Replies to post #18156 on A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board (AIMUSERS)

[minstrlman]

From the many thousands spent on seminars in the past most only enriched the people holding them

'Nuff said IMHO)

[The Grabber]

Good Morning Neil.

Well to answer your first question, my only direct experience prior to AIM was that I was a member of an investment club back in the mid-eighties. At that time, the NAIC was about the only cost efficient way for small investors to learn and take part. I had to leave the club since I was moving out of state.

I also subscribed for a while to the Mutual Fund Forecaster which I found to be very instructive.

I saw Lichello's infomercial way late on TV during one of my insomniac nights and found the concept fascinating. As it happened, my father-in-law also saw the it and sent the $300 for the tapes, and booklet (essentially the book on a 3 ring binder, typos and all!). He asked me to 'find the fatal flaw' in the concept, and I couldn't. I tested it with my company's stock history (keyed into Lotus 1-2-3 from a Nasdaq form we used to get). It passed the test with a pretty high grade, although I found that if you reset the program after a few cycles, it did better. Not a fatal flaw, but there are some in there I think. Lichello was for simplicity, so gave back a little performance in trade.

I wasn't until the internet came along that I got active with AIM thanks to Tom's BB out on Silcon Investor. I began using real $ with AIM at the end of October, 1999. I've also pretty much 'got me edumacated' with respect to investing on the internet. It is not my life's work.

I agree that Investmnent Seminars that cost $ are there to enrich the speaker, not the audience. If the system was so good, then why the seminars? Of course one could say that about Lichello as well. $300 was a lot of money back in the eighties. His book is a lot cheaper.

[OldAIMGuy]

Hi Neil, Re: Long Journey............
For me the main part of the journey was before finding Mr. Lichello's book. I started buying stocks after college with whatever money I had left from the meager salary I made on my first job. The market was so bad that in three years, I don't think I had a single stock that went "up" after my initial purchase!

Finally in the 4th year they started to rise a bit and I started feeling better about investing. Back then I was essentially "dollar cost averaging" even though it wasn't regular or constant in amount. It was, maybe, more like just averaging down. There wasn't any "Cash Reserve" as there wasn't any cash!!! So, when my poor stocks did get clobbered further, I couldn't really do anything except wait until I had some more spare cash.

Some time later I sold off maybe 20% of my position, paid the taxes and funded my own cash reserve. I'd use it to buy on market dips and recover it with small be reasonable profits. So, when I came across Mr. L's book in the mid '80s, it made a lot of sense to me. It was also much more regimented than what I did.

I tested AIM in real time for a full year before making a commitment to it. When I did change to AIM, it was 100%.

So many seminars turn out to be sales pitches rather than educational. I did listen to Mr. Lichello's "seminar" which was a late night "infomercial" for free on TV sometime in the '80s. It was not long after I'd read his book. Now, the real question is would I have spent $XXxx.xx on a seminar for Mr. Lichello's AIM model? I have to say, "Probably not" but that's my nature.

I think that AIM fits my nature and my lifestyle. To say that there's not other or better ways to make money is simply not true. There are lots of ways, but not many would have fit with my life very well. I've kidded with the group here about my favorite book in the past. Its title is, "The Man Who Was Too Lazy To Fail." It's the story of working smarter, not harder and is somewhat tongue in cheek.

So, it's my lifestyle and my nature that keep me using AIM. It works for me and helps me to be mostly successful in my investments. It seems that puts me ahead of many others. I'm sure there's a crowd ahead of me as well, but I'm running my own race.

Best regards, Tom