NSFG August Result

Overall a solid month for NSFG. I understand they had a great first week of trading and were around 6-7% up, so they locked 5%. It seems the next week they traded went pretty well too and they were quite nicely up, but then last week didn't go so well and they lost everything after the 5% lock in, so 5% is the final figure for August. I am happy with this, I believe this is one of the very very few online investment programs where it would be wise to even considering thinking long term. Returns are going to be lower than they were last year as they are trading in a more conservative manner but this may make many people feel more comfortable about investing a larger sum of money or even opening a managed account. Just think if they averaged 5% for many years and you started with a tidy sum of money, you would be smiling at the end. Assuming 3.75% monthly average (5% minus the fees) if you started with $10,000 and left it in for six years it would be worth around $140,000. Also, you would hit the Managed Account target of $25k in around two years. Of course in reality you may not want to compound for so long, you may wish to invest in other ventures or diversify into other Managed Accounts or just go and spend it all but this just outlines the fact that you do not need unrealistic daily returns to get there and I feel a more conservative approach to online investing can be more profitable in the end. Maybe $10,000 is too high for you at the moment, you can always start smaller, it will take longer but you have a good chance of getting there. Most people who play ponzis lose most or all of their money, I think this is a better strategy, don't you?

Security

Unfortunately I have read that many people have been getting their e-gold accounts hacked into lately, so I thought I would write an article with some security tips.

Regarding e-gold one of the first measures you can take to massively increase your e-gold security is to enable the Accsent security. If you have a static IP this will work perfectly, you can put your IP into accsent and then you will only be able to login to your e-gold account from your IP address. If a login is made from a different IP e-gold will send you an email to your registered address with a pin code you need to enter to gain access, so it is very important to use a secure email provider like safe-mail and use a very strong password. If you do not have a static IP address all is not lost as you can select part of an IP address, for example 213.293.40.*.

Always be careful with passwords, never use anything that relates to you in anyway like your date of birth. Make them long and as strong as possible. Software like roboform, keepass are very helpful as they save your passwords and remove the need to type them in.

A firewall is very important. A good hardware firewall is preferable but if this is not an option there are various software firewalls. I have heard good things about zonealarm. It is essential that no ports are visible for potential hackers and port scanners to exploit. I have a found a free service called shields up very helpful, it will scan all your ports and let you now if they are visible to others.

A good virus killer is a must, popular choices include Norton Anti-Virus, Avast and Mcafee. Running it as frequently as possible is a good idea, especially if you have been using the internet. Also, make you sure you keep it upto date.

Spyware and Adware also unwanted evils. Adaware is an excellent program that will scan your registry, hard disks and memory for malicious software. I run aware everyday and it always finds something new if I have been online! Be sure to update it regularly.

If use use Microsoft Windows always make sure you have downloaded and installed all the latest security updates. You can get windows to download these automatically by enabling “automatic updates”. You can find this under “Security Centre” in control panel if you are using Windows XP.

Do not use Internet Explorer, there are too many security vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. A great alternative is Mozilla Firefox.

Do not leave fund in e-gold for longer than neccesary, outexchange them with an exchanger or put them into a program. At least this way if you did get hacked, there would be no gold to steal, saves on the storage fees too.

Many hackers try and setup “phishing websites”. These are sites that often look very genuine and ask you to enter your egold number and password. E-gold will never ask you for this information so if you are ever asked it is definitely a phishing attempt, close the website/email immediately.

Never run any .exe file unless you are certain it is not some kind of malicious software. It is also very useful to know exactly what .exe files are currently running on your system. Task manager is great for this. If you are unsure what any of the exe files are that are running on your system, this website has a searchable database that contains most of the legitimate exe files and tells you in detail what they are. If you are unable to find out what a particular file is that is running, it is likely to be something malicious and you should probably end it.

A little additional measure you can take is to use a little program called Sandboxie. This is a small program that allows you to run browser sessions that save all changes to a “virtual sandbox” so they do not affect your pc in anyway.

Another option is a live linux CD. There are several distrubutions of linux that have live CDs. This allows you to boot up into linux from CD and login to your egold account this way. The great thing with live CDs is the fact that CDs are of course read-only so no malicous software can ever be written to the CD. It is like a completely fresh install of an OS everytime it boots up. The Slax and Ubuntu distrubutions have live CDs and both have firefox included. Slax is ideal for people on a slower connection as the CD image is less than 200meg.

MegaInvestForum update

Oh dear, I do have some bad news to report. On the 8th August a disastrous position was opened. 20 lots on the usd/chf pair. This was using approximately 40:1 leverage. The trade went 137 pips the wrong way. The result, horrendous drawdown, just less than 50% in one trade. In my opinion there is no excuse for this at all it is just irresponsible, especially considering they are managing tens of thousands of other peoples money. I understand the admin is going to cover some of the losses on this occasion. My concern is if the account grows bigger and we are faced with a similar issue. It would not be so easy to cover the losses from his own pocket. I have not joined this program as I employed “wait and see” strategy. There are too many bad traders out there for me to invest blindly, as I always say, it is believed that only 5% of forex traders make returns consistantly. Will MIF be one them? Only time will tell.

