Credit Scores – How Do They Work?

Credit scoring is a complicated process and each of the 3 major credit
repositories have their own credit scoring models in place to determine a
borrower’s credit score. The 3 main credit repositories are Equifax, Experian,
and TransUnion. Equifax has credit scores that range from a lowest possible
score of 300 and a highest possible score of 850. Experian has a range of
340-820 and TransUnion 150-934. Just like computers have upgraded operating
systems over the years such as, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, the
credit scoring system versions update periodically also. Not all lenders use the
same version or the most updated version when obtaining a credit report and
credit score for a borrower. Therefore, this is one reason why you may have
varying credit scores between one lender and another.There are five major components or factors that help to determine your credit
score. Roughly 35 percent of your credit score is derived from your payment
history, 30 percent from how much you owe compared to how much you have
available, 15 percent comes from length of credit history, 10 percent from new
credit and recent inquiries, and the final 10 percent comes from various other
items such as the mixture of credit you currently have. Next we will discuss
each of the five components in further detail and explain the basic principals
as to how credit scoring works. This information is to be used only to help
educate and as a guide to assist with the basic ideas involved in credit
scoring.Payment History (35%)Your payment history is the most important factor of credit scoring.
Bankruptcies, collection accounts, slow pays and late payments, foreclosures,
judgments, and liens can negatively affect your credit score. However, an
established history of on-time payments and a clean credit history will
positively impact your credit scores and help to increase them over time. The
older any negative credit history or adverse credit factors are, the less they
will negatively affect your credit score. Therefore, recent late payments or
other derogatory credit will negatively affect your credit much greater than
aged bad credit.Revolving Credit Balances to Maximum Limits (30%)The second biggest factor in credit scoring comes from how you utilize your
revolving credit. The credit scoring models are going to look heavily upon how
much revolving credit you have available compared to how much you have used. For
credit scoring purposes, having all revolving credit or credit card accounts
maxed out to their limits is not a good thing, nor is it going to help better
your credit scores. You don’t want to pay off all of your revolving credit
accounts because that will not show the credit bureaus how well you manage your
credit. Your ideal credit ratios should be roughly 20-40 percent usage. What
this means is that if you have a credit card with a $1000 limit you do not want
to max. out the credit card balance, but you would want to maintain a balance
between 200 and 400 dollars. If you do realize that you have borrowed more than
50% of your available credit limit on your card or your balance is getting close
to your limit, you should either try to pay your balance down to the 40% mark or
call your credit card company and see if they are able to raise your limit. The
biggest mistake you can make is to let your balance exceed your maximum credit
limit. This will negatively affect your credit score a great amount.Length of Credit History (15%)The longer and more established your credit history is, the better and more
positive of an impact it can make. Someone who pays their bills on time for a 10
year period of time is a much better risk than someone who only has a 1 year
history of paying their bills on time, even if they both carry the same credit
score. When you pay off credit card accounts do not close them, keep them open
and use them periodically in order to continue to build an established length of
credit. Closing your accounts can actually have more of a negative affect on
your credit score due to limiting the length of time that particular account was
open for. The longer you have established credit accounts, the better it is for
you. It is possible to still have a good credit score with a short credit
history; however lenders may not approve you for optimal financing options due
to the lack of history still.New Credit and Inquiries (10%)The amount of new credit you have opened, will have somewhat of a minor impact
on your credit scores. If you have numerous inquiries resulting from applying
for a lot of new credit and add many new trade-lines in your credit report, this
