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Hi, Toof,
Another real estate play that looks interesting is SRQ -DWS RREEF Real Estate Fund (SRQ). According to ETFconnect they've got a 10.9% yield, trading at an almost 5% discount and a .99% expense amount.
Looks promising...
The primary investment objective of the Fund is total return through a combination of high current income and capital appreciation by investing in real estate securities. The fund will invest at least 90% of total assets in income producing common stocks, preferred stocks and other equities issued by REITs. At least 80% of the total assets of the fund will be invested in income producing equity securities issued by REITs. The fund may invest up to 10% of its total assets in debt securities issued or guaranteed by real estate companies. The fund may not invest more than 20% of its total assets in preferred stock or debt securities.
Might be a contenda!
Best,
AIMster
re: RAS - they do seem to be focused somewhat into the mortgage end of things, but in Commercial, rather than Residential real estate. They also hold investments in other REIT's apparently. Website: http://www.raitft.com/home.asp
You make a good point for holding tangible real estate vs the 'creative financing' around it.
One that's been around for a while now (since 1958) and has a mix of real estate ventures is Cousins Properties CUZ. They're sporting a 6% yield which seems reasonable.
So while part of their business might take a 'hit' other areas might still be doing well. Being more diversified instead of all the eggs in the one basket probably helps.
Best,
AIMster
Anyway I decided to switch the account to a higher yielding individual REIT that I feel comfortable with ( WRI)
Hi, Toof,
Not the fastest of movers, but the recent drop off and bounce shows it's got some potential there, I think.
If you want to have one foot hanging off the cliff, so to speak, RAS offers such possibility with a 23.3% yield.
The best time to have gotten in to this one would have been August with some nice AIM activity since then! Ah the benefit of hindsight!!!
Best,
AIMster
Okay... ask for a water ETF and we've got one!!!
http://www.etftrends.com/water/index.html
Hi, AZ,
Regarding commodities - we've got several flavors, some which go in for a particular single item such GLD which is focused on gold. SLV or the CEF CEF (Central Fund of Canada) for Silver play, to some of the newer Powershares such as DBC for a basket of commodities, DBV if you want to dip into currency plays, to DBA which is a more strictly agricultural play (hey, people gotta eat, after all). Another commodity for which I don't know if there's an ETF or CEF for directly but one area which should have some upside is in the realm of "blue gold," aka water.
Plenty of choices!
Best,
AIMster
did a study on the Dow Jones Industrial Average for a period exceeding 40 years. On the basis of monthly gains, the best times to buy the Dow was when it traded over it's 200 day moving average (which was about 2/3 of the time), while the supposed bargain periods when it traded below the 200 day moving average produced poor returns.
Hi, AH,
Interesting. I would have thought that you'd see the greatest revision to the mean from the lower level back up. Whilst we don't have 40 year's worth, I wonder if the DIA ETF for the Dow 30 acts similarly relative to the 200 MA. BTW was that a simple moving average, or a weighted one?
Thanks,
AIMster
I've gone so far as to request a solution on a major Excel help site (not MS's), and those geeks all wanted to put some VB script behind it. Sometimes programmers make things more complex than necessary.
Actually, I'd think they'd have exactly the opposite opinion, figuring it's easier to do with a little program what could take all sorts of complicated hoops to jump through without the VB extensions behind Excel! Depends on where one's starting from, I guess.
In either case, good luck finding a solution,
Best,
AIMster
New variation on an international dividend-paying ETF. Maybe not ready for prime-time just yet as an AIM candidate, but perhaps some potential. The quarterly payout puts it slightly ahead of two near competitors that only pay out annually.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/65889-does-state-street-s-new-int-l-dividend-etf-offer-anything-new
Hi, MM,
I couldn't see the image either. I went to 'copy image address' and this is what I got:
href="http:/i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii128/0229valuwav.gif
Looks like the http part didn't quite get removed. You're likely viewing a locally cached copy so that's why you still see it.
