UCSINV1

Daily Corporate Bond Offering: 5.05% Coupon

2011-12-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

Today's Corporate Bond Offering has a 5.05% coupon with a 5 year maturity. This is a short-term bond play. The bonds are currently trading at a premium; 500M available; Moody and Standard & Poors rated.

Review our daily list of corporate, government and municipal bond offerings and Banks CDs, for better income on your current investments and higher yields for your savings. Point your browser to our bond list website to review our current bond offering.

Rick Walter, Chief Investment Advisor
UCS Investment Co.

Daily Corporate Bond Offering: 11.875% Coupon

2011-12-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

Today's Corporate Bond Offering has a 11.87% coupon with a 3 year maturity. This is a short-term bond play. The bonds are currently trading at a premium; 250M available; Moody and Standard & Poors rated.

Review our daily list of corporate, government and municipal bond offerings and Banks CDs, for better income on your current investments and higher yield for your savings which can be found by pointing your browser to our bond list website.

Rick Walter, Chief Investment Advisor
UCS Investment Co

Daily Corporate Bond Offering: 5.75% Coupon

2011-11-21T05:39:00.000-08:00

Today's corporate bond offering is from an oil refining major. The bond's coupon rate are 5.750% and are rated BB+ from Standard and Poors; Approximately 300M bonds available.
For more information on this offering, please call 770-572-2715 and ask for Rick or go to Bond list for more information.

Rick Walter, Chief Financial Advisor
UCS Investment Co.

Daily Corporate Bond Offering: 7.625% coupon, 7 year maturity

2011-11-07T05:10:00.000-08:00

Today's Corporate Bond Offering has a 7.625% coupon and 7 year maturity. The bonds are currently trading at a discount; 230M available; Moody and Standard & Poors rated.

Review our daily list of corporate, government and municipal bond offerings and Banks CDs, for better income on your current investments and higher yield for your savings which can be found by pointing your browser to our bond list website.

Rick Walter, Chief Investment Advisor
UCS Investment Co.

FDIC Insured CDs available with Average Coupon of 3.05%

2011-11-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

FDIC Insured CD's with Average Coupon of 3.05% with varying of 6 mos, 1 yr, 2 yr and 3 yr maturities. Call 770-572-2715 for more details.

If you are still cautious about investing in the stock market and would like to stay in a cash or liquid position, invest or purchase a FDIC insured CD. We have available Certificate of Deposits with varying maturities and coupons from some of the top banks in the US.
We will be updating our Bond list later this morning. Review our daily list of corporate, government and municipal bond offerings and Banks CDs, for better income on your current investments and higher yield for your savings which can be found by pointing your browser to our bond list website.

Rick Walter, Chief Financial Advisor
UCS Investment Co.

Daily Corporate Bond Offering, 6.05% Coupon

2011-10-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

United States Steel corporate bond offering, 6.05% coupon, with yield to maturity of 7.38%. Call 770-572-2715 for more info.

Review our daily list of corporate, government and municipal bond offerings and Banks CDs, for better income on your current investments and higher yield for your savings which can be found by pointing your browser to our daily bond list.

Rick Walter, Chief Financial Advisor
UCS Investment Co

Corporate Bond Offering w/6.5% coupon

2011-10-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Owens-Corning, Inc corporate bond offering, w/6.5% coupon and yield-to-maturity of 4.5%.
Call 770-572-2715 for more info.

Review our daily list of corporate, government and municipal bond offerings and Banks CDs, for better income on your current investments and higher yield for your savings which can be found by pointing your browser to our bond list web-site.

Rick Walter, RIA, CFC
UCS Investment Co.

Stocks on Buy List: QEP Resources

2011-08-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

We like QEP Resources, Inc very much because it has performed well over the last 12 months and it’s in an industry that we love to invest in. We started accumulating this stock in July of 2010 at $34-36 per share and have not been disappointed with its performance. However, the stock has recently been downgraded by Goldman Sachs to Neutral with a price target of $49 even though Standard and Poor's has a Buy rating on the stock with a target price of $52 per share.

I still like the stock especially since our clients received an Average Total Return on Investment (ROI) of 29%, but I have sold most of the position from our client portfolios. I believe that there are better opportunities elsewhere in the oil and gas industry but we might still get back into the stock in the near future.
This stock is a solid performer, which makes it a good addition for investors that are looking for stable, solid growth.

Call now at 1-877-788-1732 for a free consultation or visit or wealth management site at Plouthus.com to open a PLT account and receive a $150 off any financial plan which can go towards analyzing your current portfolio for risky investments that are not making you any money and robbing you of your hard earned retirement dollars.

