A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[OldAIMGuy]

Hi R, Re: Changing AIM settings according to market conditions....

I agree with Toof on this one. It's best to set up your AIM holdings with what would be "all weather" settings and then leave them alone. Otherwise you tend to "push" the program in the way you "wish" the market would go.

For settings, think about how often the program might trade with certain settings and what the LIFO gain is between a buy and a sell. Those same settings will give you a discount from your last sell to the first minimum buy. Are those gains and discounts what you want for the long term? If so, then set and forget.

2012 was a year that might have tempted AIMers to change their basic settings. The market remained range bound for most of the year but the amplitude of the range was barely enough to trigger activity on either the buy or sell sides. If, based upon 2012, one then reduced the SAFE settings to get more "action" how would those new settings work if we had a repeat of 2008-2009?

One of the main purposes of AIM is to free us from "trend analysis", "prediction" and "extrapolation." Since the statistics show poor long term success for such activities, AIM's "reactive" process usually takes care of things. In other words, we react to what has just happened rather than try to predict what might yet happen. AIM is like the Boy Scout Motto for investors: Be Prepared!

As much as it may be tempting to make AIM adaptive to market conditions, it's best to leave it alone and stick with the business plan of LIFO gains for selling and predictable discounts for buying.

Best regards,