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Unsecured Loans
Another large garage bill makes you wonder if it`s really worth spending any more money on the car. It has reached the time in its life when it`s started to cost you in upkeep and a newer model might prove to be less bothersome. With no savings to speak of you might be considering one of the Unsecured Loans that a price comparison site has pinpointed for your needs. You looked at the Unsecured Loans a few months ago but haven`t done anything about it since. Using the website that searches for low cost loans is easy as you simply enter the loan amount that you are interested in, the time period that you need it for and the purpose of the loan. The company will also need your employment status and some information about you. An initial assessment will take place for the best quote available and once the loan comparison sitee has found the best quote, they`ll be in touch with you. Think about the type of car that you could get with one of the Unsecured Loans and how much cheaper it would be to run. You could even combine a few of your other smaller loans into the new one to cut down on your monthly outgoings.

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Many people in the UK, in fact as many as one in three UK taxpayers have paid too much tax! A new `No Win No Fee` tax refund service has just been launched by Greer & Taylor LLP on a dedicated new website The Taxation People which can be found at www.thetaxationpeople.com where you can find out all the infomation need before making the decision to apply for a tax refund. The Taxation People offer a cost effective `No Win No Fee` online service, with a simple and easy to follow process they will guide every step of the way as you apply for a the refund. I would urge you to check out www.thetaxationpeople.com, where you can enlist the help of the The Taxation People who will get you the Tax Refund you are entitled to. The Taxation People are a trading name of Greer & Taylor LLP a respected and trusted accountancy service provider who is moving to provide a number of online services. Initially they are only offering the Tax Refund service that can be found at www.thetaxationpeople.com, but Greer & Taylor LLP are about to lauch a cost effective Self Assesment Service, keep an eye on www.greer-taylor.com for more information.

When it comes to 401k`s there is an overabundance of sad stories. Here is one that at least has a happy ending?and it`s getting happier all the time.

Last year (in 2002) a friend of mine?let?s call him Jack?phoned and asked if I could help him with his 401k. Jack works for a large company as Senior VP of lending and is financially pretty astute. However, when it came to his 401k mutual fund decisions, he had repeatedly made the same mistake most people were making. As a result, he saw his account drop in value substantially.

At the time we were in the midst of the 2000 bear market, which showed no sign of letting up. Jack had purchased into a Lifestyle fund because someone recommended it. By the time he finally bailed out, it cost him dearly. However, he continued to make the same mistake by reinvesting.

He checked with the 401k representative and subsequently switched to a variety of mutual funds ranging from World Stock to Domestic Hybrids, Large and Small Value as well as Growth. But nothing worked and his portfolio value headed further south.

By the time we met to discuss his 401k Jack was pretty disgusted by the canned advice he had received and the continued losses he was sustaining.

Jack knew that I had pretty much eluded the bear market of 2000 by having sold all of my clients? positions on 10/13/2000. We were safely in our money market accounts weathering out the storm (see my article ?How we eluded the bear in 2000 at http://www.successful-investment.com/articles12.htm).

Thinking about this, Jack could only shake his head because at no point in the market slide had he ever been given what I believe was the right advice. That is, no one suggested that, since we were in a bear market, he might want to step aside and remain in the safety of his money market account. So he stayed invested, hoping against the evidence all around him to find something that was not crashing. That was his mistake, and one shared by many.

The advice that he consistently and continually received was that the market was close to a bottom, stocks ?have to? move up from these levels, and, my personal money losing favorite, ?the market can?t go any lower.? That`s what people wanted to hear and believe. But my tracking system said otherwise, and I followed its indicators?much to the delight of my clients.

Jack wanted to know how I could help. Looking at his mutual fund choices I realized that they were actually pretty decent, and he had a variety of some 13 funds. So, what was the problem and how could we solve it? In a way, the answer was simple. But people were having to get pretty beat up before they would see it.

My first step was, with Jack`s permission, to log on to his 401k web site. Then I started making some adjustments. Since my trend tracking model was still in a Sell mode, I liquidated all of his positions and moved the proceeds into money market. This accomplished one thing right away: He stopped losing money. When you stop moving backward, in relation to everyone else you are moving forward!

Second, as my trend index moved into a Buy mode on April 29, 2003, I researched his funds again. Based on strong momentum figures, I invested in two of his mutual fund choices. The result was very gratifying: the funds I chose moved up around 10% in the two months after my Buy. (Other funds I had tracked and selected for other types of investment programs moved up as much as 26% in that period.)

Jack?s been happy ever since. While the 10% appreciation is not as great as I was able to do with assets outside his 401k, it still confirms that the key to successful investing is methodology and discipline. Our disciplined approach relies on objective information. It disregards Wall Street hype designed to perpetuate commission-rich buy now while it`s low, or buy and hold strategies.

If you have been in a situation similar to Jack`s, or you want to avoid being in one, find an investment advisor who bases his decisions on a measured and objective approach. That will give you the edge no matter whether the market is going up or down and will give you the greatest protection from sad stories with your 401k.