Saturday, July 19, 2008

Making Money With ZenZuu

Getting frustrated buying and selling stocks? Why not make some pocket change the easy way. Just log into your free ZenZuu account 30 times per month. Yep, that's it, that's all it takes. You can do it any time you want, all in a day or even all in one hour per month it doesn't matter, ZenZuu will pay you. They pay out 80% of their profit! Wow, I never heard of that before. They have advertisers paying them and they share it with their users. What a concept.

ZenZuu is a social network, so if you want you can check out profiles of other people, join groups, blog, make friends and more. You don't have to do anything else if you don't want, other than set up your free acct and log in.

Check it out I think you'll like it, really. :)


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Saturday, April 26, 2008

Penny Stock Trading Tips

Through penny stock trading I have found some stock tips and trick. These are a couple I would like to share with you to help sharpen your skills when trading Penny Stocks.

Buy that which is showing strength - sell that which is showing weakness, and Never, EVER under any condition, add to a losing trade, or "average" into a position.

When sharp losses in equity are experienced, take time off. Close all trades and stop trading for several days. The mind can play games with itself following sharp, quick losses. The urge "to get the money back" is extreme, and should not be given in to.

Study long-term charts. Begin a chart analysis with monthly and weekly charts spanning several years.

Determine the trend and follow it. Market trends come in many sizes -- long-term, intermediate-term and short-term. First, determine which one you're going to trade and use the appropriate chart.

Find support and resistance levels. The best place to buy a market is near support levels. That support is usually a previous reaction low. The best place to sell a market is near resistance levels. Resistance is usually a previous peak.

Volume precedes price. It's important to ensure that heavier volume is taking place in the direction of the prevailing trend. In an uptrend, heavier volume should be seen on up days. Rising open interest confirms that new money is supporting the prevailing trend.

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Implications of Peak Oil on the US Economy

Implications of Peak Oil on the US Economy

Peak oil is a theory concerning the natural limits on global population and civilization growth imposed by a finite availability of oil. This theory was first proposed by American geophysicist Marion King Hubbert in a paper presented in 1956 to the American Petroleum Institute.

The concept of 'Hubbert's Peak' explains that the discovery of new oilfields and the production capacity of existing fields would inevitably decline in the future. Dr. Hubbert predicted that American oil production would reach a peak and decline around 1965-1970. This actually occurred in 1971. Dr. Hubbert also predicted that global oil production would peak and start declining around the year 2000. There is debate amongst energy experts whether this milestone has passed, although currently accepted US Government projections show a marked decline in oil production by major oil-producing nations beginning in 2004.

Experts predicted in the 1970s that any peak and then subsequent decline in oil production globally would be immediately followed by a sharp increase in oil and gas prices. Some point to the recent sharp rise in oil prices, which have risen more than 100% since January 2004, as an indication that this global peak has occurred. However, there is active debate amongst energy experts as to whether the current increase in fossil fuel prices has resulted from declining supplies or is a result of current political instability in major oil-producing regions such as the Middle East. Whatever the cause of the current price rises, most experts agree that a period of declining energy supply is looming on the near horizon.

The implications of Hubbert's Peak on the US economy are profound. The prosperity and high growth rates that the United States has enjoyed since the end of World War II has been fueled in large part by the abundance of cheap energy provided by inexpensive oil supplies. Much of the strength of the dollar domestically and abroad is tied to the trade of oil on the global market using the dollar as the basic currency. Additionally, the dominance of the US economy globally is threatened by rising oil prices, as a large percentage of the production capacity that drives the US Gross Domestic Product relies on abundant and cheap oil. Any significant rise in energy prices in the United States will inevitably drive down the profits of American companies, and in turn will depress the US economy. As a result of recent declines in the dollar's buying power versus other currencies like the Euro and the Chinese yuan, many oil producing countries have floated the idea of decoupling global oil trade from the dollar in favor of a more stable currency. Iran, for example, planned to open an oil bourse in their country in March of 2006, selling oil in Euros. This new oil market has not yet opened as of June 2006, but could do so anytime.

