Business

Many are familiar with the term ‘options’ in the context of buying a car or house, but not so many understand how to trade options on listed assets. Options trading is complex and is best suited for professionals and advanced traders, but understanding the basics of options can be an exciting and valuable exercise in itself.

How does options trading work?

An option gives the holder the right to buy or sell a particular asset at a fixed price, called the strike price, until a pre-determined date called its expiry date. The two main types of options traded on London exchanges are ‘calls’ which allow their holders to buy, and ‘puts,’ which allow investors to sell an asset at a fixed price before expiration; all standardised according to the type of asset traded.

Options trading is considered riskier than buying or selling the underlying assets themselves but reduces risk due to potential profits being capped at pre-determined levels if executed correctly. This allows for option spreads – where traders simultaneously buy and sell options on the same stock to generate income from changes in price without ever having to own the stock itself – which are not possible with conventional trading of stocks.

If someone holds a call option, they have the right but not obligation to purchase 100 shares of XYZ company at £7 each before expiration. However, if they think that XYZ will reach above £7.50 within this time frame, then they may choose to exercise their option and buy at £7 (for example)

The same is true of the holder of a put option, which gives them the right to sell 100 shares of XYZ at £7 before expiration. If they expect XYZ to drop in price and wish to capitalise on that, they may choose to exercise their option and sell at £7 (for example). Alternatively, they may choose not to exercise their options and allow them to expire worthlessly.

Where to trade options in London?

The two major exchanges listed options that can be traded are the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Euronext.LIFFE; with LSE focusing more on US-listed stocks such as Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp; whereas Euronext.LIFFE focuses on European companies such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell, BASF.

How to trade listed options in London?

Here are two ways investors can trade listed options in London

Market Maker

Listed options in London can be traced mainly through an equity derivatives trader within a relevant investment bank. This method is done by proposing and executing the trade to another counterparty (the market maker). The trader will require a lower level of capital than if they were to do it themselves.

The process for this is that the trader negotiates with the market maker on their “bid-offer spread” for each option they offer; where the bid price is what they are willing to pay (how much they need to spend), and their offer price is how much they want for it (what they’d like to sell it at), so anything between these two prices is suitable. Market Makers in Equity Derivatives work on commission based on the volume they trade, usually in a rebate. The more trades they do, the more commission is made.

Execution Broker

Alternatively, suppose an investor wishes to buy listed options in London. In that case, they could approach an “Execution Broker” – often found in small, private boutiques, who act as middlemen between the client and the market maker (who is also their prime broker). The Execution Broker will risk by acting as a Market Maker while not getting paid any commissions.

This allows them to keep their rates lower than if they were to pay full commission (where transactions are usually around 0.30%) but would make less money overall. This means that when dealing with Execution Brokers, one should know their actual costs before transacting.

Finally

New investors and beginner traders are recommended to use a reputable online broker from Saxo capital markets and trade on a demo account before investing real money.

Small businesses often have a limited budget for advertising and find trying to build their brand’s name is complicated. Link building offers an, at times, inexpensive way to build brand recognition and credibility: but is it the right choice for small businesses? Here’s what you should know.

It Builds Credibility

Having multiple websites, blogs, companies, and social media pages all using your website as a source will boost how consumers and companies view your business. Not only does it give you credibility, but when these individuals need to cite or source the same information, there’s a chance that they’ll use your company as their point of reference.

This encourages even further link building, which after a certain point is free since people are doing it of their own volition instead of you having to keep paying link building services.

Boosts Your SEO

Where you appear in Google search results can affect how well or poorly your company does. It would help if you worked hard to build links to gain as much customer traffic as possible.

Although it can take time to rise through the ranks, being within the top three first links that pop up when important keywords are searched will ensure that customers are more likely to click your company’s link and enter your site. Link building directly leads to a higher ranking on Google.

Increases Web Traffic

The more links that lead back to your website, the more people will click these links and visit your site. This increases web traffic drastically. Therefore, it’s important to keep a tracker on your site so that you can keep tabs on where people are visiting from, how long they’re on your site, and if they made a purchase or not.

This can help you learn where you should put most of your energy into advertising and where you should lay off of it to save your money.

More Sales and Leads

The more people who visit your site from link building: the more sales you’ll make! This should be obvious, but people can’t buy from your site if they’ve never even heard of it. Putting in the effort to build your links could be the step that pushes your company further so that it’s no longer considered a small business and is now considered a large one instead.

This isn’t just from those who follow the links directly, but also those who recognize your company and see it as credible, and from those who visit while it’s boosted in search engines.

Increases Brand Recognition

Brand recognition is vital to growing! Although it’s important to have a good website and to work to improve our company as much as possible, ensuring that people know your company by name, and possibly by the logo, will increase the number of people that seek out your company when they need work similar to what you offer.

