Financial market
October 5, 2018

How Amazon and eBay could post major profits for the online cannabis market

Amazon and eBay are two; of the largest retailers in eCommerce, and they are positioned to profit from the expanding CBD market, which is also showing marked sales growth.

In a new study, the products that contain CBD, which has no THC that won’t end up getting you high, actually has become really diverse through different channels.  This has started to grow in profits, with the retail sales for this estimated to go all the way to $16 by 2025, and this is based on more conservative assumptions, and spending of less than $2 per customer.

CBD supplements are growing. About 7% of 2500 US adults who were surveyed used this, and the retail sales are only going to increase. Ecommerce is becoming the key distribution channel for these kinds of products. That’s because, they do fall into the categories of personal care and beauty products, along with vitamins and food supplements, all of which seem to have to accelerate online sales and are predicted to only grow.  What’s spurning this is the rising jurisdictions that are being repealed, and where there aren’t prohibitions of marijuana.  That, in turn, has caused the growth of CBD compounds as well. It is a powerful compound too, with many health benefits.

This compound is used for many people for different things, from autism, PTSD, anxiety, autoimmune disorders, and even insomnia and stress. This is a game changer for medical marijuana, since this is safe for anyone to use, and it doesn’t have the psychoactivity that marijuana does, so there is no argument for it to be illegal.

So what does this mean for investors? Well, it is pretty significant. It doesn’t contain THC, which is that compound that causes psychoactive effects in the mind and body, and the “high” sensation that marijuana gives you.  CBD, however, has many of the same components that marijuana does, which means that it’s effective for treating pain, appetite loss, nausea, and other problems in the body as well. This is a subject that’s been ever increased in terms of studies, and there are many that are looking into just what CBD can do for a person.

CBD is becoming a major part of ecommerce, and the category called consumables has major growth.  This is still a highly underpenetrated part of the ecommerce vertical, which means that while it still hasn’t been fully tapped into, this will end up growing over time.  In 2018, the sales during this were $51 billion which means that it was 11% of the total category.  By 2023, it’s expected to have figures that could easily exceed double that or so much more, which means that up to 20% of the market will be this, respectively.

For Amazon investors, this means that it could be a field day for profits. What that means in a lot of cases too is that there could be even more sales for those who invest in it, since a lot of people do buy vitamins and personal care supplements.

Amazon is also working with Whole Foods, and that’s another potential place to sell CBD products, and the company’s only planning on expanding this too. Whole Foods has two hour delivery in a lot of cities, and also curbside pickup. While CBD may appeal in those physical channels, this does mean that there are some potential markets to work into.

With that being said, it’s imperative to consider looking into CBD as a potential growing market. There is a lot here that it has to offer, and many who are looking into getting into CBD investment may see a marked growth in terms of this over time due to the new outreach that comes from that.

Forex
September 28, 2018

How to Avoid Losing Money in Forex

Forex is one of the biggest market in the world and is ready to deliver profits to many people on all different levels. From the green people learning about the markets to well-seasoned professionals who are veterans in the game, it’s possible. The market is easy to access, and there is a lot of leverage and low cots for the traders. But, how can you avoid losing money?  Well, you’ll learn here, and they’re all lessons you should learn in order to stay in the game.

First, do your homework.  Just because this is easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be diligent.  You should learn everything about the markets, including the current political and economic factors that’ll affect the currencies too. Homework is something that you’ll need to do a lot to change to fit the market conditions, the regulations, and of course the world events. Part of this does involve developing something called a trading plan, which is a method for evaluating and screening the investments in order to determine the risk that should be taken, and whether or not you should formulate the investment objectives from this.

Next, find a good broker.  You want someone who is reputable, and you should make sure that you don’t miss any oversights. Due to concerns about the safety of your transactions and the broker integrity, you should get one that is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and one who is a member of the National Futures Association before anything else. Every country outside of the US has its own regulations and a body and some legitimate brokers that should be registered. Traders should also research the broker account offerings that are there before they do decide to work with them.  If you can work with a customer service rep on this, then that’s even better.

