Let's go to Sunny Mozambique...

Bob Dylan put the spot light on Mozambique in his 1975 song, and it truly is a wonderful place to visit. I' ve just come back from 2 days looking at property along the southern part of Mozambique, along the turquoise waves and white sands. On the dunes of Techobanini I met a fellow life adventurer, Manuel. We got to know each other over a breakfast of scrambled eggs, Mozambique prawns and chilli. Here is a man who has done more in his life time than many men could do in ten, a man whose outlook is optimistic and whose pace through life is patient and unhurried. We drove down the beach and collected shells in the rock pools, and spoke about important life issues like ghost crabs and dolphins.

I leave you with a thought from Manuel.."when you need to make a decision, take your time, mull it over, think about it alot and when you are happy make the right decision"

See you again soon Manuel, and thanks again.

How to sell a CFD

The market had an up swing for about 2 hours and on checking my CFD trades I found that I had made a good profit on Sun International and it was time to "BANK IT!!". I called a Deal Stream and spoke to a broker to, putting a sell order in at the spot price to take my profit. Then I turned the screen off and went about my work.

Two hours later I still hadn't sold the share and I was down by R200, a R500 swing. What had happened? I hadn't checked the number of sellers at 2c below my sell price (16,000 in this case!) So as the last in the queue to sell I still hold the shares. Hint: always check how many sellers are in the market and then put your sell in at a lower price than theirs and you will sell out before them.

Where Angel fear to tread... Internet Quicksand

After many years of an interest in the internet, and looking at ways of developing a business online, every thing I thought about fizzled out. The main reason is that is never fitted in with my business, and I didn't have the time or energy to put into a new venture. So it's been a hobby, a reading hobby, something I probably could have discussed as a good read at Sue's book club, but nothing more.

I trolled around in the morass of cyberspace, getting sucked into the information quicksand, until frustrated I'd shut down and go and do something less frustrating. It funny though how often your solution is actually right in front of your eyes. Mine was! Roger Horrocks suggested I start blogging, and bingo! I was on the net.

It's so easy to write about yourself, and combine it with a business, your experiences, advice or anything else someone out there would find useful. Be honest, and start writing..you have got a voice!

CFD Investment trading...hanging in there

The JSE opened today and all my shares were still below the price I had bought them for. Even though they seem to have recovered slightly I am still behind the pack, trying to play catch up. The advice from Specutip this morning was "MARKET MAY GO BETTER TODAY. SUGGEST START THINNING OUT LONG POSITIONS WHEN IN PROFIT" Great advice, but I am still hanging in, not in profit yet. I had a chat to Grant, and I decided that I need to analyse the prices I bought the CFD's at. As I know I only put a 2% markup on my cost, I may have bought the share slightly to high. But I have only taken small positions, so I can afford to wait. I am going to wait for an upturn and then sell out when I have a small profit, and start afresh tomorrow.

Goals revisited

It's Sunday night and I am looking at the goals I wrote down for the week, evaluating my position and progress.

Goals are a fluid entity, as pliable and changing as water as you move towards the ultimate gaols you set 5 years down the track. The ultimate goals are your destination, a big dam you want to fill, so to speak, and your daily weekly and monthly goals the river on the way to the dam.

If we follow that line of reasoning we can assume the following: as water runs down a hill and you build the first pipeline, you will encounter certain obstacle and challenges, making you divert the course you laid out originally , around a rocky outcrop, under a small hill etc. When you get around the obstacle and the pipeline is built (weekly or monthly goal complete) you might find you aren't 100% aligned with the dam anymore (your ultimate goal). So you have to reset the next direction, making minor adjustments to your plan, so that your will ultimately reach the dam and fill it up.

The only way to check that you are heading towards the dam is to do exactly that, CHECK! Every week you should sit down ( I do it on a Sunday evening ) and read through the goals you set for that week, evaluating each and every component, ticking off the goals you achieved and redirecting the goals you didn't. You may have achieved a lot more than you expected to, and need to possible speed up the goal time line.

Over the first 3 weeks of trading CFD's I far exceed the point I had anticipated, in my acquiring of knowledge and the number of shares that I traded. On the other hand the market took a small downturn, and my profits are now small losses, but still in positions that I can profit from when the up turn comes, which it will. Am I panicking, you ask? No, not at all, I am just going to adjust my weekly goals and set off again. It will be a great week, full of achievement as I tick the goals off, still heading on to my ultimate goal of "BUYING TIME", 5 years down the track.

What gives me confidence is my ultimate goal, it makes me not panic because I know there are a million steps before I get there. So when I wonder if I am going in the right direction, I relook at my ultimate goal, and rewrite my daily weekly and monthly goals. Then it's easy because I know exactly what to do tomorrow, and the next day.. it is so simple.

