It’s been a while since the last pick I have posted because I am focusing more on conceptual articles and supplemental income ideas due to the results of this poll.

But I know many readers have free money and want to invest them for good profits, so I have not forgotten what gathers us all here. I’ve been quite disappointed by most managed forex accounts I am observing, that’s why I am looking more into other kind of trading programs (like Futures and Options).

So, here we go:

Balanced Volatility Program by Crescent Bay Capital Management (David Bedford)

Minimum account size: $10,000

Return in 2007: 34.45%

Return in 2008 (YTD): 18.14%

Biggest Drawdown so far: -7.84 %

Date of inception: August, 2007

This program grabbed my attention because of the relatively small account size and drawdown. The main negative point I see so far is the short track record. So it’s as risky as most of other picks I post.

If you want more information about this offer, you can do so on Crescent Bay site.

Do you have experience with them already? Please speak.

I should probably call it super successful. This is a Livesctock futures & options trading account with amazing performance started on small test account.

The program is called MAP and is offered by Roger Show at Livestock CTA, LLC.

The trading is done on USA markets with futures on 25.00% Systematic and 75.00% Discretionary methodology.

Minimum account size: $25,000

Average yearly ROI: 95.84%

The average ROI is very very impressive but there is one important thing to consider. Judging by their charts they have just started accepting deposits and the past performance is based on account of $1,000 . This is at least what I can understand. Even this trading has some large drawdowns of 34% so consider this a really risky investment.

Unfortunately the minimum investment is quite large, but because of the great ROI I thought this managed futures account worths sharing and keeping an eye on.

You can find all the contact information for this opportunity and the Livestock CTA site.

This pick will be slightly different than most shark investment picks – it’s not as aggressive as usual. Irish Forestry Funds (IFS) is a company offering forestry and property investment funds. This pick is not as aggressive as the typical shark investment picks. The ROI is not very attractive – the different funds range between 8.5% and 14.5% per year.

There are several of reasons to pick IFS for the blog this week. First, there are only few reputable forestry investment funds and IFS is known to be one of them, already more than 10 years in business. Second, I believe forestry investment will become more and more lucrative in the future, so it’s a good idea to plan putting money in such funds from now. And third reason is that we should all care about the Earth and do some green investing.

This April IFS is launching The 5th Forestry Growth Plan so I thought it’s the right time to draw your attention to it. I don’t see the projected rate of return announced so it will probably go along the line of the recent funds.

This company will not make you rich for sure so if you are short in funds, you may prefer to check my other investment picks.

If you know about more aggressive forestry investment funds I’ll be more than happy to hear you.

I was a bit hesitant if to present you these managed accounts at all. To be frank, I don’t think these guys are very professional. On the other hand their un-leveraged program has been bringing stable conservative ROI since 2006 which makes me think they must have a decent system. So, let me go ahead and present you the FX Street Managed Forex Account in short:

MAP 8304 CYCLE FX UNLEVERAGED

This is their conservative program running since 2006. The minimum investment here is $100,000 and the return since inception is 24.23%. This makes 1.62% monthly ROI – nothing hot, but stable if you can afford such big investment.

MAP G8 FX VALUE GROWTH LEVERAGED

I was interested in this managed account, because its minimum is only $2,500. The problem is that the results are very volatile which seems to be a rule in the low entry managed forex accounts. The return since inception is actually better – 25.64% since March 2007 which makes 2.33% average monthly ROI. The most unpleasant part is that they had quite a big drawdown of 14.95% last October and last two months are negative in row.

Last two months are December 2007 and January 2008 because they still have not updated February results. This is one of the reasons to call them not very professional. The other reason is that I applied a couple of months ago and still have to hear from them about my account. I’ve heard similar complains from other investors, which makes me thing their customer service isn’t rocking.

If by any chance you are already an active investor and know fresher results, please let me hear them. I will make another effort to contact them about my account, because I still want to give this service a try. $2,500 is a nice minimum at least.

Just recently FXCM announced two new managed account services. Both of them accept minimum investment of just $1,000 which immediately makes them attractive for risk takers like you and me.

The details in really short:

SHORT-TERM OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM

Hypothetical performance for the last 12 months: 36.62% or 3% per month

Minimum account size: $1,000

SHORT-TERM OPPORTUNITY AGGRESSIVE PROGRAM

Hypothetical performance for the last 12 months: 83.72% or 7% per month

Minimum account size: $1,000

I said it will be short. For a more detailed information just visit FXCM page and have a look.

I want only to emphasize on something. The results are hypothetical. They don’t tell us much. The programs are brand new and the real results can differ a lot, so invest at your own risk (but you like to risk, don’t you?). 7% per month is bloody good if they really can do it, that’s what I know for sure.

Before going in you may want to check Alan’s note and ask him how his Sentiment is going.

This pick is a bit different than most, because I won’t be talking about a specific opportunity. Unlike the most other picks, the opportunities here require higher capital investment. Well, at least most of them.

Even if you have not yet reached the point to have $50,000 – $100,000 or more, read this pick – you may find yourself interested to be on the other side of the game – i.e. the one who seeks funding.

