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Trading Your Way To A Secure Retirement Income:
Attention traders! You can bring your well honed equity skills to the most conservative securities on the planet and absolutely grow a secure retirement income at the very same time. Managed Closed End Funds (CEFs) trade in the same way as common stocks, and on the same exchanges. |
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Retirement Income Solutions --- Webinar Study Guide & Sign Up Email Form:
After forty years of investing, a few things become crystal clear: you need to focus on quality, individual securities, diversify intelligently, and develop a lifetime supply of income. I call these principles The Big Three or the QDI. Just like the ice cream brick of my youth, it's just not right without all three flavors. The investment puzzle becomes easier to solve if you have a handle on all the pieces. |
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The Brainwashing of the American Investor --- The Greatest Stock Market Story Never Told:
An excellent strategy even in today's investing environment. The current buzz on the street is that investing is dead. How far from the truth can they be. Wall Street likes nothing more than to create fear. This book tells you how to put your emotions aside and look for good value on corrections in the market --- it also makes a strong case for profit taking, diversification, and base income generation. |
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IGVSI Bargain Stock Monitor Whispering: The Correction is Coming, The Correction is Coming:
The fewer IGVSI equities at bargain prices, the stronger the market and the more Smart Cash that should be accumulating in the equity bucket of your portfolio. As the list of bargain IGVSs grows (indicating market weakness), portfolio Smart Cash should be finding its way back into undervalued securities. |
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How Long Will The Stock Market Rally Continue?:
What happens in the future is unpredictable, but understanding the past and how it impacts your unique portfolio, is essential to your long-run investment comfort --- and sanity. The IGVS Expectation Analyzer has been developed for investors who want to view their monthly statements with a reasonable idea of what to expect. |
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2013 High-Low Stats Strongest Start Ever - Positive 30 of last 32 Months:
The New High and New Low issue stats can identify weaker and/or stronger sectors within the Investment Grade Value Stock selection universe --- very important in helping investors determine where the bargains are and where the profit taking opportunities should be. |
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IGVSI Issue Breadth Numbers Remain Very (Uncomfortably) Strong:
IGVSI breadth statistics signal changes in direction within Investment Grade Value Stocks only --- all CEFs, ETFs, REITs, and preferreds (and individual issues that are NOT investment grade) are excluded. Issue Breadth Statistics should allow investors to look inside an index to obtain a better feel for what has been going on --- these numbers will help you do just that. |
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The Investment Grade Value Stock Index - Continued:
The IGVSI was developed in December of 2007 to provide a benchmark for the Equity portion of MCIM portfolios managed using Working Capital Model (WCM) disciplines. For more than ten years, Investment Grade Value Stock investors had been frustrated by the inadequacies of the DJIA and the NYSE indices. During that period. NYSE Issue Breadth and New High vs. New Low Statistics moved in different directions than the averages, nearly all of the time. |
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IGVSI up 21% since 2007; S & P Just 4.6% --- Hmmmm:
The IGVSI is a barometer of a small but elite sector of the stock market called Investment Grade Value Stocks. Some IGVSI companies are included in all averages and indices, but no other index follows only the very highest quality companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Approximately 350 stocks meet IGVSI quality standards. |
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Municipal Bond Investing --- The 6% Tax Free Solution:
What if you could choose from a group of 65 tax free municipal bond funds, paying monthly income at an annual rate of roughly 6%? What if you could invest in 32 tax free Closed End Funds paying an annual rate above 6.2%?
