Money Gold Silver

Gold Certificates And Their Pros and Cons

What are gold certificates? They are documents that prove you are the owner of gold which you do not personally hold. Normally, such certificates are issued by financial institutions from where you buy gold, and those fiscal establishments physically store the gold for you. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Holding certificates of ownership is like placing your cash in a gold pool account. You hand over your cash to the company who runs the program, and when you redeem your certificate they give you any returns you will have accrued according to the present gold price. But they may not store any physical gold for you. Rather, they are thought to use your cash, and put it into whatever they expect to get the most impressive returns instead of in gold, pay you the returns on gold, and keep the rest of their gains for themselves. That ignores the question of what occurs if they make some mistaken investment decisions and lose your money, and are unable to pay you your returns on the gold price? I don’t know. What occurs if the establishment goes bankrupt what will happen to your investment? If it’s’s not physical gold, I suspect it might disappear.

There are definitely good sides of gold certificate programs. One is that you can fundamentally invest in gold at the official spot price without needing to pay any premiums for physical metal or pay any holding charges. Those premiums and holding charges can cut into your profits quite a lot, so gold certificates are an alternative that offers you the most efficient returns.

One option for gold certificates is the Perth Mint’s gold certificate program. The Perth Mint’s program is fully protected by the government of Western Australia, which allows rather more of a sense of security than holding gold certificates from a private establishment that could go bankrupt and see your non-physical gold disappear. The Perth Mint’s gold certificate program charges 1.75% charges on all purchases plus a $10 certificate surcharge, and a 0.75% fee when you sell. This is lower than the present premiums on physical bullion which have skyrocketed in the current gold shortage. There aren’t any storage fees. There is a minimum initial investment of $5000 Australian dollars. The Mint says that every oz. you purchase remains on the premises of the mint and can’t be taken away. Your investment is both government backed and insured by Lloyds of London. This is for regular unallocated storage ( but once again they do claim to store gold on grounds for you, in some form ).

The Perth Mint additionally offers allocated gold storage programs, but this needs both storage charges and a manufacturing fee ( to mold the gold into whatever form you choose to have set aside for you ).

Whether you invest in gold certificates will rely on how much faith you are prepared to have in an institution to keep your bought metal for you. I’m personally someone that is ready for the worst-case scenario while simultaneously not paranoid, and seeking the best returns possible. Which has lead me to the conclusion that keeping a pile of physical bullion as the base of your portfolio is important, but that on top of that base it is ok to broaden and have certificates or other kinds of gold accounts that don’t have allocated storage. I personally don’t take part in the Perth Mint program or others like it, but I do have an e-gold account. I believe these are fine so long as you understand that there’s a degree of risk, and pay attention to the markets with the willingness to sell your certificates or egold if investment demand truly rises. I would personally feel very little discomfort in investing in the Perth Mint’s program, but I’d possibly stay away from a fiscal institution’s certificate program.

The firm I worked at was predominately short sellers. Short sellers are often times viewed as the villains and bullies of the market. Selling a stock short means you sell it first, hoping it goes down, then buy it back at a lower price. Shorting a stock in theory is much riskier than buying a stock. When you buy a stock you know exactly how much money you can loose, the stock could go to zero. When you short a stock it can keep going up. In theory you can loose an unlimited amount of money.

Back in the mid 1990’s, there were a lot of so called chop shop brokerage firms around. These firms had reputations for promoting companies that were not quality companies. In other words, junk companies, barely worth anything. They bought these stocks for their clients with the hope of making big commissions. Think, an off shoot of Boiler Room. These chop shop firms could pump these small junk company stocks astronomically, unloading to unsuspecting investors, usually at the highs. Most traders on Wall Street knew who the chop shops were and knew which stocks they were pumping. This allowed the top trading firms to recognize which stocks would not stay up once the bids were pulled. The key was to begin shorting these stocks as the investors were buying at the highs. It was almost a game on Wall Street for certain firms to pick the tops and ride them down. As soon as one of these chop shops came out with a new stock and it ran up on hype, we could just pile on and drive it back down. With no fundamentals behind the companies, they would crumble. In addition, as a market maker, I had a huge amount of money to utilize. The other market makers and I could pummel the stock, driving it into the ground as sellers dumped left and right. Our reputation grew with leaps and bounds. We became known as the firm that could spot these pumped plays as we would drive them into the ground making millions. Whenever we went on the offer, meaning that we wanted to sell/short the stock, our phones would ring off the hook from firms all over Wall Street. They would ask us what we knew about the stock, if we had any specific information. Our reputation grew to where other Wall Street firms would see us on the offer of a stock and just assume we were shorting it. They would follow and push it down for us. In reality, this made our job even easier. At this point, we had the best reputation on Wall Street for short sellers. We would even hear stories about chop shop brokers who would panic as soon as they saw us on the offer of their stocks they were pushing.

