The gold market is unique in the world of finance because gold is unique. Much more than merely another investment, gold is an asset in its own right, a raw material, a natural resource and also a trusted store of value and medium of exchange.
Gold plays more roles in more lives than any other commodity, other than water and possibly oil.
Gold's variety of roles and broad utility mean that the gold market itself is unlike any other market.
Gold reacts differently to the economic and geopolitical factors which impact the financial markets.
For example, hyperinflation, which has historically been terrible for stocks and bonds, prompts people to seek the safe haven of gold, and gold has historically increased in value during periods of high inflation.
The same can be said for other factors:
Geopolitical crisis, such as the threat of war or sudden terrorist attacks, usually result in an increase in the price of gold. In the wake of the September 11th attacks back in 2001, US stock markets were interrupted for a week, but gold rose in value and continued to trade internationally throughout the period.
Currency crises, such as those that occurred in Mexico in 1995, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998, disrupt local stock markets dramatically. But in each of those instances gold increased in value dramatically, relative to those local currencies.
Banking crises, such as the one that occurred in the US in November of 2008, also are usually very bad news for the stock markets. Meanwhile, gold holds its value as people seek safe havens.
In summary, the kinds of factors which tend to make the value of stocks, bonds and other assets suffer, tend to make the value of gold increase. There are, of course, exceptions, but over the long-term this axiom has held true. Gold zigs when paper zags.
There are some other interesting aspects of the gold market that also set it apart from other markets.
For instance, there are more ways to own gold than any other asset class. You can own physical gold in the form of bullion bars, wafers or coins, such as the American Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf or South African Krugerrand. You can also physically own gold in the form of rare gold coins.
For those who do not require the added security of physical gold, there are still other indirect methods of owning gold.
Some individuals choose to participate in the gold market by owning shares of companies that mine and/or refine gold. Along the same lines, mutual funds which acquire the stocks of such companies are another alternative which provides added diversification.
Gold buyers should be aware, however, that this method does not duplicate the direct ownership of gold.
There are still other methods of gold ownership.
One of the latest is the "Exchange Traded Fund" or ETF. These types of funds invest in physical gold and then turn around and sell shares which represent an undivided ownership interest in the holdings of the fund. In this way, investors can participate in movements in the price of gold, again, without the physical security of gold ownership, however.
Another widely followed method of participating in the gold market are the futures markets in which individuals can take positions in the market using leverage to participate in increases and decreases in the price of gold.
There is one final thing that sets the gold market apart:
Gold is a market that never sleeps. Gold trades around the world 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, all year long. No matter what time it is, somewhere the gold market is open and gold is trading. So, gold may close at one price in New York at the end of the trading day and open at a dramatically different price the very next morning due to action on the bourses in places like London, Paris, Zurich, Dubai, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney. No other asset or commodity is traded as widely and as actively as gold.
Friday, April 23, 2010
What's the Gold Market LIke
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Should I hire a community association management company to help organize my community?
The first question you need to ask does your Homeowner Association Board have extensive and practical experience in financial budgets, governance, community operations, and training for new board members. If you didn't immediately answer yes to each of those questions than a professional community association Management Company could be of service to your board. One more thing to consider is with your homeowner association board is not just do you have the experience, though do you have the time.
Unless your homeowner association board is made of fulltime board members which it probably is not, you have other responsibilities to your own business or employment that take priority for your time. This is why hiring a community management company is so important. That way you have a fulltime staff working to run your community.
One of the most beneficial items from using a professional community management team is operational budgets. The process of having a detailed and accurate budget for board members to make decisions from is crucial to community success. Since management companies with extensive experience have created many successful budgets the difference in accuracy is immense. With realistic budgets and planning your board members can feel confident that they are making the right decisions for their residents. Management services can guide board members through operational challenges that will arise no matter how detailed planning is. The biggest mistake most homeowner association boards make is a lack of a consistent communication process to updates and how the challenge will be solved.
When all community processes are handled by trained fulltime staff your community can run smoothly and it makes you look good for your residents. The reality is that most home owners only notice their association board when there are issues. The best boards are the ones that the residents don't even think about.
Have you ever been frustrated with new board members? Not that they are not bright and highly accomplished people, though they lack the experience of how your board and community works. Professional community management companies should have experience in how to train new board members into effective decision members that can contribute faster to their respected development.
The part that most residents notice the most is the up keep around the properties. Making sure that every person or business responsible is delivering can be overwhelming. The most effective community management companies have systems in place to organic and manage each community to keep property values and impressions up.
