Tradeking is giving away a free $50 Tradeking bonus if you open an account by December 1st. I was talking with one of the reps at Tradeking, and it just so happens that they extended this offer a few more weeks due to popular demand.

I’ve been using Tradeking for over 4 years now, and it’s by far the best discount broker out there. They won’t wow you like Etrade or provide daytrading tools like Fidelity, but for simple stock investing Tradeking works really well.

To learn more about the Tradeking bonus offer, Click here to open a new account with Tradeking today.

Presenting our first Twitter Giveaway aka Twiveaway of the month.

10 Strategies to Beat Any Bear Market

Giveaway Instructions

Step 1: Retweet this EXACT message on Twitter. Simply copy and paste the text below and post it to your Twitter account. If you don‘t have a Twitter account, you‘ll need to get one for free here: http://www.twitter.com

RT @investortrip is giving away FREE copies of 10 Ways to Beat Any Bear Market, go here to learn how to get a free copy:  http://ow.ly/2tW0

Step 2: Follow me on Twitter. You can follow me by visiting the link below and clicking on the “follow” button below my picture: http://www.twitter.com/investortrip

That’s it! As soon as you complete both of these steps, we will automatically send you your free SEO Made Easy eBook via a Twitter direct message, so please check your “direct messages” inbox on Twitter for the download link, after you‘ve followed the 2 easy steps above.

Enjoy!

Hey everybody,

It’s Tarik here, and I want to clue you in on the recent changes we’ve made to the website. Here is what’s happening in March:

• Site Redesign – If you’re reading this on the website, then you notice we redesigned the site. Unique Blog Designs designed and coded the site, while I made a few alterations along the way. I think it’s MUCH easier to navigate content, read the most popular articles, leave comments, etc. Also, the biggest upgrade was the homepage. We placed the newest content up front and center, so you can identify interesting articles and read them immediately.
• Posting Frequency – We have a new experiment running this week. Instead of the usual 5 articles per week, we are posting 20 articles per week to see how everyone responds. That’s about 4x the current posting per day rate. Also, we will post 1-2 articles on the weekends of a more lighter nature. Please leave your comments about the increased posting frequency because your opinion matters!
• Wall Street Rumors – We started the daily Wall Street Rumors updates again. We will post these rumors about the markets every weekday morning, so you gain a pre-market insight on what’s driving the indexes today.
• Top Commentators – Lastly, we’ve added the Top commentators feature back to the website. When you leave a comment on the site, you will receive a backlink to your blog/website on every post page. With over 500 post on Investor Trip, this is a great opportunity to earn links in Google and Yahoo! pointing to your site. All links DO FOLLOW as well.

That’s all for now. Do you like or dislike the changes? What did we improve and what did we get wrong?

I logged into the dashboard today, and noticed Grace published our 500th post yesterday on Fiat and Chrysler! We want to thank everyone for reading our content and subscribing to our news feeds. We will keep posting articles and content as long as you keep reading.

Join Our Investment Community

To celebrate our 500th post, I would like to pass you a personal invitation to join our investment community.

Please Accept Your Personal Invite to Join the InvestorTrip.com Community.

Our sister site, Award Winning Brokers, staged an e-mail interview with Dave Dusseault, director of business development at TradeKing.

The interview went really well, and Dave provided us with tons of insight on how TradeKing works and why it’s one of the best discount broker on the internet.

Click Here to Read the Entire TradeKing Interview

InvestorTrip.com released its fresh new stock brokers (and various other brokers) review site on January 6th, 2009. Here’s a quick quote from the AwardWinningBrokers’s About Us page:

AwardWinningBrokers.com was launched on January 6th, 2009 to provide the public with honest customer reviews on the top online brokers. We noticed a gap in the amount of honest user generated reviews on the internet for a variety of online brokers and dealers.

AwardWinningBrokers covers the following broker categories:

• Annuity Brokers – Online brokers who sell annuities to customers
• Bond Brokers – Allows customers to purchase bonds through the open marketplace
• ETF Brokers – Allows customers to purchase Exchange Traded Funds through the open marketplace
• Forex Brokers – Allows customers to buy Foreign Exchange currency through the global marketplace
• Mortgage Brokers – Allows prospective homebuyers to find mortgage brokers online
• Mutual Fund Brokers – Find mutual fund companies who allow customers to buy into mutual fund investments
• Stock Options Brokers – Find brokers who allow customers to buy options through the global exchanges
• Stock Market Brokers – Buy Stocks through brokers on the global equity stock markets

Currently, there are over 20 brokers available for review. We will add new brokers a continuous basis as they come to our attention.