Using the same function on Tom's posted chart I get:
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii128/minstrlman108/0229valuwave.gif
Not sure what it all means, but there it is.
Hopefully you can figure out the issue.
Best,
AIMster
Or take the hard disk out of the Win95 and add it as a slave in the XP box perhaps.
Assuming the interfaces are compatible enough. Win 95 era machines likely used an earlier ATA version, with modern machines using SATA or PATA - different cables and so on. But good thought, if it can be done!
Best,
AIMster
I have an old Windows 95 PC which I haven't turned on for over 3 years. It doesn't have any USB capability so getting the few files and many pics off that I'd want is problematic. So I'm open to suggestions. I tried a get a few little programs off of it once but they wouldn't install on my XP machine. Something about file system error.
I don't suppose the Win95 machine has a CD-burner on it otherwise you'd have used it to move the pics of with that...
Any other machines about that have a burner you could temporarily install into the '95er?
Assuming the '95er has an ethernet connection... One trick I just used at work was to get a spare hub and put both machines, one using XP, the other also 95, and assign them to the same workgroup and give them virtual network addresses. I then made the '95 directories I wanted to move 'shareable' mapped them as network drives on the XP box and copied over using Explorer. This created a peer-to-peer nedtwork between the two and worked like a charm.
Another thought would be if you've serial ports on both - I'm talking the 9-pin variety or the 25 on the 95 box, and a 9 pin on the XP box - a null-modem cable will allow you to fire up a terminal program and move files that way. Not as fast as ethernet but doable.
As for the programs - you'll need to find the original installer programs or CD's for anything you'd attempt to move from '95 up to XP. If you just copy the program folders, you're likely only getting part of the program. Installers will quite often write .DLLs or .VXBs or who knows what all else on various places in the system, nevermind the Registry.
Good luck and if we can help further - let us know.
Now back to our usual AIM discussions, already in progress.
Best,
AIMster
The latest Apple Mac OS is Unix.
No joke.
Yes, I know - hails from the Berkeley side of the family, so to speak. I've experimented off and on with Linux but still feel it's more suited for servers than end-user desktops, especially, as I mentioned, for people who know only the most basic of stuff to do their jobs and that's about it.
If it gets the range of apps that Windows has, as well as the same end-user ease of use then it's got more future. I suppose a compromise (which likely can't be done due to a plethora of "intellectual property" issues) would be a "Winux" the ease of windows atop the more solid Linux foundation. Perhaps as machines get more power, memory and such this can be done using virtualization, running a VM machine of windows on a Linux box. The best of both worlds.
Best,
AIMster
Let's start a movement to cease using any Windows operating system. Let's start using Linux.
The chart above is from here: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8
Needless to say I think we all know that Windows isn't perfect, yet the reality check above shows it's going to be a long time in coming to get the O/S distributions more evenly matched, what to speak of any one system ever dethroning Windows.
We've found Linux at work to be an admirable server system, but as a desktop for the marginally computer literate, not so much. Too much "nerd" factor required. Basic things like application installs are far more cumbersome, often requiring compilation, downloading additional libraries and so on. Never mind the ridiculously large file names. I've a personal grudge for the Unix-ist from command line hell (Linux being closely related to Unix) who decided that UPPER and lower case instances of the same letter should mean two different things. Try B,V,P command flags with tech support in Bangalore some time.
Ok, a rant of my own. But I feel better now and thank you for your tolerance. Heaven knows we don't need to start any religious operating system wars here. I used to work with a guy for whom Linux became religion. Before that it was OS/2, before that, QNX. Anything other than Microsoft. I wonder why he never went Apple - too expensive, I guess. Microsoft was always rendered as "Mickeysoft." It got real old, real quick. Some of us thought Steve Ballmer must have made a pass at his wife, the way he took it all so personal. I suppose I need to head in the direction of the coffee pot too.
AIM on - that's the point, after all,
AIMster
Just the ol' 2c worth; I am another who uses spreadsheets, self designed and adapted to my own situations.