"BUYING TIME"...I love it.

Windguru - goal setting tool

Sometimes if you really want to "BANK IT!!" you need a snapshot of the future that will allow you to plan your meetings and work around the awesome things you are going to do this week. I use windguru and buoy weather to help me see whether I need to pack my kites into the car for some kite surfing, or if I'll be spear fishing this week.

This weeks windguru snapshot says that the wind will be very light (no kite surfing) but the swell is small tomorrow, increasing Tuesday and Wednesday, and dropping again on Thursday. With my weekend knowledge, I can now plan to dive on Monday and Thursday this week ( at least), and maybe a stray but of wind will bless us with a visit...

Huge success...or die trying

I read an interesting article in Entrepreneur.com about entrepreneurs not being able to plan for retirement as they are always pushing on for the big one. It made me think that my strategy of focussing on "BUYING TIME", and only spending time on business that can grow exponentially and that will pay a residual income, but not for getting to enjoy the journey, making time in your busy schedule to live and "BANK IT!!", was a great strategy.

Mind Mapping for goals

I thought I'd let you know about a very cool app to help with your goals. I got a tip on it years ago and it's been great in conceptualising and quickly formulating goals and other project tasks. It called " Mind mapping" and is supplied by Mindjet.

Remember how you used to draw out your ideas on paper... this is what mind mapping is. You brainstorm and write your ideas down, drag and drop them into a structure, link items, add dates and other deadline info, and export to word. It's that simple.

If you're a flat head like me and prefer pictures to figures you'll love Mind mapping.

Getting Stuck into CFD Investment

I was at Trevor and Bella's house last night, and they love their pets. They have lots of pets... cats, dogs, birds and even a lion not long ago. There was great inter action between the birds and the beasts, and I was reminded of a quote of Sir Winston Churchill, "Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal."

Pigs really get stuck into life, and there's a good lesson in that. If you treat the CFD trading concept with gusto and get stuck in, learning everything you can, asking lots of questions, getting a great team around you and not being scared of getting a bit dirty you've got a great chance of learning how to trade CFD's...and make money doing it!

Take profit..."BANK IT!!"

After sorting out all my positions and converting all the conditional take profit orders to sell orders, I close the system and got on with my day. The next time I looked at the market was at 4.35pm. 5 of my positions had closed, I had made a good profit on all of them. I stuck to the golden rules, the only change being a smaller take profit (2% as opposed to 3%) and I have a great return of my money invested for the day.

I will miss the market open as I'll be on a plane to Johannesburg, but later I am going to try and place a CFD share trade over the telephone, both a buy and a sell.

Getting Pinged

Trying to work out the mark up on the close price, adding 1%, checking the spot price, placing a CFD buy trade and getting my boarding pass to the stewardess all at once was quite interesting. I got 2 tips from Specutip at 8.30am, did my sums on the back of my boarding pass, placed 2 buy trades and got on the plane for Jhb.

When I arrived in Jhb I called Deal Stream and asked if my orders had been filled. The trader. who said I should get an automated sms when a trade was accepted, checked and confirmed I was not on the sms list (persona non grata)... he registered me and said I'd be sms when activity took place on my trades.

I checked spot prices with him and placed sell prices for the 2 share into the market.

What a great sound as the sms "pinged" in my pocket, telling me I had sold out of a position at a profit. I got "pinged" 6 times today...a good day in the market. I didn't sell out of any positions at a loss, as I didn't have any stop losses on my trades. All "pings" are good news! - well today anyway.

Moneyweb article on CFD Investment

I read a great article on Moneyweb about CFD's, which really made me think a bit bigger. There are some guys buying with a margin account of R10M...with a quick calc, if you make 20% a month using half of your capital that equals R1M a month, almost unbelievable! But if I look at a novice like myself that is able to make 10-13% over tha past 15 days it is possible.

Smaller Profits - quicker turn around

I spent half an hour changing all of my 3 % take profits to 2% take profits. Why you ask? Why take a smaller profit? Look at it like this...costs are 0.7%, so on a 2% share price move, with 10% gearing, I will still make a 13% profit.(as opposed to a 23% profit). But I get in and out quicker, and can re-use the capital on other CFD buys. This is good for me right now, as I still take a bit of time to work out the sell price before placing it into the market.

Grant at Specutip has been great in his patience and support, always ready with advice and guidance, great for a newbie like me. Thanks Grant!

THE POWER OF GOALS

I really believe in the power of goals. After travelling overseas until we were nearly 28, then getting involved in a business that was'nt a good fit for me for the next 3 years, Sue and I finally started our own business (I was turning 32 that year) and we wrote down all the things we wanted to achieve, the most important one being that we wanted to be free, we wanted to have residual income, and be able to travel again...forever. That's when I came up with the concept of "BUYING TIME" Looking back now I wished we had written down bigger goals, as we have achieved everything we wrote down. The point is, if you don't have goals, do something about it now.

