Credit Card ’s Talk

A stock is a legally binding symbol of ownership in a company. When you purchase a stock, you actually become the owner of a part of a company ? a share holder. Since one company can release a lot of stocks, the ownership is typically spread over hundreds or thousands or owners. Selling shares in a company is a way for that company to bring cash to the company. If you start up a new small company, you typically own 100 % of the shares yourself. When you need to invest a lot of money in necessary equipment, you can allow people to purchase parts of your company. This will provide the company with enough cash to buy equipment.

To gain any real influence over a company, you must own a lot of the stocks or work together with a lot of the smaller owners. Today, people often buy stocks not in order to gain control over a company, but as an investment. They hope for the value of the stock to increase over time. A company can also decide to give a part of its annual earnings to the stock owners. This way, you can make money from your stock without selling it.

To put it simple, a stock market is a place where stocks are traded, just like a fruit market is a place where fruit is traded. The New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are three important stock markets in the United States. Unlike the fruit market, it would be impractical for you to stroll down to the New York Stock Exchange and purchase a bag of stocks from a vendor. Stocks are instead typically bought and sold via a stock broker or through Direct Investment Plans and Dividend Reinvestment Plans. If you purchase stocks via a Direct Investment Plans or a Dividend Reinvestment Plans, you will not actually buy stocks at the stock market; you will purchase them directly from companies.

Wall Street is very important place in the history of the American stock market. During the 17th century, Dutch settlers in New York built a high fence to defend themselves from attacks. The wall only lasted until 1685, but the Englishmen continued to call the street near the former wall Wall Street. The history of the American stock market does however begin in Philadelphia, not in New York. The very first stock exchange in America was created in Philadelphia, in 1790. The first stock exchange in New York was created only two years later, but it didn?t do as well as the Philadelphian stock exchange. In 1817, representatives from the New York stock exchanged travelled to Philadelphia in order to find the key behind the Philadelphian success.

The result of the trip was the creation of a more formal and disciplined New York Stock and Exchange Board. One of the more notable incidents in the history of the American stock market is naturally the stock market crash of 1929. During the early years of the 20th, vast amounts of money had been made on the booming stock exchange markets. This boom came to a rapid end when the stock market plummeted in 1929 and triggered the Great Depression in American.

Read more about the American stock market as well as other International stock markets

Will consumers favor a non-burning pain relief product, like Swiss Medica?s (OTC BB: SWME) O24 instead of Icy Hot or Ben Gay? Richard Weise, inventor of the patented O24 pain relief product talked to us about how O24 came about, how it works differently than other pain relief products and why O24 might just become a success story during its North American rollout to retail stores.

Interviewer: How did you come about developing the O24 pain relief formula?

Richard Weise: I started the O24 development thirty-five years ago, with studies in natural medicine. When you have chronic pain, people want to take some pharmaceutical product, which gives side effects. I don?t like that. I was studying to get a product that I could use, which would have no side effects. Previously while I worked in Germany, I developed environmentally safe cleaning products. I had studied Chinese medicine. I studied all the medicines for years: natural medicines, Indian medicines, European medicines and all the herbs. The Europeans, over a longer time, have been using more natural products.

Interviewer: How did this product advance from your studying medicines to its commercial distribution?

Richard Weise: I had this product in Europe and used it for myself, but it was not for commercial use. I tested it on myself. In the United States my first testing was on my English teacher. She broke her foot and had pain. I told her I had something for her pain, and I put it on her foot. She stopped having pain. She called me the next morning and told me that after six weeks, this was the first night she could sleep pain-free. A couple of months later, she came back to me and said, ?Richard, I need two hundred bottles of this stuff you gave me.? I wanted to know why she needed two hundred bottles. I had offered to make her some product if she needed more, but two hundred bottles? She told me she had so many people she had given them a little of the formula to, people were asking her for more. That?s how this whole thing started in 1992 in the United States. Where it started commercially.

Interviewer: How was your reception, at first, with O24?

Richard Weise: When I first started with this, in the United States, people thought it was ?snake oil?. I?m not a medical doctor. I studied natural medicine as my hobby. I don?t make claims. The claim I am permitted to make is that this product can be used for temporary pain relief for aches and pains, muscle spasms, arthritis. The FDA told us this in 1995. Before that, it was considered snake oil. I have customers who have been using this product for thirteen years. They are using it and they are happy. They will not use anything else.

Interviewer: Why doesn?t O24 give people the burning sensation one suffers from most other pain relief lotions, sprays or gels?

