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What can a student looking for training tracks certified by Microsoft expect to come across? Undoubtedly, training organisations ought to have a selection of course choices that meet the requirements of training tracks certified by Microsoft. You’ll want to consider all the options with a person who understands the commercial demands for IT staff, and can influence your choice of the most fruitful career to suit your abilities and character. Once you’ve decided on the area you want to get into, your next search is for a suitable training program customised to your needs. Your course material should be second to none.

Getting your first commercial position sometimes feels easier to handle if you’re supported with a Job Placement Assistance program. Having said that, occasionally this feature is bigged up too much, because it is actually not that hard for a well trained and motivated person to secure a job in the IT environment – because companies everywhere are seeking skilled employees.

One important thing though, avoid waiting until you have finished your training before updating your CV. As soon as your training commences, mark down what you’re doing and get it out there! Quite often, you’ll land your initial role while still studying (even in the early stages). If your course details aren’t on your CV (and it’s not being looked at by employers) then you don’t stand a chance! The top companies to help get you placed are generally independent and specialised local recruitment services. As they’re keen to place you to receive their commission, they’ll work that much harder to get a result.

To bottom line it, as long as you focus the same level of energy into finding your first IT position as into studying, you’re not going to hit many challenges. A number of people inexplicably put hundreds of hours into their training course and do nothing more once certified and would appear to think that businesses will just discover them.

Any program that you’re going to undertake should always lead to a properly recognised accreditation at the end – and not some unimportant ‘in-house’ printed certificate to hang in your hallway. All the major IT organisations like Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA or Adobe have internationally approved proficiency programs. These heavyweights will make your CV stand-out.

Make sure you don’t get caught-up, as many people do, on the certification itself. Training is not an end in itself; this is about employment. Stay focused on what it is you want to achieve. It’s common, for instance, to obtain tremendous satisfaction from a year of studying and then spend 20 miserable years in a job you hate, simply because you did it without some quality research when it was needed – at the start.

Spend some time thinking about earning potential and how ambitious you are. This will influence what particular certifications will be required and what industry will expect from you in return. Seek guidance and advice from an experienced advisor, even if you have to pay – it’s much safer and cheaper to discover early on if your choices are appropriate, instead of discovering after 2 years that the job you’ve chosen is not for you and have to return to the start of another program.

An effective training program will undoubtedly also offer accredited simulation materials and exam preparation packages. Ensure that the practice exams are not just posing the correct questions on the correct subjects, but also asking them in the exact format that the real exams will pose them. It throws students if the phraseology and format is completely different. For many reasons, it’s essential to be confident that you are completely prepared for your actual certification exam before taking it. Practicing simulated tests will help to boost your attitude and will avoid you getting frustrated with thwarted exam entries.

Many training providers only give support to you inside of office hours (typically 9am-6pm) and sometimes a little earlier or later; It’s rare to find someone who offers late evening or full weekend cover. Many only provide email support (too slow), and phone support is often to a call-centre that will make some notes and then email an advisor – who’ll call back sometime over the next 1-3 days, at a suitable time to them. This is not a lot of use if you’re stuck and can’t continue and only have certain times available in which to do your studies.

The best training colleges opt for an online round-the-clock facility combining multiple support operations over many time-zones. You’re offered an environment that switches seamlessly to the best choice of centres any time of the day or night: Support when you need it. Never make do with anything less. Direct-access 24×7 support is the only kind to make the grade with computer-based study. Maybe burning the midnight-oil is not your thing; often though, we’re at work at the time when most support is available.

Cross currency pairs are as important as the major currency pairs that involve USD on either side of the transaction. The most active traded crosses focus on the three non USD currencies namely EUR, GBP and JPY. These crosses are known as the euro crosses, sterling crosses and the yen crosses. The most actively traded cross currency pairs are: EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY, EUR/CHF, and NZD/JPY. Sometimes you will find more action in the cross currency pairs. Crosses enable currency traders to directly target trades to specific individual currencies to take advantage of news or events.