Visit AwardWinningBrokers.com Now!

InvestorTrip.com Video Center Has Officially Launched!

Last month, we added our first bit of video content when we partnered with WallStrip to stream their daily video updates.

Well, guess what? We just formed a new partnership with TheNewsRoom to bring you some of the best financial video content on the internet.

Some of our content providers include:

• WallStrip
• WallStreetJournal.com
• BBC
• Associated Press
• Reuters
• Etc

Watch Videos Daily

Best of all, the InvestorTrip.com video section will be updated daily, providing you with a constant stream of useful content as usual. This is just the beginning of video as we plan to offer podcasts and an educational video database in the near future.

Visit our Brand New Video Center and Watch Our Content for Free. Updated Daily

Earlier this week, I made some changes to the Investor Trip Forum Community to improve the overall user experience. The number of open forums has been reduced from 5 to 2, so it’s much easier to browse and find the content you are looking for.

You can discuss topics in the two main forums: investing and general discussion. Unless 2 forums is too small to accommodate all our discussions, we will stick with only 2 open forums for a while.

Most Popular Forum Posts This Week

Some of the most popular threads this week were:

• ING Direct is a RipOff – JoJo25 shares his terrible experience with ING Direct’s services. Very interesting story indeed.
• Concept of Wealthstreaming – The basic process of creating multiple streams of income. Find out more and I recommend reading the article link in the forums
• New FAQ Article on Money Merge Accounts – If you’re a home borrower, then you must check out this new knowledge base article about the benefits of money merge accounts.

Not a Community Member Yet? Join the InvestorTrip.com Community

Click Here to Join the Investor Trip Forums!

Photo Credit: Victoria Stevens

The most popular articles here on Investor Trip have stirred up a ton of questions about various financial topics from retirement to trading stock options. Instead of answering each question in a redundant fashion, we recently added a new section to the site called InvestorTrip.com FAQ Knowledge Base.

FAQ Features and Benefits

What’s cool about this software package created by PHPmyFAQ is that you can:

• Ask Questions
• Answer Recently Asked Questions
• Add Content to the FAQ Database
• Search Instantly for Relevant Answers
• or Simply Browse around the Financial FAQ’s and Gain some knowledge

Most Popular FAQs So Far

Based on page views, the following FAQ articles are the most popular so far:

• How to Start an Emergency Fund
• Should I Open a Roth 401(k) Account?
• How Do I Check My Credit Score?

If you know the answer/solution to an important financial question, then add some content to the FAQ. Not only will you help readers increase their financial education, but you can gain some valuable backlinks and exposure for you and your business. It’s a win-win situation.

In the meantime, I will answer as many questions as possible in the FAQ and continually look for excellent articles to add to the database.

Time to Check Out the New FAQ Section

Please visit the brand spanking NEW Investor Trip FAQ Section now and tell us what you think.

With summer fast approaching, we are planning to add a few members to the Investor Trip team.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Requirements

• Must be passionate about finance and/or investing topics
• Must Speak English very well
• Must be familiar with basic HTML and web language
• Experience with WordPress and Vbulettin a plus

Options Trading Writer

Seeking an experienced options trader to contribute articles and case studies on stock options. Apply Here.

Newsletter Editor

Seeking a talented editor to help us create beautiful weekly newsletters for our readers. Apply Here.

Forum Moderator

Seeking a forum moderator to help us manage spam, moderate threads and posts, and assist in marketing our forums. Apply Here.

Thanks everyone!

Google recently updated their Google PageRank Toolbar, and Investor Trip went from a PR4 to a PR5. This is the first Pagerank Update for Investor Trip in a long time, probably at least 6 months or so.

Anyway, I’m looking for new sites to link to from my homepage (See the homepage at the bottom of the sidebar).

While most bloggers endorse creating a separate page for links, I believe that defeats the whole purpose of giving links. The goal is to funnel traffic and Google love to other blogs. Creating a seperate page is very ineffective at doing so.

If you have a financial related website, leave it in the comments and I will check it out.

Last weekend, we hired a talented team of programmers to create the new Investor Trip Forums.

