Gawker settles with ex-pro wrestler Hulk Hogan for $31 million: court document

Shuttered irreverent news website Gawker Media LLC has reached a $31 million cash settlement with Hulk Hogan, the former professional wrestler who won a $140 million judgment against the site over a leaked sex tape.

Hogan's judgment forced Gawker, known for its sassy tone and gossipy posts, into bankruptcy in June. Its sister websites, including sports site Deadspin and women's site Jezebel, were acquired for $135 million by media company Univision Holdings Inc in a bankruptcy auction last summer.

"As with any negotiation for resolution, all parties have agreed it is time to move on," said Hogan's attorney, David Houston.

The settlement is subject to approval by a bankruptcy judge.

Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel said in May he helped fund the invasion of the privacy lawsuit filed by Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea. The site published an article in 2007 about Thiel's homosexuality.

"It is a great day for Terry Bollea and a great day for everyone's right to privacy," Thiel said.

Gawker founder Nick Denton, who filed for personal bankruptcy to protect himself from Hogan's judgment, has accused Thiel of using his wealth to carry out a vendetta against him and the site.

Denton, in a blog post published Wednesday, said an "all-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people," even though he was confident a court would have reduced or eliminated the judgment.

"There was no end in sight," Denton wrote.

The settlement also calls for Hogan to receive some proceeds from a possible future sale of Gawker.com, which was not included in the sale to Univision.

Source: www.reuters.com

Facebook reports better-than-expected rise in revenue

Facebook Inc (FB.O) reported a 55.8 percent rise in quarterly revenue, beating analysts' estimates, as its mobile-advertising sales soared.

Mobile ad revenue accounted for 84 percent of Facebook's total advertising revenue of $6.82 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with 78 percent a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected total ad revenue of $6.71 billion, according to research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

Facebook, whose shares were up 1 percent at $128.35 in after-hours trading, said about 1.79 billion people were using its site monthly as of Sept. 30, up 16 percent from a year earlier.

More than 90 percent of Facebook's users access the social network through mobile devices. Mobile daily average users rose 22 percent to 1.09 billion.

Total revenue rose to $7.01 billion from $4.50 billion, compared with the average estimate of $6.92 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"We're making progress putting video first across our apps and executing our 10 year technology roadmap," Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

With the company's photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger facing increasing competition from Snapchat, Facebook has been adding features to keep users hooked and attract advertisers.

The company said in September that Instagram's advertising base had more than doubled to more than 500,000 in six months. Instagram had about 500 million users as of June. (bit.ly/2f1SJfP)

Facebook took its attempts to boost user engagement to the workplace last month, launching a subscription-based enterprise version of its mobile app.

The company also launched Marketplace, a feature that allows people to buy and sell items locally, and has been focusing more on video to better compete with Google's (GOOGL.O) Youtube.

Facebook is expected to generate about $22 billion in mobile ad revenue in 2016, according to research firm eMarketer, up about 67 percent from 2015. Total ad revenue is forecast to rise to about $26 billion, an increase of about 52 percent.

However, there are questions about how long Facebook can continue to boost mobile ad revenue, given limits to the number of ads that Facebook can show each user.

Net income attributable to Facebook shareholders jumped to $2.37 billion, or 82 cents per share, in the quarter from $891 million, or 31 cents per share, in the third quarter of 2015.

Excluding items, the company earned $1.09 per share.

Up to Wednesday's close of $127.17, Facebook's shares had risen 21.5 percent since the start of the year.

Source: www.reuters.com

Wall St. lower as Fed sets stage for Dec rate hike

Wall Street stayed weak on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged but signaled it could hike in December, as equities remained pressured by uncertainty over the impending U.S. elections.

The S&P 500 was headed toward its seventh straight session of declines, its longest such streak in about five years.

The U.S. central bank said the economy had gained steam and job gains remained solid, and expressed more optimism that inflation was moving toward its 2 percent target.

It was the last Fed decision before next week's presidential election between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, a race that appears to be increasingly close.