can have a damaging effect on your credit score. First, it may negatively affect
your scores because you have a lot of new, un-established accounts. Second, it
can negatively impact your score because you have a lot of inquiries with
various lenders for various types of financing over a short period of time.
Credit inquiries can affect your credit score, not a ton, but enough to lower
your score. This is not to say don’t shop around or don’t have more than one
firm pull your credit when looking to buy a car or a home. You definitely should
use due diligence and shop between a couple of lenders to make sure you are
getting a good deal. When you are comparing quotes however, you should try to do
all of your shopping within a 30 day max. period of time. All inquiries that are
made when applying for an auto loan or a mortgage loan are treated as only one
inquiry when they are done within a 14 day period of time. Therefore if you are
ever told to not have anyone else pull your credit or else your scores will
lower, this has little truth to it. There is only one type of credit inquiry
that counts toward your credit score. That one type of inquiry is when you are
making an application for credit: such as a home loan, auto loan, credit card,
etc… When you pull your own credit, a creditor you already have an account with
pulls your credit, and/or a prospective employer pulls your credit, these do not
have any impact on your scores. Understanding this can help you make sure that
you do not fall victim to all of the urban myths regarding credit inquiries.Types & Mixture of Credit (10%)Having a mixture of the various types of credit will have a small impact on your
credit scores. For a person who has a good mixture of credit such as a home
loan, auto loan, 2-4 credit cards and maybe a personal loan this could be deemed
a good mixture of credit versus a different person who has 15 credit cards and
no other credit. The ideal number of credit cards to maintain is 2-4. Also,
other types of liabilities are important to have, such as installment loans and
a mortgage loan.”Knowledge is power” and the most important step to applying for a loan is to
understand your credit report, your credit scores and how credit scoring works.
It is highly recommended that every person checks their credit report at least
once per year to help protect themselves from inaccurate information and from
identity theft. A new law was recently passed that permits a borrower to have
access to their credit report one time each year for no charge to allow them the
opportunity to review their credit history and verify the accuracy of all items
listed. You are permitted to obtain a credit report from each of the three
credit repositories, TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. You can obtain your
free report by logging into the annual credit report and following
the directions. When you obtain your free report it will not contain your credit
score, but you can pay a small fee if you would like to find out what your score
is when you are ordering your free report. It is also highly recommended that
you pull a report from each repository individually as opposed to all of them
together so that you can dispute any erroneous information to each bureau
separately. If you report a problem to only one of the bureaus it will not be
fixed among all three of the bureaus. Remember the bureaus are separate of each
other and have no communication amongst each other either. Some creditors report
to only 1 bureau, some report to 2 bureaus, some report to all three bureaus and
some don’t report to any. This is why you must make sure that you check all
three credit repositories when you are utilizing your free annual credit report.
In conclusion, your credit is very important and understanding the basics of how
your credit scores are obtained is equally as important.Credit scoring is a complicated process and each of the 3 major credit
repositories have their own credit scoring models in place to determine a
borrower’s credit score. The 3 main credit repositories are Equifax, Experian,
and TransUnion. Equifax has credit scores that range from a lowest possible
score of 300 and aHere is a quick contact list for the 3 main credit repositories:Equifax Credit Bureau P.O. Box 740241 Atlanta GA 30374-0241 * (800) 685-1111http://www.equifax.comExperian (Formerly TRW Credit Bureau) P.O. Box 949 Allen TX 75013-0949 * (888)
397-3742http://www.experian.comTrans Union Corporation (Credit Bureau) Consumer Disclosure Center P.O. Box 390
Springfield PA 19064-0390 * (800) 916-8800 * (800) 682-7654 * (714) 680-7292http://www.transunion.com

