Photo: 401(K) 2012

The following is a guest post. If interested in submitting a guest post, please read my
guest posting policy and then contact me.

Tony, a young investor, blogs at A Young Investor to share his thoughts about the markets, economics, politics, and psychology.

Never Trade the News

I know traders who spend their whole careers trying to predict the market data reports, earnings reports, unemployment numbers, etc. And you want to know the commonality among all these traders? They’re all poor.

No one can be 100% right, and even if he can predict the news, so what? The same piece of news can be interpreted in a hundred different ways. You cannot assume that bad news will cause the market fall, because bad news is shrugged off during bull markets, and good news is shrugged off in bear markets.

From the years of experience of successful traders around me, the market is going to go where it’s going to go, regardless of the news that comes out. The news doesn’t drive the price; the price drives the news. When the market is going up, the news that is constantly being relayed across the major news channels will be good news, and vice versa.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

But they way they’re presented do lie. Let me give you an example. A couple of weeks ago, I read an article titled “Why It’s Easier to Get into Harvard Than It Is to Get a Job at McDonalds”. In author based this “fact” from the fact that 7% of Harvard applicants are accepted as opposed to McDonalds’ 5%. From the way these facts are represented, it would appear as if it were easier to get into Harvards than it were to get into McDonalds. However, this is a lie. The way the numbers were presented is a lie. Only the highest caliber (academic-wise) of people apply for Harvard, while almost all teens at one point in their lives have applied or thought of applying. So out of 10,000 people, maybe only 100 applied for Harvard, of which 7% got in, which equals to 7 people. Out of 10,000 people, probably 2000 applied, of which 100 were accepted. See the difference? By representing the numbers in a specific way, an untruthful statement can be implied.

Such tricks are far too common in the financial industry. Be wary about corporate financial numbers – unless you’re an expert, be careful because there’s bound to be a lot of “lies” among those numbers. The numbers don’t lie, but the way their presented do.

Buying On Percentages

Many investors (including myself) buy into positions on percentages (scale in) – for example, I buy 25% worth of my portfolio into the position at a time. In the past, I did this based on the assumption of risk and profits – if I buy X% a time every $Y up/down, how much risk will I be taking, and how will doing so protect my position? But recently, I’ve read some books that gave me an insight: buy on percentages not because you want to protect your portfolio – buy on percentages because you want to protect your psychological sanity. Investing is moreso about being in the right mentality than being in the right market. Buying on percentages will keep you psychologically satisfy and prevent you from making any brash moves. Here’s an example.

I want to use 10% of my portfolio to buy stock XYZ. However, I feel that the market may be a bit overbought. So instead, I’ll buy 5%. If the market keeps going up, my mentality will be happy because I’m making money. If the market goes down, I’m still happy because I’m averaging-down my position cost. If I hadn’t bought when I thought the market was overbought, I could very well have chased an even more overbought market, which is a financially disastrous move.

Why I Don’t Like Dividend Investing

A lot of investors fill up my portfolio with “nice and pretty” dividend stocks, which I find to be absolutely ridiculous. The money that can be made by trading a stock makes the money that can be made from dividends look pale in comparison. A small 5% decline in the stock price can wipe out a dividend investor’s entire year of returns from dividends. Using Rogers Communication stock from early 2011 to 2012, we can see that:

During this entire 1 year period, Rogers Communications Inc paid out approximately 4% in dividends, but its stock price experienced 20%+ swings. Are you willing to forego 20%+ for the sake of a single digit return (not including the fact that you could have lost money on the stock price itself)?

Feel free to read Tony’s great post about the differences between market tops and market bottoms.

Editor’s Note: Well I don’t agree with Tony’s views on dividend stocks, he does make some other good points. With dividend stocks at least you have that almost guaranteed dividend to partially protect yourself from dips in the market. It’s a lot better than investing in a non-dividend stock that dropped 20%. Plus dividend stocks can act as an income source during retirement. Also I wouldn’t ignore market news either since I believe it would affect people’s investment decisions.

What are your thoughts about the points Tony makes? Do you agree or disagree with him?

