Here is a marketing idea which gives birth to a new ‘Sale day’ during the holiday period for the benefit of the consumers and the stores alike. This day will be named as ‘Black Friday 2’ which will fall on 2nd Friday of December every year, approximately 2 weeks before Christmas which is supposed to be the right time.

Most of the consumers will NOT have a ‘ready list’ of what to buy on ‘Black Friday’ (The day after Thanksgiving), it only makes sense to have a good productive sale around 2 weeks before Christmas which is supposed to be the right time.

Many people will not have sufficient money to buy gifts as early as day after thanksgiving in November (because they would have already spent some money on celebrating the Thanksgiving itself). This is the life of average American whether you like it or not.

More ever, buying/stocking up gifts in November will mean paying the credit card bill (on which they bought the gifts) in 30 days which is right before the Christmas!

On the other hand, if there was a ‘Black Friday 2’ with whatever the kind of deals for the consumer, it will only make sense or at least it can become a good marketing tool for stores to attract customers, similar to ‘Cyber Monday’ (which in truth was not the highest online sales day). So, when someone buys on ‘Black Friday 2’, which will fall on 2nd Friday of December (it will be on 12/12/08 this year), they won’t have to pay the bill until after Christmas!

BlackFriday2.com will have the main site with all the offers from the participating stores. For the stores, it’s like a second chance to sell! Even if 0.01% of the ‘hype’ this idea picks up from that of the original Black Friday, it can mean a lot due to the huge volume of sales that happen during the holiday season. At the end, it’s all about capturing the market share, just like CyberMonday.com from Shop.org did to November sales.

In my opinion, this can really serve the purpose for consumers looking for great deals right before Christmas as well as the stores looking to sell at discount.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/creditsqueeze_retail/index.htm?postversion=2008100314http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/creditsqueeze_retail/index.htm?postversion=2008100314

Quoted from above article:

“”We’ve not even made it to Halloween and retailers are already talking about Christmas discounts,” Cohen said.

Christmas is obviously a big deal to retailers, given that year-end holiday-related purchases typically account for half or more of merchants’ annual sales and profits.”

So, basically this idea gives a ’second chance’ to customers who have genuinly missed out or couldn’t buy enough gifts in November or even for those who didn’t have enough cash ready to buy etc. It will be a ’second chance’ for sellers as well before the season ends!

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,

Sai.

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Gold and other metals such as silver, platinum, and palladium, have long been considered “storage” vehicles for wealth, whereas stocks and bonds are a return vehicle. Gold generally outperforms most paper investments in the long term, and is one of the most highly traded commodities alongside oil.

Since April of 2001 the gold price has increased almost 300% showing a bull market return to commodities. During difficult economic times investors can use gold as a hedge on inflation and downturns in the global markets to preserve their wealth.

Investing in gold is perhaps on of the easiest commodities to transfer wealth to. Gold can be bought directly as bullion or indirectly on certificate from large investment firms. With gold you have the choice of having a hard asset in hand, or storing it with a bank or dealer. This allows for minimal government tracking and intervention as bullion in hand is impossible to trace. It has long been the choice of criminals and others to hide their money from governments.

If you are interested in learning more about gold or precious metal investments, we have provided a list of some of the most respected companies in the market.

Certified Gold Exchange
Monex
GoldLine

*Please seek the advice of a personal financial expert before making any significant investment decisions.

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Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
Over 57 million Americns read blogs.
1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
9% of internet users say they have created blogs .
6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
51% of blog readers shop online .
Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .

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From Wikipedia:
The term “short selling” or “being short” is often also used as a blanket term for strategies that allow an investor to gain from the decline in price of a security. Those strategies include buying options known as puts. A put option consists of the right to sell an asset at a given price; thus the owner of the option benefits when the market price of the asset falls. Similarly, a short position in a futures contract, or to be short on a futures contract, means the holder of the position has an obligation to sell the underlying asset at a later date, to close out the position.

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With the election cycle in the US in full swing, there’s nothing that grabs headlines more than the economy. Both parties are promising to fix what ails you. The safest bet for an outcome, no matter who gets elected, is greater federal debt, either through energy price supports, a housing bailout, or another round of massive entitlement programs. And you’re going to foot the bill while the government issues bonds and increases the government’s debt load. While not quite as prosaic as running the printing presses and printing more money, the result is the same: Two reliable metrics say that inflation in 2007 was nearly quadruple the reported figure from the Treasury when all impacts of the housing crisis were factored in. This puts a premium on doing things that work in the current market.

