FoundersCard: The Elite ‘Black Card’ For Entrepreneurs

Posted by Clifford Mato in Best Financial Tips | No Comments

If you’re running a tech startup, chances are you’ve heard of FoundersCard. It’s essentially the “black card” for entrepreneurs, offering up perks, networking opportunities and something even more coveted: an aura of exclusivity.

A FoundersCard membership brings discounts at more than 250 merchants that cater to the tech crowd, like Virgin Atlantic — the airline of choice for many in Silicon Valley — and the Ace Hotels mini-chain, where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg likes to crash. Even Apple has signed on, giving FoundersCard members access to its “preferred pricing” program, which offers a smattering of discounts and freebies.

The concept was hatched two years ago by Eric Kuhn, who set out to create the kind of loyalty card he wishes he’d had during his first entrepreneurial stint.

Back in 1999, Kuhn founded Varsity Books, an online textbook retailer that raised scads of money, went public and then went bust. The ailing company got kicked off the Nasdaq exchange after its share price plunged. (…)

MargateJelly – no wobbles – just good business!

Posted by Ginger Makales in Financial News | No Comments

Following on from the success of the first Margate Jelly co-working group event last month, homeworkers, small business owners, freelancers and entrepreneurs are invited to pop along on 28th March to the next group at Westgate Pavilion, Sea Road,Westgate.

The Margate Jelly Group in Margate / Westgate is for small business owners, freelancers and other homeworkers who miss the interaction and buzz of an office environment. The new group aims to meet once or twice a month in Margate / Westgate.

Refreshments, seating and wi-fi – as well as good company and people to bounce ideas off –are all there. Just bring a laptop, some work and get the buzz of the office environment!

Described by its founders as a casual working event where people come together to work for the day, MargateJelly is being organised by local firm Speedie Consultants Limited.

“Our first meeting had a great turn out” says founder, Jason Hulott “with people from many different industries coming along, whether it was for the whole event, or just to stop and have a coffee.

“It was brilliant to meet like-minded business owners and share experiences. Having work

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The British love spending their money in Spain

Posted by Admin in Financial News | No Comments

British nationals make over 12 million visits to Spain each year plus Spain is also the home of the most UK expats, together this makes the European nation the favourite destination for British debit cards and holiday spending. The Spanish tourist industry is worth around €62m each year, with a fair proportion of this attributed to British holiday makers. Where other sectors are faltering, Spain’s Tourist industry is still bringing in the money – just about, and is the number one place for UK tourists to spend money when abroad. In 2010, Spain fell from third place to fourth most visited country in the world after France, the United States and China with 53 million visitors. However it has the fifth largest tourist industry in the world behind the United States with $510.8 billion, Japan $172.5 billion, China $113.4 billion and France $107.6 billion.

According to Norwich and Peterborough Building Society the top destinations for UK tourists to spend money from current accounts are predominantly European with 6 out of the top ten having Mediterranean coasts. S (…)

If You Retire Well, It’s Not Likely Your Income Tax Rate Will Fall.

Posted by Clifford Mato in Best Financial Tips | No Comments

Theres so much out there to help folks plan for retirement. Yet whats one of the common denominators almost universally mentioned? They tell you when you retire, your tax bracket will very likely be much lower. Not so fast tax breath. Theres a question beggin to be asked.

Well let that question simmer a bit, OK? There could be a quiz later.

Lets say the biggest paycheck you earned while working full time was around $80,000 or so. You probably owned a home, with a mortgage. That home offered (at least last time I checked) a deduction on the interest you paid. Then there was the deduction for the real estate taxes.

For maybe 20-30 years you also had 1-5 or more deductions for your progeny. Most of us then took other various deductions. Thing is, when you retire, your kids are gone. You most likely paid off your mortgage (with great glee). The expense of kids and a mortgage is gone. Surely, thats a good thing.

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Options Investing

Posted by Ginger Makales in Financial News | No Comments

Stock options are a derivative that have become very popular with traders. Traders and investors can use options to place a trade on a specific security without actually owning that security. Instead of purchasing 100 shares of Walmart, for example, an investor could simply purchase 100 options, which allows the investor to make money just as he would if he were to buy Walmart stock shares.

Options Investing 101

Options come in two forms: puts and calls. A put option is the right to sell a certain stock sometime in the future at a certain price. A call option is the right to buy a certain stock at a certain price at some point in the future.

Typically, investors purchase options to:

1. Boost returns – The same amount of money invested in options instead of stock will provide for a much larger return on your investment. However, as with all options investing and other leveraged transactions, the downside risk can also be increased.

2. <

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SEC Crackdown Ends Wild West Days

Posted by Clifford Mato in Best Financial Tips | No Comments

The party’s over. After a yearlong investigation into the trading of private-company stock, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges on Wednesday against four firms involved in the shadowy secondary market.

The charges vary against trading platform SharesPost and investment funds Felix Investments, Facie Libre Management and EB Financial, but they all signal the same thing: no more free-wheeling trading in the stock of companies that aren’t yet public.

Private markets like SharesPost and its larger rival SecondMarket burst onto the scene in 2009 to fill a market gap. After the dot-com collapse, the public markets shunned tech companies. But as hot companies like Facebook grew, investors started clamoring for a piece of the action.

Enter SharesPost and SecondMarket, which began experimenting with operating eBay-like exchanges to connect sellers — typically employees and early investors — with potential buyers.

The private exchanges are more lightly regulated than public exchanges like Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. (…)