The #1 reason people fail when they try to start a business is because they have no clear direction. They chase one idea after another with no clear path to success, and they never see anything through to completion.

COLD RAIN

A massive cold front came through last night at 10pm, and when I went to have my daily swim it was cold and rainy. 60 push ups and a dip in the cold sea and I felt invigorated. As I stood under the icy beach shower looking at the big shore break, a group doing a photo shoot for a fashion mag wandered up. "have you got serious issues you want to talk to some one about" the photographer asked..."are you mad swimming in this weather?" I smiled to myself, looking back down the passage of time, as I have swum every day for years..a good way to start the day."BANK IT!"

Establish small,good habits early and stick to them, rain or shine, day in day out. They make you feel good about yourself, and help with other goals. Remember it's not one epic jump to success, but a series of small steps.

A dozen hot stock tips

My 8.30am sms from Specutip came with 12 stock tips, alot to process and sort out before the market opened at 9am. I downloaded the Instaquote updates, double checked the tips against the trading golden rules, and placed the trades I had chosen...9 out of the 12. The ones I left out were metal shares, very high priced and would suck to much of my capital. I needn't have rushed though, the JSE only opened at 10am (technical difficulties). Something I learnt today, with help from the Deal Stream guys, instead of placing a conditional order on a sell for take profit, rather put a sell directly into the market yourself. The result is the same, the advantage that a direct sell sits in the market waiting to execute, while a conditional order pops up at a traders desk, and then has to be manually executed by the trader. You may miss the trade like this.

FLAT AND FAST

I got my work done today by 1.00pm and the north east had been getting stronger all morning. There was no wind predicted today for kite surfing, so a perfect opportunity to "BANK IT!" was presenting itself. After texting the regular group of guys we do downwinds with, Alex and Craig were keen to join me and by 2.00pm we were on the water at Umhlanga, heading downwind to Durban 15 km away.We took off from Umhlanga with big kites and a 15knot wind, and within 5 minutes Craigs kite was in the water.. a line had snapped and had to be repaired on the beach. All part of the fun and after 20 minutes we were headed south again. The wind increased steadily, and as we approached Durban was blowing 25knots, strong for a big kite. With no waves to speak of and a pumping steady wind it was flat and fast...awesome!

Goals. goals, goals...your roadmap to success!

I hate to break the bad new to you, but if you don't MAKE THE TIME to figure out how you are going to BUY TIME, you will never achieve it, it'll just be a great yarn to tell your friends, of the life you could have had. So how do you make time in your already hectic schedule? And how do you then fit more into it, to achieve "BUYING TIME"

Hint: set some goals! The no 1 reason that people fail when they start a business is that they don't know where they are going, they run around like a baboon in a mielie field, grabbing some mielies and dropping others...no clear direction

1.Set the biggest 3-5 year goals you can imagine

2.Set annual goals

3.Set quarterly goals

4.Set monthly goals

5.Set weekly goals

6. Set daily goals

Daily, achievable goals will get you to weekly goals etc. Don't sleep until they are done. Look back 30 days from now and tell me if you see progress. IT'S GUARANTEED!!

I am feeling better now

I have just done the CFD course, and come out feeling really positive about the whole idea of trading CFD's, and making some decent cash out of it. Knowledge is power!

I was placing a buy on the ASK price, a sure way to get a buy every time, but at top dollar. So I now know that I should go slightly above the BID price, and once I get the order fulfilled, put my sell in 3% above the price I paid for the share. I also see that if I don't put a stop loss in ( I am not recommending this - make up your own mind), and my position is small enough so that if I end up selling out on a margin call, I will be able to take the punch, and live to tell the tale. Therefore, if I have no stop loss, and I still hold the share, even if it's down, I haven't lost until I sell. Capice?! Kind of loony reasoning but I think good.

So I have cancelled all my stop losses and taken smaller positions, over more shares with a wider spread. I also dropped some of my take profits to 2%, so I was first in line for a sell, and even though the profit was smaller, no one went broke making a profit. "BANK IT!"

Bank It!!

"BANK IT!" In business that would mean, " you've made a profit, bank it now". It's a phrase I coined from my life long friend, photo journalist Roger Horrocks and it has a different meaning to us.

You life is a set of experiences and memories, that either happen as you aimlessly wander through life, or that you make happen. If you are anything like me you have busy days filled with stuff that sucks your time, demands your time. You have to engineer the experiences you want in life, do them and "BANK IT!". Then it's done, no one can take them away from you.

Here is my way of doing it..