Photo: woodleywonderworks

The following is a guest post. If interested in submitting a guest post, please read my
guest posting policy and then contact me.

Thank you MM for the opportunity to write my first guest post.

Who am I? I’m a professional starving artist in both the music and photographic world trying to find financial freedom on a pauper’s income.

After many years of financial floundering I decided to take advantage of my time and start investing for my future. I would love to jump off on a tangent here and talk about how financial advisers aren’t in it for you (they are in it for themselves first,) but that would be a whole post unto itself. (Thankfully for you I’ve recently written one: http://thestarvingartistcanada.blogspot.ca/2012/08/financial-advisers-or-diy.html) But the long and the short of the matter is that for anybody who is not from old money the only way to financial freedom is through investing.

So, you’re a recent graduate and either in debt or nearly broke. You have an erratic to non-existent income, or you just landed your first entry level job, but live in a city where that doesn’t even cover basic needs. You’d love to have a steady income stream but you don’t know how to do that aside from already owning a home and renting out a basement apartment or having an additional rental property.

If you could come up with a down payment and think you’re the person who likes to be hands on and wants to take on the responsibility of a rental property yourself. What could happen? Lets say your furnace exploded on Christmas Eve and you weren’t able to source a new furnace, have it installed and tested until 3 days later. Thus causing your pipes to freeze and then burst. As a result, your tenants decided to take you to the housing tribunal for arbitration for failing to provide heating, all the while living on your property WITHOUT paying you anything. You are left with the financial burden of keeping up with your mortgage, gas, water, electric, and insurance payments until the arbitration process has concluded, which can take up to 6 months! At which you’re left with a judgment in your favour but the tenant decides to move on leaving you with nothing for the 6 month period they lived on your property. If you couldn’t make all your payments for repairs the contractor might have put a lien on your property. If you all of a sudden needed to sell the property then getting the lien cleared would slow down your closing time.

But if you’re like me you don’t have enough money for the down payment on a home (Median home price where I live is $550k) what can you do? Aside from selling pint after pint of blood, or striking up back-alley deals you will be happy to know that there are companies out there, both public and private called REITs. REIT stands for Real Estate Investment Trust. These are businesses that quite simply buy properties, build buildings and rent them out. They take care of all of the business of renting and send you your slice of the profits every month. This of course frees you from the panoply of glamorous jobs that come along with owning rental properties.

Private REITs often require that you have a significant sum of money to invest so that leaves you with publicly traded REITs. (Full disclosure: I own several different mostly Canadian publicly REITs) Yes, this does require that you have a brokerage account (get a discount-brokerage account and do it yourself!) and buy units (shares) of these companies on the open stock markets. The minimum requirements for a discount brokerage account in Canada are quite small, (around $1000 or so) so it’s not all that hard to get into it. And, because they are publicly traded it’s very easy to sell your shares and cash out.

There are many, many different REITs in Canada. Most of them try to pick their desired customer and stick with it as the stock markets seem to prefer “pure-play” type companies. Pure-play simply means you do one thing and you do it well. Some deal entirely with industrial tenants, some like retail, some like office properties, and some deal expressly with medical professionals. So you get to choose what sort of customers you want.

How much do they pay? Typically most REITs in Canada, (the healthy well run ones) pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4-8% annual yield. No, it’s not guaranteed, but that’s where a bit of research is required on your part to make sure you’re comfortable with a company like this. Thankfully there are wonderful research tools available online you will be able to figure out which ones are right for you.

Lastly, most REITs are very tax-friendly for investors of ALL tax brackets. (Even the low/no tax bracket like mine and other starving artists!)

If you’re still leery of investing, I strongly urge you to read my post: http://thestarvingartistcanada.blogspot.ca/2011/01/get-that-money-out-of-mattress-young.html as you have only a lifetime of financial servitude ahead of you if you don’t invest for your future.

Photo: Alan Cleaver

When I first set out on my personal finance blogging journey, one of the areas I knew I needed to improve upon was investing.

Over the years I’ve been making the mistake of listening to the ‘financial advisors’ at my bank. At the time I didn’t realize that they were nothing but salesmen. They make money by convincing you to purchase specific investments. It doesn’t matter much to them if you actually make a decent return on that investment.

