by Jon Arnold 

Bankruptcy is when a person makes a legal declaration stating that one is legally insolvent. This article will deal with voluntary bankruptcy. This is where a debtor files a petition stating they are unable to meet their creditors’ requirements.

If you have the notion that if you file for bankruptcy, it will be the magic bullet you were looking for to solve all of your debt problems, then think again! You are being badly misled by someone if that is what you think. Filing for bankruptcy can come back to haunt you for many years, and this decision is not something that you should take lightly. This step should only be taken after you have given the matter careful deliberation and analysis. You should also do research to see if there are other alternatives available such as debt consolidation, grace periods, and loan deferment to see if it is possible to avoid bankruptcy. Filing for bankruptcy should be a last resort and not the first step.

First of all, there are some distinct disadvantages if you file for bankruptcy:

1. Your credit history will be ruined for up to ten years. This means that you will not be able to get any credit, secure jobs, rent apartments, and order utilities among other things.
2. Some people think that when they file for bankruptcy their debt will be eliminated, you will become debt-free and you will be able to have a clean slate and start fresh. Sad to say, this is not the case.
3. You will find that after you file for bankruptcy, you will be charged a higher interest rate by banks and other financial institutions.
4. A social stigma is attached to people who have filed for bankruptcy. You will find that family members and close friends will suddenly choose to avoid you.

How can you avoid bankruptcy? Here are several things to consider:

• Do extensive research and explore other options and alternatives that may be available to you. You must humble yourself and contact your creditors to see if you will be able to work out another payment plan while you try to work out your financial problems. Tell them you want to try to avoid bankruptcy.
• Explore options to see if you are a candidate for debt consolidation. This is one of the simplest ways to avoid bankruptcy.
• You are going to have to forever change your financial habits. You are going to have to make sure that from here on out you spend less than you earn.
• Lifestyle changes will have to be made if you want to avoid bankruptcy. There are many little things you can do to save money. Instead of subscribing to cable television, you will find that there are many good programs on regular TV channels that you can get by with just fine. Don’t eat out so much, take your lunch to work, in order to conserve gas and save money limit the number of trips you take in your car and don’t talk too long on the telephone.
• Try to save as much as you can as often as you can. The more you are able to save, the better it will be for you.

Again, filing bankruptcy should be your last resort, not simply “another option” to consider solving your financial problems. Although bankruptcy may be your only option, you owe it to yourself to check out all your options, and to be aware that there are negatives that accompany bankruptcy, as described above.

About the Author

For more insights and additional information on how to Avoid Bankruptcy please visit our web site at http://www.bankruptcy-data.com

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by Adam Woodham 

Any time you have property damage to your residence, you have to go through your Insurance Company to recover money for your losses and to rebuild what was lost. If you are like a large sum of property owners, you walked away with a check from your insrance company with barely enough funds to cover half of the work that has to be done to get your home back in shape.

This happens because of a couple of reasons. The first reason this happens is because of the nature of the Insurance Industry. They are in business to make money. They also hire their own Insurance Adjusters to estimate the amount of property damage you have to your home and how much it will cost to fix it. Since the Insurance Adjuster in this case works for the insurance company, you have nobody that is evaluating the damage with your thoughts in mind.

The second reason that Insurance Companies underpay their property owners is simply because the average property owner doesn’t know any better. They see the insurance company and their Adjuster doing work, and when they come up with a payment number, it is automatically accepted that this is how much they should be paid for the damage.

A little known fact, is that all property owners can choose their own contractors and get multiple bids on conductng repairs to their home. You do not have to take the lowest estimate of the bunch. The lowst estimate could mean the work will also be the lowest quality. You, as a property owner, have the option of selecting the contractor with the highest estimate if you choose, and that is what the insurance company has to go by.

The problem with this option is that the average property owner doesn’t know how to go about this process. It can be very tedious, overwhelming, and plain confusing. The good news is that you can get an Insurance Adjuster that works striclty for the policy holder and has only your interests at heart. This type of Adjuster is referred to as Public Adjuster. A Public Aduster’s responsiblity is to work with and for the policy holder and to get every penny they deserve out of the insurance company. Property damage claims that are handled by a Public Adjuster include fire, wind, water, flood, hurricane, theft and many others.

In many states, a property damage claim can be reopened up to five years after it was claimed. If you feel that you were underpaid by your insurance company on a past insurance claim, a Certified Public Adjuster can help you recover those extra funds.

About the Author

Adam Woodrow is a Homeowner and Webmaster for www.USALoss.com. Public Adjusters helping homeowners collect on underpaid insurance claims. Half of homeowners are underpaid and don’t even know it.

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by Rick Ratchford 

Successful trading requires having a firm understanding of the risk and reward picture before taking a trade. It requires having a good idea as to the trend direction of the market within a time frame that is higher than the one used to trade from.

