I’ve long advised my clients to look for a secret investment that most people aren’t thinking of. While there are plenty of highly publicized investments out there, you’ll be investing with a large group of people. The key to life long riches is to get in on an investment on the ground floor. This will allow you to put the least amount of money in and get the maximum amount out.

One of the safest investments out there that people still aren’t quite jumping on board with is alternative energy. I think everyone understands that while there is oil to be found in places, the vast majority of it is drying up. The dwindling supply will absolutely require new technology to take the place of oil.

Another reason alternative energy investments will take off is because people are becoming increasingly concerned with the environment. They want to reduce the effect that each one of us has on the world around us. Taking advantage of alternative energies will be a way for people to get done what they need to get done but also have a smaller negative impact on the world.

I believe this secret investment will be one that will pay off big in the long run. There are also several ways to get involved on a more short term basis. For example, you could compile information about all the different energy programs out there, their pros and cons as well as relative costs. You could then sell these informational booklets to potential investors. The bottom line is that there are many ways to investment in alternative energy that will yield big returns for you.

I’ve always found that investing in a market I have a good understanding of brings me much more success than trying to navigate foreign markets. That’s why I’m always looking for investments that are lucrative.

As an industrialized country, our needs are different than those of other countries. When thinking of what will give you a good return on your money here, simply think of what is in high demand. For example, we live in a technology hungry country. People are always looking to get the newest television, game console or cell phone. Investing in these technologies is a great way to see a huge return.

Another sector that is seeing huge growth is the pet industry. More and more people have pets these days and more people consider them to be a member of their family. They are willing to pay top dollar for the best organic dog food, safer dog toys and doggie day care. You can either invest in companies who are at the forefront of new ideas or even start your own small business catering to these needs.

As people become busier and busier, they are always looking for ways to make their lives more convenient. Finding service industry companies that focus on shaving time off of running errands or make people’s lives more convenient is a great step to finding a lucrative investment.

Investing in things in your own country is a good way to be able to keep track of how the markets are performing. You’re in a unique position to understand the needs of the people around you, as they are likely similar to your own needs. Using this information is a great way to spot investments that are lucrative in the USA.

Watching money recede probably isn’t your favorite spectator sport and there may be an overwhelming urge to jump in the game to change the momentum your way. But, before taking the field, you’d be smart to review the tapes of previous games.

Let’s keep this simple. A recession is defined as at least two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. GDP measures the size of an economy by the total market value of all final goods and services produced during a given calendar year. Recession gives way to a falling stock market as businesses cease expanding, unemployment rises, housing prices fall, cost of foreign goods increase as the dollar weakens, and all sorts of other monsters crawl out of the closet or from under the bed.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been ten official US recessions. Remember, these do not include simple economic slowdowns that don’t meet the official criteria. Add these to the list and we can easily double the number.

Except for the Great Depression that lasted ten years from 1929-1939, recessions have historically had a lifespan between 1-2 years. With all these downturns, it might seem that the market would struggle to overcome all these headwinds, but a look at the growth of the Dow Jones Industrial Average tells a different story. On December 31, 1928, the eve of the Great Depression, the Dow closed at 300. Today in the first quarter of 2008, we’re at about 12,000. This of course is only the “priced based” gain. If we were to include dividends reinvested in the market, our gain would increase dramatically.

Thus, we have lesson number one. Historically, recessions have not predicted the end of civilization as we know it. The cost of the Vietnam war, skyhigh prices of oil in the 1970’s, the collapse of the dot com bubble or the 9/11/01 attacks were all eventually overcome by the expanding United States economy.

Understanding the past is one thing. Being a proactive investor in a current recession is another and we need to ask what if anything can be done to better position our portfolios during the bad times?

To answer this we first need to not look at current returns as a permanent loss of capital, but rather a temporary hole that you will eventually crawl out of. The market will determine the overall depth of the hole, but we can do something about the depth of our own hole. It’s a dirty job, but climbing out of a shallow hole is easier than climbing out of a deep one.