Hi, SL,
I was doing this also until I got AI. The problem I ran into with spreadsheets is that you click on the "new sheet" button and before you stretches an empty canvas. All you have to do is fill in the cells and bring it to life. Easy enough! My first one was transmogrifiying the LED2.5 and paper instructions into an electronic rendition of same. So far, so good.
But then, as Lichello confessed to being a tinkerer, I had the thought, "Hmm. Mr. Lichello's got a good idea here, but can I use this as a start and make it better? So I'd find hours gone in experimentation, and nothing really better than AIM, in the long run - of course I was a glutton for constant tuning and improvement, if the Holy Grail can be found in a spreadsheet, by golly I was going to be the Sir Knight who did so!
AI keeps me better on the leash. There are enough variables and configuration options. For instance I run my SAFE/Min trans at 14/1 respectively, effectively reproducing the same range value as 10/5, but as I'm doing this against the whole portfolio rather than individual items, that 1% number can make for a pretty decent transaction size. Also at FOLIOfn in their window trade system there is no per-trade commission so the cost impact is a nonissue.
But hey, if spreadsheets work for you, and you can resist the temptation, all the more power to you!
Best,
AIMster
PS 200+ tax returns and counting! So I don't want to hear any complaints from any one else about the onerous task it is.
Hi, Toof,
Busy season or what?
To derive the maximal groan value from your statement, I'd phrase it like this:
PS 200+ tax returns and counting! So I don't want to hear any complaints from any one else about the too taxing task it is.
Hate to see your work cut out, but there is some appeal to a more radically simplified tax structure. Don't know if we'll ever get there.. still one can perhaps hope.
Best,
AIMster
You can always buy my LED #2.5 computer system for tracking AIM. It produces charts, graphs, will work in any ambient light, requires no electricity. You can create as many backup files as you want and you can even get complete backup systems.
Point taken, though it must be sharpened, now and then. I have always felt this tug-of-war between software developers who want their time investment protected, versus the needs of the users who want to make sure the software keeps working should anything happen to the software developer. I suppose open source gets around some of these issues, but I don't know of anyone (yet) doing open source AIM software, hint, hint if any out here are programming types.
I've long felt that 'abandonedware' should, after some reasonable time, simply enter the public domain, with some method to turn off whatever copy-protection system the software had in place. I found a copy of MyWay, for instance, with a 14 day trial - try to find the authors of that one, for instance and you'll get more hits on Frank Sinatra's rendition of same. A lot of good, functional DOS programs and early Windows programs were written, but are now forgotten and largely useless. Sigh!
AIM on,
Best,
AIMster
Is it possible that all AI users were temporarily shut down by 'head office'? That's a scary thought.
Which does bring up the hopefully unlikely, though entirely possible thought that if something were to happen to Mark, would we then be all stranded with nonfunctional, though quite well-written and useful software? Now that's scary in many ways, and it's not even Halloween! Hmmmm...
AIMster
I emailed him too, switch seems to be back on,, its where all my records are currently,, Ken
Thanks for the heads-up, I'll check mine after supper later on.
Perhaps a secondary server hosted elsewhere if the primary's out, check the backup type deal would help keep this from being a problem going forward.
I've also been doing some time pondering and I've settled on the 2nd and 16th of a month (or business dates approximately so) as days for checking on a twice-a-month schedule. The 2nd as that will be just after any dividends are posted at the end of the month or at the 1st of the month, the 16th to pick up any on the 15th or thereabouts. These will allow me to add any dividends to the cash reserve so if we do get a buy signal, there's more cash available.
Best,
AIMster
Is your AI working? Is that license server thingy down again? I can't even get in mine. Ken
I've got the same problem. I've emailed Mark. Stay tuned. Whilst this works most of the time, perhaps he needs to consider some other system not dependent on "phoning home" to a particular server.
