Some people start making investments a little here and there to see how they do, others have a full plan for their retirement, and some even strive to make a full-time career out of investing. No matter what level of investing you are interested in, building a profitable investment portfolio is important for getting the maximum return on your investments.

Banks: they’re a necessary evil. They pretend to look after our financial interests but really they’re just looking after their own. Some banks are worse than others. For example, in South Africa, banks charge people to deposit money, withdraw money, transfer money (even between accounts in the same name), and make payments, and that’s not counting monthly bank charges and other ‘admin fees’. By and large, the interest rates that banks all over the world charge on loans also borders on criminal. So, who is on the consumer’s side? Who monitors banks and ensures that they behave as ethically as possible?

Enter bank examiners.

Bank examiners are the watchmen of the banking world. They poke around behind the scenes to determine whether banks operate within the rules and regulations, whether their policies are fair and ethical, whether their procedures run smoothly and whether staff follow these procedures, protocols and keep proper records of all transactions. Bank examiners all check to see that staff are properly trained and qualified for their jobs.

Bank examiners can work for governmental departments, regulating bodies and banks themselves – to ensure that financial institutions don’t incur any penalties owing to dodgy practices.

Keeping track of the price movements of commodity futures in the gold sector is definitely one of your top priorities if you are an investor in this commodity. Now the best approach in tracking the prices has to be a real time approach that gives the prices as they change every time. So why do you need to keep track of gold prices if you are an investor in the commodities futures?  Well price movements are the single most influential signals that can allow you to know whether you are making loss or profit. Furthermore they give a very good picture of the trends in the market allowing you the chance to trade accordingly. There are quite a number of ways that you can keep track of gold commodity prices - here are some of the best ones.

There are several categories of loans small business owners can pursue while trying to fund their start-up company. Before choosing which type of loan to capitalize on, you should know the advantages and disadvantages of the two most common categories of business loans.

Mark Zuckerberg has had quite a time over the last week, not only has he managed to pull off the largest tech IPO in history, but he also found the time to get married the day after. It's widely known that Zuckerberg is a wealthy individual, but after the recent IPO just how wealthy is he?    Well Mark Zuckerberg is now estimated to be worth around $19bn after he upped his share in the social media giant Facebook to over 30%. So just how wealthy does that leave him? This infographic analyzes just how much money he would have if he sold his share in the company and puts it all into everyday perspective by seeing just what he could buy with his new found billions.    Remember, this is just a little fun and assuming that he would be able to sell his share and avoid all taxes, yet it does demonstrate just how wealthy this 28 year old now is!

The amount that leading hedge fund managers make on a yearly basis tends to shock most people considerably. Whilst the incomes of celebrities and public figures tend to be widely published and highly talked about, those of the worlds richest hedge fund managers have tended to go unnoticed. Whether this is down to a secret lifestyle or efforts to conceal their identity is up for debate but now it has been exposed in infographic format for the first time ever.

There are many online broker firms today that allow their users to personally conduct their own trading ventures for a small fee. This appeals to many individuals because it gives them a sense of control over their own portfolios. However, the process for placing a trade through an online brokerage is not as simple as clicking a button or an icon.

With the company Scottrade there are three different steps to perform for a basic stock or ETF trade. First there is the market trade, where the security is traded at the current price in the market. To accomplish this type of transaction the user clicks on the trade button found on the ‘Quick Quotes’ page. Next, select whether the action is to buy or sell and the total number of shares for the transaction. Follow this with the stock symbol of the company or the ETF symbol. Now the trader should click on the ‘Type Order’ button and select ‘Market.’ After the type of order has been selected, duration for the 'time in force' needs to be chosen. Market orders are only valid for the trading day that they are placed; therefore the time in force needs to reflect this stipulation. At this point, the trader will be asked to review the order. If everything is how it should be, then the user should place the trade.

Did you know that all of the gold in the world has a value of 8.5 trillion dollars? This precious metal is one of the most sought after in the entire world, but there are some 165,000 metric tons of it available on this planet.

With about 7 billion people on the planet, there is less than one ounce of gold per person available. That being said, gold production has increased by 210% from 1959 to 2010. In that same period of time human population increased by 220%. Thus, we are just barely outpacing the amount of gold available, and this means that the less than one ounce figure remains true.

Nearly 52% of the gold in the world is used in jewelry while 34% remains in holdings and investments. Only 12% gets used for industrial purposes. We obviously value wearing and trading gold far more than we value actually using it.

Investing your money into appropriate investment cycles requires financial sense in order to keep earning steep profits. Before you begin investing your money, there are certain aspects that you must look into. Investment not only requires money, but also wise financial management that can help you earn greater profits.

Many investors have lost all their savings just because they invested impulsively. On the other hand, investors with low finance have been able to make big money just because of their financial prudence. Before you start investing, ask yourself five questions mentioned below:

The global economy is struggling at the moment, and many countries are either going through, or attempting to come out of, a recession.  The UK economy managed to grow a small amount in the first quarter of this year, narrowly avoiding a double dip recession, but there's still a lot of room for improvement in the economy, and the construction industry could do a lot to benefit the economy.