For most people the best investments for 2011 will be in the form of the best bond funds and stock funds from the best fund companies in America. Here’s where we go all the way and explain these best investments and why they are getting even better in 2011. Then, we get specific about the best funds and name two fund companies.

Mutual funds were designed with one primary objective in mind: to be the best investments for average folks who wanted to share the wealth produced by stocks and bonds. In 2011 and beyond the best of these funds will still be your best investments and they will offer both diversification and professional management at low cost to you as an investor. All fund companies offer average investors a small piece of a large diversified stock or bond portfolio – easy to invest in and easy to cash in – usually at a reasonable cost.

The biggest and best fund companies offer well over 100 funds to choose from; and some of their very best funds will cost very little to invest in for 2011 and beyond. Due to heavy competition between fund companies, things have gotten even better for average investors. Well, at least for those who know where to find the best investments, funds and fund companies.

For 40 years I’ve followed the fund companies in search of the best investments. My 4 criteria: quality and variety of funds offered, performance, service to customers, and the cost of investing. I’ve found that dozens of the larger fund companies can make claims and boast about being the best in the first 3 areas. But try as they may, fund companies can’t hide the investor’s cost of investing – which has increased for many funds. The good news for today’s investors is that the two biggest fund companies in America will be competing like crazy for your business in 2011 and beyond with a low cost of investing; especially in what I consider to be their best funds, your best investments.

Before I get specific and name names, imagine being a financial planner (like I was for 20 years) competing as follows. In the best investments in stock funds I could offer my clients with $10,000 to invest: $500 comes off the top to pay for sales charges and my commission; and about $150 of your money goes for management and other expenses EACH YEAR. Now compare this to the cost of buying and owning the best funds from the biggest (and in my opinion best) fund companies in America in 2011: Vanguard and Fidelity. The total cost to buy is zero, because there are no sales charges. Yearly expenses can be about $50 for a $10,000 investment, sometimes less than HALF that.

The best investments in both bond and stock funds for most people are INDEX FUNDS. I call them the best funds because they really don’t have bad years relative to the competition, and they have the lowest costs. Index funds simply invest in line with their benchmark – an index. They don’t waste big bucks trying to do what few funds have ever done: beat the indexes consistently. Fidelity and Vanguard both offer stock and bond index funds and pass the savings on to you. Here are the best they offer for 2011 and beyond.

The best investments in bond funds for 2011 are short-term and intermediate-term bond index funds vs. long-term funds. The latter pay higher interest income, but are subject to much greater losses if interest rates turn around and head north during the year. The best investments in stock funds for 2011 are stock index funds with the number 500 in their name, referring to the S&P 500 Stock Index. These funds invest your money in 500 or so of the largest and best-known companies in America. This includes Exxon, Apple, Microsoft and General Electric as their largest holdings going into 2011.

So, there you have the whole package. The best fund companies offering the best investments for 2011 in the form of the best funds they offer… all in 500 words, or more. Plus, now you know how to save $500 up front the next time you invest $10,000 in mutual funds.

Commercial loan underwriting guidelines come down to cash flow ( DCR), loan to value (LTV), credit worthiness and property analysis. Although the process to evaluate a potential commercial mortgage is basically the same from one bank the next, their various appetite for both risk and minimum rates of return are what separates one bank from the next.

Underwriting Commercial Loan Cash Flow

Cash flow is paramount to underwriting commercial loans. Within the industry the cashflow analysis is refereed to as the Debt Coverage Ratio ( DCR). For both owner occupied and investment transactions underwriters normally want to see ratio’s above a 1.20. In other words, for every $1 of mortgage debt the property or business has to have $1.20 of net income to meet the mortgage payments.

Debt coverage ratio minimums vary from one lender to the next, property type and occupancy (investment or owner occ). “Riskier” property types such as hotels or car washes will be required to have higher cash flow levels, ie DCR at or above 1.3.