AIMster
Notice the 'halo' on her head. You can tell that she never gets in to trouble. You'll also notice that she's sitting at the desk, making stock picks. (I can rent her out to anyone who's interested <Not you, Clive. I can't get the the export/import papers figured out>)
I don't think she'll work for Neil in Australia either - not so much for the export/import papers, (bad as those must be) but the lengthy quarantine is the real issue - poor kid would be ready to hurt something after being away from the market for nine months or so!
There's a story of a stray cat who survived a 50 day trip from England to Australia whilst confined to a cargo container where someone was shipping their Mercedes. No food or water, they think she survived on condensation and minimal physical activity. She lost about 1/2 her weight to about 4 pounds or so, but had to spend the next nine months in Australian quarantine - they spoiled her rotten after surviving such a trip and she's back up to 8 pounds or so now - apparently none the worse for the ordeal. The people who's car was being shipped have adopted her and given her, appropriately enough, the name "Mercedes." - Reported in the Feb 2008 issue of FATE magazine.
You've got a cute kid, there, though! Congrats.
Best,
AIMster
let me try this...
What I did was to right-click on the image itself and selected "copy image address." I then pasted that saved address between the chart function, removing the http:// first.
Best,
AIMster
Ah well. Like Rick Nelson said, "You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself." Although, I think I like the way Eric Clapton expresses a similar idea in "Find Myself", "No use lookin' for someone else, cause I'll be lonely 'til I find myself" from his Reptile album (highly recommended by Yours Truly). I guess that's why I've spent 27 of the last 37 years self employed!! I think I had a hard time workin' for others.
<OT>
If you're a fan of sci-fi, Babylon 5 from the mid-1990's has one of the characters, Dr. Stephen Franklin (played by the late Richard Biggs) get to a state where he went on "walkabout" wandering through the Babylon 5 station - until he met himself. He had to find himself to overcome his demons. That was a great thing about that show - character development. Whilst many sci-fi shows are pretty much self-contained in a single episode, B5 had larger story arcs that were developed over several episodes or even seasons at a time. I suppose one of these days I'll have to put these on the Netflix DVD list - along with the other 470 items already there... I need to be retired to watch all this stuff!
Best,
AIMster
So, anyway, recognizing when a recession begins and ends is almost impossible to detect. And efforts at playing the timing of markets (i.e. WAG ... guessing) doesn't work.
Which gets us back to the flexibility of the AIM system.
Nice post and insightful commentary, Al.
And I think you've hit the important part of AIM that I know Toofuzzy's mentioned in the past as being important, i.e., that AIM is a reactive rather than predictive system. Take the recent Super Bowl, predictive systems would have looked at the data and concluded, as did many people, that the Patriots were going to win the game. Similarly momentum types can look at a stock trend and point to all sorts of reasons as to why the trend should continue and how the trend is your friend, until it changes direction - just after the time you've decided on and invested in the "sure thing."
AIM deals with what the market has already told you, so you're not listening with some expectant ear for what you want to hear. Or not. This is a big reason we can sleep at night instead of sweating bullets over the ticker each day.
Best,
AIMster
Is more volatility in our future? For an AIMer, I like what this chart says. But I need to keep building cash reserves too!
Hi, Sam,
Point noted. As described, AIM is a "closed-loop" system, starting with an initial cash reserve and equity position. The equity portion being the core position around which the volatility works increasing profit overall as the cash reserve cycles in relation to the equity part.
Now, Lichello did allow for infrequent additions, such as a bonus, or perhaps an inheritance, to be split between the cash reserve and equity parts to mirror the original configuration's balance 50/50, 80/20 etc. And, of course, dividends come into it as well, with capital gains also, if investing in funds, rather than individual stocks.
He didn't really allow for ongoing investing such as periodic savings to be introduced, at least not as direct cash reserve, because if the rule says new cash must be split between equity and cash reserve, you may well be investing more in at a time when AIM is getting ready to fire off a sell signal - why the heck are you buying more when AIM is getting ready to sell?
