Hi SF
Re: "problem with dialog"
Dialog doesn't make a portfolio profitable or not. One's own strategy, testing, and confidence and actual doing determines profitability ---or not.
As for my figures, we can quibble over end of month, middle of month, starting amount etc, forever and we can always achieve different results. But reaching results different from mine, e.g. 155k, 140k, 103k, all on a 20k investment over five years are all pretty good.
My figures happened to come from the BUY UPSIDE site. That is really unnecessary though, just look at the five year graphs of any of the indexes I mentioned. All, in my opinion are great vehicles for AIM, and that is my only point. I have used them all for my own AIM portfolio for around four years or so, and will for the foreseeable future continue to do so.
I am thankful to Mr. Lichello for helping me to become very rich. I read his first book SUPER POWER INVESTING and followed up with HOW TO MAKE.... when they first came out. I have tweaked them to be sure to my own liking and comfort level, as should any user. The systems presented have worked very well for me. No guarantees that they will work for me or for anyone in the future. But from past experience it is a reasonable probability that they will.
Mr. Lichello wrote his AIM book after the terrible early 70,s bear market. He wanted to, by all appearances, save investors from being decimated in down markets, and even take advantage of them. Other than his 10-4-10-4 repeating pattern of using AIM in his book, AIM is really a DEFENSIVE system. In real life one will not find a monthly 10-4-10-4-10-4 etc pattern.
Many persons such as myself have tweaked AIM to make it more AGGRESSIVE. In subsequent editions Mr. Lichello tried to introduce more aggression by reducing portfolio control from his original 50%.
My aim in writing these blurbs is to hopefully, make more people rich. It won't happen in one or two years, but the 20 and 30 somethings out there have a great chance at being millionaires in twenty or thirty years using a simple consistent investing formula. I've introduced the aforementioned indexes as excellent vehicles for AIM, and I have used them myself with much success. They didn't exist even 10 years ago, and I think that they are a great addition to our investing arsenal. You are all going to be 20 or 30 years older someday and it would be nice if you were very wealthy and comfortable then.
Buy and hold cannot be beaten as a strategy over the long term with a vehicle that goes up over the chosen period. The same is true with dollar cost averaging, though I'd convert dollar cost averaging to AIM and start a new DCA program from scratch as the DCA portfolio gets so large that the periodic investments make only trivial changes in the cost per share. Same for SYNCHROVEST.
BUT one doesn't know at any time what the long term will hold, therefore a strategy such as AIM, or any strategy that one has tested and has CONFIDENCE in enough to USE CONSISTENTLY, is necessary to achieve the long term goal of acquiring a large comfortable portfolio.
I have several reit's and income cef's for which AIM is a mere afterthought since the activity is so minimal. The income stream is what I'm interested in here, and it may actually be beneficial to just lump sum into them.
For active growth I use my own variation of AIM on the leveraged indexes mentioned. No one should invest in anything I have said or in any manner that I have reported unless and until one has done their own homework with pencil to paper and is CONFIDENT in the method(s) and vehicles of their own choosing. I am not going to feel bad if one doesn't invest like I do. I do not need any more positive strokes or affirmations.
As an investor who started in the '70,s I would like to impart some information and motivation to up and coming investors who have much more powerful investment vehicles at their behest than anyone did even just a few years ago. It is really so much easier to become wealthy now (meaning over the next few decades, not tomorrow or next year) than ever. One need to not be "afraid" to invest. Become knowledgeable yourselves. Don't wait for bloggers to test theories and discuss them. Do it yourself, and develop the confidence from doing it yourself. Especially with LEARNING mistakes along the way.
Don't get so bogged down in another's statistics or details of presentation that you miss the big picture.
A former professor, whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude, a great investor in his own rite, once said in a lecture that so much of the risk analysis and minutiae that one can find in economics and finance are nothing more than mental masturbation, and one shouldn't lose site of one's objective which is having more money in the pocket of one's jeans at the end of the year.
In any event I hope I've been a little bit constructive. I'm out of hear on another vacation. I'll check back on this site periodically and maybe contribute something of value.
Happy investing, and may we all prosper.