Why hasn't your investment advisor/accountant/rich uncle told you that this is what he has been doing for upwards of twenty years? |
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Tax Code Strikes Again --- Proven Cause of Early Onset Investor Dementia:
How could any investor not be thrilled with large amounts of capital gains on top of significant tax free income? Concerned that an income tax liability is created by such wanton disregard for the tax code, some investors actually prefer to have no short term profits at all! Talk about shooting oneself in the foot. |
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Bond Crash Ahead says Market Watch & Investment News:
InvestmentNews wants to make damn sure its readers, the 90,000 professional financial advisers who rely on the timeliness and accuracy of every INews forecast, understand: “What will your clients’ portfolios look like when the bond bomb goes off?” |
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The Total Return Shell Game:
Just what is this total return thing that income investment managers like to talk about, and that Wall Street uses as the performance hoop that all investment Managers have to jump through? Why is it mostly just smoke and mirrors? Here's the formula: |
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When Your Ship Comes In --- Lottery, Signing Bonus, Inheritance, Etc.:
Lottery winners, professional athletes, celebrity varietals, and windfall recipients in general have at least one thing in common --- and it isn't their extraordinary luck or talent. Far too many wind up wondering where all the money went and how it disappeared so quickly. |
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Ten Common Investment Errors: Stocks, Bonds, & Management:
Losing money on an investment may not be the result of a mistake, and not all mistakes result in monetary losses. Compounding the problems that investors have managing their investment portfolios is the sideshowesque sensationalism that the media brings to the process. Avoid these ten common errors to improve your performance: |
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The Commission Controversy --- Smoke and Mirrors:
Nowhere in the world of investing is Brainwashing more apparent than in investor (regulator) attitudes toward commissions. Since Charles Schwab first shocked Wall Street by offering discount commission rates, a new industry has developed with a huge, cult-like, following. |
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What's Going On In The Markets?!?!:
If you were to buy almost any common stock or equity based security (mutual fund, ETF or Equity Closed End Fund), you would be paying a higher price than has ever been paid, by any person, at any time in the history of mankind. |
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Income Investing --- Finding the Right Stuff:
When is 3 percent better than 6 percent? Yeah, we all know the answer, but only until the prices of the securities we already own begin to fall. Then, logic and mathematical acumen disappear and we become susceptible to all kinds of special cures for the periodic onset of higher interest rates. We’ll be told to sit in cash until rates stop rising, or to sell the securities we own now, before they lose even more of their precious market value. |
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Working Capital Model ~ Market Cycle Investment Management Performance:
In the longer term scheme of things, a well defined, well organized, and quality based investment model will just naturally out-perform those that are not similarly constructed --- it's getting to that level of management expertise that is the issue. |
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Investment Performance Analysis Using the Working Capital Asset Allocation Model - Part 2:
This method of looking at things will get you where you want to be without the hype that Wall Street uses to create unproductive transactions, foolish speculations, and incurable dissatisfaction. It provides a valid use for portfolio Market Value, but far from the judgmental nature Wall Street would like. It's use in this model, as both an expectation clarifier and an action indicator for the portfolio manager on a personal level, should illuminate your light bulb. |
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Investment Performance Analysis Using the Working Capital Asset Allocation Model - Part 1:
It matters not what lines, numbers, indices, or gurus you worship, you just can't know where the stock market is going or when it will change direction. Too much investor time and analytical effort is wasted trying to predict course corrections… even more is squandered comparing portfolio Market Values with a handful of unrelated indices and averages. |
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Investment Performance: Part 2:
So what is an investor to do if he isn't going to just follow the crowd (i.e., by ignoring all of the blatant inconsistencies between the basics of goal orientated Investment Management and the ridiculousness of the performance- evaluation-by-the-averages, quarterly and annual statistical fiasco)? |
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Investment Performance: Part 1:
Contrary to popular belief and media propaganda, investing is not a competitive event. Rather, it is a uniquely personal and goal directed activity that individuals must organize and control for themselves.It is best dealt with by using the fundamental principles of three disciplines: Investment, Management, and Psychology |
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Working Capital Model ~ Market Cycle Investment Management Performance:
