This is just a quick reminder that from December, FXCM.com managed accounts (click the link to see the Shark Investor pick) is raising the minimum investment from December 1st, 2007. It is still just $1,000 and will be raised to $5,000.

If you have not registered for their managed accounts yet, there is no time to catch the low minimum. But if you have an account which is not yet funded, hurry up.

Even $5,000 is good low entry for such a reputable service, so I would still consider it. In fact I am waiting for my account to be approved for the $1,000 minimum, but they are a bit slow so I may need to go for $5k. If I do it, I’ll keep you updated with more details.

If you are already an active investor, please let me know your experience.

Since few months I am observing the performance of a managed account known as “DEV”. It’s managed by a trader from Boston who’s said to have 16 years of experience.

You can find the full details about this service at Managed Forex Pro

There are very few managed account which accept only $5,000 and at the same time the trader knows what he/she is doing. At least based on the results, DEV seems to be pretty safe – as long as this can be said for forex trading.

I don’t have experience with this service. If you are already using it, please share.

In my opinion it seems rather promising. I shall be in touch with Managed Forex Pro soon for further information – and of course to eventually invest.

FXFareast is a forex managed account service offered by Alexander Kim. You can see the first shark investor pick here.

Unfortunately the last four months aren’t at all good:

• 16% loss for July
• Only 2% profit in August
• 12% loss in September
• Flat October

Obviously these who have invested recently have no much reasons to celebrate. I would wait for some positive signs before investing in this managed account now.

A positive thing is that they honestly report their result without delays unlike many other services. So for sure it would be good idea to keep your eye on the site.

A couple of years ago I was naive enough to believe everything written on websites. So I came across ZuluTrade.com and was really impressed. They show thousands of pips profits each and every month and it’s almost impossible to see any loss.

Now that’s a service that I would dream to have.

But it’s just too good to be true:

• All these stats are from demo accounts and most people say they are fake
• My Demo account hit a margin call and I am not the only one
• There is no reliable contact information – only email addresses

I decided to check other people’s experience and found mostly scam complains:

“These guys are totally scam, who could do anything bad in your account without reason. Please stay away from them.” - at ForeBastards

“my current demo trade history on Zulutrade .. see attached. equity started with $ 50.000 – now $ 43.043 -190 pips

Targus50 just tanked (-800 pips closed in 2 minutes) , and went from nr 1 on the performance list to number 12, showing an overall small loss over 8 weeks.” – at EliteTrader

That’s kind of enough. I would stay away from this service. It’s better to approach signal providers who don’t report such incredible results, but at least don’t fake them.

I saw this link on a forum where a guy claimed that earning more than 6% monthly by trading is something normal. I am quite suspicious to such bold claims so I wanted to carefully check it.

SwingTrades really looks good at first (and second) look. It’s a service offering signals for Swing Trading, Day Trading and Futures. There is an additional “Day Limited Trading” offer that is same as the Day Trading signal service with some restrictions (and lower price).

Their trading performance is quite impressive. Since inception (between January 2005 and February 2006 depending on the trading system) they have achieved averagely 31.90% monthly ROI (!!!) with day trading and 8.57% monthly with swing trading. Almost unbelievable.

I badly searched the Web to find some complains that they are scam or anything like that. But nothing, only positive feedback. If you know anything, please let me know – as I said it’s hard to believe anything doing 30% monthly long term.

I’m going to just try this service myself and will keep you updated. If you have time for trading and are ready to risk some bucks (plus the subscription fees), just jump on the gun and Join it

Some time ago I wrote about few Bulgarian mutual funds (Capman for example), but I understand you could have some concerns investing in Bulgaria if you are not familiar with the country.

Have you heard about Pioneer Investments? They are one of the most popular mutual funds company in the world. I am not saying they are the best, not at all. In fact most of their mutual funds don’t perform better than average and their fees are kind of high.

But there are a couple of funds which may catch your attention:

The Great China Equity Fund invests in the fastest growing economy in the world – the Chinese market. The minimum investment is $500 or €500 and the fund is targeting more than 30% yearly yield.

Emerging Markets Equity Fund has the same minimums and invests in Brazil, China, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Taiwan, Indonesia, India and others. The yield so far has been close to 50% per year.

I would pick the second not only because of the better yield, but also because of the diversification.

Best Trading Systems is a German managed accounts service. It is in some way related to FXFareast that I wrote you about a month or so ago. I signed LPOA for Alexander Kim, the trader of FXFareast, so this is how I know this.

The Best Trading Systems site is updated relatively regularly, but I have experienced some troubles getting reply to some of my email inquiries (well, I am often asking too much so that might be the reason).

There are two systems offered, both with only $5,000 minimum:

Orca with performance fee of 35% and 100% – 150% target yearly performance. So far they have achieved average 13% monthly since September 2006. (As of May 31st 2007)

Rusky has 40% performance fee and 100% – 120% yearly target. The broker used is GAIN Capital (Forex.com). The performance so far is 12% monthly since February 2006 (As of May 31st 2007).

I should have more personal experience with them very soon.

If you don’t want or can’t invest $5,000 into a managed forex account right now, don’t forget there are other ways to profit from forex. My personal choice are the forex signals of TradeWindowFX

If you have not tried, you are probably asking yourself what the heck is that.

In the standard betting you usually bet on the horse which will win. Of course there are favorites and all that, but still your odds are one to many.

With horse laying you place your bet on the outcome where the horse is going to lose the race. Of course, considering how many horses compete, there is quite big chance that your guess will be right.

You can see this explained better at Horse Layer website, the service that I am presenting you today.

Horse Layer provides a picks service (sounds almost like forex signals, eh?) for a subscription fee. The picks get delivered directly to your email.

There are several subscription options like GBP 10 for the weekend (most races are then), GBP 365 per year, GBP 5 per day etc.

At the time of writing this pick, Horse Layer’s services had produced between 18% and 28% profit in the last 30 days.

Given the fact that this service is quite new, there is no guarantee for how long this good performance will continue.

There is also a Pool option which works either as “managed account” – they place the bets for you in your own betting account – or an investment program in which you send the money to them.

As someone coming from the HYIP world, I would stay away from giving my money to anyone, so I would prefer any of the other subscription or managed options.