A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[OldAIMGuy]

Hi O, Re: Maintaining discipline over time (Weeks, Years and Decades)
Writing my weekly risk report has certainly helped me. When my AIM-Users web site started in 1997, I'd already been an AIM user for a decade. ( https://web.archive.org/web/20120305030918id_/http://www.aim-users.com/arch97.htm#jan97 , first post!) In those reports I talked about market risk and also about my various AIM directed trades over the years. I didn't much attempt to "benchmark" my portfolio's growth vs an index, but rather to just make sure my accounts were healthy and growing on average.

Certainly feedback from other AIM users has helped tremendously. The growth of ideas related to AIM has been a treat to watch as well. I remember when Grabber wanted to diversify his retirement account but felt there wasn't enough total asset value to divide into more individual AIM engines. That is what had him create "Low Down AIM." He successfully diversified his portfolio by substituting synthetic shares for actual holdings to expand the number of AIM engines and keep their trade ranges rational compared to real market ranges. That's just one example. Other contributions are too many to list.

When in 1988 I went to Bob Bondurant's School for high performance driving to get my competition race license, he spoke of "Smoothness, Consistency and Concentration" as being the prime factors for going quickly around a race track. Not Horsepower, Brake materials, Tire Compounds, etc, all he wanted us to do is train our brains to be smooth, consistent and to have unfailing concentration. That also happened to be my first year as a full time AIM investor. I found that Mr. Bondurant's advice worked well with my investing "race" as well. It's also not bad for personal relationships, business relationships and maintaining a bulletin board and web site for decades!

The positive feedback, as mentioned, has made the discipline easy.

Thanks for your thoughtful inquiry,
OAG Tom