Credit Worthiness

The borrowers personal and business credit worthiness is also important and will be heavily scrutinized. Personal credit scores have become a bigger issues as the acceptance of the three bureau have become widespread. D & B’s as well as other measures are normally used to asses the creditworthiness of businesses that are involved.

Property Analysis Commercial Underwriting
Fair market rent and fair market value is heavily measured. Condition, age, appearance, town population, market trends as well as other more property type specifics are examined.

Commercial Underwriting – Loan to Value

Loan to value is simply the value of the subject property vs the loan amount. I.e if the property is worth $2,000,000 and the loan amount is $1,500,000 the LTV is 75%. This is a huge issue within commercial loan underwriting and a big separator between lending institutions. Some lenders will get very aggressive with this while other will be very conservative.

The property type has a major influence on loan to values that are offered on commercial loans. For example restaurant loans will normally be capped at 65% while more general purpose properties such as retail will be limited to 75%.

Commercial underwriters will give more leeway to buildings that are owner occupied vs. investment properties. Loan to value on purchase can go as high as 90% on owner occupants vs 75% on investments, for example.

Telephone skills may be used expansively to secure higher sales and better customer understanding. A good telephone voice might take as good an opportunity to interact with the client as if they were sitting in front of them and although these skills come naturally to some, even the most eloquent telephone operator can learn something from professional phone skills training.

For companies that offer call center facilities, phone skills training is vital so that products may be correctly profiled to the customer in the shortest possible time. Language and phrasing is an important part of such training and the results achieved by a professional call center can improve dramatically with professional phone skills training.

At a more basic level, it is important that telephone operatives understand the key responses to your customer enquiries. A company that invests even minimal time in phone skills training will reap benefits from having telephone conversations centred on key products and services and keeping staff updated with new concepts.

The reverse situation is equally important in not only receiving calls but making calls. It is imperative that your staff understand how much business may be made with properly targeted and time efficient calls and how much may be lost through poorly thought out cold calling. Customers have a sharp perception of whether a call is being made by a professional with the capability of delivering the correct price for the correct product or service. Hesitation and a lack of confidence on the phone can produce a poor image to the customer, resulting in lost opportunities and lost profits.

Even the most basic skills training can improve your staff phone performance and the experience teaches key phrases, decent telephone courtesy and how to deal with difficult customers or complaint calls. Completing a telephone skills training course can infuse your staff with greater enthusiasm and confidence, providing a sharper line of communication with existing customers and new clients who might be quick to compare your communication skills with those of your competitors.

Training usually includes a quick overview on how to use telephone facilities, which nowadays can be more complicated than a simple extension switching process. Many employees are uncertain whether their voices can still be heard through the on-hold process and how to retain control when switching from one caller to another. Phone skills training covers fundamental issues as well as role play to emulate real call situations. Most employees adopt skills learned easily and quickly, using the company phone system with greater confidence and courtesy.

So you have a product to sell, your business plan in place, and some offices or warehouse space sorted now all you need is some business insurance.

How much is that going to cost you? Well, since you’ve decided that business insurance is a very good idea for your company all you need to do now is decide how you’re going to pay for it. But wait, how can you pay for something when you don’t know how much it will cost you. Working out business insurance rates is a very complicated affair.

How much you will be paying for business insurance is not really the first question you should be asking, the real question is, how much it could cost you not having insurance. How much your premiums will cost you are determined by several factors, what type of business your going to run, how much experience and knowledge do you have in that field, what are your risks, where your location is, the size of your business and your credit history. All of the above factors will determine your rates which could be as little as a few hundred dollars or could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Its not all bad news though, there are some things you can do that could to reduce the amount you have to pay and not leave yourself open the insurance companies.

Reduce your risk level. Your risk level is one thing that will push your premiums up. Anything you can do to minimize your risk profile will manifest as lower rates. You could be carrying products that are considered high risk these especially will force premiums up, so think very carefully are they really making a big contribution to your companies income if the answer is no then you should seriously think of dropping them from your inventory, you could then go back to the insurance company and ask for a new quote based on the fact you no longer deal in that product. Another way to keep premiums down is through safe working practices low or no claims can also help to reduce costs.

