I have been trading for several decades and was an exchange member and floor trader for 17 years. You learn fast there or you go broke in a hurry. As you can see I managed to hold my own for a few years until I found the secret and started to become a successful trader. Every professional trader I know knows the one great secret and that is to keep your losses small.

We all learned that when we took a position – either long or short – that we better be able to jump out if the trade was not going our way. Many of my friends were scalpers. That means they were trading for just a few ticks and every night went home flat. Flat is no positions at all.

Others, myself included, took a longer look and planned to hold a position for a period of time. That could be several days or weeks. If you were right the longer you held on the more money you would make.

The general public seems think that exchange members know everything and always made money.Tain’t so. Many traders were wrong more than 50% of the time. Huh? Yes, fifty percent. My account had losses 40% of the time and 20% were scratch trades (neither winners nor losers).

You ask, “If you are out of the money 60% of your trades how can you make money?” This is what every professional knows: Keep your losses small and let your profits run. How many times have you heard that one? BUT how many times have you ignored that rule?

At the end of the year when you analyze your trades you find that you made $3.00 for each $1.00 you lost you will show a nice big profit.

I don’t care what business you are in you don’t put your whole wad on a single outcome and stick with it until it either works or go broke. That is what brokers and mutual fund managers want you to do. They want you to buy, but never sell.

It is a tragedy for the small investor today that mutual fund families are putting in selling restrictions to discourage investors from dumping funds that are headed down. Many require long holding periods and if you sell prior to that time they charge an extra fee of 2%. They give lame excuses that I know are not true for doing this. Never buy any fund or trade with any brokerage company that has that kind of rule.

It is cheaper to pay the 2% or whatever fee there is and get out than hang around and lose 20% to 40% of your equity. Look back at 2000 to 2003. This can happen again despite what your broker tells you.

Be wrong and run home with most of your money. You still have enough to invest in a better opportunity. If you are disciplined to get out of any bad situation early you will end up a rich person.

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.

There are red lights, green lights, blue lights and spot lights. There are orange lights, pink light and flash lights. There are search lights and micro lights. And the one you must obey is the stop light.

If you don’t stop when the light is red you could easily have an accident and lose everything you have, even your life. These different types of lights alert us to possibilities and dangers. Is there a light that goes on that tells us whether the stock market is going up or down; one that is green to invest or red to sell? They aren’t very obvious, but they are out there. You only need to become aware and learn when the signal flashes.

It doesn’t take long to learn to drive an automobile, but it does require much more skill to handle an 18-wheeler. The professional driver has taken to time to learn his profession. He knows what all the lights mean. Not only the red and green, but the yellow and blue as well. There are also many light signals inside the cab that he must be aware of all the time if he is to have a safe passage.

Stock market signals may not be red or green or any color at all, but they are there and are obvious to one who wants to learn. The one who wants to learn is the investor who wants to protect his capital from loss and to make enough money to retire in a comfortable life style.

The most obvious signal is the 200-day moving average. You can find one of the best market signals printed every day in the Investor’s Business Daily Mutual Fund Index. When the index is above the 200MA line you are in the green and should to be invested. When it is below the 200MA line you the red light is on and you want to be in a money market fund. When those signals flash and you learn to act you will become very wealthy over the next 10 to 20 years. You will not lose your money when the market is going down.

It you take the time to go back in history, say 20 years and treat the S&P500 Index as a dollar value you will quickly see that buying and selling on this simple method would have made you a ton of money. No, there is not very much trading involved. You will only be buying or selling about once each year. It will not take much of your time and you will sleep better, especially when the market is crashing and your money is safely tucked away.

Currently the green signal is on to be invested according to the IBD Mutual Fund Index. The red signal will come on that tells you it is time to sell when the index plunges below the 200MA line. Pay attention to the signals. You don’t want to lose everything.

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.

The thinking process of the brain relating to the psychology of trading involves:

– Beliefs
– Feelings
– Values
– Dispositions and
– Faith

The positive or negative energy brings power to a person’s actions, which ultimately determines whether a person is a winner or a loser. You can change for the better or for the worst. The old saying goes: For as a man thinks in his heart so he is.