Angel Investing is a concept that I’ll discuss again and again on the blog. This time what I want to present you shortly is a community network where you can find investment opportunities – Go Big Network.The site allows you do much more than finding investing opportunities – you can find job or customers for your services, you can hire professionals for your company or you can find funding and loans for your startup.

The registration is free, but don’t rush to register if you don’t plan to participate, because they have serious registration forms.

But you probably want to know more about the investment opportunities, so let me tell you a bit about them. The site allows you to search within funding requests posted from startup companies. What you need to search for is Funding Needed category to find the requests.

There are all kind of requests posted – from real estate companies to web projects. The funding requests start from $10,000 and exceed several millions.

If you like some opportunity and wish to contact the member, you will need to pay a 2-3 digits membership fee. This ensures at least some basic filtering of spam and scam.

Go Big Network is not an investment opportunity itself, but gives access to thousands of opportunities to become an Angel Investor. I think it’s a good thing to share with you.

If you have already used them, share your experience please.

I keep digging for managed forex accounts again and again. And here is what I came up with this time. This one has sweet low minimum but nonetheless carries sweet risk.

FX Master Managed Forex Account

Minimum investment: $4,000

Date of inception: January 2006

Average monthly ROI: around 7.5%. Who knows why the ROI is based on combination of live and demo accounts and not only on live accounts.

Largest drawdown: -2%

This managed account is very attractive, I am only worried about the past results. I’d like to see longer real performance. If someone has an older account with them, please share how close to the reality is this 7.5% ROI.

If you are willing to invest you can request LPOA forms at Striker FX. They also offer LPOAs for Devrim, reviewed here.

The article about Betting Academy posted at the end of December resulted in a lot of feedback, which makes me think you could be interested in other bet trading systems. Actually, there is some relation between the two articles because Matt from Pro X Trading is the same Matt that was discussed in the Betting Academy post.

Enough chit-chat, let’s get into the details.

Pro X Trading is offering a system and club for professional sports trading (betting). The founder of the company is Matt Finnigan, a sports betting strategist.

The Trading Club is a paid service that’s going to accept only 100 members worldwide because it includes one on one mentoring on the Betfair Trading systems.

The cost to join the club is GBP 150 with ongoing GBP 50 each 4 weeks.

If you want to know more about the system, check here.

This club is not trading your money, but only giving advice, mentoring and picks. This requires more involvement from you, but removes the risk of the club owner to disappear with your money.

There is not much info about expected profits or past performance, but some of their members are said to be making up to 80% per trading cycle (4 weeks), so that could be quite hot.

What’s my take?

Well, I exchanged few mails with Matt and he seems to know his stuff. Sports trading is not very important part of my investing strategy, so I’ll probably miss the club. But if you feel interested and have some time to take the game seriously, you can go for it.

Just don’t forget sports trading is one of the riskiest investments you could make. So be careful and keep it small portion of your portfolio. On the other hand it can bring profits that are not achievable by anything else (well, except of crime I guess).

I am suspicious to strategies, but 28% yearly ROI for 17 years is certainly something that can make me think different. To achieve that GetFolio is using a mathematic strategy for stock trading. The strategy is supposed to avoid big drawdowns and let you sleep well at night.

The type of service is close to trading signals – you receive stocks picks with alerts when to buy and sell. Unlike most signals however, GetFolio is not for day traders. Their strategy is for long term growth, therefore you can’t expect very high ROI of course.

Their FAQ page advices that the minimum capital required to use the service is $20,000. That might not be good for everyone, but for moderate risk investment there is no way to go lower (Do you really care to make 28% per year on $1,000?).

Unlike most investment services GetFolio has quite a bold guarantee:

“We guarantee that your ROI, will outperform the market for the period of your subscription, or we will refund your subscription fee.”

That’s sweet of course, but don’t get too attached to it. If the market goes down 20% and you lose 19%, they still have outperformed it.

The subscription fee for the service is $599 annually. That’s not cheap, but is cheaper than most forex signals, so I wouldn’t mind paying it if I can invest more than $20k in the markets they trade.

GetFolio yields a bit lower than the typical investment opportunity reviewed at this blog. But I believe your portfolio needs to consist of at least 30%-40% such more secure assets. So if you can afford it, consider looking deeper into it.

Here is another medium risk managed forex account. Devrim is offered by PFGBEST and traded by a turkish trader named Devrim Akyil.

The funny thing is they don’t offer full details on PFGBEST website so further information about the managed account should be obtained by phone, mail or third party sources. I’ll save you the initial research:

Minimum investment: $5,000

Date of inception: October 2006

Average ROI: 2.98% per month

Maximum Leverage: 30:1

Sharp Value: 8.78

So far it has never had a negative month. Of course, there is always time to “improve” that.

Generally Devrim seems like safe option in the world of forex managed accounts. Not aiming for 100% yearly ROI like other services, but not pulling your nerves with huge drawdowns either. For a $5k account seems rather good opportunity.

If you want to invest you can do that on PFGBEST site.