Opportunity

• Penny stocks are advantageous for an obvious reason: they’re cheap.  This means you can buy more shares of the particular stock that you’re interested in.
• More shares=higher profit.  Of course, this is assuming that your stock rises, but when it does, your profit percentage will be quite high.
• Penny stocks move quickly. It is not unusual for a  stock that is worth $0.10 to quickly become worth $1. If you owned $100 worth of stocks at $0.10, they would now be worth $1,000.

Risks

• Penny stocks are risky just by their very nature.  They can rise and fall by hundreds of points multiple times during a single day.  You either need great faith in the stock or the ability to constantly keep an eye on it and know the right action to take.
• There is normally little to no solid information available on the company.  You should be able to trust the company you’re investing your money in, so research is crucial.  It’s possible that your penny stock is either a very new business or an older business in danger of bankruptcy.
• Lack of information means no history.  This makes it difficult to analyze any financial trends that the company has experienced, turning your investment into a guessing game.
• You risk unknowingly falling into a scam.  Penny stocks are sometimes sold through spam emails and subscription newsletters.  Just as with any other email in your spam folder, you must be careful about any decisions you make to go ahead and buy stocks through someone you don’t know and haven’t investigated.

It sure looks as though the risks far outweigh the opportunities, doesn’t it?  The truth is that any stock that you invest in comes with risks, and you’re just as likely to lose your money as you are to gain no matter the case.  Penny stocks do come packaged with a few risks, but for someone with little money to invest and little experience, they can be a good stepping stone with huge potential.  Make sure you do as much research as possible before investing, and find a trusted source to help  you.  Your best bet with any stock is to work on gaining experience first.  When you’re comfortable with reading trends, you can move on and take some bigger risks and make some bigger profits.

While the commonly cited statistic is that 9 out of 10 businesses fail, it those who have an entrepreneurial mind who will try 10 times in order to succeed. Not only do they enjoy the risk, but the opportunity is what drives them. Typically after goals are reached, these people don’t stop. It’s not so much about the amount of money that is obtained, but the challenge and the thrill of producing such large income streams.

So what is it that allows these people to become so successful? There are very few opportunities in the workforce to produce $100,000 in a single month, but entrepreneurs around the world are capable of creating that kind of income, and more. All it takes is a system that is scalable, and an ability to manage money properly.

It doesn’t necessarily matter what the system is… it can be an ice cream stands, a neon sign shop, or a landscaping service. There are many ways to build an large income stream, but it takes your initiative in order to find what works best for you. What works for one person does not necessarily work for another, and the quickest way to find that out is to try.

Once you see how the inner parts run in order to make a business profitable, and you bring your business to a certain level or profitability, then you scale. That may mean more advertising, hiring more employees, or buying more equipment. Whatever it takes to make your business run smoother and grow quicker. Manage your money properly and your business can grow at an exponential rate — doubling in size and income month after month. Of course with growth comes more expenses, but so do opportunities and tax breaks.

So what are some of the best industries or businesses to start with? Regardless if you are looking to produce a little part-time income or want to build massive income streams, here are a few things to consider. These options can be done from home, around your busy schedule, and with little or no start-up capital. Because of the low barrier of entry and the low risk involved, these may be some good places to start — depending on your interests:

1. Trade Penny Stocks: The penny stock market is a high-paced, exciting business to be in. You can make money incredibly fast, but you can lose it just as fast. Because of the nature of this market, a small investment can potentially turn into a 4,000% profit, or more in a matter of minutes. A stock valued at $0.10 that later in the day becomes worth $2 can make someone an overnight success. Reinvest those profits carefully, and you could strike gold. This is a high risk game that can be started with little money, and having access to penny stock email alerts, you can be notified exactly what to buy, when to buy, and at what price — making it easy for anyone of any skill level to start trading.

 

2. Make Money Online: If high risk is not your style, then an online business may be something better suited for you. With over 2 billion people online at any given time, there are many ways to generate an income. There’s no selling, you can work on your online business from anywhere with an Internet connection, and there’s incredibly low risk. With social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter becoming an everyday part of life, it is becoming easier for individuals to make money online. These popular tools allow everyday people to make money without having to own a website or needing any technical skills. A single message from your Twitter account can be instantly broadcasted to millions of people and pull in thousands of dollars at the push of a button. Learn how to get started making money online in your spare time.

 

3. Turn Hobbies Into Cash Flow: Take a moment to think about the hobbies or skills you have that are unique to you. They may be such ordinary and easy tasks to you that you may not even realize that it is a valuable skill. What do you find yourself doing in your spare time, or what do people regularly ask for your advice or help with? There is a high value placed on specialty skills, which can often times be turned into profits. It could be baking, design, training… whatever it is that you do best can be turned into a revenue generating business. You just need to identify what that is and how you can mold it into a product or service.

These are by no means the only ways to produce a large amount of wealth, nor are these methods guaranteed to make money for you. These methods, however, are relatively low-risk, have a low barrier of entry, are scalable, and have incredible profit potentials. Unlike opening your own brick in mortar business, you don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars to start, you don’t need to quit your day job, and you can grow your business at your own pace. That’s what makes home-based business opportunities a good starting point for anyone who’d like to produce a part-time income that could potentially balloon into a multi-million dollar income stream.

