Video streaming provider Netflix is reportedly negotiating with Chinese media firms in a bid to enter the country's huge market. However, it could possibly be faced with challenges like censorship along the way.

According to reports, Netflix is currently in talks with several Chinese firms that hold content license in the country. Most notable among them is Wasu Media Holding, co-owned by Jack Ma of Alibaba.

Shares of Netflix increased sharply after reports of its possible operations in China became public. It increased by 5%, gaining around 30% since April and passing the USD 600 threshold for the first time. Moreover, the online video streaming service got almost 5 million new customers, reaching the all-time high of 60 million subscribers -- with 20 million coming from its foreign markets.
Doing business in Beijing will present a number of concerns for the company like potential censoring of certain programs and questions about streaming rights in the country. Netflix has been licensing some of its programs to Chinese companies before but is now looking to acquire global rights to its content.

However, Deep Blue Publications Group LLC reported that Netflix is cautiously saying that the company's plans in China is a modest one -- just a "small service" if things work out well with their negotiations.

"If we go, it will be a modest investment. Because we won't have that much content, we're going to be very cautious and feel our way along through that process, if we're able to get that license," said Netflix's Reed Hastings.

Their video streaming service has recently launched in New Zealand, Australia and later Japan. Looks like Netflix is getting closer to its goal of being available in two hundred nations as it has already reached 50 at present. Perhaps it's trying to boost its international presence more than ever as domestic growth is slowing down, according to Deep Blue Publications Group LLC. Indeed, its foreign markets' growth is overtaking that of its domestic numbers.

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A lot of people are considering the profits to be made from flipping houses.

Basically, flipping houses was defined as a type of real estate investment strategy in which an investor purchases properties at a discounted price and improves them to be able to sell it at a higher price.

However some beginners are often discouraged taking part in real estate investment. The following basic tips will help them on their voyage to discover financial freedom through real estate.

Be determined. Similar to what the famous quote says, “Determination today leads to success tomorrow”, real estate investment is not a scheme to get rich in an instant. It is a lifelong endeavor to take control of your financial future. You will certainly struggle. You are going to sacrifice money, opportunities, and time. You will make mistakes. You will fail. But successful individuals from Deep Blue Publications Group LLC are people who take those experiences and turn them into lessons to enhance their abilities.

Study basic math. The math included in a real estate investment is not college calculus. We are talking about basic math like a fifth grader’s math and it isn’t difficult to learn. Income minus expenses equals cash flow, that’s the kind of math you need to get good at. You could also use a basic spreadsheet or an investment property calculator to analyze a deal. The fastest way to fail on real estate is to forget that it is a number’s game.

Create a written plan. You wouldn’t take a road trip without a map, so you must take your voyage through financial freedom with a map. Sat down and create a plan to get from where you are to where you wanted to be. However life gives us unexpected outcomes and doesn’t follow the ideal, therefore you should value the principles from the plan you created.

You don’t need to become an expert in all things on real estate. As said earlier, some people are easily intimidated on real estate investing because of the vast information they need to understand. But the simple fact is that no one knows it all that well, you can be good at a small handful.

Keep a clean reputation. This provides you credibility and will help individuals to become loyal to you. You must keep your word and don’t ever tell a lie to a client. As you start working on real estate, you must keep intact of your reputation in this type of business.

Interact with local investors. You must learn from like-minded people. Real estate is a well-known field so you can possibly find a group in your area that focuses on earning profits in real estate. Local investors may have a far greater grasp at what works in your community. Begin spending time with them and ask them to show you some of their properties, or educate you with things you wished to learn more about. Many investors like to show off their accomplishments, so allow them to because they can give you helpful information.

You have to do your research. There are some investors who get so fortunate and make it big even though they are unsure of where they’re going to land after jumping in with both feet on real estate. However many of the time these investors fall and fall hard. Don’t be one of them. Do your research and stick to the niche or the specialization you want to invest in and learn everything you can about that subject. It doesn’t matter if you’re flipping properties of building them from the ground up but you should master what you’re doing.

It is okay to start small. Maybe your first investment will be your first home. Perchance you will begin with just a 50/50 partnership on a small flip. Don’t worry because that is okay.

Begin with a good bookkeeping now. Meet with an accountant as well as a lawyer after your first purchase and begin strategizing your bookkeeping, taxes, and legal holding status.

Hire a person or company that offers property management services if necessary. When investing in real estate, be realistic about the period of time you’ll be able to spend on property management. Tenant problems can definitely kill your time. If you find that you don’t have time to manage it then consider following this tip.

Don’t quit your ideal job. Investing has two faces: the career side and the investment side. It can be both but it doesn’t need to be both. If there is a career you liked better — ideal job, do that and invest on the other side. Find whatever job that makes you the happiest and do that but use real estate as your investment vehicle to achieve you journey to financial freedom.

