Forget making a profit; instead focus on the income provided from your stock portfolio. That’s right! Forget making a profit. The burden is now lifted - no more pressure on making a buck in the stock market. (Instead of trying to bend the spoon, that is impossible, instead just think of the spoon as – omigosh! - I’m in the Matrix!) When you focus on the amount of money your holdings are providing in dividends – and when those companies selected have a history of raising their dividends each year – a lower stock price allows the dividends that are being rolled back into the stock to accelerate your income. The total value of your portfolio may go lower, but your income from that lower priced portfolio would increase dramatically. Profit by income!

When you invest in the stock market for ever-increasing cash dividend income, verses trying to make a buck in the stock market, your mind set will change. There will no longer be a fear of losing money in the stock market. With the right type of investment plan and investment choices all worries of losing money in the stock market will disappear.

The mind set that will emerge when you adopt a proven income producing investment plan in the stock market will create an air of worry-free concern about the up and down turmoil of a volatile stock market. Whether your investment portfolio is rising or falling won’t make a difference. Your income producing investment plan will prove to continually increase your cash dividend income from all your stock market investments, on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

By Ron Struthers
Platinum is often referred to as the 'noble metal'. Webster's definition of Noble is "high and great in character, showing greatness, outstanding or excellent, fine splendid, magnificent" Platinum has certainly been standing up to this definition. The noble metal averaged US$845 a troy ounce in 2004, the highest average annual price since 1980 and also up 22% from the average in 2003 of $691/oz.

Have you ever noticed how some words in the English language are so perfectly named for what they describe? And how some words seem to be, I guess you could say, backwards? For instance, the word sunflower! How wonderfully aptly named is the sunflower, that beautiful yellow flower that follows the sun from sunrise to sunset.

And then there are those words in the English language where their meaning appears to be backward, so to speak - like parkway and driveway. When my car is parked at home, I would think it would be parked on, well, a parkway - and when I’m on the road driving somewhere, I would think I’d be driving on a driveway.

Tim W. Wood
Today, let’s review some of the items that commonly unfold as the K-wave winter sets in. The K- wave is an economic cycle of sorts that is said to be 56 years in duration but has varied from 47 to 60+ years. In November 1935 N.D. Kondratieff wrote in The Review of Economic Statistics, an article titled “The Long Waves in Economic Life.” In this article Mr. Kondratieff states, “The waves are not exactly the same length, their duration varying between 47 and 60 years.” The K-wave can be thought of as having an upside leg, a plateau and a downside leg. In the article by Mr. Kondratieff, he clearly ties the topping of the inflationary leg of the wave to the peaking of interest rates and commodity prices and the bottoming of the wave to the bottoming of interest rates and commodity prices. The upside or inflationary leg of the K-wave can be further divided into two phases. The first phase is marked by mild or beneficial inflation and is also often referred to as K-wave Spring. This was the period from the late 1940s to 1966. The second phase of the inflationary leg is marked by runaway inflation and this was the period from 1966 to 1981. This period is also known as K-wave Summer.

I’ve been in and interested in the stock market so long (one year shy of forty years) I can remember when the mutual fund pages in my home town paper were just one page! Now it looks like there are more mutual funds then there are stocks listed on the New York stock exchange.

I wonder how many billions of investor dollars are supporting these funds. How many investor dollars are supporting all the brokerage firms? How many times has 401(k) monies been given to a ‘financial expert’ to manage after retirement, then three years later the $400,000 is down to $200,000. (Yet, the financial expert is still driving around in a new Lexus.) I could tell you stories from the people I know, who have retired and aren’t so happy with these experts, but I bet you know some stories of your own.

The Perfect Mutual Fund - Is the Mutual Fund you build yourself!

The perfect Mutual Fund you build should have the objective of owning no more than 12 to 15 companies; owning shares in 12 companies would allow the diversity needed to sleep well at night and would provide a cash dividend every week of the year. The 12 companies (with staggered dividend payout dates) in your perfect Mutual Fund should not only provide a cash dividend every week of the year, each company should also have a historical record of raising their dividend every year for at least the past 8 years (to eliminate risk).

The perfect Mutual Fund would have no fees attached; every cent put into the Fund would work toward your return on investment (ROI). There would not be any commission fees, load fees, management fees, operating or advertising fees, and there would be no illegal trading practices, hidden fees abuses or any type of hidden fee. The perfect Mutual Fund would benefit only you and your family and no one else.

What’s bad for the South African gold producers is good for platinum investors. For those of you who are worried about the rand going up hurting your SA investments, I've got good news for you. Platinum. Platinum producers or platinum companies that will be lower cost producers will be insulated from a higher rand - I explain this below.

As a precious metal mining investor for many years, it is always comfortable to be on the right side of the basic supply/demand equation of a mineral play. The platinum story at this time looks very compelling for reasons that may last 3-5 years and even more. Also platinum has little political risk and above ground supplies are already in circulation in the global marketplace. I am bullish on all the precious metals, and the platinum story is one of the best.

The bottom line is that demand for platinum and some of the lesser-known platinum group metals such as rhodium is not only very strong but the medium-term supply side of the equation looks like it may be even more bullish. According to Johnson Matthey, platinum has had supply tightening and demand increasing for the last 6 years ending in 2004. More important is the fact that with platinum trading at 24-year highs between $800 and $900 an ounce for all of 2004, up over 54% from its average price in the 2000-2001 period, supply increases were only 230,000 ounces in 2004. This is the real telltale sign that the supply constraints on platinum could be more severe than most people expect in the next few years.

While searching for the best no load mutual funds, some mutual fund investors often tend to focus exclusively on mutual fund fees and expense ratios. Is this always a smart way to select mutual funds?

Metrics such as price/earnings ratio and dividend yield on the S&P 500 index, a commonly used proxy for the U.S. stock market, are hardly at bargain levels. This has lead several market pundits to predict single digit annual returns for domestic mutual funds over the next decade.

While pursuing the search for the best mutual fund, some mutual fund investors tend to focus exclusively on fees and expense ratios. The rationale is that by choosing mutual funds with low fees, investors will have more of their capital invested. Also, no load mutual funds with low expense ratios will pass on more of the returns they earn to their shareholders.

Is shopping for the lowest fees and expense ratios a smart way to select mutual funds? Not always. The answer depends on the type of mutual fund you are evaluating, the time you can devote to evaluating and managing your mutual funds investments, and the type of cost incurred.

Investing in the stock market is not purchasing a stock at 25 dollars a share, hoping it will go to 35 so you can sell it, then hoping it will drop back to 25 so you can buy it back, so that you can sell it again at 35, and so on and so forth.

In my opinion, that is gambling. And, I would imagine, some would believe that ANY investment in the stock market is gambling.