In the back of my mind I was aware of this, but I somehow thought they’d still be honest enough to want to make me money at the same time. I now realize that was pretty naive of me. People are often only looking out for themselves, especially when commission is involved.

So in the past I’ve been ignorantly accepting low returns on lousy mutual funds. Each year when I go in to talk to them they give me some excuse about the market conditions or how they have a better mutual fund for me to invest in. Thanks for the bullshit!

Do you know what? To hell with mutual fund salesmen. To hell with paying a hefty Management Expense Ratio (MER) for those mutual funds. Why am I wasting my time on that crap when the majority of mutual funds get outperformed by indexed funds. I could be doing nothing more than investing in indexes and making more money. Or better yet I could figure out this investing thing and make some real money.

So how did I finally wake up and smell the roses? First it was when I read a book all about Warren Buffet and his investment philosophies, titled The Warren Buffett Way. The book didn’t suggest investing in mutual funds, but it did highlight why mutual funds are such a bad choice. I learned that Buffett’s strategy was all about putting in plenty of time to properly research companies to determine which are run best. Unfortunately I just don’t have the time to do that.

Next I read Millionaire Teacher. The strategy outlined in that book really appealed to me since it didn’t take a lot of time but consistently outperformed the majority of mutual funds. This was all based around buying index funds and bonds.

While this felt like the right strategy for me, I couldn’t help but long for the big stock market gains that I read about some investment bloggers pulling off. So recently I started reading The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing. I’m not far enough into it to get full picture of the strategy the author is pushing, but it seems to be more about analyzing companies and their stocks. I still might not have the time to pursue this strategy, but I’m awfully tempted to give it a shot.

One thing is for sure, I’m not going to rush into anything. I’m currently getting ready to buy my first home. So I’m not willing to risk that down payment money on an investment that I might have to wait on. That means putting up with some lower returns in the meantime knowing my money will be available sometime in the near future.

Once I’ve bought a place that’s when the real fun begins. Most likely I’ll wade in with some index fund investing. No that won’t be too exciting, but it’ll gradually get me more interested in paying attention to the market. As I get more comfortable with investing, stocks will be my next target but that will take some thorough research.

I’ll be bypassing the financial advisors at my bank this time around. Instead, my plan is to go on a site like E* trade, sell shares or buy shares and really reduce my fees. There’s no need to pay someone commission for trades that I can do manually on my own.

Maybe I’m better off just jumping in now and investing small. I could end up with decision paralysis if I do too much research beforehand. It’s just tough to know whose approach is best and what strategies to adopt.

For those of you who do your own investing, do you have any tips for getting started? For those who don’t do investing, is there a reason why not?

Throughout the entire year in 2013, we seemed to see highs everywhere we looked. Unfortunately, the year 2014 hasn’t been so friendly.

The simple fact is, for the last month and a half we’ve watched as emerging markets seemed to crash, Apple reported that it couldn’t sell its flagship product, and more and more stock values going down. These are the types of things that generally scare people when it comes to investing. That’s why few want to invest in a down market. However, that fear of loss is what’s stopping so many people from realizing profits.

Why Investing In a Down Market Is a Good Idea

Let’s think about the reason you’re investing in the first place. You want to put one dollar in, and pull out two, then put the two in and pull out four. You’re not investing because you think it’s cool when the line on the chart points to the upper right corner of your screen, you’re investing because when it does so, you make money. We invest for profits. Now, let’s think about how we make profits. Drum roll please…we make profits by buying low and selling high!

The answer to the big question, “Why should I invest in a down market?” is simple. Investing while the market is low gives you the opportunity to buy at incredibly low prices. When else are you going to get a 10% discount on stocks? Although the market may be down when you buy the stock, it’s not going to be down forever. By making the right decisions with regard to what to buy, you stand to make a killing off of the down market!

Making the Right Decisions

Now here’s your key. No matter if the market is up or down, you’re going to have a hard time realizing profits if you’re not making the right investment decisions. In a down market, that’s even more important. The simple fact is, most companies are going to bounce back from hard times, but some will not. If you put your nest egg into companies that have a low likelihood of bouncing back, chances are you’re going to lose. That being said, here are a few tips that should help you make the right investment decisions.

