Direct Real Estate Investing

If you've been following my blog you know that I've been a big fan of ARR which is a real estate investment trust.  Real estate has definitely hit a bottom and is on its way back up.  That means anything related to real estate (Home Depot, Lowes, Toll Brothers, Pulte and most of the REITs) will be headed up soon if they haven't already.

By watcharakun, published on 15 November 2011
Stock Photo - image ID: 10064745

Another way to play real estate is to actually own it.  I’ve found a new service that similar to crowd-funding, allows you to invest in the real estate market and actually own part of a loan.  This type of investing is what the big boys have been doing for a long time but the small players haven’t had access to it.  Now it’s available for the smaller investor and is giving even more returns than 401Ks and retirement accounts.  Plus it’s safer because it’s tied to an actually property.  Full disclosure: I’ve signed on as an affiliate. 

I highly recommend checking out this option for investing in real estate. 

You can check out my affiliate page and if you want more information fill out the email form on the side.

Here’s my page:  http://privatemoneyexchange.org/aff/williamsmithwes

Investing in Bitcoins

I just heard about a new online currency that is being traded and you can potentially make some money just by setting up a free computer to "mine" for the currency online.  They are called "bitcoins" and they are used as inline currency to buy anything.  Some businesses have accepted them as a form of payment already.  The currency is open source and is not controlled by any entity so there is no Central Bank.  Algorithms and code serve as the foundation for the currency and it can be traded for US dollars and other currencies as well.  The current rate is $90 for one bitcoin.  It was as high as $200 a few days ago and it was at $10 a few months ago.

The great thing is you can mine for it for free.  It just takes a long while to find any online so people have come together and pooled their computer resources to find them.  When you find a batch the group splits the batch and you get a percentage based on the amount of work your computer did.  It's an interesting concept and it can't hurt to try since it's free. I set up an account today just to see what would happen.  Let me know if you have any success.

Here's the site for info:
http://www.weusecoins.com/en/

Here's a site for how to mine for them:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/08/how-to-mine-bitcoins/

Here's the site to mine for them:
https://mining.bitcoin.cz/

I signed up on Coinbase.com



Update 4-18-13
The best site that I found to generate coins I've found so far is: http://bitcoinplus.com
the mining method on the mining.bitcoin.cz site mentioned is a bit too complicated. 

Check this article as well: http://startbitcoin.com/

Making Money on Put Strategies

As I mentioned before in a previous post, some very successful traders use put strategies to make a lot of money in the market.  This was a very lucrative time for many traders who do.  The market was going up and people didn't know where it was going to stop.  Then instability came into the market through Cyprus, Greece and now with the attacks in Boston.  You can almost guarantee something is going to happen in a two-month time period to cause markets to destabilize and when they do the S&P, DOW and NASDAQ all go down.  The best play of course is the SPY because it responds directly to big dips in the market.  The options are also real close between the Bid and Ask price so this makes it easier to get in and out of your trade.

The market always goes up slowly and comes down fast.  You will almost never catch the market going up fast unless it is on some news that nobody but insiders know and when it does it is usually in after hours trading so you missed the run (case in point: Sprint shot up a whole point over night the other day after Dish Network said it wanted to buy them).  So the play is to wait for the market to go up and then place put options at various points going at the most two months out.  For example the market is already down today so I would wait until SPY gets back to 157 and then as it goes up place put options for the June 155 strike price.  Then wait and see what happens.  You can place your stop at 159 and your limit at around 153 (I know the options order window in TOS doesn't show the strike price but after you play around with adjusting your trade price it will show you on the chart where your options orders are).  

Yes it's great to have stop and limit orders but always watch your trades.  There are sometimes your bid doesn't go through as quickly as you would like and you could miss some profits or worse lose money.  When you see your profit margin approaching it may be a good thing to call your broker and ask him/her to place the trade for you at your trade price.  Depending on the brokerage firm they can actually execute your trade for you better than your computer.  They can find a buyer for you and make you some good money.  I've had good experiences with Trade King and highly recommend them.

Great simplified approach to trading

I know I mentioned this guy's trading technique before but I want to post another one of his more recent videos that describe in more detail his trading style.  He has also developed a software service that gives his daily setups.

OPTION TRADER makes $105MM PROFIT

This lady has uncanny skills in picking option trades.  Her basic approach is not too complex at all.  She started out just shorting stocks as they go up, making money on the corrections.  Seems like a very successful and efficient way of trading, no iron condors, butterfly spreads, etc. just a basic wait and pounce approach.

This approach actually makes a lot of sense.  You can almost always guarantee that any stock will go down at some point in time over a two month period.  There is enough drama happening to make all stocks sink down at some point during any given week.  So by placing a put on a volatile stock when it rockets up you can almost guarantee some sort of profit during a two month window.  All the successful traders I've researched recommend a two month window for options trades.  I tend to agree unless you are strictly trying to gamble as in the case of binary or weekly options.  No one knows what's going to happen in the short term but you can almost guarantee the market will go in either direction in the long term.  She's just playing the downside.

Art Market

If you are interested in learning more about investing in art do some research on the web to see who's selling what art and at what price.  There is a formal marketplace and key site to visit is ArtPrice.com:

http://web.artprice.com/start.aspx?l=en

You can get your artwork appraised for around $50 and even bid on artwork for sale.  They also have an art market confidence index to show how interest is either waxing or waning in the marketplace.

Expanding the Topics

I'm expanding the topics that I'll cover in this blog to include other investments.  To do well financially you have to diversify your portfolio and include other things than stocks.  Real estate is probably one of the best investments you can make simply because you can rent a property even when it's value may be low.  The key however is finding a property that is in a good location and is "rentable."

Another investment to consider is owning copyrights or patents.  These investments can gain significant value overtime and the other good thing about them is that just like a property you get residual income in the form of royalties.

One last investment to consider is artwork.  If you can get art from an up and coming artist you will have a good investment that will increase in value overtime as that artist's career gains traction.  The key is finding an artist who is getting to be well-known.  Check to see where and when the artist has done exhibitions and if there is any press out there about them.  Have they won awards and have they done any high-profile installations? Also you can see who they studied with or what collectives or associations they're members of.  This will add value to their art over time.