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.

It's possible that at some point in the past, the U.S. tax laws allowed for this to happen with no tax implications. Unfortunately for you, the IRS is smart about such things, and has closed any loophole that may have existed in the tax law.

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.

The debt settlement tax comes as a surprise to many people, who don't realize that they owe taxes on their so-called profit or gain until the IRS comes to audit them. Don't let it take you by surprise.

If you require more information about how to plan for this tax, please talk to a CPA or other tax expert. - 23223

About the Author:

Sean Payne is a personal finance expert who has learned through trial and error (and a lot of advice) how to get out of debt. You can discover the secret facts about the debt settlement tax at Sean's website, which can be found at http://www.debtpayofftips.com

Covered Call Strategy Made Easy

By Maclin Vestor

Every day people speculate wildly on stocks putting leveraged bets that a stock will be bought out, or surge in value. However, for every buyer there is a seller, for everyone who buys the leverage, there are people who sell the leverage. If you dream of a $1 stock flying to $100, this isn't for you, you should learn to be the one buying calls, not selling them. Be warned, however that if you are a buyer of call options that you will be taking on much greater risk, and you will be relying on the price of the stock moving up sometimes very significantly in order for you to make money. In addition, buying options require costs that are not redeamable, so even if the stock remains the same price you could still lose money buying options.

However, if you believe in buying for the long run, yet think things currently will stay the same, get worse, or better yet, get better, but by a limited amount, then a covered call strategy may in fact be right for you.

It is said that a call option is similar to putting a $100 nonrefundable down in hopes of reserving an item at a price lower than you believe it will be sold for. Now selling a call is instead selling that right to allow others to buy away your item that you own at a fixed price such as $1000. If for example there was a new car that wasn't even released yet, and the retail value was set at $20,000, and you believed there would be a lot of demand, you might pay 2000 to speculate at a set price of $22,000 that it would be worth more. The car would have to be worth $24,000 for you to break even, but if it was worth $26,000 you would double your money, where as someone who reserved it at $20,000 and paid the full $20,000 would tie up 10 times more money for the same gain. Now one can obviously see the excitement for owning a call option, but why would you sell an option?

Lets say you were actually the builder of that $20,000 car. You may have put $30,000 into it, you may have put $15,000 into it, it really doesn't matter, because you think that the car will be sold for around $20,000 which is what it would go for now. For some reason you think that this car actually will go up in value over time, however for the next month you do not. You would then sell the $20,000 option, and if you're right and the car stays under $22,000 then you collect that full $2000. If you're wrong and the car goes to $23,000, then you still collect $1000 as the contract is only worth $1000 but you sold it for $2,000. If the car goes to $26,000 you would owe $4000. Since you owned the car itself, you would pay the contract buyer the difference, or the car would be called in, and you would have to sell it at $22,000, and give the contract buyer the $4000 difference. If you still wanted the car, you would have to buy it back at $26,000. Even if the car went to $100,000 you would still gain $2,000 for the contract. Of course, you would miss out on a HUGE gain, but it is the price you pay for writing calls. The risk is both that you miss out on a bigger gain, and that you are still only offered limited protection from a loss.

One example is if instead the car could only be sold for $18,000. Although this normally would be a $2,000 loss, you would collect the $2,000 from the option call buyer and lose nothing. Now if the car attracted no buyers, it would be worthless, and you would only collect a lousy $2,000. Options work in a very similar way to the above example. Writing a covered call is merely selling a contract that entitles someone else to you potential gains, that you risk giving up for guaranteed income. You sell hope for a sure thing at the expense of giving up your own potential for large gains, while still maintaining the downside risk of the stock.

In a covered call trading system, the idea is to write covered calls over and over again every single month, collecting a premium. Ideally you would want to have the stock rise to the strike price and expire, and then you could perform a covered call the next month at a higher and higher strike price as your stock actually gained in value.

Now say you own 100 shares of a stock at $73 per share. Lets say you don't expect it to go up beyond 75 this month. So you sell a covered call at $75, receiving a fixed amount like $200. If the stock rises above 75, you will not be entitled to the gain, but you will receive the $200 for the stock going from $73 to $75 ($2 per share for 100 shares). The hope is that you can continuously collect these calls and that the stock never goes above whatever strike price you buy. You are essentially trading a stocks potential for steady income. Of course if your stock goes to zero, you lose everything but the $200. Its important to own stocks that will be around for a long time, and to know this, you must understand a stocks balance sheet and financial statements, and you still probably want to be willing to cut your losses short, selling both your call and your stock price. You still need to educate yourself in the risk of the less liquid option market as there is a big difference in the bid and ask price. - 23223

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about various automated trading systems and teaches you to find a stock market trading system that works for you.

Forex Signals

By Bob Epston

Forex (Foreign Exchange) gives traders a fast track to making large amounts of cash quickly. It can make a poor man a rich man! You can trade from any location via the internet and trade any time of day. As one market closes another opens around the world. This is the place of dreams and can take you from a nine to five'r to being your own boss and working whenever you'd like.