"There’s election uncertainty out there as well as the Fed uncertainty," said John Canally, investment strategist and economist for LPL Financial in Boston. "They didn’t say they weren’t going to tighten in December, but they didn’t say they would. They just kind of left it open-ended."

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 52.32 points, or 0.29 percent, to 17,984.78, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 11.29 points, or 0.53 percent, to 2,100.43 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 40.60 points, or 0.79 percent, to 5,112.97.

While discounting a hike at this meeting, traders had before the statement placed the likelihood of a rate increase in December at nearly 75 percent, according to the CME Fedwatch website.

In September, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that a move before year's end was likely as long as U.S. employment and inflation continued to strengthen.

“The Fed continues to inch even closer to a December rate hike as it states that its case for raising rates has strengthened," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

“The market may be wondering if there's enough evidence of a stronger economy to warrant a rate hike versus a belief that Chair Yellen needs to replenish her toolkit in the event of a weakening economic backdrop,” Krosby said.

Among sector laggards were utilities .SPLRCU, real estate .SPLRCR and telecommunications .SPLRCL companies, which are high dividend paying groups thought to be vulnerable in rising rate environments.

Energy .SPNY also lagged, down 1.2 percent, as oil prices fell.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.51-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.21-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 2 new 52-week highs and 9 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 16 new highs and 134 new lows.

Source: www.reuters.com

Alibaba beats revenue expectations with strong e-commerce, media growth

Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reported a 55 percent rise in second-quarter revenue on Wednesday, beating analyst estimates on the back of core e-commerce sales and strong media and entertainment growth.

It was a second straight quarter of robust results for the company, suggesting it can still generate strong growth even as worries abound about the health of China's economy and its retail sector.

Alibaba's American Depository shares were up around 3 percent in pre-market trading ahead of the New York open.

China's biggest e-commerce firm is currently gearing up for its Nov. 11 Singles' Day shopping festival.

The event is a yardstick for both the company and the health of the Chinese retail sector, although the United States Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating the accounting methods and system Alibaba uses to report its Single's Day figures.

On Thursday, Alibaba said the investigation would not interfere with its performance on Singles' Day.

The company has also been looking to increase cross-border sales volumes as the Chinese market becomes increasingly saturated. It is has been expanding its footprint abroad, buying Southeast Asian online retailer Lazada Group SA for roughly $1 billion in May.

Alibaba generated revenue of 34.3 billion yuan ($5 billion) in the three months to Sept. 30, beating an average estimate of 33.9 billion yuan in a Thomson Reuters poll of 24 analysts.

Revenues at the company's core commerce business jumped 41 percent from the previous year to 28.49 billion yuan, dominated by sales within China.

The company's media and digital entertainment business, which was united under a new entity on Monday, saw revenues rise 302 percent from the same period a year earlier, due mostly to the consolidation of Youku Tudou.

Net income attributable to shareholders fell to 2.97 yuan per share, a 67 percent drop from 8.87 yuan a share in the same quarter a year ago.

Alibaba attributed that drop to a one-off revaluation gain of 18.6 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) a year earlier from its equity interest in Alibaba Health.

Non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income was 9.25 billion yuan, up 36 percent from a year earlier.

($1 = 6.7600 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Source: www.reuters.com

U.S. election, rate uncertainty rattle Wall Street

Wall Street sold off on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 closing at the lowest level since July 7, amid growing concern over the impending U.S. presidential election and prospects for higher U.S. interest rates.

Stocks pared losses after falling steeply in early afternoon trading as the S&P 500 breached a key technical level.

The tumultuous presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump has appeared to tighten in the past week after news that the FBI was investigating more emails as part of a probe into Clinton's use of a private email system.

"There is concern over Trump being unexpected, because the market has really priced in a Clinton win and it hasn’t priced in a Trump win at all," said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York.

The selloff in equities comes as the Federal Reserve holds its two-day policy meeting, with its statement due on Wednesday. While traders do not expect the central bank to raise interest rates just a week ahead of the presidential election, they are looking for signs confirming that the Fed is set to hike rates in December.

Real estate .SPLRCR, telecommunications .SPLRCL and utilities .SPLRCU stocks - sectors that tend to perform poorly in rising rate environments - sold off especially sharply.

