If you have talked to a stock broker or financial planner in the last few days I will bet they all agree that there are some great bargains out there and now is the time to start buying in anticipation that the market will go back up. You will also find agreement from the talking heads on CNBC and those talk radio station stock mavens. No one says sell. It looks like bottom pickers heaven.

A year ago when the Nasdaq was 2000 points higher they were telling you the same thing. Buy. Buy. Buy. If they are so smart to get you to buy now then why weren’t they smart enough to tell you to sell when it was way up there? There are two basic rules for professional traders: never let a profitable trade go to a loss and never take a large loss. The talking heads are either not professionals or don’t understand their business.

Since the beginning of the year the tech stocks have lost 34% and from last year they are down from the highs 65% and it looks like they are going lower. Isn’t it time to end the bloodletting and sell? The problem with the small investor is he doesn’t believe he has a loss until he sells. Wall Street has taught him that the market ‘always comes back’. Folks, not this time.

All classes of mutual funds have posted losses in the first quarter of 2001 for the first time since 1980.

Has your broker or financial planner called you to sell out to go to the safe haven of a money market fund? I will bet he hasn’t. Unfortunately these "experts" are not taught to protect your capital. They will watch their customers’ account dwindle away 30%, 40% 50% and more and never do anything about it. It isn’t their money. It is yours. You have to take the responsibility to guard it. The average broker has 300 clients. Unless you are a 7-figure account you will not receive any attention. Of the 77,000,000 mutual fund owners in the U.S. 80% of those accounts have less than $50,000. Their advice is either none or bad.

We know the economy is slowing down and has been since early last fall. The market was continuing to go up in anticipation and was ignoring underlying facts. The emotional enthusiasm was carrying it to new highs almost every day. Of course, Mr. Greenspan didn’t help anything by raising interest rates when he should have known better. It is the brokers’ job to sell stock and make commission, but it should also be his job to advise the neophyte investor to protect his capital.

The trend is your friend. The trend is down. It is still not too late to sell and put what’s left of your cash in a money market account. Forget about your losses. That money is gone. You must protect what you have left. Never try to pick the bottom. There are no "bargains" at this level. Cash is the best position right now.

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

As the man said, "I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news. What do you want to hear first?" It was replied, "Tell me the good news first". The good news is that they are going to make some changes in the mutual fund industry reporting to help the investor and the bad news is it isn’t going to make any difference in your bottom line.

It seems that us small investors are getting the usual window dressing to make it seem that we are getting a good deal, but when you go in the store to try on the merchandise it still doesn’t fit any better.

Here is what the Securities and Exchange Commission passed as a new regulation for registered mutual funds. Instead of 50% of the Board of Directors being from outside the company they now must select 75% from outside the company. Can anyone tell me what difference that is going to make? The guys who own the fund will pick people who are friendly to their goals. Will they care any more for the investors than they do now? Window dressing.

One new regulation I do agree should help a little (but very little) is the requirement to provide more information to shareholders about their contracts with investment advisors and how they are approved. Big deal. The mutual fund industry said this will raise their costs. How? They have the information. All they have to do is add it to their prospectus. Also remember that the prospectus was written for the Dilbert lawyers at the SEC to meet the regulations and not to give you understandable information.

Do you remember what happened to your funds from 2000 to 2003? Most investors lost from 40% to 60% of their money. Let’s hope they don’t hire back those same analysts again, but they probably will. Just their contracts will be different. It is doubtful their results will change.

Furthermore these new fantastic, wonderful rules (sic) will not go into effect for 18 months. I guess as one of the 95 million mutual fund owners I will have to wait, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

What I did not hear from the SEC was that mutual fund managers should be paid on performance of how well they do with your money. Now they get paid by how much money they have or can get and keep in the fund. Sounds backwards to me. See if you can get your broker to refund all commissions if your fund does not make money. Don’t hold your breath on this one either.

Eighteen months from now investors are going to feel a lot better when all that good news goes into effect. Yeah.

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

You read and hear a lot about hedge funds. Unfortunately, most of what you hear is negative because it comes from the major media that has an interest in reporting negatives about them because the major media is supported by so-called standard mutual funds and brokerage companies that spend big bucks for advertising. Hedge funds are NOT allowed to advertise.

