As I have said many times before in this column it really doesn?t make any difference what you buy ? stocks, funds or indexes – it takes smarts to know when to sell. Direction of the general market is more important than selection of any equity.

Everyone from the multimillion dollar analyst on Wall Street to your broker to your barber thought he was a financial genius from 1982 to 2000. Anyone using the stock page from the Wall Street Journal as a target could have picked a winner even if his aim was terrible. Just hit the page anywhere and buy that stock. We were in a secular bull market. History shows these last about 16 to 18 years and , unfortunately, are followed by a secular bear market of about the same period of time.

During the up time the case for ?the market always goes up? becomes crystallized in their brain so that any set back is viewed as a ?correction? that will be soon be overcome and the market will be making new high prices again. Unless you are willing to limit the amount of loss from those high prices you will give back all your profits and many times even more.

The price of a stock will fluctuate for many reasons usually involving how much profit they are making or anticipate making in the near future. During the past 5 years we have seen tremendous ups and downs in many of the major issues. When a ?good? company?s stock goes down it doesn?t mean it is a ?bad? company, but it does mean you will be losing money if you hang on to it. The reason you bought the stock was to make money, not lose it, so you must be willing to sell when it goes against you.

Knowing the general direction of the overall market is the key to selling success. An excellent indicator is the S

Tags: 401k, finances, funds, investments, ira, mutual funds, portfolios, retirement, retirement investments, stocks

During our travel down life?s path we come to many places where the trail divides and we must make a decision. Some involve psychological (emotional) choices ? marriage, divorce, leaving home, career changes, etc. Others are monetary ? buying a new car, home, starting your own business, investing, etc. Many are interwoven having aspects of both psychological and monetary.

The marriage decision means you have decided to live and share everything with a partner and also support that partner in every way including financial.

Investing in anything is at first mostly financial, but as you accumulate a larger and larger amount it begins to have a grip on your emotions. Greed and fear are the two great motivators in the investment community. Everyone wants to buy that $1.00 stock that goes up to $200 per share. Unfortunately, for most, the pot of gold remains at the end of the rainbow. As the years pass by and your investments become larger and larger fear of loss creeps into the subconscious. No one wants to lose.

During the past 3 years we have seen many people lose a great deal of their stock market investments. Both fear and greed have taken their toll. Wall Street has not taught you how to prevent loss and they never will. Until you have experienced losses you go along with the program and too late you realize there must be a better way, another path. Once you have found it you now have the decision to break away from old conventional wisdom. You realize that you have been following the wrong path.

Wall Street?s maxims of Buy and Hold, Do Research and Dollar Cost Average have been and still are false. Once you have come to this understanding you will be on the road to successful investing. You will have taken the right turn on the path.

Losing money is not only a financial hardship but also a psychological burden. No one likes to be wrong, but hear this bit of advice about the stock market. It is OK to lose a small amount, but never OK to lose a large amount. Protection of your capital is of prime importance.

Whenever you buy a stock or mutual fund your first consideration should be how much am I willing to lose if it goes down instead of up? You can set that parameter at 5% to 20% of your investment. For stocks you can have the broker put in a permanent stop loss order, but for mutual funds you must set the price and make the call to tell the broker to sell you out. You are on the right path because you are in control. If you do sell with a 10% loss remember you now have 90% of your money remaining so you can find a more profitable vehicle. Ask around to find out how many of your friends now wish they had had one of those stop orders in place during the past 3 years.

The secret pathway to success in the stock market is selling, not buying.

Al Thomas

Author of \”If It Doesn\’t Go Up, Don\’t Buy It!\”

Never lose money in the stock market again.

http://www.mutualfundmagic.com

Writen By : Al Thomas

Tags: 401k, finances, funds, investments, ira, mutual funds, portfolios, retirement, retirement investments, stocks

Never lose money in the stock market again. Yeah, I know. Don?t buy any stock, but that is not what I meant. There is a clear and easy way to protect your capital ? what you have now and what you might decide to buy in the future. And don?t count on your broker to tell you this.

As you are aware we have been in a bear market since the beginning of 2000. That is a long time and if you have held your stocks and mutual funds for all this time you have some pretty terrible losses. Losses you did not have to take if you had a knowledgeable broker or financial planner. Financial planners don?t know any more than brokers so you can?t count on them to save your money from being flushed along with everyone else. It is a shame that brokers and planners are not taught how to protect your capital.

When a broker is hired he is given 2 manuals to study. One is on SEC (Securities and Exchange) regulations so he will not break any rules so his company will not be fined for misconduct. The other is on how to open new accounts – how to get you to send money. There is no training on how to trade ? buy low and sell high. His training manual consists on how to do ?research?. Research is knowing all about a company to determine if it is well run and they are making money or have the ability to make money some time in the near future.

You can obtain complete reports of everything you want to know and even more from Morningstar. They will bury you in information. This kind of ?research? is worthless. Why? Because if you can find it out then everyone in the world knows it and it is reflected in the current price. The one thing you want to know is if you buy it will it go up.

The average broker has about 300 accounts and unless you have lots of money he will not pay much attention to you. As new brokers get a large number of accounts they give away the small accounts (those with less than $50,000) to the new, less experienced brokers so they can concentrate on the big boys with big bucks.

That is why you, and only you, must learn how to protect your investments. In a bear market the one who loses the least is the winner and the way to do it is with Stop Loss Orders. If you bought a stock or mutual fund you must immediately decide how much you will risk if it should go down instead of up. Usually 10% is a good rule of thumb. If you paid $40 per share you should sell it immediately of it goes down below $36. Don?t ask your broker because he has been taught to Buy and Hold and that philosophy will break you. As your stock goes up you must raise your stop (never lower it) so it trails 10% behind the closing price posted very Friday in the newspaper. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people today who wish they had done this during the past 2 years.

