Help me to Retire

Thursday night I attended the Fat Prophets seminar in Adelaide. The session was split into 2 with the first half going over Fat Prophets traits for successful investors, including:

• The boom bust cycle - understanding where we are in the cycle
• Minimise losses - stops when using leverage or technical analysis - ignore fluctuations long term
• Let your profits run… but don’t give in to greed - eg sell half after a large profit
• Don’t buy overvalued companies
• Diversification - always hold at least 5 stocks from different asset clasess
• Follow some rules - have them and be consistent

The second half was on where the markets are heading.
The next 5yrs we are in for increased volatillity, oil to never see the south side of $40 a barrel again (no suprise there) and heading over $100 a barrel. Interest rates will be rising as inflation is rising. The USA’s debt is out of control and can not be sustained for ever. Dow Jones to continue to underperform. Aussie dollar to be worth more than the US dollar in the next 5 years.
Gold - another 5 years of the bull market in gold to go, currently in a medium term correction. Not much in the ground, 3.5 thousand tonnes a year used, 2.5 thousand tonnes mined a year, 140 thousand tonnes mined ever!
Australia - Resources should keep our markets up and with lots of superannunation being put into the market also.

Curent Investment ideas ( do what you will with these)

• Japan market still recovering with much higher levels to come
• Japan property looking good for a rebound - Managed Fund - Platinum Japan Fund or BJT-ASX or Rubicon Japan Property Trust
• Gold - LHG-ASX - 30 year mine - not hedged - pretty much follows the gold price
• Telstra - TLS-ASX yep you heard it Telstra and they say to get some T3’s

So there you have it. A lot of this seminar was similar to last years, including some of the same stocks reccomended. I guess this just shows you that these guys are in it for the long term!

This has to be the last one!! They all want them out of the way before Xmas I reckon… although they must want a pretty long Xmas break.

Any who, The Australian Stock Report (ASR) is putting on these free seminars in the hope you will like what they have to offer and then pay them money to supply you with entries and exits on certain stocks through out the year.
At the seminar they will show you…

• ASR’s current view on global markets
• ASR’s strategy for stock picking
• ASR’s CFD Trader’s Report

ASR’s reports start from $890 a year. I’m sure they will have some specials on on the night. I have trialed their service as you can, and it is quite good, I just already had a couple of subscriptions elsewhere at the time so passed on it.
Before ASR give you a spiel IG Markets will be around to teach you:

• What are CFDs (contracts for difference)
• The benefits of trading CFDs
• Features of the IG Markets CFD trading platform

I have an IG Markets account and they are quite good, especially in the commisions area (0.1%).
So, once again if you have a spare couple of hours this will be worth your while.

Check out the details and see if they are coming to your city here.

Ok, I’m figuring as its seminar season, I’ll only get a few more days worth of these and then we can get onto some different topics.

Tonight it’s Aspire. Run by Perth based self made millionaire Craig Turnbull. Aspire now works in Education, Finance, Property and Wealth Planning. Craig is a well known author and Aspire also runs a metoring program.

The Aspire seminars or Investor updates as they are called are now in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Here are Aspire’s 5 Great Reasons to Attend

1. Share in Craig Turnbull’s market analysis and property predictions for the year ahead.
2. Network in the company of like-minded investors.
3. Hear Craig’s most up-to-date thinking on the current market.
4. Tweak your strategy to best take advantage of market opportunities.
5. Craig will address issues that your wealth plan cannot.

I have read one of Craig’s books and was impressed, I’ve also seen him speak once before. I am very tempted to join his mentoring progam ($99 a month). But for now I’ll be paying the $25 to attend this investor Update, might see you there!

Click here for details 

It must be seminar season or something, I’m strugling to keep up with everything that’s coming through my inbox this month.
Optionetics have been around since 1993 and are the pros when it comes to education about options trading. I have done their audio series which was basically a recording of one of their 2 day events.  It is a very thorough course and is great for beginnners and people with experience. If you think options trading is risky, these guys will change your mind and prove that direct trading of shares is more risky! They also give you a heap of info on stock selection as well so you can use that in your other trading ventures.
The thing I like about these free 2 hour seminars is that they always give you a taste of their stuff for free even if you can’t afford to do their course at this moment in time.