When considering insurance your aim should be to have enough coverage to protect your business but not too much as to be paying for coverage you don’t actually need. The more coverage you have the more its going to cost you, having too much cover well that’s like throwing money away. Every business owner is very thorough when first taking out their insurance cover but only a few ever think to review those costs when the business has been up and running for a few years. Business insurance costs should really be reviewed every year to make sure that you’re not under-insured or more importantly over-insured. Make those yearly reviews and be sure that your coverage stays in line with your business.

Here is something for the small business owners. One way to reduce your insurance costs is to try and find group rates through the business or professional organizations. A large business will get lower rates simply based on the fact they are big. Group rates for small companies can really help reduce rates they work by allowing these companies to join together and enjoy the same benefits that the larger companies can receive. Small group policies will vary depending on the types of businesses involved. But if you can get a few together you can really reduce your premiums.

In this article I want to talk to you about one of the best low cost business ideas that you can find anywhere on the web. This is so simple and easy to set up that everything in your body is going to tell you that it won’t work. But with just a little bit of effort these simple ideas are really the best because if something is easy to understand you have the very best chance of making it work.

So the idea is based on niche marketing and I’m going to take you through the steps real quick to give you an idea of how this can work. Then send you to some resources where you can learn more.

1. The fist step is to pick an information based market that has a lot of buyers in it. You can find out this information but going onto a site called clickbank.com and seeing which products are selling the best. (We like information products because they don’t cost you anything to ship.)

2. Now we need to survey the market and see what they want to buy. You can pay for hits from Google, but if you want to save some money you can start a blog and publish daily content that will attract visitors.

3. Once you have the visitors on you site you want to get them onto a mailing list by offering them something cool.

4. After a few weeks your email list will be growing and you need to send them a survey. You can find one at survey money.com. You should ask them what their biggest problem is in the market and how difficult it has been to find the answer.

5. Now you want to look and all the responses and pick out 10 questions that come up most often.

6. Go onto the elance.com and hire a ghost writer to write you a book that covers those topics.

7. Now create a sales page and sell the book to your list. (Yours sales rate will be high because you are answering their most pressing questions.)

Final thoughts.

There are lots more tweaks and subtle parts to this system bit it’s a very low cost business idea and its works well.

If you can master this you can create many different products and income streams.

Good luck.

Credit cards have many advantages if used judiciously. It fulfills all your needs. You can buy anything with the cards. Because of various benefits the card provides to the users, everyone from teenagers to retirees in the United States has credit cards.

Convenient to shop: Credit card is very much convenient to buy anything anywhere. If you are on a shopping spree and want to buy so many things at different shops in a market, credit card will be convenient enough for shopping. If it is on-line shopping then, credit is the best. Some online stores only accept credit cards for payments. If you are in foreign countries, you can make purchases with the credit card without having to worry about local currency.

Meet emergent needs: In case of emergency, credit cards can be an extremely helpful. If you are short of funds and need money, the credit card will provide you the required amount. If you are away from your place or on a trip to some city and you have inadvertently emptied your pocket, there the credit card will act like a friend.

Keep record of your expenditure: Your spending on the credit card will give a statement at the end of a month, stating the detail on your expenditures. You need not keep record daily to know about the spending. Credit cards can also keep you under limit in expenses as you cannot spend or borrow beyond the credit limit. It will remind you on spending.

It is secured to carry credit card: It is not secured to carry a large amount of cash. If you lose your cash, you cannot retrieve that. If you lose a credit card, you can immediately inform the card company to cancel the card. You can have another card in few days. If you are traveling, whether in the town or country or outside the US, it will be convenient to carry the card instead of cash.

Benefits: Credit card providers offer various lucrative offers like cash back on purchases, rebates on products you buy on the card, additional warranty coverage for the items you purchase, travel concessions, various insurance covers, etc. Some credit card offers free air tickets, free hotel accommodations to the card users.

