After the publication of the first part of this two part series, I had a few questions asking if shorting stocks is legal and I will quickly reply with a big YES. Some people believe that shorting shares of American companies is not patriotic or does not seem like the right thing to do. Shorting stocks is not my primary method of making profits in the market as many of you already know, but it is a valid strategy that must be covered especially since the market has focused on red flag and shorting opportunities since December 2004. In the world of supply and demand, things go up and things go down, it’s human nature. Stocks have been shorted for over a century and have provided investors with an alternative strategy to making profits.

To initiate a short sale, you must place the order with your broker or online brokerage by determining the size and price at which the trade will occur. Your broker or brokerage company will check to see if shares are available in the specific stock selected or if they can borrow the shares. Once they are available or can be borrowed, they will be sold in the open market on the first plus tick or continuation of an up-tick also known as zero-plus tick (the stock must move up for the transaction to complete). To close the short position, the broker will purchase the shares using the original proceeds and return the shares to the third party.

As a short seller, you believe that the price of a particular stock will fall in value over time. For example: by establishing a short position for 100 shares in XYZ at $50, the broker will place $5,000 into your margin account. If the stocks falls over the next few weeks and you decide to cover the short at $40, you will initiate a buy for 100 shares in XYZ using the money placed in your account when you sold short. The cost to buy back the shares in this example will be $4,000 or $1,000 less than the original short sale amount. This difference in price will result in $1000 cash that will now become your profit.

On the flip side, if the stock was to jump to $60, you would most likely cover your short or have your stop loss triggered, buying back the shares at this price. The cost would be $6000 or $1000 more than the original short sale, resulting in a 20% loss. The broker would take the additional $1000 from your cash account to cover the loss in the short sale. This is how you can lose money when shorting stocks. The higher the stocks rises, the more money you can lose, theoretically resulting with an infinite loss (excluding stop losses and broker margin calls).

If the stock rises in price or if the value of the stocks you are using as collateral goes down in price, you may be forced to add cash to your margin account or cover the short sale prematurely. As I mentioned in the first article, you must pay any dividends issued while you are short a particular stock.

The two basic reasons for selling short would be to profit from a stock that you believe is grossly overvalued or to hedge your account with protection from a down-swing in prices due to anticipated or unexpected events. In the first case, you may have noticed a stock such as EBAY (red flag on our screens since December) topping on the charts and then slicing through all long term trend lines in above average volume. If the stock fails to recover these key trend lines, a further decline may be in the immediate future and you may want to profit from this action. In the second case, you may own several stocks and fear a market downturn is on the horizon but don’t want to sell for certain reasons. Instead, the investor can short specific stocks to hedge their account against possible down-turns. Some investors diversify their portfolio with several long positions and a few short positions. I don’t agree with this strategy but it is a common practice by some institutions and investors.

All short positions should be covered if earnings and sales surprise the street or are starting to become positive. A short should be covered when it breaks above the 200-d moving average and certainly covered when it breaks above the 50-d moving average. If the relative strength line starts to move up, gradually making its way to new territory, I would advise covering the short position before a big breakout occurs. If the ‘M’ in CANSLIM is starting to turn positive and the daily new highs list if growing with new leaders, this would be a clue that a new up-trend if on the way or currently forming, alerting you that it may be time to cover the short positions before they turn negative.

Some investors may become impatient during bear markets or sideways markets if they don’t learn how to short stocks. Shorting stocks will contribute to a more consistent strategy throughout good and bad times. As I have said in previous articles, shorting is not for everyone and nothing is wrong with sitting in cash during bear markets, awaiting the next breakout and fresh batch of leaders.

Most important, always cut your losses quick! This rule applies to any strategy in the stock market.

Chris Perruna - http://www.marketstockwatch.com

Chris is the Founder and President of MarketStockWatch.com, an internet community that teaches you how to invest your money with solid rules. We don’t stop at just showing you our daily and weekly screens, we teach you how to make your own screens through education. Through our philosophy, you will be able to create your own methods and styles to become successful.

Hedge current portfolio positions and gain access to capital resources through loans against free trading, aged affiliate or aged non-affiliate securities. Make proper use of your assets while waiting for performance and hedge your position should the asset move against you.