By Rick Walter
UCS Investment Co.

Online Advice Service- Real answers for your investment problems

2011-07-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

If you need a quick answer to an investment or tax issue, visit our new Wealth Managment Services site. I am online from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm today to answer any questions you may have via IM, Video chat or Email.

By Rick Walter

Withdrawing from a fixed or variable annuity

2011-07-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Can you withdraw funds from your variable or fixed annuity? The answer is in our short weekly 401(K) and IRA weekly video guide.

Visit our 401(K) and IRA Rollover Center weekly video guide on 401(K), IRA rollovers and new Roth's IRA for help, tips and investment guide on rolling over your 401K or IRA at Plouthus.com

401K and IRA Center: Automatic Rollover Requirements

2011-06-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

What are the requirements for an "automatic rollover requirement for mandatory distributions". What is the "No tax withheld" option?

Visit our 401(K) and IRA Rollover Center weekly video guide on 401(K), IRA rollovers and new Roth's IRA for help, tips and investment guide on rolling over your 401K or IRA at Plouthus.com

Taking Stock of Your Rates of Return (ROI)

2011-05-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

Calculating an investment rate of return (ROI) is an important step in helping you manage your investments. A rate of return or return on investment is the gain or loss on an investment over a specified period, expressed as a percentage increase over the initial investment cost. Gains on investments are considered to be any income received from the security plus realized capital gains. For example if you bot 10 shares of XLE at $75 per share, the initial cost is $750, and if you sold those same 10 shares at $85 per share, the rate of return is 13.3% ($85-$75/$75)on your investment. Calculating an investment ROI or rate of return is a simple and useful starting point in considering any investment. However, this simple calculation differs according to investment type or class.

For example, if Ivan Boesky invested $5000 in some real estate and sold it 10 years later for $25,000. The ROI on his real estate purchase is: 400% ($25K – $5K)/ $5K.
However Martha Stuart invested $5000 in a biotechnology stock and sold it 1 year later for $12,000. Stewart’s ROI on this investment is 140% ($12K-$5K) /$5K.

However, keeping it all in perspective, ROI's can be skewed in favor of a particular class of investment, and of course in the above example, the 140% in 12 months gives a better investment return because the time frame is shorter. Which brings me to the point of this article. Lets take two real world examples of three completely different types of investments:

A Gold ETF
Bot Spder Gld shares at $66.28 on May 14, 2007
Sold Spder Gld Shares at $145.63 on May 13, 2011
It's ROI is 120% ($145.63-$66.28)/66.28 over 3 years.

GE stock
Bot GE at $37.58 on May 14, 2007
Sold GE at $19.89 on May13, 2011
It's ROI is -47% ($19.89-$37.58)/$37.58 over 3 years.

Mutual Fund
Fidelity Advisor Leveraged Company Stock Fund
Bot FLSCX at $36.96 on May 14, 2007
Sold FLSCX at $35.31 on May 13, 2011
It's ROI is 4% ($36.96- $35.31)/35.31 over 3 years

Which investment would you invest in today? I am suggesting that being able to do these simple calculations can help you manage your investments efficiently. Remember that ROI is a historical measure, meaning it calculates all the past returns. An investment can do very well in the past and still falter in the future. For example, many stocks can yield ROI's of 200-500% during their growth stage and then fall down to the single digits as they mature.
If you invested late based on the historical ROI, you will be disappointed. Projected or expected ROI's on an unproven (new) investment are even more uncertain with no data to back it up. In addition, ROI does not account for the compounding effect of time. To get that rate of return you would need to calculate the Compound Annual Growth Rate, a more complex formulae that takes into consideration time and gives you a better rate of return number, because it also includes calculating interest, dividends and the capital gains. Also, rates of return on mutual funds are calculated differently due to new SEC rule making on how funds publish total returns and fund yields.

We offer complete professional financial plans that can help you build and allocate a portfolio of investments that calculates current and projected rates of returns based on your correct risk profile. Call to speak with an advisor at 1-877-788-1732 or when you call just ask for Rick.

UCS Investment Co.

Taking Stock of Your Risk Tolerance

2011-05-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

In the latest unemployment numbers, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 244,000 in April and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.0 percent. Although the economy created 244,000 thousand jobs, the unemployment rate still increased. However, the recent numbers still gave the markets a nice boost on Friday, May 6, 2011.

However the day before, Thursday April 5th, there was this massive stampede of investors out of commodities, sending many benchmark indices and the respective funds and stocks that are pegged to these indexes down to levels not seen since 2008. This brings me to the issue in this article- determining your risk tolerance.