Restructuring an already structured asset allocated portfolio can help. Under weighting riskier investments such as small cap equities and increasing weighting in short term or international bonds may help. Paying off margin and raising temporary cash will also cut volatility. This often can be done by a 10% decrease here, a 5% increase here. If the portfolio is truly structured, it has already taken into account recessionary periods and probably doesn’t need major overhaul.

Secondly, look at the recession as a potential buying opportunity. Remember “buy low, sell high?” Recessions offer the window to get into good companies that for a variety of reasons have been caught in the downturn. You can be reasonably certain that people will buy high priced motorcycles in the future and major banks will continue to thrive.

Lastly, unless your portfolio has an extremely short term time span or your rent money is invested in the market, don’t move everything to cash. This is an attempt to time the market and if no one through history has ever been able to complete this task, there’s no reason to believe you will be the first.

No one ever told you that investing was a straight climb to the top. There are hills and there are valleys. A recession is a valley. If you are dedicated to the climb, get used to the terrain.

All performance referenced is historical and is not indicative of future results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is an unmanaged index which cannot be invested into directly.

Making real money from your investment is often a hard task, because usually the investment options that involve third party management are either low yield or too risky (like some of the so called HYIPs).

Indeed, if you want safety you would normally turn to a bank, but then you would receive a 3% yield for your money.

On the other hand, if you want a very high yield, you could turn to a HYIP and get returns as high as 120% per month, but then again, this is a very risky proposition because you could well lose all your money for good.

I have found that among all the investment options the only way to realistically make money good from your money is putting it to work by yourself, that is, becoming an investor and managing it yourself.

Of course this is no easy task unless you are already an expert or you have a set of reliable investing tools and resources to help you manage your investment accurately and effectively thus reducing the risk of loss.

However, the fact that it is not easy does not mean that it is impossible, it only means that you have to be well prepared to perform consistently, and believe me, once you realize that you can pull a monthly return of 10%, 30% or 60%, you will wonder what where you doing that you did not start doing this sooner.

There are many reliable tools and resources that will allow you to manage your investment safely and very profitably, particularly within the forex market which is probably one of the best ways I have found to make money out of my investment.

So if you have been thinking about getting higher returns for you money, you should definitely consider managing your investment yourself as the best option to make money with your money.

Coin collecting can be both educational and informative. Coin collecting, called numismatics, has become one of the most rewarding and popular hobbies in the world today. Over time as you begin to add more coins to your collection, you will be pleasantly surprised at the hours of enjoyment your collection will bring. Coin collecting is a very old hobby dating back thousands of years, Julius Caesar was a coin collector. Coin collecting can be very cheap, because many coins from the last century and from very late Roman times were made in large amounts, so there are lots of them to go around.

Coin collecting has become a very popular hobby over the years, and people collect coins for many reasons. Some people collect coins for their historical value, others collect them for their potential future value, some collect coins from a particular country, and some people even collect coins that are still in circulation.

Gold coins can tone over time, if they do so they usually do in various shades of red while some ancient copper coins, particularly Roman sestertii, take on a lovely green patina. On no account try to remove this as the coin would certainly be ruined during the process. A nice coin to start your collection of is the Gold Austrian 1 Ducat. At .9860 purity, the original Austrian 1 Ducat is historically one of the highest purity gold coins to be circulated..

Collectors have produced systems to describe the overall state of coins. One older classification describes a coin as being inside a scope starting from “poor” to “uncirculated”. Collectors have created systems to describe the overall condition of coins. One older system describes a coin as falling within a range from “poor” to “uncirculated”.

Valuations are included for both certified and non-certified coins, in up to 200 different grades. Research your coins with over 4000 links to coin variety information, as well as the ability to add unlimited file or URL attachments to your records and built-in links to hundreds of informational coin collecting sites. Valuations are included for many different grades, as well as the ability to add unlimited file or .