First of all a hedge fund is almost identical to a mutual fund. There have actually been fewer fraud complaints about hedge funds than about mutual funds. That doesn’t mean they don’t lose money just as regular mutual funds do.

The underperformance of mutual funds is not highlighted in the press; you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. I’m talking about advertising revenues. Would Janus, Invesco, Vanguard or any big fund family continue to place advertising dollars with someone who told stories about their losing funds or recommended that investors sell them to find a better performer? Hardly.

Mutual funds use customers’ money to buy stock and bonds. Hedge funds are not limited to what they can buy. The can buy or short sell derivatives, commodities, options, oil and gas leases, freight rates and even take an investor’s money to the race track (although I doubt if they would). The managers of these funds are specialists in their field of knowledge and many do extremely well. Just because they are different doesn’t make them bad. Like all investments you must know where your money is going and how it is going to be invested.

The one major difference is how the fund manager is paid. Regular mutual fund managers are paid on how much money they manage and NOT on performance. Hedge fund managers usually receive 1% of the fund assets that goes for expenses and 20% of the profits they make for their investors. In other words if they don’t make a profit for you they don’t get paid. I sure would like to see them do that in regular mutual funds, but the Securities and Exchange Commission is the captive of the mutual fund industry so don’t hold your breath. The true ability of fund managers would be exposed and many funds would disappear as the smart investors would be transferring their money to fund managers who have winning records every year. Yes, every year. No more of the nonsense of how they beat the S&P500 by 5% yet lost your money.

So many of the hedge fund articles say the investors are being hood winked into putting money into these funds. I don’t think so. Almost every big state and corporate pension plan, university endowment, charitable trust and other large financial plans have money in hedge funds. Like any cautious investor they did their due diligence to find out the track record and management capabilities of the hedge fund.

You have to be rich to put money into a hedge fund. They require an income of $200,000 per year and assets of one million or more. Many require large initial investments.

If you qualify they are definitely a better place than a regular mutual fund, but you must do your due diligence.

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

For the year 2000 we have seen hundreds of mutual funds lose 40%, 50% and more of their value. This does not seem right since the fund is supposed to be managed by a professional. How can this "professional" do such a bad job? More than half of the funds this year will not out perform the S&P500 index which closed down about 10%.

What is going on?

When you put your money in a mutual fund you are supposed to be hiring someone who knows how to make money. He should be able to do a better job than you. But he has not. If this person worked for me I would fire him. You don’t hire people to lose money for you.

Now that you have fired this bum let’s examine why he did such a poor job (pun intended). Each mutual fund has one or more analysts who are supposed to be able to determine if the stock of a company is a good buy. That means will it go up?

These so-called analysts do the kind of research that Wall Street says is necessary before purchasing a stock. Yes, they do all the standard things that anyone can do such as determine company growth, profit margins, P/E rations, cash flow, etc., etc. They get all that wonderful information from Morningstar and apply statistical analysis you and I would never think of. And when it comes right down to it what do they have? You can research something until you are blue in the face, pile on information upon information, but there is one thing all this nonsense will not tell you. Will the stock go up?

The kids who do this analysis (sorry, kids, you’re only a man when you pick a winner) have an agenda. For the fund-type analyst he wants to find a stock that will not go down because that hurts the fund manager who gets paid not by performance but by the amount of money he can keep in the fund. He gets to skim his percentage off the top every year and never has to make the investor any money. Like paying someone to mow a parking lot.

Let me give it to you in plain language. Fund managers don’t know how to be wrong. It is OK to be wrong, but when they have picked a dog and it starts down they refuse to get out to preserve capital. There is no excuse for any mutual fund to lose 30% or more of its capital. They only know how to buy and hold. Many times there is nothing to buy and cash is the only good position, but they don’t seem to understand that.

When I was a floor trader on the exchange I was only right about 40% of the time, 20% I got out even and 40% I took a hit. When I was wrong I ran, did not walk to the nearest exit. Losses must be kept small. These money managers have never learned that basic rule. In one of the Woody Allen’s movies he was asked what he did for a living. He said, "I am a money manager. I manage peoples money until it is all gone." Does that sound like your fund manager?

