Forex – An alternative Investment

 Forex, Investing, Monthly Report, personal  No Responses »
Jun 272012
 

Earlier this month I did something that most of you will probably cringe at – I opened a Forex trading account. To justify my actions (as much as I do not have to) I must state that I am a fan of having ‘fun money’ and my Forex brokerage account will be mine. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Forex the definition according to Wikipedia is:

The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a form of exchange for the global decentralized trading of international currencies.

It is essentially the same as buying stocks but is much more volatile. However, what is nice about the Forex market is that there are not restrictions on who can short units. This makes it possible to make money while pairs decline or rise in value.

As with any investment having a plan is key to success. You cannot just ‘guess’ and expect to receive great returns. Luck only goes so far. I must say though, that my first few days of trading were extremely lucky. I really had no idea what I was doing but still managed to come ahead by almost $200. With this, I opened 2 other accounts and decided that I would diversify my Forex investing/day trading(whichever you prefer to call it).

One of the accounts is automated through the use of an Expert Adviser (EA for short) which is just a robot who trades for you. I will refrain from talking about this here for now as I will eventually be making a series involving them. My second account is also automated but by a signal provider. This is basically a ‘professional’ trader who sends his buy/sell signals to a signal provider who distributes them among followers. I have been having great success with both of them.

As I mentioned, I increased my account by $200 in my first week. This money I split three ways. I put $100 in each of these three accounts. I will not lie, I blew my manual trading account and do not use it anymore. Instead, if I make manual trades I do it through my EA account. Since I blew the account though, I have only been up. Mind you, there are obviously some unprofitable trades. Yet generally, I am up. I have been averaging lately about 1-3% a day. Again, I will save how I do this for another post.

 

To provide you with my first official account balance updates. 

My EA account currently has a balance of $138.93. A 38.93% increase over my initial investment.

My signal provider account currently has a balance of $179.82. A 79.82% increase over my initial investment.

 

I will leave you with that

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My View On Money

 General Finance, Introduction, Investing, personal, Saving  6 Responses »
Apr 132012
 

A year ago if I asked someone to go and have a beer with me, and they repeatedly told me ‘No, I don’t have the money’ I would have complained about them. I would have thought bad of them. My general opinion of them would be greatly reduced and I would have let everyone around me know how ‘cheap’ they were being. My reasoning behind this was because everyone I work with makes almost the same amount of money as I do +/- $5,000 per year. So  if I could afford to go out so could they. Solid logic.

Back then I figured I knew everything there was to know about finances. I thought I was doing OK, especially because I dabbled in the stock market (and lost on penny stocks). I had a small pile of savings. In my mind, I had it made. However, my biggest flaw was that I reasoned that living in the now was more important than the future. You know, we might not be around in ten years right? (Funny how that now I could argue until I turn blue in the face against this thought process)

Everything changed when I realized that if I continued on the road I was on I would end up being buried in debt. Something clicked in my mind – just because I can afford to go out, doesn’t mean I should. But the biggest revelation was that it made more sense to save now so that I could live and enjoy more experiences when I am older. This now seems like the best option. I can retire at age 44 (2 months off from 43 so close enough) which is still very young. My view on money changed that day.

Now saving for my future is my priority. I am much more conscious of my choices and try and base much of what I do now to reflect positively when I am older. So far I feel as if I am doing a good job contributing to my retirement.

If I can contribute the same amount to savings, as I am currently using to pay off my credit card debt by the time I am 44 I will have $217,070 provided a steady rate of return of 4%. This is not including my RRSPs either which I contribute $2400 a year to. At my current rate of savings I should be able to save roughly $300,000 by the time I am 44. I will also be eligible for a pension at that age. So on top of my savings I will be entitled to 60% of my salary. Also I am entitled to a $10,000 raise next year. I can see no reason (aside from buying a house) as to why I would not be able save most of this. I think these are conservative numbers considering most people like using 8%.

For those of you in your 20s, did you ‘click’? Are you on track to meet your financial goal?

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Apps I Can Not Live Without

 Debt Management, ETF, General Finance, Introduction, Investing, personal, Saving  1 Response »
Apr 022012
 

After reading Jana’s post at Daily Money Shot about her favorite iPhone apps I have been tempted to do my own. So after a couple of weeks I have finally got around to it. I have owned an iPhone since the iPhone 3G. I have recently upgraded to the iPhone 4 and although it was a poor choice financially I am very happy with it. I do not however, use my phone much for making phone calls. I know this may sound weird, but I use my phone mostly for the apps and texting.

When I first got my phone I stuck to the basics of having Facebook, my bank’s app, and my Rogers account app. Since then I have expanded my app-base to be 4 pages. If I would have to choose my top iPhone apps I cannot live without I would be picking the following 8:

 

1. Mint.Com - This is a frequent on many PF bloggers list. It allows me to make sure I am on budget at any time of the day.

2. TD Bank app - Lets me pay my bills on the go. If it wasn’t for this app I would have had many late payments.

3. Bejeweled Blitz - I am obsessed with this game. If I am bored, or have a minute or two (each game takes only a minute to play) you will usually catch me playing this.

4. Rogers My Account - Lets me track my phone usage.  And see if my phone bill is due.

5. SoundHound - Ever hear a song on the radio that you really want? Use SoundHound to tell you exactly what song you are listening to, and the link to the iTunes store. This is similar to Shazam.

6.Millionaire, TradeFields, and iTrade - All different investing simulators. I have different strategies on each given app. Millionaire has my ETF strategy, TradeFields is my dividend stock portfolio, and my iTrade is my much more risky portfolio. They are up 14%, 8%, 35% respectively, a bit of useless information for you all.

7. iDashboard - Connects to my Google Analytics account for easy access to my stats. Yes I am one of those people that checks my stats way too much.

8. Facebook - I live quite far away from friends and family so I like to keep in touch through Facebook.

 

What are some of your favorite iPhone apps?


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