Invest in a good coin album or folder. Investors acquire this tangible asset for protection and have seen it rise over 180% in 5 years. One of the most popular ways to buy gold bullion is to buy Gold Maple Leaf coins.

Metal and water do not go well together! Almost everyone intuitively knows to keep their coins from getting wet but many collectors do not realize that even the moisture present in the air (humidity) can be enough to cause damage. An airtight container to house your coins in is a must to keep them in optimal condition.

Treatments like irradiation make it possible for more people to own these vividly colored diamonds. Most natural colored diamonds are rare and also extremely expensive. When shopping for colored diamonds you need to assume that any affordable fancy color diamond has been treated. Ask about the stones origin and request to view a lab certificate to verify authenticity.

Synthetic colored diamonds are another option if owning a colored diamond is something you desire but cannot quite afford. They are real diamonds, but they are created in a lab.

Natural fancy color diamonds get their coloring from different trace elements present in the stones, such as nitrogen, which produces a yellow diamond. Diamonds can be colored by exposure to radiation during its creation. An example of a diamond affected by radiation is a Green diamond.

Another way that a natural colored diamond gets color is by its inclusions. Regarded as flaws and undesirable in a colorless diamond, inclusions give unique tones and brilliant flashes of color in a fancy color diamond. Remember that Natural fancy colored diamonds are very expensive, any colored diamond labeled to be sold as natural should be accompanied by a certificate from a respected grading lab.

A “fancy” diamond is a natural diamond that has color. These colors vary from red, green, purple, violet, orange, blue and pink – and most shades between. Fancy color shades vary from faint to intense.

The most famous diamonds in the world are Color diamonds. The Tiffany Diamond, which is yellow and the Hope Diamond which is blue are colored diamonds. Color diamonds have an amazing financial track record. The value has never decreased on wholesale level in more than 30 years. Blue and pink diamonds have doubled every 5 years of a strong economy. In the 1970’s you could have bought a very high quality blue diamond for about 50K and today the very same stone would be worth between 2 and 3 million.

Diamonds are allotropes of carbon , whose hardness and high dispersion of light make it useful for industrial applications and jewelry.

Diamond in Greek means “impossible to tame”.
Diamonds are found mainly in central and southern Africa ,although significant sources of the mineral have been discovered in Canada ,Russia ,Brazil ,and Australia.

There are Synthetic Diamonds and Natural Diamonds.

There is something so special about diamonds, and they are so valuable, that people have been trying to make them for a long time.
Synthetic diamonds were first produced in 1953, in Stockholm ,Sweden by ASEA ,Sweden’s major electrical manufacturing company. Pressure was maintained within a device at an estimated 83,000 atmospheres for an hour to produce these diamonds.

It now seems that it is possible to make diamonds in a laboratory so perfect down to the same atomic structure that DeBeers, the world’s largest diamond consortium, is running scared.
And you know what, these diamonds can be made and sold at a profit.

Apparently there are in Russia alone 5 laboratories producing synthetic diamonds that have the same atomic structure as natural diamonds but with ONE difference, they are too perfect.
They have the same characteristics as real diamonds, the same hardness, same conductivity, the same sparkle.

Different types of Synthetic Diamonds

2 different processes are being used to produce Synthetic Diamonds:

The oldest process uses pressure, lots of it, and carbon.

Since diamonds are carbon, eventually people were able to make diamonds in this manner, but these diamonds were easily distinguishable from natural diamonds.

Originally, the pressure process was developed by GE and, by major manufacturers, on a much larger scale.

There is also a cubic press system.

The newest process actually grows diamonds layer by layer as a chemical process and is called Chemical vapor deposition.
This process allows many new uses for diamonds which in the past had previously been either too expensive to implement or too difficult to make.

The most important characteristic of CVD diamond growth is the ability to control the properties of the diamond produced.

Diamonds are now being used to machine tools, especially for non-ferrous alloys.
CVD diamond also has applications in electronics. Conductive diamond has been demonstrated as a useful electrode under many circumstances.

