| |
| |
|
|
Stocks and Mutual Funds |
|
Advisory Service for You?
It depends on your level of understanding of the market and the amount of money you have. If you a sophisticated investor with a substantial amount invested you are probably already receiving more than one. If you have very little market savvy it will be difficult to choose one that fits the size of your portfolio. If you are just getting started my advice is don't buy one - yet. Most of the advice is Wall Street goobledegook and most of the remainder is stuff you can't use anyway. Even the simplest letters have too much information and require more time than most working people have to act upon their recommendations. There are literally hundreds of stock and mutual fund letters from which to choose. The first thing you want to know is what has been the track record - how much annual return has the advisor received for his readers over the past few years. Some will quote you wonderful figures, but these may be predicated on following all of his advice all the time. If that is the case you had better first ask how much money is required to buy at least 100 shares of everything he recommends when he recommends it. Don't let him weasel out of it - make him give you an answer or don't buy it. That amount may be more than you have so you must then pick and choose between his recommendations and you might not pick all the good ones, just all the bad ones. There is one type of letter I consider essential to everyone. It times the market. By that I mean they tell you when the general market is going up and when to sell out because it is going down. Almost every broker will tell you it can't be done. He tells you that because he doesn't know how to do it and won't take the time to find out. He is a professional loser and doesn't deserve to be your broker. The market timing service I have been using since 1986 is Fabian's Investment Resource out of California. They have a 20-year real time track record. In the last 100 years we have had 30 bear markets which are defined as the overall market going down more than 20 percent and some more than 40 percent. Even the best stocks and mutual funds will go down in a bear market because they act like ships - when the tide goes out all ships go down with it. You don't want to have any market positions at that time. The first basic advisory service should be for market timing. Check their claims and actual track record. Then as you learn more you may expand your horizon to picking individual issues or mutual funds. Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he's the man that Wall Street does not want you to know. Copyright 2005
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Eternal Sunshine There is a current movie entitled "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". It is about a man who has had a painful love affair and will do anything to rid his mind of those pain thoughts of a former love. Big Buildings Can Mean Big Economic Disaster AS BUILDERS BEGIN WORK ON THE FREEDOM TOWER in New York City, to be the world's tallest building, economist Mark Thornton offers a history-based theory of the relation between super-buildings and the economy. Thornton surveyed economic performance worldwide following the completion of each of the world's tallest skyscrapers, and suggests what these events foretell. Stock Market Investing: Knowing When (and when not) to Sell One of the greatest challenges of investing in stocks is developing a "sell discipline". Some of the most adept investors struggle with the decision of when to sell. Trapeze Artist - Swinging with the Stock Market When we go to the circus we see a trapeze artist working on a high wire or swing either alone or with other athletes. They know what they are doing because of constant practice, but every once in a while there can be a mistake, even a small one that can cause one of them to fall. No Load Mutual Funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)? If you are fed up with early redemption charges and ever increasing mutual fund management fees on top of bad-performing fund managers, read on. There is a quiet revolution going on in the no-load mutual fund industry and you, the individual investor, may benefit from it greatly. Stops Make Money During the day I watch CNBC-TV, the stock market channel. Fortunately, I keep the sound muted or I would be hollering at the dumb "experts" being interviewed. Fools Gold The stock market has been in an up trend for more than a year. Almost everyone is feeling good and many believe we are back in the old bull market with the previous high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average just about to be broken. NASDAQ 800? In November of 2000 when the NASDAQ was trading at 3000 I wrote in this column that the NASDAQ Index would fall to 1500 and I got lots of heat for saying it. Microsoft had fallen from $129 to $60 per share. Online Investing & Online Stock & Share Trading: Difficulty in Taking Stop Losses in the Market This is an extract of an article which was first printed in Daryl Guppy's Newsletter Tutorials in Applied Technical Analysis on 26 March 2005 and is reprinted here with his permissionA stop loss is a predetermined exit point. When a trade is first planned, the stop loss is designed to protect the trader's capital. Overseas Investing: Going Against the Mainstream TOO OFTEN, INVESTORS SIMPLY CHOOSE TO follow the crowd. This strategy works in the short term, but can lead to difficulty in the longer haul. Making Outsized Returns in the Stock Market - Using the Dow Theory The Dow TheoryCharles H. DowRobert RheaE. Investing in Stocks and The Game of Monopoly To begin, you might look at playing the stock market as though you were playing a game of Monopoly. That's right; for playing the stock market 'game' is not unlike playing a game of Monopoly. Evaluation II As I said in Part I everyone in the insane asylum looks normal, but at least the doctors are sane. Unfortunately, in the insane asylum known as the stock market all the doctors (brokers) are also insane. Mindset In 1960 an engineer working for a watch company in Switzerland discovered that a small crystal would vibrate at a constant rate. He found this was so accurate that it could be used to calibrate time so he took it to company management and said it would make an entirely new kind of watch that had no springs and no gears. Inertia Syndrome When it comes to buying a stock or mutual fund most people act pretty quickly. There are some who will take the time to get a report from Morningstar (it is worthless) or get reports from their broker (also worthless) or even do a search on the Internet (if you know what you are doing). Discover the Biggest Trading & Investing Online Mistake Any online investor / trader seeks an excellent off or online future trading career opportunity. Despite this goal, did you know 95 percent of all traders go broke within the first two months? Why do investors lose vast amounts of wealth in one or more of the following markets - option trading, forex trading or currency trading, stock trading, future or commodity trading etc? in such a short amount of time?Most online investors / traders interact in devastating forms of thinking, which convinces the mind to the point where the trader believes that an educational enhancement ability that develops superb market research skills is not important. Look Out The Window Quick, look out the window. It's raining. Market Timing Every broker and financial planner will tell you that you cannot time the stock market. I saw John Bogle, the great seer of Vanguard, on CNBC saying it can't be done. The Value of Stocks of a Company The debate rages all over Eastern and Central Europe, in countries in transition as well as in Western Europe. It raged in Britain during the 80s: Is privatization really the robbery in disguise of state assets by a select few, cronies of the political regime? Margaret Thatcher was accuse of it - and so was the Agency of Transformation in the Republic of Macedonia. Cash Is A Position I go to the Money Show every year to visit with friends who have booths and are speakers. Then when folks are filing out of lectures I listen to their comments on what I know the speaker has been saying.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