As always, it’s smart to diversify your portfolio.  Doing so will mean that you’ll take less of a hit if one company or even an entire industry drops dramatically.  The other places you’ve invested that are gaining or remaining steady can balance out your loss.  If you want significant gains, you have to be willing to take on riskier stocks that have the potential for high returns on your investment.  Use safe, steady stocks to help maintain your money and cushion losses on the risky stocks.

Safe Investments

Every money and investment website may recommend different companies to invest in right now, but most share similar ideas of which industries to seek out.  For safer stocks, smartmoney.com recommends Duke Energy and Southern Co.  The reason?  People will always need electricity.  They may cut back, but most of us can only go so far (and in some places, prices keep rising anyway).  Microsoft is highly recommended, as they have the largest presence in the computer industry.  Chances are, you use Microsoft Office more than any other software for home and office needs.  Johnson & Johnson is another safe bet, a “family company” that produces many of the consumer goods people still need no matter what shape the economy is in.

You can also stay safe by investing in mutual funds, IRAs, a 401(k), and ETFs (exchange-traded funds).  You’ll have little to no risk of losing money, but you’ll still receive the current market rate or a guaranteed high interest rate.

Mid-Range Investments

If you’re looking to sit somewhere in the middle, the health care industry can be a good bet.  Medco Health Solutions comes recommended from smartmoney.com, as well as Dentsply, a large supplier of dental equipment.  The majority of people will only risk so much of their health to save money, so any slump the health care industry experiences can be expected to turn around and simply take off when the economy pulls out of the recession.

High Risk Investments

As for high risk/high return investments, smartmoney.com specifically recommends Lowe’s, GE, and Transocean (oil).  These are companies that may be going through a very rough patch but can be expected to jump high again soon, producing a nice profit for your investment.

Of course, you can invest your money wherever you’re comfortable.  If you’ve got enough to play with and can withstand a huge loss, you can go for all high-risk companies.  If you’re just starting out, you might try your hand with safer ones first.  At any rate, if the best advice for choosing a home is location, location, location, the best advice for choosing any stock is diversify, diversify, diversify.

I’m a believer in that if you keep your head and follow your initial strategy, you’ll come out ahead. That’s the Warren Buffett way, right? Invest when things look bad. No matter how bad things get, at least you’re buying shares cheaper than you did in the past. The U.S. economy is resilient and things will be greater than they ever were, right?

Well, now I’m starting to ask when.

These are truly historic times. Through August 2008, the S&P 500′s annualized 10-year gain was just 4.7%, which means there wouldn’t have been much of a difference if you just put your cash under your mattress.

Remember the good old days when the DOW was above 14,000 and you could make a bad bet in the stock market? Just buy stocks or mutual funds and watch your net worth grow. Well, now we’re back where we were about July, 2006. If you invest since then, you’ve probably lost money.

That’s a tough thing to face after all the discipline and organization it took to save that money in the first place. And if you’re looking at your retirement fund, that can leave you with a lot of questions.

The bottom has been falsely predicted many times over the past year or so, and things just seem to keep getting worse. What’s next and how far will the stock market go? Nobody knows – the stock market is completely unpredictable.

But one thing for sure is that at some point things will get better. Just like a company, it’s tough to keep growing and growing year after year. At some point you’ve maxed out all your profits and reached your peak. That’s when things start to go sour and profits start to dip.

But the best companies take this opportunity to reinvent themselves and become stronger. As a result they lead into the future with better product and stronger income statements. The economy is exactly the same, and at some point things will bounce back.

When it does, those who had the ability and the guts to continue to follow their investment strategy will come out way ahead. Some day you may look back and wish you were in the market on days like today.

These are the days that people like Warren Buffett were born.

There are countless stories of people who scored a big one and made themselves overnight millionaires, and not just by purchasing and selling stocks. The same stories go for business opportunities and “get rich quick” schemes. A word of advice . . . don’t get yourself caught up in the thrill because you will get burned.

Some highly experienced, and consequently highly-leveraged, investors are capable of betting with margin accounts to make fortunes and high-yield returns. These people, have years of experience, training and specialty resources. They also tend to have high-highs and low-lows — one week they are on top of the world trading options, futures and other derivatives, and the next week they are flat broke and highly in debt.

Amateur investors who get caught up in the hype of being able to score big don’t last long though. All too often amateurs see an infomercial in the middle of the night that guarantees to make them millions in the foreign exchange market. The next day they spend a fortune to learn how to fund their account and minutes later they watch their entire life savings be wiped out, while the professional and institutional investors make their profits.

You know the old adage, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” If you play this game, pouncing on the opportunity to earn unordinary high-yield profits, you may get lucky and win here and there. But you will loose more than you will win, and when you lose, you lose big. The odds are against you.

Everyone dreams of making a quick pile of money, and con-artists know that people become very vulnerable if you lead them to believe they can become rich quick. Be very wary of offers to receive immediate returns, such as 100% a week. Chances are you are getting caught up in a ponzi scheme or some other scam, which are quite prolific online these days. Although illegal in America, many of these web-based scams are hosted overseas and tough to track. Run away from offers like this. You’re better off putting your money on the roulette table where odds may not in your favor, but at least there are odds.

If you must give in to the temptation and take these risks, realize that it is a loosing bet and play with money that you intend to loose. Most money managers recommend that less than 10 percent of your funds should be invested in speculative stocks. Other types of high-yield investments should not consume more than one percent of assets.

Millionaire Money Habit: Don’t think about how much you can make, think about how much you are going to lose.