SMSF - The Freedom Of Managing Your Own Money

By Gnifrus Urquart

The superannuation system is great for all of us. Our employer puts money away for our retirement, money which we never really see anyway so it does not impact our lifestyles. Then, when we retire, we have a massive pool of saved funds which we can enjoy.

One of the things I don't like though is the way you lose control of you money in the Australian Superannuation Industry. It is getting better, but for me there is still a very big issue here. You generally do not have a big say in how your money is invested. This is why I set up my own DIY Super fund.

Without making this article too complex, all an SMSF is, is a structure which enables you to manage your own superannuation money. There are a number of responsibilities which come with running your own super fund, you can manage these yourself or outsource them as you see fit. Most of these responsibilities follow:

1. Trustee - The trustee is the legal owner of the assets of the fund. Basically it is the trustee who takes legal responsibility for the fund. If anything goes wrong, it is the trustee who gets the blame.

Secondly, there is the administration and accounting responsibilities. This is a time intensive role, keeping the books up to date and preparing the annual accounts, lodging tax returns and preparing reports for members.

3. Audit - The auditor looks over all the accounts prepared by the administrator to ensure they comply with the existing superannuation and tax law. A successful audit will mean you maintain your status as a complying superannuation fund, so you can continue to receive the superannuation tax benefits.

Finally, you need to invest the money in a way that responsibly improves the pool of funds for your retirement. The investment decisions have to be within the superannuation regulations as well as the investment strategy as outlined in the SMSF trust deed.

Personally, I was just interested in managing my investments. All the rest was outsourced. I just wanted to be able to ensure the investment decisions I made were mine so I could feel responsible for any losses or gains that I made. There is nothing worse than when your retirement investments decrease over a year and you have no control whatsoever in the decisions made. I wanted to avoid this. Also, getting control of this meant that I could make investment decisions giving my whole portfolio consideration and not treat my retirement investment as if it were an island, completely separate of other investments I have. It is all part of my estate after all.

Time is always an issue though, which is why I outsourced all the other duties. Getting rid of all those responsibilities left me with much more time to research and make appropriate investment decisions. - 23309

About the Author:

Gnifrus Urquart appreciates controlling his retirement investments, as well as the freedom outsourcing his SMSF Administration affords him.

Learn How To Trade Options In Our Lifetime Options Course Overview

By Johnny M Junior

Learn how to trade options in our lifetime options course. Options are a strong instrument that every investor should become knowledgeable about.

Before getting started forget what you have heard about the risks involved with trading options. Options are meant to limit and manage risk.

Investors use options for two main reasons. The first is to speculate. The second is to hedge their risk. Most are familiar with the guessing aspect of investing. Each time you buy stock, you are guessing which direction the stock is going to go in. The term investing is used to make buying stock not sound as risky. Truthfully, there is always uncertainty when buying stock. You might be pretty sure that GOOG stock is going to go up when you buy it, but if you were positive that it would increase, you would put everything you owned into it. It is important to realize that there is always a risk involved when investing. When you buy options, you guess on future stock prices, but you limit the downside risk while your upside profit potential is not limited.

Investors can choose to hedge their portfolios. Basically, the investor is purchasing insurance that will protect their investment from potential disaster. It is very similar to buying homeowners insurance. The chance of something bad happening is slim; however, having someone else bear the brunt of the disaster is more appealing than dealing with it yourself. When you hedge your portfolio, you are insuring your investment.

The prices of options are based on the price of an underlying stock as well as many other factors.

Deciding whether to hedge or speculate using options is the first step you need to take. An option chain will be available for you showing what you can select from. It is not enough for you to know if you prefer to speculate or hedge. It is also necessary to figure out if your strategy means trading a put or call option or and advanced option spread. Decide how long you want the expiration date to be as well as along with what strike price you want to trade. There is a lot to learn before one can start to trade options. They are no so simple like trading stock.

The pricing of options is figured using a complicated differential equation, but again, we don't need to make this so complicated.

Five necessities determine the value of stock options. Risk free rate, option strike price, time to expiration, underlying asset price and asset volatility are taken into consideration.

Each ingredient plays a role in establishing the value of an option. As an investor, you can only manage two of the ingredients: strike price and expiration. Take into account what your needs are and choose the one that will give you the desired results. Advice to help you on your way:

Hedging: using complex spreads which have little to no risk at all in order to protect ones portfolio.

Speculating: in the money options, short expiration and use calls. Again, this is a very simple strategy, but not one that I would ever do. This is something basic that beginners start with.

A variety of strategies are part of the out or in the money options that every investor should learn. An in the money option is going to cost more money to purchase but, the chance that it will retain value upon expiration is higher. An out of the money option is less expensive but there is a greater risk of it being worth nothing upon expiration. - 23309

About the Author:

Learn how to trade options in our lifetime options course. Options are a super instrument and something which every saver should get the inside skinny on options learning .

Check List For Would Be First Time Property Buyer

By Billy Chen

You have long been contemplating to buy a first house for the family. But before you start making your house search and shopping for lender, make sure you answer these questions first to assess your real need and possibility to own a house of your own.

1. Are you prepared to stay put for at least 3 years at your new home? If you are not ready to stay in your newly purchased property for minimum of 3years, perhaps you have to put off this idea now. The reason is the kind of investment with property purchase and the associated fees charged on both buy/sell transaction would simply makes it impossible. You will end up lose money no matter it is a rising or falling market (here you end up losing even more money as your property will have depreciated in price).

2. Do you have good credit rating? Most of us get a mortgage for our new house and those lenders would discriminate against customer who does not have a decent credit rating to show. If you have this problem, make sure you spend effort to clean up your credit report by fixing any problem that may get reflected in the report before you go shop for a house.