Our Community Forums provides a fast and fun way to ask questions, get advice, share opinions, and meet fellow members of the Investor Trip Community. There are two separate forums for investing and retirement discussions, along with a general board called the Investor Trip Lounge.

I will be active in the community forums on a regular basis mainly answering questions, commenting on other interesting posts, etc. This is a great opportunity to ask a question that we haven’t yet covered in an article or blog post.

Seeking Trusted Community Members for Moderator Positions

We also are seeking out responsible members to become forum moderators in the community. Your task will be to moderate threads, comments, and blog entries, and other necessary listings. Also, you can make edits to any thread as well as block trolls and destructive members.

Another Bonus is a free subscription to our premium members section – A value of $9.99 per month. Premium members receive access to PDF downloads, stock recommendations, newsletters, and other delicious goodies. Hopefully the service will launch by the end of March so stay tuned in!

Why Wait? Join Our Community Now

Click Here to Join The Investor Trip Community Forums Now

Lastly, I’d like to thank everyone in the Investor Trip community for making this website possible. We launched our forums to better serve you and your needs, so please let us know if we are making a difference in your life.

We’re giving away free copies of Benjamin’s Graham “The Intelligent Investor” to 2 Lucky Survey Participants who fill out our short 1-minute survey by March 7th.

How to Win a Free Copy of The Intelligent Investor.

1. Fill Out Our Short Survey
2. I’ll collect all the results, chose 2 winners at random from pieces of paper in a hat, then e-mail them asking for their mailing address.
3. I will purchase 2 copies through Amazon.com and send each book as a free gift

Bonus: How to Get 2 Free Entries

If you have a blog, you will receive two free entries by simply linking to this contest. Just write a simple blog post, linking to this contest, and I’ll add 2 extra entries to your e-mail address!

Why Should You Enter This Contest?

The Intelligent Investor is considered the bible of value investing, and has been assigned as required reading in business schools, brokerage firms, and other notable organizations across the world. Graham focuses on the emotional elements of investing, and explains how investors can make money in the stock market by following simple principles. This book will open your eyes to the true meaning of buying and selling stocks, and will pay for itself over and over again.

Enter the Contest Now by Completing Our Survey!

*Update: We’ve extended the contest to February 29th to give more people a chance to enter.

*Update: Contest Extended to March 7th.

“It’s not what you know, but who you know” – Famous Adage

We acquired a free contact manager for small business individuals, company employees, bloggers, and freelancers called KeepM.

KeepM was created to solve many of the following problems:

• Do you have tons of business cards lying around unorganized?
• Do you ever waste time searching for people’s information?
• Are you maximizing your personal and business network?

With KeepM, you can:

• store unlimited contacts
• import/export contacts from Gmail or Vcards
• add notes and tags to organize your contacts
• plus much more

We investors can especially benefit from KeepM because staying connected with friends, family, and your business network will always lead to more interesting investment opportunities. The big shots on Wall Street are well connected; How well are you connected?

Visit KeepM now to Manage Your Contacts Online Simply and 100% Free

If you were unimpressed by my amateurish website theme, then hopefully you will enjoy InvestorTrip’s new look. I decided to invest some money in the theme layout, design, logos, and favicons. The programmer I hired just made the finishing touches on the custom code, and we will let everyone test drive the theme for a day or two to work out all the kinks.

Let’s quickly go over the new features:

1. Improved Content Readability & accessibility – The new theme presents content in a much more user friendly fashion. Also, we added sub level navigation, included related entries, plus latest articles on the sidebar.
2. Reduced Ad Weight per page & No More InText Ads – I’m leaving out Vibrant Media Inline ads for a while, and reduced total ads per page from 4 to 2.
3. Live US Market Quotes – My programmer found a neat little Stock quotes plugin. You can get live quotes from Yahoo! Finance on the right sidebar.
4. Enhanced Social Bookmarking/Share Features – You can bookmark any article to any social media networking site or e-mail an article to a friend via e-mail.

That’s just a few of the new features. If you have any specific requests, then leave them in the comments.

Posting has been light/non-existent lately since a various number of web projects and dot com acquisitions have commanded the bulk of my time. I have some exciting web properties to tell you about, but most are still under construction. Once these sites are up and running, I will tell you how much I spent on each domain, and what my expected return on investment for each web property is.