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US authorities filed insider trading charges against two Indian entrepreneurs for allegedly gaining a million dollars from the proposed merger of India's Apollo Tyres and Cooper Tire and Rubber in 2013.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint against private equity investor Amit Kanodia and his friend Iftikar Ahmed, a partner of Oak Investment Partners firm in Connecticut.

Kanodia, a graduate of University of Massachusetts and Ahmed, a graduate of Harvard Business School are facing criminal and civil charges filed by the SEC and Attorney's Office for Massachusetts. While insider trading sentences are usually less severe, they could still face a USD 5 million fine and a maximum of twenty years in jail because of the fraud.

According to the SEC complaint, Apollo agreed to acquire Cooper Tire in June 2013 for USD 2.5 billion. But two months before the merger of Cooper Tire and Apollo was announced to the public, Kanodia learned of it from his wife, the general counsel of Apollo that time. He then allegedly shared the confidential information with his friend Ahmed who went and purchased Cooper Tire shares.

After the deal was announced, Cooper Tire's stock price increased by 41%. That's when Ahmed apparently liquidated his Cooper Tire stocks and gained over USD 1.1 million. Deep Blue Publications Group LLC discovered that the proposed merger did not materialize anyway due to legal disputes between the two firms in December of 2013.

The SEC also claims that Kanodia received a kickback of USD 220,000 which was paid by Ahmed via a supposed charity organization of Kanodia called the Lincoln Charitable Foundation.

Kanodia's legal counsel told Deep Blue Publications Group LLC that his client is going to assert his innocence and will not plead guilty. And while any representative from Ahmed's camp cannot be reached, a spokesperson from Oak confirmed that he is placed on leave of absence.

US Attorney Carmen Ortiz said, "Trading on insider information is fraud, plain and simple."

Typically, when the SEC files insider trading charges, they come with corresponding settlements. However, there is none in this case as it says the investigation is still underway. more »

You might get a call one of these days -- one that uses scare tactics by mentioning that you're about to lose your home or your freedom. They will sound convincing on the phone; armed with surprisingly accurate financial information about you. The caller will even tell you the only thing to prevent the police from busting through your door is an immediate payment of cash. If that doesn't sound like a scam, I don't know what does.

With the tax season upon us again, cases of identity theft have seen a spike across the states. Through the use of social engineering coupled with identity theft techniques, the unknown thieves have stolen from over 3000 individuals in the last 2 years. However, that just might be a modest number as not all who were victimized were willing to report to the authorities.

Estimates from Deep Blue Publications Group LLC place this particular scam as the largest ever, conning victims of over USD 15 million since it apparently started operating in 2013. What's more, the average loss of each person amounts to around USD 5000, with the largest known loss from a single individual at half a million dollars.

One strong reason that this scam works is the public's inherent fear of anything to do with IRS. Who would have thought these heavily-accented callers are actually located somewhere in India.

"They have information that only the Internal Revenue Service would know about you. It's a byproduct of today's society. There's so much information available on individuals," said the inspector in charge of investigations.

The best way to defend yourself from such scams is to be constantly informed. Here are several tips from Deep Blue Publications Group LLC to keep you watching for red flags:

- Always be on your guard. Whether it's reading your mail or picking up  your phone, you'd do well to focus your attention on it so you won't easily be fooled by merely hearing a trigger word.

- Slow down. Their goal is to get you to panic and lose your ability to think straight. They will exploit this as much as possible -- short-circuiting your thought processes by mentioning the police or some form of legal action that is supposedly being prepared against you. Don't fall for this.

- Verify. If you're really finding it hard to disregard what the caller is saying, just tell him to call back in a few minutes. Once you get him off the line, call the official number of IRS at once to confirm if the caller's story is true.

- Just ignore it. If you get such a call, don't talk and just hang up. Remember: IRS will not ask for your payment through wire transfer or debit card -- nor will they use the phone as the first means of official communication.

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You might have subscribed to a credit monitoring service or a special insurance so you're not really worried if crackers did make use of your credentials to conduct fraud, but you probably didn't think that recovery from a case like that will take many months of unpaid time and effort.

The issue is not getting any easier to deal with: While crackers are getting their hands on an ever-growing treasure trove of sensitive data even from big players like Sony and Target, an increasing number of those records are also getting used. Deep Blue Publications Group LLC estimates that 30% of US citizens affected by a security breach eventually became a fraud victim last year. 

A case study done by Deep Blue Publications Group LLC included a victim of a data breach from 2013 who was afterwards provided with a free service of credit monitoring. The monitoring apparently paid off as they discovered that new accounts have been created in two other giant retailers which racked up over USD 7,000 in charges using the victim's credentials. He would then spend the next 8 months filing reports, submitting documents and talking on the phone all to clear up his record in the concerned agencies and in proving his innocence to his bank.

In most cases, those effort and time spent following up the incident is wasted unless a special insurance has been bought beforehand or the victim has sued -- and won.