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Stock Loan is a loan. It is not a sale. For most of our borrowers, a Stock Loan does not trigger a capital gains tax event unless they default. And though the proceeds cannot be put into any marginable securities, they are available for other types of investments or purchases. Interest can accrue or be paid quarterly.

There are no margin calls. Enron stock investors with a Flagship Stock Loan would have received 90% loan to value out of their investment - and been free to walk away without a single margin or house call, even after the infamous fall in share price.

Yes, literally, walk away. These are "non-recourse" stock loans, so that if you wish, you may simply walk away and owe not a penny more to us as lender, with no negative consequence to your credit, forfeiting only the presumably devalued stock shares. Why? We’ve written private hedges on every share. And though you may have tax consequences in the event of default, you won’t have to repay your loan to us.

In the market? Out? Why not both? So you want your stock investments to stay stock investments. You love your stock picks. And they aren’t doing too badly, maybe have some great prospects next year too. You rightly don’t want to sell (maybe capital gains taxes are looming?); you don’t want to leave the market. But you need the cash. In… Out…Go…. Stay… What to do?

Consider a Stock Loan for Your Stock Investment. Put a floor on your potential loss, while keeping all of your potential gain. Stock Loan means you can do both. No need to sell your shares if you’d rather leave them in the market working for you… You can tap their value today ? safely ? so you can have the cash you require. You’ll get 90% of the market value and no principle or interest payments, if you choose to let interest accrue.

But… if the share price increases, that increase belongs entirely to you. The upside (depending on the type of Stock Loan you choose) from the the stock portfolio is thus yours. You stay in the market, and out, at the same time. The best of both worlds!

Afra AmirSanjari is the Principal for Peacock Capital. Peacock Capital specializes in solving the cash flow challenges of Small/Medium Businesses, Government Vendors and Individuals with innovative financial solutions by providing a network for securing operating capital.

http://www.peacockcapital.com; info@peacockcapital.com

In a previously written article, we expanded the use of the term “Trading Baskets” to include stocks from different sectors or industries. Now I want to share with you an approach to day trading or swing trading that I had some success with back in the wild and woolly, pinnacle days of day trading that may still work today. Unfortunately, this basket of stocks was dubbed “The Crapolilo”, a name it just could not shake. You’ll see why.

The crucial element that traders are looking for in any stock, which makes it a good day trade or swing trade, is movement or momentum. There are any numbers of things that can cause movement in a stock. Usually it is news of some sort, either positive or negative. It doesn’t really matter. You are only looking for movement, up or down. However, for this particular strategy we are looking for positive news. Keep in mind that it is not your job as a trader to totally understand why or what is causing the movement in a stock, beyond what it takes to make a quick profit.

If you spend enough time glued to a computer monitor with CNBC blaring in the background and are looking for a stock to make a quick buck on, sooner or later you will realize that there are some familiar names that just keep popping up over and over again. From these repeating names you may want to consider building your own Crapolio.

Start by tracking the stocks that keep coming up over and over again. In this scenario the stocks for which we are looking usually play out the same way every time one of the stocks has news of some sort. Traders will jump on the stock, causing a mad scramble to get in on the move, and the stock will run up in price for a nice gain. The challenge is to be as early as possible on the play, get into the money (profitable), and get out before the momentum turns and the stock retreats. Rest assured, they will retreat because that is one thing all of the stocks we are looking for have in common; they hardly ever hold their gains. If you’re late to get in and even later to get out, you won’t make a dime and will maybe even lose money. It is this phenomenon that the now famous Floyd’s 4-Gets are based upon: Get In, Get Profit, Get Out and Get Away!

So here’s what I did, but remember that this strategy may or may not be right for you. I set aside a percentage of my trading capital for a basket of stocks that became known as “The Crapolio”. I picked a large number of the stocks I had been tracking, low cost stocks under $5-$10 for the most part, but not always. I charted every one of them as far back as I could, looking for the ones that were most likely to continue to repeat the scenario. I came up with what I thought was a recent low that was going to hold for some time; and I bought half the normal lot of shares I usually traded. (See link below to DTM: Decisive Trade Management and Trading Stops for lot sizes.) Then I waited.

The theory is that sooner or later these stocks will once again have some sort of news event that will move them to the upside. As soon as that news hit, I would be in an excellent position having already bought the stock at a recent low. I would then try to buy an additional half lot or a full lot once the new news event hit the street. Overall, I would be in the shares much earlier on average and be able to take advantage of the move and sell for a profit into the momentum. Being in the stock gave me the ability to lock in a nice profit without having to scramble to get in and scramble to sell before the momentum ran out.