A well defined, well organized, and quality based investment model will just naturally out-perform those that are not similarly constructed --- it's getting to that level of management expertise that is the issue. |
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The Investment Gods Are Still Angry:
Today's obsession with short-term blinks of the investment eye is Wall Street's attempt to take the market cycle out of the performance picture. Similarly, total return hocus-pocus places artificial significance on bond market values while it obscures the importance of the income produced. MCIM users will have none of it; the investment gods are angry. |
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Investment Performance Expectations and Broker Account Statements:
Whether you go the discount route through Schwab, Ameritrade, Fidelity, etc., or enjoy a higher level of service through an independent like LMK Wealth Management, you should never be surprised by the market values reflected on your monthly account statement. |
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How's Your Investment Portfolio Doing? --- Seven Long-Term Analyzers:
Before Wall Street conned investors into thinking of calendar quarters as short-term and single years as long-term, market cycles were used to test investment strategies. Performance analysis was a test of management style and overall methodology, not a calendar year horse race with one of the popular averages. Bor-ing, yes--- but meaningful. |
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Stock and Bond Trading Powers Modern Asset Allocation:
Trading does not have to be done quickly to be productive, and it doesn't have to focus on higher risk securities to be profitable. And perhaps most importantly, it doesn't have to avoid the interest-rate-sensitive income securities that are so important to the long-term success of any true investment portfolio. |
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Risk Management, The Essence Of MCIM Investing:
Risk minimization requires the identification of what's inside a portfolio. Risk control requires decision-making by the owner of the investment assets. Risk management requires a selection process from a universe of securities that meet a known set of qualitative standards. |
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Attention Investors: It's Time To Check Your Asset Allocation Formula:
Wall Street is celebrating its meteoric five year and three month rise to approximately where it was toward the end of 2007 and, just a skosh above where it was way back in 1999. Why are they so excited about this fourteen year march to nowhere? How could Market Cycle Investment Management have improved on such dismal performance? Read'em and weep! |
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A Scary Future For IRAs and 401(k)s --- Is Anything Really Possible?:
Dr. Ghilarducci has presented a socialist solution to a problem that could easily be dealt with using rudimentary controls that would limit the amount of risk allowed inside these tax deferred savings devices. She also ignores the fact that most self-directed money lies in voluntary, privately sponsored, employee benefit programs--- emphasis on voluntary and private. |
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Your 401(k) Investment Plan Is Not A Retirement Program:
So long as we are in an environment where retirement plan income (and principal in the case of all private plans) is subject to income taxation, 401(k) participants would be wise to establish an after tax income portfolio invested in tax exempt securities--- or to vote more selfishly. |
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Why 401(k) Retirement Plans Really Don't Work...:
Still, the 401(k) plan deserves to be every bit as popular as it has become. It, and the vast array of complicated IRAs, could help save Social Security, improve the economy, and create jobs--- all those good things that no one in Congress seems to be interested in acomplishing. Just two simple strokes of an Oval Office ballpoint get it done: |
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Investment Grade Value Stocks At Ten Year Lows (October 2008):
A cocktail of credit market laxatives is working its way into a constipated world economy. Relief is on the way. Today's prices may well be looked at as the lowest of the next ten years! Here's a list of things to think about or to do while Investment Grade Value Stock prices are at ten-year lows: |
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The Next Stock Market Correction Could Start Tomorrow:
Why are investors afraid (shocked, confused, overwhelmed, angry) about stock market corrections? Here are eight assessments of the correction phase of the market cycle that may just clear their heads about these periodic gifts from the Investment Gods. |
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The Next Stock Market Correction Could Start Tomorrow:
Market Corrections can be good for the wallet! Corrections are part of the normal shock market menu, and can be brought about by either bad news or good news. If you don’t love corrections (and deal with them like visiting relatives) you really don’t understand the financial markets. |
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Attention Wall Street Shoppers: Always, Yes Always, Sell Too Soon:
The market has never and will never be a one way ticket to ride (smile Beatles fans). None of the important aspects of the voyage (highs, lows, volatility, or duration) are predictable, by anyone, no matter how overpaid or well credentialed. Sooner or later, some gutsy financial gurus will declare the stock market overbought and fraught with danger. |
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Managed Asset Allocation - The Working Capital Model TWO:
