The idea that an investment portfolio can contain any number of unrelated speculations without itself being speculative is the stuff that Wall Street’s alternative investment purveyors are selling. True investment portfolios need none of this, and the numbers prove it true beyond any doubt. There is no need to fight or to counteract the market cycle, which is what alternative speculations try to do.

Easily managed, goal-directed investment portfolios should contain both equity and income producing securities — each with their separate purposes within the portfolio, and each with their own unique reactions to the same economic, political, and market stimuli.

The IGVSI, a true blue-chip index, didn’t fall as far as the DJIA or S & P 500, and has risen to a new all time highs far sooner. IGVSI based portfolios, long-term, have done better by far than the dot-com-replacing ETFs, precious metals, and currency futures.

The S & P 500 contains 165 more stocks than the IGVSI, but less than half are Investment Grade Value Stocks. Although it is more broad based, it is also more speculative, and has not done as well as the DJIA. Still 14.7% below the 2007 high, it would need to gain another 17.2% just to claw back to its 2007 level.

For the rest of the story: http://kiawahgolfinvestmentseminars.net/Inv/index.cfm/5742

Steve Selengut

http://www.marketcycleinvestmentmanagement.com

http://www.valuestockindex.com

Author of: “The Brainwashing of the American Investor: The Book that Wall Street Does Not Want YOU to Read”, and “A Millionaire’s Secret Investment Strategy”

 A year later, the market statistics, all of them, are shouting at the top of their lungs — the correction is coming! The correction is coming!

 Portfolio “smart cash” is at pocket-hole-burning levels; less than 3% of all IGVSI stocks are even close to “bargain” prices; new 52-week highs have more than quintupled new lows; and issue breadth has been exceptionally positive.

 Clearly, we are still in a rally. But the longer and the faster we surge upward, the more likely that the next correction will be painful — and there absolutely will be another correction. This rally will celebrate its two-year anniversary on March 9th. How much longer do you think the toga party will last?

For the rest of the story: http://kiawahgolfinvestmentseminars.net/Inv/index.cfm/18428

Steve Selengut

http://www.sancoservices.com

http://www.valuestockbuylistprogram.com

Professional Portfolio Management since 1979

Author of: “The Brainwashing of the American Investor: The Book that Wall Street Does Not Want YOU to Read”, and “A Millionaire’s Secret Investment Strategy”

The Brainwashing of the American Investor ~Steven Selengut

From the end of 1999 through the end of 2009, all of the popular Wall Street market performance measurement tools were in the red. The average bloodletting level of the DJIA, the S & P 500, and the NASDAQ was a disturbing-to-some minus nineteen percent.

The Media has dubbed it “The Dismal Decade”.

Most of the investment community is either open-mouthed in shock or strident in blame about the somethings or someones who must be responsible for such horrific performance. Never again they swear to their clients— without ever a hint that they might themselves be the problem.

It won’t be long before the Wizards of Wall Street announce that they have studied the situation, and readied their sales minions to switch the shattered investment public into yet another fail proof (fool-magnet?) portfolio of hedges, gimmicks, signal responders, and panaceas for whatever the new decade brings.

Once again they will attempt to debug the market cycle and create an upward only future for the masses. Try not to be abused again— the markets aren’t broken, just the market shakers. Your portfolio should be up in market value— and not by just a little for the “dismal decade”.

These are the same geniuses that created the dotcom bubble by cramming valueless securities and speculative IPOs down your throats. They are the same charlatans who created the derivative markets and fraudulently hid their gaming devices in innocent looking rolls of tissue paper.

Wall Street thrives on the boom and bust scenario— because it doesn’t really matter to them how many of you win or lose. The evidence is clear; a boring-but-winning approach has been out there (and ignored) for three equally productive decades. The investment gods are outraged!

The past decade was a fabulous decade for old-fashioned value investors, particularly those with a reasonable selling discipline in their methodology!

It was a fabulous decade for those who understood that quality, diversification, and income generation are principles as opposed to media placating buzzwords.

It was a fabulous decade for those investors who were able to see over, beyond, and through artificial time constraints to find the long-term opportunities within every beautiful market cycle undulation. There were plenty of gyrations to gyrate to if you only knew how.

Investing is no longer a passive enterprise; and it never really was. If you can’t manage your portfolio throughout the market cycle, without succumbing either to greed, to panic, or to artificial and complicated hedging strategies, just stop. Right now. Listen and learn something old.

The only market cycle hedges needed are quality, diversification, and income— all classically defined. Throw in some disciplined selection and selling guidelines, a cost-based asset allocation formula, and a non-calendar year perspective and success will follow— cyclically.

You may miss a speculative spike or two (i.e., bubbles), but in the long run, Market Cycle Investment Management (MCIM) is a proven methodology for long run investment success.

You just can’t replace market cycle reality with calendar year gimmickry. Do better. Google investment grade value stock and request the ten-year MCIM numbers.

Change is good.

Steve Selengut

http://kiawahgolfinvestmentseminars.net/Inv/Search.cfm

Author of: “The Brainwashing of the American Investor: The Book that Wall Street Does Not Want YOU to Read”, and “A Millionaire’s Secret Investment Strategy”