Often, I would be in the stock and the news would hit over night, causing the stock to gap up significantly at the market opening in the morning.

However, this is not called “The Crapolio” without a reason. High quality stocks do not usually behave this way to the same degree. Those that do are much more expensive, usually $35 or more, making it cost prohibitive for all but the wealthiest traders to use this plan.

As previously mentioned, most, if not all, of these stocks were under $10 and for a reason. These were not high quality stocks; in fact, the opposite was the case. Most were high-risk speculative tech stocks or bio-techs. Many were dot-coms; remember this was in the hay-days of the dot-com boom. As we all know now, there were a lot more dot-bombs than there were successes.

Obviously, this was my own version of Swing Trading.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THESE WERE "NOT" BROKEN DAYTRADES. Each stock was chosen, charted and watched over a period of time before it was added to “The Crapolio”.

I believe this strategy could still work today. However, it is to be considered extremely risky and should only be used with money you can afford to lose.

When trading this or any day trading strategy one should know and use DTM: Decisive Trade Management (see story at http://www.traderaide.com/index.html).

Happy trading!

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About The Author tag is left in tact and included. We do request that we be informed of where it is posted and reciprocal links will be considered. Email floyd@sbmag.org.

Floyd Snyder has been trading and investing in the stock market for three decades. He was on the forefront of the day trading craze that swept the nation back in the late 1990’s both as a trader and as the moderator of one of the Internet’s largest real time trading rooms. He is the owner of http://www.TraderAide.com, Strictly Business Magazine at http://www.sbmag.org

The debate rages all over Eastern and Central Europe, in countries in transition as well as in Western Europe. It raged in Britain during the 80s: Is privatization really the robbery in disguise of state assets by a select few, cronies of the political regime? Margaret Thatcher was accuse of it - and so was the Agency of Transformation in the Republic of Macedonia. At what price should the companies owned by the State have been sold? This question is not as simple and straight forward as it sounds.

There is a gigantic stock pricing mechanism known as the Stock Exchange. Willing buyers and willing sellers meet there to freely negotiate deals of stock purchases and sale. Every day new information, macro-economic and micro-economic, determines the value of companies.

Greenspan testifies, the economic figures are too good to be true and the rumour mill starts working: interest rates might go up. The stock market reacts with a frenzy - it crashes. Why?

A top executive is asked how profitable will his firm be this quarter. He winks, he grins - this is interpreted by Wall Street to mean that they WILL go up. The share goes up frantically: no one wants to sell it, everyone want to buy it. The result: a sharp rise in the price. Why?

Moreover: the price of the stock prices of companies A with an identical size, similar financial ratios (and in the same industry) barely budges. Why didn’t it display the same behaviour?

We say that the stocks of the two companies have different elasticity (their prices move up and down differently), probably the result of different sensitivities to changes in interest rates and in earnings estimates. But this is just to rename the problem. The question remains: why? Why do the shares of similar companies react differently?

Economy is a branch of psychology and wherever and whenever humans are involved, answers don’t come easy. A few models have been developed and are in wide use but it is difficult to say that any of them has real predictive or even explanatory value. Some of these models are "technical" in nature: they ignore the fundamentals of the company. Such models assume that all the relevant information is already incorporated in the price of the stock and that changes in expectations, hopes, fears and attitudes will be reflected in the prices immediately. Others are fundamental: these models rely on the company’s performance and assets. The former models are applicable mostly to companies whose shares are traded publicly, in stock exchanges. They are not very useful in trying to attach a value to the stock of a private firm. The latter type (fundamental) models can be applied more broadly.

The value of a stock (a bond, a firm, real estate, or any asset) is the sum of the income (cash flow) that a reasonable investor would expect to get in the future, discounted at the appropriate discount (usually, interest) rates. The discounting reflects the fact that money received in the future has lower (discounted) purchasing power than money received now. Moreover, we can invest money received now and get interest on it (which should normally equal the discount). Put differently: the discount reflects the loss in purchasing power of money not received at present or the interest that we lose by not being able to invest the money currently (because we will receive it only in the future). This is the time value of money. Another problem is the uncertainty of future payments, or the risk that we will not receive them. The longer the period, the higher the risk, of course. A model exists which links the time, the value of the stock, the cash flows expected in the future and the discount (interest) rates.