Use a practice account to try this out. You should learn how to practice this and do some hypothetical trades on this. that way, if you do end up getting into the losing position or pushing the wrong button when exiting, you’ll learn how to do it right the next time so that you don’t end up suffering from major financial implications, since that is something that a lot of forex traders deal with at first and that prevents them from being successful. Remember, experiment with other types of trading and entries before putting actual money on the line too.

You should also keep the charts clear. While many are suited for forex markets, it’s important to analyze the techniques and keep them to a minimum in order to fit to be effective. Using multiples of different indicators, such as the volatility indicators or the oscillators can give opposing signals, so you should make sure that you don’t do that.  You can look at these and check to see whether o not you need to enhance trading performances. More than likely, starting out you don’t need to.  The colors, fonts, the types and price bars, and even the range are all parts of this, and it helps you respond effectively to the changing market.

Doing all of this will help you with improving your own life, and it will help you be the best forex trader that’s out there.  That way, you’ll be able to, with this, create the best and most worthwhile situations that come from this, and build a reputable forex trading account with minimal losses.

Forex
July 30, 2017

Forex Trading for Beginners

Forex is a type of currency and exchange for trading, and it is the process of changing a singular currency into another for different reasons. According to different reports, the average is morethan $5.1 trillion in daily trading value.

All trading is done on the forex market, where it’s traded. The currencies are important to most in the world whether they realize this or not, simply because they need to be exchanged out in order to conduct business or trade.  You have to do this in order to pretty much get anything in a specific country.  The currency has to be based on the local currency that’s there.

One aspect of this is that there isn’t a central marketplace for this, but the currency is conducted through over the counter trades, which means that all of these happen through centralized networks with traders, rather than one specific exchange. The market is open 24 hours a day for five and a half days of the week, andthis is done in all of the major financial centers in the world.

The trading day doesn’t really end in a lot of cases, and it’s incredibly active, so the price will change at any time.

Now, unlike the stock markets, this one is actually a very new market. The most basic part of this is usually converting a singular currency into another for a financial reason, and this pretty much began when the nations began to mint currencies. But the modern forex market came about in 1971, when the Bretton Woods accord happened and major currencies were allowed to trade against one another, and the values would vary, which gave rise to the need for these types of trading. A lot of investment banks will conduct most of the trading within the forex market on behalf of the clients, but there are also speculative chances for trading one currency against another for individual and professional investors.

There are different institutions, corporations, and individuals within the forex. There is the spot market, the forwards market, and of course the futures market.  Forex trading within the spot market is the largest since this one has the underlying real assets that the forwards and the futures are based on. These futures were the most popular in the past since they were available for a longer period of time. However, due to electronic trading and forex brokers, the spot market is the most popular and is that the forex market is referred to.

On the spot market, the currencies are bought and later on sold, and the price, supply and demand, and even interest rates and economic performance and the sentiment to various political situations can be seen here on this market.

This one also shows the future performance of a currency against one another. When a deal is later finalized, it’s called a spot deal. This is a bilateral transaction by which one specific party delivers the agreed currency amount to the counter party and from there gets a specified amount of the other currency at the exchanged rate value. Once the position is then closed, the settlement is in cash, and the spot market usually deals with present transactions, but these can take a few days to settle.

The futures market deals with the contracts rather than actual currencies.  On the forwards market, the contracts are also bought and sold between parities, which of course determines the agreement as well.

Financial market
June 26, 2016

What is the Employee retention Credit?

The CARES act used to help businesses during the coronavirus has an employee retention credit, which is a refundable tax credit for those “qualified wages” that were paid to workers that are kept between March 13 and December 31.  The purpose of this is to encourage these employers to keep the people on payroll, even if not working because of the effects of the coronavirus.  Here is what you have to know about it.

This offers a 5K refundable credit for every employee that you keep on payroll between now and December 31, 2020.  You can qualify if you were ordered to fully or even partially shut down, and the gross receipts fell below 50% in that same quarter during 2019.  If you claim your credit, you reduce the payroll taxes that are sent to the IRS.  If you exceed this, you can get a direct refund from the IRS itself.  You should compare this however with the PPP since you can’t do both of these.  But, since the PPP applications are suspended due to the lack of funding, this is definitely something to consider.