For a new traded there are some surprises in currency trading. You may notice that the currencies are combined in a seemingly strange way when you look up at the currency pairs. For example, if euro-yen (EUR/JPY) is a euro-yen cross, why it is not being also referred to as yen-euro (JPY/EUR)? The answer is these conventions have been designed to reflect traditionally strong currencies versus traditionally weak currencies with the strong currency coming first. Those quoting conventions were evolved over the years.

The first currency in the pair is known as the base currency. It is the base currency that you are buying or selling when you buy or sell a currency pair. The second currency in the pair is known as the counter currency. So if you buy 100,000 EUR/JPY. You have just bought 100,000 Euros and sold the equivalent amount in Japanese Yen.

So currency trading involves simultaneously buying and selling. Going long in currency trading means having bough a currency pair! When you are long, you are looking for the prices to go higher. So you can sell at a higher price that where you bought.

In currency trading, going short means selling a currency pair! In other words, you have sold the currency pair, meaning you have sold the base currency and bought the counter or secondary currency. You go short in anticipation of the price going further down when you anticipate the price of a currency pair going down. This will make you a profit later when you exit your position by going long. Unlike stock trading where you had to observe the up tick rule before you could go short. In currency trading there is no such rule. In currency trading going short is as common as going long.

Its called squaring up if you have an open position and you want to close it. You need to buy or go long to square up if you are short. You need to sell or short to go flat if you are long. Having no position in the market is known as being square or flat. Selling high and buying low is the standard currency trading strategy just like in any other trading.

A clear understanding of how P&L works is especially critical to online margin trading. Profit and Loss is how traders measure success and failure. You will need to pony up cash as collateral to support the margin requirements established by your broker when you open an online currency trading account.

Profit and Loss calculations are pretty straight forward. They are based on position size and the number of pips you make or lose. A pip is the smallest increment of price fluctuation in currency pairs. Most of the currency pairs are quoted up to four decimal places except those involving JPY; they are only quoted up to 2 decimal places. Suppose GBP/USD quote is 1.2963. If the price moves from 1.2963 to 1.2983, it has gone up by 20 pips (1.2983-1.2963). Pip is the increase or decrease in the fourth decimal digit. Pips are also referred to as points.

Fading breakouts refers to trading against breakouts when you believe that the currency prices will not be able to follow through action in the direction of the breakout. We fade breakouts when we believe that breakouts from support and resistance levels to be false and unsustainable.

False breakouts are a bane for breakout traders but boon for breakout faders. False breakouts are also known as fakeouts. Fading breakouts tends to be more effective as a short term strategy. Fading breakout is not meant to be a long term strategy.

Support level attracts the buyers enthusiasm for higher bids. It prevents the price from falling further. The resistance level attracts the sellers enthusiasm for shorting and it prevents the price action from advancing higher. Support and resistance are seen as the price floor and the price ceiling respectively.

The idea of trading breakouts appeals to many independent traders especially those new to currency trading. The crowd likes to trade the breakout. It is perfectly logical for the crowd to think that if the support level is penetrated, then the price action should move downward. The crowd is more likely to sell than to buy when the price action breaks the support level from above.

The crowd is more likely to buy than to sell when the price action breaks the resistance level from below. The opposite is true of a price break above the resistance level. The crowd usually concludes that if the resistance is broken, then the prices are more likely to advance higher in the rally.

You will find clusters of stop loss orders placed around both the support and resistance levels. These stop loss orders are placed by traders who have brought near the support level or have sold near the resistance level. Now you can also understand why there tends to be large number of entry stop orders placed just above a resistance level and also placed just below a support level.

So when the price action breaks out above the resistance level, short positions will be stopped out. Similarly, long positions will be stopped out when the currency prices crosses below the support level.

You will ask why most breakouts fail? The fact that smart traders need to take the money from the novice and inexperience traders is one of the most important reasons why most breakouts fail. Always remember, it does not always pay to have the same mentality as the crowd. The majority will cash out of the trading game broke.

