Monthly Archives: March 2015

Can You Succeed While Buying Stocks with Less than $1000?

Investing in stocks can be a very lucrative way to create a nest egg for your retirement. With the right purchases, you can make an incredible amount of money. However, you also run the risk of losing everything should the company tank. Although serious investors use tens of thousands of dollars, it is possible to begin accumulating wealth if you have less than $1000 on hand.

Educated Yourself

One of the most prominent ways to ensure that you make money while playing the stock market is to educate yourself. Spend some time reading the ins and outs of what it means to trade on the markets. Many people know that you buy low and sell high, but do you understand everything in between? The more knowledge you gather about any given subject, the greater are your chances for success. This will reduce the risk of purchasing the wrong kind of stock and help optimize your future purchases.

Know What You Can Afford

As stocks come with great risk, you should only invest what you can afford to lose. This isn’t saying that you will lose your investment, but it will reduce the impact it would have on your household should the stock drop. Set aside some cash out of each paycheck that you won’t miss and use it to invest when you feel you have enough. Although you can make more money by putting more into stocks, you want to make sure your lights are still on and food is on the table.

Online Brokerage Firms

There are many online stock brokers that have varying abilities and fees. Depending on how much money you have, you need to find out that fits your investing capabilities. Most will charge a flat rate for stock purchases. For example, some will charge $9.99 to order shares of a company as well as a $9.99 fee when you decide to sell. Total, your stock will need to profit at least $19.98 to break even. If you only have $50, these fees will tap nearly half of your available funds. This is one of the reasons why you should invest several hundred dollars at once.

Company Research

Before you purchase stocks in any given company, always conduct extensive research to ensure stability and profitability. Putting money into new companies can be risky as you don’t know how well it will perform over time. However, new company stocks are usually very low cost and can go up inside of a few days exponentially increasing the value.

Keeping an eye on specific professionals can help you gauge where the best areas are to invest. People like Sukanto Tanoto have made a great impact in world trade due to various innovations and foundation developments. Knowing the leadership of an organization can help you choose the right stocks optimizing your investments.

Corporate Wellness Is the Wave of the Future

If you run a business, you certainly understand how important the health of your employees is to your bottom line. There are many advantages to having a healthy workforce aside from people getting their work done on time. Every day, small businesses, non-profits and corporations worth billions of dollars are starting corporate wellness programs for their employees. These programs teach employees the importance of lifestyle changes that will improve their health. Of course, these lifestyle changes will also benefit the employer by making these people better employees. Here are some reasons you might want to consider starting a wellness program for your business like the one operated by Wellness Corporate Solutions (WCS).

1. Healthcare costs

Employers spend a fortune every year paying for the healthcare expenses of their employees. Needless to say, if these expenses can be lowered significantly, the profit margin of the company will be benefited greatly. Therefore, the key is to prevent your employees from needing to go to the doctor. How can this be done? First, you need to educate them about many of the bad habits they have that lead to poor health. A corporate wellness program can teach them what foods they should be eating and what foods to stay away from. It can outline a healthy lifestyle for the employees to follow at home or on the job. In addition to that, Pacific Psych Center argues that a healthier lifestyle leads to better mental habits, as well.

2. Less call-offs

It is difficult to run a business if people do not show up for their job. If the lessons from a corporate wellness plan take hold with your employees, you will have less people calling in sick from work. This means better productivity and more efficiency around the workplace. You will be able to meet deadlines on a regular basis. One of the best things about having less people call off is the fact that you will have your employees doing the jobs they were trained to do. It is never good to have an untrained replacement fill in for a sick person.

3. A healthy environment

If your employees start to live a healthy lifestyle, it will eventually rub off on many of your other employees who may not have been very enthusiastic about it. Past corporate wellness programs have proven that being exposed to an environment where eating healthy foods is encouraged and smoking is discouraged will cause people to make better decisions when it comes to the way they handle their own health.

Construction claims consultants

A major construction project is a very big undertaking with a lot of moving parts. Because there are so many people involved, an almost endless amount of things could go wrong. One of the frequent problems that companies are forced to deal with on a regular basis are claims being made against them for unpaid wages. Most of the time, these claims are made by contractors. This is why hiring construction claims consultants is so important for the success of any project. These consultants will work with both the contractor and the client to make sure that all of the legal issues have been taken care of. This greatly lowers the amount of disputes that are filed against companies. It also helps with debt recovery in the event that a claim is filed by a contractor. Consultants dealing with construction claims will act as negotiators in the event of a dispute.

Management for a construction project

Poor management of a construction project can lead to a variety of problems down the road. Miscommunicating with foreign clients, timing a project poorly and failing to allocate funds properly are all examples of poor management. A construction claims consultant can nip these problems in the bud by issuing reports that detail a project’s results as they happen.

Construction claims defense and debt recovery

In many cases, contracting firms will finish a major percentage of a construction project before they are paid. Even though there is a contract in place that details the retention money involved, some contractors choose to go the legal route to get their payment for the job. A construction claims consultant can assist a company in getting the necessary retention money without ever going in front of a judge. Obviously, it is beneficial to both parties if they can avoid the cost of hiring lawyers and battling it out in court.

The value of a claims consultant

When hiring a construction claims consultant, it is critical that he or she not only have knowledge when it comes to preparing or filing claims, but also in terms of negotiating down inflated claims made by the contractor. The lower consultants can negotiate down a claim, the more valuable they are to a company. By having an experienced claims consultant working on your behalf, your company can avoid getting consumed by legal issues. Instead, you can focus your energy on planning business strategies for the future.

Coin collecting

Coin collecting can be an exciting hobby, but determining how to start your collection can depend on certain preferences. For example, you might prefer to collect foreign coins or focus on purchasing coins from your own country. Some collectors enjoy purchasing coins that go into a specific folder, such as a series that focuses on quarters that have been produced by each state. Uncirculated coins are a popular collector’s item as well, and collecting silver proof coins has also become a staple of coin collecting. No matter what your preference, here are some things to look for when you start your collection.

Coin Grading

Grading coins might be difficult because of a variety of factors. England and the United States each have different grading systems, which could make collecting more challenging when purchasing coins overseas. Specifically, a US grading might reference that a coin is in “mint” condition, while England might state that a coin is in “extremely fine” condition.

Damaged Coins

Coin deficiencies are easily unnoticed at the time of purchase, but an experienced professional who deals with them will not place as high of a valuation if there are damages. Coins can become damaged if they are cleaned with abrasive materials, have become even slightly bent or have been scratched. The value could be significantly reduced. For incredibly rare coins that were hand-made with a hammer and dies, it could be more difficult to understand how to grade them.

Always Do Your Research

Always learn as much as you can about coins before you invest in them. There are several books available on the market that will help to educate you about investing in coins, including books that discuss how to grade coins, catalogs that include the most basic information and pricing estimates, as well as books that focus on the details of a specific series, such as the Lincoln penny. The right knowledge can make the difference between purchasing a coin that has a high value or purchasing one that is more common in nature.

Participate in a Club or Association

Coin clubs provide the opportunity for you to gain information about buying and selling coins. Sometimes participants will even offer the sale of a coin at discounted prices. A coin club or association can also provide information about upcoming opportunities.

Collecting coins can be an excellent hobby and with the right experience, you can even learn how to make money with it.