– Trading is the most difficult money making skill to master, because the market represents the aspects of people and life.

It is necessary to scratch the surface and explain what psychology means and how it relates to trading. Without doing so, you will not understand why this element is important to your trading plan.

The psychology aspects of people are separated into two categories:

1. Believers (the first category) who support the belief that something in the realms of other dimensions in the universe exist and
2. Non-believers (the second category) who are convinced that reality is the only dimension of life.

It is (the first category) that usually uses both sides of the brain to think and has access to a third component of the brain (faith) that is dead when the person is born. (The second category) only uses a small portion of the brain’s power. While (the second category) may or may not use both side of the brain to function, the third part of the brain (faith) is completely dead and non-active.

See, the psychology of the brain is separated into three separate parts:

1. Faith
2. The thinking factor and
3. The emotional part.

If the thought, (focusing on the power of positive thinking), division of the brain controls the emotions, the individual maintains and develops discipline. If the emotions run the thinking part of the brain, the human being lives in a pure state of extreme confusion and disorder.

This is why the answer to success is understanding how the correct forms of discipline work - without it you will lose your shirt in the market.

Discipline in the following three areas of trading will ultimately determine your trading success.

* Training — The successful trader never rests on past successes, or believes that his trading ability has peaked. He is always learning and practicing his decision-making skills, honing them until they become second nature. Then he can react faster than a speeding bullet, but with the benefit of superior human judgment.

* Trading Rules — The successful trader develops set of trading rules - a plan - that he follows faithfully. This guides his decision-making at all times. If a trader’s plan dictates that it is time to exit a stock, the trader will exit that trade and not wait a minute longer.

* Self-Control — Successful traders display an extraordinary amount of self-control. Keeping emotions constantly in check, the disciplined trader is immune to the highs and lows that attend large market swings - whether panic, in a downturn, or of euphoria. I will show you how to learn the secrets of discipline.

Can You Learn Discipline?

The big question here is whether you can develop the discipline you do not have naturally. I believe the answer is "yes, you can," but you must have the necessary commitment to do so.

Ultimately, undisciplined behavior is going to be punished by the market.

Private traders who persevere and master self discipline, have external stimuli that will help the process. However, the market does not help as much as it might, because of the principle of random reinforcement. It is the market’s tendency to reward bad behavior from time to time.

This crucial fact is one of the reasons why it takes so long to learn how to trade. You need to realize this: there is no point in having a system if you are not going to follow it. Follow and develop a routine of self-discipline and you will be successful in your trading ventures.

-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David Jenyns is recognized as the leading expert when it
comes to designing profitable trading systems.

His most recent course Ultimate Trading Systems is a step-
by-step trading roadmap to designing profitable trading
systems. Learn how *you* can become one of his students.
Click Here ==> http://www.ultimate-trading-systems.com

Receive David’s free trading tips:
==> http://www.ultimate-trading-systems.com/stocks.html
-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You remember (they show it on TV every year) the running of the wild bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Some of the nuttier people get out their capes and stand in their path as they come roaring down the street.

Our would-be matadors wave their home made cloaks at the bulls hoping the bulls will charge at it and not at them. The list of casualties at the end of the day is sometimes quite large, but, fortunately, not too many are killed.

These two participants, the bull and the make-believe matador remind me of the those same participants in the stock market. The bull is Mr. Market and the matador is the make-believe investor.

Why do I call him a “make-believe investor”. Because as a former 17-year exchange member, floor trader and brokerage company owner I have had many clients who thought they were “investors”. As a professional I would watch many of the dumb things (like standing in front of a charging bull with a rag in their hand) that clients would do with their money. Many times I could talk them out of it, but others they would insist on being gored.

The professional trader learns very quickly that you cannot stand in front of a charging bull who happens to have the shape of a stock market that is going full speed either up or down. Investors love those upward moves, but a few will say I have a nice profit now so I’ll cash in and take the money only to see their stock, mutual fund or ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) continue its skyward journey.

