Beware of Shifty Credit Related Phone Calls

By Jennifer McClelland

In the past I received a phone call, I presume a telemarketing telephone request, on my house telephone number that I knew I had to share with my readers at Lucrative Investing. It was by far the most humorous phone call I have received in a long time, and definitely something worth sharing for the entertainment value and the lesson it provides. The phone call came up on the caller ID as ?Local Area? and the number 1-850-390-4590. When I answered the phone call, a recording said something close to, ?Hello, this is a call from Card Services with regard to your current credit card account. We are pleased to inform you that you are eligible for lower interest rates because you have made all your payments in time and have shown trustworthy use of your credit. To query further concerning lower interest rates on your open credit card, press ?1?.?

I was curious and a little bored, so I pushed ?1? and a gentleman came right to the telephone. This is the conversation from that telephone chat, with ?Telemarketer? being the gentleman on the other end that represents ?Card Services?, and ?MB? being myself:

Telemarketer: Hi?

MB: Hello.

Telemarketer: Are you responding to the suggestion for reduced interest rates?

MB: I suppose.

Telemarketer: Well, you are qualified for cut interest rates on an open credit card.

MB: What card?

Telemarketer: Your qualifying Visa or Mastercard.

MB: Okay, well, this call could be for anyone in the house. Who is this call meant for?

Telemarketer: The chief credit card possessor, and you pushed ?1?, so I would imagine that?s you.

MB: Well, we have four credit card owners in this home. If you would prefer to present me a name, I can surely?.

Telemarketer: [Click]

MB: Hello? [Amusingly, having heard the click] Helloooooooo?.

He did not have a clue who that call was for or what card he was offering me a lower rate on. No one even is aware if whatever assembly or business he is employed with is respectable. I thought it was amusing that they used the title ?Card Services?, thinking about some respectable corporations that you may really do business with make use of that at which time they phone up, because that is the title of the section that is calling you. At what time Chase, who I previously had a card with, called me, they time and again said they were from ?Card Services?, so I thought it was probable Chase was calling me, even if I honestly doubted it as I do not own that card. Whenever a person says they are with ?Card Services?, no longer presume it is a shifty call, but do press them to find out what company they are with.

Remember that they called your phone, concerning your alleged credit card, and may ask for your information. Do not assume they are on the level and do not assume that they already know anything about you. Nicely require that they give you some additional information about who the call is for, what card this is relating to, or something else before going any further. I will never know if that was a possible con or not, but I do recognize that they had no right calling me, particularly since we are on the ?Do Not Call Registry?, that has long since established that it means nil.

Be intelligent, be aware, and be conscious of the fact that there are thousands, if not millions, of companies and people out there who want your money, and especially your social security number. They are calling you daily and one fallacious move could compromise your fiscal security, either in a minute way or a large way. They may have been valid, but they might have been a scam, just hoping I would give up the information they were looking for. Either way, they had no business calling me with an assumed guise the way they did, and I suggest that all of my readers be careful when a call like that comes in. - 23222

About the Author:

Want to see more about Credit card accounts and get more regarding Money Investing.

Beware of the Debt Settlement Tax - What to Look For, What to Do

By Sean Payne

If you owe money to creditors, you might be thinking about talking to them to negotiate a settlement for your debts, by paying them less than you owe. Be careful, though. You may not have been aware of it, but debt settlement can have a huge impact on your taxes.

If you're settling your debt for less than you ow, the tax laws consider this the same as "earning" money. One example would be if you took out a loan for $10,000 and were unable to pay it back. If you settled for $6,000, you have essentially pocketed $4,000. This really gets the attention of the IRS.

I'm sure that at one point, there was a loophole in the IRS tax laws that allowed for this to happen. Unfortunately, the IRS is quick to get wise about these types of things. Just like so many other tax loopholes, this one has been closed.

Just like in our example above, if you have credit card debt or any other kind of debt, you will likely be held liable for any "profit" that you realize as a result of settling your debt for less than you owe. Keep this in mind when it comes time to prepare your taxes after debt settlement.

Even though this debt settlement tax may sound like a bad thing, you're still better off having settled your debt, even after taxes. In our example, you've realized a $4,000 "gain", but at most you'll have to pay about 30% (depending on your tax bracket). Even after you've paid the tax, though, you still only paid $7,200 in repayment of a $10,000 debt. That's a 28% discount, and is still a huge bargain.

Since the debt settlement tax is so little-known to most people, they usually don't do anything about it until after an IRS audit. Keep it in mind, and don't let this tax take you by surprise.

If you'd like more details on how this tax applies to your specific situation, please consult with a CPA or other tax professional. - 23222

About the Author:

Sean Payne is just a normal guy who has learned through trial and error (and a lot of advice) how to get out of debt. Discover how to avoid the debt settlement tax at Sean's website, which can be found at http://www.debtpayofftips.com

Making Money With Penny Stock Trading

By Richard Brown

Penny stock trading can make you a lot of money. These are low priced stocks often less than a dollar per share. The prices for these shares drop and gain a lot. The volatility is the reason for the profit potential.

