People walk into the bank as if it’s McDonald’s, really. The last time I visited a bank with my colleague, she had her eyes popped out off her sockets, not literally, but she was very close to it. “Look at this! ING is now offering 3% returns on RRSP contribution for the next three months. This is much more than we get on our bonds.” She, however, failed to understand that a person who invests, lets say, $5000 in this three-month-investment at the rate of 3%, at the end of the stipulated period, he would reap $35. What then? Would he go searching for another three month investment plan, and continue transferring the amount from one bond to another till retirement? We plan retirement to get rid of rat race, and not to start another. The problem, however, with our society is politicians [...] 

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Investing is one of the best methods to make money while you are sleeping. Investments, however, aren’t reaping much benefit in our country due to the recent global crisis. And one cannot assure such situation wouldn’t arise again in near future. So, how do you make money by investing? Where do you invest your money? Let’s leave this question unanswered for a while and ponder on the safety of investment. One of the best ways to safeguard your investment or, quite precisely, to minimize your risk is diversification. Instead of dumping all you wealth into stock market, you can diversify your portfolio by investing some amount is bonds, saving accounts, ETFs, 401k, IRAs, gold and silver, insurance, and real estate. So, if one sector collapses, you are at least making money in the other one. Does [...] 

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Post recession, people are more cautious about investing their hard earned money, mainly because they have experienced huge losses, and they aren’t left with much capital now. Many lost their invested money due to lack of knowledge, external reliability, and carelessness. However, with the economy recovering, they have gathered courage to invest again and are actively searching for profitable investment options. It is also important to understand before investing that the market, or the overall financial position of the country, will rise, but at a very slower pace. It would take few more years to achieve the growth rate, most nations experienced a year ago. Hence, it is important for investors to diversify their portfolio in 2010. Here are few good investment options to get better returns [...] 

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One of the biggest challenges faced by employers (Managers, CEOs, Business Owners) is finding ways to retain their staff and try to keep them happy, satisfied, and productive at the same time. They have realized paying salary on time isn’t enough. Perks and other benefits do help. However, they have come up with something that cannot serve the purpose any better – Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Under this plan, employees are allowed to purchase stock options, usually at discounted rates. There are two types of stock purchase plans – qualified and non-qualified. The decision to provide employee with either of them depends on the management. A Qualified Employee Stock Purchase Plan is considered to be more beneficial as it provides preferred tax benefits, while a non qualified plan doesn’t. One [...] 

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