I am sure you have heard this axiom: If you don’t know where you are going, you will get there. Many folks investing today are on that path: they are investing without proper knowledge of the stock market, of investment basics, and lacking simple, concise, written goals. Later, these folks will experience great challenges.Among other things, the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing program, a euphemism for pumping money into the economy, is fueling rising stock markets. This could entice even more folks to invest in stocks because they might see opportunities to ‘make money.’ Beware; before investing, at least, ensure you dispel three popular investment myths, and understand the potential investment’s opportunity cost.
Investing in the stock market is gambling
Low priced stocks, especially those at 52-week lows are worth buying
Investment analysts and advisors know how investments will perform
Investing In The Stock Market Is GamblingSimplistically, investing is just another spending form. You buy a book, a car, a house, and you buy stocks, bonds, or other investment instruments. The key is to develop a solid process to follow instinctively before spending: a spending decision process. Your attitude will decide how you behave, and so, you could choose to spend on stocks and bonds – invest – with a gambling motive. That’s why I advise folks never to invest unless they fulfill specific prerequisites, such as being debt free with an established process to replace major assets for cash, and having clear, concise, written investment goals.Then again, even with clear goals, individuals need to know that consistent, solid earnings is the key sustainer of a business’ value, and ultimately, its stock market price.Low Priced Stocks, Especially Those At 52-week Lows, Are Worth BuyingHere is a trap to avoid. A stock is trading at its 52-week low, falling over 50%, and you think it presents a buying opportunity. Maybe; on the other hand, maybe not! Likely, that business’ products and services no longer have the capability to produce previously perceived earnings. Alternatively, investment analysts and others may have promoted this business because of some fad or other irrelevant reason. Yahoo! and Nortel are examples of companies whose stock prices traded at unsustainable levels; after the expected collapse, their stock prices did not recover. Many other examples exist, particularly on the Japanese stock exchange.As I mentioned above, as with all spending, we need to follow a spending decision process before investing. This will allow us to use a fall in stock price as a trigger to identify business’ fundamentals and potential investment opportunities.Investment Analysts And Advisors Know How Investments Will Perform When you listen to these folks, you might forget that they, like you and I, have no clue about the future. Some are in conflicts of interest, blinded, and pushing particular products. Others might be sincere but are relying on the past. And we know, the past might not be a good predictor of the future.Can these folks help? Certainly, but each client must try to understand whom his or her advisor represents, and accept that advisors do not know the future. Accordingly, folks receiving investment advice must be fully aware that they, not their advisors, need to decide when and how to act from advice they get.Before you start investing, dispel the above three myths, learn key investment basics, and learn and make sure you fulfill specific investing preconditions.This final point is obvious but often folks overlook it. Investing in the stock market has an opportunity cost; it reduces, by amounts invested, funds available for other purposes. Ten thousand dollars invested in the market could buy a car, pay a portion of a college semester’s fees, or be donated to charity. Therefore, as part of your spending decision process, ask these three questions before deciding to invest:
What other alternatives exists to use funds you are about to invest?
Given your present and expected situation, is this the best use of funds today?
Will you need to replenish these funds to carry out other specific goals in the next three to five years?
© Copyright 2013, Michel A. Bell
Three Investing Myths To Unlearn Before Investing
Highly Effective Digital Marketing Strategies
Would you like to learn some highly effective digital marketing strategies? But first of all, what is “digital marketing”? Some people believe it’s a different form of internet marketing, but in truth, it’s actually the same thing. These days people come up with all different kinds of terms to re-describe the same thing. Digital marketing is the same thing – people are just trying to profit off of a different wording of the same topic.I’m sure you’ve probably also heard the terms: “inbound marketing”, “influencer marketing”, “outbound marketing”, and etc. But all of those are the same concepts of internet marketing strategies that have been already tested and proven to work. These people are just now figuring this stuff out. So digital marketing is just internet marketing. And also, some people get it confused with eBook marketing.If you’ve ever heard of someone say “digital download”, that means that a product will be available for you to download immediately after you order. This is called a “digital product”. This is not digital marketing in its full form. Digital marketing is just a familiar term that people interchangeably use to describe tactics for promoting your products on the internet. With that out of the way, would you finally like to learn some highly effective digital marketing strategies?I want to go over a few concepts that will allow you to soar past your competitors and get you the increased traffic, sales, and profits that you are looking for. These tactics are easy to use and implement, and are simple ways that you can improve everything that you’re doing within a short period of time. Let’s take a look at the first strategy that you can use to improve your digital marketing efforts:1) Guest blog postsIt doesn’t matter what industry or niche that you operate in. With guest blog posts, you can stand out and position yourself as the “go to person” in your niche for whatever you do. You will stand out as the authority and the expert that people will instantly think of whenever your line of work comes to mind. This is essential to know, because credibility is everything online, and standing out as the obvious expert is a crucial step in gaining more new sales.So I guess you’re wondering what guest blog posts are huh? It’s okay if you don’t know. A guest blog post is simply a lengthy and informative blog post about something that you’re knowledgeable about. The blog that you submit your guest blog post to should be in your niche, and shouldn’t be a rival competitor of yours. Do you know why this is such a highly effective strategy?Usually high traffic and famous blogs in your niche will have a high readership. This means TONS of free promotion for you and your website – should your information be good – and should the blog owner request that you send more blog posts. If you can get a partnership where the blog owers wants to exclusively collaborate with you because you offer great content, this could be an endless supply of free traffic for you.Plus, you have to think about the syndication that this will get you also on social media. The more blogs you post on, and the awesome job that you do, the more your reputation will increase, and the more you will become an expert on your subject. Soon people will be coming to you, looking for more of your great information that they can use in their lives. Here’s another highly effective digital marketing strategy that you can do:2) Viral eBook marketingViral eBook marketing can do wonders for your website traffic and your business. Imagine writing a free eBook about a topic in your niche, and having it available for download on your website. You can put your website link(s) all over it, and tell the readers that they can offer it for free on their website (as a form of free content), and that they should pass it around to their friends and colleagues.This can be an amazing free traffic tool for you. The more people who download it will have the ability to use it for themselves, offer it for free, and recommend it to others. Soon with enough people downloading your free eBook, it can take off on its own and be a major traffic tool for you without you doing a thing. As long as the content is good and it benefits people, offer it on your website and let it do its thing.You will want to include your homepage link inside of it, your affiliate program link, a link to your blog or articles page, and a link to a page that has your products or services on it. That way while people are reading through your book, they will have the chance to click through to your site multiple times and potentially sign up for one of your offers. This can be a big deal.Not only that, you can submit it to the free eBook directories. eBook directories store your eBook for people to read, download, and use for promotional content on their site. Plus on some eBook directories, they require a direct link – thus giving you a high quality and relevant backlink to your site. This is digital marketing 101, and once you put it into use, you’ll see how well it can work for your business.These are 2 highly effective digital marketing strategies that you can use to improve your traffic, sales and profits right away. There are many more techniques that you can use to boost your sales for your website, but these 2 alone can put you over and above your competitors. The biggest thing to understand is that it takes repetitive efforts, and daily work to make any digital marketing strategy work. You don’t get results and make money if you’re lazy. So keep that in mind. Good luck!
