Just wanted to mention BestSkinsEver.com. I see a lot of other companies online and products in the store selling protective skins for cell phones and other popular electronics, and they are way over priced. BestSkinsEver is usually always cheaper, and the customer service is great. I’ve previously bought their product for an iPhone and a Droid. An example I just saw today was a full body protective cover for the iPad. Zagg is one of the more popular sites for this type of product and was selling a full body iPad cover for $39.99, while BestSkinsEver is selling the exact same thing for $15.99.
What if you could have your own “hedge fund” where you make money off of people investing in your trading strategy, but without the hassle of getting a big financial degree, or raising millions in capital to get a fund off the ground. Well that is where Covester comes in. Covester is a website where investors can share their trades and insights, and other traders can decide to follow or completly mimic their portfolio. If people decide to mimic your portfolio, you then get compensated for the profits they make. You essentailly create your own virtual “hedge fund” without having to deal with raising huge amounts of money or limiting your followers to a few wealthy individuals. All you need to do is sign up, hook up your brokerage accounts, and covester handles the rest.
From the prespective of the follower, Covester helps by confirming that all trades are accurately reported and the rate of return being calculated is correct. I think this is an excellent option for people who don’t have the time to do the research and monitor their portfolio. The follower only has to pay a fee when the traders’ portfolio makes them money. It is a win-win for both the trader and follower. The potential risk associated with this is that the trader can lose all your money. But what makes the trader more trusting is that Covester is acting as the third party auditer and shows you their true trading and return history. The trader can futher instill confidence in their followers by explaining their rationale for a particular trade on their Covester profile. They also have the option of keeping a blog in which they can dicuss their strategy and views on how to deal with current market conditions.
I think Covester knocks down the barriers to investing by hoooking up potential “hedge fund” managers with potential investors, no matter how much money is involved or what your background is. Other great features include the ability to network with other investors, ask succesful investors questions, track your own preformance against other top traders, and widgets you can place on your website to show off your portfolio performance. The only grip I have about Covester is that I have been having a problem hooking up my account to my Zecco brokerage. I think this techincal issue may be limited to Zecco, as it seems that Covester works for most other major brokerages.
Everyone from President Obama to the average Joe has been talking about the credit crisis. But I think most of us (including myself) don’t truly understand what this term really means. This video animation explains what the credit crisis is, how it started, and why it has brought gridlock to the current financial system.
I was watching some videos on the TED site and came across an excellent 5 minute presentation on how to pitch an idea to venture capitalists. The presenter goes through the dos and donts of presentations and in general what you absolute need to do to impresse VCs.
We have finally broken the mold of white guys in office, but what about an Asian, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern looking president. Taking race out, Obama still fits the mold of a Christian, straight, male President. There are still many barriers to cross including religion, gender, and sexual orientation to name a few. Some of those barriers were tested during this election. In the course of the election, there was an issue with many Americans that Obama was potentially raised under the Islamic faith or that he practiced Islamic teachings. So what? What’s wrong with being associated with the Islamic faith? Does beliving in a religion equate to having a greater moral fiber or make you a more qualified President? I think this commotion was an example of how this country still has a far way to go in crossing those barriers. So as a country I hope we don’t think this is the end. We are moving in the right direction, but the day we have a non-Christian, non-male, and non-straight President, that is the day that our country can truely say that we have broken the mold.
Tried out a tutorial from Spoon Graphics. Made it using GIMP. Doesn’t look as great at the one from the tutorial, but came out well enough for a first try.
Free monthly credit score. It is ad supported. One disclaimer is that you have to give our your social security number to credit karma so then can get a score. If you are comfortable with giving out your social security number, then this is great site to get up to date credit score. You can check when ever you want and get up to date score. Credit Karma will then graph your credit score form month to month. Credit Karma is an ad supported website and makes money by recomending services but does not share any of your personal information.
Helps you track your finances. Basically puts your finances on auto pilot. Downloads data from your banks and auto categorizes your purchases. Mint does a pretty decent job of categorizing purchases. You may have to help it along and correct purchases it categorized wrong, but after a week or two, it is good to go. From there you can view your spending habits in cool graph and bar charts. It allows you to drill down on your purchases and compare between months or years. A useful feature is the budget alerts you can setup for any category of spending. You can have mint automatically text you when you are about to or have gone over your budget. They way mint makes money is it looks at your purchasing habits and offers ways to save money based upon sponsored companies. Mint does not share any of your personal information to companies.
A micro lending site. Hooks lenders up with borrowers, with the goal of cutting out the middle man (the bank). Lenders are able to get higher interest rates for their money and borrowers get lower rates on borrowing. Prosper itself makes money by taking 1% of the money that the lender makes on interest. The real strength of this site is the ability to split up your loans in increments as small as $50 dollars. That way you don’t have all your eggs in one basket and have to worry about one person defaulting. They will even recalculate your earnings based upon statistical data of how many people default at prosper. Since Prosper has opened up their API, there are many programs and sites out there that let you do more advanced charting of your current and future earnings.
Stock trading site. As long as you have $2,500 in your account (traded or in cash) you get 10 free trades a month. Great for the occasional stock traders. While Zecco lacks in certain services from sites such as Scott Trade or Share Builder such as analysis of current earnings and getting research data, you can’t beat 10 free trades a month. Zecco does have many of the same services as the bigger Stock Trading sites, but it comes at a premium cost. Zecco also makes money by putting up ads on its site. Another cool feature of Zecco is thier online community. If you choose to join the community, you will have to share the stocks you have bought and sold to everyone. But at the same time, everyone in the community does this. You can discuss stock tips and advice, and ask each other questions about why they bought or sold certain stocks.
Update: Zecco has decided to increase the minimum amount you need in your account to $25,000 in order to recieve the 10 free trades a month.