The problem was they were guessing that their price was at or near the top of the move. Is there any way to know what is the highest price? Actually ‘NO’, but there is a way to catch a very large percentage of the price advance and have Mr. Market tell you when to sell. How? Let me show you the time-honored secret of the long-term professional traders.

Stocks do not make an orderly procession to a top and then turn down in an orderly fashion. They move in stair steps up sometime 2 steps up and one step back or 3 steps up and one step back. Many times they will rest for long periods and consolidate. What you can do is place a stop loss order that should be moved up as your equity advances.

Suppose you bought AT&T at $50 several years ago and had followed it up with a 10% or 15% stop loss order. It went over $100 and then started down to below $15. If you had been following with your stop you would have sold out about $85 or $95. The charging bull when it changed direction would not have gored you.

There is nothing to fear as long as you are protecting your investment with stop loss orders. The bull is your friend as long as you have protection when his direction changes.

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.

Every successful trader has a winning system. There are of course, as many systems out there, as there are traders. Some systems get you to buy on strength and sell on weakness others do the opposite.

Some investors succeed as value investors , a la Warren Buffet ; others make their millions in momentum trading . I have even heard of an astrologist who uses the stars to trade profitably. Although, there are a variety of methods, the point I am trying to illustrate here is this: there are many ways to profit from the markets, but you ultimately must devise a system that is your own, because the personalization will act as a motivational discipline to stick with the plan.

There is however, one common element amongst all successful traders…they have a systematic way they approach the market. This approach is unique. In reality, no two people have exactly the same amount of money, tolerance for risk, personality, time or experience. Therefore, the key to success is to design a system that is suited for you.

Many traders fail because they do not assess how well a trading system matches their temperament. Instead, they chase fads, searching for the "Holy Grail" of trading success; or they waste their money on the latest investing software or buying up the tapes of the latest self-proclaimed stock market guru.

The fact is there is no perfect system. Successful investors succeed because they choose a system that they feel comfortable with, not one that claims to be the current trend. A cool, disciplined trader will make money with an "average" system, while a nervous, arbitrary trader will wreck a "brilliant" system.

The key is to develop a methodology that maximizes your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses. Nevertheless, how do you do that? First, define your objectives.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I designing a trading plan for cash flow or capital growth?
2. Do I want to trade part time or full time?
3. How much money can I work with?
4. What annual rate of return do I want? (Note: the higher the return, usually the higher the risk).

Decisions such as these will have the largest impact on the style of your trading system.

For example, if your goal is cash flow and low risk, buying or selling at extreme levels (overbought/oversold) is an unlikely style. If your goals center on quick capital growth, high returns and high risk, then bottom picking strategies and gap trading may be your style.

I had one client that was a wiz at buying and selling on eBay. This person was a beginner so I suggested buying the trade closer to the 52-week low, then selling the trade when it foresaw a profit.

Entries and exits must be precise and must follow a strict set of rules.

Styles range from aggressive day traders looking to scalp few point gains to investors looking to capitalize on long-term macro economic trends. In between, there are a whole host of possible combinations including swing traders, position traders, aggressive growth investors, value investors and contrarians.

Moreover, your style will depend on your level of commitment and experience. Day traders are likely to pursue an aggressive style with high activity levels. The goals would focus on quick trades, small profits and very tight stop-loss levels. For this, the trader uses intraday charts to provide timely entry and exit points. A high level of commitment, focus and energy would be required.

On the other hand, position traders are likely to use intraday charts and pursue 1-8 week price movements. Focused goals on short to intermediate price movements and the level of commitment, while still substantial, would be less than a day trader.

With this in mind, be sure to define your trading objectives as best as you can. Unless your system matches your own criteria, you will never make big profits. You need to ask yourself the simple question: "I am trading in the market because I want to __________"…

Answer this and you are well on your way to setting your portfolio objectives.

-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David Jenyns is recognized as the leading expert when it
comes to designing profitable trading systems.