Tomorrow is hectic, meetings at work, a project to complete. I go to bed at 8.30pm (don't let TV suck your time every night), waking early at 5.00am. I head down to the beach, and go spearfishing in the warm, blue waters of Natal's North Coast. I shoot a 10kg Couta and catch a bag of crayfish, back on the beach at 8.30am "BANK IT!" By 9.00 I am at my desk answering emails and heading to a meeting. It doesn't matter what the day brings now...I have had a great experience and I did "BANK IT!"

or

I get up at 5.00am and spend an hour working on my emails or project. At 6.00am it's time for the kids to get up for school. Sue makes the sandwiches and packs bags while I get them dressed and cleaned up. While they are having breakfast I go down to the beach and have a swim"BANK IT!", back in time to take them to school. Sue and I have planned to go down to the beach at 3.30pm, and play in the sand with the kids.I finished work early because I started early "BANK IT!"

Instaquote

I have decided to use Instaquote software for downloading share info and updating daily trends. The software costs me R12,000.00 and there is a monthly charge of R155.00 for one download a day. I have registered with Deal Stream as my trader as they have a great product for placing shares directly into the market. My staring capital is R10,000.00 and I will be trading CFD'S, following the rules as laid out by Instaquote Natal.

I will follow these rules unemotionally to the T, and see how well they work. I have also registered for Specutip (a R200.00 per month) service that sends me a daily sms on shares that are trading within a set of parameters that form the rules.

So total cost for setting up a share trading business are R12,000.00 plus my capital of R10,000.00, and monthly costs are R355.00. I therefore need to make R355.00 per month to break even.

I will spend 30 minute a day on this business, reading up on CFD's, downloading Instaquote and deciding on my buys and sells.

BEATEN BACK...BUT STILL STANDING

I traded 50% of my capital this week, spending about R5,000.00 on deposits, all around the R1,000.00 mark. As CFD's are geared products, this gave me about R40,000.00 of exposure. I placed take profit and stop losses on all my trades, and was well pleased when I had made a R1,300.00 profit by market close on Monday. My joy was short lived as the market pulled back, and a stop loss sold me out of a position at a R800.00 loss. All my shares we platinum shares, and as the rand strenthened against the dollar, I took a beating. Fortunately none of the other shares reached the stop loss position, so I was left still holding the shares at the end of the week. I have realised, I am clueless about CFD trading and made a note to go on the next CFD course in Pinetown. And read up on CFD'S daily, in fact I am making it a part of my daily goals for the next month. I am also going to call the brokers every at 8.30am, before the market opens to check if I am thinking the correct way with my trades for the day.

Buying Time

Get a good education, get a good job, save and retire to the good life at age 65. Have you heard that before? I bet you have, and the other 300 variations on the theme. Well sorry to tell you, it's not going to happen. You've also heard about investing right, buying property, shares etc etc. It's all good and what most people aspire to achieve in their lives, but I want to throw some gunpowder in the fire.

I have always used age 65 as a datum because everybody else does, and my goal in life was to buy back as many years as I could from 65. "BUYING TIME" So this is the theory...everything you do either adds to the years you have to work or subtracts from the years. If you are fortunate to have bought back 10 years of your working life, you will be able to retire at 55. Pretty decent if you think you will live to seventy (at least), but possibly even longer as life longevity increases.

The only way to achieve this is through income producing assets and investments that don't require you to be there. My whole focus over the past 8 years has been on "BUYING TIME" How can I improve what I do so that I don't have to be there, do I have a good team around me, to help and guide me, and how many assets and investments am I buying a year that pay me if I am there or not.

People ask me how I did it and how they can start "BUYING TIME", so what I am going to do is make the following assumptions:

-that I am currently a salaried employee, right on track to get the gold watch at age 65.

-that I earn R25,000 a month. (don't worry if this sounds alot to you. 8 years ago I didn't own a bicycle...)

I am going to start 2 businesses

-a share trading business

and

-an internet business

all at the same time and all while I am doing my job. My goal is to buying back 10 years in the next 5 years, ie I will in the next 5 years, make and invest in assets which will give me a passive income of R50,000 a month (double my current salary) on going

CFD share trading Investment - the Golden Rules

You've heard that the golden rule is "whoever has the gold, makes the rules!" Well here are some insider tips, golden rules for trading CFD's, that I learned from Grant Jones at Iquote Trading

1.Never trade more than you can afford to lose

2.Always only trade 50% of your capital

3.Trade only in the top 70 companies

4.Only trade in a company with a upward trend for a minimum of three months

5.If the fast stochastic has broken up through the 80% line, it's time to sell

6.Buy on the slow stochastic as it breaks up through the 20% line

7.Work on a 3% move

The golden rules in a nutshell. Get hold of Grant for where you can do a course in Durban.