One 'loophole' I've found and am using is to credit the additional savings as dividends, rather than as purely new cash. This way I increase my cash reserve, but do so in a way that it doesn't disturb the balance that's driving the AIM equation. This under the aegis of Automatic Investor, other softwares and/or Toofuzzy's paper and pencil mode will require more mental than data entry gymnastics, perhaps. Then, when AIM calls for a buy, it will have all the cash it needs, due to the additional funding. So, if you're still in a place where you're saving money, this may work for you as well.
Best,
AIMster
Maybe one of youse guys can get the actual graph to appear.
Let's see if this works:
There we go. Put it between the chart /chart function (with brackets around it like a text highlight). Also, remove the http:// prefix, leaving only the rest of the URL.
Best,
AIMster
Mid month Checkup - Thanks for the recommendations...I took it to heart and placed buy orders at select prices. Gotta admit though...buying with all the negativity is a struggle but I'm trusting AIM!!!
The maxim of "being darkest before the dawn" has some significance here. Mr. Lichello noted how in a negative environment, buying blue chip stocks in particular is really buying some of the biggest and best companies at a discount! There will always be the Chicken Little "sky is falling" attitude being broadcast, fear is a great seller. Along with sex, but that's another issue altogether!
Although... Playboy Enterprises PLA does come to mind, though the downturn may well be the result of hmm, declining discretionary income. Perhaps they need to team up with Pfizer for some viagra type lift <grin>.
And there are some nice looking ladies in Vince McMahon's "sports entertainment" venue, WWE
So even if some of it seems all doom-and-gloom, at least we have the ladies to keep things in perspective!
Best,
AIMster
Regarding consumer credit spending:
Robert Reich of California thinks we're at the end of the line:
WE'RE sliding into recession, or worse, and Washington is turning to the normal remedies for economic downturns. But the normal remedies are not likely to work this time, because this isn't a normal downturn.
The problem lies deeper. It is the culmination of three decades during which American consumers have spent beyond their means. That era is now coming to an end. Consumers have run out of ways to keep the spending binge going.
The only lasting remedy, other than for Americans to accept a lower standard of living and for businesses to adjust to a smaller economy, is to give middle- and lower-income Americans more buying power -- and not just temporarily.
Much of the current debate is irrelevant. Even with more tax breaks for business like accelerated depreciation, companies won't invest in more factories or equipment when demand is dropping for products and services across the board, as it is now. And temporary fixes like a stimulus package that would give households a one-time cash infusion won't get consumers back to the malls, because consumers know the assistance is temporary. The problems most consumers face are permanent, so they are likely to pocket the extra money instead of spending it.
Another Fed rate cut might unfreeze credit markets and give consumers access to somewhat cheaper loans, but there's no going back to the easy money of a few years ago. Lenders and borrowers have been badly burned, and the values of houses and other assets are dropping faster than interest rates can be lowered.
The underlying problem has been building for decades. America's median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Most of what's been earned in America since then has gone to the richest 5 percent.
Yet the rich devote a smaller percentage of their earnings to buying things than the rest of us because, after all, they're rich. They already have most of what they want. Instead of buying, and thus stimulating the American economy, the rich are more likely to invest their earnings wherever around the world they can get the highest return.
The problem has been masked for years as middle- and lower-income Americans found ways to live beyond their paychecks. But now they have run out of ways.
The first way was to send more women into paid work. Most women streamed into the work force in the 1970s less because new professional opportunities opened up to them than because they had to prop up family incomes. The percentage of American working mothers with school-age children has almost doubled since 1970 -- to more than 70 percent. But there's a limit to how many mothers can maintain paying jobs.
So Americans turned to a second way of spending beyond their hourly wages. They worked more hours. The typical American now works more each year than he or she did three decades ago. Americans became veritable workaholics, putting in 350 more hours a year than the average European, more even than the notoriously industrious Japanese.
But there's also a limit to how many hours Americans can put into work, so Americans turned to a third way of spending beyond their wages. They began to borrow. With housing prices rising briskly through the 1990s and even faster from 2002 to 2006, they turned their homes into piggy banks by refinancing home mortgages and taking out home-equity loans. But this third strategy also had a built-in limit. With the bursting of the housing bubble, the piggy banks are closing.