Richard Weise: Let?s take Ben Gay?. It uses menthol and capsaicin. Capsaicin is very heating. It is made out of (chile) peppers. When you use too much, you can burn your skin. They put menthol in to equalize the temperature a little, but it?s still burning. When you work out, and you put this on, your skin gets red. Tiger Balm? is a product made of camphor and menthol. Menthol gives a cooling feeling. When you have inflammation of your nerve, sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn?t. It?s only cooling.

Interviewer: Why is it that O24 works differently from other pain relief lotions, gels or rubs?

Richard Weise: When you have pain in an area of you body, the temperature of the pain area is different than your regular body temperature. It can be higher by a half a degree or it can be lower. Some people put ice on, and it will not help. Others put ice on and it helps. The reason is if the temperature was too high, putting ice on it cools it down to the regular body temperature. The inflammation of the nerve is gone (by putting on ice) and the pain goes away. The O24 equalizes the body temperature, whether it is higher or lower. Automatically, this was a wonderful side effect.

Interviewer: Is that one of the major differences, between O24 and the others? That O24 doesn?t burn?

Richard Weise: Yes. That was done on purpose. With other products, people complained they burned. Some essential oils are very skin irritating. Therefore, you have to make the right formulation to make sure you have no complaints. I still try to make the product better and better, more efficient for the patients, for the consumer. I haven?t had any complaints. I have a complaint file and it has been empty for the last thirteen years, except one person who was allergic to peppermint oil.

Interviewer: Do people use this product on its own, or in conjunction with something else, like ibuprofen?

Richard Weise: People, who have been using this product for ten years, use just this product and nothing else. A lot of people over-medicate for their chronic pain. In some cases, O24 replaces the use of pharmaceutical products altogether. Some of the arthritis patients use it three to four times a day. Others use it once per day. It?s purely a topical lotion. It stays on top of the skin. You can not replace oral medication with this product.

Interviewer: Do you get every ingredient from the same suppliers, or do you change your suppliers from time to time?

Richard Weise: We pretty much try to keep it with the same suppliers. We quality control every ingredient. We make an adjustment every time we do a batch. After every batch we have to go to an independent lab for testing to prove that every ingredient we say and claim in the product is exactly what is in O24. Right now, we?re making a batch for 1600 pounds. That translates into 25,000 one-ounce bottles.

Interviewer: The big puzzle seems to be how the herb essences stick together without binders, such as alcohol or glycerine or some other additive. How did you get the herb essences to bind?

Richard Weise: It is because of the way I mix the product together. That is the patent: how I mix them together and why they stay together. Over the past ten years, I saw companies try to copy the product. They bought product. They broke it down. This is easy. It?s not a big secret. They made the product, but every time they were finished, they concluded, ?This could not work!? They got nothing out of it.

Interviewer: Why does your O24 work, while the O24 copycats have failed to replicate your formula, if the ingredients are the same?

Richard Weise: They don?t know how to put the product together. There are no preservatives in the product. Normally, you put water or alcohol in the product and it stays together. O24 stays together without any binders. I put every essential oil into four groups. I have everything written down. The manufacturer knows my exact procedure. The results can be replicated without my monitoring the combining. The company (Swiss Medica) has all the paperwork (for the formula), and their chemists can replicate the formula. They can make the product in the same way. I have bottles sitting here that are thirteen years old. If I take them to the lab tomorrow, they have the same efficiency, the same main ingredients as the product I make today.

Interviewer: O24 has an indefinite shelf life?

Richard Weise: Yes. The same batch I made thirteen years ago has the same life as the batch I would make today. Actually according to the law, I can not say they have indefinite shelf life. We did a test for thirty-six months. We did a shelf-life test in an independent lab. They proved this product has a shelf life of thirty-six months.

Interviewer: Can you confirm that athletes and celebrities have actually used this product?

Richard Weise: Yes. I talked on the phone with them. I know Filip Gartner, the former head coach of the Norwegian ski team. I met him three or four times. Sam Walton?s daughter, for example, likes the product.

Interviewer: What do you know about the fibromyalgia testing that was done in Germany, using O24?

Richard Weise: The doctor bought the product from us. We had no idea he was doing the test. He bought product off the market, tested it and published the results in medical journals. He published this product and the test results. He published what he did without our knowledge and the results were excellent.

James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publications. His archived articles and interviews can be found at http://www.stockinterview.com You can contact James Finch by email: jfinch@stockinterview.com.

There is no question that the stock market is being affected by war jitters. When it looks like peace we have a strong rally. When it looks like shooting will begin momentarily the market takes a dump. What should you do with your stock, mutual funds or cash that is waiting to find a home?

Back when I was a floor trader we had a saying ?When in doubt get out?. And that applies just as strongly today to everyone whether you area professional trader or a retired person living off your equity income.