If it becomes common practice for countries to trade for oil in a currency other than the dollar, the damage to the US economy could be staggering. Currently it is estimated that China alone holds $600 billion in reserve, in part to allow them to purchase oil on the world markets. This trade in oil allows the United States to run large budget deficits as other countries are required to purchase dollars on the currency markets in order to use them for their own oil purchases. If these countries suddenly had to switch their currency purchases to Euros, for example, a flood of dollars would be released on world currency exchanges, further devaluing the dollar and severely increasing current US trade deficits with other nations.

Besides the direct impact on the dollar, the Peak Oil scenario has other implications for the US economy. Perhaps more than any other nation, the United States has built its infrastructure and its society on the promise of cheap energy. People have moved en masse into suburban areas once utilized solely for agriculture, and then depend on cheap gas to make their daily two-hour commutes. Large manufacturing companies build their facilities well away from large cities, and then depend on trucks and highways to deliver their goods to their customers. When gas prices rise, transportation costs increase significantly, driving up the cost of goods and services across the board. When individuals have to start paying double and triple for their commutes, communities suffer and people have to uproot themselves to be closer to their places of work and recreation. The economy itself suffers because fewer goods are being sold, and those at a lower profit margin. This is a ripple effect that will leave none unscathed, except perhaps those who see the full implications of Peak Oil soon enough and change their own way of life.

Whether it is called 'Peak Oil' or 'Hubbert's Peak' or any other name, it appears that the predictions made 30 years ago are coming to pass in the present time. The implications of rising energy prices on the US economy are sobering, but they are predictable. It will take many profound changes in the United States to temper the effects of Peak Oil. These changes will have to be implemented with some haste in order for the most dire effects to be countered, or society as a whole will suffer for it.


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Saturday, January 05, 2008

Four Stages of Penny Stock Trading

Through penny stock trading I have found that there are 4 stages of penny stocks. This is through my years of trading and I will share them with you.

Stage 1:
Accumulation, shares are transferred from weak hands to strong
hands. This stage usually occurs after a long decline or even after
the stock has had a pretty good advance. In this stage, stocks will
often trade in a narrow range, the forces of supply and demand are
about equal.

Stage 2:
Starts at "big" money accumulation. Seller will eventually thin out
and disappear. The stock become stronger, as the stock continues
move higher, the public become interested and they begin to buy too.
Combined, all of these activities, pushes the stock higher.

Stage 3:
Profits are usually being taken out of the stock, the stock begins
to trade in a range and move sideways. It will usually bounce off of
new points of support and resistance in the process. Compare to
stage 1, this stage has greater volatility and large price swings.

Stage 4:
Begins after demand for the stock dry up. Sellers become King, the
sell off starts. At the beginning of this stage, average traders
often believe the pull back is just a temporary correction, and
become bag holders. The longer the price advances in stage 2, the
more popular the stock will be once it enters the beginning of the
stage 4 sell off.

To be a successful trader, you must understand that it is financial
suicide to buy a stock that is in a stage 4 sell off, and it is
completely idiotic to buy a stock that it is topping out (stage 3).

This article was written by light of stockhideout.com Hot Penny Stocks and Penny Stock Investing Stock Message Board