First and foremost, inflationary bumps devalue debts. If inflation means that you get an empty pay raise (the extra money more or less covers the devaluation caused by inflation), then any debts you have — provided you don’t add to them — have just been devalued by the rate of inflation. (Sadly, this also applies to any interest-bearing accounts you have.). Right now, interest rates are low; expect them to rise in the middle of next year. The time to convert to a fixed-rate loan is now, to lock in your current payment structures.

Next, look at personal cash flow. Everyone has two options here: Reduce your expenditures (which is challenging in a world where gasoline is more expensive than milk), or increase your income. Personally, I tend to encourage people to increase their income, if only because the entrepreneurial spirit of America makes this easier to do here than anywhere else in the world. Pick up a second job, or take out a modest loan and start your own business, whether it’s designing graphics for people to use on MySpace, writing advertising copy for your local newspaper or customers on craigslist, or getting into that gardening business you always wanted to get your hands dirty with. Running a business doesn’t require an MBA. What it does require is responsibility, a willingness to spend one night a week doing your bookkeeping on a cheap computer with a spreadsheet, and the willingness to work at something you enjoy. 

All that said, the usual advice applies: Try to live on 90% of what you earn and save the rest in an interest-bearing account. Once you’ve got six months of living expenses saved up, diversify your savings; in particular, diversify them in financial products denominated in currencies other than dollars. Inflation is going to make that exchange-rate imbalance very favorable for the next two years.

About the Author:

Ken Burnside is a professional game designer and publisher. He has done personal investing in overseas currencies, stocks and bonds, before deciding that doing what he loved to do was preferable to doing what made him the most money.

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There’s no denying the popularity of mutual funds among individual investors. An estimated 96 million individual investors own funds, and hold 87 percent of total mutual fund assets, which now top $12 trillion. Altogether, 55 million households - or about half of all U.S. households - own funds, with historical fund performance driving most purchase decisions.

The need for liquidity and better than average returns, however – especially in the midst of widespread fiscal uncertainty – keeps millions of Americans out of the mutual fund market and searching for suitable investment opportunities. The current credit crunch and investment firm fallout should prompt a new look at non-traditional investment vehicles. Suppose, for example, investors could put their dollars into funds based on baskets of emerging opportunities such as domain names, social marketing innovations and advances in DNA testing technology? Suppose fund performance focused not on annual returns, but daily returns that could be tracked in real-time and withdrawn at any time – even daily or weekly to pay living expenses?

While not all investments have the potential to produce instant income, many do and investors shouldn’t have to wait 6 months or a year for returns, particularly in an uncertain market environment. A $100,000 investment for example, might produce a $6,000 return annually, or over $110 per week. The ability to immediately access these dividends would reduce actual and perceived investor risk, and attract more investments through increased liquidity. Additionally, dividend reinvestment would compound returns as we all know. Think about an investor who puts in $1 million and waiting for 6 months to 1 year to receive a dividend check? How many minor ‘heart attacks’ he or she will have until the dividend check is received, by looking at all the volatility that goes in the markets in general? If I were to invest $1 Million into a fund, I would rather receive $170 daily returns than wait for 1 year and get an hefty check for $60K..Guess ‘why’? I need money every day and also I would be minimizing my risk everyday with this fund model! I am pretty sure at least 25-30% of mutual fund investors will be like me who want to ‘feel’ the profits every day vs once in 6 months or 1 year! Does that make sense?

Since businesses make money every day, why can’t they pay you every day so that you can withdraw or reinvest earnings? Would anyone be happy to receive one hefty pay check for their annual salary at the end of the year rather than getting paid every week even if they were to offer ‘10% more’ for paying in one check at the end of the year? As simple as that! Because, normal people need money everyday! Millions of people are always on the look out for an ‘extra’ source of income and end up starting side businesses. They would be happy to put in their money in an hourly income fund. It doesn’t matter, even if it works out to 5 or 6% per annum as long as they can access the profits every day!

We used to check stock quotes in the newspaper, trading required a call to a broker and loans came exclusively from banks rather than through peer-to-peer lending networks such as Prosper.com. Evolution is a natural and healthy part of financial markets. People need money on a daily basis and investments that meet that need will succeed in the years to come. Even if a small fraction of the mutual fund investors and ‘extra’ income seekers were to sign up for such an ‘Hourly Income Fund’ model, it could be a great success to the fund owners and investors!”

