Folks, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for subscribing to my blog. And I want to give special thanks to those of you who have added your comments, both supportive and contradictory. It’s flattering to know that others think enough about what you have to say to not only welcome it into their mailboxes every week, but to digest and think about it.

This will be my last post for a while—perhaps for quite some time. And, this evening’s broadcast will also be my last for a while as well, as I’m also going to take a sabbatical from my on-line “radio” show. Both of these activities have been labors of love. But they have both consumed considerable time, energy, and thought—resources that I’ve decided to apply exclusively to a couple of other things.

The first is a very exciting, new project whose mission is to promote financial literacy. As most of you who have known me for a while know, this is—and has been—a passion of mine for some time. And, I’m going back to school to acquire some skills in the graphic arts and video field that I can apply to this project. And I’m looking  forward to both the education and the constructive result.

I’m also going to play a more active role in helping my wife, Dianne, with her business. She’s been doing a fantastic job as it is; but it’s time for me to be more actively supportive than I have been. I think this will be fun as well.

So, thanks again for both your interest in my effort to help you be more successful investors, and your indulgence when I’ve occasionally drifted off target to rant a bit.

I’ll keep my Web site open at http://www.financialiteracy.us. The archives for this blog will remain there for anyone to prowl around in and refer to. And, there’s no need to unsubscribe, should you want to know about it when or if I should start back at it again.

Best wishes and so long for a while!

Ellis Current Events, Food for Thought, Fundamental Investment Views, How to Invest, Investment Concepts, NAIC Veterans' Lounge, Stock Market Shams, Successful Investing

I’d like to provide something of a ray of sunshine to those who, while usually stalwart and rational investors, may have become dismayed by the current investment climate.

You simply cannot  judge the investment climate by the state of the stock market. Instead, I look at the number of companies whose shares are available on the major exchanges that meet my rigid requirements for sustained sales and earnings growth and for their ability to sustain healthy profit margins.

For that purpose, I consult the result of screening the database of companies provided by ICLUBCentral and NAIC for those which meet or exceed the “Acceptable” Take Stock Quality Index. In normal times, and until the recent market collapse, only about 150 companies, give or take 10, met those criteria. This meant that, of the more than 9,000 publicly-traded companies, fewer than 2 percent warranted my investment interest. When this recession was at its worst, that number of shares declined to only 32! There is no question but that the recession decimated the number of companies that could meet those strict guidelines. Happily, that number is once again commencing to grow.

Ellis Food for Thought, How to Invest, Investment Concepts, NAIC Veterans' Lounge, Successful Investing rational value, safe investing, stock market

The mid-term elections are about over, thank goodness! And it appears that we’re finally going to get off our apathetic duffs and put people in office who at least claim to want to show some fiscal responsibility. They will have work to do, to nurse the nearly cooked goose—mother of our golden eggs—back to health.

Barrack Obama was selected to be his party’s champion because he was one of the most articulate speakers his generation has produced. What’s more, I have to acknowledge that a relative newcomer like him doesn’t get as far as he has, without having more behind his eyes than the average, and without having enough street-smarts to work the political machinery, from ward to world stage.
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Ellis Current Events, Food for Thought 2012, election, future president, Obama, results, rout, what's ahead