Searching back on 2009, it had been a fascinating instant when gold was reaching record levels.

Just to confirm that you shouldn't read all you see in the press, I had a flyer from Money Week today telling me to sell everything except gold. They say I should dump the FTSE because they say FTSE 100 companies are only making increased profits from cutting costs. If that were so it means turnover would be static or falling across the board but I started counting those companies with increased/decreased turnover and got up as far as 50: 10 and packed up counting. Clearly most FTSE 100 companies are increasing turnover and profits, They are mostly maintaining or improving margins which means Money Week are talking crap. They then go on about Bank of England keeping interest rates down and how the UK is deep in debt. They don't mention anything about 80% of FTSE 100 income comes from off shore. Why do they print this scare mongering rubbish.

Fear drives the markets lower, and pinpointing a bottom is one of the toughest things to do, since downward moves tend to be faster and more violent when there's a major "flight to quality" out of equities to either government bonds, commodities such as gold or even just plain cash.

Personally, I think the markets have some way to go, before we'll resume a bull phase, saying that, the markets are approaching short-term extreme oversold levels. It's only a matter of time before the fund managers and big players buy back their LONG TERM POSITIONS, when they appear oversold. So we should see a temporary bounce back, soon.

When I started day trading a few years back I paper traded for six months with the idea that it would teach me discipline. With hindsight it was a waste of time. If you've got a strategy you want to test simply trade it on IG spread betting daily spot gold at £1pp. The risk is so small that even if a trade goes badly against you the loss will probably only amount to £5-15. Gold is not worth trading less than 5 min chart. Obviously your wins will be very small but that’s not important, it’s the process of trading and understanding your strategy and its money management that will make you profitable. £1pp gold is also the best way to build trading confidence - much better than forex or FTSE

Those who want to hold trading positions for more than two or three weeks would find it slightly cheaper to use the spread bet based on the gold futures. These contracts have a fixed expiry date so the financing charge is built into the spread and erodes over the life of the instrument. At time of writing the furthest out people could bet was the April contracts. There are also equivalent CFDs but these are priced in exactly the same way so it is better to use the spread bets because of the tax-free nature of the gains.

Two men stood outside the bank waiting for the appointed hour. This was going to be easy money and each had a gun and mask in his pocket. Meanwhile, down a back street, a pickup truck slowly cruised and then stalled. A masked man slid through the specially designed hole in the floor of the truce into the manhole below. The motor started and the truck was again on it's way, unnoticed.

photo credit: Lanyap

Inside the manhole, the man quickly went to his first destination guided only by a flashlight. From his bag he pulled out a pair of wire cutters and cut the large wires extending from the wall. He then replaced the wire cutters and took out a bullet-proof vest. After putting it on and making sure his gun was loaded, he walked on for about 3 minutes. He was now standing below a back portion of the bank and above him was another manhole.

As he was now 2 minutes late he rapidly lifted off the cover and clubbed through. His two comrades already had things under control and when he entered they showed signs of relief. He ordered everybody that was in the bak to sit in the corner farthest from the door. He then pointed the gun at the manner and ordered him to fill up his black bag with money.

Not wanting anymore trouble than he already had, the manage hastened to do this. While this was happening, an unfortunate customer walked into the bank. He immediately recognized the situation and while trying to make is retreat, he was shot dead by one of the masked men.

After filling up the bag the manager threw ti to the gang leader. The leader checked it and then made his retreat, followed by the two other masked men, down the manhole. They made their way through the previously used route and up into the waiting pickup truck. This was not exactly how to make money the easy way but they had successfully pulled a robbery worth $30,000.

Technology has been growing faster and faster with each day passing by and it has become much easier to generate money online with little or no knowledge on the internet. There are a lot of sources through which people can produce money on the internet without investing a single penny. Because of this bad economy it has become a need of the hour to have alternative sources through which you can bring in a little extra money and have a constantly flowing cash flow. Gradually people are beginning to realize that it is not enough to work on a regular job to earn their living anymore you have to have more than one job or a secondary source of income. Thus people should go out and explore new methods to generate an extra source of income for their ideal living.

You can find a lot of ideas to work on when it comes to alternative jobs online. You should analyze your talents and use them to make money through the internet.  There are few ideas which are proven sure shots to create money. You can conduct some online surveys for various companies regarding their products. These surveys are conducted to analyze the interests and disinterests of the consumers. You can even earn by becoming a seller on eBay and apart from this you can also start your own blog. This would require a minimum investment but as the readership grows you can really earn a huge amount of money. You can work with Google Adsense as well. Create your own blog or website and later submit a site to Google .

There is even space in affiliate marketing to make some money. You can grow through this business and earn a considerably good amount of extra cash without putting up much effort. Along with these ideas MLM or network marketing is also a proven hit which can help you to generate money as it has helped nearly 10% of the US millionaires make a little extra income on the side. You can also look at options such as selling E-Books and other products online.

photo credit: Tracy O

There's lots of places that tell you how to make money. Making money and building wealth are two different things. Wealth is measured by how long you can survive if you quit your job today and still live your current lifestyle with your current spending habits. For many that is not very long! Did you know there's a proper way to build wealth? Here are the three steps:

First, you need to teach yourself. That's right, no one is going to do it for you. It's not curriculum taught is school. Educate yourself on business, finances, and investing. If you understand the terms and concepts then you are half way to your goal.