For instance, if a trader usually takes trades that do not last more than one day, then it is likely that intraday charts are used in making trading decisions. These may be charts ranging in time-frames of 1 minute up to a few hours. For this type of trader, it is beneficial to know the daily trend, which is the next higher time-frame from intraday charting.

The trader who places trades based on a daily chart would be wise to determine what the weekly trend happens to be, the next time frame above daily. And for those who trade long-term and base trades from weekly charts, knowing the monthly trend would be expected.

As simple as this happens to be, it is quite common for traders to excuse this important step in the analysis. However, for the trader who seeks to have the power of the markets behind the move, the higher time frame should be consulted to determine whether to be a seller or buyer.

Take for example the trader who prefers to place trades based off a daily chart. Such a trader is likely interested in staying in the trade for at least a day or two, even longer. In such a case, the trader should consult the weekly chart, which is the next higher time frame, and note the likely trend.

So with the weekly chart, suppose the pattern is one of higher weekly swing bottoms and higher weekly swing tops. This is a typical pattern for a bull trend.

Acknowledging that the weekly trend is bullish, the daily time frame trader would then only consider taking trades that are designed for bullish markets. This may be long positions in the futures, buying Calls or selling Puts in options, or perhaps a spread strategy that favors the bull move.

Once the direction of the trade has been decided based on the higher time frame trend, it is important to know ‘when’ such trades are best taken.

For example, just because the weekly trend is bullish does not necessary mean a long position off the daily time frame will meet with favorable results. For even when a trend is bullish, it will have bearish corrections along the way. Therefore, to get the power lift from the higher time frame, it is best to get on board when those trend corrections at the higher time frame had ended.

In the case of our weekly bull trend example, the best time to buy off the daily chart is when the weekly chart is putting in a higher weekly swing bottom. These higher weekly swing bottoms occur usually at the end of a bull trend correction. Just like the best place to enter a daily chart is off a daily trend correction that is ending, the best time to do this is when the higher time frame is also ending a trend correction.

Once the trader becomes wise to this simple but important fact, all that is left is to learn the simple techniques that help determine what the trend happens to be on any given time frame. Simple methods include looking for the obvious higher swing tops/bottoms for a bull or lower swing tops/bottoms for a bear trend, noting correction ratios such as 50% pullbacks or the commonly used Fibonacci and Gann ratios, and whether a correction appears oversold or overbought based on indicators designed for this purpose (Stochastic, MACD, COT, etc.).

As a market cycle analyst, my preference to determining when trend corrections are likely ending is by calculating whether a market turn is highly probable due to dynamic cycles, such as is forecasted using my FDate algorithm (http://www.amazingaccuracy.com). Along with this, I will also employ a powerful technique for figuring out trend overbought/oversold parameters to further support my findings.

However you decide to calculate the likely end of a trend correction, remember to use the trend of the higher time frame, and wait for the end of a correction to that trend, to assist your timing and trade direction on the lower time frame. By doing this, you will allow the market to ‘power lift’ many of your trades.

About the Author

Rick Ratchford is an analyst, trader, author and speaker specializing in the forecasting of market tops and bottoms in the Futures/Commodity and Forex markets. Members of his Precision Trading Membership learn weekly when to expect upcoming tops and bottoms in the major Futures/Commodity and Forex Markets. He has helped many traders since 1996 to better time the markets. For free timing newsletter, go to: http://www.amazingaccuracy.com.

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by CJ deHeer

Everyone wonders what kind of financial shape they are going to be in after purchasing a home. The difference between someone who is prepared for the purchase and an impulse purchaser is the fact that if the home purchase is planned then the buyer will know what their financial position is after the sale. Making the monetary arrangements for a home purchase is one of the most important financial things that a person can ever do. If a home purchase is well planned and done from a position of intelligence and education then the purchase and subsequent living should be relatively stress free. On the other hand, if a home is purchased on impulse without any planning an owner can quickly find themselves in deep water or foreclosure and this is a horrible thing to have to go through.

There are some major mistakes that people make when preparing for a home purchase. Many of them are regarding the financial aspect of the purchase. One of the most common of these mistakes is getting into a situation where there is too much house and mortgage payments that are financially crippling. Sometimes these arrangements are entered into in good confidence and with good reason but life has a way of changing at inappropriate times and as home owners we need to be prepared for such incidents. We have seen more foreclosures in this country in the last year than ever before and this is a direct result of the prevalence of sub-prime loans and the rising cost of living.

If you are a first time home buyer then there are many costs associated with owning a home that may not occur to you at first. Property taxes, repairs, maintenance all cost the owner. Moving from a rental situation to an ownership situation can be surprising in cost. When purchasing a home is is a good idea to ask the current owners about the average monthly bills. What did it cost them to live in the home on a monthly basis. Make sure that you have these costs figured into your monthly budget along with your mortgage payments and any other financial responsibilities. Be sure that you have room to breathe financially in case of any emergencies. It always pays to have contingency plans in case they are necessary. Home owning is a great experience unlike anything else but it requires careful planning and an attention to finances. Don’t sell yourself short, make sure your new home plan covers all the bases.