Balance transfer: With the credit card, you can transfer your balance from a card with high interest rate to a card where the APR is 0%. There are many card companies who offer 0% APR for the starting six to 12 months. You can take the benefits of the promotional periods. You can save hundreds of dollars by balance transfer.

Can build good credit history: You can build a good credit rating if use credit card judiciously. If you have good credit rating that will help you later in your life. You can take loan easily. Financiers will believe you if your credit rating is good.

Improve the standard of life: Credit card can improve your daily life. Your life will be easy enough if you are using the card judiciously. What you have to give is the payment at the end of the month and not every day for every purchase.

However, if you misuse your credit card you may fall under the debt trap. Credit cards should be used properly and seriously.

There are hundreds of financial organizations in the United States providing credit cards. Some of the most famous among them are American Express Co., Chase Bank, Discover Financial Services, HSBC, and Citibank of America. They offer different types of credit cards for different categories of people. If you are a business person and want credit cards which can facilitate your various business transactions, go for a business credit card. Likewise, there are student credit card, entertainment card, store card, gas card, airlines card, etc.

The key is knowledge

The key to making a lot of money in the stock market, or any other trading venue is knowledge. To become an elite trader, you must be proficient in a number of important areas. This includes implementing a successful trading plan, having sound money management, and utilizing proper trading psychology. As you learn each component of success, it will have a cumulative effect on your overall trading knowledge, and of course, your stock market results.

Keep your losses small

When it comes to successful trading, there is nothing more important than sound money management. If you take big losses, not only will you lose your monetary capital, but your psychological capital as well. Keep all your losses small. Get out quickly if the market goes against you. As an example, when I buy a stock, I will never let the price drop more than 10% below the purchase point. If I buy at 50 dollars per share, I am out, no matter what, at 45 dollars per share. Many times I will sell a stock that drops 5% below the buy price. It takes discipline to cut your losses short, but its a must if you want to achieve exceptional stock market results.

Let your profits run

One of the biggest mistakes traders make is to quickly take a small profit. The psychological need to be right, and to feel good is strong. Unfortunately, you will rarely make the really big money following this tactic. Jesse Livermore, quite possibly the greatest stock market operator ever, stated the money is made by sitting, not trading. He said to be right and sit tight. The big money is made in the big price movements, and this generally takes time. There is no reason to close out a position, unless objective analysis tells you to do so.

Determine the general market trend

A major key to success in the stock market is to determine the general trend of the overall market. This can be done by the proper use of price and volume analysis. When you see 5 or 6 distribution days in a 2 to 4 week period, there is a good chance the general stock market will be going through a correction, or maybe even the beginning of a major bear market. Since about 75% of all stocks follow the general market direction, it is imperative to know if the market is in a confirmed uptrend or downtrend. You should only make new stock purchases in a confirmed uptrend. This will really help your stock market results.

Be patient and wait for the right opportunity

Patience is a key characteristic of the world’s best traders. It is important to wait until just the right moment, before taking a position in the market. This means putting as many factors as possible in your favor. All trading is based on probabilities, and you always want the odds on your side, before making a new stock purchase. I will see an opportunity as it develops. I envision several possible scenarios, and if a stock meets my exact requirements, fundamentally and technically, I will then buy the stock. The ability to buy the best stocks at the best time will really enhance your stock market results.

Proper trading psychology is what makes you elite

Understanding, and then implementing proper trading psychology, is what separates a decent trader from the best in the world. Emotions such as greed, fear, and hope are the biggest enemy facing all traders and investors. In reality, it is not you against the market, it is you against yourself. Once you can effectively control, or better yet, eliminate emotions from your trading equation, you will be shocked at how more and more money seems to accumulate in your trading account. This is because emotions cloud your thinking. To be successful in the long run, you must think and act objectively.