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Have you checked your child’s credit report? 

Just in case parents didn’t already have enough to worry about, a new threat aimed at kids has emerged and is wreaking havoc on families across the US. The problem is identity theft and according to the Federal Trade Commission, 400,000 children have their identities stolen each year – a number that’s increased steadily in recent years. 

Minors make ideal targets for identity thieves because the crime can go undetected until the child takes on credit obligations – usually when they are in high school. It’s only then that a credit card rejection or some other event prompts a credit report review. The younger the victim, of course the more time identity thieves have to exploit the child’s identity. 

First and foremost is checking your child’s credit report regularly as you do your own. Major credit reporting agencies such as Equifax, Experian and TransUnion don’t knowingly keep credit files on kids, so a check of your child’s credit report should turn up nothing. If a record appears, act fast because there’s a potential problem. Visit ChildCreditReport.com for comprehensive information about combating child identity theft.

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An interesting trade idea that I just came across is a Covered Call on YRC Worldwide (YRCW). The trucking industry has had a great amount of consolidation and the charts are looking up. This trade is a bit  contrarian since it involves being long the U.S. trucking industry, which has been hard hit over the past year due to high fuel prices. However things are beginning to look better for this industry. We are starting to see lower prices at the pump which is always a positive for transportation but the biggest positive fundamental factor is the fact that there are not as many trucks on the road. Over the past year more than 2000 trucking firms have gone out of business, loosing up to 100,000 trucks, according to the American Trucking Association. The industry contraction has given the remaining companies better pricing power and tonnage rates are going up. The ATA For-Hire-Truck-Tonnage Index rose 1.3% in June and .5% in May. This is also an early cycle play, demand has not picked up yet but with a major reduction in supply some analyst feel that earnings have probably hit bottom in 2008. Time will tell but for now the charts also look very promising.

YRCW put in a low for 2008 on March 19^th at $10.99 and has moved sideways since with higher lows creating a gradual upward slope. The 20 & 50 day moving averages have crossed the 200 day and YRCW has been trading above the 200 day since August 5^th. It broke above a long term trend line in April and has developed a gradual upward trending slope. Based on the improving fundamentals and technical’s I constructed the following covered call on August 22, 2008:

Bought to Open (BTO) YRCW @ $17.80 per share

Sold to Open (STO) Sept 2008 $17.50 call (YUXJE) @ $1.50 per contract.

Called return: 6.86% Uncalled: 8.43%

I believe this company has some longer term trading potential and is one to watch. Any pick up on the demand side and companies in this industry will take off to the upside.

Larry Gaines is from callsandleaps.com. This information is for educational use only and is not financial advice.

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The best way to look at covered call writing is to look at the option market as a business. The merchandise with which you run your business are stocks you hold in your investment portfolio. If you own common stock, you should be involved in the business of covered call writing. If you are not, you are letting your inventory go to waste. You are not opening your store for business.

For example, when you own rental property, you rent it and you want this rental income each and every month as part of your return on that investment. The same analogy can be made for the stock market. You must look at your stock investments as you would an investment property. If you buy a good property in a good position are you afraid of not getting your money back over the long term? Do you get a weekly valuation of the property and stress if that valuation is less than what you paid for it? No. You take a long term view and let time run its course and you collect your rent each month.

With covered call writing we you must understand that the stock prices of good companies go up and down just like real estate values.  If you purchase a good company with real earnings at a reasonable valuation and the stock falls, it is likely that eventually the stock price will go back to where it was when you purchased it. Even if it doesn’t, eventually you will make back all the money you invested in the stock by selling calls against it.

This is the mindset of a covered call writer. This is for educational use only and not financial advice.

About the author:

Larry Gaines has an extensive knowledge of the equity and option markets with over 25 years of trading experience. His experience includes managing one of the world’s largest international oil trading companies for over 10 years. Additionally, he managed a proprietary securities trading company that traded equity futures, bonds and foreign exchange. More recently, he traded and consulted for an international hedge fund trading equity futures, bond futures, and foreign exchange for 5 years. Larry first started trading options 20 years ago on cargoes of North Sea, Brent crude oil. His education includes a B.A. in Finance from The University of Texas.

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