You
owe it to yourself to look into this opportunity.
-
Will Bonner
What's
Next for the Gold Market?
By
Andrew Gordon
On Friday,
I told you that gold is a good purchase against the declining
dollar. Gold is still in a bull market. And with each passing
day, the case for gold gets stronger:
- China
has nearly doubled its gold reserves and will likely
continue to increase those reserves.
- Hostility
between Iran and the U.S. continues to grow.
- The
U.S. dollar rally of the past year is running out of
steam.
Gold
typically reaches its lows during the summer months. Last
year, however, gold reached its bottom during May and then
proceeded to skyrocket. Right now, it looks like the gold
market is forming a bottom and will most likely reach its
nadir when no one is paying attention.
If
gold declines to, say, $530 an ounce, that would provide
an ideal opportunity for investors to get into the market.
If
you want to take a small, long-term position in the gold
market, you can do it now. But if you want to take a larger
position in gold, your best bet is to wait until late July
or early August before aggressively investing. That way,
you'll maximize your chances of getting in at a really good
price.
(Ed.
Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR 's financial expert, is the editor
of our new investment service, The
Wealth Advantage. Join now and you'll get
a free special report on three companies that have the very
real potential of giving you up to 1,000 percent on your
investment.)
"Out
of the past come the standards for judging the present."
-
George P. Baker
Setting
Standards: Speed vs. Excellence, Part 1
By
Michael Masterson
After
graduating from high school, two friends and I started a
business installing aboveground pools. After a shaky start,
the business took off. To finish the nine or 10 jobs that
we were selling per day, we each headed up a crew of workers.
This created an unavoidable and unspoken competition among
us - in two arenas:
1.
Who could build more pools?
2.
Who could build better pools?
Each
of us - Peter, Eric, and I - wanted to win both ribbons every
day. But because of our differing personalities, ambitions,
and work habits, our crews' pace and attention to detail
produced different results. By the end of that first summer,
our crews had established themselves this way:
In
the nearly 40 years that have elapsed since that summer,
I have started or helped start dozens of businesses, big
and small. At one time or another during the growth of each
of those businesses, I've had to make decisions about product
development and marketing that pitted speed against excellence.
And every time I've been in that situation, I've thought
back to that pool business and what I learned from working
with Peter and Eric.
When
you create something - a business, a book, a wedding, or
a craft project - you have to make countless decisions that
involve speed and excellence. By opting for speed, you create
action - and action gives you the momentum you need to get
your goal accomplished. By opting for excellence, you can
create something that is better than what everyone else is
creating ... and, in business, that can put you ahead of
your competition.
Longtime
readers of ETR will not be surprised to hear that, particularly
in business, I favor speed over excellence - at least, in
the beginning. Ready. Fire. Aim. That's my motto. Figure
out - quickly - if the idea is worth testing. (Ready.) Test
it. (Fire.) If it works but only marginally, kill it or fix
it. (Aim.) Then move on to the next thing.
If
you don't get things going quickly and keep them going, you
will find that progress on the business you are starting
(or the trip you are planning ... or the poem you are writing
... or the garden you are planting) will slow and eventually
stall. But if all you care about is speed, your business
will eventually face another terminal danger. If the quality
of your product and/or service starts out as "okay" and
doesn't get better, you will have a very hard time "selling" it
to the world. They will recognize (even if you don't) the
mediocrity you have created and will look elsewhere for something
similar but better.
The
pool-building business that Peter, Eric, and I created that
year was just as much about excellence as it was about speed.
We eventually developed techniques (clever ways of doing
routine things) that more than doubled the speed at which
we worked - and, thus, our daily profits. We used some of
the extra cash and time that we created to buy more equipment
and develop more techniques to make our pools better than
anyone else's.
If
we hadn't been willing to favor speed over excellence in
the beginning, we could never have kept up with our workload.
If we'd gotten too far behind on our schedule, we would have
lost our business. And if we hadn't been dedicated to improving
the quality of everything we did - from the way we answered
the phone to the way we cleaned up after every job - we wouldn't
have developed the reputation that allowed the business to
be successful for so many years.
What
I'm saying is that our business eventually operated on two
sets of standards - one based on speed and one based on excellence.
Although Peter tended to be more hands-on and spent more
time checking details, his crew still worked fast - fast
enough to keep them "in the contest." And although
I rushed my crew from one job to another, we never failed
to follow all the proper protocols to make sure every pool
was well built and free of problems.
As
I said, you should apply these same standards to just about
anything worthwhile that you create, not just a business.
In my next article, I'll explain how I apply speed and excellence
to my writing.
Today's
Action Plan
To
achieve any goal, you need to establish standards for speed
and excellence. You need enough speed to overcome inertia
and move your project to completion. And you need enough
quality to produce results that will be valued.
Are
these the standards that you measure your work against? Does
a different set of standards work better for you? Write to
Michael at FastOrGood@ETRFEEDBACK.COM with
your thoughts.
*
Highly Recommended *
How
Do Investors Like Warren Buffett Beat the "Efficient" Market?