3. Find suitable home loan 80 percent of the purchased price is the average loan amount banks are willing to disburse, subject to qualification. But you can go to the online calculator to figure out more about the maximum loan amount the bank is willing to approve you. The calculator would require you to input information like your income, debts, and expenses to work out a loan comfortable to you, or to thee bank.

4. Are you comfortable to put up to 20 percent of the purchase price? Again most lenders would want you to be able to foot at least 20 percent of the purchased price. You can try to negotiate this amount down if you have problem over that but we would not recommend it.

5. Buy into hot location with good schools If possible find a site where there are a number of popular schools. Reason is school districts are a top consideration for buyers who have school going children. When you want to sell your property, you can ask for a premium on top of a fair evaluation price.

6. Find a good property agent If this is the first property you are going to buy, consider using a professional property agent. In fact, try to go for those exclusive buyer agents where possible as they can help the negotiation process on your behalf.

Answers all of the above truthfully and if these answers still point to a new house purchase, get ready for some intensive homework. Once you chanced upon property that you like, you would have to start gathering background information. For example the kind of prices transacted in the past months for similar housing type or neighbourhood would be helpful. This will prepare you on the likely target price the seller is willing to let go so you can negotiate effectively to win your property. - 23309

About the Author:

Want to find out more about Singapore Property , then visit our site on how to choose the best Singapore Property Elite for your needs.

Solution to Paperwork: Property Management Software

By Layla Vanderbilt

Is your office crammed with filing cabinets to the point where it takes you a half an hour just to find the paperwork you need? Many property managers are facing this problem since they have so much they need to keep track of. Eventually, the lists of apartments, tenants, expenses, and payment histories gets so long that you don?t know where to keep all of the information. This is where property management software comes in handy.

With software, you won?t have to worry about losing paperwork or figuring out calculations all on your own. The software stores all of the information you put into it in one, easy to understand database. With this you are able to print out reports extremely fast and few all of your tenant?s payment histories without leaving your desk.

Now every property manager has different needs and you?ll be wondering if the software will fit a lot of specific instances. The software is actually designed so that you can customize it to whatever needs that you have. This allows for you to make groups, separate properties, as well as keep all kinds of records. This comes in handy if you?re trying to sort your properties by price, number of rooms, or by complex.

Although the program will take a little time and effort to get it set up and to get all of the old information into it, it will be useful as it can hold an infinite amount of data entries. This means that you?ll never have to worry about keeping old records for the next few years because you can simply sort them separately. The options are endless with the program as you can enter everything from the address of the tenant to their renting price. By adding small details you will be able to have all the necessary information in one spot.

If you ever need to check up on your financial standings, all you have to do is go to your software program. All of the figures from your income and expenses will be figured to give you some idea of what you can expect at the end of the month. When it comes time to make statements, all you have to do is select the fields you want printed off. In just a few minutes you will have a complete printout of everything you need. With these software programs taxes become a much less daunting task, and there is no need to hire an extra assistant just to handle paperwork.

You may wonder if property management software is right for you. In fact it?s right for any property manager. This is true whether you have a small building with a few tenants or several properties. If you?re a property manager that has several properties then you?ll almost need some type of property management software if you don?t want to have to pay another company or person to keep track of all the information for you. The most important thing to consider when looking at property management software is how much time and effort can the software save you. - 23309

About the Author:

Layla Vanderbilt is the webmaster for a leading property management software review website which connects people with the leading property management tools.

Growth Stocks Investment

By Ahmad Hassam

When we talk of the capitalization of a company what do we mean by it? Capitalization or cap refers to the combined value of all the share of a company's stocks. The division between large cap, mid cap and small cap are often blurry and not sharp. When you start looking for good stocks, you often come across these terms like large cap, mid cap, small cap, growth and value. Let's discuss these terms for a moment.

Statistical studies of large cap, mid cap and the small cap stocks has shown that over the years small cap stocks have outperformed. Mid caps are companies with $1 to $5 Billion in capitalization and small caps are companies with $250 million to $1 Billion in capitalization. Anything below $250 million can be considered as micro cap. However the following divisions are generally accepted: Large caps are companies with over $5 Billion in capitalization.

You must have often heard of the P/E ratio of a stock being talked about the analyst on CNBC or Bloomberg. Perhaps the most important ratio is the Price to Earnings Ratio (P/E). Now the most important term that you come across is growth stocks and value stocks. How do you determine this is a growth stock or a value stock?

Now the higher the P/E ratio, the more growth the company is supposed to have. So it can be either the company is growing real fast of the investor have high hopes of its growth. Now these hopes can be realistic or foolish, you never know! Now, if you follow financial news than you must know that the large growth companies always grab the headlines. But do the growth stocks really make best investment? The lower the P/E ratio, the more value the company has. Low P/E ratio companies are not considered to be the movers and shakers in the market.

The lower the P/E ratio, the more value the company has. Low P/E ratio companies are not considered to be the movers and shakers in the market. Now, if you follow financial news than you must know that the large growth companies always grab the headlines. But do the growth stocks really make best investment? According to Fama and French, two famous researchers who did ground breaking research on stocks, over the last 77 years, large growth stocks have only seen 9.9% annualized rate of return as compared to 11.5% for the large value stocks.

The most probable cause seems to be their immense popularity. Since most of the headlines are captures by high growth companies, investors seem to think that they are the best investments. Now intuitively you might have thought that growth stocks are better. What can be the reason for their lower performance over the years?

Let's go back to the IPO of Google. Think about Google, how its stock price shot up within a matter of weeks after it hit the market. Weeks after that it began to cool off. In 2007, Google stock was selling something around $500. So large growth stocks tend to get overpriced before you are able to buy them! - 23309

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Try these cash printing Forex Signals from heaven. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot System!