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Friday, November 23, 2007

12 Basic Stock Investing Rules Every Successful Investor Should Know

There are many important things you need to know to trade and invest successfully in the stock market or any other market. 12 of the most important things that I can share with you based on many years of trading experience are enumerated below.1. Buy low-sell high. As simple as this concept appears to be, the vast majority of investors do the exact opposite. Your ability to consistently buy low and sell high, will determine the success, or failure, of your investments. Your rate of return is determined 100% by when you enter the stock market.2. The stock market is always right and price is the only reality in trading. If you want to make money in any market, you need to mirror what the market is doing. If the market is going down and you are long, the market is right and you are wrong. If the stock market is going up and you are short, the market is right and you are wrong.Other things being equal, the longer you stay right with the stock market, the more money you will make. The longer you stay wrong with the stock market, the more money you will lose.3. Every market or stock that goes up will go down and most markets or stocks that have gone down, will go up. The more extreme the move up or down, the more extreme the movement in the opposite direction once the trend changes. This is also known as "the trend always changes rule."4. If you are looking for "reasons" that stocks or markets make large directional moves, you will probably never know for certain. Since we are dealing with perception of markets-not necessarily reality, you are wasting your time looking for the many reasons markets move.A huge mistake most investors make is assuming that stock markets are rational or that they are capable of ascertaining why markets do anything. To make a profit trading, it is only necessary to know that markets are moving - not why they are moving. Stock market winners only care about direction and duration, while market losers are obsessed with the whys.5. Stock markets generally move in advance of news or supportive fundamentals - sometimes months in advance. If you wait to invest until it is totally clear to you why a stock or a market is moving, you have to assume that others have done the same thing and you may be too late.You need to get positioned before the largest directional trend move takes place. The market reaction to good or bad news in a bull market will be positive more often than not. The market reaction to good or bad news in a bear market will be negative more often than not.6. The trend is your friend. Since the trend is the basis of all profit, we need long term trends to make sizeable money. The key is to know when to get aboard a trend and stick with it for a long period of time to maximize profits. Contrary to the short term perspective of most investors today, all the big money is made by catching large market moves - not by day trading or short term stock investing.7. You must let your profits run and cut your losses quickly if you are to have any chance of being successful. Trading discipline is not a sufficient condition to make money in the markets, but it is a necessary condition. If you do not practice highly disciplined trading, you will not make money over the long term. This is a stock trading “system” in itself.8. The Efficient Market Hypothesis is fallacious and is actually a derivative of the perfect competition model of capitalism. The Efficient Market Hypothesis at root shares many of the same false premises as the perfect competition paradigm as described by a well known economist.The perfect competition model is not based on anything that exists on this earth. Consistently profitable professional traders simply have better information - and they act on it. Most non-professionals trade strictly on emotion, and lose much more money than they earn.The combination of superior information for some investors and the usual panic as losses mount caused by buying high and selling low for others, creates inefficient markets.9. Traditional technical and fundamental analysis alone may not enable you to consistently make money in the markets. Successful market timing is possible but not with the tools of analysis that most people employ.If you eliminate optimization, data mining, subjectivism, and other such statistical tricks and data manipulation, most trading ideas are losers.10. Never trust the advice and/or ideas of trading software vendors, stock trading system sellers, market commentators, financial analysts, brokers, newsletter publishers, trading authors, etc., unless they trade their own money and have traded successfully for years.Note those that have traded successfully over very long periods of time are very few in number. Keep in mind that Wall Street and other financial firms make money by selling you something - not instilling wisdom in you. You should make your own trading decisions based on a rational analysis of all the facts.11. The worst thing an investor can do is take a large loss on their position or portfolio. Market timing can help avert this much too common experience.You can avoid making that huge mistake by avoiding buying things when they are high. It should be obvious that you should only buy when stocks are low and only sell when stocks are high.Since your starting point is critical in determining your total return, if you buy low, your long term investment results are irrefutably better than someone that bought high.12. The most successful investing methods should take most individuals no more than four or five hours per week and, for the majority of us, only one or two hours per week with little to no stress involved. About the Author C.C. Collins is a Financial Planning Advisor and Author of “Scientific Wealth Strategies” at http://www.wealthscientist.com Find more information at http://www.stockinfo4u.com

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Day Trading & Investing Advice