Think About The Companies That Make Survival Possible – OK, so we would survive without companies, we did it before civilization reared its nasty head! However, surviving wouldn’t be half as fun for many people if it wasn’t for companies like Wal-Mart, Google, and Ford. If it wasn’t for Wal-Mart, where would we get our food and such; if it wasn’t for Google, we’d have a hard time finding information we need; and if it wasn’t for good ole Henry Ford, we’d still be riding behind horses, not enjoying horse power! When you invest in a down market, think of the companies that have no choice but to bounce back!

Watch The News – Ever since I first got interested in investing, I found this one shocking, but true. The truth is, no matter how great, or bad a company is doing, the news changes the views of that company from the eyes of the investor. If big stories come out saying something negative about a company, chances are, its stocks are going to fall faster than a penny dropped from the Empire State Building and vice versa. So, watch the news and look for opportunities to capitalize on.

Don’t Use Knee Jerk Reactions As An Investment Tactic – I’ve seen this one way too much. At the slightest change some investors will either buy or sell. It’s important to remember that profiting from investing usually happens over time. Throughout this time, you’ll see ups, downs and static moments. In most cases, it’s OK, just ride the roller coaster and enjoy the fruits of your labor when you’ve made an educated decision that now is the best time to sell.

Final Thoughts

Down markets shouldn’t scare you out of the market, it should do the exact opposite. When the markets are down, your eyes should open with excitement because you see opportunity. I hope that my tips will help that to happen.

Reader Question

Do you have any other tips that you would give newbie investors with regard to investing in down markets?

Author Bio: This article about debt settlement was written by Joshua Rodriguez, proud owner and founder of http://CNAFinance.com and avid personal finance journalist. Also to learn where he writes or to hire him for writing, check out http://www.JRodWrites.com.

The post Don’t Be Afraid To Invest In Down Markets appeared first on Modest Money.

The following is a guest post about spread betting. If interested in submitting a guest post please read my guest post policy and then contact me.

Spread betting is an interesting investment alternative available to novices and experienced professionals alike. During the actual spread bet, shares or futures contracts are not purchased. What traders do in a spread bet is simply place a wager on the direction of market movement for a chosen asset. The bet is made per point movement or per penny in the underlying market. The stake is the nominal amount that a trader wishes to bet. This figure can be as low as $1/£1/€1 per point. Information is key to spread betting success.

Options Available to Spread Bettors

Traders have two ‘investment’ options available to them including the following: a bet that the market will fall or a bet that the market will rise. Correct financial predictions yield a profit in the form of the betting stake x every point of market movement. Alternatively, losses can also be incurred if the market movement works against you. Losses are calculated by the betting stake multiplied by every point of movement against the trader.

There are many tools and resources available to traders to mitigate losses. These come in the form of an automatic stop-loss, which limits potential losses to a pre-agreed amount. This amount will be determined once a bet has been opened. It’s important for new traders to understand that automatic stop-loss is not a default security feature available to protect against negative market movements. Traders can for example opt for a guaranteed stop-loss by paying a premium at their preferred online brokerage.

There are inherent risks in spread betting, but these are limited to the position that that a trader takes. Risk of capital loss is always a possibility, so traders are advised to limit their investments to what they can afford to lose. Margin trading is a useful tool, but use of it opens the trader up to elevated losses if market movements work against you. It is important to understand the full risk/reward component to spread betting.

Benefits Available to Traders with Spread Betting

The literature on spread betting is vast, and the more newbies learn about it the more curious they become. Spread betting provides an opportunity for relative novices to immerse themselves in the financial markets and to generate healthy profits when the markets move in their favour. When profits accrue, there are several inherent benefits to spread betting. These include the fact that winnings in spread betting are regarded as gambling winnings. In the United Kingdom, all gambling winnings are tax exempt – for income tax and for capital gains tax purposes. This is one of the primary drivers of the burgeoning popularity of spread betting in the United Kingdom. There are many other benefits including the following: no commissions/fees, trade on margin, no stamp duty, easy alternative to stockbroking and a wide range of assets to choose from.

