An Introductory Guide To Wills and Estate Planning

By Cindy R.

Estate planning in Texas is little different than other states but there are specific requirements for each aspect of your estate plan. The overall objective of your estate plan is to have your property distributed according to your wishes. The estate planning process starts with a will and can include many other elements like trusts, living wills and powers of attorney. Your will is the cornerstone of your estate plan so we will start there.

A will is the first place to start your estate plan. You need to create a list of all of your assets and determine who you would like to receive those assets after your death. Your will is the legal document that lists your assets and who is to receive them. When drafting your will pay special attention to the probate laws of Texas to ensure that your will can be validated in probate court. If your will is disallowed then your property will be distributed without your will and according to Texas probate law. This is not something you want to take the chance of messing up so enlisting the aid of an estate planning attorney is a smart move. They can usually assist you for a reasonable fee.

Your will establishes your wishes with respect to your property, but what if you become incapacitated and can't direct others as to your wishes? This is where powers of attorney come in to play. A power of attorney authorizes someone else to act on your behalf in business and legal affairs. A durable power of attorney allows another party to act on your behalf if you become incapacitated and are not capable of making decisions on your own. A health care power of attorney is a durable power of attorney that is specific to health care situations.

Living Will - A living will is an advanced directive that spells out your wishes to caregivers if you become unable to communicate them due to incapacity. It can be very specific to certain situations such as not wanting to maintain life support if a physician determines that your situation is terminal. A living will is usually created in conjunction with a Health Care Power of Attorney.

Next we are going to cover Trusts. Trusts are another vehicle that allows you to direct certain types of property with the added benefit that you can place restrictions and requirements on the assets. One of the most significant advantages of trusts is that there is no court involved. This allows for immediate dispersal of assets by the trustee (the person administering the trust). Because there is no probate court involvement trusts can also bypass public record of the transactions.

Tax planning - There are a wide variety of tools that can be used to manage the tax burden at your death. These include life insurance, life insurance trusts, charitable remainder trusts, qualified personal residence trusts and more.

Now that you are familiar with some of the estate planning tools it is time to start the process. Whether you go it alone or enlist the help of a professional the first step is to create a list of all of your assets. Once you have your list of assets you will need to make a decision about what you'd like to happen to each asset upon your death. Should it go to family, your alma matter, your favorite charity or someplace else that is near and dear to you?

Setting up a Will in Texas can seem like a complicated process but take it one step at a time and you will quickly gain the peace of mind know that you and your loved ones will be taken care of if you should pass away. Enlisting the aid of a professional estate attorney will help you land with the exact types of documents that will most help you and your particular needs. - 23221

About the Author:

Learn about Writing A Will at TexasWills.com where Cindy writes about Probate Will Texas and more estate planning topics.

Why There is a Need to Keep a Forex Trading Log

By Mark Thomas

For most traders, creating a forex trading log is an important one. When we say the word "log," many people think of it as something that is similar when one is creating a diary. When it comes to "trade log," the majority of the individuals would consider this as something that you do when you want to keep track of your trade details. It means that you will have to grab a piece of paper and pen or even pencil and then you will have to write down all the trade logs that you have been keeping up with for the past few days. This is actually one method that some traders use. However, this is actually not the best technique since there is a great chance that one will misplace the information that they have written down or there might be other persons who will be able to get the data.

Keeping a trade log is easy if you know how to do it properly. Obviously, one of the best ways that you should do is through the use of computers. This is very useful since you can be sure that what you have jotted down will not be lost and it will be easily retrieved. You will be able to access the information in no time at all. Additionally, you can even bring it with you at all times without worrying that you will lose the data. Although there are some people who save it in a word document form, it will be a lot easier if you will utilize Excel or other similar programs.

A document in word format enables people to easily write down paragraphs or notes if they have some comments on a rate or exchange movements, which is useful if there is a need to be reminded of something important.

This is easy enough for the traders since they have also sufficient knowledge when it comes to computer related activities. It is important that you make backup copies so that you can be sure that you will not lose the data because there are times when technology breaks down and fails. You can also opt for a tape recorder, which is most liked by traders who do not prefer to write. They can record the trade criteria as well as how they feel about the exchange of the currencies. This is actually the easiest of all the methods but this is also the most tedious since you have to listen to what you have recorded.

If you prefer the easy way, this one is just right for you but you have to remember that listening through your records is a tedious job. You can go for manual forex trading log, using the computer or a tape recorder. The important rule here is that you should be consistent with the method you are using. - 23221

About the Author:

Mark Thomas is a Trading Professional, helps to increase the success rate, spend less time and expand your Services through Trade On Track. Get complete details of Forex Trading using a Software Tool called "Trade On Track". Visit his website http://www.tradeontrack.com to get more information.

How To Carry Trade?

By Hass67

Carry trading is done by forex traders to take benefit of the basic economic fact that money will flow where it will get high returns. This constant flow of capital between the different markets is what makes carry trading possible.

Carry trading is a popular trading strategy employed by professional forex traders. Hedge funds and investment banks use leveraged carry trading as one of the favorite strategies. Retail forex traders can also benefit from carry trading.

Carry trading strategy entails going long or buying a high yielding currency and simultaneously going short or selling a low yielding currency. Carry trading tries to take advantage of the interest rate differential between two currencies.

Lets make it clear with a simple example: suppose New Zealand dollar is offering an interest rate of 4.75% while the Japanese yen is offering an interest rate of 0.25%.

In order to carry trade, an investor buys New Zealand dollars (NZD) and sells Japanese Yens (JPY). As long as the exchange rate between the NZD and JPY does not change, the investor will earn a profit of 4.75-0.25=4.5%. Using a leverage of 5:1, this 4.5% return will be leveraged into 22.5%.