His most recent course Ultimate Trading Systems is a step-
by-step trading roadmap to designing profitable trading
systems. Learn how *you* can become one of his students.
Click Here ==> http://www.ultimate-trading-systems.com

Receive David’s free trading tips:
==> http://www.ultimate-trading-systems.com/stocks.html
-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

How many times has this happened to you? You’re at a social function and the conversation turns to investing. Pretty soon, people are comparing how well their investments are doing. As you might imagine, being an investment advisor this happens to me a lot. However, I recently had an experience with it that startled me.

Bob, one of the guys I was chatting with at a party, asked what kind of returns I had made for my clients with my methodical no load mutual fund strategy during the past year. I replied that they had unrealized gains of slightly over 29%, after management fees, for the 8 months that we were invested.

Bob countered with a smirk that he had made a 40% return. I raised my eyebrows and told him that was darn good—and suggested that maybe he ought to be managing my money. At that point we were interrupted and, as the evening went on, I began to wonder exactly how Bob had gotten his great return.

I cornered him a little later on and, upon digging a little deeper, the story looked somewhat different. Yes, he had made a 40% return on a mutual fund he had some money invested in, however, we were comparing apples and bananas.

He had a total portfolio of $100k. Being cautious, he had invested only $10k into a mutual fund, from which he profited $4k after he sold it. The balance of his portfolio ($90k) was sitting in a money market fund earning some 0.35% per year.

So, while he had made 40% on 10% of his investment, he had only made 4.35% on his whole portfolio. My methodology was also focused on protecting my clients’ investments and it had increased their entire portfolio 29% (unrealized). That would be an apple to apple comparison when measuring my returns against his. Bob’s one fund realized 40% return. However, had I approached it the same way Bob had, I could have described one of the funds I used that had realized over 49% for the same period.

Actually, Bob’s not-so-good-news story didn’t stop there. Bob admitted to having followed the losing Buy and Hope strategy through the bear market of 2000 and had finally sold out at a 50% loss a year ago, before committing $10k to a mutual fund investment.

I was pleased to be able to tell him that my methodology had gotten my clients out of the market before the bear took his big bite, and they suffered only minimal losses before finding safety in money markets accounts. And when my trend tracking figures directed us to move back into the market, they still had most of their money poised to start earning for them again—which it did and very nicely, thank you.

The moral of the story is to look past the surface and don’t take any numbers thrown at you at face value. Remember, most people returning from a weekend in Las Vegas will shout about their winnings and mumble about their losses.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: www.successful-investment.com.

ulli@successful-investment.com

You’d have had to be living on a desert island with no TV, newspaper or internet connection to have missed hearing about the great mutual fund scandal of 2003.

The issue was that some mutual fund companies allowed certain hedge funds to engage in after-hours trading, sometimes incorrectly referred to as market timing. Unfortunately, some companies have used the confusion about the term "market timing" to further their own cause. How?

They have used this issue to pretty much ban all forms of trading their funds, and some companies are imposing hefty short-term redemption fees—penalties for all intents and purposes—in the name of avoiding impropriety. But the real idea behind it all is: Buy our fund and never sell it!

These companies advocate a stubborn Buy & Hold philosophy despite the devastating effects that approach had on investors’ portfolios during the recent bear market. Performance is immaterial to them—they want your money in their fund whether it’s going up or down.

With all of the negative press over the months you’d think that mutual fund companies would have cleaned up their act and started giving more consideration to the individual investor. Not so.

This was brought home to me when a fund manager of an $800 million mutual fund called me to see what my plans were in respect to holding our positions with his fund (about $2 million).

I explained my trend tracking methodology and he got very angry when he heard I would protect my clients’ accumulated profits by selling his fund if it were to drop 7% off its highs.

His blustering made it quite clear that he did not like anyone managing for the benefit of their clients; he only cared about what was best for him and his company.

So, what can you do to prevent being taken advantage of? For one thing, do what your mutual fund company does — not what they tell you to do. Adopt a strategy for following trends, such as I do, and use the mutual fund manger’s superior stock picking ability to your advantage by buying and holding only as long as the fund is performing well.