Diamonds are also being used as radiation detection devices.
Diamonds also have uses as semiconductors because the diamonds can be contaminated with impurities.

Diamond is the ideal material. It can be used in computers to run them at speeds that would melt anything on the market today.

Diamonds can also replace rubies to make lasers of extreme power.

Diamonds can be used as memory storage devices which could be so small as to allow a cellphone to fit into a watch and an iPod to store 20,000 movies.

Among the most famous of all large diamonds is the Hope Diamond. Currently on display at the Smithsonian, this steel blue diamond weighs in at a hefty 45.52-carats. There are many legends detailing the curse of ill fortune allegedly bestowed on the possessor of the Hope Diamond, perhaps contributing to the decision to donate this diamond to the Smithsonian in 1958. Originally the Hope was a rather flat, blocky 110-carat rough.

As the largest green diamond in the world the Dresden Green stands out among the natural colored diamonds, weighing 40.70-carats. This diamond is essentially priceless due to its size, historic nature, and natural green color with a slight blue overtone.

Once owned by Louis XIII, the Conde Pink is a pear shaped pink diamond and weighs 9.01-carats.

Discovered in either 1877 or 1878 in South Africa, the Tiffany Yellow diamond was a stunning canary-yellow octahedron weighing 287.42 in rough (metric) carats. After cutting the gem was pared down to an extraordinary weight of 128.54-carats and was, until recently, the largest golden-yellow in the world.

Now among the British Crown Jewels is the 105.60-carat Koh-I-Noor (Mountain of Light). This diamond is believed to have once been set in Shah Jehan’s famous peacock throne as one of the peacocks’ eyes and was first mentioned in 1304.

Weighing a respectable 32.34-carats, the Agra is graded as a naturally colored Fancy Light Pink. In 1989 it was sold for about 6.6 million dollars. It has since been modified to a cushion shape weighing about 28.15-carats.

The Transvaal Blue is a stunning pear cut. At 25-carats, this blue diamond was found in the Premier Diamond Mine in Transvaal, South Africa.

The Great Chrysanthemum was discovered in a South African diamond field, in the summer of 1963. This fancy brown diamond appeared to be a light honey color in its rough state at 198.28-carats. After cutting, however, it was found to be a rich golden brown, with overtones of sienna and burnt orange and weighed in at 104.15-carats.

Before you go out and purchase a diamond, you should read this guide to make sure you dont get stuck with an over-priced, low quality rock.

What to look for

When shopping for jewelry, whether it is gold or silver, keep in mind that price is always of primary concern. As a general rule, the price of a particular piece defines how good it is. You should always be wary of cheap jewelry when shopping for someone close to you, as they make it cheap for a reason.

Additionally, you should be cautious of buying jewelry that is on sale. Sometimes jewelers put certain pieces on sale because they simply want to get rid of old stock. At other times, however, they put pieces on sale because they are of low quality.

Finally, pay close attention to how well the diamond is cut. The more the diamond has been cut and formed, the better it is.

Where to shop

It is of the utmost importance to shop for diamonds from a reputable dealer. This point cannot be stressed enough. When you are planning to spend a significant amount of money on jewelry, you want to make sure that you are getting something that is worth the asking price.

A good way to gauge whether or not you can trust a jeweler is to look around their shop. If they have a high-quality, professional establishment then chances are you will be fine. However, if they are running a kiosk, booth, or are just selling their wares on the streets, then you should avoid these types of dealers.

Additionally, you should trust your instincts. If you have a bad feeling about the person you are doing business with, then dont do business with them.

Finally, you should try to shop from the largest store in your community. The reason is that large-scale buyers get the best deals which allow them to pass the savings on to you, the consumer.

Other Tips

Whether youre looking for a simple pendant or an engagement ring, you should buy designer diamond jewelry. These will generally look the best and will allow you to make your gift extra special. Another thing to consider when looking at jewelry designs is that women wear diamonds to be fashionable. Youre going to want to buy something that is both beautiful on its own and complimentary to her fashion style.