Are you a directional trader? If you answered yes, then Options trading can be an ideal way for you to play the markets as opposed to stocks or futures. When you trade options, you get the flexibility of specifying the maximum loss you can stomach upfront; you can even define where you want your options traded at when it expires.

Options trading provide the investor with unmatched advantage not available to other investment vehicles.  This is because option contracts offer the flexibility of placing bets on very definite market outcomes. A good example is that an options trader can place a bet that in 7 months time a particular stock will appreciate or depreciate in value - a two way bet per see.

Should the stocks trade between the forecasted price range in 7 months, the trader loses a preset amount. This options strategy is known as long straddle. Options contracts offer huge leverage. In America, 1 option contract is equivalent to 100 basic shares. In Australia, 1 option contract is sold in multiples of 1000 times the basic commodity or stock.

This means that even with a small grubstake in dollars, an options trader can manage huge stock position. The leverage factor makes options trading very risky for the newbie investor because losses as well as gains are greatly magnified when leverage is applied. As an options buyer, the biggest advantage is that you cannot lose more than your initial account equity.

Options trading allows the investor to gain from every move in the underlying asset - whether up, down or sideways. An options trader can easily participate in the stock market downtrends by purchasing a put option without the risk of margin calls prevalent in Forex by simply shorting the underlying stock.

It has been said that trading options could be less riskier than trading stocks. In order to trade options, you have to open an online options account with an execution only broker. Ensure that the broker offers online options trading, then you can practice trading call options for stocks you anticipate to rise in value, and purchasing put options for stocks you anticipate to fall in value.

Once you become completely familiar with options trading, you can advance to more complicated options strategies.

Love life, not just the weekends. You only have one life, Live It! @ www.NicciAndLee.com

Ideally, your main service or product that you are offering should generate your first stream of internet income. For more experienced internet marketers this may well be a product that they have developed themselves.

However, before you can do that you will need to get set up with your own online business in order to be able to effectively market multiple products on one website. How do you do this?

The first thing you need to do then is get a website and start an online business of your own.

You will have all of your products on one website and you will be focusing your marketing efforts on promoting the one site. So, top priority is to get a website and domain of your own.

It is possible to earn online income without a website, rather like it is possible to make money in the street without having a shop of your own. An example of this would be the auction sites . But if you are serious about earning multiple streams of internet income and having many pillars then your own online business website would be the main channel through which the online income will flow.

Once you have setup your own online business website then your task is to spend most of your time consistently driving targeted traffic to your website.

When visitors arrive on your site offer them something for free in return for their email address. This enables you to build your list and keep in contact with them. The first email that goes out from your auto-responder, after they have signed up, would contain the link to the free offer you promised them and then return to the theme of the advertisement that first attracted them to your site, which will most likely be your primary service or product.

Do not give your visitors a sales pitch, offer them useful information and valuable freebies. Your goal is to develop a long term relationship with your visitors, so don’t give the impression that you are desperate to sell something to them.

Now that your business is set up and running, you can add additional streams of internet income to your online business.

Affiliate programs offer a great selection of products that you could use for a second stream of internet income. As there are thousands of affiliate programs on the internet, ensure you spend some time to find the right ones for you though. A two-tier affiliate program which is free for you to join, may appeal to you plus you may want to consider a network marketing program, which will require normally a monthly payment, but will offer a higher financial reward.

A third stream of income you may want to consider when your site is receiving regular traffic is posting adverts, either by offering advertising space for sale or using Google Adsense.

As your experience and confidence grows you could start offering your visitors the same internet tools that you use. Many hosting companies offer an affiliate program, so if yours does then recommend them and earn a residual income. You may have purchased a keyword or seo ebook that you found extremely useful, so sign up as an affiliate and offer them for sale too. You could add these to your website or offer them by email to your list of opt-in subscribers.

You could generate another stream of income by packaging your own personally written unique articles into an ebook and selling them on your site or offer the ebook to your subscribers.

You can add a further stream of internet income to your online business by developing an affiliate program of your own to increase sales of your own product and this will also leverage your reach across the internet.

Love life, not just the weekends. You only have one life, Live It! @ www.NicciAndLee.com

Starting a home based business is a great idea because this gives you the opportunity to become your own boss and amass a great amount of wealth as well. There are many advantages from working out of the comforts of your home. Including buying a whole new wardrobe… of PJs and trackies!

10 tips that we think will get you started…

1) Believe in your abilities: Too many people never start their business because they are not sure whether they will ever be successful or not. Yes there is always a bit of a risk involved (but there is risk in everything we do), but if you never even start the venture, how can you know whether you will be successful or not? If you have the knowledge and if you can work hard, then you will be successful.

2) Look for the right business: Do some research and you will come across many home based business opportunities. But beware, not all of them might be profitable. So you should spend some more time in research and find out whether the one you like is profitable or not.

3) Work on your hobby and/or passion: What are you truly interested in? Perhaps you are a seasoned traveler and if you start your business in the travel niche, then naturally you will be enthusiastic to give it your time. Starting a business on a hobby or something that interests you is a great idea.

4) Get ready for business swings: Not every day is the same -  you cannot expect that your business will not go through the ups and downs. This happens to every business and will happen to you as well. Persistence, without exception is a key to your success.

5) Routine: Though you are working from home and can work the hours you please, but you should have discipline because it is your business and the responsibility to make it a success is also yours. Fix a time of the day when you will work daily. Decide on the number of hours a week that you will give, no matter what happens.

6) Learn from your failures: Do not be afraid to fail because everyone fails. Instead make every failure as an opportunity to learn new things and transfer this knowledge into your next venture.

7) Leverage the Internet: The Internet offers a great opportunity as it has made the world a market. Today you need not be restricted anymore and can find a customer from across the world. So go online and do some marketing and your business can literally ‘go places’.

Read about the success stories: Find out all about the people who have been successful in your chosen line of business and learn what they did and how they became successful. Your business can profit from their learning and experience.

9) Start small and then grow: It is always a good idea to start with a small budget and then invest back the money that you have earned from your business. Do not put in a lot in the beginning - let your business first stand on its own feet.

10) Have a business plan: You must have a business plan and also definite targets - short, mid and long term. Work according to your plan and give yourself an award when you meet your targets. This will keep you motivated.

We are learning and using all these strategies ourselves for our home based business … we will keep you updated with anything else we think that may help you. (Similarly - if you have any thoughts about the above or anything to add then please let us know)

Love life, not just the weekends. You only have one life, Live It! @ www.NicciAndLee.com