We said that the rate that we use to discount future cash flows is the prevailing interest rate and this is partly true in stable, predictable and certain economies. But the discount rate depends on the inflation rate in the country where the firm is (or in all the countries where it operates in case it is a multinational), on the projected supply of the shares and demand for it and on the aforementioned risk of non-payment. In certain places, additional factors must be taken into consideration (for example: country risk or foreign exchange risks).

The supply of a stock and, to a lesser extent, the demand for it determine its distribution (how many shareowners are there) and, as a result, its liquidity. Liquidity means how freely can one buy and sell it and at which quantities sought or sold do prices become rigid. Example: if a lot of shares is sold that gives the buyer the control of a company - the buyer will normally pay a "control premium". Another example: in thin markets it is easier to manipulate the price of a stock by artificially increasing the demand or decreasing the supply ("cornering" the market).

In a liquid market (no problems to buy and to sell), the discount rate is made up of two elements: one is the risk-free rate (normally, the interest payable on government bonds), the other being the risk related rate (the rate which reflects the risk related to the specific stock).

But: what is this risk rate?

The most widely used model to evaluate specific risks is the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM).

According to it, the discount rate is the risk-free rate plus a coefficient (called beta) multiplied by a risk premium general to all stocks (in the USA it was calculated to be 5.5%). Beta is a measure of the volatility of the return of the stock relative to that of the return of the market. A stock’s Beta can be obtained by calculating the coefficient of the regression line between the weekly returns of the stock and those of the stock market during a selected period of time.

Unfortunately, different betas can be calculated by selecting different parameters (for instance, the length of the period on which the calculation is performed). Another problem is that betas change with every new datum. Professionals resort to sensitivity tests which neutralize the changes that betas undergo with time.

Still, with all its shortcomings and disputed assumptions, the CAPM should be used to determine the discount rate. But to use the discount rate we must have what to discount, future cash flows.

The only relatively certain cash flows are the dividends paid to the shareholders. So, Dividend Discount Models (DDM) were developed.

Other models relate to the projected growth of the company (which is supposed to increase the payable dividends and to cause the stock to appreciate in value).

Still, DDM require, as input, the ultimate value of the stock and growth models are only suitable for mature firms with a stable and not too high dividend growth. Two-stage models are more powerful because they combine both emphases: on dividends and on growth. This is because of the life-cycle of firms: at first, they tend to have a high and unstable dividend growth rate (the DDM tackles this adequately). As the firm matures, it is expected to have a lower and stable growth rate, suitable for the treatment of Growth Models.

But how many years of future income (from dividends) should we use in a our calculations? If a firm is profitable now, is there any guarantee that it will continue to be so in the next year, the next decade? If it does continue to be profitable - who can guarantee that its dividend policy will not change and that the same rate of dividends will continue to be distributed?

The number of periods (normally, years) selected for the calculation is called the "price to earnings (P/E) multiple". The multiple denotes by how much we multiply the (after tax) earnings of the firm to obtain its value. It depends on the industry (growth or dying), the country (stable or geopolitically perilous), on the ownership structure (family or public), on the management in place (committed or mobile), on the product (new or old technology) and a myriad of other factors. It is almost impossible to objectively quantify or formulate this process of analysis and decision making. In telecommunications, the range of numbers used for valuing stocks oa private firm is between 7 and 10, for instance. If the company is in the public domain, the number can shoot up to 20 times the net earnings.

While some companies pay dividends (some even borrow to do so), others just do not pay. So in stock valuation, dividends are not the only future incomes you expect to get. Capital gains (profits which are the result of the appreciation in the value of the stock) also count. This is the result of expectations regarding the firm’s free cash flow, in particular the free cash flow that goes to the shareholders.

There is no agreement as to what constitutes free cash flow. In general, it is the cash which a firm has after sufficiently investing in its development, research and (predetermined) growth. Cash Flow Statements have become a standard accounting requirement in the 80s (starting with the USA). Because "free" cash flow can be easily extracted from these reports, stock valuation based on free cash flow became increasingly popular and feasible. It is considered independent of the idiosyncratic parameters of different international environments and therefore applicable to multinationals or to national firms which export.