Are
you familiar with the efficient market hypothesis? It states
that the markets are so "efficient" that every
piece of relevant information about a company is already
factored into the stock price. In other words, there are
no "bargains" in the market.
It's
fair to say that master investors Warren Buffett, John Templeton,
Marty Whitman, Bill Miller and others don't buy into this
theory. After all these guys have made careers (not to mention
billions) buying stocks that the market has overlooked.
The
reality is that the market IS very efficient. MOST companies
are accurately priced. But there are SOME companies whose
price does not reflect their true value. And sometimes these
companies are undervalued to the tune of hundreds of millions...
even billions of dollars.
There
are a variety of circumstances that could cause this to happen.
One is when a company falls out of favor...particularly when
that company faces hardship. Investors can become so pessimistic
for so long that, eventually, the price becomes dislocated
from the company's value. When you find these companies,
you stand to make a lot of money.
Well,
I have found three companies that fit this scenario to a
tee. All three have fallen from their highs and are deeply
discounted, offering investors like yourself a wide margin
of safety and the opportunity to multiply your money many
times over. I recently published a report on all three companies,
and I highly recommend you check it out. Here's
where you can learn more .
-
Andrew Gordon
Reader
Feedback: "I am in my late 50s and I face the outplacement
option."
"I
am in my late 50s and I face the outplacement option. This
happened to me once before and now I am faced with it again.
But this time, I am sure I will be faced with the 'happy
decision' of leaving my current employment for 100 percent
dedication to my own business.
"I
have been exposed to businesses previously, but not my
own. I needed direction, assistance, and hand-holding.
I received your Direct
Marketing Masters program and it gave me what
I needed, not to mention additional inspiration to move
forward.
"The
program was instrumental in getting me started and creating revenue
streams. I had previously tried to create demand -
that didn't work. The shift in mindset I got from the program
allowed me to take a different and more profitable route.
"My
side business income started at $200 per month but now
has moved to $2,500 per month.
"Thanks
for the impact that you have had on both my macro and micro
views of my business opportunities. And thank you
for the Direct
Marketing Masters program."
Steve
Fikes, North
Little Rock , AR
Energy-Dense
vs. Nutrient-Dense Foods
By
Jon Herring
Most
snack foods pack hundreds of calories into very small portions.
Potato chips, carbonated drinks, and candy bars are all examples
of "energy-dense" foods. And while they are convenient,
they provide excess calories in a small volume of food that
will not satiate hunger. That's part of the reason they can
lead to weight gain.
Instead
of snacking on energy-dense foods, add low-calorie foods
that can be eaten in high volume to fuel your fat-loss nutrition
plan. These "nutrient-dense" foods include most
soups, fiber-rich vegetables, and lean sources of protein.
Researchers
at Penn State University tested the ability of nutrient-dense
foods to help weight loss. The study followed 200 men and
women for a year. All subjects were instructed to follow
a calorie-restricted diet. One group had two servings of
nutrient-dense soup every day. Another group ate an equivalent
number of calories in energy-dense snack foods. While both
groups lost weight, the subjects who ate the soup lost twice
as much. Why? Because their appetites were satisfied and
that made them less inclined to "cheat" on the
diet.
It
should go without saying ... if you want to lose weight,
focus on nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods such as fruits,
vegetables, lean sources of protein, and calorie-free beverages
(like water and green tea). These foods will fill you up,
but they won't make you fat.
It's
Good to Know: Why Boomers Will Drive the Next Real Estate
Bull Markets
By
Kam Weiler
The
majority of second-home purchasers are baby boomers - and,
according to HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) data, the
number of second-home loans more than doubled between 2000
and 2004.
Baby
boomers will continue to drive the housing market - particularly
the second-home segment - for the next decade. The most popular
spots for them to buy their vacation, future retirement,
or investment properties have already seen astronomical gains.
So if you can pinpoint the next boomer hotspots, you stand
to make a ton of money.
To
recognize the next great real estate bull markets, keep your
eye on areas with these five key characteristics:
1.
Properties are priced reasonably relative to household incomes
and rental values.
2.
They tend to be in temperate or warm climates.
3.
They are often rated high on national quality-of-life surveys.
4.
They are often home to a major university.
5.
They're experiencing above-average population and job growth.
(Source:
National Association of Realtors)
(Ed.
Note: Kam Weiler , contributing editor for Main
Street Millionaire, ETR 's real estate investment
success program, is a real estate investor and licensed
real estate agent in Austin , Texas.
You
can discover more about the next trend in boomer real estate
investments in The
Secret Sunbelt Cities, Main Street Millionaire's
special investment report on the best value markets in the
nation ... with a comparison of over 100 major markets on
key value and growth ratios.)
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Word
to the Wise: Conterminous
Things
that are "conterminous" (kun-TUR-muh-nus)
have the same scope, range of meaning, or duration. The word
is derived from the Latin for "boundary."
Example
(as used by David Nasaw, writing in The New York Times ): "The
collapse of the swing phenomenon was conterminous with the
emergence of bebop."