These can make you a lot of money due to the high volatility. Penny stocks can be more profitable than the other large cap stocks. Many people do this full time from their home. A lot of people make money from this as a hobby.

You can use some systems to identify the opportunities. These systems will help you study the trading patterns and the trends that are often profitable. Such systems can be a good source of information for you.

You can use software that analyzes the trading patterns every day. The can make recommendation based on the information it gathers. It can make decisions based on certain trading patterns that are often profitable.

To begin trading, you need a stock broker that trades penny stocks. You can sign up with a full service broker. If you sign up with a reputed broker, you will get good tools to enable yourself to make better decisions and learn more.

There are various sources that can provide you information. There are many blogs run by experts that regularly give opinion about buying penny stocks. Many experts also run their own newsletters.

Newsletters offer good advice but you have to be careful. They may not make you money every time. Some of them may also cheat you. You should do your own research before making a decision to buy a penny stock.

Penny stock trading can make you a lot of money if you know the facts. You can not make thousands of dollars simply by following what others say. You should know what you are doing and have sufficient knowledge about how it works. You can earn a lot of money trading penny stocks from home. - 23222

About the Author:

Investment in Stocks can pay big profits if done the correct way. Penny Stocks can provide the highest profits in the shortest interval of time.

Stock Options Selling And Buying ABC's

By Frank Johnson

Stock options are a contract that allows the buyer or seller of an option the right to exercise the sale or purchase of a stock for a contracted underlying price within a certain time period. Market conditions and future direction is analyzed in the Wall Street Journal, IBD, Stock Option Trader and other financial news services.

Call and put options deliver large leverage to the holder who can play either side of the fence. The call option gives the holder the right to buy the underlying asset whereas the put option allows the holder to sell the underlying asset. Many good books about Wall Street stock option trading are available in bookstores or even available free from your broker.

Exercising the option at the right time if the market moves in your favor, determines if you win or lose. If, for instance, the underlying asset expires worthless, you only lose your protracted option price.

The theoretical value of a stock option can be evaluated according to several statistical models. These models, which are developed by quantitative analysts and attempt to predict how the value of the option will change in response to changing conditions. Because of these proven models, the risks associated with granting, owning, or trading options may be quantified and managed with a great precision.

Exchange-traded options form an important class of options which have standardized contract features and are traded on public exchanges. The low-cost leverage feature that options provide make them an extremely attractive financial instrument.

Many statistical tools that predict price movement are available for technical timing. The main ideas should be based on direction and trend gleaned from news authorities and sources such as the Wall Street Journal or option trader news services.

The stock market, in fact all markets, behave in wave-like oscillations over time. It is important to gauge the direction of the wave before you take a position. If a stock is experiencing a strong upward long-term trend, but the current short-term trend is downward, leading an lagging technical indicators help signal entry and exit points for your trade.

Using a very broad stroke for categorizing indicators, there are oscillators, and momentum indicators . Oscillators are leading indicators, and momentum indicators are lagging indicators. While the two can be supportive of each other, they can frequently give conflicting signals. This is not to say that one or the other should be used exclusively, but you must understand the potential pitfalls of each. - 23222

About the Author:

Read the latest financial news, get the market beat and step ahead of the crowd, so get a Wall Street Subscription. Another helpfor option traders is Stock Option Trader. The Online Journal's current data, analysis tools breaking news keep you informed while trading online. Subscribe today for FREE weeks and 80% off!

Covered Call Has Risks

By Maclin Vestor

A covered call strategy is great, as it can allow you to get your income back, and put it to work elsewhere quickly. In addition, time value is certain, and covered calls will allow you to collect this value while speculators betting on a stock rising beyond the option price plus what they paid for the option will have to pay this amount to you no matter what. Even if the stock does go beyond this point, you don't incur a loss; instead, you miss out on potential gains. This can cause a covered call strategy to be more stable. You ultimately want the stock to expire at the money as this will allow you to collect the full premium, and still own the stock. Anything above this and your gains of your stock will cover the loss of the call and your gain will ultimately be the same. However, if it goes higher, you will have to repurchase your shares at a higher price, although selling another call against them will result in a higher premium.