With our reputation for being short sellers came major recognition. In 1999, Forbes Magazine contacted our firm to particulate in their annual stock picking contest. They wanted us to give them a stock that would be a short with huge downside. I had the honor of choosing the stock for the Forbes contest. After doing a lot of research, I decided to pick a stock called FOR KIDZ ENTERTAIMENT (KIDZ). It was the hot stock at the time. They were the makers of the Pokemon cards. This was all the craze with the kids. The stock had jumped recently and as an outgoing fad, could not sustain its valuation. After picking it, the stock came tumbling down, crashing. That pick landed my firm as the winner of the contest and I was mentioned. The following year Forbes came back and asked us for another pick. Again, I chose a fad stock that the individual investor gets caught up in but never stays up. This time I chose Krispy Kreme Donuts. This once again was a craze for a short amount of time, but let’s face it, it is just a donut. The stock came tumbling down, my firm again on top of the calls. Our reputation only grew from there.

A lot has changed since then. Back in the 90’s, everyone knew each other. Each firm on the level II had a symbol. You knew who the buyers were and who the shorters were. Now everything is done by ECN’S (electronic communications network). With this network it is now impossible to know if the buyer/seller has 100 shares or 100,000 shares to trade. The one thing that has not changed and will never change is the greed and fear. This will always rule the market and will always remain the same.

Source: Lou Cardinali,

www.InTheMoneyStocks.com

The Leader In Market Technical Guidance

Mining for HR Gold Involves Four Components

Collect and organize important data.

Your company is probably already collecting the key HR information it needs to maintain business operations and meet labor regulations, but are you getting the most from that data?  Making the most of your data doesn’t only depend on the information but how it is organized and the ease of accessing it.

 Employee salaries are in your payroll system.  Reviews, training and certifications are in departmental spreadsheets (each department is collecting it differently, of course).  Company-paid benefits are located in your accounts payable system.  Your application data is with the recruiter.  Chicago data is in the Chicago office while the Dallas data is in Dallas.  You can probably see the issue now.  The data is all over the needs to be “lassoed” in order to be analyzed and used most effectively.

 An HR system is a good way to accomplish this.  Formal systems keep information centralized, standardized and consistent.  The system can also provide controlled access to this very sensitive employee data so only the appropriate people have access.

 Once the data is “lassoed” into one centralized location, it can be more easily reviewed to determine if it is adequate for the analysis needed by the company and/or other reporting agencies.

Analyze data in a meaningful way for your company.

 Achieving company goals and making your organization more effective are two of the main priorities of every business.  However, companies often do not incorporate or overlook the “real” value HR data can have on meeting these priorities.  Simply analyzing the “trendy” HR metrics may not be what your company wants.

 One key metric that is rarely analyzed, but can be quite meaningful to your business, is the costs to hire and retain an employee.  This metric is helpful when reviewing employee retention initiatives, as well as when reviewing a new line of business.  With a new line of business, all related costs need to be as complete as possible, including HR costs.  Be sure to include not only salary and benefits but training, mentoring, ramp-up time, certifications and other costs directly attributable to the employee that may not be shown on a paystub.

In addition, the “perspective” or “angle” of the data must also be considered.  For example, while reviewing employee turnover at the company level is somewhat meaningful, reviewing turnover at a department or even manager level might be much more meaningful.  At the company level, one may see high turnover as a company culture issue.  However, when a data review at the manager level reveals 80 percent of the turnover falls under one manager, or when a separate data review shows that turn-over is lower in one department than another, the real problem at the heart of employee turn-over becomes more apparent.

Business and business issues constantly change and evolve so it is important to have a periodic review of the analytical information that is most meaningful to your company.  It is also important to make sure this review is conducted by trained and reliable personnel.  A great way to make sure this happens is to form an Advisory Group to oversee the review.

Provide analysis in a timely manner to the most appropriately trained personnel.

The analysis needs to be received by the use community in a timely manner.  When the data is too old, it becomes meaningless.  If a manager needed specific data before a budget meeting and didn’t receive it until the day of, they may not have the time to effectively process the information and prepare for the meeting.