Isn’t it time to find a fund that is going up?

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

al@mutualfundstrategy.com; 1-888-345-7870

The spring-loaded rat catcher is the ultimate low-tech device invented more than 100 years ago and remains the best demouser in the world. It is so simple anyone can master it and best of all you can keep on using it year in and year out. It always works.

Now I want to show you a killer method for earning 30% to 50% annually on your investments that is just as easy as the good old mousetrap. You will only be invested in the market when it is going up and you will buy only no-load mutual funds that are making more return than any of the other 8,500 funds available in the U.S.

Let’s first understand that what I am about to explain your broker will tell you can’t be done. Why? Because there are no commissions for him and even if he knew what I am about to tell he would not. That doesn’t make him a bad guy, but it means he would have to start looking for another job.

First, you need to find an advisory service that has a simple market-timing indicator that doesn’t trade too often, maybe once or twice per year and with a good real-time track record that goes back through several bear markets. There are a few, but you have to find one that you will be comfortable with.

Now that you have found a market-timer you need to understand that you don’t have to be fully invested at all times. No broker understands the concept of cash as a position. He thinks you must always "have your money at work" even if the stocks he recommends are going down. Is that ever stupid or what? When the market is going down according to the market-timing indicator that is when you want to be fully invested in the green stuff. A money market fund.

There are so many mutual funds you might think it is difficult to find the best performing ones because there are only about 20 or 30. When you have a buy signal to move from cash to fully invested, you will need to look at Investor’s Business Daily newspaper. In the second section they list each week the best performing funds for the past 3 months and 6 months. Those are the only no-load funds you want to buy. Never buy a load fund. Performance for 3 and 5 years is nonsense. You want the fund that is going up NOW not 5 years ago. You can locate other sources for best performing funds, but IBD is the easiest to find.

You see how simple this is. You are always invested in the best funds when the market is going up and you are always in cash when the market is going down. This is low tech like our simple yet effective mousetrap. Following this method is a killer way of making money every year and never losing when the stock market is going down.

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

al@mutualfundstrategy.com; 1-888-345-7870

Checked your 401K lately? Going back to about a year ago many of these retirement accounts have shrunk by 30%, some even more. What Happened?

You have been putting money in for years and your employer may have been contributing to your plan also. It is not supposed to get smaller. You are planning to spend that money some time in the future when you decide to quit working. Along with your Social Security payments you should be able to maintain your current lifestyle. But not if your 401K and IRA keep going down and down.

The is no shortage of bad news when mutual funds such as Fidelity Magellan is off more than 30% and Janus 20 is down 63% and I could go on and on. Now you have a sharp pain in your stomach when you read your statement and when you call your broker he gives you the old song and dance about being in there "for the long haul, don’t sell". It is not his money.

If you have your 401K with your employer who has a "professional manager" please don’t blame the boss. He is at the mercy of that "professional" too who is slowly having you all go broke. These money manglers are taught the three great myths of Wall Street - Do Research, Buy and Hold, Dollar Cost Average. These doctrines have been promoted for so many years that they have become conventional wisdom. You don’t need anyone to tell you they do not work. All you have to do is examine the results.

Buy and Hold is the greatest killer of profits. I know. Almost every broker will never tell you to sell when your stock or mutual funds starts declining yet every professional trader will have that as his first rule: have an exit strategy when your investment starts to either lose money or take away profits you have made. If you had been an owner of Janus 20 when it went from 40 to 94 and had a planned exit strategy you would have sold out near 80 to protect your profit. Now it is trading about 35 and after 2 years you have a loss instead of doubling (and keeping) your money.

How can you protect yourself against this type of loss? Don’t rely on your broker or financial planner. They have too many clients to be able to watch your money. I said your money. You are the only one who cares. And if you don’t want to take an interest in protecting it then you will be eating dog food instead of steak at age 65.