NSFG some good news

Some great news for NSFG. I understand the account is 6-7% up at present so this will guarantee us at least 5% as they are now locking 5% as soon as they get there. Ken has reported that they are 300 pips up for the week, fantastic, and the account is only up 6-7%, this shows how they are more conservative in there trading nowadays. This is very understandable as it is believed they are managing millions of dollars now. Ken will now use the remaining 1-2% to pick trades that are most likely to be successful, with only 1-2% to play with he can afford to be very picky so hopefully we will make a little extra. Now they are trading with considerably less risk than they did in the early days we probably wont see the 20% a month again, but this does make me feel a lot more comfortable about putting a large sum of money into the program. For a forex venture I think the trading risk may prove to be relatively low, though we do need more time to see how the pool and managed accounts fair in the coming months. If we can keep up with steady gains with only the occasional losing month, I may consider a managed account with them in the future. Previously I decided against it because the risk was too high for me to risk such a large amount but now its more conservative I am thinking again, maybe in a years time when they have a longer track record. Normally I would comment on the benefits of a Managed Account in regards to the fraud risk by the program admins but I have always believed the fraud risk in the NSFG pool is negligible. Anyway good news for everybody :D

Ibiza Traders - addition

As you can see I recieved a comment on my last update regarding Ibiza traders. The person informed me about some comments from Jude from nobshyip after he verified the Ibiza Traders trading account. The basic issue that hits me in the face is the fact that the trading account has been verified but there is little trading activity to verify. This offers very little when trying to assess the trading risk or even if indeed the program is going to be backed by forex trading. I could open an account with a forex broker, stick $50k into it then make a couple of trades, anybody could do it. It seems the proof of trading we have at the moment for Ibiza Traders is worthless. At this point in time there is little evidence to suggest that Ibiza Traders is anything other than just another fraudulent ponzi and I beleive it should be treated as such. If Clifton/nobs are allowed to audit the account at regular intervals to assess the quality of the trading and the level of risk the trading involves we could perhaps make a different analysis. I will probably contact the admin in the future and try and some my own DD on the trading, if it indeed there is anything to see. I just thought I should write this to warn others who may have got a good feeling from the article I wrote yesterday. We have nothing really to suggest it is anything more than a ponzi, yet. Thank you to the person who brought this to my attention, I won't mention who you are as you left the message anonymously.

Ibiza Traders

Here is an interesting opportunity I came accross a couple of weeks ago. They claim it is supported by forex trading. here is the FAQ:

Frequently Asked Questions

We have put together some FAQ's. We feel that every question you may have should be answered in here if not please contact us at customer support or in the forums.

Q. Do you currently have more then one trader?

A. Yes, we do have more than one trader. In the beginning we will be trading exclusively Foreign Exchange. At a later stage however, it is our ambition to diversify into other financial market products.

Q. What is your past performance record?

A. The combination of all trades combined has proven to be in excess of 20%.

Q. What is the maximum risk?

A. No more than 10% of the capital is ever at risk.

Q. Do you offer a referral bonus?

A. No. We do not offer any type of referral bonus.

Q. Do you allow compounding from account balance?

A. No. Once you receive your monthly profit, youll have to wait untill the next trading cycle if you would like to invest more funds.

Q. What is the minimum investment at Ibiza Traders?

A. $250.00 during the first 3 months as a promotion. After 3 months the minimum investment will be $ 1000.00. After the preliminary 3 month status. Any member that has made the minimum deposit in the first 3 months will be allowed to invest under the normal terms.

Q. What is the maximum investment amount?

A. At this time there is not a maximum amount set. Please feel free to invest as much as you like. For very large investments, please use the bank wire option.

Q. When do my funds start earning?

A. You must have funded your account on or before the 24th of each month in order to start earning the following calendar month. Returns will be published on the last day of each trading month. All bank wires should be received and approved by the 24th of each month to be credited as active principle.

Q. How do I deposit Funds?

A. You can deposit with Ibiza Traders by using E Gold, E Bullion or a Bank wire transfer. If you decide to do so you can always deposit through the aforementioned options.. All the funds received on or before the 24th of each month will be taken into trading as per the 1st of the following calendar month. Hence you wont see your deposit appearing in the my account section until the 1st of the following month i.e. when your deposit has been transferred internally to our trading account. All bank wires are to be done in USD. All bank wires should be recieved and approved by the 24th of each month to be credited as active principle.