How does this work? Well, for example if you’ve got a restaurant that was ordered to close to sit down customers but allowed for other operations, this does give qualify you for the credit since it was a partial shutdown. You are qualified for any quarter during this is applied, up to each of the quarters in 2020.  This decline in gross receipts is a test that applies to the business and whether they were affected. A qualified period does begin in the quarters where the receipts are less than 50% of the receipts that are in the same quarter, and it ends the first calendar quarter after which the gross receipts were higher than for that quarter in the previous year.

Basically, what this means is that you qualify if the business does do less than the previous quarter of 2019.

Self employed people, those who work for the government, or any small business that did get a PPP loan aren’t eligible for this. the wages that you received for the tax credit for paid sick and family leave that was under the Family First Coronavirus Response act also don’t qualify. Any wages that you count for this can’t be counted as part of the credit for medical leave or paid family. Any employee who was granted a work opportunity tax credit also isn’t qualified.

This also doesn’t apply to any part-time employees, just the full time ones.

In order to get this, you need to advance payment the balance from the IRS, depending on the total amount of the credit. You should look at the credit for the quarter and from there reduce the form 941 by that amount.  For example, if the credit was 10K in Q1 2020, then the amount that you should do is 15K. however, you reduce that by 10K to 5K and from there, you account that to the credit.

From there, if the Q1 exceeds the amount withheld, then you can receive the advance payment, and you can do so in the form called form 7200. 

You can’t take advantage of the PPP and this one, however. But, since the PPP is tapped out, this might be a good option, and this could help you figure out the choices to make in all of this.

Stocks
May 20, 2015

Big Cap and Small Cap Stocks

Small cap and big cap stocks are misunderstood by many in some cases. But they’re usually understood on a superficial level.

Big cap or large-cap stocks are shares or larger companies.  The small-cap ones are shares of smaller companies. The labels like these can be misleading because many run under the assumption that they can only make money by investing in the large-cap stocks.  But that’s actually not all that true since small-cap stocks have gotten big, and because of this, you’ll be able to make some good investment options because of this.

Small cap stocks are considered good because they have low levels of valuations, and there is potential for them to grow into big cap stocks.

However, the definition of small-cap has been changed over time.  What was considered a big cap in 1980 is now a small-cap stock, and it’s important to understand that? Small-cap stocks shouldn’t be overlooked, and the big cap doesn’t always mean larger returns on the investment. However, small-cap stocks have a cap on the market of anything from $300 million to $2 billion, and they may outperform the larger cap peers as well.

These stocks are oftentimes scaled, and they’re usually don’t by multiplying the price of a stock by the number of outstanding shares. While this is common in capitalizing the market, you should understand the market value of the companies and their bonds in order to determine the total value.

The market cap will show the size of a company, which is something that interests most people, since it points out the key characteristics, including risk assessment. While the value of these cap stocks may vary, these can range from the small value as stated above, to more than $2 billion.

The misconception that small caps are startups is based on the new brands which are coming out, but this is far from the truth. Many of the small cap companies are just like the larger boys in that their track records are strong, they are well established, and their financials are great. Just because they are smaller, they tend to have a greater chance at growth as well, since that means more potential for the investors to make more money as a result of this.

The big boys and the blue chip stocks which have a history of good earnings and strong financials are commonly known as the big cap stocks. While these are good since they do offer safer returns for those who invest, you can’t use this as a blanket for every large cap stock. Some have the misconception that large cap comes with less of a risk, but the smaller ones have more due to their value.  However, the big boys also can go downhill.

Just look at Enron.  They’re one of the biggest examples of the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  They used mark to market accounting to make it look like they were profitable, when in reality they were losing a bunch of money.  The large cap stocks sometimes aren’t all that honest, and if there are criminal charges and the like behind this, it could mean curtains.

Remember, the big stocks and the small stocks don’t always mean big profits or small profits, and the best thing to do is to do your research on this, and to look into what they do.