You have heard about a particular mutual
fund from a friend, saw it advertised on TV or read
about it in some publication thought it would be
a good buy. Next you call your broker to get his
advice before you buy because he is an expert
and is there to help you make money.

?Hello, Billy Sol (see Billy Sol Estes on
Google), this is Joe Mushroom and I want to buy
some XYZ mutual fund. What do you think??

?Joe, I was just thinking about you and was
going to call you, but first let me look up XYZ
for you. Uh oh! Joe it has a high expense ratio
of about 1 ? per cent. I would not recommend
that for you.?

Billy Sol fails to mention that XYZ has
no load (that?s commission) so he would not make
any money if you bought it. There are thousands of
excellent no-load funds that outperform the load
funds. Billy Sol says the fund his brokerage
company recommends is ABC and again fails to
mention it has a 5% load (commission) and goes
on to paint a beautiful picture of ABC and how
well it has done in the past 5 and 10 year
period. Furthermore the expense ratio is only
one per cent which is savings of 33%.

WOW! Joe thinks that sounds pretty good so
he lets Bill Sol buy ABC instead of XYZ. Let?s see
what really happened.

Joe saves ? percent per year on the expense
ratio, but pays and extra 5% up front. Maybe I?m
wrong, but if you divide ?% in 5% that goes 10
time. In other words it is going to take Joe
Mushroom 10 years to makeup that 5% commission
charge not counting what that 5% charge would
have made if it had been working in Joe?s
account for that 10 year period.

What it boils down to is never pay commission
for any mutual fund. If the broker will not sell
you a no-load fund then get another broker. He
is not trying to help you make money. He is
trying to make money for himself and his company
and may tell you his company does not carry a
particular fund because they don?t think it is a
good. Hog wash. Another broker lie. It is your
money and you are entitled to buy any fund. Go
to a discount broker who handles that fund and
open an account. It will save you a bundle over
the years and they are as safe an any big-name
broker.

Advice from a financial planner is no better if
he is making commissions. The smart method is to
have a fee based broker who has a winning track
record. Have any financial planner show you his
model account. He should have one or maybe
several model portfolios. Unless they make money
every year he is not a successful money advisor.
Don?t let them hoodwink you about their
performance ?is better than the S

Tags: day trading, investors, mutual funds, portfolio, stock market, stocks, trading

There are formulas for just about everything,
but it has been shown that the simpler the
formula or method of doing a particular task
the better it works. It has evolved down to
KISS ? Keep It Simple Stupid.

This also applies to trading in the stock
market. There are literally hundreds of
formulas, both technical and fundamental that
are easily available to investors. Each trader
has his own method he uses. Every professional
trader on the floor of the stock exchange has
his own variation on some major proven
formula. The more skilled he becomes with it
the more he feels it is the best one.

Sometimes it takes years for a trader to
settle on one method or group of methods that
he uses to signal buys and sells. It took me
many years to find that technical group that
worked for me when I was an exchange member.

For some it evolves into long term trading
and for others it can be buying and selling in
a matter of minutes. The time period is not
important. The method is. Even as a floor
trader on the commodity exchange I had only
two criteria I watched before entering into
any position.

All professional traders and investors are
aware of the single most important fact and
that is how much I am willing to lose before I
exit this new position. Every KISS formula has
an exit strategy. Every professional knows in
advance how much he will allow himself to lose
if he is wrong. The professional does not set
a limit on the winning side of a trade only on
the losing side.

Ask any full time professional and he will
tell you if he is right 50% of the time he
considers that to be phenomenal. When I was on
the floor I was only right about 40% of the
time, even about 20% and wrong about 40%. BUT
I made $3.00 for every dollar I lost. Small
losses and big winners are the key to success.
This is the key to any profitable formula ?
keeping the losses small.

When I see advertisements in the financial
papers for methods claiming to be right 80%,
90% of the time I cringe. It just can?t be.
There is no trader I ever met who was that
good and I have known some exceptional
traders.

The major text on technical analysis is
?Technical Analysis of Stock Trends? by
Edwards and Magee now in the 17th printing of
the Fifth Edition that lists multitudes of
methods. They all work, but many are
complicated. A magazine called Futures Truth
analyses 200 commodity trading systems in each
issue. Fundamental Theory is equally complex.

There are software programs that allow the
investors to enter as many as 30 parameters.
The more complex it is the less chance it has
to work. And the biggest obstacle to any
program is the trader himself. He cannot
hesitate when a buy or sell signal is given.

Keep your formula simple and execute the
signals. You can be a winner.

Al Thomas\’ book, \”If It Doesn\’t Go Up, Don\’t Buy
It!\” has helped thousands of people make money
and keep their profits with his simple 2-step
method. Read the first chapter at
http://www.mutualfundmagic.com
and discover why he\’s the man that Wall Street
does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

Writen By : Al Thomas

Tags: day trading, investors, mutual funds, portfolio, stock market, stocks, trading

Do you have a financial planner? Does one of
your friends have a financial planner? Maybe you
take your advice from your broker. As I have
said countless times before a broker will make
you broker. And a financial planner won?t do any
better. I know. You thought they would.

Let?s look at the real reason investors choose
to take advice from these so called ?experts?.
Once they get you into their office or sitting
with you at the dining room table or kitchen
table you are doomed. Mr. F.P. has come prepared
with beautiful slick color brochures and will
have a presentation that will utterly confuse,
bedazzle and befuddle. You will sit there and be
afraid to ask a question because you know it is
so dumb. You can?t say ?no? or you will be
admitting how dumb you are. And he knows that.

It is not that he is a liar. (I hope.) It is
that all financial planners and brokers are
taught the Wall Street method of ?making money?.
Unfortunately it doesn?t work.

The basic things that have been pounded into
their heads are false. Let?s look at the big
three: Do Research, Dollar Cost Average and Buy
and Hold. There are others, but these you will
hear from every broker and financial planner
because that is what the big brokerage companies
and mutual fund families want. They want your
money and they want to keep it even when the
stocks or funds you own go down. In fact, buy
some more.

Research is like blowing in the wind. You will
be inundated with green sheets, blue sheets, red
sheets, slick full color glossies, videos, etc.,
etc. Think about this. If you can obtain this
information then so can everyone else.
Everything that is known about a particular
stock is reflected in the last price.
Morningstar will sell you a beautiful package
about a company, but it is worthless. What you
really want to know is will it go up after I buy
it?

Of course, if it goes down you will be
encouraged to buy more to average out your price
so that when it heads up again you will make a
fortune. Yes, and pigs can fly.

If it does go down your advisor may say to hold
on as the market always comes back. He doesn?t
tell you it may take 20 years or that the
company might go out of business. Buy and Hold
is the greatest myth of Wall Street. No one ever
tells you to sell. Have you been told you don?t
have a loss until you take it? Please!

You got that advisor because you have not
admitted to your self that you cannot pull the
trigger. When you have a stock or fund that is
falling you don?t want to sell. You have to take
charge of your money. Just you.

When you look back at the performance of most
financial planners from 2000 to 2003 you know
you can do a better job. Always ask to see what
they did then. If they lost money you don?t want
them. Don?t let them compare their performance
to the S

Tags: day trading, investors, mutual funds, portfolio, stock market, stocks, trading