August 9, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

With the recent changes on InvestorBlogger, I’ll be providing a regular weekly summary of posts on each of the blogs, so you don’t miss out! Of course, you could just subscribe to the Site Feed. It will update you with ALL the new posts, blogs and information on InvestorBlogger!

Google AdWords: Does it make Ad Sense?

One of the new things I’m trying is bringing traffic from AdWords. I finally signed up for a Google AdWords account; had my cards accepted and am now running ads for one of my pages. it’s pretty easy to set up, I was surprised. I’ve set up five different [...]

Switching to a New Platform: WordPress MU

As some of you have been following the blog, InvestorBlogger is in the throes of becoming a multi-blog. This is a great thing for InvestorBlogger because I’ve always found that the blog had a fuzzy focus on topics: covering a wide range of topics from Taiwan to Making Money to blogging Issues and much more.
I’d [...]

Dollar Travels: PF Blog Update #1

August 8th, I’ve been working on setting up the first blog on Personal Finance, I’m now going through the archives of InvestorBlogger to extract all the articles on Personal Finance in the past few months, as I’d like to launch (or relaunch) PF Blog with a much sharper focus on expenses and income and dealing [...]

Where to go

This blog is still very much in the startup stage. For current readers, please go to the archives for all of the posts up until August 4th. If you would like, use the search above to search for topics. There are four new sub-blogs, but content isn’t yet published on the new blogs, as I’m setting [...]

Dow Components

For all the Dow Components, click on this link…

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August 4, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

I’m upgrading the website over the next 48 hours or so. There will be the occasional hiccup as these things are never easy. Since I’m planning an expansion of the coverage that you can read here, it’s necessary to upgrade the software running the website.

• Step 1: I’ll be moving the entire blog (as you see here) to a new /archives/ location;
• Step 2: I’ll be installing Wordpress again on this page (WordPress MU) which will be used to run the blog in future as well as the additional material.
• Step 3: Then over the next few weeks, I’ll be dividing the main blog into four sub-blogs to better target my readers: each blog will be launched when it’s ready.

Posting will continue in the meantime but occasionally you might see a different website or experience site troubles. This is localized, short-term and (hopefully) expected! Once the move is confirmed as permanent, then I’ll start working on the new blog appearance and content.

• Personal Finance: since I do so many posts on this issue, I feel it’s about time to break out this category as a separate sub-blog. Posts will include credit card, financing, finance, personal money stories, etc.
• blogging: This covers the tools, blogging stories and other features that you’ve come to expect, as well as my continuing series on getting started blogging.
• Investing: I’ll be covering more investing stories as well as I seek contributions from outside. As many of you have read, I’ll be focusing on developing my own investment style, talking about investing news, etc.
• Gadgets: I’ll be covering more of the tech, websites, gadgets and other juicy items you’ve seen here already: UMPC market, cameras, software, top websites, etc.

Why am I doing this? Because after blogging for two years on these and related topics, I’m finding that I am not gaining much traction on my readership. This is largely due to my sometimes uneven style of writing. As a result, I’ll be aiming to describe much more clealry circles of interest, SEO the articles and posts much better, and draw more readers. Marketing more clearly defined blogs than I currently have should make it easier to draw new readership, build communities, and foster better interaction (from posting to commenting).

For the most part, the transition will be fairly invisible but for you, my current (and much appreciated) readers, there won’t be much difference: when you come to find your favorite posts, they’ll still be there; when you come to the main page, you’ll still see what you see now; all posts will be searchable, in the sitemaps, etc.; but, perhaps the only difference will be that there will be some changes to the feeds. For that, I will have to learn how to use Yahoo! Pipes to construct a ’super’ feed or you will be able to subscribe to each sub-feed.

Please comment me any problems you experience of reach me via the feedback form or via email at investorblogger_at_gmail_dot_com.

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August 3, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

Well, it’s a real long time since I did a newspost for InvestorBlogger. But here it is… what’s going on with InvestorBlogger?