Second, reduce your debt, if you have any, eliminate as much as possible. Get rid of the easier ones, such as credit cards and personal loans first. Then when you start earning more income, start eliminating you big debt (house, cars, etc.). The quicker you are out of debt the better off you'll be.

Third, start earning passive income, by using known methods such as owning a business you don't have to work for, rental real estate properties, licensing patents to companies to collect royalties, publishing books, internet advertising, or come up with a product or service that people need to continually pay for.

Follow these three steps and you will have wealth before your planned retirement.

If you happen to have a website or manage a blog just for fun, why not make money on the internet and make the most out of your website?

There are so many ways to make money on the internet. It is a powerful tool to help you earn extra even while you sleep. Generally, you can either engage in a direct method or indirect method of accumulating cash online. Here are the most popular ways:

Direct Methods

Affiliate Marketing- Companies would like to maximize their advertising campaign for their products and services so they are willing to pay extra for an affiliate. Hoodia, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction are just few of the affiliate networks you can join online. You will earn a commission either by directly selling their products or sending your site visitors to the merchant’s site.

Sponsored Reviews- If you are good at writing about anything under the sun, you can each extra by writing reviews of a certain product. You can then place a link of the merchant’s site on your site and you get paid every time you send a potential customer to their site. There programs that pay you for just sending a visitor to their sites and they pay you higher commission when the visitor makes a purchase.

PPC or CPM Advertising Networks- Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising works in a such a way that the merchant will place ads on your site based on the content of your site. You get paid every time your site visitor clicks on their ads. Cost per Mile (CPM) on the other hand pays you if you according page impression generated by your site with the merchant’s banner.

Other direct methods of earning cash with your website are direct banner advertising, RSS Feed Ads, Premium Content, Market Places, Private Forums, Paid Surveys and Job Boards.

Indirect Methods

Selling an Ebook or Hardcover Book- You can use your site to promote ebooks through the famous sites like SEOBook.com or FreelanceSwitch. If you want to sell copies of your own hardcover book, use your website to write a review or snippets of the book. If you are able to develop WordPress themes and templates, you can sell them through your site.

For other information on how to make money on the internet, take time to read about creating an email list or newsletter and online mentoring programs. You can also create a conference around your website. Search Marketing Expo and Search Engine Land are just two of the successful sites who ventured in this method.

photo credit: Photos8.com

If you are low on cash then you probably need to come up with some money making ideas so that you can try to make a profit quickly. You should be careful if you are out there trying to make money online because lots of people are just trying to get your money. Really, making money online takes a lot of work. It is not a quick fix either so don't think that you can throw up a few websites and you will be raking in the dough tomorrow. If you need quick money then you should resort to selling things that you don't need anymore or going and doing some extra work for someone. Making money online can take months before it starts to pay off.

Making money with Google Adwords is not all about spending too much or too little on keywords to promote your products and services. It is all about learning how to set a reasonable daily budget.

Webmasters suggest that it is but reasonable to set your daily budget at $20-$30 range. This is the ideal range of cost that will make a profitable Adwords campaign. It is however important that you keep track of your keywords’ performance for few weeks.

Bear in mind that your goal is to create high page impressions on your site. Keeping your budget within the reasonable range is a proven way to get high click-through rates (CTR) on your webpage. Be innovative by using tweaking your ads. It pays to use common words to attract more unique visitors.

Have you considered starting a small business out of your home?  Are you looking for a way to make extra income at home that doesn't require tons of time and effort? There are some good resources available through the small business association that will help you lay out a quality business plan to help you get started.  Lack of proper planning is usually the downfall of every little company that fails in its first few years.  Once you have a firm organized approach you must then take that and apply it to your business.  Many of these types of businesses can be run right from your home, in a small office, the garage or a spare room.  Keeping your business area separate from the rest of the house will help you to maintain a professional approach to the business.  You will also want to keep your  bank account and book keeping separate from your personal finances to make year end tax filing much easier.  Dont just jump into a venture without fully thinking it out utilize your local SBA to get the necessary information to get started properly and hopefully you will have a well established home business.

If you are trying to understand how to earn money on the internet, you must incorporate Affiliate Marketing into your knowledge base. It's one of the most common ways to make money online.

Lets say you have a blog that is all about learning to bake cookies. When people come to your blog they'll expect a bunch of cookie recipes. You will tell them what the best ingredients are for tasty cookies. You can probably make money on your site by selling an ebook full of your best cookie recipes.

Another way to increase your income is to sell cookie sheets, baking tins, and other items for baking. So you go looking for a company that sells these hard goods that also has an affiliate program you can join! And now that you are an affiliate, every time one of your visitors comes to your blog, they have an opportunity to click through and buy a cookie sheet. Wow! You've just made some more money.

You can see how powerful this can be for any niche market you decide to go into. Selling products from other companies is a great way to help you build a healthy income online and should be part of your strategy.

Sometimes when you find a product you want to sell, you can build a website or blog around that product. If you do a good job with your research, you will find success with Affiliate Marketing.