Issue #2123
- WEALTHY: Pinpoint market changes with this ancient Japanese tool (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: Is your best buddy a hazard to your health? (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Titus Maccius Plautus on getting and giving favors
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- It’s better to give than to receive… so long as you’re not a sucker (Michael Masterson)
- The difference between 100 years and a century (Bob Bly)
- It’s Good to Know… about security in England
- Add "doyen/doyenne" to your vocabulary
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Japan Has More to Offer Than Cars and Electronics
Many people think that Japan’s two biggest contributions to the world are cars and electronics. But there’s a Japanese export that can be very useful to investors: candlestick charts. Candlestick patterns (which resemble the shape of candles) have colorful names like "Gravestone Doji," "Shooting Star," and "Abandoned Baby Top," but the logic behind them usually makes more sense than the name.
This form of technical analysis has been used in Japan for well over 100 years. It gives you a quick, easy picture of price action, which – according to the system’s guiding principles – is more important than why the price fluctuates.
One of the things to be on the lookout for when analyzing candlestick charts is certain "reversal patterns." The "doji" pattern, for example, occurs when a stock’s opening price and closing price are the same or within a few cents, yet the stock’s price was both significantly higher and significantly lower during the day.
A long white candle pattern indicates an uptrend, and a long black candle indicates a downtrend. [Ed. Note: To see an example of a “Long White Candle + Doji,” click here, or a “Long Black Candle + Doji,” click here.] The doji is a neutral pattern by itself – but if it comes at the end of a trend and is followed by a day that is counter to the trend, it is a very reliable indicator that buying pressure (in the case of an uptrend) or selling pressure (in the case of a downtrend) may be diminishing and a reversal is imminent.
Why is this?
When a stock has moved higher for an extended period and then a doji occurs, it is a sign that the bulls have lost their momentum and buyers and sellers are more balanced. A down day would provide confirmation of this. Likewise, if a stock experiences an extended decline followed by a doji and an up day, you could infer that the bears have lost momentum and the bulls are looking to take control.
Dojis are just one of the many useful patterns in candlestick charts that you can use to improve your trading results. For more information, you might consider reading Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques, a book by Steve Nison that is highly regarded in the trading world.
[Ed. Note: Rick Pendergraft is a market expert and two-time winner of the "Top Trader" award at Schaeffer's Investment Research. In ETR's free e-zine, Investor's Daily Edge, Rick and a select group of market specialists will give you to-the-point analyses and tell you how you should act TODAY to make the most money with the least risk. ]
"That man is worthless who knows how to receive a favor, but not how to return one."
Titus Maccius Plautus
The Unpleasant Truth About Asking for Favors
I recently intercepted a memo from a partner of mine. It appeared to be a nothing-much memo regarding a not-all-that-important request for a favor from a business associate – but I intervened because I thought it could ultimately be damaging.
Mutual back scratching, as I’ve often said, is a big part of good business. All the successful business relationships I know of – at least the ones that last – involve a lot of back and forth. I do such and such for John, and sometime in the future he will reciprocate. If he doesn’t, I cross him off my list. Unless I’ve done him a foolishly big favor in the first place, losing my good will costs him more than he gained from my initial service.
It’s all about give and take.
Smart businesspeople (those who think long-term) don’t demand an immediate quid pro quo. They are happy to let the credits add up by helping out where they can. But unless they are saint-like, they do keep a running tab in their heads. And when the time comes to ask for service in return, they expect it.
That’s the way it should be. And when businesspeople act that way, they prosper. Just as important, the products and services they offer tend to improve because of the exchange of information and technology. And this benefits their customers.
But not every businessperson is that smart. Many fall short when it comes to cooperation in general and favors in particular. If you randomly selected a dozen business owners and lined them up against a wall, you’d find a considerable range of enlightenment as far as cooperation is concerned.
And that’s why you have to be careful when you ask for favors. Because the person from whom you are requesting a service may not think of it the same way as you do. Such was the case with the favor my partner was about to ask in the memo I intercepted.
The favor was for the other company to do some printing and mailing for her – things she would have been happy to do for them. But what I think she failed to understand was the reaction her request was likely to cause. I happen to know the people who run that business. I’ve worked with them for years. And though they are good people, they have a tendency (in my view) to overvalue their work and undervalue that of others.
There was another factor, too, that she failed to take into consideration. My partner’s view of the favor she was asking was somewhat distorted. Because she runs a smaller business, it would have been fairly easy for her to personally manage the printing of a job for them. But since their operation is larger, a similar task would have involved several people … and required checks and double-checks… with no organized way to account for the work done.
Between my partner’s honest misunderstanding of what she was asking and the tendency of those she asked to overvalue their contribution, trouble was brewing. They would have done what she asked, but my partner would have incurred a big "You owe me." A debt she wouldn’t recognize – which would have made matters worse.
My advice to her? "Take care of the printing yourself, even if it costs a little more. If you are going to ask for a favor from these folks, make it a good one – because in their eyes, any favor will be a big favor."
It’s too bad it sometimes has to be that way, but that’s life. You can’t expect everyone to see things the way you do, especially when it comes to valuing personal efforts.
My own policy is to help others out as much as possible. Mostly what people want from me is knowledge or access. How to do something or an introduction to someone. When I’m asked, I generally give. But I pay attention to the score. If we have a one-sided relationship, I let it go. But only for so long. Then I cash in my chips – or attempt to. If there is nothing in the bank, the relationship is ended.