As the mutual funds go up in your 401K or IRA you must take a few minutes once each week or at least once each month to check the price. As you saw the $40 fund advance you set a mental stop-loss value of from 7% to 15% and when it goes down to that price you must immediately transfer those funds either to a different fund that is still advancing or to a Money Market account. It is that simple and there is nothing complicated about it.

If you don’t protect your retirement account no one else will. Start today.

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

Investing in long-term financial vehicles give you the most gains but it also puts your funds at greater risk. There is much truth to the saying, “there is no gain if there is no risk”. Still you can reduce your chances of losing your hard earned money, by researching and taking time to understand what you are buying. Would you purchase a house you’ve only just seen on the outside? Both of these are serious investments and you need to arm yourself with the basic knowledge about the subjects.

So what are the differences you need to consider when investing in bonds, stocks or mutual funds?

What are bonds? When you are investing funds in bonds, you are technically lending your money to a borrower. Who can this be? Some of these are the U.S. government, a state, a local municipality or a big company like General Motors. All these institutions need money to expand, to fund a federal deficit or to finance new ventures. So they borrow funds by issuing bonds. The price you pay for a bond is know as its’ face value. The issuer promises to pay you back in a particular day, at a fixed rate of interest stated on the coupon itself. You are safely investing in bonds; these bonds give you a yearly income until the maturity date. When the bond matures, the borrower pays you back the principal plus interest. In most cases, investing in bonds is a minimal-risk free decision.

What about stocks? A share of stock is a certificate of ownership purchased by individuals who are investing or buying a proportional share of the business. The more stocks you buy, the bigger the share of profits you will get and the bigger your financial stake becomes. A stock’s value is affected by the financial situation of the company. Historical trends in stocks have shown that their value rises over time, although there are no sure guarantees. Also with stocks the only assured return is if it appreciates on the open market. And while it is true that there are companies that give their stockholders dividends, they are not obligated to do so.

What are mutual funds? In this financial scenario, you join a group of investors in investing your funds to buy stocks, bonds, or anything else your fund manager decides is worthwhile. If you do sustain losses, these losses are subtracted from the fund’s capital gains before the money is distributed to you the shareholder. The fund won’t pass out capital gains to shareholders until it has at least earned more in profits than it had lost.

Remember it pays to do research before investing.

Timothy Gorman is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Debt-Relief-Solutions.com. He provides more debt relief, consolidation and financial planning advice that you can research in your pajamas on his website.

On Monday, November 25, 2000 Investor’s Business Daily listed on page B1 the Top 25 Growth Mutual Funds for the last 36 months along with their performance for the year 2000 to date. Only four showed a profit this year of 21% and the other three had increases of 12%, 5%, and 5%. Fifteen had loss of from 10% to 28% and the other 6 were down slightly.

In the column next to them there is a list of Top 25 Growth Funds for the past 3 months for the year 2000 to date. Only 2 had increases in price for the year 2000, 4 were even and all the rest are showing losses for the year.

Now pay attention and think about this next sentence. Not one mutual fund appears in both lists.

What is the significance of this? It very simply tells you that buy and hold is NOT the way to make money with mutual funds.

I have been preaching for years to buy only no-load mutual funds and hold them only as long as they are going up. When they stop going up you sell them (paying no commission) and find another fund that is going up as the place to have your money. In this current bear market the latter is hard to find so what do you do? Put your money in a money market account and don’t worry about the market going down and dragging your investment with it. Protect your capital!

Don’t throw up your hands and say I can’t do that because my broker says to "buy and hold - the market always comes back". It is not his money. It is yours. You must be the one to initiate the action to protect your capital. Brokers are not taught how to do this. I know - I used to own a brokerage company.

Brokers have been smart enough to learn, but taught all the wrong things when it comes to investing money. They claim you can’t "time the market". WRONG again. They never encourage you to place stop-loss orders so you won’t lose all your money when you buy a new stock or fund and they never encourage you to use a trailing stop to protect the profits you have made.

I know there are people reading this column who have had stocks that have doubled, tripled, even more and now have that same stock that is now selling for less than they bought it.. Where was your broker when all this was happening? If he is so smart why didn’t he tell you to sell at the top? This also applies to mutual funds.