The binge seems to be over. We're finally reaping the whirlwind of widening inequality and ever more concentrated wealth.
The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the wages of the bottom two-thirds of Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway.
A larger earned-income tax credit, financed by a higher marginal income tax on top earners, is required. The tax credit functions like a reverse income tax. Enlarging it would mean giving workers at the bottom a bigger wage supplement, as well as phasing it out at a higher wage. The current supplement for a worker with two children who earns up to $16,000 a year is about $5,000. That amount declines as earnings increase and is eliminated at about $38,000. It should be increased to, say, $8,000 at the low end and phased out at an income of $46,000.
We also need stronger unions, especially in the local service sector that's sheltered from global competition. Employees should be able to form a union without the current protracted certification process that gives employers too much opportunity to intimidate or coerce them. Workers should be able to decide whether to form a union with a simple majority vote.
And employers who fire workers for trying to organize should have to pay substantial fines. Right now, the typical penalty is back pay for the worker, plus interest -- a slap on the wrist.
Over the longer term, inequality can be reversed only through better schools for children in lower- and moderate-income communities. This will require, at the least, good preschools, fewer students per classroom and better pay for teachers in such schools, in order to attract the teaching talent these students need.
These measures are necessary to give Americans enough buying power to keep the American economy going. They are also needed to overcome widening inequality, and thereby keep America in one piece.
Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author, most recently, of "Supercapitalism."
I had not placed a buy order because it had not been 30 days since the previous buy. Finally, the 30 days were up and I placed the buy order last night for today. As fate would have it, DTPI shot up over 20% today.
Ah, another FOLIOfn-ist! Jersey Al and I are the other two, I think, unless someone else chimes in! As for the timing thing, that's part of the discipline of AIM. I posted a similar situation a few back when we had that recent dip and BTO went way down only to come back up. So it would have benefitted me to take that buy - but, if we're always second-guessing the market, that takes the A out of AIM - replace it with an H for Haphazard investment management or HIM - and since we're mainly guys on here, we do like to feed our egos and their bragging rights - but when we're wrong... not so good.
Mommy!!! <grin>.
So the important thing is to stay the course, keep on keeping on, knowing that in the long term AIM will do the job. Every day is so much short-term "noise" - the symphony can be better heard from a more respectful and patient distance.
Best,
AIMster
Would NRI and JGG be suitable for a non IRA account.
NRI may well be in the process of going bye-bye as the managers are looking to dissolve it and fold the investments in it into a very similar fund NRO managed by the same people. I think the main goal is to reduce redundancy and fees.
see:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080207/20080207006516.html?.v=1
I don't know enough about JGG. Basically though, these will report taxable income in a non-IRA environment.
Best,
AIMster
Question: Where's everyone storing their cash these days? With all the credit issues, MMF issues, etc.. Monolines don't look good either. Swiss Francs?
One place to look is here:
https://www.everbank.com/
The offer various accounts, CD's etc., that can be denominated in a variety of currencies. Might not be quite as easy as storing the cash reserve in whatever your brokerage provides, but this may make a useful adjunct. One idea might be to keep enough cash reserve with the brokerage to meet any minimums, as well as enough for an AIM buy or two, then the excess (should you have any) in an account here. You could then replenish the cash reserve in the brokerage as necessary.
I'm not quite to this point yet - but something I'm pondering for down the road a bit.
Best,
AIMster
So much for fundamental analysis, it is only as good as the amount of truth in the figures that the company managers release.
The late Ken Lay's modus operandi for years on the sinking ship of Enron! Welcome to the ETF fanclub! <grin>.
Best,
AIMster
As of this week 17 of the 30 symbols are in AIM buy ranges.
AA AIG AXP BA CAT C GE GM HD HPQ INTC JPM MRK MSFT PFE T VZ
Last summer it was hard to find three or four, with many in sell ranges or high end of hold ranges.
