A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[The Grabber]

Bernie: Hopefully my post earlier today helps you understand LD-AIM a little better. I apologize again for providing such a lousy explanation when I sent you the spreadsheet.

Now as for comparitive returns on fully invested versus Low Down, you are correct of course if you don't consider that I will be investing the 'leftover' $ in another AIM program. In all fairness, the assessment would need to be made on the total return from all 10,000 of those $ from any source.

If my focus was current income like yours, I'd throw all my $ at a number of relatively high yield instruments (REITS, Bonds, etc), set some very conservative AIM settings with relatively low cash reserves and let it rip.

But that is not my focus currently. What I am doing is spreading my risk via diversification amongst multiple issues in multiple sectors by only owning and holding enough shares and cash respectively to cover reasonable AIM activity at the settings I've selected. (Long sentence. I know).

Please play around with my spreadsheet. Once you begin to see the effect that the different settings have on the ROCAR $ and %; and the allocation between Capital @ Risk and Cash Reserve, you can 'get to' whatever starting position you desire quite easily. For you that may be 66/33. For me, depending on the investment, I might go with 50/50 (original AIM for sideways markets), or even 100/0 (on stocks I may want to be in, but in a hugely risk averse manner).

As for potential IRS treatment of dividends, just the rumour is already being priced into the market. That train is ready to leave the station IMHO. Imagine if MFST, CSCO or SUNW decide to open their cash coffers! Tax adjsuted PE's will need to be calculated for sure!

Finally, Since you would want to invest more to maximize current income, then move to the rightmost portion of the spreadsheet. I think using the PC multiplier factor to increase your effective Portfolio Control value is an ideal approach on slow moving stocks like REITS. Under those circumstances you could improve your return even more so than you are now.

Again, let me apologize if this is confusing to anyone.

Thanks, Steve