Success is possible for the average guy provided you know when to get in and out of the market. Now coming up with this profitable trading system is of course the challenge as the forex market is extremely volatile. For the experience forex veteran, trading becomes second nature.

Those with experience know when to enter a trade, which direction to go, and when to get out. However, the inexperienced trader doesn't have this luxury. Are they left to study the market for the next several years in order to figure everything out? Luckily for them, forex signals have been developed. What are forex signals and how can they help you achieve your financial goals?

Let's imagine that you are a trader (forex) and your sitting at your computer ready to go. Platform is up and money is in the account. You are watching the market and waiting for the perfect time to jump in. A new email comes through letting know to buy the USD/CHF pair. You submit the trade into your platform always taking into account how much you can afford to risk. You let the trade run live and before you know it another emails comes through saying to close out your position. You do so and notice the you had a nice win. The trade was profitable and your day was set. This is the idea of forex signals.

Forex signals allow you to leverage other people's experience and skill into a successful forex trading career of your own. You don't have to go to school for this but of course taking a class will help you grow quicker. You don't have to pay someone to manage your money or worry about who is taking care of your trades.

With forex signals, you handle all of the trades personally. Someone who knows more about forex trading than you do will send you an alert when it's time to make a trade. Obviously, you can see the beauty of this scenario. Don't spend any of your time learning the craft, but still profit handsomely from the dynamic forex market.

With all of that being said, finding a good source for your forex signals is paramount to your success. If you're taking forex signals from some guy that has no idea what the forex market is, then you're probably not going to be much better off than you were before. You need to do your homework and make sure that the forex signals are indeed profitable.

The first thing you should do is test your signals on a demo account. Hopefully a majority of them are good and profitable. Nothing is one hundred percent all the time. Then if you are feeling comfortable and confident with your source its time to sign up for the forex signals. Only thing left to do is trade and make money! - 23223

About the Author:

If you interested in learning more about forex signals or automated forex trading check out a great blog by Jim Sullivan.

Forex Trading - Your Easy Way to Make Money

By Seth Gainer

Many opt for Forex trading as it is one of the easiest ways to make money. Today?s internet trading makes trading in foreign currency all the more easier. Though it is easy to make money through Forex trading one need to know the basics of dealing with this trade so that they do not suffer loss as this is not a risk free investment. Its unpredictable nature makes it more of a gambling.

The basis of Forex trading is speculation. One needs to closely observe the currency pattern and their movement. The secret to make money here is to have your investment in the right currency at the right time. However, it is not as risky as the share market though the dynamics of both areas resemble.

One can make money through forex trading in two ways depending on the trading strategy employed. It can be either through short term trading or it can be through long term trading. It is totally up to the individual to decide on their trading scheme at any given point of time.

Those who can spend a considerable amount of time daily on trading will benefit from short term forex investments. With short term forex trading the money invested in one currency is quickly moved to the other currencies that grow stronger without waiting for the primary currency to reach the peak. The trader decides on a smaller percentage of profit before each transaction is made. Short term trading requires an expert make money without loss.

Long term is ideal for beginners who want to make money through forex trading. Here the trader stays with a particular currency that increases in strength and waits until it reaches the peak before any form of exchange is done. Unlike the short term trading, daily transactions does not happen here.

If one wants to learn the basics of forex trading there are a number of trading courses available today. These courses will give guidelines to the beginners on how to save oneself from loss. With the help of these courses one will be able to make money in this field. The training courses will also give orientation on the forex trading tools.

Before venturing into forex trading you should analyze your options so as to ensure that you will not put yourself to financial risks. This is a field that involves certain amount of risk. This should not be made your only or prime source through which you will make money. To start with, forex trading should only be considered as a source of secondary income. It requires a great discipline to stay contented with low profit margins that will allow you to trade safely without risk.

When you are starting off with your Forex trading, you must invest only in currencies those are not highly volatile. There are a number of factors those are connected with the Forex trading and the currency market. Most often than not, these reasons are less obvious to the beginners. So to make money here, one should draw up a strategy that will work for them. The strategy should be backed up by a thorough analysis of the global market. Beginners should allow themselves time for the learning curve and not discouraged if they are unable to make money at the rate they expected. - 23223

About the Author:

Before you wager your hard earned money, check out our free forex trading resources. Using a successful currency trading system is a must for all successful currency traders.

What Impacts the Price of a Stock? How Useful is Historical Data?