The way I look at it, finding out the character of a person is worth something. And I’ll pay that price in advance. But I won’t overpay. If I’m asked for too much, I’ll balk. And when I balk, it’s usually the last throw.
Greedy, self-centered people believe they can live a better life by taking advantage of others. What they fail to realize is that the people they dupe have memories. And influence. Eventually, the world of greedy people gets smaller. They have very few friends. Fewer business colleagues they can count on. Little credit. And the high-pressure climate of the bad feelings they’ve stirred up. They may have a considerable store of material things, but they haven’t the faintest idea how to enjoy them.
It is better to give than to receive, so long as you are not a sucker. Do favors. Keep count. When the time is ripe, cash in your chips. And always keep in mind that the size of the favor is a matter of perception.
[Ed. Note: Get dozens of proven business-building strategies and sales-boosting techniques from Michael Masterson and a group of the world's leading Internet marketing experts this fall at ETR's Info Marketing Bootcamp: Making a Fast Fortune on the "Other Side" of the Internet. Sign up today.]
How to Buy Silver for Under Two Dollars an Ounce!
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"I’m a speaker and the author of a book, The New Retirement: The Ultimate Guide to the Rest of Your Life. I have applied many of your suggestions (website development, marketing, copywriting, etc.) to reach out to new clients to promote my seminars about retirement. Your advice has been one of the reasons for my success, and I just wanted to say ‘thanks’ for the many excellent tips – keep ‘em coming!"
- Jan Cullinane
Palm Coast, FL
[Ed. Note: How has reading ETR helped you - maybe even changed your life? Send your comments to ReaderFeedback@gmail.com. Include your name and hometown... and we may print your e-mail in a future issue.]
Quick Marketing Tip: By the Numbers
By Bob Bly
In your sales letters or advertisements, you can use numbers to help sell your products and win over your prospective customers. Here are two ways to do it…
1. When you want to make a number sound big, express it in the largest unit of measure possible, even though the number preceding that unit of measure will then be smaller.
For example, if you want to show your customers that your company has been in business a long time, "more than a quarter of a century" is more impressive than "26 years."
2. Interpret statistics in a way that supports the claims you want to make.
For example, Harry and David say this about their Royal Riviera pears: "Not one person in a thousand has ever tasted them."
What they’ve done here is taken a negative statistic (not too many people actually buy these pears) and turned it into a positive statement that makes their pears sound exclusive.
[Ed. Note: Master copywriter and best-selling author Bob Bly is the editor of ETR's ETR's Direct Marketing Masters Edition. a program to help you start your own successful direct-mail business. Sign up for Bob's free monthly e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and get more than $100 in free bonuses.]
Friends Let Friends Get Fat
According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the people you hang out with could be making you gain weight.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School studied over 12,000 people for 32 years, and found that those with friends who had become obese had a 57 percent greater likelihood of becoming obese themselves. Likewise, if a spouse or sibling had become obese, there was, respectively, a 37 percent or 40 percent increased risk of obesity. Interestingly, people of the same sex had a bigger influence on each other than people of the opposite sex.
The researchers emphasized that it isn’t just a common set of behaviors that leads to obesity, but that attitudes toward obesity contribute to the risk. So if you hang around people who think "it’s no big deal" to be obese, your risk of allowing yourself to gain weight increases.
Fortunately, just as "social obesity" is contagious, so is "social fitness." I know that a lot of my friends are fit and healthy because they hang around me (a fitness expert). When my friends see what I have in my fridge and how I train (with strength exercises and interval training), they start doing the same. And I’ve noticed that as soon as one of them makes significant improvements in their fitness, several others start getting serious results as well.
If you suspect that you and your friends are unwittingly sabotaging each other’s efforts to lose weight, maybe you can become the catalyst for improving everyone’s health. But first, you’ll need to connect with a group of individuals who are collectively working toward fitness.
For openers, it isn’t hard to find an online source of social support. There are dozens of message boards on the Internet that have been set up for this purpose. Gyms are everywhere, full of friendly, helpful fitness enthusiasts. Plus, you can get motivation as well as in-depth information from Early to Rise and ETR’s brand-new natural health e-letter
[Ed. Note: Craig Ballantyne is an expert consultant for Men's Health magazine. If you're looking to burn fat, build muscle, and quickly step into the body you have always wanted with just three workouts each week, check out Craig's fat-loss system, Turbulence Training for Fat Loss.]
It’s Good to Know: Security in England
Every day in London, people are captured on camera hundreds of thousands of times – on buses and subways, in stores and office buildings, and simply walking down the street. In fact, one person is likely to be photographed 300 times within 24 hours.
Britain is home to 4.2 million closed-circuit cameras, which is 20 percent of the world’s total, according to a report issued last year by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Turn the Tables on Microsoft, AOL, & Time Warner!
Oh no! Yet another mandatory upgrade from Microsoft. On top of that, they say you probably need a new computer too. Then there’s your Internet provider hiking rates and fees again. Meanwhile, more time flushed down the drain surfing the web for endless hours.
There’s got to be a better way.
Shhhh… There is…
Let me take you on a trip to T.O.S.O.T.I.
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Doyen/Doyenne
"Doyen" (DOY-en) – a French word derived from the Latin for "leader of 10 people" – is (1) the senior member of a group or (2) someone who is knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as the result of experience. The word is spelled "doyenne" when it refers to a woman.
Example (as used by Howard Kurtz in Spin Cycle): "Two dozen reporters, led by Helen Thomas of United Press International, the seventy-six-year-old doyenne of the press corps, filed into the room."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
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