The free cash flow of a firm that is debt-financed solely by its shareholders belongs solely to them. Free cash flow to equity (FCFE) is:

FCFE = Operating Cash Flow MINUS Cash needed for meeting growth targets

Where

Operating Cash Flow = Net Income (NI) PLUS Depreciation and Amortization

Cash needed for meeting growth targets = Capital Expenditures + Change in Working Capital

Working Capital = Total Current Assets - Total Current Liabilities

Change in Working Capital = One Year’s Working Capital MINUS Previous Year’s Working Capital

The complete formula is:

FCFE = Net Income PLUS

Depreciation and Amortization MINUS

Capital Expenditures PLUS

Change in Working Capital.

A leveraged firm that borrowed money from other sources (could also be preferred stockholders) has a different free cash flow to equity. Its CFCE must be adjusted to reflect the preferred dividends and principal repayments of debt (MINUS sign) and the proceeds from new debt and preferred stocks (PLUS sign). If its borrowings are sufficient to pay the dividends to the holders of preference shares and to service its debt - its debt to capital ratio is sound.

The FCFE of a leveraged firm is:

FCFE = Net Income PLUS

Depreciation and Amortization MINUS

Principal Repayment of Debt MINUS

Preferred Dividends PLUS

Proceeds from New Debt and Preferred MINUS

Capital Expenditures MINUS

Changes in Working Capital.

A sound debt ratio means:

FCFE = Net Income MINUS

(1 - Debt Ratio)*(Capital Expenditures MINUS

Depreciation and Amortization PLUS

Change in Working Capital).

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

As a novice trader, you’ll often feel the need to trade.

You may be bored or frustrated. Or you just want to try a certain type of trade.

STOP!

Realize that you don’t have to be trading all the time to be successful. In fact not trading is often the very best decision you can make.

The market tells you when to trade. If you feel the urge to place a trade or find yourself chasing a trade, walk away from the computer. Better still; take the opportunity to meet a friend for coffee.

The trades you do when you’re feeling the “need” will usually be lemons – and leave you with a very bitter taste in your mouth!

They will usually not have clear signals, but you’ve convinced yourself they are there. After losing your premium, or much of it, you’ll look back and wonder how you could possibly have entered that trade. It’s happened to all of us, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Just don’t do it again.

The market is going to do what the market is going to do, not what you need or want it to do!

And remember the old saying, “If you can’t see it, it’s not there”. So if you stand back from your computer and the chart pattern or signal doesn’t jump out at you, it’s not there.

EASY IS BEST

The novice is constantly staring at charts, looking for and often inventing signals. If you have your strategy in place and you wait for the patterns to form, your entry points will FEEL easy. They will be obvious – you won’t need to be searching for them.

WRITE IT DOWN

Remember to keep a log book. We keep one, which includes any potential trades – those which look like they will possibly provide an entry in the near future. It’s good to see if they eventually develop into a trade. It will help guide you up to a point where you make a decision whether to enter, or to leave it alone.

Also, when you enter a trade, log it in your book with a few details and, commit to a stop loss point and a profit level where you will be happy to exit the trade. Remember, don’t be greedy – or you’ll see your premium reach that point, pass it and quickly drop back past your original exit point. You’ll then see how you would have been happy to exit at your prescribed price!

Much of the time there won’t be any trades for you to enter, so it leaves you with plenty of spare time for gaining extra knowledge and enjoying life. You probably won’t trade more than a few times a week. So, you can see, there’s a lot of time to be analysing charts – and feeling the NEED to trade.

Be strong and disciplined!

David Chandler

Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Profits!

For free mini-course on stock and options trading click the following link:

http://www.StockMarketGenie.com

Or visit our blog at:

http://stockmarketgenie.blogspot.com/

The above comments are offered for educational purposes only. We are not providing you with financial advice. We are simply sharing with you what has and hasn’t worked for us personally. If you wish to trade or invest in the stock market you should obtain advice from a registered licensed advisor.

We learnt the following the hard way! If any of these things applies to you, don’t worry – there is an easy solution!

MISTAKE ONE

Lack of Knowledge and No Plan

It amazes us that some people expect to trade the stock market successfully without any effort. Yet if they want to take up golf, for example, they will happily take some lessons or at least read a book before heading out onto the course.