HR data is sensitive information by its nature.  It is essential that HR data be collected and managed by reliable and trustworthy employees.  Distribution of the analysis also needs to be closely monitored.  For instance, a vice president would like to investigate a new line of business and has asked to see employee costs for a similar line of business.  Whether or not they need to see specific employee names from the other business line should also be considered.  On the other hand, not giving the manager departmental turn-over information will not help improve the department’s poor performance.  So ask yourself, who would you give the employee names to?

Lastly, to appropriately use the analysis, the user needs to understand the data.  To fully understand the data, the user should be, as needed, informed on where the data comes from, how it is calculated or compiled, and what the analysis means.  If the users of the data don’t understand what they are looking at, the analysis is of no value - think of it as fool’s gold.

Hold someone accountable for the results.

Data compiled and distributed just for information sake, if it is actually read, is often reviewed in a cursory manner with no one taking ownership or responsibility for the provided information.  The employee or Advisory Group reviewing and disseminating the analysis to users must have the authority to make the business and HR changes they deem necessary to meet the organization’s main priorities.  Avoiding necessary changes in business policies, procedures and practices will result in unchanged conditions the next time the analysis is made.  This offers little or if any real value to the user community and the organization as a whole.

Next Steps

Mining HR data for analysis can involve a major time commitment and lead to significant changes in your organization.  Your company’s HR analysis will not only need input from the HR group, but also from the Executive Team, Managers and other potential recipients and providers of the data.  Keeping this in mind, you may find greater benefit if you break the analysis into small, simple projects focusing on the easiest wins.  Additional layers of complexity can be added once that first project is completed and succeeds.

Keep in mind, the implementation of each project will include asking yourself how the four components discussed above are essential to HR data mining:

How can we collect the data in a manner where we can use it for analysis? What metrics would be meaningful for analyzing our company’s effectiveness? How do we distribute the analysis? Who is accountable for changing the results that need change?

As a team and with an executable strategy, your company can turn a pile of disparate data into a pile of HR gold.

Learn How

If you would like to learn more on how Omnios can help you take advantage of your HR data, please contact Shawn Osland at 847-459-8500 ext 159.

Chances are, you already know about all the reasons that you want to read the Wall Street Journal. You may want to know what’s going on in the world or maybe you just want a decisive viewpoint when it comes to political or business matters. In any case, you already know that the Wall Street Journal is well worth the money that you spend on it, but what if you could get it for even less? This paper has a lot to offer even the casual reader, and whether your interest is casual or you are a devoted reader, you will find that there are still plenty of reasons to look into getting a discounted edition!

The truth is that there are many different ways to get a discount on your Wall Street subscription, and if you have an interest in making sure that you are going to get the best news for the best price, there are several different options for you to explore. For instance, as soon as you buy a subscription, you are already saving around seventy percent off of the news stand price. With a little bit of planning, making sure that you get the paper regularly is already a great deal!

One great way to save on your Wall Street subscription is to make sure to mention if you are a student. If you are a high school or a college student, you will find that you can get three different types of subscriptions, all lower than the average price. You can pay $19.95 for 10 weeks of both the print and online edition, $49.95 for 26 weeks of both editions, or $99.95 for a full year of both editions. This takes a full 75% off of the cover price, so take advantage of this great rate if you can.

Another way that you can get great savings if you have been a long time subscriber of the Wall Street Journal is to let your subscription lapse slightly. When you are considering what you can do in order to make sure that you are getting the best rates, you will notice that the current new subscription rates are quite good. You can currently save 50% on the first thirteen weeks, after which, the one year renewal is set at $200. This will let you get a full year of this newspaper for around $3.49 every week.

You will also find that by getting the print and the online editions together that you can get some great savings. You can get a whole year for $175 plus four free weeks as well. While this is the best deal out there, you should also keep in mind that there are a few options that will let you read the online articles completely free of charge. All you need to do is to make sure that Wall Street site believes that you are coming from a referral site like Google or Digg. You can do this simply by searching for the headline on Google or by doing some referral spoofing, which is simple to do after you have downloaded the ref spoof add on for Firefox.

Take some time to think about what you want to pay for your Wall Street subscription and see what you have to do to make that price apply to you!

There are a countless number of people who use their IRA to buy gold because there is higher chance of getting appreciation in their money. Here the question arises, that how you can go for buying the gold using your IRA. If you go on the web, you cannot be able to get the sufficient information on this topic because surfing the web for unbiased information on the gold can be extremely difficult. Here are some Gold IRA investments options and ideas that can be helpful for you while going to buy gold witty your IRA.

