Help me to Retire

Just letting anyone out there know that http://www.guardianwealthcreation.com/ is a scam.  They are claiming to be a certain company but they are not.  They will steal your money. Don’t get caught out as they are good at what they do. Their address for instance is a virtual office space and the text on their website is copied from random trading sites.

Take care.

Active Trader (http://www.activetraderfx.com.au/) is a new service from a company called FX Global Investments Pty Ltd based in Brisbane (level 27, 239 George St). Basically you pay $9,900 and this gets you access to their FX software and unlimited training.

The way you make money is by using http://betonmarkets.com/ to place bets on whether a currency pair is going up or down in a given period of time.

They promise some pretty decent returns with success varying from 60% to 80%.

If anyone out there has heard of these guys or is using them, please let us know.

For a limited time you can read Robert Kiyosaki’s (author of the RIch Dad, Poor Dad Series) latest book for free online.

Here’s a bit about what you can expect from the book from their website:

“Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money will share Kiyosaki’s view of global economics and explore why people are now finding themselves challenged by these turbulent times. Kiyosaki will not only provide people with solutions to their financial problems, but explain what created today’s economic chaos — and how it can be eased. Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money will reveal that what appears to be the worst of times is actually an opportunity in the making, and a chance for people to invest in their financial education.”

Read it here – only available for another 2 weeks online and then you’ll have to buy the book when it comes out.

Well what has been going on since March…

The market has taken off recovering around 20% but is this an ongoing recovery and new bull market or is it just a bear market rally?
Well I’d love to give you a definitive answer to that question but as you know there are no certainties in the financial markets.
The rules regarding confirmation of a new uptrend require an advance followed by some consolidation followed by another advance creating a higher low and new high. There is a good possibility we are in this consolidation phase now as long as we get that higher low and then the market once again goes higher creating a higher high. Of course the other possibility is that we are in a bear market rally and we are heading for a new low or some sideways action. This is also very possible with plenty of bad news still around and consumer confidence at all time lows. Most companies won’t be breaking any profit records for a while. The trick will be finding those few companies that are doing well!

Remember, the stock market always recovers well before the real world does so keep a close eye out. The bottom may have occurred already or may be just around the corner.

Time will tell where we are at, good luck with your investing.

Just incase you didn’t see or hear about this report from ANZ’s chief economist, here is a PDF copy of the Report.

Basically it covers the the current supply and demand constraints on the Australian housing market. It then goes on to talk about the mother of all housing booms in to occur in Australia in the next 5 to 10 years.

Although the global finacial crisis has deepened significantly since this report came out, the basic fundementals still apply.

Download the report and have a read here: ANZ Economic Outlook October 2008

Well what a few months it has been, it’s like the last few years of the stock market’s bull run never happened.

So how did we get here? Well heres a quick visual run down.

Hopefully most of you haven’t been hit too badly if you have been trading for yourselves, but if your anything like me your Super (401k) has taken a beating in the last year. In fact the only person I know who’s super has gone up in the last year is my father in-laws, who I advised that the market was peaking last year so he smartly moved it into cash. He reminds me of it every time I see him…  If only I followed my own advice! Unfortunetaly for him as cash rates are coming down so fast at the moment, soon that won’t be offering much either.

So what do we do?