Some covered calls will yield a 10% monthly return based on it's time value premium that you collect, meaning that in 10 months you will have your initial investment back if you can successful receive the full time value. The risk is not that the stock goes up in value and that you miss out on potential gains, as the yield will be roughly the same after appreciation, but that the stock goes down dramatically in value. However, you cannot lose more than your initial investment minus the full premium. This is a major point that critics of the covered call strategy often miss, as they say it has "the same risk profile as selling naked puts." This means that if you sell a put you are un-hedged, and if the stock goes to zero, you are also limited to the loss of the strike price minus zero times $100. Where a put owner will gain $100 per share ($10000 per contract) if a $100 stock goes to 0, a put seller will have to pay the put owner this $10,000 per contract. Selling puts is dangerous because people generally do not manage money well. The top 10% of people own the other 90% of wealth generally because the top 10% have learned to manage their money better than the other 90%.Selling puts is dangerous, because if you sell a $100 put for $500 your gain is capped to $500 per contract for a given length of time, and your potential loss is $10,000. Now a covered call owner may be capping his gain to lets say $500, and if the stock goes to zero, he is also going to potentially lose $10,000. So why is a covered call generally less risky? The reason why is that unless the seller of the put has $10,000, then he risks going on margin. In addition to actually having to have put up what the buyer affords to risk, The buyer of the stock not only is required to have that 10,000 before he can buy 100 shares of $100, but even someone with a limited understanding of risk management will do at least something to manage risks, even if it's still investing a high percentage such as 20% of the income that loss is limited to 20% of the portfolio. Technically that buyer should risk only a smaller percentage of his capital. A seller of a put receives $500, but to collect $500 and have to leave $50,000 to the side doesn't seem naturally as rational. People that invest in a covered call buying a stock for $10,000 and collecting a $500 premium and invest the remaining $40,000 will be risking less than someone who sells a naked put, but invests the remaining cash. Of course the reason is, the put seller has to have $10,000 to cash if the stock goes to zero.

However, there's an even greater difference. In the event of a loss when the stock doesn't go to 0, the covered call seller experiences a paper loss; where as a put seller experiences a real loss. The covered call owner might put up $10,000 and that $10,000 suddenly is only good for $8,000 and all he has received is the $500 premium for the covered call. However, if this person has done the research and determined that the stock is undervalued, and is currently in a panic due to margin calls and forced selling, and that the fundamentals are good, the covered call owner still owns the 100 shares of the stock that they determined to be worth $140 at $100. Technically the put seller could choose to buy that same stock at $100 which is now worth $80, and put up the money rather than take the $20 per share loss. However, the covered call owner has likely researched the stock, has determined it to be undervalued and intends on owning this stock anyways. The put seller doesn't want to own this stock, instead expects the stock to remain neutral, and just wants to collect the $500. If the covered call owner was wrong, that means the stock goes lower than he expects, however that doesn't mean that the stock still wouldn't be undervalued even more so. If the put seller is wrong, the put seller will have to buy 100 shares of an $80 stock at $100. It may just seem like semantics, but the covered call owner already has bought the stock where as the put seller may not really believe he has to buy the stock. A put seller gets paid to buy the stock at a set price, where the covered caller gets paid to own the stock. Psychologically, it's a lot easier for a put seller to say "well I'm a good investor I think, my bet is probably right, I don't need to worry about the fact that the stock might drop in value because I don't think it will. I don't need to do more research, and oh, by the way, this extra $10,000 on the side, I can invest it elsewhere because I'm a good investor, and I'm not going to lose. An over confident put seller can lose everything in the account and then some with even a drop from $100 to $80, where as a covered call owner who is over confident will probably only lose a maximum of the amount he owns in that individual stock minus the price of the stock, and that's if the stock goes to all the way to zero.

In many ways they are a similar strategy betting a stock won't go up beyond a certain point, and that it won't go down beyond a certain point. But a person who writes a covered call will be forced to have the money to pay for it and on maximum in a margin account that person can only go on 2:1 margin. If a covered call buyer with $10,000 risked $20,000 they might need to transfer some money from their bank to their stock account and come up with $10,000

If someone sells puts, they are not technically on margin until a major loss occurs, however, if they sell 10 covered calls of a stock at $100 at $500 each, they risk losing $100,000 if it goes to zero. Put sellers most likely think that has a low probability of happening. Covered callers may think the same thing is true, the difference is, covered callers can never bet more than twice what they have even on margin, and most people won't go on margin anyways simply because they don't have the account set up to. Put sellers will usually HAVE to have a margin account to sell puts.

Selling puts requires a more sophisticated understanding as well, and when lost in the technical, I believe it's easier to forget about what you are betting on happening. If you sell an out of the money covered call, you are betting on it going down less than what you received for the option, or going up to the strike price (or higher, but gain is capped). If you already own a stock, it's easier to understand that you are trading upside potential for income, where as put sellers are risking money they don't have committing to buying a stock at a certain price no matter what betting that a stock will do the same thing essentially. But leveraged buyers and sellers are generally not the type that likes to have money on the sideline.

Naked call seller as are collecting income but if the stock goes up, they have unlimited risk since they do not own the stock that will cover them in case the stock goes higher. Selling a naked call could potentially result in unlimited margin. However in order for a stock to go unlimited gains, it has to have an unlimited amount of money put into it. This does not happen, especially to the largest of large cap stocks that are already heavily owned on heavily leveraged companies... However, large amounts of cash reserves still are needed, as large caps still appreciate in value, sometimes significantly. Being un-hedged and selling any sort of shares "naked" is not recommended. In theory there may be an identical hedged strategy, but in practice it just doesn't work out the same way. - 23222

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about a few examples of an online trading system and teaches you to find an options trading system that works for you.