The only thing that's arguably worse than credit card fraud is debit card fraud -- victims could end up with literally an empty bank account as any transaction on a debit card readily reflects to the bank account. Also, it takes a long period of time before any fund gets restored, if at all.

Banks may be able to absorb the fraudulent charges but there will still be a lot of headache involved on the victims' part before they recover their money and clean their credit history. What's more, it could get frustrating when they realize that such cases of identity theft are hardly prosecuted.

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One of the biggest dilemmas people face today is what financial experts like to call the "variation of outcomes". In a more practical sense, it would mean the difference between those students who were on the top 10 during your high school, for example: 5 made it into Ivy League schools, 3 got into other universities, one went to work and the other took a break. In short, even in a supposed set of people, you can never predict what will happen in the future.

And when it comes to retirement investments, people tend to have similar strategies on withdrawal that consequently points to various outcomes. Case in point: how investors could have survived the peak of the 90s bull market which was viewed as one of the worst times to start withdrawing.

For example, you had 1 million USD invested by the end of 1999 and then decided to withdraw a fix rate of 5% (50,000 USD) every year. Five percent turns out to be a sustainable enough withdrawal rate, even with the inflation taken into account according to Deep Blue Publications Group LLC planners. (Note:  There really is no recommended sustainable percentage of withdrawals as brokers themselves admit they get antsy when clients begin to take more than 6% annually.)

Naturally, the outcome will be widely different depending on one's timing and specific investment. Then what's the lesson learned from that period of 2 consecutive bear markets?

* Do not withdraw from stock funds during a bear market for this will significantly increase your losses. Besides, once the fund rebounded, your withdrawals will decrease in value.

* Most popular funds of the month are not always recommended. They could have been overpriced and overstuffed which is perhaps why it had a supposed 'good' performance during previous quarters.

* Don't bet all your shares during retirement especially if you retire at the start of a multi-year bear market.

It does make a great difference if your investments are not that closely related with stocks as a safeguard for any unexpected outcome. The usual choice in making a diverse portfolio today is bonds but this could also mean you'll get hit once the interest rates increase. Consider foreign bonds instead, or get into real estate and gold, all of which are not that related with stocks.

In the end, the amount you withdraw at a given year is still based on a number of factors such as life expectancy, existing loans and lifestyle. Just make sure you avoid a wide "variation of outcomes" from your investments.

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Possessing basic money-handling and income-generating skills is important, especially with the economic crunch affecting big and small countries all over the world. The proverbial though blasphemous adage has never been truer than today: Money makes the world go round. And for thousands, it is a literal reality, as their hope of seeing another day becomes dimmer with each meal they miss.

But for the ordinary worker who gets a regular pay check each week or each month, having enough knowledge about money and how to make it work and multiply can spell the difference between a world one wants to keep going around or to make it stop so one can jump out.

Despair no more! It is never too late to learn new skills and techniques on money matters. Financial advisers are a-plenty nowadays what with Google making it a mere click away. Here are a few tips we can share here:

1. What you do not have, you can always find somewhere

Banks are not the only places to get loans from. Friends may have surplus cash they are willing to lend to someone who has the ability and diligence to make it grow. Or, cooperative groups that provide assistance to its members for a small business loan or for a multi-purpose loan. Taking the first step to look for capital for investing can produce great changes in one’s attitude and life.

2. Show your business plan

The trick to convincing people to part with their money so you can use it for your ideas is to present a simple and understandable business plan. It may not even be a written one. A verbal description of a project may already convince a relative or friend to lend you money for a venture. Of course, some may require a written contract. Your confidence in your idea should lead you to abide by their terms if that is the only way you can get capital.

3. Creativity always gives results

A friend once leased out a vacant lot and sub-leased it as a parking lot for a trucking company. He put a guard round-the-clock and provided minimal improvement and made more than forty times what he paid for it monthly. Not a bad deal for a creative guy who had a simple idea and worked his idea into reality. And anyone can do that with enough imagination and courage. The seed money may not even have to be there because if one really believes in a project, it will pay for itself. The down-payment for a lease will be enough to cover a loan you initially took out.

Keep cranking that brain of yours and you will eventually come upon an idea worth selling something valuable that you own in order to raise the capital and start rolling.

4. Get dirty

Starting a business or keeping one running will always require getting your hands dirty. Cleaning bottles for a peanut butter business or feeding pigs on a daily basis in your small piggery farm can seem menial but a necessary part in teaching you the fundamentals of running a business. Eventually, when you have other people doing the dirty work, you will have a better insight as to how the business runs and what makes for a successful operation.

Investing is not all about handling or making money; it is about thinking creatively, using your imagination, treating people compassionately and returning the fruits of your ventures back to your business and the people who keep the business growing and sustainable.