Tips for Effective Spread Betting Practices

If at all possible, newbie traders are encouraged to register with a spread betting platform that provides a demo account. The demo account will allow traders to practice spread betting strategies, methodologies and techniques online – without risking a cent of their bankroll. Multiple resources are available to traders in the form of user manuals, videos, webinars, guru guides and market commentary. Regulated spread betting and CFD trading providers are preferred, since traders can enjoy hassle-free deposits and easy withdrawals of their winnings.

 Author Bio:  Brett Chatz was born in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. He attended the internationally accredited University of South Africa, where he completed the prestigious Bachelor of Commerce degree, with Economics and Strategic management as his major subjects. In concert with the primary degree, he completed several Bachelor of Arts courses, most notably English poetry and literature. In addition he enrolled at the University of Haifa in Israel to complete a post-graduate year in the Bachelor of Arts discipline. Nowadays Brett contributes informative essays for the globally renowned spread betting and CFD trading provider, InterTrader.

The post Your Quick Guide to the Mechanics of Spread Betting appeared first on Modest Money.

The following is a guest post about investment. If interested in submitting a guest post please read my guest post policy and then contact me.

With prices of higher education skyrocketing by about 1000% since 1976 and greatly outpacing inflation rates, many are wondering whether higher education is actually a bubble.
While college degree holders typically earn more than non-degree holders, the gap is narrowing. In addition, the crippling amount of student debt one must take on to go to college might not justify the increased earnings. The below post provides a framework for evaluating the decision to go to college along with some analysis on key considerations.

How to Evaluate an Investment Decision

Discounted Cash Flow analysis is one of the most common methodologies used to evaluate investment decisions. It is calculated as:

DCF Value = future cash flow / (1 + discount rate)^number of periods

Future cash flow in the case of a degree is the additional wages earned above that of not having a degree and net of debt repayments. In the case of, for example, buying a house as in investment, the future cash flow would be in the form of the sale price at a future date and the rental income generated.

The discount rate in the formula is the Opportunity Cost. The opportunity cost accounts for the Time Value of Money. According to the time value of money, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow because you can earn income on it. In the case of higher education, the opportunity cost is the sum of the wages forgone while studying, and the interest that could be earned on the cost of the degree.

Let’s examine each of these factors for determining value in more detail and in the context of deciding to go to college.

1. Price

The price of higher education decreases cash flow. It is either an upfront cost, or, more frequently, paid off over several years.

Supply of low interest rate student loans by government and private lenders has increased demand for higher education and a corresponding increase in price.

The price of higher education has increased by about 1,000% since 1975. Yes that’s thousand — four digits. Let’s assume a price of $30,000 per year to go to college. Some schools cost more, some cost less.

Key takeaway: Higher education is really expensive.

2. Wages

Many (all?) people attend college because of the added job opportunities and corresponding wages. Studies show the gap between degree holders and non-degree holders is narrowing by measures of unemployment and wages.

Intended to increase supply of educated labor, the abundance of supply of student loans at artificially low interest rates may have increased supply too far. Labor markets may have misallocated themselves to jobs requiring degrees. The resulting increased supply leads to lower prices (wages), and the decreased supply of non degree requiring price leads to higher prices (wages).

Increases in wage earnings potential may also vary from school to school. For example, from my personal perspective, it seems like graduating from Harvard still presents amazing opportunities, while a degree from the bottom 75% or so of schools seems to be a “non-differentiator” that just lumps people in to the large population of other people that have degrees.

Key takeaway: a college degree may still increase wage earning potential, but it may be decreasing and/or the opportunity cost may be increasing.

3. Opportunity Cost

The $30,000 per year could be invested in the stock market, bonds, or savings, to earn returns

The time could be used to earn wages. The time could be used to learn and otherwise acquire the value propositions that higher education offers.

Key takeaway: Higher education requires a huge investment of both time and money. The time and money could be allocated to other opportunities to generate value.