The crowd holds the dumb money with the weak hands. Smart money belongs to the big players who have a couple of tricks to sabotage the crowd. Money has to be made from the majority. Not from the minority who got it right.

It causes vertical rallies or declines when the crowd scrambles to get out of their losing positions. Most money is made when the crowd turns out to be wrong. Read Part II for more on Breakout Fading.

Gift baskets are perfect for giving gifts during the holidays or for saying a friendly “thank you.” The only problem is that sometimes you may not have the money to pay for an expensive basket you have seen at the store. If that’s the case, making one yourself is a viable solution.

Giving a gift is about finding something someone would like and appeasing their tastes. In the same way, you should focus your gift basket on things that the recipient truly enjoys. A person that is fond of sweets would very much enjoy a gift of truffles, chocolates, and other sweets that you can buy and arrange with little expense.

Wedding gifts don’t all have to be traditional. Couples do like receiving items like appliances and baby items, but you can mix it up by including a gift basket full of food and material that the couple would personally enjoy. Entertainment gifts and reading material for keeping marriages going strong wouldn’t be a bad addition to a gift basket intended for a wedding event.

Doing your own decoration is a lot of fun during the holidays. A Christmas gift basket can feature themes such as snow or using a stuffed Santa Claus or reindeer to decorate. Artificial snow can be obtained in hobby shops. Just make sure than any decorations do not undermine the purpose of the gift, or interfere with any food you have included with the gift basket.

Fragrances are fun to lace around the gift basket. That way your gift will not only look great- but also smell just as good! The only problem you would run into would be keeping fragrances out of contact with any food present in the basket. Otherwise you could make the recipient sick or somehow harmed during enjoying the gift you have created. This would obviously go against the purpose of the gift, and potentially create ill feelings.

If you aren’t so great at decorating or arranging foods, gifts, and flowers- there are shops online that are able to do so for you. While some are expensive, you can find others that will give you a great gift basket for an excellent price- and even ship it straight to the recipient’s door so you don’t have to. Keep your search going throughout your formulation process to see if this is a better route for you.

Closing Comments

As time goes on we see that gift baskets are becoming a solid choice for any occasion. If you don’t have the time, you likely have the money to get some type of gift basket online. Look through different stores to see if any fit your needs for a reasonable price.

Moving to the Caribbean from an area such as the United States will prove to be a drastic change in scenery. The locals may not be tolerant of any shortcomings you have, so it is better to learn about your new luxurious lifestyle before leaving instead of learning the hard way.

The majority of the Caribbean islands are not self-sufficient in terms of food and other materials. It has to be imported so that the island’s residents can lead a normal life. That means that you should be prepared to be without certain types of food, accept a lack in variety for some seasons, and generally understand that you might have to give up certain foods.

The locals don’t have a problem with the anxiety of staying on the island that foreigners do. If you hail from the United States, odds are you will eventually get a sense of being trapped on the island as you realize you are completely surrounded by water. This is perfectly normal, and easily cured by taking a small trip to other islands or even going back to the United States for a visit.

Living in a big city such as New York has probably put the sense of urgency in your everyday life. You like to arrive at destinations quickly, may not make small talk or not frequently, and generally like to get things done. This is in somewhat conflicted with the way of life the locals lead their life. Expect traffic jams involving animals, more friendly talk than you remember, and a slower pace of life.

The locals are usually considered very polite. They are not rushed individuals, and instead like to engage in friendly conversation- even if it’s just a shop worker talking to a customer. It even goes as far as a driver stopping to say hello to a friend- potentially holding up traffic. It’s times like these where the hustle and bustle lifestyle needs to go, and a new appreciation for friendliness and relaxation needs to come about.

The amount of real estate in the Caribbean island is vast- you have plenty of luxury homes to choose from. If your budget is limited you can also find plenty of lower-priced homes and sections of land to live on. Islands can have different general characteristics that make the containing land more or less expensive. Talking to a real estate agent is a good idea to cut down on time looking for your ideal real estate.