Just think if your homeowner association board is having any issues that professional community management could take care of. Less head aches and smoother management makes being on a association board more enjoyable and effective.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Rank For Competitve Keywords in Google Organic Search Results with Videos
As more and more businesses and websites find their way online, search engine rankings have become the new Wall Street jungle. High placement on major keywords can be gold to businesses as the traffic they generate can mean millions.
For many websites the power larger websites hold with more resources and more money can be overwhelming. You have a weapon to get to the top of Google rankings for competitive keywords. The answer is videos and especially Youtube.
Youtube was bought my Google and shows up exceptionally high in Google organic rankings. Do a test. I bet you that for just about every major keyword there is a video showing up on the front page. If there isn't one than this is an opportunity I would jump on as if you don't someone else will?
Since, I have know sold you on the power of videos the following are three steps you can do to make high quality videos that will get you to the top of Google natural search rankings.
3 Tips to Making Videos for Search Engines and the Viewer
Interesting
Your video has to be interesting at some level. It won't do you any good to get it ranked if no one wants to watch your video. Figure out a way to make your video entertaining, demonstrate a helpful solution, or be funny. If you create a funny video that makes people want to send it to their friends it won't matter if you are an accounting firm since hundreds of thousands of people could potentially see it.
You only have to be interesting for 2-3 minutes. Any past 3 minutes and you will start to lose your audience's attention. If you have more to say or think you are that funny cut the video up into segments and now you have more videos to post.
Credibility
Take the time to do right. If you are nervous the first time you shoot; start over. Watch your video back for mumbling or parts that are hard to hear. Remember that this video will represent your brand you want to make it of quality.
Quality doesn't mean you have to hire a film crew. You know the difference between representing yourself well and something you are not proud of. Remember getting traffic is only half the battle.
Also, be honest with yourself. If you are little dry find someone who can articulate your points clearly and with energy. Think about the types of people that engage you and use those people as your spokesperson in your video.
Titles How you title your video is the most important. It won't matter how great it is if no one sees it. Your title has two purposes. First, it must be keyword driven. Keywords are what search engines are picking it and those keywords are the terms you want your video to rank for.
Keyword stuffing it won't work. Think about creating a new video for each keyword phrase that you want to rank for.
The second aspect is you have to capture the attention of the person to want to watch your video. Look at newspaper headlines as they are a prime example of how grab your attention.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Benefits of Online Personal Trainer
Having an online personal trainer is fast becoming the preferred way to hire a personal trainer. LIVE was designed to offer everything that a person can get at a gym, online. An online personal trainer allows more flexibility with our busy and every changing lifestyles.
Online personal training allows for fitness to be performed on your time while still receiving the professional support and instruction that allows for successful weight loss and fitness performance.
Affordable Price
LIVE offers their online personal trainer programs for less than a gym membership. For only $9.95 you can have your own personal trainer. With the Live Lean program you can interact daily with your own personal trainer for less than one hour with a trainer. The best part, is that all LIVE plans include a dietician as well. You actually get a personal trainer and a dietician at this great value.
Workout from Anywhere
LIVE's online fitness plans can be performed anywhere. They are designed with manual equipment for you to workout at home or take your workouts to the gym. Also, because the workouts are online you can access them when traveling and still get your workout in. The exercises could even be performed in a hotel room!
Descriptive Instruction
People need to know how to do the exercises. Every exercise includes 3-5 photos of a real person performing the exercise, comprehensive description, and real person video with audio. No computer graphics, real people showing you how to perform every exercise. The best part is that the exercises can be downloaded to an IPOD or PDA and be taken with you.
Targeted heart rate training allows for every workout to burn optimal amounts of fat and calories. Never train and work hard with no results. With a specific heart rate zone each workout has a specific goal which challenges your metabolism to improve in the most effective way possible.
Personal Support
The most overlooked aspect of success results is support. Even Tiger Woods, the best golfer in the world, has a coach. So often having a professional coach is too expensive for most people. With online personal training you can have the support necessary to achieve your results at a price you can afford. No one is successful on their own.
When looking for an online personal trainer, important to find a program that offers a complete health, strength, cardio, and nutrition plan. A synergistic blend of the proper health aspects maximizes your ability to achieve your results in the fastest way possible.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Heart Rate Training Optimizes Your 5k Training Program
Are you looking for a 5k training program? When you start looking you see many program offering beginner programs and advanced programs. What is interesting is that most beginner programs are too many miles for the average beginner. The key to effective 5k cardio plans is for every person to have their own heart rate profile. With optimal heart rate training every workout will be optimized for the greatest impact for your results. Heart rate training is for advanced and beginners; the difference is the heart rate profile not using a heart rate monitor.