How to Pick Explosive Stocks

In the stock market it's not unusual to see a stock go up more than 15% in less than 5 minutes on a good momentum day. It could seem that making money in the market is just a matter of buying one of those fast moving stocks and riding them for profits. In a way it is, but there is more to it.The problem is, that if you don't know what stocks to look for and how to properly approach them and simply leave everything to luck, you could end up wasting money instead of making your profits grow. That's why the most important aspect of momentum trading is the knowledge FILTER you employ to make your buy and sell decisions. There are many "fantastic" stock systems and trading strategies out there, but you need to test them in order to discover which ones help you the most. That's part of your homework as a stock trader. Test, test and test again. Complicated stock trading strategies that rely on a "boat load" of technical analysis indicators can make you slow, and being slow when trading hot momentum stocks can be as dangerous as not knowing what to do in the first place. The worst thing that can happen to a beginner momentum trader is to get information overload. It's better to go step by step, and test a practical stock trading strategy that can show you how to focus on concrete ways to make money while picking SOLID hot stock trading opportunities once at a time. Fortunately there are great sites on the web today that can show you how to trade in a sharp and effective way. One of those sites is Profitable Stock Market http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.comIn the end, momentum trading is all about buying and selling stocks according to your specific knowledge FILTER. Once you master and follow your proven filter parameters like a clock, you can expect to start making serious amounts of cash on a consistent basis. Find out how to do it with ease and simplicity at Profitable Stock Market http://www.ProfitableStockMarket.com About the Author ProfitableStockMarket.com helps beginner & experienced traders and investors how to pick momentum stocks with ease and simplicity.

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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Eight Steps to Building a Solid Stock Portfolio

Are you an investor looking to build a brand new stock portfolio? Or maybe, you have managed investments or a retirement plan and you are now looking to maximize your investment portfolio? This report will help you build your stock portfolio to generate "real" wealth.

Easy access to investing information and the availability of online trading has made life much more enjoyable and less costly for do-it-yourself investors. The Internet has brought the "trading" desk to millions of households and it is now possible to buy and sell shares, options, warrants, interest rate securities and managed funds from your own home. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. In addition, you can do your own research on a particular company or fund manager as well as finding out what some stock brokers are recommending to their clients. Much of this information is free or available at a reasonable cost and you can save yourself hundreds, or even thousands of dollars in fees and commissions every year via the internet. Rather than go through a full service stockbroker or investment advisor, why not give it a try?

When building your own stock portfolio, here are some pitfalls you need to avoid!

While you can find a plethora of good information on stocks, you can also find very poor information. Each website claims to have the latest hot picks or the "top ten" stock buys and often they contradict each other. Who do you believe and what about the scams?

You will undoubtedly come across websites and chat rooms that give investment advice or tips about investments, but many of these are not qualified to do so. The information may be wrong or misleading and some websites even repeat incorrect rumors.

There is overwhelming evidence that you will not become rich by listening to the advice of others. As an investor you need raw information, not recommendations. You would not buy a car just by looking at it...nor should you buy a company's stock without doing significant research. There is no point trying to take control of your finances if you are going to rely solely on a "tip" from a newspaper or a broker or an internet chat room. It is true that someone may know more about a particular company or stock than you, but they could easily be wrong - so do your own homework!

You need to be certain that you have sound reasons for investing in a particular company. Does the company have an instantly recognizable name? Do you understand what the company does? Do the products or services of the company stand a good chance of being in high demand in a 10, 20 or 30 year time frame? Does it have a management team that moves with the times and is innovative, yet keeps a firm grip on the company's finances? Most of this information is available in a company's Annual Report, but make sure that you read it with a degree of skepticism...most reports are written to promote the company.

In the Annual Report, the financial statements, the balance sheet, the profit & loss statement and the cash flow statements are very important. They are important because they will help you assess if the company is providing value for your money. You are going to be buying stocks at a certain price and you will want to make sure that you are not paying an excessive amount. The financial numbers give you a snapshot of the financial structure, strength and growth rate of the company. This type of analysis is often called fundamental analysis, and also includes analysis of the economy and industries related to the company.

Keep in-mind that the historical and present prices of a stock hold clues to the future price. In practice, most analysts use fundamental analysis for short and long term buy/sell decisions and use technical analysis to confirm the decision.

Internet websites are a great place to collect information about companies. Naturally, a company owned website will attempt to portray the company in the most sympathetic light. Depending on how serious you want to be about investing, it is advisable to either visit or subscribe to investment research websites. Research websites are valuable tools for any investor and provide company reviews, give general investing information, market updates, stock pickers, stock ratings, watch-lists, portfolio managers, charts, share indexes, newsletters, alerts and model portfolios.