Closing Comments

The move to the Caribbean is a great idea. You may consider going there for vacation first to see if it could be a good fit for you. If it does seem so, start making plans for the move and perhaps even pick up a book or two about the Caribbean for extra knowledge.

Knowing what type of a trader you are, can make or break your investment career. Take the analogy of a football team. All players are talented and super fit. Everyone can throw and catch the ball. Everyone is a hard hitter. However some are more skilled as receivers. Others are more skilled as kickers. If the receiver is going to do the job of the kicker, not many field goal points will be made.

Investing in the currency markets or stock markets is also the same. It depends on your personality makeup what type of trading is best suited to you. In general there are three type of trading styles: Position trading, swing trading and day trading. You need to know what type of trading style is best suited for you.

For example, you expect the USD to strengthen against GBP in the coming six months. You buy currency call options on USD and currency put options on GBP. In currency trading, position trading means you are in a trade for many months trying to capitalize on a major long term move in the currency market. Options traders can also be position traders through covered calls and other options trading strategies. Position Trading is generally the buy and hold strategy employed by most people of investing in stocks over a long haul. Usually positions traders are in a trade for a large long term move like when you carry trade AUD/JPY.

Swing trading is possibly the most dynamic of the three types of trading as the swing trader is able to switch up holding times quickly as the market demands. Swing Trading means taking short term positions in anticipation of quick market movements over a series of days or weeks. Swing traders take advantage of technical and fundamental analysis.

In Day Trading, you attempt to capitalize on intraday movements with the markets often trading on momentum and news. Day traders are also known as Kings of Stress. Day trading is not easy and it is certainly not a hobby. Sometimes when the positions warrants holding for a longer period, day trading can become swing trading!

Day trading is ideal for those who are able to handle erratic market movements while actually also having time to monitor the positions throughout the day. You should note that if you dont have time to watch your trades every moment, you should not think of day trading. Day trading is the riskiest of the three trading styles.

You Should Know That Swing Trading Is a Better Alternative to Day Trading Day trading hardly ever ends up well! Only 10% of the day traders succeed. Many people are attracted to the glamour and excitement of day trading. Most day trader usually blow up their accounts and fade away soon especially if the trader has no previous professional trading experience.

Swing trading can be on the other hand a much more effective trading style especially if you are a newer trader. By holding positions overnight and even for a few weeks, you can expose less money for larger moves. If you are a new trader, think about it for a moment.

If you’re looking for Cisco training and you haven’t worked with routers before, what you need is a CCNA. This program has been designed to teach men and women looking to have practical know how on routers. Commercial ventures who have a number of branches use routers to join up their various different networks of computers to keep in contact with each other. The Internet also is based on huge numbers of routers.

Getting this certification will mean it’s likely you’ll end up working for large commercial ventures that are spread out geographically, but still want internal communication. Other usual roles could be with an internet service provider. Both types of jobs command good salaries.

The CCNA qualification is the right level to aim for; don’t let some salesperson talk you into starting with the CCNP. With experience, you’ll find out if this level is required. Should that be the case, you’ll have the knowledge you need for the CCNP – which is quite a hard qualification to acquire – and mustn’t be entered into casually.

If you’re considering a training company which is still using workshops as a benefit of their course, then listen to these difficulties encountered by most students:

* Constant travelling to and from the centre – often very long trips.

* Workshop availability; typically Mon-Fri and usually 2-3 days at a time. You then have the difficulty of the time off work.

* With just four weeks vacation allowance, sacrificing half of them for educational days means we’ll be hard-pushed to get a holiday with our families.

* Classes usually become quickly full, leaving us with the ‘2nd best’ solution.

* Tension can run high inside the classroom where the right pace for one student is not the same as another.

* A lot of trainees report that the (not inconsiderable) costs of travelling back and forth to the training venue and paying for food and accommodation gets very expensive.

* Most students want their training to remain private thus avoiding all come-back in their work.

* Who amongst us hasn’t avoided putting our hand’s up, because we wanted to look smarter?

* You should remember, events are simply impossible to attend, if you live away for part of your week or month.