July Income Report: Changes Afoot

July was less than a stellar month on income for InvestorBlogger, bringing in an approx. $471.12. I’ll be including this but from July 1st I’ll be reporting on a strictly CASH basis. In other words, only money or cash that is received in my accounts will be recorded as an income. Affiliate income that is not paid out will be noted, but since different affiliate programs and advertising vendors have varying payout regulations, it will not be counted.

Only when I have the cash in one of my accounts, PayPal or Broker or Bank, will I record it in my cash received column. Unfortunately this will mean that some income will be double counted as I haven’t received it yet cash-wise, but counted it earlier as ‘income’. So I will keep an informal record towards the end of 2008, but from July 1st I will be releasing official results shortly!

• Bank Interest    $27.06
• Stockbroker    $122.50
• blogging    $97.50
• Advertising   $165.04
• Consulting    $59.02
• Total: $471.12

Google AdWords: Does it make Ad Sense?

One of the new things I’m trying is bringing traffic from AdWords. I finally signed up for a Google AdWords account; had my cards accepted and am now running ads for one of my pages. it’s pretty easy to set up, I was surprised. I’ve set up five different ads with different styles advertising my Make Money page. I’ve already had 6 clickthroughs already. I’m not expecting the campaign to yield any real traffic but so far the clicks are clicking away just as fast!

Perhaps the links on the page are too confusing or there are just too many links on that page. Anyway, at least I’m now learning the ropes of using AdWords type words. I am beginning to think up new ways to monetize this, but it’s all very new to me! Any tips? Any one?

I’ll be doing a post on this shortly once I have enough clicks to write a proper story about the whole thing!

Maxxing things out: The only way to go!

It’s true - I haven’t maximized the earnings on some fronts. In fact, I checked through my accounts and figured that I could be earning about $23 more per month, just by putting more of my ’stagnant’ cash in better earning accounts. In fact, I just double checked my figures and found out that my savings are ‘less-’ optimized. With the money in the brokerage account, I figure I could earn about another $7 per month.

Here’s to maximizing the income! Anyway, next time you get your interest statement, make sure that your account is getting a decent rate! It’s easy to be too busy and overlook such ‘little’ things: truth is, you’re only cheating yourself if you do.

Best Wishes,
Kenneth

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August 2, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

These two videos attracted my interest. Have you heard of Credit Default Swaps? If not, read (watch) on…

Part 2.

There’s more on Wikipedia, too. So what is a Credit Default Swap?

"A credit default swap (CDS) is a credit derivative contract between two counterparties, whereby one makes periodic payments to the other and receives the promise of a payoff if a third party defaults. The former party receives credit protection and is said to be the "buyer" while the other party provides credit protection and is said to be the "seller". The third party is known as the "reference entity".

When a credit event in the reference entity is triggered, the protection seller either takes delivery of the defaulted bond for the par value (physical settlement) or pays the protection buyer the difference between the par value and recovery amount of the bond (cash settlement). Simply, the risk of default is transferred from the buyer to the seller.

For example, ABC Corporation may have its credit default swaps currently trading at 265 basis points (bp). In other words, the annual cost to insure 10 million euros of its debt would be 265,000 euros. If the same CDS had been trading at 7 bp a year before, it would indicate that markets now view ABC as facing a greater risk of default on its obligations.

Credit default swaps resemble an insurance policy, as they can be used by debt owners to hedge, or insure against credit events (such as a default) on a credit asset. However, because there is no requirement to actually hold any asset or suffer a loss, credit default swaps can also be used for speculative purposes."

This is interesting stuff, how have we built such a house of cards? …

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August 2, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off 

Michael Turton won a blog review earlier this year, and I’m truly impressed at the depth of the revisions that he has made to his blog (Now on Wordpress!). He’s intending to revamp his archives, too. But I love what he’s doing. Take a look for yourself.

Here’s the image to whet your appetite! Quite makes me want to revamp my own dull theme!

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