So, how can you structure a stock portfolio to maximize your wealth, ensure your peace of mind, give you total control of your investments, be easy to manage and give satisfaction?
Here is a recommended strategy that has worked well for many do-it-yourself investors:

1. Subscribe to a well respected investment research website dedicated to analyzing financial information for investors. They are independent from companies they list, do not receive commissions or brokerage and rely solely on investor subscriptions for income. They have to give their subscribers quality information to maintain subscriber confidence.

2. Look for the model portfolios they have developed and study the methodology they have used to create and maintain each portfolio.

3. Read the research reports supplied for each stock and study the graphs supplied for price movements and trading volumes. Get a good feel for both the long term and the short term trends of the stock.

4. Test each portfolio within a designated test period i.e., one month, one quarter, one year etc. Depending on the website, you can set up each of the model portfolios in a free portfolio manager provided on the website with unlimited stocks. Set a starting date for a test period where you "buy" stocks listed in the model portfolio at the closing price for that day. Make sure you include brokerage as it is part of the cost base for the stock. The website should either maintain up-to-date or 20 minute delayed stock prices, so a running balance can be maintained for the profit/loss for each stock over the designated period.

5. Compare each portfolio's published results with the results that you have achieved in the portfolio manager. They should agree with each other when the same stocks are compared over the same time period. Your testing should develop a level of confidence in the model portfolio.

6. Determine the best model portfolio for you to use. You can do this using the last the last three months of stock price history or perform a trial evaluation for the next three months of future prices. You can use one of the existing model portfolios or create your own from the stocks selected.

7. Subscribe to an online share broker website and begin trading.

8. Monitor stocks daily and review the performance of your actual portfolio against the model quarterly.

You should take care to evaluate the methodology used by the research website to develop the model portfolios. These portfolios are designed by research firms to provide sensible medium-term portfolios that make it easy for investors and financial planners to replicate. You need to understand the research methodology and develop a level of confidence in it rather than just blindly accepting the published results of each portfolio. You do not need to become an expert in methodologies.

Building a share portfolio that meets your investment objectives will substantially build your wealth over a period of time. You can also save money in commissions and fees, have peace of mind, total control over your investment and gain a real sense of satisfaction.

As a final word of caution...nothing is for certain in this world except for death and taxes. This also applies to the stock market. Be prepared for some ups and downs and be ready to sell stocks to cut losses. If the core of your portfolio is made up of stocks that have strong capital growth and a reasonable dividend you will do well overall. Have "at it" and good investing!

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

Investing in Alternative Energy Stocks

Investing in Alternative Energy Stocks

Alternative energy stock portfolios are a great part of a modern investor's financial plan, due to the fact that there is so much upward potential. These make excellent long term growth investment vehicles, and the money put into them by you, the investor, serves to further the cause of implementing the alternative energy power sources that we need as we sail into the 21st century and beyond.

Analysts predict that by 2013, the alternative energy industry will be a $13 billion dollar industry in today's dollars. This figure bespeaks an enormous return on investment. Indeed, if you were to invest in a start-up alternative energy company, you might find yourself having invested in the next Microsoft in terms of return on investment. People are fed up with the rising costs of gasoline—while this alone is not sufficient understanding of the need for developing alternative energy sources, it is a factor which can act as a market maker—meaning for you that investments in alternative energy companies makes a lot of financial sense.

However, this does not mean that you don't first want to do some careful research into alternative energy stocks, perhaps with the help of a financial planner. “A few alternative-energy companies are going after the right markets but that doesn't mean you should go buy every name in the sector. Investors need to be cautious about chasing the stocks,” says Sanjay Shrestha, who is an analyst at First Albany Capital. And if you are an investor, then you know that the problem in this sector is that nearly every single one of the major players in the alternative energy for profit game are start-ups or in the very early stages of growth. This means for you that they have relatively minuscule (even if rapidly growing) sales, and no expected profitability in the near term or history of earnings for you to be able to research. This can lead to some bubbling, as with what happened to the dot-com industry at the turn of the 21st century. Bubbling in the stock market is not a good thing for investors.

