The article below is from a series of financial education articles and videos on supplementing your income with currency exchange …

The first time that most online trading beginners pull up forex quotes and try to interpret them can be confusing for those who are only familiar with ordinary stock exchange quotes. The only real similarity between common stock quotes and forex quotes is the nature of the information that they provide. While a forex quote does, ultimately, tell you the price, it is not as cut and dry as it would be with ordinary stock and requires a bit of deciphering.

The first part of the quote lets the forex trader know which currency is involved. The nation listed first is referred to as the base currency. This means the trader currently holds that currency and he is using it to buy the quote currency, sometimes called the trade currency. For example, a quote that reads USD/JPY means that the forex trader currently holds United States Dollars and wants to trade them for Japanese Yen. Forex quotes always begin this way, with the two currencies involved forming what’s called the cross.

The second part of forex quotes that you need to look at is the pricing segment of the quote. To continue the example from above, if the quote read USD/JPY=117.57, then the trader knows that for every 1 US dollar he trades, they will receive 117.57 Japanese Yen in return. While this may seem really simple, there are a few more details about these quotes that a forex trader needs to take note of before making the foreign exchange trade.

Following the initial line of the quote, which contains the two currencies that form the cross and the exchange rate, is another line of information. This is probably more familiar to common stock traders. Bid prices and ask prices, which make up an integral part of forex quotes, function in trading forex much the same way. The bid price is the price at which you can sell the currency. In other words, that is the price that people are willing to buy it. The buy price is what you will have to pay if you want to purchase the currency. There is usually a difference between these two numbers, but it is seldom substantial.

While it is possible to trade forex in any number of currencies, the largest numbers of forex quotes that are traded every day involve what are known as the majors. The US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar make up more than 85% of all forex trades. These currencies make up the most stable markets in the world and carry the most volume. These facts make them the safest foreign exchange currencies to trade. It is not likely that you will end up holding huge amounts of worthless money if you trade in the majors.

For more information on foreign exchange trading, visit: Forex Trading Strategies

Ever buy an ebook on “how to $10,000 in the next two days while doing no work?” Too many people fall into the trap of buying them and then buying the next one when the first one didn’t work for them.

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Whether you are new to Internet Marketing or already own an online business PortalFeeder can help you. Online business is all about getting more people to your site or business. This is one of Portal Feeder’s top abilities. You will learn lots of search engine approved methods for getting web traffic pounding on your door.

As well as access to the valuable forums where you can discuss anything you wish. There are many experts there that will quickly help you when you need it.

If you are a beginner, this is the real help that you need to succeed.

If you are already running an online business, you can’t afford not to check this out.

If you have ever dreamed of running a successful online business you need to take a look at what they offer.

Check out http://www.portalfeederreview.org where I tell you what is good and what is bad about them.

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What it does is allow you to make posts to a number of different blogs, depending on your category. Posts are category specific, and can be randomized using different titles, body variations, keywords, and links, so you are not making the exact same post to every blog. Each should be a little different for maximum effect.

I’m using PBF to make this posting to a number of internet-related blogs!

Within hours, these posts will have been spidered by the search engines, and will start showing up as links back to my site. It’s true!

Read my complete review of Portalblogfeeder here.

If you’re stuck in a cubicle, you’ve likely thought about creating your own home-based business. Imagine the luxury of spending your day doing whatever you want. Your schedule is yours, with no pointy-haired bosses giving you orders.

But the idea of a home-based business will be far too frightening for most people to consider. Ann Rae was not amongst the fearful, though.

Part of the dilemma you might face is the question of what to do. For Ann, as it should be with you, it’s a matter of understanding both what you love doing and your skill set.

As a trained artist, Ann had a natural love for art and the skills to create beautiful paintings. But Ann knew she didn’t want to be a starving artist. The idea of selling art to the home-based business seemed like a great idea.

Then, like Ann, you’ll want to see your new home-based business as a business first, and something you love second.

Ann had worked at a variety of jobs in software, investment and fundraising until an encounter with a breast cancer patient made her realize that life is too short to spend it doing things she didn’t like.

“I realized, ‘I hate my life, I’m completely miserable, I want to paint,’ ” said Rea.

Ann drafted a 30-page business plan outlining how to make a living from her art. This is exactly what you should do as your second step (after getting clear on the nature of your business). Since Ann Rea loved painting landscapes. And she realized that she lived within driving distance of some very marketable landscapes — California vineyards — she felt he’d found the perfect niche market for a home-based business.

So she came up with a strategy of contracting with wineries to do oil paintings of their vineyards, sell them prints and postcards of her work, and then sell the originals to wine lovers through shows and receptions at tasting rooms.

“My assumption was that the wine lover is a collecting personality, and likely to collect art,” Ann Rea said. “And I don’t really care if I’m painting vineyards or some other scene. I’m painting the ambient light and color.”

Ann Rea started painting full time two years ago. She sought free consulting from the San Francisco Small Business Development Center to learn bookkeeping and sales negotiation, and to help set long-term financial goals.

She now has seven winery clients, including Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves and E. & J. Gallo Winery. She is negotiating to publish a book of her vineyard paintings, and she expects to reach 150 percent of her sales goal of $100,000 for the year.

Success with a home-based business often depends on your creativity and perseverance with your marketing and business knowledge. It’s not just about creating a better widget, or in Ann Rea’s case, fine art.