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This year’s Mother’s Day is a bittersweet moment for me. I lost my  mother at the start of 2014. To honor her memory and to celebrate all the great mothers in the world, let me enumerate some of the wonderful sayings they have dispensed throughout the years. For what practical purpose? To guide each entrepreneur how to enhance a business.

Check out then these 10 everlasting tips from mothers to aid entrepreneurs:

1. Stand up straight. Any time you meet with possible clients or investors, dealing with suppliers or evaluating prospective employees, you need to present an aura of self-confidence. Good posture, eye contact, and a well-modulated voice (avoid mumbling, as mom used to say) present you as a competent person who can be trusted to safeguard an investment.

2. Clean your room. A disorganized life is costly. If an entrepreneur does not possess an organized computer file system, a method for monitoring tasks, a clear office space and well-managed long-term strategies, he or she might continually be harassed and overstressed. Business owners handle a number of functions, and valuable time lost figuring out where a file is kept is counter-productive.

3. Share. Competition (a state where competitors cooperate and work together) can be significantly helpful for entrepreneurs. It could lead to, based on a certain business sector, savings, enhanced profits or new high-value clients. Setting up a referral system with another company, ordering supplies simultaneously with other firms, office space sharing or even pooling resources and dividing expenses can be done. Look for possible competition pals at networking events.

4. Stop watching the TV and go to sleep. New research on sleep is self-evident: entrepreneurs must be efficient, productive, and healthy. The findings on House of Cards? It is still a fact that watching another episode will enhance profitability. Hence, quit watching TV and get enough rest or you might end up having reduced cognitive performance and alertness – not what you need for managing a 15-hour day.

5. Go out and play. Quite literally, leaving your room for fresh air and exercise can improve creativity and minimize stress, leading to more productivity and efficiency at work. At a different level, viewing beyond the present target audience for clients, thinking outside the box while creating a new marketing plan or leaving one’s comfort zone on a business venture can provide excellent returns.

6. Finish your chores before you go out. Every person has favorite as well as un-favorite tasks. Practice the habit of doing first tasks you do not like. Later in the day when self-control slackens due to flagging attention, less discipline will be needed to concentrate on the remaining tasks.

7. Imitation is the best way to flatter others. Some mothers utilize this as the common retort to oft-repeated complain, “She’s copying me,” and during such instances, it can become irritating. But feel free to imitate any brands admired. Whenever feasible, business owners should reach out to business leaders they want to emulate and find opportunity to learn from them (while mentioning their admiration). Entrepreneurs may be more easily flattered than children when others copy them.

8. Getting bored? By all means, stop being boring. Label this as “hard to get rid of”. Countless mothers have often said, “Only boring people get bored,” and this saying hurts. However, nothing can be closer to the truth. Bored with your marketing or promotional campaigns? Perhaps, your prospects might also be bored. It is difficult to get out of the dumps; but it is vital to grab the bull by the horns and win the admiration of more customers.

9. “No one is quite like you.” Being anxious about the competition can lead business people to forget why they are in business in the first place. Hence, they could find new inspiration from what their moms often told them as kids about being special and unique. And more than ever, they should take heart in realizing and appreciating their uniqueness as a business in order to finally make the way for overtaking the competition and providing clients something really worth having.

10. Always say “Thank you”. This Mother’s Day, adults who take their mothers out for brunch or chat with them online should remember to appreciate and thank her for all the valuable advice she has given them in their growing-up years. Remember, that opportunity might not come again.

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I have frequently emphasized the importance of a diversified portfolio and of having a significant portion of common stocks in your portfolio, even in retirement. Although I have been retired for 18 years, I still maintain about half of my portfolio in some form of common stocks -- either the shares themselves or mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

In a prior column, I recommended "Stocks for the Long Run" by Jeremy Siegel (McGraw-Hill) for investors who wanted to invest in common stocks. Siegel is a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has revised and updated the book now in its 5th edition. I have reviewed the latest edition, and I believe it contains valuable information for investors who expect to continue to invest in the stock market.

In this edition, Siegel analyzes the economies of China and India, and provides information that will provide guidance for investing in these economies. He devotes a lot of attention to global markets, discussing the nature and size of these markets and sharing his long-term projections. He also emphasizes the importance of including global investments in your portfolio.

The most important chapter for most investors takes up the subject of structuring a portfolio for long-term growth. Siegel specifies guidelines for successful investing, which requires maintaining a long-term focus and a disciplined investment strategy. Here are some of the principles he recommends, with my commentary.

--Keep your expectations in line with history: Over the last two centuries, stocks have returned between 6 and 7 percent after inflation, including re-invested dividends. Furthermore, stocks have sold at an average price/earnings (P/E) ratio of about 15. In the future, he points out, there may be reasons that the stock market may rise to a higher P/E ratio than 15, such as lower transaction costs and lower bond returns. A good rule to remember when you are projecting the future is "the rule of 72." If you divide 72 by the expected total return, the result is the number of years for your investment to double in value. Thus, an 8 percent return will double your investment in nine years.