About the Author

CJ de Heer is a certified REALTOR;® specializing in the Santa Cruz real estate market. For access to some of the most stunning coastal properties check out www.cjdeheer.com.

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by John McElborough 

This article is an introduction to recruitment for UK banking jobs. Getting a job in banking can be a drawn out process as recruitment cycles often take up to 6 months and the top banks may look at hundreds of candidates for a single post and go through 2 or more interviewing stages often in addition to a competency assessment. If you already work in banking or the finance sector you may be familiar with the recruitment process and if you’re looking for a change of career within banking this article will discuss briefly the best approach to successfully finding a new job.

Agency or direct

At the start of your journey to find a perfect banking job you will usually be faced with 2 routes (although you can take both simultaneously). Whether you should use a recruitment agency to source suitable opportunities for you or go direct to financial institutions with your applications.

Using an agency

Agencies are widely used in financial recruitment particularly for skilled banking jobs as the recruitment process is a labour intensive one often comprising of weeks of processing under qualified or inappropriate candidates before arriving at a list of high quality potential employees. The banking sector more than most appreciate the added value of dealing with an agency for some or all of their recruitment rather than managing their own extensive human resources based recruitment programme.

Recruitment agency consultants are driven to match the best candidates to the clients banking jobs, usually more so than the person to whom responsibility falls within the client institution- often the HR department or busy heads of department who may not have the required time to properly process high volumes of applications.

For the candidate, using a recruitment agency can also offer some distinct advantages over applying directly to individual companies in response to banking job vacancy advertisements. An agency will be working closely with the banks with a range of vacancies both current and upcoming available. If an advertised vacancy does not prove to be suitable your recruitment consultant will often be able to recommend an alternative position to apply for.

If you have the skills and experience that an agency is looking for they will actively seek out new opportunities for you as they become available, this can take much of the time consuming work out of applying for a new job in banking as agencies will only put candidates forward for positions they feel they are well suited for and capable of obtaining. Agencies can also deal with the initial contacting of the financial institutions and get interviews arranged on your behalf.

Going direct

Many applicants prefer to go direct to recruiters rather than going through a specialist recruitment agency as this allows them to make direct contact with the companies they are applying for and pick their applications based on job vacancies posted by the banking institutions.

The easiest way to find job vacancies if you want to apply straight to a recruiter are to search job listings on online job boards, newspapers and corporate websites. The downside of applying for jobs this way is the time it can take to find appropriate advertisements, approach the recruiter, submit applications and arrange interviews often based on limited information about the position you are applying for.

Choosing an agency

If you choose to use an agency to find you a new job in banking it is important to approach an agency who understand the unique and often specialist nature of the banking industry and have direct relationships with the banks themselves. Banks will often not deal with recruitment agencies whom they do not have a working relationship with due to their HR procedures. So make sure the agency representing you are talking to the banks or financial institutions directly and are on their preferred suppliers lists.

The main advantage of an agency is having an agent working on your behalf so make sure you get on with your agent and you feel comfortable with them representing you in front of potential employers- if an agent expects you to lie about your skills or experience on a CV its unlikely they’re working for your best interests.

Writing a CV

The CV is a critical part of successfully applying for banking jobs as its all an employer has to go on when deciding whether or not to invite you to interview. As the people up against you for banking jobs are going to have often very similar skills and experience due to the nature of the industry your CV has to not only be watertight in terms of the information it gets across but also make you stand out from a crowd of other financial experts. Banking is still a formal institution and you resume should reflect this, but some creativity will help to show your character and the effort you’ve put into your application- think about ways of presenting your CV with a unique personal touch, if you’re photogenic a picture of yourself is often a good start (don’t forget to smile!).

Again a recruitment agent should be able to help you get your CV up to a standard where they are confident it will be acceptable by the banks and financial institutions whom will be recruiting. There are lots of template CV’s and CV writing advice available online by searching for ‘banking job CV’.

The interview

Interview skills are a subject in their own right and beyond the scope of this article. There’s a lot of things to remember you should and shouldn’t be doing in an interview but most of these are common sense things about the way you want to present yourself. The best advice ultimately is make sure you do yourself justice, listen to the interviewers and think about the sort of things they want to hear from you. They want to find out about your personality and character as much as anything else so show you are a person they’d like to work with.

Again a Google search for ‘interview tips’ will give you plenty of helpful advice and a recruitment agent will also help to prep you before setting you up with interviews.

Good luck finding your dream job in banking.

About the Author

Commercial Finance People are a specialist financial recruitment agency specialising in banking jobs and asset finance jobs in the UK and worldwide.

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