Fixed odds explained and domain name profits debunked
Today’s Adventure in the Biz Opp Jungle
‘In which Charlie makes a start on his inbox backlog, answers questions about fixed odds trading, and whether there’s still money in domain names.’
Hi ,
Holy Moly! Thanks to my two-week break, my Biz Opp Jungle inbox is seriously overweight with unread emails.
I would say my inbox has become fatter than Mister Creosote on a Burger Binge after a seriously heavy pie eating contest, during a particularly indulgent Christmas.
However, I’m doing my best to get through the layers of requests, queries and variously fantastic – and less fantastic – points that have been raised.
First today I’ll answer some questions that cropped up after my Biz Opp Jungle issue on 24th January. It was the final issue before my daughter was born, so I didn’t get time to follow up on it.
You may or may not remember... but in that issue I reviewed The Financial Fixed-Odds Profits Course.
Let me recap quickly...
The creator of this fixed odds course is Chris Nash, a former stockbroker and currency trader in the City. Since 2006 he's run the CityBeaters website which helps people make money from fixed odds.
The idea is you bet against a prevailing trend. That is, if the FX market is strongly heading in one direction, you bet it won't suddenly change direction. And if the FX market looks like it's going nowhere in particular, you can bet on it carrying on going nowhere.
The odds are high, which means the rewards are low. But that's precisely the point... because you can control low amounts of risk to make regular low winnings. The idea is that you then reinvest these small winnings.
Yes, there will be loses. But the good thing about fixed odds, as opposed to spread betting, is that you can only lose your original stake and no more.
The website is here if you missed that issue of the Biz Opp Jungle:
Your questions answered
I’ll quickly answer the main questions I got about this while I was off:
· After I pay for the course, how much money do I need?
Usually you need about £500-£1000 in a trading account to make proper use of the techniques, because the idea is to leverage small low risk wins, using larger stakes.
· What if I don’t have, or don’t wish to risk that kind of money?
If you're at all interested, order the Fixed Odds course for a risk-free trial. Next go to www.betonmarkets.com and open the practice account where they give you £10K to play with. Try it out and see how it goes, you can send it back for a refund and even if you lose all your trades it won't matter because it's not real money you’ve played with.
· What kind of stop losses are there?
With Fixed Odds you bet a specific amount of money that the index won't hit a certain level in a period of time.
When you stake this money, you’ll know exactly how much you’ll win if it plays out how you predict. And you know the maximum you could lose if it doesn’t. You then either win that amount, or you lose your stake. You can't lose more than your stake as you can with spread betting.
Once you make the trade, everything else happens automatically. The profit or loss is locked in when the time period is up. So there's no need for a traditional stop loss as such.
And even if a trade is going against you, Betonmarkets will allow you to sell your bet early to recoup some of the loss.
· Is this too good to be true?
If you look at the website, the claims are quite reasonable. No stupid promises or guarantees.
Fixed odds betting is a proven way to earn a few bob here and there. It's all about having a bit of extra cash in your pocket, but you will lose some trades from time to time. And you won’t become an overnight millionaire. Far from it. This is a slow and steady way of making money.
There are more details here if you’re interested:
Is there still big money in domain names?
Another interesting email a few weeks ago asked about making money from domain names.
Is this kind of business still a goer? My reader wanted to know.
I recommended this type of biz opp a few years back when it first became popular. At the time I described it as a “gold rush” and it was in my "best biz for a beginner" report for a while until I decided that its time had perhaps passed.
For a time there was definitely money to be made in “them thar hills”. But I think this may have reached saturation.
You could get lucky with a good punt and get a domain name that becomes worth money. Yes a few people HAVE become very rich, partly through luck, and partly by getting in early.
One of my mates bought a load of domain names back in 2001 that he sold last month for £2K, so it's an okay investment for the effort, but it's not necessarily something you can rely on as a regular income stream.
Saying all that, the techniques of picking and hosting hot domain names are still relevant and worth knowing. Especially if you're combining the domain name with a decent website with something to sell.
This is because a domain name is an important driver of traffic and getting a good domain name is essential for a good online business.
If you hit a great domain name AND have a website that has something unique and desirable you can turn that website into an income stream.
So don’t dismiss domain name strategies, they have great usefulness and potential. But beware of gurus promising to make you speedily rich simply by harvesting domain names.
Cheers
Charlie Wright
The Biz Opp Jungle