The stock market is not the place for the ill informed. But learning what you need is straightforward – you just need someone to show you the way.

The opposite extreme of this is those traders who spend their life looking for the Holy Grail of trading! Been there, done that!

The truth is, there is no Holy Grail. But the good news is that you don’t need it. Our trading system is highly successful, easy to learn and low risk.

MISTAKE TWO

Unrealistic Expectations

Many novice traders expect to make a gazillion dollars by next Thursday. Or they start to write out their resignation letter before they have even placed their first trade!

Now, don’t get us wrong. The stock market can be a great way to replace your current income and for creating wealth but it does require time. Not a lot, but some.

So don’t tell your boss where to put his job, just yet!

Other beginners think that trading can be 100% accurate all the time. Of course this is unrealistic. But the best thing is that with our methods you only need to get 50-60% of your trades "right" to be successful and highly profitable.

MISTAKE THREE

Listening to Others

When traders first start out they often feel like they know nothing and that everyone else has the answers. So they listen to all the news reports and so called "experts" and get totally confused.

And they take "tips" from their buddy, who got it from some cab driver…

We will show you how you can get to know everything you need to know and so never have to listen to anyone else, ever again!

MISTAKE FOUR

Getting in the Way

By this we mean letting your ego or your emotions get in the way of doing what you know you need to do.

When you first start to trade it is very difficult to control your emotions. Fear and greed can be overwhelming. Lack of discipline; lack of patience and over confidence are just some of the other problems that we all face.

It is critical you understand how to control this side of trading. There is also one other key that almost no one seems to talk about. But more on this another time!

MISTAKE FIVE

Poor Money Management

It never ceases to amaze us how many traders don’t understand the critical nature of money management and the related area of risk management.

This is a critical aspect of trading. If you don’t get this right you not only won’t be successful, you won’t survive!

Fortunately, it is not complex to address and the simple steps we can show you will ensure that you don’t "blow up" and that you get to keep your profits.

MISTAKE SIX

Only Trading Market in One Direction

Most new traders only learn how to trade a rising market. And very few traders know really good strategies for trading in a falling market.

If you don’t learn to trade "both" sides of the market, you are drastically limiting the number of trades you can take. And this limits the amount of money you can make.

We can show you a simple strategy that allows you to profit when stocks fall.

MISTAKE SEVEN

Overtrading

Most traders new to trading feel they have to be in the market all the time to make any real money. And they see trading opportunities when they’re not even there (we’ve been there too).

We can show you simple techniques that ensure you only "pull the trigger" when you should. And how trading less can actually make you more!

David Chandler

For free mini-course on stock and options trading click the following link:

http://www.StockMarketGenie.com

Or visit our blog at: http://stockmarketgenie.blogspot.com/

Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Profits!

The above comments are offered for educational purposes only. We are not providing you with financial advice. We are simply sharing with you what has and hasn’t worked for us personally. If you wish to trade or invest in the stock market you should obtain advice from a registered licensed advisor.

Well maybe that’s overstating it a little, but it’s certainly one of the most important.

It is…(drum roll please)… “the need to be right”!

Now that probably wasn’t what you were expecting. You might have thought it was going to be something like not picking the trend or putting too much money on a single trade or one of a dozen other things.

But I can assure you, from bitter experience, that this one attitude causes more problems than most other things you might do as a trader. And it’s worse for men! Something to do with ego or testosterone…

You see our whole society is based on the importance of being right. The need to be right.

Your parents rewarded you when you are right and told you off when you were “wrong”. They probably still do this now that you are grown up!

From your earliest days at school you are taught that being right is the most important thing. Isn’t that what tests teach you? And this is reinforced through the rest of your life. Your boss probably reminds you of this just about every day!

But some of the best things occur when we aren’t right. Like the time you take a wrong turn. Either in your travels or in your life. And you end up at this amazing place or with this amazing person that you never would have, had you done the “right” thing.

Plus there’s not a lot of point beating yourself up when you aren’t “right”. Because, as we all know, it’s going to happen pretty regularly!

Coming from Australia, I don’t know a lot about baseball. But I do understand that batters get paid a lot of money to miss hit the ball an awful lot! Think about that. Top baseballers step up to the plate every day knowing that they are more than likely not going to get it “right”. Yet they are confident and successful because they know that over a season they are going to get it right often enough.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up or the Market Will join In!

