that you will not get a fill unless the price is better than what you specified.

Stop Order
A stop order is better known as a stop loss order . In day trading stop loss is essential to your survivor. Some traders do not set a stop loss because they are monitoring their trades real-time. They feel that they can step in fast enough to close the position when the situation goes against them. However, in fast moving markets, you can very well lose $200 or more on a single contract in a matter of minutes. Setting a stop loss order removes the psychological hesitation to exit a position. From my experience, this is an absolute requirement, please master it and use it to your advantage.

Assume you are currently long at $10 and you set the stop loss at $8, you are giving instructions to your broker to sell at market price when the price falls down to $8. When the price is above $8, the stop loss order lays dormant, it will turn into a market order only when the price hits $8 to save you from further losses. Note that a stop loss order is always used to exit a position. Hence if you are long, the stop loss order will give instructions to sell. If you are short, the stop loss order will give instructions to buy.

Stop Limit Order
A stop limit order is similar to a stop loss order, except that it will turn into a limit order at the predetermined price. For example, assume you are long at $10 and you set a stop limit order to sell at $8, when price falls to $8, the order will become a limit order at $8. Recall that limit order will assure you of a fill better than the price you specified. Hence, a limit order at $8 means that you get a fill at $8 and above.