Gold IRA - Trading Types

The most common trading types in gold IRA are as follows:

1. Coins – They are included in an actual physical entity. Some kinds of gold coins can be held in an IRA. The most important thing is that gold coins are not collectible and they do not require to be proof.Bullion Bars – They are physical gold bars that cost ten grand. The cost of bullion bars depends on the price of an ounce of gold. They can be held in an IRA. They are heavy in weight.

2.Gold Exchange-Trade Funds – They are counted as the derivatives that help in tracking the up and down of gold ounce value.

3. Mining Company Stock/Gold Mutual Funds – They are the self-explanatory gold IRA investment option.

4. Gold Certificates- The come in the category of a document that helps you in tracking the record that when and where your IRA owns X amount of bullion held somewhere.

E-Gold IRA: Trade Online

You can also find options of e-gold or digital gold that are the same as bullion bars. If you are going to buy gold using your IRA, you need to be very alert because there are various duplicate vendors available in the market today who can easily make you fool. If you are really serious about buying gold using your IRA, Online trading will be the best option for you from where you are able to trade at anytime with no hassle.

When I heard that the Ryder Cup was being ferried from across the pond to the financial capital of the world (and my hometown) I had to get a closer look. This trophy is won for the honor of the game and not for the amount of money on the line. There’s history etched into this 1927 award and the few spaces remaining around its base herald in hushed possibilities of a new cup, leaving this one in a trophy case sometime in the next ten years.

It was with great pride that I held the Ryder Cup at the Wales on Wall Street luncheon. The Ryder Cup was, perhaps, being “used” to introduce the 2010 Celtic Manor Resort course, but with all of the attention it received, I’m sure it didn’t mind. People lined up for the opportunity to share a piece of history and most were awed by its presence.

The Celtic Manor Resort Twenty Ten Course was built specifically for Ryder Cup action and is ready and open for play (only 12 tee times are issued per day!) It is a links course and, from what Ian Woosnam claims, “The closing stretch is fantastic…you’ve got two great match-play par 4s at the 14th and the 15th,” he noted. “Then the 18th is a really cracking par 5 to finish. You are going to be standing there, thinking shall I or shan’t I go for it?”

There are two additional golf courses at this compound, one of which was designed by Colin Montgomerie (par-69) and has been described as “a short course, one you can go around very quickly”. Montgomerie’s course obviously cannot compete with the challenge of the championship 2010 course but variety is the spice of life so Monty’s course will get plenty of play.

Celtic Manor is a five-star luxury resort which features two spas (for the non-golfers in your group) and boasts an exceptional array of activities. Aside from admiring the undiscovered countryside and playing way too much golf, mountain biking, hiking and something that I’m really interested in trying, “kite-buggying”, will keep your party hopping.

With 200 golf courses and the country only a 45-minute “hop, skip and a jump” from London, Wales is quickly becoming a tourist hotspot.

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The staff at Wales on Wall Street really put on a terrific show. There were Penderyn whisky tastings, Watkins ales pouring freely and Welsh dishes designed with Americans in mind. In other words, no Laverbread, crempog or faggots. The mood was made more festive with a choir onstage singing in their native tongue.

The golf simulator on hand told me that my swing had a slight out-to-inward path but not bad for the wintry season. Interfering structures had to be repositioned for my lefty swing but I still smacked one shot 200 yards…I’ll take that coming from a simulator using a taped-up Golden Bear driver!

The Spherical Blade putter was also introduced to us Yanks. After testing it at the “putting challenge” I noticed that the face was created of, what appeared to be, smoothened steel curved both horizontally and vertically, not like the soft, urethane insert of my Odyssey Two-Ball putter, forcing me to lighten my swing to a bare touch. Some golfers may like this feel but I would need to test it further.

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The Wales on Wall Street luncheon drew attention to the 2010 Ryder Cup competition and to all of the culture and activities Wales has to offer. It also “teased” golf fans with the Ryder Cup in plain view.

With a “fast start” being devised by 2008 U.S.A. Ryder Cup Team Captain Azinger, one plan to claim victory is “freedom to set the course up however it fits his team.” Other ideas to secure victory include “taking only the top eight players and basing the points entirely on money”.

So…alert to the U.K….

The next time the Ryder Cup enters the United States on “official business” will probably be in Kentucky and this time it won’t just be on a visa…it’s staying!