"It’s really hitting the dividend-yielding names harder than anything else...," said Stephen Massocca, chief investment officer at Wedbush Equity Management LLC in San Francisco. "I don’t know if there is a new 'taper tantrum' sort of building here on concerns the Fed will act in December and the whole low interest rate environment is about to change."

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S. October 31, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

"Taper tantrum" refers to the period in 2013 when markets were rattled by the prospect of the Fed gradually reducing its stimulus program.

The S&P 500 .SPX lost 14.43 points, or 0.68 percent, to 2,111.72, its biggest single-day percentage drop since Oct. 11.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 105.32 points, or 0.58 percent, to 18,037.1, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 35.56 points, or 0.69 percent, to 5,153.58.

The CBOE Volatility Index .VIX, a gauge of near-term investor anxiety, jumped to almost a two-month high.

Investors also pointed to the S&P 500 breaching an important technical level as reason for stocks steepening their slide in afternoon trading.

"It started with Trump and the election uncertainty, and with the decline you broke through some important levels," said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, citing the 2,120 level on the S&P 500 that had been the lower boundary of a four-month trading range.

That level was tested in mid-September and mid-October, which underscored its importance as a technical support for the index.

With Tuesday's decline, the S&P 500 is up only 3.3 percent for the year.

Tronc (TRNC.O) dropped 12.4 percent after Gannett (GCI.N), the publisher of USA Today, abandoned plans to buy the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Gannett fell 2.3 percent.

U.S.-listed shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX.N)(VRX.TO) soared 33.7 percent after a report that the drugmaker is in talks to sell its stomach-drug business.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.21-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.29-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 5 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 30 new highs and 152 new lows.

Source: www.reuters.com

Dollar stands tall against yen ahead of U.S. GDP data

The dollar stood tall against the yen in Asian trading on Friday, on track for weekly gains against most rivals, as investors waited for U.S. third quarter growth data later in the day.

Positive growth numbers would reinforce expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve is gearing up to hike interest rates.

The dollar got an overnight lift from yields on U.S. Treasuries, which climbed to roughly five-month peaks tracking gains in German and British bond yields as investors speculated that the Bank of England and the European Central Bank would both hold off on further easing measures. [US/]

Strong growth data in Britain prompted investors to trim their bets that the Bank of England will cut interest rates at its policy meeting next week.

"The UK GDP was higher than expected, which boosted yields, and then higher U.S. yields in turn helped lift the dollar," said Kaneo Ogino, director at foreign exchange research firm Global-info Co in Tokyo.

The dollar notched a three-month high against the yen of 105.34 yen JPY= on Thursday. It was last down 0.1 percent on the day at 105.22 yen, up 1.4 percent for the week.

"105 was both a psychological and technical point, and it broke ahead of U.S. GDP later today," Ogino said. "Some people did not want to be short ahead of that, also with the Bank of Japan and Fed meetings next week, and U.S. nonfarm payrolls data one week from today."

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told parliament last week that he saw no need to ease at the bank's Oct. 31-Nov. 1 policy meeting, suggesting there will be no further monetary stimulus except in response to a big external shock.

Data released earlier on Friday showed Japan's core consumer prices fell 0.5 percent in September from a year earlier to mark the seventh straight month of declines, adding to a recent run of gloomy indicators.

The dollar also traded around a 7 1/2 year high against the Swedish crown after Sweden's Riksbank said the chances of another interest rate cut had increased and it was ready to expand its quantitative easing programme.

The greenback last stood at 9.0776 crowns SEK= after climbing to 9.0890 crowns on Thursday, its 

The euro EUR= edged up 0.1 percent to $1.0901, up 0.2 percent for the week.

Against a basket of six major currencies, the dollar edged up to 98.929 .DXY, on track to rise 0.2 percent for the week in which it touched a nearly nine-month high of 99.119.

Sterling was up 0.1 percent at $1.2169 GBP=D4, on track to end a choppy week down 0.5 percent.