Remember, the fund manager has one big disadvantage over you: He always “has to” be invested so that the public can purchase shares in his fund. You don’t!

If market conditions dictate that you are better off in the safety of a money market account because we are in a severe downtrend, then you can take your money and run for cover. He can’t. He is constantly trying to adjust his portfolio to ever-changing economic conditions so that his potential losses are minimized. At the same time you are being told that his fund is the investment for all seasons. Don’t fall for it!

You as an individual investor are really in the driver’s seat. Unfortunately, you have probably been conditioned to think that Buy & Hope is a good investment strategy, when in fact it is a losing proposition.

Bottom line is, use a well performing mutual fund during strong up trends and get over to the sidelines during trend reversals. (That’s exactly what I did for my clients in October, 2001, and we retained the lion’s share of their profits while Buy & Holders kept insisting the emperor was wearing new clothes.) Pretty soon you will feel that you are in charge of your financial destiny and any chosen mutual fund is merely a tool to bring you closer to your goals of maximizing your gain and minimizing your losses.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: www.successful-investment.com.

ulli@successful-investment.com

The date October 13, 2000 will forever be embedded in my mind. It was the day after our mutual fund trend tracking indicator had broken its long-term trend line and I sold 100% of my clients’ invested positions (and my own) and moved the proceeds to the safety of money market accounts. Some people thought we were nuts, but I had come to trust the numbers.

The shake out in the stock market, which started in April 2000, had all major indexes coming off their highs, violently followed by just as strong rally attempts. The roller coaster ride was so extreme that even usually slow moving mutual funds behaved as erratically as tech stocks.

By October, the markets had settled into a definable downtrend, at least according to my indicators. We sat safely on the sidelines and watched the unfolding of what is now considered to be one of the worst bear markets in history.

By April 2001 the markets really had taken a dive, but Wall Street analysts, brokers and the financial press continued to harp on the great buying opportunity this presented. Buying on dips, dollar cost averaging and “V” type recovery were continuously hyped to the unsuspecting public.

By the end of the year, and after the tragic events of 911, the markets were even lower and people began to wake up to the fact that the investing rules of the ‘90s were no longer applicable. Stories of investors having lost in excess of 50% of their portfolio value were the norm.

Why bring this up now? To illustrate the point that I have continuously propounded throughout the 90s; that a methodical, objective approach with clearly defined Buy and Sell signals is a “must” for any investor.

To say it more bluntly: If you buy an investment and you don’t have a clear strategy for taking profits if it goes your way, or taking a small loss if it goes against you, you are not investing; you are merely gambling.

The last 2-1/2 years clearly illustrate that it is as important to be out of the market during bad times, as it is to be in the market during good times. Want proof?

According to InvesTech’s monthly newsletter it turns out that, measuring from 1928 to 2002, if you started with $10 and you followed the famous buy-and-hold strategy, that $10 would become $10,957.

If you somehow missed the best 30 months, your $10 would only be $154. However, if you managed to miss the 30 worst months, your $10 would be $1,317,803! Thus, my point: Missing the worst periods has profound impact on long-run compounding. There are times when you end up better off by being out of the market.

Interestingly enough, if you missed the 30 best months and the 30 worst months, your $10 would still be worth $18,558, which is 80% higher than the buy-and-hold strategy. This all comes about because stock prices generally go down faster than they go up.

Wall Street and most people tend to overlook the value of minimizing loss, and that is exactly why the bear demolished more than 50% of many peoples’ portfolios while I and those who trusted my advice escaped the worst of the beast’s rampage.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped hundreds of people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: www.successful-investment.com; ulli@successful-investment.com

Money: the most charged word in the planet. It means something to everyone. For some, money means a blessing, for others it means a disaster.

We all have heard stories of people who have lost their fortunes or their life savings trading in the stock market; but, we don’t hear much of people who are currently trading and how their lives are turning upside down.