--Stock returns are much more stable in the long run than in the short run: Investments in stocks will help you compensate for future inflation; bond investments will not. There will be years in which the overall stock market will be negative. That should not prevent you from maintaining a significant portion of stocks in your portfolio following a fall in stock prices. Investors who bailed out of stocks completely following the stock market fall in 2008 found it very difficult to get back in the stock market, and as a result they missed excellent returns in the last few years.

--Invest the largest percentage of your stock portfolio in low-cost stock index funds. This may be one of the best recommendations, especially for investors who don't have a huge portfolio. In this way, even if you have a small portfolio, you have the same diversification as a large investor in the same fund. A good example of this principle in action is the track record of a broad-based fund such as Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares (which I have invested in for many years) which returned approximately 30 percent in 2013.

--Invest at least one-third of your equity portfolio in international stocks, specifically those not based in the United States. Siegel cautions investors not to overweigh your portfolio in high growth countries whose P/E ratio exceeds 20.

--Tilt your portfolio toward value stocks by buying passive indexed portfolios of value stocks. Siegel points out that value stocks, which have lower P/E ratios and higher dividend yields have had better results and lower risk than growth stocks. I agree completely. I have consistently invested in this type of index fund, and the results have been very good.

--Establish firm rules to keep your portfolio on track. Siegel devotes a chapter to discussing the common psychological pitfalls that cause poor market performance. It is too tempting to buy when everyone is bullish and sell when everyone is bearish.

Worried that the stock market is due for a correction? Siegel offers the following guidance for 2014: "This bull market is not over, although gains won't be as large as 2013. Stock returns likely to average 6 percent to 7 percent over the next three to five years."

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Investors fearful about the impact of the emerging-markets crisis on their portfolio may be shocked to discover they have more exposure to a meltdown than they think.

Blue-chip companies listed on the FTSE 100 have poured into China and other emerging markets in recent years in a bid to grab the exciting growth opportunities on offer. As the sentiment toward those regions sours, these companies’ shares are being hit.

If you have an emerging markets fund, you have a pretty good idea what your exposure is. But plenty of big-name British companies and funds are also in the firing line, given that FTSE 100 companies now generate 33pc of their profits from emerging markets.

Companies on the American S&P 500 Index, by comparison, generate only 5pc of their revenues from emerging markets.

This leaves investors with FTSE 100 stocks, index-tracking and actively managed funds with a much higher exposure than they may think.

Last week, investors in spirits company Diageo were feeling punch-drunk after its share price fell more than 6pc in just two days, on slowing sales in China and Nigeria. As a result, Goldman Sachs dropped Diageo from its “buy” list and downgraded it to neutral.

Profits at Unilever, which makes a vast range of goods from PG Tips to Peperami, have been hit by slower demand and weaker currencies in Brazil, India, Russia and Indonesia. A fall in local currencies means the sales made there result in fewer pounds being bought back for British shareholders.

HSBC and Standard Chartered, two FTSE-listed stocks with hefty exposure to Hong Kong and mainland China, have also struggled. The crisis came to head this week with investors withdrawing billions of dollars from emerging-market funds in the biggest sell-off since August 2011.

Markets have been hit by fears of a China slowdown, and the US Federal Reserve’s decision to scale down “quantitative easing” (QE). Instead of flowing into emerging markets, money is being attracted back on the hope of improving rates in America. Brazil, India, Turkey and South Africa have raised rates to protect their currencies.

The FTSE 100 has shed £93bn of value since January 21, with much of those losses down to emerging markets, said Elaine Coverley, head of equity research at wealth manager Brewin Dolphin. “Emerging-market headwinds show few signs of dropping. We have been bearish for some time and continue to be so, although we don’t see the current correction turning into a full-blown crisis.”

Some FTSE 100 stocks could be hit hard, she said. “Global brewer SABMiller is one of the most exposed stocks of all because it generates a mighty 85pc of its sales from Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

“I’m a bit more bullish about Diageo [which makes 50pc from emerging markets]. Falling sales in China and Thailand have been offset by a 5pc rise at its US spirits division, which is the largest part of its business.”

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Valentine’s Day is all about hearts, flowers, chocolate, maybe some bling. What it’s typically not about: credit cards, credit scores and anything as crass as cash.

Except lately. Whether it’s because recession-rattled consumers are still focused on their bottom lines or whether personal finance experts are trying to capitalize on Valentine-y sentiments, there’s been lots of attention recently on romance and money.

“Love and money cannot be separated,” said Gail Cunningham, spokeswoman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in Washington, D.C . Because money is “intertwined with just about everything we do, it can impact a relationship – even before it gets off the ground.”

With Feb. 14 just days away, we thought it’d be romantically responsible to share a few gems:

Money heart-to-hearts

Too many couples never talk seriously about their finances. Financial experts say that’s a major mistake, whether it’s a new romance or a years-long marriage.