You might say that I am not a trader or speculator so I won?t do anything. Let me clarify what you really are. You are a speculator whether you want to admit it or not. The only thing that separates you from the floor trader who is scalping for a few ticks and someone who has thousands of dollars in a retirement account is the time frame. If all you do is buy and hold you still are a speculator. You are hoping the market will come back. Your broker told you so.

What your broker did not tell you is that long-term bull markets are followed by long-term bear markets of equal length. Because we have been in a long-term bull from 1982 to 2000 the mindset of the investor has become conditioned to believe the every correction will see another new high. That is true, but can you afford to wait that long? In the crash of 1929 ? ?32 it took almost 25 years to see a new high in the market averages. Do you have that much time? Also folks don?t remember that many companies went out of business so your ?average? went out the window.

With the market so precariously perched it might be best to stand aside with your cash in your hand or under your mattress. When the Iraq war starts we could see a 1,000-point move ? and it could be either direction. What kind of a gambler are you? We?ll see.

Ask yourself this question: Is this bear market caused by Iraq? Back in 2000 no one knew where Iraq was on the map much less were able to spell Baghdad. We can?t blame Saddam for the loss of about 50% of market equity. When it comes right down to it the Iraq war is just another event in a long-term bear market just as 9/11 was. Events do trigger violent moves, but the overall trend is what is important and now that is down.

Another old saying is ?don?t fight the trend?. War or no war the safest place for your money is not in equities during this down phase. Cash or bonds are the only place to be.

Are you ready for the next violent move?

Al Thomas

Author of If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!

Never lose money in the stock market again.

http://www.mutualfundmagic.com

Mutual funds are a collection of stocks and/or bonds invested in different securities, which include fixed market securities and money market instrumentals. It facilitates investors to put their money under an efficient investment management. There are three types of mutual funds namely, income funds, growth funds, and balanced funds.

The basic principle underlying mutual funds is to pool in money with other people to convert it into funds. Mutual funds generally buy shares in stocks wherein an experienced fund manager performs the task of selecting, purchasing and selling off the stocks himself. Certificates are then issued to the shareholders as a testimony of proof of their partnership and participation in the emoluments of funds.

There are particularly three ways in which you can make money from a mutual fund. They are:

1. Benefits can be earned from the commission on stocks, and interests on bonds. All the income received all round the year is paid by the funds in the form of a distribution.
2. The fund will have an outstanding benefit provided the funds sell high priced securities. Most of the profits are given back to the investors in a distribution.
3. The value of the fund?s share automatically increases with an increase in the value of unsold high priced fund holdings. Accordingly, you can always sell shares of your mutual fund for profits.

Many people find investing in mutual funds an attractive option to that of dealing directly with the stock market because it is comparatively safe. In fact, these days, mutual funds have become the first preference of many investors. Mutual funds provide a balanced and better approach compared to conventional stock market alternatives. It has an added advantage of investing in several distinct sectors and firms, so, if one company suffers losses, the others may be rising. Investing in mutual funds, therefore, minimizes the loss-bearing risk of monetary assets.

In a nutshell, here are the salient points of the advantages of mutual funds:

1. Cost-effectiveness of investing in mutual funds: The main advantage of investing in mutual funds is the efficient management of your finances. Investors buy funds because they lack the competence and time to manage their own portfolio. It is a cost effective method, especially for a small investor because it is expensive to get a manager to manage individual investments.

2. Diversification: Compared to individual stocks or bonds, mutual funds diversify the risk of bearing loss. The basic intention being to invest in a diverse number of assets in order to overcome the negatives of loss making stocks or bonds by the profits reaped by others.

3. Economy of Scale: The transaction expenses are relatively low as a mutual fund is bought and sold in large amounts of credits.

4. Liquidity: Mutual funds provide the opportunity of converting shares into cash at any point of time.

5. Simplicity: It is easy to buy a mutual fund. Most companies have their own automatic purchase plans, and the minimum investment rates are very small.

Therefore, investing in mutual funds is certainly a secure investment as the chance of loss is spread out, and the opportunity for gains are numerous. At the same time, it is both cost-effective and an investment that gives great future returns.

The days of depending on government largesse in meeting old age financial requirements are growing dimmer by the day. Hence, investing in mutual funds can be a wise choice, especially for those who plan for an early retirement and hope to enjoy a secure senior citizenship.

Joe Kenny writes for the UK Loans Store offering UK secured loans and offer more information on UK bad credit loans and other loan topics available on site.
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What is a credit spread?

Investopedia.com says? An options strategy where a high premium option is sold and a low premium option is bought on the same underlying security.