Why don’t you simply watch and study with industry specialists one-on-one through videoed modules, working on them at a time that’s convenient for you and you alone. You can study from home on your desktop PC or why not in the garden on a laptop. Any questions that pop up, just utilise the 24×7 Support (that should come with any technical program.) You don’t have to worry about any note-taking – all the lessons and background info are laid out on a plate. If you need to cover something again, just go for it. While this won’t take away every little difficulty, it unquestionably reduces stress and eases things. You also have reduced travel, hassle and costs.

The market provides an excess of job availability in IT. Arriving at the correct choice for yourself is a mammoth decision. Working through a list of IT job-titles is a complete waste of time. Surely, most of us don’t even know what our own family members do for a living – so what chance do we have in understanding the intricacies of a particular IT career. Achieving any kind of right answer will only come through a meticulous study across many changing factors:

* Your individual personality and interests – what work-oriented areas please or frustrate you.

* Do you hope to achieve a specific aspiration – like working from home sometime soon?

* Where is the salary on a scale of importance – is it the most important thing, or is day-to-day enjoyment higher up on the scale of your priorities?

* Learning what the main work areas and sectors are – and what differentiates them.

* Taking a good look at how much time and effort you can give.

The best way to avoid the barrage of jargon, and uncover the best path to success, have an in-depth discussion with an industry expert and advisor; an individual that will cover the commercial realities and truth and of course all the qualifications.

Many students assume that the school and FE college track is the way they should go. Why then are commercially accredited qualifications beginning to overtake it? As we require increasingly more effective technological know-how, industry has had to move to specialist courses that can only be obtained from the actual vendors – that is companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, CISCO and CompTIA. Often this saves time and money for the student. Clearly, a reasonable amount of associated detail must be learned, but precise specialisation in the areas needed gives a vendor trained person a huge edge.

Imagine if you were an employer – and you required somebody who had very specific skills. Which is the most straightforward: Go through loads of academic qualifications from several applicants, struggling to grasp what they’ve learned and what workplace skills have been attained, or pick out specific commercial accreditations that precisely match your needs, and then select who you want to interview from that. The interview is then more about the person and how they’ll fit in – rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.

People researching courses for the computer or IT industry will soon realise that there are a variety of courses available to them. In the first instance, look for a training provider with a team of advisors, so you can be fully informed on the job roles your training will prepare you for. Maybe you’ll find job roles you hadn’t previously thought of. Should you be thinking of improving your computer skills, maybe with some office user skills, or possibly becoming professionally qualified, you can choose from many training options.

Because there are such a lot of low cost, simple to follow training programs and help, you’re sure to find something that will get you to your destination.

Working on revolutionary new technology gives you the best job satisfaction ever. Your actions are instrumental in shaping the next few decades. We are really only just starting to get a handle on what this change will mean to us. How we communicate and interact with everyone around us will be significantly affected by technology and the internet.

A regular IT employee throughout Britain can demonstrate that they get considerably more money than his or her counterpart outside of IT. Standard IT wages are hard to beat nationally. It’s no secret that there is a great UK-wide demand for trained and qualified IT technicians. It follows that as growth in the industry shows little sign of contracting, it appears this pattern will continue for the significant future.

Traditional teaching in classrooms, involving piles of reference textbooks, is often a huge slog for most of us. If all this is ringing some familiar bells, dig around for more practical courses which have a majority of interactive, multimedia parts. Where possible, if we can involve all our senses in the learning process, our results will often be quite spectacular.

Programs are now found on CD and DVD discs, where your computer becomes the centre of your learning. Utilising the latest video technology, you can watch instructors demonstrating how something is done, and then have a go at it yourself – with interactive lab sessions. It’s very important to see some example materials from any company that you may want to train through. You’ll want to see that they include video, demonstrations and various interactive elements.

Choose disc based courseware (On CD or DVD) where possible. Thus avoiding all the issues associated with the variability of broadband quality and service.