For some, the process of trading is like the development of an addiction, it starts with expectations, with hopes of a relief, with desire to control money or acquire more of it. Soon, it starts turning into an obsession. Then, it controls the thoughts, emotions and feelings. Next, there is no longer consciousness about the external life, everything around turns into a distraction from the focus of trading, and those distractions must be eliminated.

This is where relationships end, where jobs are terminated, and the mind is totally controlled by the obsession of trading. Whether money is made or not, is not the issue. The issue is how, at what cost is made? Is the cost a family, a spouse, a significant relationship, sanity, peace of mind, health…? Maybe the cost is not worthy.

When you buy a stock or an option, you are leaving a part of you attached to it, whether you want to accept it or not; it is always in the back of your mind. Your heart, your mind, and even your body will tell you what to do. If there is pain, fear, anxiety, destruction, conflict around you, then maybe you need to stop and look again.

Wall Street is always there, but your sanity, family and self-esteem may not be. Choose, because you always have a choice. Nobody can make the choice for you; nobody had made the choice for you. Money can absorb human souls, money can destroy human lives. Money is definitely a sword of two edges. It can bring joy or destruction. Your choice. Every time.

© Copyright 2005 by Jeanette Castelli

Adapted from the book, Wall Street Poems: Rising Beyond The Illusions, by Jeanette Castelli. For more information visit website, http://WallStreetPoems.urbantex.com/

Jeanette Castelli is an author, speaker and coach. Her education includes an MBA and a Master of Psychology. She is an expert in recovery and healing processes, including divorce, past events and wall street losses. Contact her JCastelli@urbantex.com

How do you invest? What do you really pay? At the end of the day, what are your real results? These are questions smart investors should be asking themselves (but usually don’t). In this era of more fees, misc. charges, holding periods and back end redemptions, even at discount brokers, how are you really making out?

Working with a new client brought this all to my attention. I know what I found may not apply to everyone; however it will apply to many and very likely apply to you.

I need to preface this by saying that, unlike the majority of registered investment advisors, I have built my practice over the past 15 years by dealing with “small” investors. Many of them are first timers because my minimum account size is only $5,000.

I targeted this group because I enjoy the educational part of my business. A happy side benefit has been that by providing million dollar service to these so called “small” investors, they naturally refer me to parents, relatives, friends and business associates, often with considerably more assets than the original client. What a happy consequence.

Having set the stage, here’s what happened with my new client who we will call John. John was 26, newly married with a one year old son. His wife was taking care of the child and John had a good full time job. After selling his house in California and moving to Florida he had $6,000 left for starting a long-term investment program.

Though he had been reading my newsletter for about a year, John decided to manage his 401k on his own. It was a noble effort but provided less than desirable results.

He then attempted to set up a brokerage account at a major discount broker. With his $6,000 he was told that the quarterly fee would be $45, and, of course, if he sold any mutual fund within the first 180 days, there would be an early redemption fee.

$45 per quarter would be equal to an annual fee of 3% of his starting balance. John called me somewhat frustrated and said that he’d be willing to set up an account with me, but how would it make sense if in addition he’d have to pay my advisory management fee?

That was a good question because it certainly doesn’t make sense to have an account in any type of market environment and pay about 6% in fixed annual fees.

However, what John didn’t know was that if you have an account with a registered investment advisor who is affiliated with custodial broker, the fee structure changes.

What did that mean to him? It meant that I opened the account for him as a new client. He now has no annual fees, other than my management fee, and his 180 day holding period for mutual funds is reduced to 90 days, minimizing, if not eliminating, the likelihood of an early redemption fee.

The net result was that he would receive the benefit of my experience-which he already trusted based on my track record of pulling clients out of the market in October 2000-and it would cost him no more, and likely less, than his discount brokerage account.

Needless to say, John was very relieved. In essence, he traded broker garbage fees for professional management at no additional cost to him.

And, since he itemizes his deductions on his tax return, all fees paid are tax deductible, which is just an added bonus to factor into the equation.

It turned out to be an all around win-win situation for John. I encourage you to review your situation and see if what looks like a discount in fees is actually costing you a premium.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped hundreds of people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: http://www.successful-investment.com; ulli@successful-investment.com