Options are a great tool for trading up, down, sideways and volatile markets.  If you have a spare couple of hours and these guys are coming to a city near you I recommend you pop in and hear what they have to say.

Click here for the seminar details 

If you haven’t gotten into the world of trading CFD’s (Contracts for Difference - Basically leveraged share trading) CMC are offering their free seminars around the country to introduce you to thier trading platform and how using CFD’s works.

These seminars go for about an hour or so and are aimed at new people who are interested in trading CFD’s and Foriegn Exchange Markets. Its a great oportunity to get an intro into how all this stuff works and also a good chance to get any questions answered

Heres the link to the CMC seminars page for more info
Also remember CMC have the free training offer on if you open an account with them….  See below or click here.

In October and November this year, Fat Profits are touring Australia with their views on the financial markets and where they think they are heading in the next twelve months.

If you haven’t heard of Fat Profits, they are a company that provide a weekly report with 5 recommendations filled with independant research for the  stock market. It doesn’t come for nothing however, $695 a year will get you the report every week.

Back to the seminar.  I went to this last year and looking back now, these guys know what they are talking about.  Last year they said things like, Japan is going up (it did), gold is going up (it did), oil is going up (it did) and not just by small amounts either. They didn’t just generalise, they gave specific stock picks to take most advantage of these areas.

This year the 2 hour seminar is $45 for members and $55 for non-members and if its anything like last years, it will be well worth it.  I’ve already booked in for the Adelaide session, maybe I’ll see you there!

Click here for the seminar details in your city

I went along to one of these tonight. Not my first time and no doubt it won’t be the last as they are very informative and great value!!! (FREE!)
Man Financial are brokers, who provide online trading solutions, for CFD’s and Futures. Man put these seminars on to get new people to sign up with them, which is fair enough, but to get you to come along the hear from a really cool presenter who gives you an hour or 2 of great trading information. Tonight I saw Tolly from Alert Trader. He gave some really great info on timing the market, entries and his current views on the markets. I’ve acually done his course and am signed up to his newsletter, so I’m a bit of a fan. Tonight at this free seminar he had some new and exciting timing methods to show and it was great for everyone there. He offers a $997 training DVD if your interested.

Some of his tips if your interested (do what you will with these):

• Gold and ASX low in 2nd or 3rd week of March 2007
• Gold, Silver and Copper to explode after this correction (Gold to $2000 in years to come)
• Silver has been base building for decades, ready to explode!

So if your after a couple of free hours with some of Australia’s best traders, you can’t go past these Man Financial Seminars. Click here to see when the next one is in your state.

TIP: once you have been to one of these seminars and seen the 30 minute intro into Man Financial CFD’s you can probably rock up 30 minutes late to the next seminars as its the same everytime

CMC Markets are offering a free trading seminar when you open a CFD (contracts for difference) share trading account with them (minimum $1000). CMC say this is their special for the month, but it has been going on since June now…. How do I know you ask? Well because I signed up in June and did the course in July (apparently the 2 day course is worth $3995 an exageration I’m sure).

The course is actually pretty good and well worth doing if your interested in getting into the stock market. The course is run by an american company called Profit Strategies. They also have an Australian Office and Website, but the trainer was shipped in from the US.

The course starts with the basics of technical analysis and works its way up to Elliott Wave theory and Volume spikes. Also included is basics of fundamental analysis and basic money management (very very important). The trainer will give you several trading systems to take away with you, such as the Elliott Wave trades and the Dogs of the Dow and Dogs of the ASX.

As a side note, be prepared for the regular sales pitches that get thrown at you through out the course. First off there is the software they are trying to sell you…. one lot for charting and another lot for fundamentals. The software is actually pretty good if you are in the market for some, but it is quite expensive so be prepaired (in the thousands). The software is made by an Australian company called Hubb. Secondly there are the extra training courses, a couple of which are to show you how to use your new software. They bundle up everything into 3 different packages depending on what you can afford. This is all of course up to you.
So if your after a no risk way to get your self some free training, then this is it. All you have to do is sign up with CMC and give them $1000 to put in your trading account. If your not keen after doing the trading, or you use another broker, just take your money out after… easy

Click here to get more info on the CMC offer.