In summary, the world’s best traders and investors utilize a successful trading plan, they practice sound money management, they understand, and implement proper trading psychology. Once you master these 3 critical areas, you too will see great stock market results. You might even make a fortune.

by Godwin Braide

Making money by investing in the stock market requires great discipline, patience, and a cold reasoning power. When you are investing money in the stock market, your personal feelings (other than the desire to make more money) don’t matter. You cannot be skittish, nor can you hold on to something with any personal attachment when you sense that you need to sell.

You should also concentrate your energies on just one stock sector (such as metals or energy) to help give you mental clarity.

Some people don’t have $1000 to open a usual stock brokerage account, and they wonder how they can make money in the stock market beginning with just $100.

There are not very many stock market investment accounts that can be opened for just $100. However, there is at least one very good investment account offered by the highly respected financial institution ING. With ING Direct’s Share Builder account, you can open a stock market investing account with as little as, yes, $100, and begin trading immediately. You can buy stocks for as little as $4 and set up your Share Builder account to automatically buy and sell or a regularly scheduled basis.

If you open up an account like Share Builder, you want to have a plan in place for how you are going to invest the money. If you are a beginner, you should probably invest in a company that’s listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NASDAQ, or the S&P 500. These companies are considered to be pretty stable, established, and doing well. The three different indices represent three different groups in which stocks are listed according to different criteria.

Another thing to keep abreast of is which industries on the whole are doing well. You can then pick a stock market investment based on stock quotes for a company in that industry. For instance, if oil and gas companies are doing well, why not choose an oil company to invest in?

However, you also need to keep in mind that if you’re beginning with just $100 to invest, you won’t be able to buy that many shares of a lot of established companies-their share prices can be very high (higher than $100 for just one share).

One way around this obstacle is to invest in “penny stocks”. These are stocks of companies whose shares are only selling for a couple of bucks (so it’s actually more than just a penny but the principle’s the same). Penny stocks can have great upward potential and make you a lot of money when they start to rise. If you buy penny stocks for, say, $3 a share, when their share price gets up to about $15 it’s a good time to sell and take profits.

But don’t just pick any penny stock because it’s cheap. Again, pick a penny stock to buy and trade in from an industry, such as oil, that is going great guns (read the financial news). And watch it carefully. If you buy penny stocks at $3 a share and they go down to a buck a share, sell them and cut your losses. You haven’t lost that much money because you did not invest that much-another great penny stock investment advantage.

When you become more experienced as an investor you can buy options contracts often for $100 or less. Each options contract lets you have temporary control of 100 shares of a given stock. This has the potential to make you a ton of money in a very short time with only a very small investment. But you need to know what you’re doing first because you can lose lots of money fast here if you don’t.

Small, medium or large? We’re not talking about a coffee cup size… we’re referring to the fact that no matter what your size of business your access to a business line of credit is the lifeblood of your company. That’s why an ABL revolver (ABL = asset based line of credit) is potentially the solution to turbo charge your working capital and cash flow. Let’s examine how.

Clients seem to always wrestle with the fact that they don’t really understand the differences between this type of business financing and banking as opposed to a ‘regular’ operating facility with the bank. The differences could not be more dramatic. While a bank facility (by the way, we are all for them also, when they work! ) focuses significantly on your balance sheet ratios and over all profitability, etc the ABL revolver solution hones in on one issue only – your assets and their overall quality and size. It is on that quality and size that the ABL business line of credit is structured.

Borrowing power is what business lines of credit are of course about. When you utilize the ABL approach you in effect leverage all the power of the assets, which certainly isn’t like what we like to call ‘ traditional bank borrowing ‘.

So, why would a business such as yours want to unlock that borrowing power? The reality is there are some very recurring needs for firms which choose this type of business financing. First of all they either can’t get or can’t get enough working capital borrowing power against their inventory, receivables and equipment. Secondly, all sorts of other problems, challenges, and yes opportunities can e overcome with an asset based line of credit.