In the meantime, I was able to redesign the Stock market search engine, giving it a much cleaner look and feel.

If you aren’t familiar with the Stock market search engine, it uses Google technology to store only stock market related websites and blogs in the index. I hand picked each and every site in the index, which saves you time by leading you directly to the best investing resources on the web.

Please consider playing around with the search engine for a bit, and contact me if you have any suggestions or concerns.

Don’t forget to Bookmark it at Delicious! Bookmark the Stock Market Search Engine at Delicious.

I created a stock broker review section!

You can do the following:

• Rate Brokers based on 4 features.
• Leave your own personal reviews. Feel free to praise or bash any broker on the list. Also, try to provide as much relevant information as possible to help other visitors find the right broker.
• View all positive and negative recommendations by number count, and average ratings by category.

I’m thinking about adding a Mutual Fund family review section as well. Please let me know if that would be helpful.

Start Reviewing Brokers Now!

With a $25 investment and a few hours to kill, I setup the Investor Trip Directory, which features sites in business, investing, personal finance, research, and other notable categories. If you’re a webmaster and need to build backlinks to your site, then submit your site to my site’s directory.

A directory organizes my former links pages in a more sensible and SEO friendly manner. My goal is to turn this directory into a useful resource for investors on business & finance related subjects.

There are currently 35 sites listed in the directory. Submit Your Site Today!

If you’re a first time visitor, welcome! You can subscribe to my blog via RSS or e-mail updates to keep in touch.

If you’re a regular reader, welcome back! Investor Trip has grown because of you. Thank you for your participation, and feel free to e-mail me any comments and suggestions you may have on Investor Trip.

Here’s a quick recap of what happened in February:

ShareBuilder Portfolio

My ShareBuilder portfolio lost 2% in February, mostly due to the February 27th market reversal.

Best Performer – Celadon Group (CLDN) up 4.5%

Worst Performer – Medtronic (MDT) down 2.11%

I knew a Dow reversal was lurking near. Negative sentiments on China’s stock market sent global markets plummeting. Now, the bargain hunters will reveal themselves, and push prices back up a bit.

Blog Earnings

There’s a new blogging trend on the internet. More and more bloggers are now disclosing blog earnings, so I decided to join in on the fun.

• Direct Sales – $308
• Google Adsense – $131.60
• Text Link Ads – $21.25
• Affiliate Sales – $21
• FAN Network – $6
• Cash Crate – $5
• AGLOCO – 10 Sign Ups – TBD

Total Revenue: $492.85

Direct sales boosted once I got indexed by Google. The best thing about direct sales is you receive 100% of the advertising cost. If you want to increase revenue, allocate more time to marketing your blog online and offline. It’s worked wonders for Investor Trip.

Site Traffic

Investor Trip recorded 7,831 visitors, up from 6,711 in January. Pageviews stood at 15,668, up from 14,142 in January. Google and StumbleUpon accounted for over 50% of my traffic. This is both good and bad. Getting on Google’s good side can bring you tons of traffic, however, de-indexing would be devastating to my pageviews. Diversified traffic streams are and will always be the best source of long-term site traffic.

New TradeKing Account

I opened a new account with TradeKing to save money on options trading commission fees. Once TradeKing approves my checking account information, I’ll let everyone in on my stock options picks.

Best Posts from February 2007

These entries received the most comments and feedback via e-mail:

• Super Bowl Indicator for Annual Dow Jones Trends
• Barclays plc (BCS) Stock Outlook
• Free Fantasy Stock Market Games
• Recommended Short Term Investing Options

Welcome everyone who found my post, Crocs: Own a Pair and Buy some Shares, via TheStreet.com.

Investor Trip is a global investment blog that focuses on how equity investments respond on a global scale. I try to look at US stocks from a different angle – how they translate on the global scale. I believe there are great growth opportunities overseas, so that’s where I focus much of my time.

Feel free to browse our popular sections located at the top of the page. To find out more about my background and how Investor Trip started, read my about me page.

Upcoming Topics

• Chinese Stocks
• Indian Stocks
• Import-Export Business Ideas: I’m investing in a small scale export business
• Domestic stocks to benefit from International Growth
• Debunking the whole energy debacle
• Plus more!

To stay in touch with my site, Subscribe to my RSS Feed.

Thank you for your visit, and I hope you stick around!

-TJP