If you were one of them it is not too late to start now so your retirement account will be there when you need it.

Al Thomas

Author of \”If It Doesn\’t Go Up, Don\’t Buy It!\”

Never lose money in the stock market again.

http://www.mutualfundmagic.com

Writen By : Al Thomas

Tags: 401k, finances, funds, investments, ira, mutual funds, portfolios, retirement, retirement investments, stocks

I constantly hear the talking heads on CNBC-TV, the radio and other places talking about THE market. Of course, they mean the stock market which actually now is world wide and no longer just concentrated in New York. To every New Yorker New York is the center of the world from which radiates all knowledge and everything else worthwhile.

The stock market is thousands of companies world wide. Those that have been listed with the New York Stock Exchange must meet strict requirements as to the capitalization of the company and the price of their stock as well as its ability to be traded so there must be many thousands of shares and large numbers of shareholders.

The trick, and I call it that even though it isn?t, is to be able to tell when it is in an up trend and when it is going down. If you knew this you could not only make a lot of money but could keep from giving back profits when you have them. When the market is going up you want to own stocks and mutual funds because 60% of a move in stocks is due to the general direction of the overall market.

When I first invested I made and lost like everyone else until I learned to listen to the voice of Mr. Market. Because we are so overwhelmed with useless data from brokers, newspapers, magazines, TV, friends and other nefarious sources we haven?t taken the time to learn the language of the market. And it isn?t that complicated. Mr. Market will tell you all you need to know.

Most of us don?t have time to be pouring over the financial news every day because we have a life that requires our attention, but if you are willing to give about 15 minutes each week you can learn the language of Mr. Market. Day trading language is not where it?s at; however, the long term language is very easy. You simply plot a 200-day moving average of the S

Tags: 401k, finances, funds, investments, ira, mutual funds, portfolios, retirement, retirement investments, stocks

Well, not really. What I mean is I don?t mind losing a small amount when I have to sell a stock or mutual fund that is going down or taking away the profit I have made. During this past 3 years I have made money each year because I was not afraid to sell. The great secret that Wall Street does not want investors to know is all about selling, not buying.

The recent headlines scream?10 Stocks To Buy Now?, ?100 Best Mutual Funds For 2003?, ?Make 25% With These Safe Stocks? and ?Now Is The Time To Buy?. All are either stupidity or wishful thinking. Brokers and financial planners don?t want you to find out that they don?t know either so they come up with great stories about the equities they recommend. Unfortunately, when the stock or fund heads down it becomes one of those buy and hold situations and they tell you that you are ?in for the long haul? and ?the market always comes back?. I hope that by now you have learned this is not true.

When there is a secular bear market, as I believe we are in now, it could be many years before we get back to ?even?. Last year 96% of all stock equity mutual funds lost money and the average fund lost 21%. These are times when the only safe place for money is in cash ? a money market account. For the previous 3 years money in your mattress outperformed the stock market by 40% and for lots of folks much more. Here is one your broker will not tell you ? Cash Is A Position.

The first thing you must learn about investing is how to protect yourself from losses. I mean big losses. When I was a floor trader on the exchange I lost on about 40% of my trades, but I never lost much. I came to love those little losses because I still had almost all my money available to find a better position. One that would make money.

Almost all of the magazine writers, talking heads and brokerage analysts are professional losers. It is easy to prove because they never tell you where to sell what they are telling you to buy. If you don?t go in with a plan to protect your money it is like a general who goes into battle with no plan for retreat should he find he couldn?t win the battle. One of the simplest money savers is the 10% stop. It you buy a stock or no-load mutual fund you should not take more than a 10% loss. This will leave you with 90% of your money that could find a real winner. The small losses will never break you. It is sitting with a loss that gets bigger and bigger and bigger is the one that will ruin you.

Learning to love the little losses will make you rich.

Al Thomas

Author of \”If It Doesn\’t Go Up, Don\’t Buy It!\”

Never lose money in the stock market again.

http://www.mutualfundmagic.com

Writen By : Al Thomas

Tags: 401k, finances, funds, investments, ira, mutual funds, portfolios, retirement, retirement investments, stocks

I love roller coasters. The steeper the better. High and fast and curvy. Yahoo! Let?s go again. But to get to the drop off point you have a slow grind up.

Kinda reminds me of the stock market for the past 3 years. From 1982 to 2000 it was 18 years of up, up and away with very little down. From 2000 it was over the edge, down, down, down with few hints that we are going up. Recently, since October, there has been a respite and we have seen an advance of about 25%. Can we get back to the top? Gosh I hope so, but I have to remember this is a roller coast and it goes back to where it started. Oh, NO! That is OK for amusement rides, but in the stock market that is not amusing.

In the roller coaster I expect to be let off where I got on, but in the stock market I want to stay up near the top because if I don?t I will lose my money and that is no fun at all. Is there any way I can protect my money when I am near the top and not give it back to go to the bottom where I have to start all over again?

The first thing you need to know is whether the stock market is going up or down. Despite what Wall Street tells you this is relatively easy to do. I know because I have been doing it for years. Here is one simple way and won?t require any work on your part. In the Investor?s Business Daily newspaper there is a Mutual Fund Index. When the price of the index is above the 200-day moving average the market is going up and you will want to be a buyer of stocks and mutual funds. What you buy is up to you. When the price of the index is below the 200-day line you should sell out of everything and be in cash, money market account or bonds. That simple. Anyone can do it.

One of the big Wall Street lies is that you cannot time the market. Wrong. If you don?t believe it you can prove it to yourself by doing a historical study of what I have just said. Buy as many shares of the S

Tags: 401k, finances, funds, investments, ira, mutual funds, portfolios, retirement, retirement investments, stocks