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I believe the greatest investments we can make while we are alive are to invest in our children, or grandchildren. By invest I am not talking about money, although there is nothing wrong with money. We all enjoy buying them things like kids bedding, or something else for their rooms. What I am talking about is investing your time and just having fun with your grandchildren.

I remember one day when my grandson and I were just going for a ride. He was about three years old. He said Papa can we go to look at the “train wagons”? It took me a second or two to realize that he wanted to go to see the train boxcars. So we did just that. On the way we passed an Ostrich farm. He said “wow look at that bird”. I laughed as I turned the car around so I could park where he could get a better look. Finally I said to him, “what kind of bird is that”? He thought for awhile and responded “its an Ooo… Ooo… Oyster”. These are the kind of experiences create memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives. Kids are so great. It is fun to watch their minds work as they are trying to make sense out of their surroundings. Children are industrious, intelligent and innocent. These early years are the best time to influence your grandchildren.

There are so many things you can do with your grandchildren. How about reading them a story? As a child I can remember story time as one of my favorite things. My father had a great sense of humor. He would like to tell us stories, but he would like to put a twist on them. For instance instead of the “Three Little Pigs” he would tell the story of the “Three Little Sows”. There were times that his children would get into heated debates with their teachers on how exactly the story really goes. Again this creates memories that will last as long as we live. This could not have happened without the parent spending or investing time into their children. So remember, read to them. Children at this age really love it, especially if the story is lively and easily understood. You can make going to the library a special event. Do it often with your grandchildren.

Another one of my favorite times is taking a long walk with kids. It is great to let them explore, bring the dog along. Kids and dogs just seem to go together. I especially like to walk in wooded areas. It is great fun to discover any kind of wild life. This is an opportunity for teaching kids things like being kind to animals as well as insects. Teach them that we are going into the animals’ home and we should be respectful to them. Teach them that animals have a right to be there. It is where they live. Teach them the value of bugs, worms, insects, plants, and anything and everything we come across. Again these are times that become valuable as memories, both to the grandparents and also to the grandchildren.

Go to the zoo. Let them see all the animals, and let them pet them if that’s allowed. There’s nothing like getting up close the animals they’ve seen in books.

Property investing is always considered by a lot of experts to be a very lucrative option to those who want to venture in other kinds of businesses. This is indeed a venture that anyone can try especially since capital growth in this kind of business is rather stable and this could mean financial security to you and your family. And during these times of economic crisis, it can really be very helpful if you are going to look for another way so that you can generate more income.

But you should also be aware that this kind of venture is not as easy as several people may have thought. You cannot just purchase an estate and hope that it will generate some cash for you. When it comes to property investing, there are also a lot of things that you still need to take into account so that you can make sure that you will be able to benefit from it.

When it comes to property investing, planning is very essential. You have to make sure that you are aware of the market that you are trying to break in. You have to look for those that are highly lucrative in the long term. At the same time, you should also make sure that you will be able to afford it. And in order for you to do so, it can be very helpful if you are going to research more about the estate that you are going to purchase. It can be a very big help of you are going to start at the primary level of this kind of venture and slowly proceed to the more complex aspects.

You should also be aware that property investing is a very dynamic kind of venture. What could be very profitable at this time may already lose its value within the next ten years. This is why it is also essential for you to learn about the trends of various estates and several conditions. You have to always reconsider your options and look for new trends that can prove to be very valuable for you. This is indeed not a very easy task but all of these can be done with proper research and planning.

One thing that you can do is to check the history of capital growth of the area where you are going to purchase the estate. You have to check if it is steady and there are no significant risks involved. Speaking of location, it is also necessary that you make sure that the estate is very close to all the major establishments and modes of transportation. You should also be certain that it has a tight security and the estate itself is well maintained.

It can also be very helpful if you are going to ask for the help of the experts as to how you can venture in property investing. You can do so by attending some seminars, join an interactive group, or research on the internet. It can also be very helpful if you will ask for the assistance of some agents although this can be rather expensive and it is really not recommended.

Property investing can be very lucrative but it is up to you how you are going to make it work for your advantage.

Our focus here is going to be using covered calls, but in an investing as an alternative to a short term trading context. And so the name, covered call investing.

The main difference between ‘investing’ and ‘trading’ is that traders only intend to buy and hold for the short term having a view to quick turnover of stock and hopefully, profits.

The ‘investor’ on the other hand, is generally described as anyone that has some attachment to the stock and intends to hold for the longer term, in the hope of ultimately receiving some capital gain, plus tax effective income by means of dividends.

Now that we have now explained the difference, let’s explore some covered call investing strategies for the longer term investor. The market price of stocks is continually in a dynamic state of rise and fall and that is that which we should pay attention to, but over the longer term than a trader. Consequently coming from a technical analysis perspective, we’d be more interested in consulting “weekly” stock charts than “daily” ones. We would draw trendlines, combined with horizontal support and resistance lines, across the peaks and troughs of the weekly bars of the chart. Our aim should be to observe a pattern. Once we recognize such a pattern, then we wait for an opportunity to buy the stock at the lower end of it.

Our covered call investing strategy would begin with our belief that the stock is close to a solid price support area. The best support areas are the ones which are confirmed by TWO converging trendlines – for instance, an upsloping line under the troughs that converges with a horizontal support line based on where the ‘resistance’ level has now become support, historically. This may not be entirely necessary, but when it is available, it gives us greater confidence.

The first step in our covered call investing strategy involved selling ‘out-of-the-money’ naked PUT options with a strike price at the price level where we are prepared to purchase the stock. You will receive some income out of this, which effectively serves to ‘discount’ the cost to you for the stock when exercised. The idea is to exercised on the options, so do this with about a maximum 2 week to option expiry timeframe if possible, otherwise the stock may hit your anticipated level, then rebound north without them being assigned to you.

Once you have the stock, your second covered call investing step, is to now sell CALL options at a strike price higher than the stock purchase price. You will receive further revenue from this, which again, will further decrease the effective purchase price of the shares and lower your overall risk of holding them.

The best conditions for covered call investing are when the stocks you either own, or have just purchased, are trading in a narrow range over the longer term. You can use this strategy to receive an extra income stream other than dividends, since your opinion is that you’re not likely to receive much in the way of a gain on the shares themselves. As such, if you use a stock screener to search for optionable stocks with low ‘historical volatility’ (HV) but also with reasonable liquidity (at least 500,000 shares traded daily) then your covered call investing has a great chance of success. Buy them at the bottom end of the narrow range and sell your call options. Continue doing this every month or each time you see the opportunity and you are unlikely to be exercised and have your shares called away.

An alternative to a covered call investing strategy of this character is, that instead of risking a greater amount of investment capital by paying for the shares themselves, buy ‘leap options’ on the stock. These are options which an expiry date of at least one year out. The effect is like owning the shares for a year but for a fraction of the cost. Sell short term expiry call options above the strike price of the ‘leaps’ and receive a monthly income.

The above strategy is usually called a ‘calendar spread’ and has been described as the “poor man’s covered call investing strategy” due to the lower amount of capital at risk. Calendar spreads can have different structures, risk profiles and outcomes but this is one of them.