I’ve personally been getting educated the last few months, and comparing this financial crisis to the only thing that even comes close and that is bear markets and crashes of the past.
The main thing that has stuck with me from anything I’ve read or learned in the last few months about similar times like these is that after every crash or bear market money flows into property with a lag in time.  The lag is the only thing that worries me at this time as it may be longer than in the past due to strict financial conditions.
Here in Australia we do not have the housing over supply situation that America does. We have a large shortfall that is actually increasing. This undersupply is what will support Australian house prices. It all comes down to supply and demand. Sure some areas will do worse than others and even fall in value but in general we will not see huge falls in the price of our homes.
One thing is for sure at the moment, if you have the equity and can get the finance it seems like there are some great long term property deals at the moment. It’s the first time in years I’ve looked through realestate.com.au or the paper and seen some properties that actually seem cheap.  Avoid the usual supects of off the plan and high density apartments (these will do worse than others at the moment), just look for good location (with in 10ks of a city) decent property. The buyers are few and far between at the moment and some sellers are just getting desperate or sick of being on the market and they are dropping prices or accepting much lower offers.
Another thing worth investigating is property sub division. I’m currently working on splitting a property into 3 at the moment about 7Km’s from the city. The land will apeal to first home buyers with their increased building grant up until June 30 2009. I’m also dipping into some unit renovations to see how that fares in these times. I’ll keep you informed.
The 2nd lag to consider is the lower interest rates lag. It usually takes about 3 months for interest rate cuts to take any effect, but as we are getting big ones every month at the moment I think this is holding buyers off further seeing where they will stop. I’m sure by early next year they will slow down and the new year the property market should settle and have buyers return as long as unemployement doesn’t become too much of a problem.

Other problems at the moment mainly relate to finance.  Just this week 2 of the major mortgage insurers have made low doc loans a lot less usefull by allowing only a 60% lend instead of 80%. This I beleive has effected most of the big banks. This will have me looking for money else where too in any future deals which could be costly.

The other possible major finance problem is what Bill Zheng from Investors Direct calls the perfect storm. This is basically where sometime in 2009 or 2010 the world decides that Australia is in over its head financially and will not lend us any more money. We’ve been getting deeper and deeper into debt for decades and basically it can’t go on for ever…..  See Bill’s DVD’s here for more info on this one and for what he thinks you should do to prepare. I personally hope that this doesn’t occur and is sorted out some other way…..

Any way I’ve dribbled on enough for now, good luck with your Investing!

Check out this site for up to the mintue real estate and finance news.

Want to see what you need to buy in what suburb of Australia to help you pay off that investment property or even put some money in your pocket every month?

Well here is your answer:

Real Estate Investar (http://www.realestateinvestar.com.au) is giving away their “Australia’s Highest Yielding Suburbs Report” for free. They normally charge $49 for this report so grab yours now while it’s still available.

Download the PDF Report Here

Also check out the Real Estate Investar website for great news, ideas, events and tools to help you with your property investing.

Steve Mcknight from propertyinvesting.com has just released his July video update. If you are a current property investor or home owner or you are thinking of entering the property market in the next 6 months then you will want to see this video.

Steve McKnight covers:

1. Everything you need to know about recent important press articles
2. Is there a Housing Boom On The Horizon?
3. Current State Of The Property Market
4. To Fix Or Not To Fix

Steve also goes on to mention his upcoming one off seminar in Melbourne on the 9th of August. More info on that here.

You can check out the Video here.

On my recent property travels around the interweb, I’ve found these handy sites.

1. http://www.hotspotting.com.au – this site allows you to purchase reports (most are $88) on hotspots, high growth areas, no go zones and more.
2. http://www.positiverealestate.com.au/ – lists properties by investment strategy. For example if you are looking for subdivisions, strata titling or positive cash flow properties you can do it all from this site. There is also a heap of other tools and information available.
3. http://www.propertyupdate.com.au/0108/seminar_download.htm – Lastly this site has available Michael Yardney’s last web cast as an MP3, 2 special reports and an ebook available for download. Check em out.

Today’s report from our friends over at Invest4profit.com.au covers 9 top Australian companies.

Paul Nojin covers these companies current price, 2009 price to earnings ratio and his comments on key prices and possible direction for the stocks.

The Stocks covered are:

• Babcock & Brown    (bnb)
• Beach Petroleum     (bpt)
• Bluescope Steel      (bsl)
• Cochlear                (coh)
• David Jones           (djs)
• Fortescue Metals    (fmg)
• Harvey Norman      (hvn)
• Telstra                  (tls)
• Woolworths          (wow)

Check out the report here, and as always good luck!