Analysts and financial planners can play a crucial role in helping you get it right with alternative energy investing. “We don't play around in the tiny cap stocks that have technology and not much revenue—the 'hope' stocks. We invest in companies with clear cash-generation plans in place,” are the words of Ben walker, who is a senior portfolio manager at the Gartmore Global Utilities fund out of London.

Still, the outlook is very positive overall—and healthy. “It is good to see that the number of renewable energy funds and the amount of money flowing into these funds is increasing,” according to chief executive of UK alternative electricity supplier Good Energy Juliet Davenport. “The renewable generation market is at an important stage in its development; it needs the continued support of the consumer, investor and government to ensure that it reaches its potential and really starts to make a difference to climate change.”


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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

What are EFT's

In the investing world ETFs (exchange-traded funds) are the latest and greatest. Although they have actually been around for more than ten years it is not until recently that the explosion of ETFs has occurred.

ETFs are a group of stocks that trade on the stock exchanges as if they are one stock. Generally in the past they have tracked a particular index such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the NASDAQ-100. Recently however they are forming ETFs that have a particular characteristic in common, invest in a particular region or sector of the market, or have a certain market capitalization.

There are many advantages to ETFs over open and closed mutual funds. They can have a low cost of obtaining since you are paying a commission just like when you purchase individual stocks. If you use a discount brokerage you can purchase for $14.00 or less. The ongoing maintenance fees for an ETF are also minimal compared to actively managed mutual funds, and in some cases lower than index mutual funds.

Because ETFs trade like stock they have liquidity. With a simple phone call you can buy or sell. ETFs are priced every 15 seconds and trade continually throughout the day. This is different from mutual funds that are only bought and sold at the end of the trading day. Since the ETF will be held in a brokerage account is easily traded.

Tracking an index means less selling within the fund. This makes for a tax efficient fund. It is rare that an ETF declares a capital gain distribution. This means you determine when the taxes will be paid on the gain by choosing when you will sell.

Index and actively managed funds retain a portion of their investable assets in cash. This is used to pay someone who is selling their fund. Since ETFs trade like individual stocks on the open market there is no need to retain a portion in cash.

There is no room for style drift in an ETF. In an actively managed mutual fund, the fund can say it is a large cap fund, but may chase performance by investing in small or mid caps at times. ETFs are required to maintain a 99% correlation with the index or basket of stocks that it represents.

Because ETFs trade like individual stocks you have the additional features of stock. ETFs can be sold short or on margin. They can have limit buy and stop loss orders for buying and selling. Put and call options can be purchased and sold using ETFs.

There are of course disadvantages to ETFs as well. They are not an appropriate investment to use with dollar cost averaging. If you have to pay a $10.00 fee each month when you make that $50 or $100 investment it can be difficult to make up that fee.

With the explosion of ETFs you have to watch what the fund is using as its underlying stocks. Sometimes it can be such a narrow focus that you really are not achieving diversification.

Due to the ease of trading you can get caught up in riskier strategies than you want. Short term trading and market timing can result in significant losses. Buying and selling ETF puts and calls or buying on margin is speculating and is riskier than buying and holding.

ETFs make sense under the right circumstances. You can use a broad index ETF as a core holding. This can be supplemented with targeted ETFs to provide weighting in a particular sector, region or type of market capitalization. As always know what you are investing in and be sure that it fits into your portfolio.


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Saturday, June 09, 2007

HYIPs: An Alternative to Stock Trading

People who are successful stock traders are no strangers to the 'educated guess.' They analyze the risk associated with a company's stock and then make a decision. When they are correct in their decision they earn a gain. If they are incorrect in their decision they will lose money. Investors that continue to lose money will sell their stock to recap their investment. This ultimately means they stop investing in that company and move on to the next one that looks promising.

Believe it or not stocks are not the only way the investor can use this same strategy to make money. People who make money with HYIP (high yield investments) operate on this principle. To fully understand the comparison, it's important to first understand: 1) what a HYIP is, 2) how a legitimate HYIP works and 3) how people invest in the HYIP. Each of these are discussed in more detail below.