A fatal Faux-Pas that we encounter all too often is to focus entirely on getting a qualification, instead of focusing on where they want to get to. Training academies have thousands of unaware students who took a course because it seemed fun – instead of the program that would surely get them an enjoyable career or job. You may train for one year and then end up doing the job for 20 years. Don’t make the mistake of finding what seems like an ‘interesting’ course only to spend 20 years doing an unrewarding career!

It’s a good idea to understand the expectations of your industry. Which precise certifications you’ll need and how you’ll build your experience level. Spend some time considering how far you wish to progress your career as it may present a very specific set of qualifications. Before setting out on a particular learning course, you’d be well advised to chat over specific career needs with an experienced advisor, so as to be sure the study programme covers all that is required.

A sneaky way that training companies make a lot more is through up-front charges for exams then giving it ‘Exam Guarantee’ status. This looks like a great idea for the student, until you think it through:

It’s very clear we’re still footing the bill for it – it’s not so hard to see that it’s been added into the overall price charged by the training company. It’s certainly not free – don’t think these companies are so generous with their money! The honest truth is that if students pay for each examination, when they’re ready to take them and not before, they’ll be in a better position to pass first time – because they are conscious of what they’ve paid and their application will be greater.

Shouldn’t you be looking to go for the best offer at the time, not to pay the fees marked up by a college, and to do it locally – instead of miles away at the college’s beck and call? A lot of extra profit is made by a number of companies that take the exam money up-front. For various reasons, many students don’t take their exams and so they pocket the rest. Believe it or not, providers exist who actually rely on students not sitting all the exams – as that’s where a lot of their profit comes from. The majority of organisations will require you to do mock exams and with-hold subsequent exam entries from you until you’ve proven conclusively that you can pass – so an ‘Exam Guarantee’ comes with many clauses in reality.

With average Prometric and VUE exams in the United Kingdom costing around 112 pounds, it’s common sense to fund them one by one. It’s not in the student’s interests to fork out hundreds or thousands of pounds for exams when enrolling on a course. Commitment, effort and practice with quality exam preparation systems are the factors that really get you through.

A skilled and professional consultant (in contrast with a salesperson) will ask questions and seek to comprehend your current situation. This is vital for working out the starting point for your education. If you have a strong background, or maybe some real-world experience (maybe some existing accreditation?) then it’s more than likely the point from which you begin your studies will be different from someone with no background whatsoever. If this is your initial crack at studying to take an IT exam then you may want to cut your teeth on user-skills and software training first.

To become a successful trader if you are new, you should immerse yourself completely in the subject in order to find your edge. If you already a winning at trading than you should know exactly what your edge is.

Even the advanced traders find it difficult to interpret and trade the sharp moves often seen in the forex markets. Learning to read and interpret price action can be a huge advantage for you.

In a steep decline, one should be careful to measure the reaction of the longs. You must know if the move has the chance to turn into a rout.

By looking at the reaction of the longs as soon as the rate begins to go south, you may be able to determine if the market is sitting on a large number of long positions. If the spike is followed by a sharp V recovery, you should be wary of shorting the pair.

Many buyers entering the market at lower levels tell you that the market is not heavily long. These lower prices mean bargain prices for those wishing to accumulate long positions.

Moving averages (MAs) are among the oldest, true and tested indicators. Widely used moving averages are the 50, 100 and 200 day MAs.

Moving averages are lagging indicators and relate with the past price action. MAs can be used effectively in day trading for entering and exiting positions in one way markets.

During times of sharp moves, it becomes difficult for the traders to enter a position since retracements are far and few. This makes them confused and forces them to start taking arbitrary decisions.

Moving averages can be used as dynamic resistance levels in such situations. This should give far better results than the static support and resistance levels used by majority of the traders.

The advantages of using Moving Averages like this gives you dynamic levels to trade off and gauge price action taking place in the market. This will help you avoid using arbitrary levels in entering or exiting a position.

Serious sports bettors often dismiss futures wagers as sucker bets targeted at ’squares’ looking for a big payoff. For example, a typical futures ’sucker bet’ would be something like betting that Harvard will win the NCAA basketball tournament at 500/1 odds. Sure, the potential payback is huge but here’s the problem–the “true odds” of Harvard winning the NCAA hoops tournament are astronomical, and certainly well in excess of 500/1. That means that from the outset this bet represents a poor wagering value.