Hi, SL,
Well, certainly considering the DOW 30 is well within Mr. Lichello's recommendation for part of one's portfolio. He strongly suggested these Blue Chips as being good stocks for the long haul as they've a wide following and certainly are well capitalized! I came across a recent article that affirmed the efficacy of the "Dogs of the Dow" strategy, so I suppose one could AIM the dogs and point them in the direction of getting the "bone" of good returns for you! Something to chew on, anyway!
Best,
AIMster
n the famous sunlight of the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) by submitting my weather report........74 degrees and Suuuunnny yesterday, and upwards of 77f expected this week.
Welcome to the board!
To borrow a line from The Brain, of "Pinky and the Brain":
If I could reach you, I would hurt you! <grin>.
Not seriously, of course, but our current airport temp in Central NY is 6 with a windchill of -16. At church today I filled in for our head usher who was in St. Thomas getting his sister settled back in to her place after cancer treatments in LA - his wife stopped by and said it was 80 down there - I used the same line and we all cracked up. I do a reasonable impression of Maurice LaMarche's voice for The Brain (60% Orson Welles, 30% Vincent Price), so that made it even funnier.
Been to Phoenix a time or two - nice this time of year, as you tell us, but how do you manage in the Summer? I was there mainly in June/July sometimes and found it to be quite intense!
Anyway, to steer this thing reasonably back on topic back from being a subset of The Weather or Travel Channels <grin>, again, let me offer you welcome, and DO feel free to comment or ask questions on AIM. We've a great bunch on here so you've come to the right place! Enjoy your balmy weather and maybe I can toss a snowball in your honor sometime soon!
Best,
AIMster
Over the past couple of years I've used the Investors Business Daily methodology with moderate success. The market has been so choppy even during the later days of the bull market I keep getting wipsawed. After reading Mr. Licellos book I'm ready to sit back and get some AIM success! It appears his method desires volatility.
You are correct. This type of investment methodology is in a class called "core position trading" where one establishes an initial core holding (the first purchase) and then trades around that, selling as the value goes up, and buying as the value goes down. A very good and reasonably concise explanation can be found here, rather than my drawing out more detail:
http://www.buylo-sellhi.com/
AIMster
I've etablished four accounts primarily concentraing on one ETF or Mutual Fund in each...the XLV (healthcare), MOO (Agriculture), XLE (Oil/Gas), and Mid Cap Growth. Although, in a couple I have some stocks (down since purchase) my intent is to weed out of the stocks and place concentration on the ETFs. My theory is food, fuel, and heatlhcare. Seems to me world economies will be in need of all for sometime.
Hi, Alton,
Well!!! You're starting to sound like a battle-honed veteran already! Several of us here have done a shift to a greater or lesser percentage out of individual stocks and into funds, closed-end or ETF, mainly, though one could go into mutual funds as well.
The basic motivation here is that a single stock can implode totally and take your initial investment, plus all the additional monies that AIM has had you invest on the downside to become totally worthless. Which, psychologically is no fun and means you need to do more to recover from where you were. After all, a 50% loss requires 100% gain to get back to break-even. Thing Enron, WorldCom, etc., but also the more recent fall out from the mortgage crisis. This is an issue within AIM we need to be aware of as it is a potential Achilles' heel. Lichello was aware of it, he did say, several times that "anything can happen to a single stock" and further counseled that one should keep about 50% of stock holdings in quality "blue chip" stocks.
Funds of whatever flavor are less risky, at least in the sense that they're unlikely to become totally worthless like an individual stock. On the other hand, they won't move as much as individual stocks might. It's all ultimately a risk/reward balance, with AIM controlling the grand-scheme-of-things balance between how much to be in or out of the market.
Best,
AIMster
Does anyone know of any courses or books that would be helpful?
You might try your public library first. They might not have the latest books, but they'd certainly have some explaining general stock market theory and such.