I went to a speed-reading course many years ago. I didn’t learn how to read faster (!) but I did learn an attitude that has stuck with me ever since. It is – “Focus. No attachment to the outcome.”

This guy was telling us about how he taught elite sportsmen to achieve their best (hope he was better at that than teaching people how to read fast!). He explained that the trick was to get them to keep taking the shot (or making the jump or whatever) without getting upset with themselves if they got it wrong.

The key was for them to focus on what they had to do in that moment, not on the outcome.

Maybe I have lost you? But the point I’m trying to make is that you need to go into each of your trades with your focus - not on being right - but on following your trading system.

And then the key is to not beat yourself up if you “get it wrong”. Because if you have followed your system and you know the system works over time, you have done the “right” thing.

Once you have confidence in your trading method your only focus is on following the signals.

“Focus. No attachment to the outcome.”

By the way, try this approach in other areas of your life. It really works! My golf was much better once I stopped getting angry at myself for every lousy shot.

Deadly Attitude in the Market

In the stock market you can’t afford to hold onto the need to be “right”!

When trading, you cannot be right 100% of the time. In fact, you can be right only 50% of the time and still make lots of money. But this means you have to be wrong an awful lot!

The market will do what the market will do - no matter what your opinion might be. If you are holding a stock and you expect it to go up in price but it starts to go down, what happens?

If you are like me, a little voice inside says something like “…but this wasn’t meant to happen!…it can’t do this to me!… I know I’m right – it’s just a temporary set back; it will come right, I’ll just wait it out…

This “voice of reason” is your ego. You can’t bear to be wrong, so you justify your decision to yourself. You must be right! You tell yourself that you know what’s going to happen…the market’s just confused…it’s just got it wrong! (totally illogical reasoning – the market can never be “wrong” - but it makes sense at the time!).

This deep-seated, primordial need that we have to be right can destroy you in the stock market. It will make you put too much money on one trade. And it will make you hold onto stocks that you should have sold days or even weeks ago.

It will mean you will miss opportunities you should have taken because your view was the opposite of what actually happens. And you can miss getting extra profits from a trade because you were convinced that “…it couldn’t possibly go any higher…”

By being aware of this “need” you can overcome it – over time! You need to get to the point where you “want what the market wants”. Not what you want.

Just remember.

“Focus. No attachment to the outcome.”

David Chandler

Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Profits!

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The above comments are offered for educational purposes only. We are not providing you with financial advice. We are simply sharing with you what has and hasn’t worked for us personally. If you wish to trade or invest in the stock market you should obtain advice from a registered licensed advisor.

I receive emails from Morningstar. This company provides statistics and analysis of just about every publicly traded stock company you can think of as well as voluminous information on mutual funds around the world.

You can ask them about a company’s sales, management, marketing plan, their performance within a corporate sector, ratios of all kinds, etc, etc. The have it. After you have gleaned all these facts and analyzed them there is still one unanswered question. If I buy this equity will it go up? You definitely will not get that answer and that is the only answer that means anything. It is the bottom line for all research.

Brokers and financial planners use this type of service to determine if a stock or fund is a "good" buy. When it comes right down to it you must ask, "If I can get this information then so can everyone else so why is it any good?" It isn’t. After you have been doing this a few years you will find that it is a useless exercise. Brokerage firms want you to do it so that if the stock goes down they can say to you that it was your decision to buy it based on all those "facts". Yes, you had all that information, but it is nothing more than disinformation.

They tell you that every conservative investor does his homework, his research. The term conservative investor is an oxymoron, like military intelligence or honest politician. There is no such thing as a conservative investment if there is the slightest possibility that you could lose all or part of your money. And that is true in just about everything whether it is stocks, bonds, real estate, collectibles, you name it.

Their ad stated that every month they would have information on the best and most popular mutual funds. Since when has popularity got anything to do with a stock or a fund going up? Fidelity Magellan is one of the most popular mutual funds in the world yet it dropped from $145 to $73 (a 50% loss) and is now trading at $100 still down 31%. Janus Balanced Fund dropped from $25 to $17.50 and has since rallied to $20. TR Price Japan Fund hit a high of $16, fell to $5 and is now $8 still a 50% loss. Did any of their “information” ever tell you to sell? Popularity is not a yardstick for profits.

