Special Guest Article: To provide a wider range of content on my blog, I have invited a special guest author to write about a topic I am unfamiliar with – the stock market. Please visit and read the mentioned links in addition to this article to get a better understanding of the concept.

I have been bugging my dad to open me a brokerage account for a few years now. He always responds by saying that “it’s too risky” or that the stock market is “rigged by a small group of individuals.” I agree with him that there are a few fatcats that control over the markets, but I do believe that there are ways to minimize risk and still make money. In my opinion, most individuals who invest in stocks are suckers. The risk is too high and the reward is too low—especially in today’s volatile economic environment. Many peoples’ portfolios have halved in recent years. Jim’s Cramer’s strategy of buying a small portion of the stock back when the stock is low and selling off some when the stock is high is better than just letting the stock channel—but it’s not much of an improvement. Here are a few Money Market strategies that I have uncovered over the years that could potentially reap good returns with smaller than normal risk.

Day Trading (Buying) Options: You can learn all about stock options here.

Bottom Line: A safe tragedy would be to buy options and reap small profits when you see the market is moving in a certain direction. Indicators like volume can solidify your confidence in the market’s direction.

Selling Options: Selling options can also earn you decent profits.

Bottom Line: This is an interesting strategy because when you first sell the options—money is instantly transferred to your account. In today’s environment, it would be wise to sell calls (bet against the market) for stocks that you do not believe will reach a certain price for the time that the option is still good. There are also more complicated strategies called: Bull Put Spreads and Bear Call Spreads that can be used to minimize risk when selling options. You can learn about these strategies here.

If you have a substantial amount of money and are looking for guaranteed profits, then I would recommend you look into Swiss Annuities. There are many different types that you can choose from to fit your needs/situation.

Hopefully you learned some decent money-making strategies that you can potentially put to good use.

-Garret Erb