Accurately determining your risk tolerance is one of the most important steps that you can make in managing and building your investment portfolio over time. Determining your risk tolerance helps you avoid the nervousness and feelings of dread that you may feel when the overall market takes a nose dive, normally caused by the stampeding herd of investors trying to exit a particular investment. It’s nice to take a flyer every once in awhile, but a long-term disciplined approached tailored to your specific risk profile is the only way to go.

What is Risk Tolerance? Risk tolerance is the amount of risk that an investor is comfortable taking, or the degree of uncertainty that an investor is able to handle. Risk tolerance often varies with age, income and financial goals. However, there is also another component to risk, called risk capacity. Risk capacity, unlike tolerance, is the amount of risk that the investor "must" take in order to reach his/her financial goals. These two concepts should be carefully considered before you invest.

The first step in determining your risk tolerance and your capacity for risk is first determining how much money you need and the time frame you have left for reaching your income goals. Starting with a financial plan is also important. A good financial plan is a sure way to start and can help you achieve your financial goals more accurately and safely. Be honest with yourself, does it bother you when you here the news on how much the markets closed down? Will it bother you if your account with treasury bonds, “the safest investments on the planets”, lose value, because they will, if interest rates increases; sometimes, just because you have safe guaranteed investments does not mean that there are no risks involved.

Of course, if you still can’t figure out where you stand, diversification is a simple step in helping you reduce your overall investment risks. Diversification is a strategy that minimizes overall portfolio risks. If your risk tolerance is not where it should be in relation to the positions that you own in your portfolio we can help. We offer professional financial plans that can help you build and allocate a portfolio of investments based on your correct risk tolerances or profile. Please call to speak with an advisor at 1-877-788-1732 or when you call just ask for Rick.

Here are three web links that takes you to pages with short risk assessments and calculators. I am not endorsing any but I find them interesting.
Link: http://www.calcxml.com/do/inv08- Calcxml

Link: http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/riskfind.html- Kiplinger

Link: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/calcs/n_riskq/main.asp - MSN-MoneyCentral

So the next time a segment of the market takes a dive, you won't feel like diving with it also.

By Rick Walter, RIA

Oil and Gas Portfolio

2011-04-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another week. I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Well, it looks like its going to be another turbulent week in the markets with oil prices headed up. Any higher and prices will possible affect the U.S. economy as consumers will have less money to spend due to higher gasoline prices.

Still, profits aren’t being reflected in the price of oil and gas stocks as they should. Based on expected profits, most oil and gas producers stock prices should be higher, even though many oil and gas drillers and oil services companies stocks have done well over the last six months. I think if you want to see pretty fantastic returns, you should wait until earnings are reported in the third and fourth quarter of this year.

To profit and make money in the oil and gas markets, we are recommending this moderately aggressive portfolio that uses a combination of oil and gas, and alternative energy exchange traded funds. Of course there are other positions that are included but are only available when you purchase or invest in the set. This portfolio is well balanced with an emphasis on oil and gas producers. To protect against losses the portfolio contains index puts which will help protect against downside markets shocks. Of course this is not a guarantee against losses; it is only a hedge against some losses.

The total return on this portfolio as of 4/25/2011 is currently at break even with a dividend yield of .078%

Projected Six Month Return: 25%
Expected Return: 12.5%

Can be purchased in 100K, 75K, 50K, 25K, and 10K lots.
To view portfolio set.
**All positions in portfolio will be visible after account is opened and portfolio is purchased

Call to open your account and purchase this portfolio or you can purchase the excel sheet set which comes with monthly updates and changes. 1-877-788-1732.

By UCS Investment Co.

Can you make money in Europe?

2011-04-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

By Rick Walter

When Moody's cut Ireland's debt to just above 'junk' last week, making money in the European markets just got a little bit more riskier. The markets still have to deal with the debt problems of Portugal, Spain and Greece. Monetary policy by the the Euro Union and the U.S. is still a ways off from normalizing.

However, the reason that you would want to invest in European markets is because these markets gives you the potential to increase your portfolio’s total return, they act as a hedge against dollar assets and also gives your portfolio diversification which reduces overall portfolio risks due to the low correlation of these markets to U.S. markets. Long-term evidence also suggests that international markets outperform U.S. markets in most periods, therefore investing in Europe may and can help you save more for retirement.
But can an investor make money in Europe today? Should you take a chance and invest in Europe while monetary policy rules the day?