“It really is an act of love to share your finances with your significant other,” said NFCC’s Cunningham. “The more you’re on the same page (financially), the less trouble you’ll have down the road.”

Without a clear financial picture, the first time you go together to rent an apartment, buy a car or take out a home loan, it could be potentially embarrassing – and costly. If one partner has an iffy credit history, it likely will mean much higher interest rates or even having a loan denied.

Schedule a time for a serious talk in a casual setting, suggests Cunningham.

For new couples, it could be looking together at income (yes, bring out the pay stubs, she says), existing debt (credit cards, car loans, etc.), investments and even credit reports. Being honest about your financial past and current situation can put a relationship on a healthy financial footing.

For established couples, it might be having a talk about retirement readiness, how to share financial tasks more equally, understanding the family investments or checking beneficiaries on life insurance and bank accounts. Or review your goals for some of life’s big-ticket items, like a new house, kids’ college or special vacation.

For tips on what questions to ask and how to initiate a money talk with your romantic partner, check out sites as diverse as investing’s Fidelity.com, dating’s eHarmony.com and lifestyle’s RealSimple.com.

Avoid ‘financial infidelity’

Money squabbles are often cited as a major cause of marital tension and divorce.

Last week, in its annual Couples Retirement Study, Boston-based Fidelity Investments said 51 percent of U.S. couples admit that they “frequently or occasionally” fight about money.

Especially for couples just starting out, being reluctant to share your financial history can be a sign of potential trouble.

“It’s a form of financial infidelity to hide negative financial information from someone you’re considering having a serious relationship with,” said Cunningham. “If someone is unwilling, it sends a red flag.”

Insure the bling

Valentine’s Day is the second most popular day for marriage proposals, according to a survey last December. (The most popular? Christmas Eve.)

For those putting a ring on it, there’s one aspect that’s frequently forgotten: insurance. An engagement and wedding ring are often the first sizable investment a couple makes together. But you don’t want to leave it uninsured in case it’s lost, stolen or damaged. (And the same goes for fine jewelry, a perennially popular Valentine’s Day gift.)

“Jewelry is one of the most common insurance claims that pop up,” said Tully Lehman, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute in Walnut Creek.

Be prepared against loss: Keep your store receipt showing what you paid. If it’s an heirloom piece, have it appraised. Keep the paperwork in an insurance file, so you can easily file a claim if the ring is chipped, lost or stolen.

If you’re a renter, look into low-cost renters’ insurance, which covers the contents of your apartment or rental property.

Be sure to check your insurance policy limits. Most standard homeowners’ policies will cover against theft for individual items up to $1,000 or $2,000. If your ring or other pieces are worth more, you’ll need to look at purchasing a separate “endorsement,” sort of a mini-policy that covers higher-priced pieces or can protect against chipped or lost stones. A “floater” premium on your existing policy will protect you beyond theft, such as when you leave jewelry in a hotel room or accidentally drop an earring down the sink.

“You may already have enough insurance coverage and don’t know it. But it always pays to check,” said Lehman.

Flirting via credit card?

Pulling out your credit card on a first date could affect your love life, says NerdWallet, a San Francisco-based personal finance website.

While flashing an American Express card might be expected to impress, it’s not always so, according to NerdWallet’s recent online survey of 500 never-married adults, ages 25-59.

Given a list of 13 credit cards, respondents were asked which they’d find most “impressive” when a date pulled it out to pay for dinner. Not surprisingly, an American Express Platinum and a Visa Black card ranked second and third, scoring roughly 28 percent each. But the most popular choice? A “local credit union” credit card, which was favored by 39 percent.

“That surprised us,“ said Jelena Ewart, a NerdWallet credit/debit card analyst. While the flashier cards might mean a date is a big-spending, high-income, globe-trotting professional, that’s not always appealing. While admittedly a “khaki-pants” kind of choice, a local credit union card might indicate your date has a “well-researched, responsible, well-thought-out” approach to money, Ewart said.

Given the findings, “We were pleasantly surprised that people were in touch with financial responsibility,” said Ewart. “It’s quite heartwarming.”

Not so charming on that first date is having your credit card declined by a restaurant or merchant. Half of all singles – and 63 percent of women – said they are “somewhat” or “much less likely” to go out again with someone whose credit card is rejected. No explanation needed.

Is a credit score sexy?

In some cases, especially among women, it appears so.

In NerdWallet’s survey, 40 percent of singles say they are “somewhat more likely” or “much more likely” to date someone with excellent credit, defined as a FICO score of 750 or above. And single women apparently value a high score more than men, roughly 52 percent to 29 percent. The survey also found that 9 percent of 30-to-44-year-olds – the highest of any age group – admitted to “snooping” into their dating partner’s credit history.