This isn’t foolproof; if you make a big mistake that looks poorly on your company, it can be hard to get rid of that if you’ve built brand recognition. It’s important to take your company’s public image seriously.

 

One of the most challenging aspects of running a successful business is figuring out how to successfully keep your customer retention numbers high. Which is obviously critical as the higher your customer retention numbers are, the easier it will be for your business’ profits to remain steady or to increase in the coming years. If you’re interested in learning invaluable new tips that will help your business retain its valued customers, simply continue reading.

Earn your customers trust:

One way that you can retain customers is by working hard to earn and retain your customers trust. In a recent customer service satisfaction survey a whopping 59% of respondents revealed that the prevalence of online scams, make them think twice before shopping online. So it’s a great idea to look for creative ways to earn your customers trust. For example, you may want to encourage past customers to leave reviews about your business, to win the trust of potential new customers or you may want to have legitimate news sources report about your business, in order for your business to earn its customers trust.

Also make sure that your customer support staff are well trained to ensure that they don’t come across as potential scammers who may be trying to steal an individual’s private information such as their credit card information. You can also win your customers’ trust by offering chat messaging as a customer service option, directly from your business’ website, which your customers may trust over customer support via phone calls. Especially as modern generations are far more comfortable using text based messaging tools to converse with customer service agents.

Use appropriate language:

Especially if your business deals with younger clientele from generation y and generation z, it’s critical to ensure that your team members are trained to use appropriate language with their customers. Such as non binary gender terminology. This is in order to ensure that all individuals feel welcomed and accepted by your business and don’t feel ostracized by your company. You may be surprised to read that a staggering 70% of individuals between the ages of 18 to 24 are already confident with their ability to correctly use non binary gender terminology.

Respond quickly to your customer queries:

Many businesses make the mistake of taking far too long to reply to their customers requests for help, whether it’s over the phone, instant chat or email. One of the worst industries when it comes to response times is the financial services industry. If you want to retain your customer base, it’s important to increase the legitimacy of your business by responding to your customer queries as quickly as possible. Especially as if your customers feel ignored they are likely to leave your business negative reviews online which can severely impact your business’ online reputation.

So if you want to do everything in your power in order to ensure that your business retains as many of its customers as possible, it’s well worth paying attention to all of the helpful tips about customer retention that are listed above.

One of the most critical and challenging methods of maintaining your business’ efficiency is keeping your workforce happy and stress-free. There are numerous studies that show that a company that supports their staff’s happiness has significant benefits such as increased efficiency, increased creativity, and a lower turnover of staff – all of which lead to higher profits and better business.

Here are a few methods you could use to improve the positivity of your workers so you can reap the benefits – and so can they!

Team-building events

Throwing out-of-hours events can be an excellent way of building team rapport and building relationships amongst your staff. If your workforce is well acquainted with one another, it can lead to them being more efficient in the workplace. As well as this, it leads to a sense of togetherness and unity amongst the staff, which can help combat high turnover rates in your business.

You can also do in-house activities to help spread a sense of unity through your workforce, such as making sure to celebrate public holidays (Secret Santa during the festive period, a dress-up day for Halloween, etc.) in the office.

Show your employees how important they are to the business

Workers can lose morale and happiness if they feel like their work is unimportant or doesn’t matter. Therefore, it is vital to show your employees how integral their job is to the business and how they fit into the hierarchy.

Once you show your employees how much you value them, it can do wonders for their drive and morale, and once they see how they fit into the business, it can lead to higher efficiency as they know how their work can help their co-workers in the running of the company.

Offer good employee benefits

Whilst simply paying your employees more is often seen as a reliable way to increase staff happiness, you should consider the option of offering competitive benefits. The best employee benefits providers usually provide some form of rewards system which is customisable by your company’s offered benefits and requirements and are often automated to ensure efficiency.

Some of the benefits your business could offer its workforce are:

– Gym and exercise facility passes
– Sick pay
– Health insurance
– Remote working options
– Flexible hours
– Free childcare
– Company car/phone
– Free food and drink
– Paid maternity and paternity leave
– Discount schemes
– Overtime pay
– Pension funds
– Stock options

A survey carried out by the Harvard Business Review magazine found that some of the most popular benefits are often inexpensive and easy to offer. Therefore, finding the right combination of benefits is extremely important as it can attract potential employees and is an alternative to raising salaries.

 

As an entrepreneur, real estate business man, and venture capitalist, being driven by passion, Ryan Dean Hoggan have always been passionate about entrepreneurship, start-ups, and brand building.

There is no doubt that his willingness to take chances is noteworthy and goes to show what side of the ‘coin’ (pun intended) he belongs to in the world of cryptocurrency and NFTs—and real estate investment—albeit unrelated.