OK I know that is very vague, so lets see if I can do better.

It is a trading strategy in which you buy an out of the money option at a certain strike price and then you sell an out of the money option at a different strike price of the same month. As time goes on the options will decay in value and as long as the price of the stock does not go past the sold strike price at the end of expiration you will receive a full credit winning trade.

For example,it is January and XYZ stock is currently at $54 and it looks as if it is bullish or will increase in price over the next month and you firmly believe that the stock will not go below $50. You would trade a Bull Put Credit Spread on a Feb expiration. You would buy the Feb 45 put for $.25 and you would sell the Feb 50 put for $1.00. This leaves you with a credit of $.75 in your account or actually $75 per contract you trade. The risk of the trade or the amount of money per contract you need in your account is $425 per contract. This gives you a return on investment of 17.5% in how ever many days till Feb expiration.

Lets take it out like a real trade - It is January 13 and Febuary expiration is in 35 days. You place the trade for 5 contracts. So you now buy 5 FEB XYZ 45 PUTs for $.25 or $125 total and you sell 5 FEB XYZ 50 PUTs for $1.00 or $500 giving you a credit of $375 in your account. Now to back the trade up with collateral in case the trade goes wrong you need to have $2125 in your account for just this trade. If XYZ closes above $50 in 35 days you will have received $375 which is a 17.6% gain. There is a break even price of $49.25 that if the stock closes at this number you will neither gain or lose money. If the stock closes between $49.25 and $45 you will lose some money and if it closes below $45 you will lose $2125.

If you like the idea of knowing exactly what your profit will be, exactly when the trade is closed, and exactly how much money you will risk then credit option spread trading is for you. Your profit margins will be between 10 and 20% on each trade - on some of the aggressive credit spreads you can make over 50% - and there are techniques for changing your trade if it becomes a losing trade to help you recover some of the loss and in some cases even make it a winning trade again even though you were wrong on the direction of the movement of the stock.

Daniel Beatty has been trading options for several years and now teaches others how to trade specific strategies for free through his website http://creditoptionspreads.com or Option Spreads.

It has been over four years since Arthur Anderson was indicted for destroying Enron-related documents in order to deter investigators. Anderson?s indictment on March 14th, 2003 set off a string of events that would forever change the face of corporate America. Once Anderson was convicted on June 15th, 2002, the indictments and convictions in the Enron case quickly grew. Between October 2002 and April 2003, seven individuals were indicted for various crimes relating to the Enron scandal, including Andrew Fastow, Ben Glisan and Dan Boyle. On January 14th, 2004, Andrew Fastow plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy in exchange for no more than ten years in prison. On July 9th, Kenneth Lay surrendered to the FBI and was indicted on accusations of being a participant in a conspiracy to manipulate Enron’s quarterly financial results, making public statements about the company’s financial performance that were false and misleading and omitting facts that were necessary to make financial statements fair and accurate. Although Lay surrendered to the FBI, he maintained his innocence on all counts.

On October 19th, a federal judge granted Lay a separate trial from Skilling and Causey on the charges of bank fraud and deceiving banks about using loans to buy Enron stock on margin. However, the judge ruled that the they would be tried together on the other charges. Before the trio could be tried together, Richard Causey plead guilty to securities fraud three days after Christmas in 2005. Causey entered a plea deal which called for a reduced prison sentence of five years in exchange for full government cooperation and forfeiture of over million dollars. If Causey had not entered the plea bargain, he could have faced ten years in prison.

The much awaited trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffery Skilling began on January 30th, 2006 in Houston, Texas. During the trial, the defense argued that there was never any wrong committed, but that the collapse of Enron was caused by a failure of market confidence. The defense also stated that thirteen of the sixteen Enron executive who pleaded guilty to crimes were actually innocent, but confessed because of the pressure exerted by federal prosecutors. On the other side of the spectrum, the prosecution argued that Enron?s leaders lied to investors and Wall Street about the true state of their financial affairs. During the course of the trial, eight former Enron executives testified against the Lay and Skilling, including the prosecution?s star witness Andrew Fastow. After almost a four month trial, the jury reached a verdict on May 25, 2006.

The jury found Jeffery Skilling guilty on nineteen of the twenty-eight counts of securities fraud and wire fraud, while acquitting him of an additional nine counts. Kenneth Lay was found guilty on all six counts of securities and wire fraud. Lay was also found guilty on four counts of fraud and false statements in a separate bench trial which began on May 18th. Skilling and Lay will be sentenced during the week of September 11th, 2006. Skilling faces up to one hundred and eighty-five years in prison, while Lay faces a total prison sentence of forty-five years.

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