4. Asset Value

A degree has no intrinsic value. You can’t sell your degree when you’re done with it. Conversely, when you own a company’s stock, or real estate, you can sell it with some degree of ease. A degree only has value, in the form of added wage potential, because employers think it has value.

5. Forecasting Risk

If employers stop perceiving the degree to be valuable, it may not generate the forecasted increase in wages.

People may not consider the price of higher education when making the investment decision. They instead assume college is “what you do,” and pay for it regardless of price. Therefore, the price of higher education may not match it’s value, and may not be a fair value.

There may be some variances in additional earnings potential between graduates of different schools. For example, a student who graduates from an Ivy League school may be able to earn more than someone who graduates from a “mid-tier” school. Therefore, one should consider the increased earnings potential on a school by school basis, and not based on college as a whole.

Key takeaway: Lack of information may have lead to poor decision making assumptions and forecasting inputs. Poor evaluation methods and/or input assumptions may have lead to ineffective decision making and/or a divergence between a degree’s price and value.

Conclusion

I do not think a college education is really a good investment for a student’s financial future. The additional cash flow from college does not exceed the cost and opportunity cost. While college may still enable greater wage earnings potential, the inflation in the price of higher education has offset it.

Author Bio: Mike Fishbein is the author of Popping the Higher Education Bubble and the Founder of Startup College.

The post Is College Still a Wise Investment? appeared first on Modest Money.

Are you an investor? If so, you know how hard it can be to find a decent research tool. Even paid tools seem to have some sort of bias towards one option or another. So, we’ve been on the hunt for a tool that gives you the honest ability to research without some sort of commission based agenda behind the tool. Today, we’re going to look at 5iResearch to see if they fit the bill!

What Is 5iResearch?

5iResearch is a sister company of Canadian MoneySaver that is designed for normal people like you and I to get access to honest investment advice. The big key with 5iResearch is that users are the only people that pay them. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about commission based decisions that may be good for them, but not you. They provide a wide range of educational articles as well as question and answer forums and other tools.

How Reliable Is The Information Provided?

Let’s face it; no one has a crystal ball that allows them to look into the future. However, by following trends, you can get pretty close. So, I went digging through the question and answer section to see exactly how accurate the answers were. I’ve got to say, I was pretty surprised. I don’t think I could have answered the questions better myself!

What Kind Of Questions Can You Ask?

This is one of my favorite parts of the service. There doesn’t seem to be an investment based question that you can’t get answered. Reading through the questions, I saw things like “How would you rate this investment?” as well as “I don’t have this type of investment in my portfolio, should I add it? If so, what percentage of my portfolio should it encompass?” However, out of all the questions I read, this one really caught my eye…

“I am in the final throws of my decision to buy some Stella Jones stock. I understand from your report that they essentially profit from constructing some of the hard assets for rail roads (amoung other pressure treated wood products for tel-cos, utilities, etc.).

Focussing in on the rail part a bit, does this mean that they should see increased business for replacement ties, etc. as rail is used more and more heavily for shipping oil? It seems like this could act like a bit of a hedge to exposure to oil pipelines.

It seems like a good business (not sexy) and required business. I’d love your thoughts on what makes this thing grow.

Thanks!

5i Research Answer:

You have got the general idea of the company, utility poles and railway ties make up the large majority of revenues. We think increased traffic from oil by rail would have a slight positive impact but we would not base the investment around that thesis. It won’t hurt business but is unlikely to create a significant increase in demand. We think the real growth for Stella Jones will will come from dividend growth and acquistions in a fragmented industry. The more scale and reach the company builds, the better and more reliable of a supplier they become to large railroad companies.

View 5i Reports on this Company”

Why did that catch my eye? Well, when you look at investment research, everything seems to be based on numbers, history, etc… However, in this question, it was more about anticipating the need for a specific asset in the future. As you get further and further into investing, it starts to become clear that looking into future demand of assets is incredibly important. I looked into the advice given and did quite a bit of research myself. It was on point! Oh, and yes, that means you may want to look into Stella Jones!

Who Can Read Your Questions?