Said Iain Douglass, VP of Marketing for Gallo Wines: “Wine is a live product, and her style of plein-air painting captures it live. Ann Rea’s business approach was the best I’ve seen from the art world. Her flexibility in offering her paintings in so many different forms allows us to share it with our customers in many different ways, from thank-yous for key customers to postcards in our tasting rooms.”

Even with the best plan, your first year will often be stressful. It’s very scary, but in the end if you stick with it, you’ll get to do what you want, when you want. This is one of the best parts of having a home-based business.

Why would you ever go back to a cubicle when you can be doing what you love and making good money in the process? A home-based business can be both profitable and rewarding, but you’ve still got to make it a business.

Rea’s first year as a full-time painter was marked by constant anxiety, but she has moved past that. “It was very scary,” she said. “But it’s the best. I finally get to do what I love. I had chosen to abandon art, chosen to believe it was unpractical and I couldn’t do it. Now I would rather stick a dull needle in my eye than go back to a cubicle.

Learn more about Ann Rea’s home-based business and her unique wine gifts.

Now here’s a sponsored review I jumped at - a blog about online business. This is the first time a fellow blog owner has asked me for a review via the ReviewMe service, which makes for an interesting way to introduce yourself to another blogger. So first off let me start by saying hi to Collis Ta’eed, the owner of North x East, and thank you for the review request.

I wasn’t sure how to handle this review since I’m inclined to look at blogs from two angles - as a user/reader of the blog (I’m not as good at this) and as a “coach” or “consultant” to help the blogger produce a better blog (my brain defaults to this view). Both views are very interrelated given it’s the job of the consultant to know what the user wants. I have trouble switching off the strategic brain sometimes and can’t always sit back and just read a blog for the sake of reading it.

When you first visit North x East you will see it has what I like to call a smart design. Minimalist works and Collis did a great job focusing attention on the content with very little clutter. The design is a WordPress template (blog.txt), but it’s one I’ve never seen before, which goes to show how much variety there is now in WordPress templates - you can find something unique and well thought out without expecting every other WordPress blogger in the universe to already use it.

To describe North x East you can simply read the three keyword phrases presented on every page of the blog. They do the best job I’ve ever seen explaining what a blog is about.

Those three phrases are:

Web, Small-Medium Business, Blogging

Simple. Clear. Genius.

Kind of reminds me of the topics of a certain entrepreneur blog I know too .

Needless to say I love all these topics, the question is, does Collis have enough experience and knowledge in these areas, and can he clearly articulate and present his ideas to his readers?

That’s the money question for any blog looking to enter an topic area already covered by other bloggers. Web, Small Business and Blogging are fiercely competitive topics and very difficult to establish expert status in because of how many experts there already are blogging, writing and podcasting about them. If you don’t have anything unique, new or different to say and/or you can’t present it well, you won’t get anywhere quickly.

After a brief read through of the archives of North x East I can definitely say Collis is off to a good start. I feel as if he’s been reading my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter as I see evidence of Pillar Articles often in the form of lists like 29 Things You Can Do To Make A Blog More Communal and even a Pillar Article Series about what it takes to start a business online. It’s clear Collis is focused on producing solid content and has sound ideas to offer his readers.

What I’m curious about is why Collis is writing his blog. It’s clear North x East is following a Copyblogger mentality - focus on providing value to your readers in EVERY SINGLE POST. I would never argue against this as the best way to build a readership quickly, but if there is one thing I don’t like about the strategy is how sometimes the blog author doesn’t give much away about him or herself. Brian Clark is a culprit of this and that’s exactly why I contacted him to do a podcast, so we could all learn more about the guy behind the blog.

I’d also like to know more about Collis and if there was a tip I would offer it would be to expand his about page or even start a series covering his history of business projects, what he currently does to make a living and why exactly he is blogging. Does he want to make money from it? Build a profile? Is it just for the pleasure of writing and expressing ideas? All of the above?

Some people argue that it’s a waste of time to write personal stuff on a blog and there is an argument for NOT doing it because it might actually harm your traffic growth rate. I for one think it’s worthwhile doing because you build a greater connection with your audience, even if not every member of your audience cares what your life has been about. Anyway, there’s a tip for you Collis, and we can see if he ends up adding more background info about himself to his blog in the near future.

North x East has a great chance of succeeding and becoming an authoritative blog. There’s a hard slog of work ahead for Collis because he has to maintain the momentum he’s built up. He’s just signed up for a job writing new posts every single week for many months to come if he wants to see his blog really grow, but so far so good and I definitely recommend you go check it out and subscribe to his RSS feed in anticipation of more good stuff. That’s what I just did.

There’s a clear a reason why Collis tapped me for this review - I think he found the right target audience for his blog here at my blog. I’m curious how good a traffic strategy buying reviews from other blogs is, so one last question before I end this review and it’s for Collis:

You are one of the first bloggers I’ve seen use a ReviewMe marketing strategy and while I expect it’s not the cheapest way to market a blog, I expect the results might be fantastic, given how many links and traffic I just sent you. It’s good for your SEO and RSS subscription rate and by choosing a few key top blogs you might very quickly build an audience. My question for Collis is would you mind reporting back your results, either by leaving a comment here, or by email if you prefer privacy or even by publishing your results on your blog? I’m sure the blogging world would love to know how you went and what your goals were.

Yaro Starak
Blog Reviewing

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