Site Promotion – Simple Website Promotion Tactics That Work

Website promotion is not difficult – it can just be repetitive and boring, and that’s where automated site promotion tools can really help you. Below are several tips that will help you promote your sites and grab the #1 position in Google.Tip 1. Be realistic, you aren’t going to get the #1 spot in Google for keywords that have lots of competition but If you target the right keywords the you will have a great chance of achieving that elusive number 1 spot.Tip 2. Don’t be over reliant on SEO. Set up your title, keywords and description and make sure to use your keywords in each article of post on your site. If possible use a keyword related domain name. Using just these basics I regularly get the #1 spot for keywords with over 6,000,000 competing pages.Tip 3. Promote your sites slowly. If there is one thing guaranteed to hinder your site promotion it’s suddenly getting hundreds of back links to your site. Google likes site to get links gradually so take your time …remember the hare and the tortoise?Tip 4. Where possible use automated site promotion tools. These can save you hours of work in getting your site to those top spots. But remember Tip3 and use them sparingly, establish a routine there you promote each site once every month and you’ll soon notice the difference.By employing just these simple and easy methods you can start to see the positive effects that proper site promotion can have on your income. Establish a regular regime and you’ll soon be on your way to an excellent online income.

How to Make Money Investing in Stocks in Any Market

I write this with one eye on 2015 and 2016; and the other focused on how to make money investing in stocks. And I remind myself that there are two market concepts that must be understood and considered in order to make money investing in stocks in any market.Nobody can always make money investing in stocks (also called equities), but those who outperform year after year do so by applying two basic concepts. Here we will use 2015 and 2016 as an example because they promise to be challenging years. We’re not talking about finding tomorrow’s glamour stocks or short-term trading here. We’re talking about two important and basic market concepts that many investors either are not aware of, or that they overlook at their own expense.Concept #1 refers to the cyclical nature of markets. Prices will always fluctuate, but there are reoccurring and identifiable price trends that can either make you or break you. A trend of rising prices is called a “bull market”, and just about anybody can make money investing in stocks in these “good” markets. The good news is that they often last for several years. The bad news is that they are always followed (sooner or later) by a trend of falling prices which is called a “bear market’, or simply a “bad” market for most investors.The good news is that bear markets (like the last two) sometimes last for less than two years. The bad news is that they can be swift and brutal – creating losses of 50% or more for investors (like in the last two bear markets). The other bad news is that very few investors ever make money investing in stocks in a bear market. More bad news: if you lose half your money in a bad market, you then need to double your money in the next good market in order to simply break even.As I look forward to 2015 and 2016, I also look back to the years 2000 and 2007. Both years were the beginning of bear markets that followed good markets. Both created 50% losses in less than two years and wiped out most of the profits investors earned in the preceding good markets. As of 2015, the current bull market that started in early 2009 is almost six years old. The stock market has again hit all-time highs. The challenge now is how to make money investing in stocks in 2015 and beyond if a new bear market hits in 2015 or 2016.As we move on to concept #2, note that we are not talking about how to avoid losses in a bear market, but how to actually make money investing in stocks. You can always avoid losses by getting out while you are ahead, or you can reduce losses by cutting your asset allocation to stocks.While just about everyone knows that you can make money investing in stocks when you buy them and equities prices rise… most folks do not know that you can also bet that prices will fall and make money if they do. This is called taking a “short” position. It’s legal, and has been going on for many years. During the Great Depression some people in the know got filthy rich “going short”; and during the financial crisis of 2007- 2008 you could have made big bucks betting against the market as well.This is concept #2 and is the flip side of how markets work. The good news is that it will be easier than ever to make this bet in 2015 and 2016. The bad news is that it’s not for everyone, because you can take significant losses if you go here and prices move UP, against you. Actually, I’ve known people who are repulsed by the concept and some who even think that it’s un-American and should be illegal. That having been said, it’s a fact of life and part of the free-market system we live in.It’s never easy to make money investing in stocks by going “short” because the market trend over the long term has been up. On the other hand, when the market goes south you won’t make money investing in stocks any other way. You’ll lose it along with about 98% of investors. The easiest way to short the market these days is to simply buy stocks called INVERSE EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS (ETFs). Popular examples (stock symbols) include DXD, SDS, and QID. In order, these allow you to short the three major indexes: the Dow, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ.These (and other) inverse ETFs are designed to go UP in price when the market indexes go DOWN. In fact, if the index goes down 1% they are designed to go up 2%. If you want to try to make money investing in stocks in a bad market, inverse ETFs are the simplest way to do it. They can be easily bought and sold through a discount broker for about $10 per trade.Above all else, keep the concept of bull and bear markets in mind in your endeavor to make money investing in stocks in 2015, 2016 and well beyond. While a rising tide lifts all boats, a falling tide can leave them dead in the water. If you are adventuresome and can handle the risk, you now know how to make money investing in stocks when the tide goes out.