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Make Big Money With These Currency Stocks

Stockpickr Staff

Forbes magazine has turned up some of the most-innovative investments.

As an example, many, many years ago, before Apple Computer(AAPL Quote) became public, there was an article in Forbes about how a publicly traded closed-end venture capital fund called the Nautilus Fund happened to be an early stage investor in Apple Computer and owned lots of the company's shares. You could have bought shares in Nautilus, and when Apple went public, Nautilus distributed the proportionate shares of Apple to each investor (which could have been you).

Another recent article in Forbes was on the subject of CurrencyShares. You may have stumbled upon these investments eventually, but Forbes was the first place we saw a reference to them.

CurrencyShares are exchange-traded funds set up as trusts to track various currencies. So if you think a currency is going to go up in relation to the dollar, you don't have to buy a foreign exchange contract or go to a bank or foreign exchange office and buy large amounts of currency. Instead, you can buy shares in one of the CurrencyShares, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, just like a stock.

If you think the currency is going in the other direction in relation to the dollar, you have a couple of options (no pun intended). You can either short the CurrencyShares or you can buy puts on the trust shares.

For the CurrencyShares that are currently available, which track such currencies as the Australian dollar and the Japanese yen, please click here.

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