Source: www.reuters.com

U.S. eyes long prison term for Wall Street scion's fraud

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday said Andrew Caspersen, the scion of a wealthy Wall Street family, should spend as long as 15-2/3 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to defrauding friends, family and a charity out of more than $38 million.

In papers filed with the federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said Caspersen, 40, who had worked at a unit of investment banker Paul Taubman's PJT Partners Inc, abused the trust of his victims through his "long-running, significant and elaborate" fraud.

Prosecutors said the son of late Wall Street financier Finn M.W. Caspersen ran a Ponzi-like scheme from November 2014 to March 2016 to defraud more than one dozen investors, claiming he would use their funds to make loans to private equity firms.

Instead, prosecutors said Andrew Caspersen used money he raised to trade in his own accounts and pay earlier investors.

Though lawyers for Caspersen have said a "pathological" gambling disorder and mental health issues fueled their client's crimes, prosecutors said the 151- to 188-month prison term recommended under federal guidelines was justified.

The sentencing request came six days after Caspersen's lawyers said the Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate's gambling addiction and efforts to rehabilitate himself were among the "powerful mitigating circumstances" justifying leniency.

Caspersen is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan on Nov. 4 by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, a prominent critic of federal sentencing guidelines.

The judge told Caspersen at his July 6 plea hearing that he would consider the guidelines when imposing punishment, but that they "border on the irrational, and I like a sentence to be rational."

Caspersen has agreed not to appeal any prison term longer than 15-2/3 years. He also agreed to forfeit more than $45 million, though his lawyer has said he cannot afford that sum.

The case is U.S. v. Caspersen, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-cr-00414.

Source: www.reuters.com

6 Proven Ways Content Marketing Benefits your Small Business

For small and local businesses, it can be hard to stand out against larger nationwide brands. However, content marketing can help your small business attract attention, and for relevant niches in your industry, too.

Content marketing is a marketing approach that involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to your prospective audience in the hopes of driving a consumer action, and it has numerous benefits for small businesses. It can give you the opportunity to not only expand your company, but also to build your reputation and establish a place as a trusted leader in the industry.

1. It generates traffic to your site

Content marketing drives inbound traffic to your site. When potential customers have a problem or a particular need, they’ll search for a solution. Having that solution, whether it be information, a helpful guide or even entertainment, means customers are going to visit your site and possibly turn to it in the future for additional solutions.

Audiences love when content feels tailored to their interests or particular needs. In fact, that’s why custom content is favored by up to 68% of consumers. By creating custom content for your site that tailors to your target audience’s needs and interests, you’ll be building their trust and solving their problems.

2. It builds brand awareness

If you’re consistently publishing fresh and unique content on your website and promoting it on social media, you’re creating more opportunities for your target audience to see your name and content. Plus, if you’re pleasing your audience, they’ll be more likely to spread the word about your small business to their followers and friends, which helps you reach even more people.

But, content marketing can also help build your link popularity. If what you’re producing is quality content, people will link back to you. It can be difficult to rank against bigger companies as a small business, but building link popularity can help your online visibility, so your website and content will rank higher on a search results page.

3. It can increase leads and sales

This partially goes without saying, but the more people you have visiting your site and viewing your content, the more likely they are to convert into leads and eventually customers.

Even for small businesses, customers rely on blogs and website content when they’re making purchasing decisions; people like to know as much as they can before they buy. Plus, creating content relevant to your company’s product or services helps your audience truly understand what they will gain by doing business with you.

It’ll also help you become a trusted leader in your industry, and consumers buy from people and businesses they trust. With content marketing, you’re quite literally showing your audience and customers that you know what you’re talking about, which makes you seem like a safe bet to buy from.

4. It establishes you as a thought leader

The more you establish yourself as well-educated in the industry, the more they’ll look to you as an expert or authority, especially if you provide your audience with high-quality content that genuinely helps them.

Earning the title of thought-leader is always a good thing, because then you’re in a position where people not only listen to what you say, but they turn to you first for the answers they need.

For small businesses, this is especially important. It shows your audience that you’re just as knowledgeable as the bigger brands, but you can also provide customers with the more personal, small business experience.