Q. How do I withdraw funds?

A. Your profit will be sent to your back office automatically. Investment results will be paid out by the end of each calendar month. Due to internal transfers, (from our trading account to your payment processor) payments will take around 5 business days to process. Hence you will receive your monthly result around the 7th of each month. If you want to withdrawal your deposit please request so before or on the 24th in order to receive it with your profit. Hence your deposit plus investment result will be received as per the 7th of the following calendar month. All bank wires are subject to the bank wire fees depending on where they are to be wired.


Lets analyse what they are saying here. They are claiming past performance is in excess of 20% per month and no more than 10% of the fund is at risk. This sounds like quite risky trading to me. I am yet to see a forex venture online that has been able to generate 20% consistantly that hasn't failed at some point. The nearest program I can think of is FXIG which some beleive is real, though I don't think anyone really knows for sure other than perhaps Feederfund.

They do not offer a referral bonus, this is always a plus in my book, real investments don't need a big influx of new funds to keep them going.


Interestingly they do not allow compounding, clearly if they are managing 20% per month the fund would have the potential to grow very big in a short period of time. Maybe they do not wish the fund to get too big. Its understandable that they would not want to trade 10% of the account if the account size was in the millions, think of those potential drawdowns! However, it seems you can still compound if you add your profits back to your account the following month, so presumably they will be out of trade for that month.

$250 minimum, higher than many FXE and a few others, but not too high if it is a real investment. They take a bank wire, instead of just ecurrencies which is always good to see.

In their FAQ they do not mention anything about a principle lock-in time so I emailed them. They claim there is no principle lock-in whatsoever and there is no fee for withdrawing your principle either.

I understand Voyager/Clifton who runs hywd.info has been given access to the trading account, he has revealed what he saw what not what he expected. He has signed a NDA so he cannot really say anymore than this. We will have to draw our own conclusions here.

It looks like it Ibiza traders may be real, though we do not have anything conclusive yet. I am going to keep an eye on it over the coming weeks and make a decision about investing or not.

You need an invitation code to join, if you need one feel free to PM me on hyipD. Please note I am not referral hunting. There are no referral commisions.

Due Diligence Resources

I thought it might be helpful to others if I add a few due due diligence tools I use to the links section.

whois.ws - Domain WHOIS

DNSTools - useful for reverse DNS lookups and other things

Fonefinder - Lookup phone numbers here, you can also do reverse lookups too

Google Maps - Excellent map service, you can zoom into street level for many countries

Alexa - Very useful for verifying traffic. For a rough guide I own a site that receives around 3000 unique visitors per day and the alexa rank is around 28,000. If you play ponzis it might be useful to compare returns and the alexa charts with long lasting ponzis like 12dp and see how they compare, it may give you some indication of how well the ponzi is sustaining itself. On the flip side, a long term investment program with a very poor alexa rating may be suggestive that the program would be unsustainable as a ponzi and therefore add legitamcy, but there are many many more factors to consider when making a decision like this. I mentioned some of them in the article I wrote on the 29th June 2006. All in all, I don't have the toolbar on my PC, as I don't like spyware, but I believe for DD purposes it does have its place.

Wayback Machine - This is a very helpful took that lets you see how a website looked at various points in time in the past. For example the recently failed fraudulent program solidinvestment.com claimed to have been online since 1998. A quick visit to the wayback machine reveals that this is clearly not the case.

GIG Mutual update

The final result for July is 3.36%. Thats the first three months over and all over them profitable. Returns have grown every month, not a bad start considering the fact their high risk portfolio encountered many problems. I don't entirely agree with their portfolio, but I like the program and hope it will be successful in the long term. Don't be alarmed when you cannot login to the GIG website, I understand they forgot to renew the domain name, easy to do when you are concentrating on everything else, I am sure they will get it sorted out very soon. Good luck for the future GIG :)

I pulled out of FX-Experts

I have chosen to withdraw my entire balance from FX-Experts. Whilst I still like the program, I understand the trading has not been going well recently. I remember my initial fear with FX-Experts was the fact that it may be just that bit too risky. They pay around 12% a month on average which is great, but when you consider the trading has to average at least this, 12% a month plus enough to pay Marcos, the trader, maintenance of the site and a reserve fund we get into very high risk trading. I admit I don't know a great deal about forex trading but I understand to generate the high returns neccesary to sustain FX-Experts it would have to be high risk trading. This is no problem of course when it is going well, but a few bad trades could leave the account well into the red.. I have heard that if the trading fails, Marcos will refund everyones account balance, but I have nothing to backup this claim, so I have chosen to withdraw. I made over 60% on the money I invested with them in a few months so I have no complaints and wish the program well for the future. I will leave the referal link up on my blog for the time being, but if you do decide to join under me like a few of you have, please be aware that I believe it would be very risky to enter the program now.

NSFG July Result

The NSFG final result is in for July. 2.4% after fees. Not great but it seems many forex ventures did not fair well last month. I am still hoping they will acheive 80-100% per year. I would be happy with that.