By Oldman on Dec 29, 2007

Thank you for your notification about trying to answer a whole bunch of questions. I have three suggestions for your site’s comment/answer postings:
1. It would be helpfull to be able to have {Insert Paragraph} or space between composed responses. Everything just runs together.
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2. I read some of the earlier responses to posted questions, but some were terse to the point of obscurity; others assumed a sophistication on the part of the person asking for assistance. I didn’t look up the poster’s biography, but tried to frame an answer in the light of my own experiences and ignorance.—————————– I’ve invested in mutual funds since 1972 and in individual stocks since 1980. My target return for sheltered accounts is 9%/ann. with a “beta” of 1.2 and a max. drop of 30%, all of which have been as projected and have occurred; my target for post-tax accounts is 6 % net of taxes and inflation, with less than 10% drop and a beta of 0.8, which is what has occurred. Mostly the stock picks are non-tech and are dividend-paying stocks. More than 1/2 the portfolios are in foreign equities/funds/ETFs and CEFs, and have been for 30 years. ———————— I’m retired and have been for about 10 years, and I keep 3-5 years of expenses in money markets…and very little in bonds. So my overall portfolio is 70% equities = 20 percent cash; 60-70 percent foreign; I have no dependents, no mortgage, and few relatives left. I subscribe to a variety of paid and free financial advisories and about 1 of twenty recommendations are worth following up … but only 1 of 10of those are worthwhile for my investment. Most of my holdings have been for 30 to 60 months. (some of the mutual funds have been there for 30 years, and they get trimmed when they gain more than 15% in a year, so there’s a bit of rebalancing and reinvesting on my schedule, not the IRS’s or the fund managers’ schedules. I don’t trade options, or futures, or commodities. I do use trailing stops for more growthy type stocks in Roth and other sheltered accounts; for the taxable acounts , I try to purchase below the Bollinger band or 3 yr trend line.
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3. There are many useful free sites for information on the Web. That doesn’t demean this site, and it doesn’t make Teeka’s knowledge of options or Chris Rowe’s knowledge of fundamental evaluation, or your own knowledge of the range of enquiries less valuable.
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I am going to give three specific examples of sites and info that I have used recently to determine where (into what securities/sectors) I would like to invest —
——Concurrent and recent past ——
www.successful-investment.com … has a concurrent analysis of performance of ETF’s and CEF’s, domestic and foreign …and one can go back in time in the archive and see how they have reranked with major market shifts.

——-Concurrent and future ————–
SeekingAlpha; article 50341 with the nominal title of performance after a rate cut, by Ciovacci, and a note about the past hyperinflaton (1970-1983 period. This article links to three prior ones.

———–Future based upon quantitative recent past and mean regression/asset class —

Seeking Alpha article 52339 by Considine, which is about asset allocation/risk reduction with a relatively low or recent inflation base.
Considine has a fee-pay site for this kind of analysis, but the free info is very useful since both his analysis (before the Fed’s rate cuts) and Clovacci’s (post rate cuts) both indicate that TIPS have heretofore underperformed, and emerging markets have outperformed.
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My own take on all this: IFF (If and only if) global inflation increases markedly in ‘08, due to increasing fiat money in developed economies and commodity pricing pressures on high growth BRIC and EEM economies, where to invest? That’s probably the $64 Question.
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And I’m glad you asked, because the material-insensitive sectors (IT, software, wireless) and the required sectors(Water, basic foods and commodities that are necessary for roads, housing, structures and shipping, and health care services and cleaner energy) will probably outperform on a global basis vs their US/Euro/Yen competition. I believe this trend is in place for the next few years.
——————————————Now all this is for the Tickerhound staff and Mr. Mulligan to reflect upon. It isn’t to gain points or embellish a bio.