5. It encourages engagement

If you create interesting content, your audience is more likely to respond to it, which opens the door for you to engage with them directly. This gives you the opportunity to further delight your readers by either continuing to entertain them or answering a specific question they may have.

Beyond customers, though, it also gives you the opportunity to engage with other industry leaders to discuss topics you’ve also written about. This can broaden your network and help you build stronger connections with other leaders, which allows you to establish yourself as an authority in the industry as well.

6. It costs less than traditional marketing

Content marketing for small businesses can prove to be more cost-effective than more traditional forms of marketing, especially if you can generate the content yourself. Lead generation through inbound content marketing tends to cost only half of what businesses usually spend on outbound marketing. Spreading your content through social media and email, posting it on your website or contributing to larger sites to get your name out there are all either low-cost or free.

Plus, inbound content marketing means the customers are coming to you, so it’s more efficient than traditional outbound forms because the consumers are already aware and interested.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com

Asian stocks eke out gains, dollar nears a nine-month high

Asian stocks eked out gains but lacked clear direction on Monday after Wall Street's sluggish performance late last week, while the dollar hit a near nine-month high as comments from a Federal Reserve official boosted bets of a rate hike by year-end.

Spreadbetters expected Britain's FTSE .FTSE, Germany's DAX .GDAXI and France's CAC .FCHI to open slightly higher.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS inched up 0.2 percent.
South Korea's Kospi .KS11 gained 0.4 percent. Australian stocks lost 0.5 percent, hurt by a decline in energy shares.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 moved in a tight range and was last up 0.2 percent.
"There are few investors who want to chase the market higher until they see more news from overseas, especially those regarding a U.S. rate hike," said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo.
Shanghai .SSEC outperformed, rising over 1 percent as energy and raw material stocks jumped on indications that government measures to slash production capacity had shown signs of some success.

The optimism spread to Hong Kong, but gains in the Hang Sang .HSI were limited by concerns over continued yuan weakness, as well as a possible U.S. rate hike. [.SS]
On Friday in Wall Street, the S&P 500 .SPX and the Dow .DJI were little changed and the Nasdaq .IXIC advanced as a record day for Microsoft (MSFT.O) and earnings from McDonald's (MCD.N) helped offset a fall in energy and healthcare shares. [.N]
"It will be something of a hiatus week, given that next week brings the BoJ, Fed and BoE meetings...however there is a heavily back-loaded run of data in the U.S., Japan and euro zone, and there will be a deluge of U.S. and indeed European and Asian corporate earnings," wrote Marc Ostwald, strategist at ADM Investor Services International.

Global markets are bracing for a slew of data this week including consumer price data from Japan and some euro zone countries, third quarter U.S. GDP and a number of purchasing managers' index (PMI) data from developed economies.
In currencies, the dollar index .DXY was up 0.1 percent at 98.780 after touching 98.846, its highest since Feb. 3.

The U.S. currency received a boost last week as the euro slid after the European Central Bank doused talk it was contemplating tapering its monetary easing.
The dollar was also supported by hawkish comments from Fed officials including New York Fed President William Dudley and higher expectations that Hillary Clinton will win the U.S. presidential election, which have increased bets that the Fed will raise rates in December.
The dollar was steady at 103.905 yen JPY=. The euro slipped 0.2 percent to $1.0869 EUR= after falling on Friday to $1.0859, its lowest since March 10.
The Australian dollar was steady at $0.7614 AUD=D4.

Source: www.reuters.com

11 Ways to Make Money While You Sleep

Do you remember in the past we were warned to be careful about being in debt because interest never stopped charging us, interest never slept, never took a day off, never took a holiday. Well the reverse is true, as well.

Is your money making money while you sleep? Does it sound too good to be true? Since we still live in the age of the interest, it’s not that difficult to earn extra money on the side.

With that in mind, here are 11 ways that you can actually earn money while you sleep.

1. Start a blog.

Perhaps the most popular way to earn a passive income is by launching your own blog. It only takes a couple of minutes to setup and is cheap to start - just purchase your domain name and pay for hosting.