The most effective cardio workout for running faster races and burning fat is interval training. Interval training is short durations of high intensity followed by short durations of low intensity and then repeated. Most programs only offer interval training for advanced programs though effective programming is good for all levels. The key is a person's heart rate profile. The most advanced you are the higher heart rate you want to train at for your interval.
Each person has a different level of fitness associated by their heart rate. As you run the energy required needs a certain consistent heart rate produce the energy. The more fit you are the lower your heart rate is for a given speed. This is why heart rate training is so effective. By finding a person's targeted heart rate profile you can make sure each workout is training in the right zone to optimally improve your performance. Often, people's lack of results comes from not training hard enough, or very common with cardio runners is overtraining by running with too high of a heart rate on every workout.
What is important for your metabolism and race speed is the rate at which you burn calories not how many calories you burn. This is why walkers and people who run mile after mile seem to never achieve their results. The more calories you burn the more calories you need to eat to restore energy back to your muscles cells. It is challenging your muscles to burn more energy by going harder relative to your fitness level forces your metabolism to improve and than makes you fun faster and burn more fat. People after completing an interval workout burn more fat 24 hours after their workout than any other form of cardio or strength exercise.
Though the interval workout is important it isn't the only workout that makes an effective 5k running program. Two other key workouts is a threshold workout and a long day. The threshold workout is a medium intensity workout that almost no person does. The reason why is people can always go harder and there is this myth that you have to push yourself in every work to your max. The other reason is people go on their slow steady pace never picking up the pace for a shorter run. An optimal threshold workout is between 15-30 min. If you can last longer than 30 min. you should run faster. When you run at your threshold level you are at the max at what your aerobic metabolism can burn for energy. When you go harder your anaerobic metabolism is kicked in to produce the needed extra energy. A threshold workout trains your body to burn energy the most effectively utilizing oxygen. It is the best workout for creating a good race pace.
The long day is the last workout you need every week in your 5k training program. Having running session that go for slower speeds and longer durations trains your body to burn fat and increases effectiveness of burning energy while running. You only need to do one long day a week and spending hours doing cardio during every workout may be a key reason why you are no longer seeing results.
To truly see your results you want a program that creates a personal heart rate profile. The charts on most treadmills are not accurate and the doctors who came up with the charts admit they made them up as a best guess for insurance companies and were never supposed to use as training heart rates. The other major key as you continue to run is a 5k program that uses specific and multiple threshold and interval workouts. The workout that worked for the first month won't work for the second as your body needs a new stimulus. With proper heart rate profiles you will be running your first or fastest 5k in no time.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
How to Determine the Value of Your Gold Coins
Gold has been mankind's most desirable asset for more than 3,000 years. It freely circulated as everyday money - except during times of great economic turmoil - from the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans right up to 1933. Until that year, the value of the great majority of gold coins was the same as their face value. That meant a $20 gold coin could be freely exchanged for 20 one-dollar bills. And 20 one-dollar bills could be exchanged for one $20 gold coin. It was a two-way system that promoted a stable value for our money.
That era ended in 1933. As part of his effort to re-inflate our economy from the depths of the depression, President Roosevelt recalled all circulating gold coins. He had his Treasury Department melt them and send the newly formed ingots to Fort Knox for storage. Then Roosevelt revalued gold, in a series of steps, from its pre-1933 value of $20 to $35 per ounce.
The Market for Gold Coins Changes
Literally overnight, a $20 gold coin contained more than $20 worth of gold. Owners of the limited number of coins that survived the federal recall order, primarily collectors and overseas banks, wondered how to determine the value of their gold coins. Were they only worth their gold value, or would the government's efforts turn once-common issues into scarce and rare dates?
Today we know the answer to that question. The government's massive melting of our circulating $1, $2.50, $5, $10, and $20 gold coins created hundreds of rarities out of coins with original mintage that suggest easy availability. Here's one example: the Philadelphia Mint struck 2.9 million $20 gold coins in 1931, one of the higher mintage of the 1907-1933 series. Based strictly on its original mintage, the 1931-P should be easily available and not too expensive. Thanks to the government's melting, all 1931-P $20 gold coins are rare and extremely valuable.
Gold Coin Values Today
Speed forward to 2009. All U.S. gold coins minted before 1933 are worth FAR more than their face value, and many are worth FAR more than their bullion (metallic) value. That's true because the number of collectors of U.S. gold coins of the pre-1933 era has expanded tremendously. At the same time, the available supply of these coins has remained relatively unchanged. Because rare coin market values are set by the interaction of supply and demand, the long-term value of pre-1933 U.S. gold coins has shown a distinctly rising trend.