SPDN: An Inexpensive Way To Profit When The S&P 500 Falls
Summary
SPDN is not the largest or oldest way to short the S&P 500, but it’s a solid choice.
This ETF uses a variety of financial instruments to target a return opposite that of the S&P 500 Index.
SPDN’s 0.49% Expense Ratio is nearly half that of the larger, longer-tenured -1x Inverse S&P 500 ETF.
Details aside, the potential continuation of the equity bear market makes single-inverse ETFs an investment segment investor should be familiar with.
We rate SPDN a Strong Buy because we believe the risks of a continued bear market greatly outweigh the possibility of a quick return to a bull market.
Put a gear stick into R position, (Reverse).
Birdlkportfolio
By Rob Isbitts
Summary
The S&P 500 is in a bear market, and we don’t see a quick-fix. Many investors assume the only way to navigate a potentially long-term bear market is to hide in cash, day-trade or “just hang in there” while the bear takes their retirement nest egg.
The Direxion Daily S&P 500® Bear 1X ETF (NYSEARCA:SPDN) is one of a class of single-inverse ETFs that allow investors to profit from down moves in the stock market.
SPDN is an unleveraged, liquid, low-cost way to either try to hedge an equity portfolio, profit from a decline in the S&P 500, or both. We rate it a Strong Buy, given our concern about the intermediate-term outlook for the global equity market.
Strategy
SPDN keeps it simple. If the S&P 500 goes up by X%, it should go down by X%. The opposite is also expected.
Proprietary ETF Grades
Offense/Defense: Defense
Segment: Inverse Equity
Sub-Segment: Inverse S&P 500
Correlation (vs. S&P 500): Very High (inverse)
Expected Volatility (vs. S&P 500): Similar (but opposite)
Holding Analysis
SPDN does not rely on shorting individual stocks in the S&P 500. Instead, the managers typically use a combination of futures, swaps and other derivative instruments to create a portfolio that consistently aims to deliver the opposite of what the S&P 500 does.
Strengths
SPDN is a fairly “no-frills” way to do what many investors probably wished they could do during the first 9 months of 2022 and in past bear markets: find something that goes up when the “market” goes down. After all, bonds are not the answer they used to be, commodities like gold have, shall we say, lost their luster. And moving to cash creates the issue of making two correct timing decisions, when to get in and when to get out. SPDN and its single-inverse ETF brethren offer a liquid tool to use in a variety of ways, depending on what a particular investor wants to achieve.
Weaknesses
The weakness of any inverse ETF is that it does the opposite of what the market does, when the market goes up. So, even in bear markets when the broader market trend is down, sharp bear market rallies (or any rallies for that matter) in the S&P 500 will cause SPDN to drop as much as the market goes up.
Opportunities
While inverse ETFs have a reputation in some circles as nothing more than day-trading vehicles, our own experience with them is, pardon the pun, exactly the opposite! We encourage investors to try to better-understand single inverse ETFs like SPDN. While traders tend to gravitate to leveraged inverse ETFs (which actually are day-trading tools), we believe that in an extended bear market, SPDN and its ilk could be a game-saver for many portfolios.
Threats
SPDN and most other single inverse ETFs are vulnerable to a sustained rise in the price of the index it aims to deliver the inverse of. But that threat of loss in a rising market means that when an investor considers SPDN, they should also have a game plan for how and when they will deploy this unique portfolio weapon.
Proprietary Technical Ratings
Short-Term Rating (next 3 months): Strong Buy
Long-Term Rating (next 12 months): Buy
Conclusions
ETF Quality Opinion
SPDN does what it aims to do, and has done so for over 6 years now. For a while, it was largely-ignored, given the existence of a similar ETF that has been around much longer. But the more tenured SPDN has become, the more attractive it looks as an alternative.
ETF Investment Opinion
SPDN is rated Strong Buy because the S&P 500 continues to look as vulnerable to further decline. And, while the market bottomed in mid-June, rallied, then waffled since that time, our proprietary macro market indicators all point to much greater risk of a major decline from this level than a fast return to bull market glory. Thus, SPDN is at best a way to exploit and attack the bear, and at worst a hedge on an otherwise equity-laden portfolio.