Another basic primer would be Investing for Dummies. http://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-4th-Eric-Tyson/dp/0764599127/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202398897&sr=8-1
Might serve as a basic place to start then you can go to more in-depth from there. Of course one MANDATORY book is by a fellow named Robert Lichello on how to make a million automatically in the stock market! <grin>. Starting from a teenage part of life she or he might well get to their million fairly early!
Best,
AIMster
Hi All, I'm new to AIM and set up a couple of retirement accounts with intenting of checkup 2Xs per month. However, I've read where some checkup and adjust their accounts weekly. Is there an advantage to weekly checkups and potential trades?
Hi, Alton,
Welcome to the board! Good question! Checkup frequency is one item that Mr. Lichello considered very seriously. The biggest item that checkup frequency affects is cash reserve. In the ideal sense we want to commit our final dollars to the market at the absolute bottom of the market, such to start earning profit on the way back up. Another consideration is (in most cases) more trades=higher commission cost.
If we're in a prolonged downtrend, 2000-2003 for instance, if we checkup too often we'll be buying ahead of the curve and run out of cash, missing the most opportune bargains. On the other hand, at times such as we're in right now, where the market can go +/- several hundred points in a single day, more frequent checking may be advantageous.
Now, that being said, if you're in a mode where you're able to add savings, you may be in a position to afford more frequent checkups, since you're feeding new money in to the process.
I'm personally moving to the 2x per month you've suggested, having found a faster schedule to be too hard on the cash burn rate.
Part of it is sticking to it, waiting out the dips that for all intent and purpose would give your program a real advantage, long term. However, if you do that, you're cutting out some of the discipline that AIM gives us and aren't much better off in that sense than the regular hit-or-miss investor. The recent dip had BTO, for instance, trading under $5.50, now back up to $6.23. So, should I have pulled the trigger ahead of the checkup date? Maybe. But I couldn't know if there wasn't an even bigger dip ahead next week! In which case I would have only thrown more money, which is now gone from the cash reserve into the market prematurely.
AIM is a long-term process and will correct our mistakes as we go along, patience in this hyper-information-saturated age is a well cultivated commodity!
Keep the questions coming!
Best,
AIMster
Have any of you all ever submitted a claim under one of these class action suits? And, if so, how did you make out.
I get them in the mail from time to time, but the level of effort to pull together the info seems to not be worth it if I'm only going to get 27cents (which is what I got some years ago).
Any thoughts?
I think the ones who make any real money off any such suits are the lawyers who take the cases to courts in the first place. (well, DUH....I know, I know).
Seriously, though, like you, I'd probably get such a small amount in return it would cost them more in postage and check processing fees than it would for me to realize whatever .27 cents amount or thereabouts I'd get either.
So, no, I've seen these go by now and then but haven't optioned in.
Best,
AIMster
I decided to not get fancy with options and placed a GTC buy order for under $6 for shares of STKL.I hope the stock does not go too much lower at this point. A two point bounce would make me estatic and allow me to unload some shares.
Hi, TF,
I hope you get your bounce - and that it's more than one of the 'dead cat' variety - this bit from Yahoo looks like it might be a damper:
INVESTOR ALERT: KGS Announces the Initial Filing of Securities Fraud Class Action Lawsuit Against SunOpta, Inc. -- STKL
Monday January 28, 5:46 pm ET
NEW ORLEANS, LA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jan 28, 2008 -- Kahn Gauthier Swick, LLC ("KGS") has filed a class action lawsuit against SunOpta, Inc. ("SunOpta" or the "Company") (NasdaqGS:STKL - News) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on behalf of shareholders who purchased the common stock of the Company between August 8, 2007 and January 25, 2008, inclusive (the "Class Period"). No class has yet been certified in this action.
Good luck,
AIMster
I have been thinking of starting new positions in financials ETF like XLF and retail ETF.But I would like to have some ETF'S which have good dividend yield.I would request every body to suggest some such ETF'S.
Hi, Gujral,
A website a lot of us use for this type of question is ETFconnect. http://www.etfconnect.com - you can search or sort funds via discount, rate of returns, etc.
Have fun!
Best,
AIMster