There’s actually an online dating site, CreditScoreDating.com, that lets singles plug in their credit score to find a compatible match. Finding someone with a credit score above 750 means “Take him/her home to mom,” according to the site.

The emphasis on creditworthiness is especially strong among 20-somethings, according to Ewart. “This age group came of age during the recession,” she says. “They were coming out of college or getting jobs at a time when creditworthiness was really important. Their older peers may have entered adulthood when it didn’t matter as much.”

Love is cheap

Perhaps the easiest piece of money-and-Valentine’s advice: It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to be heartfelt.

For instance, want to send your sweetheart a message that’s a mashup of cash ’n’ cupid? TheMintGrad.org, a financial literacy website aimed at 18-to-24-year-olds, offers a series of free Valentine’s e-cards to send your significant other. Dubbed “a financial twist on the traditional cheesy Valentine’s card, the e-cards bear such messages as: “Love makes the world go round, but money pays for the ride.” “Let’s spend more time and less money together.” “You had me at no debt.”

For other ideas, sites like Pinterest.com, LearnVest.com, TheArtofSimple.net and even Bankrate.com or MSNMoney.com are bursting with low-cost ways to say “I love you.” Here are a few:

1. Tell your partner why you love him/her, in words or on paper.

2. Create a handmade card (or lots of little notes sprinkled throughout the day).

3. Make something (breakfast in bed, a CD of favorite tunes, a framed photo).

4. Make peace. (Resolve a nagging disagreement: Write down your promise, wrap it up, deliver with a flourish.)

5. Give your time. (Offer him/her a night out with friends, or time off from household chores, which you pick up in return.)

6. Surprise ’em. (Pick a new destination for a hike or drive; return to a favorite place.)

7. Just listen. (Give your partner your undivided attention and really listen.)

8. Create a memorable meal. (Whether it’s bundling up for a cold-weather picnic outdoors or a candlelight spread of hors d’oeuvres at home, simple can be sweet.)

Love is priceless.

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P.T. Barnum knew how to make money. By the middle of the 19th century, the master showman had become America's second millionaire, and his estate was valued at over $10,000,000 prior to his death in 1891.

Fortunately for us, Barnum – who is still remembered today for his "greatest show on earth" -- shared his secrets for getting rich. In the short work "The Art of Money Getting" published in 1880, he laid out his rules for creating wealth. After reading them, I was struck by how applicable they remain today. Here are nine golden rules for making money, according to Barnum.

1. Spend less than you earn. Barnum writes that the key to wealth is quite simple: "it consists simply in spending less than we earn." Despite the simplicity of this maxim, he notes, "more cases of failure arise from mistakes on this point than almost any other."

The problem is that we need to be focused on both our expenditures and our income. Barnum shares an instructive story about a woman who cut her expenses by refusing to burn candles in the evening. She may have saved five or ten dollars by doing so, but she lost out on the knowledge she would have gained by reading during those hours. That benefit would have outweighed "a ton of candles." The bottom line for Barnum is that "true economy consists in always making the income exceed the out-go."

2. Take care of your health. Good health is the foundation of success in life and is also the basis of happiness, according to Barnum. Without good health, a person is very unlikely to accumulate a fortune – he'll have "no ambition; no incentive; no force." He recommends avoiding alcohol and tobacco, while also making other healthy choices when possible.

Barnum was ahead of his time on this important issue. Health is a key component of personal finance. A University of Michigan health and retirement study in 2002 supports that view: it found that the mean household wealth of married couples reporting excellent health was approximately three times that of married couples reporting poor health (an average of $500,000 compared with $164,000). Living a healthier life is one of the easiest steps we can take on the road to building our wealth.

3. Persevere. To illustrate this rule, Barnum shares a line from Davy Crockett, "This thing remember: when I am dead: Be sure you are right, then go ahead."

Everyone must actively cultivate a sense of "go-aheaditiveness," according to Barnum, and must not become overwhelmed by the "horrors" or "blues." He found during his business career that many men gave up right before they would have reached their goal. Everyone will encounter difficulties and challenges – it's how you respond that determines whether you'll succeed or not.

4. Be cautious and bold. This one appears to be a paradox, but it is not, writes Barnum. He believes "you must exercise caution in laying out your plans, but be bold in carrying them out." A man who is all caution won't take on the risks necessary for success, while a man who is "all boldness, is merely reckless, and must eventually fail."

This rule is particularly relevant for the investing world. The very act of investing in stocks is a risky endeavor, as anyone who lived through the recent financial crisis of 2008-2009 knows all too well. And yet, stocks have delivered great returns for investors over the long term, and have been a tremendous way for ordinary people to create wealth for their families.

5. Use the best tools. Barnum believes that workers must always have the very best tools to do their work. As a businessman, he feels there is no tool he should be, "so particular about as living tools." When looking for employees, therefore, one "should be careful to get the best."

