All about investment

Wall Street resumed its rally this week after new data showed the overall economy is holding up, but isn't so strong as to prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates says Betonmarket's Michael Wright. The Dow Jones industrial average saw an increase of nearly 200 points on Wednesday.

Stocks turned around following two sessions of losses, after a report showed hiring in the U.S. private sector expanded at a faster pace in November. ADP Employer Services said 189,000 jobs were added during the month, an increase that bodes well for consumer spending.

Investors were also encouraged on Wednesday, after the department reported worker productivity advanced by an annual rate of 6.3 percent in the summer, the fastest pace in four years, while wage pressures eased.

Still, there is enough uncertainty in the economy to bolster the argument for lower rates. The financial sector is still struggling from months of credit problems, and the Institute for Supply Management reported on Wednesday, that service sector growth slowed in November.

Some investors are betting the Fed will go beyond the generally anticipated quarter percentage point cut, and lower rates by a half point. A mere quarter-point cut could bring some disappointment to Wall Street, but as long as the Fed reiterates an openness to lowering rates further in its accompanying economic assessment, the market could still move higher. The MPC led the way last week with a quarter point cut.

The market is currently pricing in a rate cut next week. Supporting the case for a cut is the fact that central banks globally seem to be open to the idea, a trend that would give the Fed even more room to move.

Investors also weighed a Commerce Department report that showed factory orders unexpectedly rose in October. However, that data was likely to be offset by the report from the Institute for Supply Management, showing growth in the service sector cooled somewhat in November.

All of this is positive news for both the SP500 and the US dollar, however it seems like the best value on trading is found in the longer term SP500 'no touch' options. These options compensate traders for correctly guessing a level, which isn't touched by the market during the duration of the trade.

After checking Betonmarkets.com the best value comes with a 'no touch' on the SP500 for 25 days using a no touch level 130 points below the current price.

This option pays 6% ROI. This means the S&P 500 can go up, stay where it is, or drop slightly and you still win.

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Maverick Investors are always planning ahead, looking out for the next big opportunities coming down the pipe. The turn of the year is a particularly powerful time to take stock, and start making decisions about the direction to take in the New Year.

There's a phrase that I think about often, and particularly at this time of year -

"If you keep on doing what you're doing, then you'll keep on getting what you're getting"

This serves as a powerful reminder - if you don't like what you're getting, the only way you'll change that is by changing what you're doing! It seems obvious, but look around you, and see how many people clearly never think about this simple truth.

So, what powerful strategies do you, as a Maverick Investor, have to hand for 2008? Here, in no particular order, are my current Top Six. To make sure all tastes are covered, there are two from the property investment world, two from the online business world, and two from the stock markets.

These are just introductions to the concepts. In later articles, I'll go into each one in a lot more depth.

BMV Property Investing

BMV stands for Below Market Value. There is a niche in the property investing game in which investors never pay full market price for a house or apartment.

Now, there are lots of reasons why properties are made available for below market value prices, and there are many methods of tracking these bargain properties down. By far the richest source, though, is the motivated seller.

A motivated seller is one who is in some sort of difficulty, and needs to off-load their property quickly. They may be struggling with debt. They may be facing repossession or foreclosure (depending on which side of the Atlantic they're on!). They may be recently bereaved. You get the picture.

You can genuinely help these people by buying their properties at a significant discount and, at the same time, digging them out of whichever hole they find themselves in. It can be a very satisfying way to make a living in property.

Lease Options

Once you own a property, and assuming you want to keep it, rather than sell it on, then you need to make money from it, and you'd typically do this by renting it out to a tenant. The rent covers the mortgage, with perhaps a bit left over for repairs and so on, but it's rare, at least in the UK, for a landlord to make any significant monthly cashflow.

A solution to this is to utilise lease options, a technique also known as rent-to-buy, or rent-to-own.

Basically, you give your tenants the option to buy the property from you within a set time. In return, they pay you a deposit of 3% - 5% of the value of the property when they move in, plus they pay about 20% on top of the rent every month.

Your cashflow thereby goes from virtually non-existent to pretty amazing! Plus, you have tenants who pay on time and love you for helping them out! A true win-win!

Network Marketing

In the online business world, little is more powerful than network marketing.

Yes, it did get something of a bad name in the 80s and 90s. Huge network marketing companies like Amway have fantastic products, but you were always encouraged to make a long list of all your friends and family, and then go out and sell to them. Which is a very swift way of losing friends and family!

The Internet makes it possible - easy, even - to connect with many, many more people a lot faster (and we're NOT talking about spam here!). If you're offering a great product and tons of value, the power of the network does all the hard work for you.

Affiliate Marketing

So you want an online business, but you don't have a product to offer? Not a problem!

All you need to do is track down products offered by others - good products, of course, and preferably ones you use yourself - and become an affiliate. All this means is that you become a seller for the product owner and earn a commission on every sale.

Many online sales to your network of one good product can produce a very good passive income stream. Many sales on several good products can be even better.

If you want to start investigating this one right away, go and explore www.clickbank.com

Volatility Trading

The biggest myth in stock market trading is that some people can predict the direction of a market, or of an individual stock, with consistent accuracy.

That's not true!

How would you like to discover a way to trade which allows you to make regular and significant amounts of tax-free profits on large stock moves - regardless of whether that move is up or down?

This is perfectly feasible with volatility trading, and we'll tell you more in a future article.

Covered Calls

Did you know you can rent your shares out, in a very similar way to renting real estate?

Call options are a speculators dream, but they can be quite risky. However, if you are the option writer or seller, then what you're doing is selling options to the speculators, and effectively collecting from them a monthly rent for the shares you own.

This is a very low-risk activity that returns almost unbelievable yields. You can comfortably expect in the region of 3% to 6% a month using these strategies - and better yet, it will take you about 1-3 hours a month to run.

So, if you have $100,000 stock portfolio, or $100,000 to invest, this one strategy alone could bring you $3-6,000 a month - and your $100,000 will stay intact! Did your 'financial freedom figure' just go down a few notches?

Whether you're interested in stocks, real estate or online business, now is the time to decide which direction your wealth-creation activities will take now.

The next six articles in this series will cover each of the above strategies in depth. In the meantime, feel free to check out the resources available to you at www.maverick-investor.com