And they also will give you the hot picks of 150 analysts. You might as well use a dartboard as listen to those guys. They are high priced guessers who put you in and never get you out when something starts down. Morningstar is providing you with information. The information is not worth the paper it is written on.

Their facts are useless even though they are facts. Bottom line: research is worthless.

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 day I hear from the “experts” on CNBC-TV and the radio gurus that the way to buy stocks is find value. One man’s Rembrandt is another man’s connect-the-dots and fill in the spaces. Valuation is like beauty. It is in the mind of the beholder.

If valuation is the key to buying stocks then there should be some kind of a formula to determine what is undervalued and over-valued. In every industry there are formulas for standards of performance. For cars we want to know the zero to 60 miles per hour in how many seconds. For soap we want it to be 99 and 44/100 percent pure. For alcoholic beverages it could be how long it has been aged. And on and on.

Yet in the stock market we have no hard and fast set of rules by which to judge a company performance. Ah, and there’s the rub! No matter how good a company performance might be it may have no bearing on the price performance of the stock. You can find good companies that are within a sector that is doing poorly and yet one company can be making huge profits and sales, but the stock price is going nowhere. There need not be any correlation.

When you are in a bull market almost every stock goes up – even the dogs. When you are in a bear market almost every stock goes down – even the best ones. We ended an 18 year bull market in 2000 and almost without exception every stock headed for the exit.

Bull and bear markets follow relatively standard patterns of about 16 to 18 years up and 16 to 18 years down and the valuations go right along with them. If you own stocks or especially index funds during the bear periods you will be lucky to have broken even at the end of the 16-year cycle. Cash in your mattress will outperform market returns while the bear is in charge.

During these bear times there will be periods when the market will have a nice advance such as the one we saw start in 2003. These intermediate rises can ultimately bring many investors back into the market only to lose it when the rally is over and true valuation returns.

One valuation measurement for the overall market is the Price/Earnings ratio of the S&P500 Index. The median number for the historic purposes has been around 14. Today it is running about 21 which is considered high. When bear markets end the P/E can be about 6 or 8. There are other factors to be considered when buying any stock or fund, but the one thing that is most important is to have an exit strategy. Without one you will give back your profits.

No one knows exactly where the top or bottom of a market move will be. Knowing conventional valuations is one tool to help your buying and selling decisions.

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

I continually hear from economists, talking heads, other market letter writers, analysts and assorted “experts” that I need to know all kinds of “stuff” about the stocks and mutual funds I am going to buy and I should keep up with them on a regular basis.

What is this important “stuff”?

Let’s see. Oh, I know. Price to Earning ratio, P/E. That’s always a big one on almost everyone’s list. Simply put it is how many years it will take a company’s earning to pay back the price today. It can be from five to infinity if it is not earning anything. Today there are many companies that have P/Es in excess of 50. That’s 50 years to earn back your investment. Kinda steep, don’t you think? For years the average has been 14 or 15. Today it is about 28 to 30 depending on who is counting.

A stock selling at 14 P/E is fairly valued by “experts”, but if the stock is going down is that still a “fair” value? Do you want to buy something that is a fair value, but looks like it will sell for less in a few months?

Then there are all kinds of things market analysts like to look for and talk about such a gross sales, net profit, management experience, competition, industry sector, price/volume relationship, interest rates, rate of inflation and I could go on for a couple of pages, but you get the idea. When, and if, you do this type of analysis you will find most of the numbers don’t agree with each other to give you a clear idea of whether to buy or sell. It is like trying to pick a button out of a washing machine during wash cycle. The more you look the more confused you become.

Brokerage companies want you to try to use all this “stuff”. They encourage you to become confused. That way if you pick a stock that goes down they don’t take any blame. “The market is very complex” is their favorite phrase. Whether you win or lose they make money in commissions.

If this “stuff” is of no value in stock selection (and it isn’t) then how are you to find stocks that go up? It is so simple that brokers don’t want you to know. In fact, most of them don’t know. Here is the answer. Find a stock or better yet a mutual fund that is going up. Is that too easy?

There is a basic law of physics that says a body in motion will remain in motion in the same direction until disturbed by another force. The Law of Inertia. This same principle can be applied to the stock market.

Find a stock or mutual fund that is going up and buy it. When the direction changes to down (or even sideways) sell.

You don’t need all that “stuff”.

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