Diamonds may be a woman’s best friend, but treat them as lucrative investments and they can become your best friend as well –no matter what gender you are. Specifically, we are talking about colored diamonds. While colorless diamonds are rare gemstones, only 1 in 10,000 diamonds are colored and come in different shades like yellow, pink, blue or red.

The international colored diamond market may not be well understood or appreciated by the average investor. So much so, that Diamond Circle Capital Plc of the UK delayed its plans to raise about $400m for the world’s first publicly traded diamond fund last summer. They saw a potential there, however, may have postponed amidst a poor investor reception or lack of interest.

Alternative investors can look at this as an opportunity to be one step ahead of the mainstream crowd and build their own colored diamond portfolio. There are plenty of reasons why these diamonds make a good investment.
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If you are looking for a way to participate in the rising silver and gold markets without risking your hard earned money, there is a solution. Everbank has a product called MarketSafe Certificate of Deposit. There is no risk and you literally have nothing to lose.

“-market-driven returns combined with the financial security of traditional CDs. Your returns will be based on potential market gains of gold or silver while your deposited principal remains 100% safe.”

How it works: the returns above your deposited principal will be based on the spot price of gold or silver from the reference indexes. If the market performs well, you will receive upon maturity a market upside payment and 100% of your deposited principal. If it declines, you will receive 100% of your principal back.
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If you have never heard of this strategy before, you are probably not alone, but believe me it does exist. Investors in the know have been using this “distortion” in the world’s currency market to make some high returns for decades. A word of caution: this strategy is not for the faint of heart, but for those that can risk big losses for its substantial rewards.

In simple terms, the currency sandwich is a strategy where one borrows a low interest currency and then investing the loan in multiple currencies with higher returns than the cost of the loan. This difference in interests has returned many investors profits in the double to triple digits range, however, this strategy is highly speculative and is not without risks.

The cost of repaying the loan together with interest will go up should the exchange rate on the loan currency goes up, thus the net profits will decline. As long as the interest differential is larger than a possible negative development in prices and exchange rates, a potential gain on the investment is made.
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It is not a matter of “if” the demise of the U.S. dollar is going to happen, but a matter of “when”. We have seen signs of its weakening in the last couple of years and it does not look like it will recover any time soon. The actions of a number of other countries are adding fuel to the fire and can only confirm that the best U.S. dollar hedge investment is gold.

The central banks of the world may have followed the U.S. in getting off the gold standard, and pegged their currencies with the USD, but not for much longer. They all know that a weak USD will affect their own financial systems if they are holding large reserves of the greenbacks. The only hedge is to dispose the USD and add real value into their monetary system by holding large reserves of the gold metal.

It comes as no surprise that countries like China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand are shifting from the USD. China and Japan alone own about $906 billion of the $1.1 trillion of U.S. Treasuries held overseas, so when they start to unload, it will only compound the situation.
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Benjamin Franklin once said that “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”, but if he were to be alive today, I think he might have said, “death, taxes and capitalism.” I must admit that this seems to be a bit of a morbid subject, but the fact that money is made from the death of others is nothing new.

Today, death and capitalism are inseparable –from florists to overpriced caskets builders, cemetery owners, and the services of a funeral home are just a small part of the death market. There are even occupations and careers surrounding death. Tombstone craftsmen, hearse drivers, grave diggers, embalmers, morticians, coroners, and even biohazard specialists whose job is something you may not want to ponder for too long. It is a business that will never run out of clients, dead or alive.

Adding to the list of death profiteers are brokers and investors that trade in life settlements of the terminally ill. These life settlements or viaticals as they are known, are the life insurance policies of the terminally ill that are bought at a discount. The viator, receives much needed funds upfront to presumably pay for their medical expenses. In exchange, an investor in viaticals will receive the full face value amount of the insurance policy when the sick person dies.
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Kids, cover your eyes and ears because this is only for mature adults 18 and over. Well, at least for grown-ups that are accredited with a high net worth. It was bound to happen sooner or later in this 57 billion dollar industry. Adultvest.com is a website that caters to investors interested in capitalizing in the adult entertainment through hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital.

“AdultVest is the first and only Investment Marketplace and News Letter geared towards matching investors and successful entrepreneurs with growing adult companies and adult entertainers looking to start up, expand, acquire or be acquired.”

Billed as the first company of its kind, Adultvest was founded and is headed by CEO Francis Koenig, an experienced hedge fund veteran. The company’s management team reads like a list of who’s who in business management, investing, finance, private equity, banking, real estate and of course adult entertainment – just to name a few.
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Do you have some extra cash sitting around doing nothing or just earning minimal interests in you bank account? Why not lend it out to borrowers and earn some decent interest rates? LendingClub.com appears to be a new company that is modeling after Prosper.com’s P2P loan business. The average lender is averaging 12.23% per annum, while top lenders are making a healthy 17.53%.

This return on investment beats most banks and savings accounts by a big margin. Not only are you making a good return, you are helping out people who need access to funds at a lower rate than they can get at a traditional financial institution. It is a win-win-win situation for you the lender, the borrower and Lending Club.

The whole idea works much the same way as Prosper.com. A borrower submits a loan request, Lending Club matches the loans with lenders or lenders can choose the loans to service, and then the funds are sent to the borrower. The loan is then repaid back to the lender over time, and can be direct deposited.
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Learning to trade in the Forex currency market can be a daunting task for investors wanting to diversify their stock portfolio to hedge against the weak US dollar. The Forex exchange may appear a bit too “foreign” to stock investors who are only familiar with trading on the stock markets. There is a better option in which an investor will not have to open a Forex broker account or change trading platforms just to add currencies to their investment basket.

Thanks to Rydex Investments, investors can now trade and own currencies using Rydex’s currencySHARESSM Trusts. They currently have 8 different currencies corresponding to 8 different currencySHARES^SM Trusts. An investor has the opportunity to trade the currencies of the Australian Dollar (FXA), British Pound Sterling (FXB), Canadian Dollar (FXC), Euro (FXE), Japanese Yen (FXY), Mexican Peso (FXM), Swedish Krona (FXS) or Swiss Franc (FXF).
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