If the currency pair NZD/JPY appreciates, the investor can get a capital gain as well as a yield on the investment. When there is a carry trade opportunity, many investors jump on the bandwagon. The more investors carry trade, the more the currency pair appreciates.

It depends a lot on the mood of the investors as a group. If investors as a group have low risk aversion, carry trading will be profitable. But if the investors as a group suddenly develops high risk aversion, carry trading will become unprofitable.

However, if the low interest currency appreciates to some extent for different reasons, carry trade will become unprofitable. In such a scenario, the more the low interest currency appreciates, the more unprofitable carry trading that currency pair will become.

So it essential when you determine a currency pair for carry trading, you also identify the current trend of the currency pair to see whether it is moving in the right direction.

MACD (moving average convergence divergence) indicator can help you in this regard. You should enter the trade when MACD crosses the zero line from below. You should exit the trade when it crosses the zero line from above. - 23221

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading; stocks and forex. Read about Trend Forex System. Best Forex Signal Service. Learn Forex Trading.

Forex Hedge Trading - HOG2 EURUSD-USDCHF Custom Indicator

By Sonja Schuyler

The latest entrant into the popular world of Forex Hedge trading methods will be reviewed in this article. We will examine a manual system designed to trade the EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge. This Hedge is one of the most popular Hedges in the world of Forex in large part because of its high degree of negative correlation. In other words, most of the time, when the EURUSD trends in one direction - the USDCHF heads the opposite way.

Reducing your risk is the advantage of trading a Hedge. The challenge is that trading more than one currency pair at a time is difficult to track. Without the ability to track multiple pairs, you are at a definite disadvantage.

What Gary at 4x-rox.com did is create a set of custom indicators that track the total value of the EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge. This will enable you to trade these two currency pairs as if they were one pair. His indicators also track five market parameters outside the Forex market that gauge the value of the EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge and plot the predicted value relative to the current market value. This arrangement shows you the push or pull pressure on the Hedge and gives you an early warning when large reversals are likely to occur.

This Hedge trading system is The HOG2 Custom EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge Indicator or HOG2 for short. The HOG2 runs inside the Metatrader 4 trading platform. It is composed of four indicators in three indicator windows.

The HOG2 tracks the EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge in real time. Before you place your trades, it will show you exactly what this Hedge is doing. The HOG2 features a color-coded custom histogram that gives you the buy or sell strength of this Hedge and indicates good entry and exit points. This arrangement shows you when this Hedge as a whole is over sold or overbought at a glance.

If you are accustomed to reading indicators, then learning to trading with the HOG2 will be very straightforward. If you have never traded Forex before, or never manually traded Forex, then you will want to go slowly. Do not live trade until you are completely comfortable. The HOG2 comes with good instructions and the company offers excellent support.

The HOG2 is not a robot. If you are looking for a Forex robot, then the HOG2 is not for you. However, if what you're looking for is a solid, effective manual trading system for trading the EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge then you won't find an easier or more workable system than the HOG2.

The HOG2 combines formulas for inter-market analysis with a unique compound indicator and the result is a highly effective manual trading system for this Hedge. The unique combination of the HOG2's one of a kind trend lines and Custom Histogram provides that all-important 'bird's eye view' of your Hedge trade.

Are you ready to try out the HOG2 for yourself? When it comes to trading the EURUSD-USDCHF Hedge, the HOG2 combines formulas for inter-market analysis with a unique compound indicator and the result is a highly effective manual trading system for this Hedge. The unique combination of the HOG2's one of a kind trend lines and Custom Histogram provides that all-important 'bird's eye view' of your Hedge trade. - 23221

About the Author:

Sonja Schuyler and the team at www.4x-rox.com make it simple for you to flatten the learning curve and get you on to the Forex trading Profit curve. To receive your copy of the FREE eBook Successful Forex Trading Secrets Revealed, head on over to Forex Trading Today

Making Informed Financial Decisions

By Rick Amorey

The inside of a stock exchange pit has been ingrained in the thoughts of a lot of people. Stock brokers of all types, whether male or female, move wildly on the trading floor, and almost shout out to place their orders before their competitors at dramatic moments. Maybe it was the image given to us by the movies; in any case, this is what a lot of people imagine the world of the stock exchange to be.

Even if you are openly antagonistic towards a workplace that shares crazy moments like that, it cannot be denied that it holds a certain appeal to most of us. There's just something to be said in a place where fortunes are found and lost; it evokes a sense of wonderment, and a small desire to understand it enough to try your luck with it.

Truth be told, though, the world of stocks is rarely that animated. Even in the aptly-called trading pit, such a thing will only occur once or twice a month. Besides, investors these days can do can do their business online. All they need is some capital plus some decent research, and they'll be all set. Perhaps you may be interested in this as well.

You'd best be careful, however; making unwise decisions in the finance world can put your money in real peril. Instead, why don't you opt to enlist the aid of an experienced stock broker online? The broker will get a small commission from your purchases, but at least they'll be safer because you were more informed.

If you're going to take the advice of a stock broker, though, then you should first check that person's credentials. Does the company that the broker represents or is convincing you to buy even exist? Is the brokerage firm he or she associated with licensed by the state? You have to be aware of these things; just like the rest of the Internet, many online brokers are not who they claim to be. - 23221

About the Author:

Do not fall for get-rich-quick schemes that are rampant on the Internet! With Emini Trading as your guide, you will learn a sound, well-built plan to slowly but consistently earn more and more with trading. Be a part of the Emini Trading System now!