Hello readers! I'm excited that today I have the privilege to introduce the first edition of The Weekly Walk! The Weekly Walk is a new column that will be highlighting one program on the HYIP-LIST each week, "walking through" the progress of the program from the time it was listed for monitoring to today.
What we've noticed is programs are reviewed when they begin monitoring, and other than the occasional news update are for the most part seemingly forgotten. In most cases (if not all), programs evolve and much of the information about a program is lost to new potential investors who are getting all their information by reading a review that may have been written 30, 60 or 300 days beforehand.
It's my goal, with The Weekly Walk, to provide a quick analysis of a program on the HYIP-LIST each week, to give investors some additional information and to refresh the program, to bring it to the attention of new potential investors. In each of these articles, the progress of the program will be determined by analyzing three categories:
1.) Program News, Participation and Appearance (NPA)
Has the program been sending out updates? Is there any initiative by the program admin to grow the program? What advertising (if any) is the program using? These are things that will be looked at in this section.
2.) Program Traffic
We'll take a brief look at the program's Alexa graph to see what changes have happened since the program started. Compete.com graphs as well as a forum popularity analysis may be used to get an idea of how the program is doing. While these indicators are imperfect, they can be used to give us a general idea of how the program is doing.
3.) Risk Factor
What changes have been made to the program? Has there been any suspicious activity? Are any red flags being raised that potential investors should know about?
After each category is graded on a 1 to 5 scale (1 being worst, 5 being best), a simple summary will be given and a current progress rating will be given based on their overall score. The score and rating will be highly subjective, and based on personal opinion, so it's important to only use The Weekly Walk as a guide in your investing decisions, not as something set-in-stone. HYIP programs are extremely high risk in instances have closed or turned scam for no apparent reason. Please remember to be frugal, don't invest more than you are willing to lose, and if you do invest please remember we are not responsible for any of your possible losses. We provide information in an attempt to help people who will invest regardless of advice, and provide whatever help we can to help minimize risk, not to persuade or convince people to invest in a program.
Whew, well now that all of that has been said lets dig into the first Weekly Walk, and take a look at the program Macro Trade!
Macro Trade has been on the HYIP-LIST for 57 days, and has been paying without issues since listing. I had a chance to chat briefly with one of the representatives of the Macro Trade, Cameron and received a statement about their program:
Macro Trade has been online and in business since 2003. The group of our leading traders and analysts decided to unite their efforts in 2003; however, most of them have over 20-years' experience of working at the Capital Markets.
We invest in the Capital Market and in addition to online trading operations we operate with a wide range of offline investments. We are constantly looking at new avenues to invest money and investment opportunities to add maximum profit to our investors' money. We have more than 100,000 clients from more than 200 countries all over the world. We are profitable.
1.) Macro Trade: News, Participation and Appearance (NPA)
First, Macro Trade has a great News Page that has had regular updates posted about the program. This is a good sign as it shows us that Macro Trade is keeping investors up-to-date with their dealings and that the program has not become stagnant and forgotten. Perhaps the biggest positive here though is Macro Trade's intelligent advertising campaign. Aside from the obvious benefits of listing on the only HYIP Newspaper, HYIPNews.com, Macro Trade has an active campaign with banner advertising visible on many different sites and forums. Also Macro Trade has utilized Sticky Threads in several major forums, a very smart advertising move as can be seen below in the forum popularity statistics seen below.
NPA RANK: 5/5 
2.) Program Traffic
In the above forum statistics, we can see that yesterday there were a total of 140 replies made across 4 of the major forums. In addition there have been over 5,000 total replies and over 50,000 total page views in the Macro Trade threads on the 4 major forums. This shows great forum popularity for the program and a strong traffic source. Let's take a look at their Alexa graph:
It's important to remember that doing a traffic analysis is an imperfect science, and the information we gather should be used as a guide. So, we see a steady Alexa trend with Macro Trade, showing either a very gradual growth or a non-growth trend. We'd like to see a bit more of a positive trend in the future with these charts, but at this time there is no need to worry.
Traffic RANK: 3/5 
3.) Risk Factor
We all know that high yield investment programs are extremely risky, but that's really not what we're looking at here. We want to know if there has been anything that should warn investors or make them wary about investing in Macro Trade. At this time there aren't any red flags. Macro Trade hasn't started any new investment plans, and the site changes have all been to benefit the design or to help connect with investors (addition of multiple languages & live chat feature). We're nearing the halfway point of the first cycle and things continue to look good with the program. In a couple of months we will have the first big test as principal investment amounts are returned to the first investors. In my opinion, we could see the formation of an industry leading long term program with continued growth and reinvestment if Macro Trade continues to grow over the next few months.
Risk Factor: 3/5
Macro Trade's total walk score is 11/15.
Macro Trade is progressing nicely with room to grow (definitely a good thing). If everything continues at its current pace, we could very well be looking at one of the industry leading long-term investment plans. Unfortunately we won't really know the future of Macro Trade until the expiration of plans begin to happen. Fortunately, we're not looking at that happening for several months, and investors getting in the program now should hit break-even point before the first investors plans begin to expire. I'm not saying anything will happen at that time, I'm just bringing the additional risk to your attention. I'm optimistic about the growth and progress of Macro Trade, and believe with investor support and a dedicated administration, the program could indeed last for the long haul.
Well, that's all I have now for Macro Trade. I'll see you all next week when we look at another HYIP-LIST program; until then, keep walking through the world of HYIP investing!