Ryan Dean Hoggan is unafraid of change, and this year his focus is NFTs. He’s hoping that upcoming digital artists looking to tokenize their talents would be brave-hearts ready to take the ‘bull’ by the horn, even in the presence of a ‘bear.’

Yes! NFTs are not excluded from the everyday market.

So, what are NFTs (Non-fungible tokens)?

NFTs are tokens that can be digitally utilized to represent and publicly declare ownership of a whole lot of unique items. Although it is only logical that since NFT is an emerging digital revolution, digital items such as media files seem like the only permitted residents.

Contrary to this line of thought, NFTs basically cover anything that can have unique and non-interchangeable properties. Any unique item with unique properties and ownership worth recording on the blockchain is a potential NFT.

It is important to note that no one can modify, duplicate or mimic an NFT into existence. All NFTs are digitally unique; no two NFTs are the same.

As an artist new to the NFT market and looking to monetize your craft via this platform, here are a few things you should know before landing your own internet-breaking sales and probably beat Beeple at their game:

Research and study NTFs

There is no doubt that the NFT space is going to explode and currently, it is dominated by art. But the term ‘art’ itself and its application is fast becoming relative, especially with the increasing popularity of memes and its introduction to the prestigious club.

Securing proof of ownership is the goal since an original art creator or the “minting artist” is always regarded as the owner of the digital artwork. If you skip a lesson, then you may find yourself perplexed with a distasteful pit of gas fees, taxes, and even legal battles.

Select the minting platform that best suits your work

Not all platforms will cater to your needs; you need to choose carefully and wisely. There are over 50 NFT outlets to choose from, and that is a sea of confusion.

These digital marketplaces work based on different interests and values. As an artist, you will have to find out your match.

It is important to choose your platform based on service fees and availability of features such as automated resale royalties. The advantage of selling digital art through a blockchain-powered tool such as NTFs platforms as opposed to the old ways of selling canvasses in physical auction houses and galleries is some NFT marketplaces build flexible enough to allow you to choose the level of your resale royalty.

This advantage is not without its limits; the automated resale royalty is in most cases reserved for the platform of the NFT origin. The burgeoning cryptoart market is currently worth hundreds of million dollars, and most of the sales are happening on Nifty Gateway.

Other platforms to watch out for are: Foundation, Open Sea, Rarible, SuperRare, and Knoworigin.

 

Even though 2021 is not yet over, it is already a great year for entrepreneur, Nimrod Santo. His business is going well, Bitcoin and many altcoins have done at least a 50% movement in the last three months.

He’s helping individuals and businesses get the hang of online marketing, and even though the pandemic is still somewhat around, he has done a little bit of travelling, while paying attention to safety of course. But as much as he has achieved in 2021, he wants to achieve some more.

He wants to record more success in his business as well as his personal life. He’s exploring new options and trying to improve the old ones, and he has decided to share how he plans to level up his game this year with us in this interview. Please keep reading.

Nimrod, what do you do?

I am a direct response marketer. I help businesses with lead generation through a technique that guarantees immediate action. I know how to target a specific market and fine tune adverts to make them striking and capable of capturing attention.

But that’s not all I do. I am also a cryptocurrency enthusiast. I’ve been following the trends in cryptocurrency for a while now and it’s fast becoming the financial currency of the world.

I do a little bit of trading, nothing serious, and I generally enjoy being outside. Surfing, travelling, anything that gives me the chance to create memories, gain experience and live the best life I possibly can.

What do you think about when we mention leveling up?

I’m a direct response marketer, so the first thing that naturally comes to my mind is upscaling your business. By this, I mean maximizing its potentials by exploring marketing techniques that get it more customers.

You should also explore upgrading your products and services to make potential customers more interested in what you have to offer. In short, be better than the competition, and know the market trends.

What is so spectacular about leveling up?

Everything! The truth is, you can’t keep staying at one point forever. As a business or individual, you should crave growth. It is necessary that you do. Otherwise, you’ll always remain at one spot. Think of it as what drives you, your motivation.

You start a company because you want to become the biggest in your field one day. Since that can’t be done at once, the steps you take to upscale is what is referred to as leveling up.

How do you plan to level up?

At the beginning of this year, I set certain goals for myself. To achieve these goals, I had to think outside the box, and look at my business from a different perspective.

This has given me the opportunity to put new techniques of promoting my business out there. It has worked so far, and going forward, I plan to work on my services, and how to make them more attractive.

What’s your advice for those who are trying to level up?

Leveling up is not an easy thing to do. The chances that you’re going to meet a lot of stumbling blocks on the way is really high. But you have to persevere. Giving up is not an option.

However, that doesn’t mean you should keep nurturing a dead plant. Some ideas just aren’t meant to be successful and after trying your best, you should learn to weed them out for growth. Don’t let them pull your business back, and you’ll be glad you didn’t.

You Might Also Like: 8 Books You Should Read for a Successful 2021