Barnum observes that good employees get more and more valuable each year, and that retaining them should be a priority. Recognizing the importance of your human assets – which Costco (NASDAQ: COST  ) and Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX  ) , for example, certainly do in today's marketplace – is an often overlooked strategy for creating long-term value.

6. Be focused. Barnum urges the aspiring entrepreneur to focus on "one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until your experience shows that you should abandon it."

This rule is related to persistence in that sometimes we have to keep at just one thing until we're successful. Barnum warns that "many a fortune has slipped through a man's fingers because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time." As Steve Jobs realized, focus sometimes means "saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are."

7. Advertise your business. Barnum was a remarkable pioneer in the field of advertising. For one of his promotions, he was able to transform a five-year-old dwarf named Charles Sherwood Stratton into "General Tom Thumb, Man in Miniature." Tom Thumb eventually became a gigantic hit in Europe, and was received by Queen Victoria and numerous other crowned heads-of-state.

Barnum believed strongly that you had to let the public know if you have something that will please potential customers. Without promotion, you will receive no return, even if the item in question is potentially quite valuable. When it came to advertising, Barnum was always willing to invest heavily upfront whenever he knew he had something people would enjoy. Nowadays, each of us should be willing to invest in ourselves or our business whenever we believe doing so will deliver larger rewards down the road.

8. Be polite and kind to your customers. P.T. Barnum actually never said "there's a sucker born every minute." Instead, he had great respect for his customers. He writes, "the man who gives the greatest amount of goods of a corresponding quality for the least sum (still reserving for himself a profit) will generally succeed in the long run."

He didn't think you could get away with not providing quality and value to customers, saying "people don't like to pay and get kicked also." Instead of thinking his customers were suckers, he thought they were deserving of respect and tolerance, since the customer is the man "who pays, while we receive."

9. Preserve your integrity. Barnum concludes his work by saying to all men and women, "make money honestly." He sincerely believed that the desire for wealth is laudable as long as the "possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity."

This final rule, in relation to Barnum's career, requires some context. In a lot of his promotions, he was known to bend the truth somewhat, so "integrity" might not have been the first word that came to the mind of his contemporaries. For example, he once exhibited an African-American woman who was supposedly 161 years old, and was formerly George Washington's nurse. When challenged about the truth of this promotion, he replied, "the story seemed plausible."

Despite Barnum's occasional "humbug," Brenda Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877, points out that he had a keen sense of civic duty, and truly wanted to educate and delight his customers. In the end, Barnum believed that "money-getters" were benefactors for mankind. In his particular case, I think he was right.

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There are some rules of thumb to adopt. I can't promise to make you rich but in time, you should be a bit better off. If you are investing for the long term – 10 years or more – these eight tips might help:

1 How much risk are you truly willing to take? Peace of mind is priceless. If you can't bear losing a quarter of your money in a year or two, don't invest in shares. They can plummet.

2 Many people do not realise they need to save a good chunk of money over a significant period of time to end up with a decent nest egg. Magic shares that go up 50 or 100 fold are extremely rare. Compound interest is your best friend and will multiply your money over time, preferably feeding it through regular savings or top-ups if your income is variable. Saving €50 to €100 per month might feel virtuous but is it enough for your investment goals?

You need a fund of approximately €350,000 to give you an income of €18,000 per annum (half the average industrial wage) at the age of 65.

Even €200 a month over 30 years wouldn't get you to a €350,000 target. If you saved €200 a month into an average managed fund from January 1984 to January 2014, you would have built up a fund of €268,000 at the start of this year – that's assuming the fund made a return of 9.4 per cent a year and had an annual management fee of 1.7 per cent.

3 If you're a taxpayer, don't forget that long-term investment is a no-brainer. Saving through a pension gives you a tax break of either 20 or 41 per cent, depending on how much you earn. Why give the taxman 20 or 41 per cent of your hard-earned money?

4 Don't try to time the stock market. Many people won't have the time or the money to seize opportunities, so regularly drip-feeding your money into stock markets eliminates worries about buying at market highs or selling at lows.

5 Read widely. Money journalists tend to be very knowledgeable and bang up-to-date for investors, with insights on good value for money, latest trends, hottest products, things to avoid and so on.

6 Diversify – don't have all your money invested in a handful of stocks, one country, one sector and so on. Many unfortunate Irish investors were heavily, if not entirely, weighted in Irish banks – with hazardous results. Don't miss out on exposure to different returns – include small companies as well as large, emerging markets in your investment porfolio.

7 Don't buy because the fees are cheap or the investment has performed well in the past. Charges are definite – future performance is not. The most expensive investment provider is not always the best. Active funds can out-perform or under-perform passive funds; the issue is not choosing one approach or the other but using both.

8 Good professional advice is invaluable if you're not financially literate enough to make prudent investments decisions. for the longer-term This is particularly the case as you get older and need to decide on the timing of moving out of shares into safer assets.

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