So how can you determine the value of your pre-1933 U.S. gold coins?
We live in an age of tremendous availability of information. Early in the last century, collectors and investors were content to determine their gold coins' value by following (and interpreting) auction results. In the late 1940s, publishers began offering a once per year guide book that listed values for every U.S. coin. Then monthly publications were introduced, providing ads and estimated market values. Then weekly coin newspapers, filled with articles, auction results, and market commentaries, were established. Today we have all of these sources, plus the information on the Internet.
All of these sources, when you know how to use and interpret them, are extremely valuable. All of these sources can help you determine the value of each gold coin you own. But none is perfect. Each has its own quirks and its own idiosyncrasies.
The single best way to determine the retail or wholesale value of your pre-1933 U.S. gold coins is to have your trusted adviser perform a professional review, this will provide your most dependable estimate of value.
Determine the Value of Bullion Gold Coins
Bullion gold coins, like American Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs, are struck by governments for sale to investors through a network of distributors and wholesalers. They are minted in unlimited numbers, so scarcity is not a factor in determining their value. That means the value of gold bullion coins can be easily determined with reasonable accuracy on any day.
To determine the value of your gold bullion coins, you need to know their pure gold weight and the spot (or cash) value of gold. Determining a gold coin's weight is usually simple: the coin's design should state them. If it does not, contact your coin dealer.
Once you know your bullion gold coin's pure gold content, it's time to identify the market value for an ounce of gold. For today's value, contact your broker. Your broker provides up to the minute bid and ask prices for spot gold, as well as spot silver, platinum, and palladium.
Now you know the weight of your coin and the value of an ounce of pure gold. To learn your coin's pure gold value, simply multiply the two numbers. For example: you want to know the value of a half-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coin. You know the pure gold content (one half ounce) because it is stated on the coin. You locate gold's current market value, and find it is $950 per ounce. Multiplying one-half (your coin's pure gold contents) times $950 (gold's current market value) yields a gold value of $475 for your coin. Market premiums, distribution charges, and dealer commissions will vary and will affect your coin's value, so be sure to consider them when determining your coin's value.
American Eagles, the world's most popular gold bullion coins, are guaranteed for their content and purity by the United States government. Their value is primarily determined by the price of gold, which fluctuates throughout the day.
Contact ITM Trading Senior Analyst for how to buy Gold coins or more information on buying Gold for Investment.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Why Choose Celtic Wedding Gowns?
Nothing can boost your idea of entering into your matrimony the more 'royal' way than a 'Medieval Wedding.' If you are lucky enough to arrange a wedding in a castle or with a royal-cum-fairytale concept, Celtic Wedding Gowns should be your ideal choice to accent this theme.
Why Choose Celtic Wedding Gowns?
Romance
Apart from their sheer elegance, Celtic dresses carry with them, the essence of medieval romance and can really make you feel like a princess in a fairyland. Celtic Wedding Gowns can be a romantically beautiful way of celebrating your most cherished moments.
Choice
In case of Celtic wedding gowns, you have a very wide selection of styles to choose from. Your choices can range from minimalistic 'A-line' cuts in expensive fabrics to rounded 'ball gowns' with elaborate braids, brocade, and stone work in heavier fabrics. You can have a flamboyant detachable train, leaving you with the option to use the gown as an evening party dress later on. Other option could be to have a fuller, naturally flowing dress. The characteristic dress material used for such gowns is velvet, cotton, silk, satin, or brocade. Some Celtic designs also come with an option of an overdress, often in tulle, chiffon, or other lighter material, which greatly enhance the luxuriant style of the attire.
The unorthodox
If you are going in for a Celtic dress, you are at a liberty to do away the conventional 'whites' and add colors to your wedding. These Renaissance outfits offer you much greater choice of available colors than any other form of wedding attire. Not only this, you can choose a formal, semi-formal, or even an informal style for your Celtic wedding dress. These attractive and unique opportunities to experiment make these Celtic Wedding Gowns much sought-after these days.
Money matters
These unconventional options have an added benefit of being kind on your purse in an 'unconventional' way. If your choice is to go for informal wear or colored versions of the formal gowns, you can choose your fabric economically. Since, such materials are not of the 'specialized' variety, there can be a saving and bargain over the price. In addition, you will have a larger number of vendors to explore. The accessories, similarly, are not required to be of niche kind, and you can consider your purchase from non-specialty stores.
The grandeur of a royal wedding dress is any girl's dream and nothing can be more comforting than the fact that they are just at an arm's distance away. So, what are you waiting for? Extend your arm and reach out!
Bridal Online Store offers discount prices on wedding dresses and check out the new Wedding 101.