What I am trying to get across is the simple message that you cannot buy and hold. The "secret" every knowledgeable investor knows is to protect his capital first and then to protect his profits second.

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

Mutual funds by definition are a mixed bag of stocks, bonds and a little cash. Their price per share is the NAV, Net Asset Value of the total amount of money in the mutual fund divided by the number of shares. They seek to be fully invested at all times.

The fund manager determines which stocks and bonds to buy and sell in order to give the greatest return to his shareholders. He is considered to be an expert in choosing stocks for appreciation of value and should be expected to give a better than average return. That’s why he draws down a six-figure income.

You are encouraged to pick a fund that has your goal in mind. Is it considered conservative, speculative, income oriented, growth or some other category? Wouldn’t you say one of the principle reasons was to have the greatest return on your money? Do you want an average return or do you want an above average return?

What is average? There is an index which you hear about on the news every day called the S&P500. Because it is composed of 500 different stocks it is broadly representative of the market as a whole and therefore called a market average or index. You certainly would want a fund that is doing better than average.

You are encouraged to read the prospectus. Did you realize that the day it is printed much of the information in it is over a year old? It is written for the regulators in Washington, not for investors. It is worthless. Throw it away.

There are load funds that charge a commission and no-load funds that do not charge commission. There is no proof that paying a commission will provide you with a better return. Buy your no-load funds direct from the fund or through a discount broker.

You are told to find a good fund manager. Various money magazines list them. Investor’s Business Daily does a feature story on different fund managers several times each week. Check to see if his fund is outperforming the S&P during the last 12 months. There are very few fund managers who have a consistent record and even the best of them gets cold once in a while and has a losing streak. You want your money returning at maximum at all times so you can’t stay with one manager when he is running cold. Change funds.

One of the Wall Street myths is that you should put your money into a "good" fund and let it stay there for years. This is promoted because mutual fund managers are compensated by the amount of money they have in the fund and not for performance of the fund.

So how do you pick a fund? Very simple. It must outperform the S&P500 Index. Any mutual fund manager who cannot beat a market average should not be holding your money. Check out your funds today.

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

For years I have been saying you must have a fund that is outperforming the S&P500 Index. Well, I’ve changed my mind. Now I think your fund should be outperforming the NASDAQ Composite Index. So far this year, March 30, the S&P is up 1.3% and the NASDAQ Composite is up 9.5 %.

Have you checked your mutual funds for their performance so far this year? I don’t know how important your money is to you, but it is important enough for me to check out my funds at the end of each month. I live off that income. Some day you may be doing the same so now is the time to start tracking those returns.

For almost the last 20 years I have bought nothing but no-load mutual funds. There is absolutely no correlation that a fund performs better if you pay commissions. The only one who profits here is the broker, not you. In fact with an 8 1/2% front-end load you actually start 9 1/4% in the hole. Many no-load funds can be purchased at discount brokers for no commission at all. The call these NTF funds - No Transaction Fees. This is a great bargain that every investor should take advantage of.

One of the things I have been preaching for years and I have not changed my mind about this is the funds you own should be the best performers available. My definition of best performer is that you should only buy a no-load fund that has the greatest increase in NAV (Net Asset Value) for the past 6 or 12 months. Your broker is definitely not going to tell you about these. You can find them yourself .

Look in Mutual Fund Section of Investor’s Business Daily newspaper. Usually about once a week they publish a list of 25 mutual funds with their performance record for the past 6 or 12 months. If you are going use this indicator then buy the top one, two or three and only check them out once each month to see that they remain on the list. If your fund drops below 15th or 20th or completely out of the list you will then sell it and buy the fund that is at the top.

If you have a computer you may check out www.smartmoney.com as they list the top 25 performing funds. I would not buy one unless it has been on the market for at least a year. You may use the same sell strategy as the IBD above.

In real estate the smart strategy is to buy right. In the stock market the smart strategy is to sell right. If you follow this plan during a bull market you will make 2 or 3 times the increase of the S&P or NASDAQ Composite.

If you are willing to look at your mutual funds once each month for about 10 minutes you will be able to outperform 99% of the returns of financial planners, brokers or bankers. Is it worth it to choose your own funds? You have to answer that.

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