Many examples exist of firms who have doubled and in some cases tripled their business financing access via this type of finance. The answer is simple – it’s based on asset size, not ratios and covenants and external collateral.

Those include firms which have large seasonality issues, companies who which to merge with or acquire a competitor on an asset financing basis, and, most commonly, firms that view themselves in turnaround or restructuring mode when it comes to where they are at in their life cycle – i.e. coming out of a challenging economic time or negative business event (operating losses, etc).

Did we just say ‘ operating losses ‘? Yes, the reality is that even firms who are experience operating losses and could otherwise not achieve maximum operating cash flow are excellent candidates for ABL financing. We should mention that the type of facility you get, the pricing on that facility, and how the facility works vary within ABL revolver financing depending on your overall transaction size and asset coverage.

We must never forget also that these type of facilities never bring debt to your balance sheet, you view them similarly as an operating line, in that you are just monetizing your assets for working capital and cash flow – the only difference is you’ve got tremendous flexibility around borrowing power – because you are borrowing against a base of receivables, inventory, unencumbered equipment, and in some cases real estate also.

In summary ABL revolver financing gives you a full service business financing, its cost effective, addresses almost every financing problem you have had related to cash flow, and is available in facilities from 250k to many millions of dollars.

It somewhat of a secret to many that some of Canada’s largest corporations choose this type of financing over a traditional bank facility. Speak to a trusted, credible, and experienced Canadian business financing advisor on why ‘ ABL ‘ give you that ‘ turbo charge’ boost in cash flow we’ve talked about.

When you look to obtain a business insurance quote you will either be asked to declare certain information or complete a proposal form. This information will be used to provide you with a quotation and should you choose to accept the quote and accept an insurance policy, this information will form the basis of the policy that is taken out.

It is a two way street between you, the business owner and the commercial insurer. You declare information, including sums insured’s, values, security and construction details and an insurer then provides a contract of insurance which outlines their obligations to you, usually financial or re-instatement, in the event of an insured peril operating. This will also apply, in a business sense, to commercial property owners insurance.

For many businesses nowadays, their insurance will define the types of security that needs to be in place. Usually, depending on the amount of stock and it’s theft attractiveness and/or the value of other contents (such as business computers), you will be required to have an intruder alarm.

Now, we are not intruder alarm or security experts. But you can appreciate that “intruder alarm”, could mean anything from a top of the range system that tells an alarm company via GSM that there is an intruder all the way down to a system that you buy from the local DIY store for £50 and self install.

Many, many years ago, intruder alarms were all just audible only. A metal bell on the outside of the building usually rang when there was a break in. Thieves decided that the best way to deal with this was to use spray foam and fill the bell with this. Then, they would go back a few hours later, break in and the bell would not make a sound. Things have of course moved on. But, the self installed system is not as good as a professionally installed, and annually maintained, intruder alarm system.

So, when you are asked by your business insurance broker to declare whether or not you have an intruder alarm system, ask them exactly what type of system is required. Even if you take over a new premises, and there is a defunct system in place, it can usually be taken over by an approved company. Whilst wireless seems to be everywhere nowadays, intruder alarms that work through wires tend to have less innocent activations.

It is important to check any quote you receive to see whether the system needs to be audible only (one that just rings) or one that it monitored by either yourself (ie one that dials a mobile upon activation) or by an alarm company.

Also, there are two main bodies which monitor, approve and allow intruder alarm companies to be members, if they meet certain criteria. It is much more likely that your commercial insurance company will want the alarm to be installed, and importantly maintained (usually once a year) by a company that is a member of one of these bodies. They are either the National Security Inspectorate (which was NACOSS) or the SSAIB (Security Systems and Alarms Installation Body).

Check on the internet and they have websites which will show you local contractors (if you need one). If you self install your alarm, whilst it may give you some peace of mind, it does not necessarily mean that insurers are happy to provide indemnity under a policy.

As ever, speak to a broker to find out exactly what the requirements are of your intruder alarm warranty, if one applies.