by Maclin Vestor

A covered call strategy within a cycle will require people to sell options against the stock. If the stock is above the strike price, the stock will be “called” away. The seller receives the premium, but the owner of the call receives the shares at the strike price. There are various strategies involving this covered call strategy.

Some people prefer to have the covered call eventually pay back the stock owner his investment, so that he or she can reinvest that money, and upon receiving the investment back, the person will let the stock run. If this is the strategy, ideally you want to sell covered calls as the stock falls, as it stays flat, and then you want to have your cash back and let the stock run when it is on its way up again. This can allow you to buy an out of favor …

By Guest Author: Tony Farrell (http://www.monthly-dividend-stocks.com)

Get my list of high yield monthly dividend stocks at http://www.monthly-dividend-stocks.com
My strategy: Research and discover all high yield monthly dividend payers, and start buying them up a whopping $ 200 or so worth at a time. WHAT?!?!? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?!? Yes that’s right ONLY $ 200 each. If I had $ 20,000 to invest then I’d be acquiring about 96 positions at $ 200 each and paying the rest in trade commissions. Always get dividends paid in cash, make additional cash infusions when I can to accelerate the process, and use the cash to acquire more positions in other monthly dividend payers. Continue to buy more and more positions as enough cash becomes available, $ 200 or so at a time in each one, starting with higher risk / higher yield and working down to lower risk / lower yield (remember, time is on …

by Sara Ferguson

As a general rule, online investors who use discount brokerages arent seeking the advice of a traditional broker theyve known for the last ten years. Most online investors want brokerages that are stable, provide excellent customer service, and offer different types of choices. The following list shows some of the criteria that investors use to judge discount online brokerages:

1. Ease of use: All online investors want their Web-based brokerages to be easy to use. Web sites need to be uncluttered and free of slow-to-download graphics and useless tools.

2. Prompt customer service: When online investors telephone customer service, being on hold for several minutes is unacceptable. Online investors with large portfolios want more sophisticated financial services and advice. Many are willing to meet with financial advisors for that human touch.

3. Reliable responsiveness: System-wide brokerage crashes arent acceptable. Quick and accurate trade executions are important …

by Sara Ferguson

One of the first of many steps in understanding trading is to define the players. What day traders really focus on are the activities of market makers. A market maker represents an institution (such as Merrill Lynch & Co., Prudential Securities, Lehman Brothers, and so on) that wants to make a market in a particular NASDAQ stock. The market maker is a specialist on an exchange or a dealer in the over-the-counter market who buys and sells stocks, creating an inventory for temporary holding. The market maker provides liquidity by buying and selling at any time. However, the market maker isn’t under any obligation to buy or sell at a price other than the published bid and ask prices.

The downside of being a market maker is that you’re obligated to purchase stocks when no one wants them. The upside of being a market maker is that …

Does InBev's $52 billion purchase of Anheuser Busch have impact on Chinese investors? Not really. The five largest beer companies in china are (in order) China Resources Snow Brewery, Tsingtao Brewery, Yanjing Brewery, and Anheuser-Busch.A-B does own 27% stake of Tsingtao and 100% of Harbin Brewery. I wouldn't rush out and invest in InBev, but the Chinese brewers are worth a look.

By Jason Simpkins Associate Editor Iraq has officially opened the door for foreign oil companies to invest in the country’s rich energy sector for the first time in more than 30 years. Thirty-five foreign oil majors have been invited to bid for contracts to provide technical support and help boost production in eight oil and natural gas fields. The contracts will be awarded in 2009, as Iraq’s oil minister, Hussein Shahristani, hopes to increase production by 2 million barrels of crude oil per day by 2013. Iraq has the world’s third largest proven petroleum reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). While Iraq boasts proven reserves of 112 billion barrels, the EIA estimates that up to 90% of the country remains unexplored. Only 2,000 wells have been drilled in Iraq, versus approximately 1 million in the state of Texas alone. The war-torn ...

By Jason Simpkins Associate Editor The State of Qatar will invest about $8 billion in Libyan companies across various sectors, officials told the Financial Times. The investment is one of many made by large, national sovereign wealth funds, or global cash barons, and will help Libya diversify its economy away from a reliance on hydro carbons. According to the FT, Barwa Real Estate Co., an affiliate of the Qatar Investment Authority’s $40 billion property wing, agreed to invest $2 billion in state-owned Libyan Development and Investment Co to develop commercial, residential and leisure facilities. Libya and Qatar also agreed to establish a $2 billion joint-investment fund, a $600 million Libyan-Qatari bank, and a $300 million sports and services project, according to unnamed officials. Story continues below… Sign up ...

I think it is a good idea to ask people with money to invest where they want to put it. Ernst & Young’s fifth annual attractiveness survey, An Open World, found that 41% of investors ranked China as the #1 country to invest in today. India was #4.

India is one of the hottest economies on the planet and holds tremendous profit potential for investors. No doubt in my mind. Why? India's economy is growing at a 9% rate, TEN times faster than the U.S. and only a couple of percentage points behind China. And the Indian economy is not merely outgrowing the U.S. by leaps and bounds; it's also at the very epicenter of the booming natural resource markets. There's too much happening there to cover everything in one column, but today I'll give you my top six reasons why investing in India may well prove to be a highly lucrative proposition. For starters, consider the following ... Reason #1: India has the fastest-growing population in the world, expanding at the rate of some 16 million per ...

This is a great, must-read article about the wrong way to invest in China. The crux of the article (that I absolutely agree with) is to avoid the inefficient state-owned enterprises and concentrate on the rapidly growing private companies run by Chinese entrepreneurs. "FXI tracks a FTSE/Xinhua index mainly comprised of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In fact, of the top 10 holdings of the ETF … 10 are SOEs"