I have looked at the performance of five European ETFs funds over the last four months as follows:
There is the ProShares Leveraged Ultra Europe Fund: (UPV) trading at $41.56 with a return that is twice the index returns of 26% for this period.
There is the iShares MSCI Europe Financial Sector ETF Fund: (EUFN) trading at $23.85,that is up 13% over this same period.
The iShares S&P Europe 350 Index ETF Index Fund: (IEV) currently trading at $42.94 is up 12%.
The European Monetary Union ETF Fund : (EZU) trading at $39.45 is up about 13% and the PowerShares BLDRS Europe 100 ADR Index Fund: (ADRU) trading at $22.59 is also up about 10.4%.

These European funds are tracking their respective indexes equally except for the PowerShares BLDRS Fund which is tracking its index at a slightly lower return, but all of these funds irrespective of their current four month returns do not make me want to take the risk of investing, because the risk factors are too high.

New ETF Biotechs on Watchlist

2011-03-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Read our updated commentary on Investment and Financing ideas that can help you save more for retirement and help you finance your business so that you can save more for retirement. Biotech is heating up, so I have added a few Biotech ETFs to the watch list.

By UCS Investment Co.

Ultra Dow 30: Leveraged Fund Worth Looking at

2011-02-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

By Rick Walter

Traders Comments: This ETF fund contains all 30 Dow component stocks. We had purchased this ETF early last year in 2010, but because of its raggedy and inconsistent trading patterns, dumped the shares for another ETF fund of similar scope....

New ETF Posting

2011-02-04T01:12:00.000-08:00

By UCS Investment Co.

The new ETF posting on the AT-ETF Exchange is the PowerShares KBW Property & Casualty Insurance Portfolio (Fund). The Symbol is KBWP.

This is a relatively new fund which opened in December of last year. The Fund is up about 1% so far this year. We are not expecting a huge run up in price in the short-term on this fund but we are looking forward to steady gains in the share price of the fund as the economy improves.

Podcasts and Live Radio

2011-01-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

Please tune in to our daily podcast or radiocast episodes. Our episodes are filled with market updates and exciting recommendations on investments that we believe can make you money! You can find our podcasting and radio posts here at this link.

Thank you,

UCS Investment Co.

ETF Trading List

2010-10-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

Check our daily listing of ETFs that we have traded, or plan to trade in the future. Every ETF on this list has been selected based on current trading data and research material that is relavent to the success of the fund.
Call 1-877-788-1732 to open a UCS account, get Expert Advice and Save on Commissions!

Complete Financial Management Workshop: Risk Management

2010-07-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Register for The Complete Financial Management Workshop®

Topic: Risk Management-Safeguarding Your Money and Assets
Where: 1755 North Brown Rd, Suite 200
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Duration: 60 minutes
Date: August 11, 2010

If you have any questions concerning this event, please contact:
Event Coordinator @1-877-788-1732. Light lunch served.

Tax Free Income: NC Bonds with 6.15% Coupon Available

2010-07-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

WILMINGTON NC LTD Bonds, OBLIG- REV TXBL SER B B/E- OID.
Rating: AA2/AA, State: North Carolina, Cpn: 6.15%
Mat: 6-01-2027, PRX: 108.452.

If you are interested in obtaining additional information regarding the purchase of these bonds, please contact Best Advisor Rick @1-877-788-1732.

New Stock Recommendation: JM Smucker & Co.

2010-07-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

Spread the profits in the Fall with the sweet tasting stock of J. M. Smucker Co. Here is a flyer that you may want to consider. This $7.1 billion dollar company is a giant in it's space. No one does it like Smucker's (SJM), yes the peanut butter and jelly and more company.The stock has a very low price to earnings ratio of 14.48, which suggest that there is lots of room for price appreciation, if management makes the right moves in the coming months. In addition, the stock has a low volatility beta ranking of (.7), and pays a good dividend of 2.68%. Not bad when 1 year Cd's are yielding less than 1.37%. Although the stock is trading toward the high range of $59 to $60 dollars, it still represents a possible growth or acquisition play for the patient investor. Pick up at these prices and spread the profits in the Fall, like 'spreading peanut butter and jelly on toast', by adding this stock to your portfolio. Contact Best Advisor Rick @1-877-788-1732 for detailed research reports and advice on this stock at IAPeQ.com.

New ETF Recommendation

2010-06-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

ProShares Ultra Technology Fund (ROM) Current Price: $47.40, 12 month Target Price: $60. Probable Return of 28% within the next 6 months. Contact Best Advisor Rick @1-877-788-1732 for detailed research reports and advice on this fund. Read summary.

New Stock Recommendation

2010-06-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hologic, Inc (HOLX) Current Price: $14.63, 12 month Target Price: $22. Contact Best Advisor Rick @1-877-788-1732 for detailed research reports and advice. Read summary.