After that, start creating amazing content that people would be interested in reading or sharing. For example, if you’re an accountant that has helped small business owners with their taxes, then that could be your blog. I personally have my invoicing blog to help customers know everything there is to know about invoicing. This draws thousands of signups a month.

Make sure the topics you write about are popular. If you still love your pet rock, I doubt there would be enough people visiting your our site to monetize it. But, you never know.

Once you’ve gained a following, you can start making money from of your blog by:

Earning commissions as an affiliate. This is where you push other people’s products or services on your site. Make sure these products or services are relevant to your blog. For example, that accounting blog could become an affiliate for accounting or invoicing software. Once you find an affiliate partner you’ll be given a unique code so that whenever a visitor clicks that link on your site you’ll earn your commission.

Sell-advertising. If you’re site has the traffic to become an affiliate, then it may also be good enough for advertisers to purchase ads on your site. You may start off small, like making under $20 per ad. But, you may eventually be able to charge triple digits. Again, you site must be quality.

Find sponsors. This is slightly different than just selling ads on your site. Sponsorships may be a one-off piece of sponsored content or permanent logo embedded in your footer.

2. Sell your own information product.

If you’re knowledgeable in a certain area, then you can start creating products, such as eBooks or videos, and selling them on your blog. It may take a lot of work to create and market your products, but once all the leg work is over, you can just set back and collect the proceeds.

3. Earn royalties.

If you’re a talented musician, actor, or author, then you could earn royalties from your work. In other words people will pay you for using your work or creative assets.

If you aren’t talented enough, but still interested in earning royalties, then check out Royalty Exchange. It’s a marketplace where you can buy and sell royalties.

4. Create a membership community.

If you’ve proven yourself to be a authority figure, then you can create a membership community where you pay a monthly fee to receive additional high-quality content and information that’s not available to non-members.

One of my favorite examples is Timothy Sykes who makes more than $100,000 per month in passive income through his membership community which discusses how people can make money in trading penny stocks. 

5. Install an autoresponder.

Another common online business model is using autoresponders to sell services, products or memberships. This is where people leave their email address on your site and then they’ll receive an automated email containing the link to download products or quality information you have to offer, as well as follow-up with a series of emails.

You’ll a need service like OptinMonster to make this possible. I also recommend you read this Quick Sprout guide to get started with autoresponders.

6. Flip websites.

If you’ve put in the time and effort in building a website and you have gained a lot of traffic, then you may be able to sell it to an interested party by listing on marketplaces like Flippa. I've bought and sold a lot of sites here and made a lot of money.

7. Sell physical products.

Just like with a blogging site, there are several ways to earn a passive income by selling physical products. Probably one of the best known ways is by selling your old junk on eBay. But even if you don’t have anything left to sell you can start drop shopping. This is where you sell products for a company on eBay or Amazon and they’ll take care of the rest - including shipping.

You can also launch your own eCommerce store by using Shopify. They literally give you everything you need to sell products online from a complete online shop to including buy buttons on your social media channels.

8. Invest in stocks or shares.

When you invest in stocks you become a stakeholder. That entitles you to a share of their profits. Investing in stocks has been a popular way to earn a passive income for years, and thanks to the internet, it’s easier than ever to research and invest in stocks on your own.

Keep in mind that the stocks you invest in can change throughout the various stages of life. For example, I look for investments that can benefit my daughter, such as a CA529 plan that will go towards her college tuition.

9. Peer-to-peer lending.

Companies like LendingClub, Propser, and Harmoney have created a new industry where anyone can become a lender. They will then match you with a consumer who either prefers or has trouble securing a loan from a bank. You can earn a higher interest rates on the loans you issued since you’re dealing directly with the borrower.

10. Rent out property.

Thanks to Airbnb, you can rent out your home while on vacation or your vacation home when not in use. You can also rent out your garage, parking space, or unused office space. It’s a nice supplemental income without really doing anything except placing an ad.

11. Hire a middleman.

This is also known as arbitrage and is basically where you have someone else do the work for you. For example, you could start a dog walking service or web design firm, but outsource the actual dog walking or coding to someone else. You’re much better doing anything except being the middleman who is in charge of marketing these services.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com