By Marv Doniger

There are a myriad of factors that are commonly used by investors to evaluate potential stock investments. These investment opportunities are often identified through the use of the numerous stock screeners that are readily available to investors. Common searches seek to identify companies that have a low Price Earnings, Price to Book Value, or Price to Cash Flow Ratio; high Dividend Yields; high Returns on Assets, Invested Capital, or Earnings; low Debt to Equity; and high Cash balances. In fact there are pre-defined stock screeners such as the Contrarian Strategy, Dogs of the Dow, Momentum Stocks, New 52-Week Highs, etc. that can be used to identify stocks in which to invest. The implicit assumption in using stock screeners is that there is a relationship between this data and the future performance of a stock. Should this assumption be valid then all one would have to do is run his/her magic screener and buy those stocks with his/her favorite criteria such as low Price Earnings Ratio and high Dividend Yield. In order to validate the premise that the data obtained from stock screeners influences the price of a company's stock, the change in the price of the Dow 30 Industrial stocks from 1999 to 2009 was compared to changes in the Returns they generated, their Financial Condition and Performance over that same time period. Returns included Returns on Equity, Invested Capital and Assets as well as Dividends paid to investors. Financial Condition included Current Ratio, Debt to Equity Ratio, along with Interest Coverage and Dividend Coverage. Performance included Sales, Earnings, Book Value and Cash Flow trends. A correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship of the price of each of the companies comprising the Dow Industrials and these factors. The hypothesis being that there was a statistically valid relationship between these factors.

As the following chart shows, dividends had a statistically significant impact on the change in the price of the stock of Exxon Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, Merck, and Verizon. It had a moderate impact on the price of the stock of Alcoa, Bank of America, DuPont, General Electric and JP Morgan Chase. Earnings had a strong impact on the price of Citigroup's and Exxon Mobil's stock. The stock price of Caterpillar, Chevron, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Proctor & Gamble, and United Technologies was moderately impacted by earnings. Price changes in the stock of Exxon Mobil were statistically significantly impacted by its Dividends, Cash, Earnings, Book Value and Cash Flow and moderately impacted by its Return on Invested Capital, Dividend Coverage and Sales. Another company whose price movement could be partially explained by change in these factors is Caterpillar. There were moderately statistically significant relationships between its price and its Returns on Equity, Investment and Assets; its Interest and Dividend Coverage; as well as its Earnings and Cash Flow. Perhaps one of the most astonishing results is that there were no statistically meaningful relationships between the changes in the price of the stocks of 3M, American Express, AT&T, Boeing, Intel, IBM, Kraft, Microsoft, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart and the measures of Returns, Financial Condition, and Performance used in the analysis. To put it another way, the price movement of 40 percent of the Dow Industrials bore no statistically meaningful relationship to changes in these factors.

FACTORS AFFECTING STOCK PRICE of DOW 30 INDUSTRIALS RETURNS FINANCIAL CONDITION PERFORMANCE Dow 30 Components Company Equity Invested Capital Assets Dividends Current Ratio Debt to Equity Interest Coverage Dividend Coverage Cash Sales Earnings Book Value Cash Flow 3m Co Alcoa Inc ● American Express Company, AT&T Inc. Bank of America Corporation ● Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Chevron Corp ●● ● ● ●● ● Citigroup, Inc. ●● ● E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co ● Exxon Mobil Corp ● ●● ● ●● ● ●● ●● ●● General Electric Company ● General Motors Corporation ● Hewlett-Packard Co. ●● ● Intel Corporation International Business Machines Johnson & Johnson ● ● ● JP Morgan & Chase & Co ● Kraft Foods Inc. McDonald's Corporation ● ● Merck & Co., Inc. ●● Microsoft Corporation, Pfizer Inc, The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Inc. The Procter & Gamble Company ● ● ● ●● United Technologies Corporation ● ● ● Verizon Communications ●● Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Impact ● Moderate ●● Significant Data Standard & Poor's

Based on the previous examination of the relationships between the price of the Dow Industrials stocks and certain measurements of their historical data, it should be apparent that stock screeners, in and of themselves, are not sufficient tools to use in selecting potential stock investments. Even if there were statistically significant relationships between the historical price movement and the data used in the stock screener, it does not mean that those relationships would continue in the future. Wall Street constantly warns that past performance is not indicative of future results, yet investors search the past to divine the future. It is like driving in traffic by looking through the rear view mirror and missing the collision ahead that is about to happen. As events of the past eighteen months have proven, highly improbable events can occur and inflict unforeseen casualties on investors. Since equity markets are supposedly discounting future events, investors should look through the windshield to see what is ahead of them and use the rear view mirror to see if the vehicle behind them has any relevance to their ultimate destination.

Marvin Doniger, Managing Partner of Doniger & Associates, is the author of A Common Sense Road Map to Uncommon Wealth, which is a treatise on managing careers and finances. His perspectives have been developed from his lifelong study of investing, his actual experiences as a registered representative, an individual investor, as well as from working for large companies in industry and as a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies. He is a leader in his industry. - 23223

About the Author:

Mr. Doniger received a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University. He has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in production control, inventory management, information technology and finance at Fitchburg State College and Webster University. CONTACT INFORMATION: Tel: 949-661-5456 Email: Marv@DonigerAssociates.com www.donigerassociates.com