When it comes to forums like this, most of them are pretty public. You may have to log in, but everyone that’s logged in can see the question and answer. With 5iResearch, that’s not the case. You can choose to ask a public question and get a public answer or you can choose to hide your questions from everyone and have your answer or answers emailed to you. I love the privacy they provide with this tool.

What Other Tools Do They Provide?

 OK, so I’ve gone over the Q & A portion of their service quite a bit, and for good reason. It’s the main piece of their service. However, they do offer other important tools. For instance they offer in depth research reports on some of the hottest investment options, FAQ, and model portfolios.

What about Cost?

Unfortunately, you’re not going to come across a non-biased investment research tool for free. The good news is, this one really doesn’t cost much at all. As a matter of fact, they charge a flat fee of $119.95 per year which breaks out to a little less than $10 per month!

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m incredibly impressed with the 5iResearch product. I’ve been through a few of their reports and the information is incredibly accurate. However, I’ve got to say, I’m most impressed with their question and answer tool. It’s amazing how much of a broad range of questions you can ask and get reliable answers to. For just under $10 a month, you can’t go wrong!

Author Bio: This article about 5iResearch Review was written by Joshua Rodriguez, proud owner and founder of CNAFinance.com and avid personal finance journalist. Also to learn where he writes or to hire him for writing, check out http://JRodWrites.com.

The post 5iResearch Review appeared first on Modest Money.

The following is a guest post about celebrity fashion lines. If interested in submitting a guest post please read my guest post policy and then contact me.

When Kanye West started down the well-trodden catwalk of music-to-fashion riches at Paris Fashion Week a couple of years ago, he made waves for being the first male musician to try his hand at female couture. He certainly wasn’t the first musician to venture into clothing and accessories, and he’s by no means the most successful.

Wander through any department store and you’re likely to find something with a singer or actor’s name and image attached to it – and more often than not these days they’re not just vanity projects. Whether you go for an edgy fusion of Asian fashion and formal wear from No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani or a smart jacket from eBay, almost any clothing or cosmetics line has been influenced by someone from the entertainment world.

And although some celebrities find less favour with fashion critics, there’s no denying the sway a big name and some sharp designs has with the public. Here are some of the most successful examples.

Diddy : Clothing value: $250m

Hip hop mogul, producer, serial name-changer and now clothing magnate. Before he was Puff Daddy, P Diddy and most recently Diddy, he was plain old Sean John Combs – and this back to basics approach is reflected in his simple, classic Sean John line of shirts, jackets and trousers. Having studied business at Howard University in Washington DC (where he was awarded an honorary doctorate, reports the Daily Mail) before entering the music industry, he’s now putting those skills to work. A series of recruitments from firms such as Old Navy and investments in other fashion labels, combined with an audacious ad campaign for his fragrance label, I Am King, has pushed Diddy’s clothing empire to a quarter-billion-dollar operation.

 Jessica Simpson : Clothing value: $750m

 You’d be forgiven for forgetting about Jessica Simpson. Perhaps best known for her role as Daisy in 2005’s Dukes of Hazard movie, and less so for her singing career, Simpson has evaded the limelight somewhat by focusing on her wildly successful fashion label. Covering everything from affordable shoes, clothing and fragrances to diamond jewellery, Simpson’s ranges have an every-girl appeal. Every girl seems to be buying into it, too: Simpson’s operation earned her a “$1 billion girl” tag from New York Magazine.

 Victoria Beckham : Clothing value: $95m

 Her singing career may have stalled, but the one-time Spice Girl’s clothing range is flying high. Worn by the likes of Kate Winslet and Kim Kardashian, Victoria Beckham’s designs are that rare thing: complimented by fashion writers, popular with the masses. Her denim, dresses and accessories collections amass almost 100 million dollars each year.

Justin Timberlake : Clothing value: $50m

 From Disney T-shirts on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1990s to classic American denim, the multi-talented Timberlake is quickly becoming a respected clothing designer. Along with his childhood friend Trace Ayala, Timberlake set up the William Rast collection – an amalgam of both guys’ grandfathers’ names. The look is one of American heritage – hence the name – although Timberlake also dabbles in high-end designs, even showing at New York Fashion Week. It’s popular too, turning over some 50 million dollars.

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