WHAT IS A HYIP?

HYIPs are investment programs that offer high returns quickly. Like stock trading the more you invest the more gain you receive. Unlike stocks, however, HYIPs offer more of a return for a smaller investment. The reason why HYIPs can do this is because some of the money is funded from new membership. However, HYIPs that last DO NOT and CANNOT function on new member money alone. They must have other legitimate methods of generating revenue. If they don't the HYIP is really a Ponzi scheme and will collapse eventually. This will be discussed in more detail later in the article.

There are two types of HYIPs that are popular online: those that require a person to do nothing but simply invest and those that require a person to view advertisements. The latter has gained more popularity through a concept known as the autosurf. Autosurfs that are HYIP-based operate on the same principle as television does: offering members something 'free' for viewing advertisements. In this case the freebie is money. If the autosurf is not HYIP-based, it will offer advertising credits for its members. The more credits a member receives, the more they can advertise their sites.

HOW A LEGITIMATE HYIP WORKS

Unfortunately, because of greedy, unscrupulous people, a large percentage of HYIPs out there are scams. This is especially the case with HYIPs not based on advertising revenue though there are shady autosurfs out there too. But the reason why HYIPs not based on advertising are more dangerous is because there is even less certainty on where and how funds are being generated. At least with advertising-based HYIPs one can usually see that they are selling advertising, whether through an 'Advertise on our site' link at the bottom of their web site or even an Ebay auction. However, the HYIP that is not based on advertising usually won't make it apparent how they are generating income streams. If they don't have some fluff about making money through Forex or other legitimate trading methods, they may have the audacity to say they are a ponzi. Whether they say it or not, if they don't have other ways of making income they are nothing more than a ponzi. So this means that the ONLY way they are generating funds are through new member signups. When new members stop joining the scheme the program will collapse. This is assuming the owner is 'honest' enough to let it run that long. Sometimes individuals using the ponzi scheme will let it run for a few months, then after getting a healthy build-up of member investments, flee with the money.

Okay, so keeping all this in mind how can one distinguish the legitimate HYIP from the typical HYIP which is a scam? Below are some factors which are common to the legitimate HYIP.

1) Legitimate HYIP sites will generate revenue from a variety of sources

Member signups alone are not enough to keep a legitimate HYIP running. This is because when new members stop signing up (which is inevitable even for established membership-based businesses), the HYIP's revenue source is gone. So if an HYIP is legitimate it must sell a service or product or invest in stable trades FOR REAL.

2) Legitimate HYIP business owners can be contacted

HYIP business owners who are serious about their business will treat it as such. This means they will establish a company just like any other entrepreneur and reveal their contact information. If an HYIP webmaster can give no verifiable information about their 'company' including telephone numbers, they are scams.

3) Legitimate HYIPs receive positive feedback

HYIP monitors are sites which evaluate HYIPs. If they pay then they receive a positive rating. If not, they receive a negative rating. Legitimate HYIPs tend to get mostly positive rating through HYIP monitors.

Legitimate HYIPs also receive positive feedback on virtually any place on the web, even those not related to investing.

HOW PEOPLE INVEST IN HYIPS

The best way to invest in an HYIP is to start small and 'risk' only what you can afford. Risk is the operative word because there is no way to know whether or not an HYIP is legitimate until one actually starts investing. However, the risk tends to be worth it if the investor thinks the HYIP is legitimate because the return is incredibly high.

Once investors find HYIPs that are legitimate, they try to recover their initial investment as quickly as possible. After this, they invest using their profits so the risk of 'losing' is minimized. If something does happen to the HYIP it doesn't matter as much because they were playing around with just their profit anyway.

Indeed, the HYIP game may not be for every investor, but for those who want a high return quickly and are excellent at risk assessment, it is an excellent alternative. And believe it or not, there are thousands if not millions who have made money through HYIPs, despite the number of them that are shady. So while there is a risk of loss,(which is also present for conventional trading methods), investors continue utilizing HYIPs simply because the gain is so profound.

For a listing of a few hyips that have been around for a while visit rm2.highinterest.org