The Asset Allocation formula is often abused in an effort to superimpose a valid investment planning tool on speculation strategies that have no real merits of their own. For example, annual portfolio repositioning, market timing adjustments, and shifting between Mutual Funds. To be effective, Asset Allocation must be implemented as an on-going process that is to be tended to with every investment decision. |
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MCIM Asset Allocation: Investing by the Numbers:
If you focus exclusively on market value, dwell upon comparisons of your unique portfolio with the market averages, expect performance of some kind during specific time intervals, and listen intently when someone speaks about what the future is all about, any asset allocation work you do will be ineffective. |
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Social Security: Dear Congressman Nugent:
A letter to a Congreesman from Florida, written by a friend of mine. We both feel that there are viable replacement strategies for Social Security that don't involve the stock market. Please visit AmericareToday.com for the complete picture. |
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Dealing with Market Rallies: 10 Do’s & Don’ts:
A rally is a beautiful thing, particularly when the correction preceding it was embraced enthusiastically. This is the time to harvest your profits, pipe dreams of incredible wealth and ego aside --- jump on those profits before they erode before your disbelieving eyes. If you over think the environment or over cook the research, you'll absolutely miss the party. Unlike many things in life, stock market realities need to be dealt with quickly, decisively, and with zero hindsight. |
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The Investor's Creed --- What's That?:
The Stock Market is a dynamic place where investors can consistently make reasonable returns on their capital if they comply with the basic principles of the endeavor AND if they don't measure their progress too frequently with irrelevant measuring devices. Five simple concepts of Asset Allocation, Investment Strategy, and human Psychology are summed up quite nicely in The Investor's Creed. |
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The Financial Crisis, and Other Life Changing Investment Lessons:
On November 30th 2012, the S & P 500 Average (recognized benchmark for assessing the performance of investment managers of all shapes and sizes) was at its highest level in five years --- BUT that translates into a 4% loss over the past five years. Others have done better. |
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Income Investing Made Easy - Part One:
You don't have to be a professional Investment Manager to professionally manage your investment portfolio, but you do need to have a long term plan and know something about Asset Allocation --- a portfolio organization tool that is often misunderstood and almost always improperly used within the financial community. Remember, your unhappiness is Wall Street's most coveted asset. Don't humor them. |
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Managing the Income Portfolio - 201:
With equities, take a reasonable profit (between 8 and 10%) as frequently as possible; with income CEFs, a year's income in advance is the acid test if under 10%. With a 40% income allocation, 40% of profits and dividends would be allocated to income securities and assures that income growth will happen. |
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Managing the Income Portfolio 101:
The reason people assume the risks of investing in the first place is the prospect of achieving a higher rate of return than is attainable in a risk free environment --- an FDIC insured bank account. Risk comes in various forms, but the average investor’s primary concerns are “credit” and “market” risk, particularly when it comes to investing for income. |
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Real Estate Investing: No Lawyers, No Debt, No Plungers:
Without having mega millions to work with, or a line of credit that goes around the block, you can have positions in various forms of Real Estate (commercial, industrial, residential) at the same time, and focus either on growth opportunities, income production, or a combination of the two. |
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Understanding Income Investing – Valid Expectations - Part One:
I've come to the conclusion that the stock market is an easier medium for investors to understand (to form behavioral expectations about) than the fixed income market. As unlikely as this sounds, experience proves it, irrefutably. When dealing with income purpose securities neither investors nor their advisors are comfortable with any downward movement at all. |
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Income Investing: Go Ask Alice:
Don't let uniformed thinking sabotage your retirement program; don't let the selfish advice of a product sharpshooter send you chasing rabbits when IRE (interest rate expectations) or other temporary market conditions shrink the market value of your income portfolio. Feed your head; feed---your---head. Income pays the bills, and if the income level is both steady and adequate, there is no need to change investments. |
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Managed Asset Allocation - The Working Capital Model THREE:
As portfolio Working Capital grows, so does the income that it generates. As a result, there will always be some uninvested cash looking for a home. This is a good thing and should not be tinkered with by applying artificial or automatic reinvestment mechanisms. Every dollar deserves to be allocated separately to the appropriate bucket, and there are times when investment opportunities in the Equity market are few and far between. |