Of more practical concern to the serious sports bettor is the necessity of tying up a portion of your wagering bankroll for a long period of time. Additionally, once you’ve placed a futures bet the outcome is still subject to the typical areas of concern for sports handicappers–injuries, trades, coaching changes, etc. It’s hard enough to stay on top of these variables on a day-to-day basis, and predicting them over the full season is downright impossible.

So futures plays have no relevance to a serious approach to sports handicapping? Not necessarily. It’s crucial to think of the sports betting discipline in terms of value. Used properly, futures wagers are frequently a good way of maximizing line value and finding overlay situations. Here are some ways in which future wagers can be successfully leveraged.

Futures can be a good way to leverage value on propositions where your knowledge is greater than the bookmaker’s. For example, many sports books offer betting propositions on entertainment oriented events like the Academy Awards. A handicapper who pays close attention to the movie industry and Hollywood news can stay one step ahead of the linesmaker.

Some books even take bets on the major awards like ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ before the nominations are actually announced. In this situation, a bettor who can read the ‘buzz’ on which films will be nominated can find substantially better values before the nominations are announced.

Making the Academy Awards an even better candidate for futures wagers is the nature of the film business itself. The release schedule for films is set well in advance, and after the year end cut off date no ’surprise’ releases can sneak in to consideration. At this point, its relatively easy to narrow down the serious contenders and with some work to come up with a ’short list’ of Oscar candidates.

Taking a position for profit: Now well turn our attention to sports and how to use the futures wager there. As I noted above, sports inherently presents more variables than the film industry. Furthermore, the top teams are usually not priced for value. Currently you can get +650 on New England to eventually win the 2010 Superbowl. The Patriots are certainly capable of winning, but the value just isnt there.

The place to find value in this sort of proposition is to look at the less obvious teams. A few years ago an associate of mine took positions on several teams NHL that started slowly, including the Calgary Flames at 40/1. By the end of the regular season they were down to prices as low as 5/1 or 6/1.

This play wasnt based on any sort of certainty that this team would win the Stanley Cup, but rather on the value they presented. In other words, the true odds of this dark horse Cup win is more in the range of the current price so the 40/1 is a clear overlay. Once the playoffs begin, this sort of positional play offers a lot of options to hedge and to lock in a profit.

Dont forget the field. Many bettors dismiss plays on the field in a futures wager out of hand, thinking that the wager represents all of the entrants not good enough to justify an individual price. If you pay attention, however, you can frequently use a field wager to your advantage. Shortly after Dale Earnhardts tragic death at the 2001 Daytona 500 I found a sportsbook that was offering a field wager on the NASCAR rookie of the year award at 15/1. Richard Childress Racing hadnt officially announced Harvick as the fulltime replacement for Earnhardt, but the word on the streets strongly suggested that would be the case. I knew that Harvick was a talented young driver (he was the 2000 Busch Series rookie of the year), but the unique situation with a rookie driving for one of the best financed and most experienced teams in the sport was too good to pass up. I made the bet on Harvick at just the right time, since after he was announced as the replacement for Earnhardt the line dropped to 5/1. After he won his first race (in his third race) the line dropped to 2/1 and by mid season the field was a -250 chalk.

This is obviously a best case example, but there have been similar circumstances that were still good value plays but didnt work out perfectly like the Harvick situation. Several years ago it wasnt uncommon to find a field bet on NASCAR road races that allowed you to bet several of the road course specialists like Ron Fellows, Boris Said and Scott Pruett with one bet. You wont be able to take advantage of the field bet often, but if you keep your eyes open and think out of the box it can be very profitable when it does occur.

Don’t forget to shop around for the best wagering value. This is true with any sports bet, but particularly so with futures wagers as the prices you find will vary much more than a typical pointspread. A little bit of effort can easily reveal a more advantageous price, meaning greater line value.