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.

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I was exploring some ideas for my watch list, and one of the companies that surfaced was Ebix (EBIX), a world-wide provider of custom software solutions for the insurance industry. It was recently ranked the third-fastest growing company in the world by Fortune magazine.

Now I’ve said many times that those who trade stocks and bet on the stock market are confused and bewildered. Nor do they have a clue as to what any stocks will do tomorrow. And, of course, that confusion is compounded by the contribution that technical analysis makes to the mix. As an example to bear out my conviction, I would offer the following two excerpts about Ebix from the Investors Business Daily, each appearing within three days of the other.

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My mission, when I started this blog, was to persuade my readers that “investing,” is not what the securities industry has spent gazillions convincing everyone it is: betting on the stock market, which is risky and unpredictable. Rather, “investing” is a simple means of earning money with your money. It can make you wealthy and is virtually risk-free. For at least this week, we’ll return to our roots and stick to the mission, both in this post and in Thursday’s on-line “radio” show.
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The Wall Street Journal strikes again! This time it’s an article entitled “The Decline of the PE Ratio.” And once again, it was too hard to pass up as a topic for this blog.

The first sentence alleges that the PE ratio “is shrinking in size and importance.” And it points out that, in spite of the fact that U.S. companies announced record profits during the second quarter—beating forecasts by more than 10%—the market dropped 5% this month.

It goes on to connect the dots, making the point that “the market’s average price/earnings ratio…is in free fall, having plunged about 36% during the past year,” and claiming that, because PEs have declined while earnings have risen, that the PE ratio may no longer be a reasonable metric by which to value the market. They’re absolutely right…if the market is what you invest in!
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When it comes to the stock market, you’re either a gambler or an investor. You simply can’t be both. Gambling and investing are two entirely different things. And, they’re mutually exclusive.

You either think like most folks do, that investing is betting on the stock market—with, at best unpredictable, at worst disastrous, results. Or you understand that it’s putting your money to work for you in successful businesses—letting it earn more for you with little or no risk. You just can’t have it both ways.

In fact, as it happens, one group usually buys from, or sells to, the other.

Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the joy of knowing a whole lot of folks who not only “got it,” but were eager to share their convictions and their knowledge with others. So grateful were they to have learned from other willing mentors, they took pleasure in passing it on. But I can no longer find them. No longer does there seem to be anyone whose convictions—that they were right and the rest of the world wrong—move them to stand up and be counted.

It would be tragic if this commonsense, simple and successful approach to investing were to be lost to the world! But it will be, unless those of us who know what we know have enough conviction go out of our way to take sides and speak up.

It’s well past time we screamed bloody murder because a greedy and unscrupulous securities industry continues to get away with enticing the public into thinking they can get something for nothing—which is exactly what trading and buying stocks for the short term is, and what the whole business of derivatives and other speculative activity involves.

What’s as important, is convincing the public that there is a better way, and that there are some of us who are ready, willing, and able to show them how.

Ellis Food for Thought, Fundamental Investment Views, How to Invest, Investment Concepts, Successful Investing gambling, investing, stock market, teaching

A couple of posts back, I made some comments that ignited a challenge to me to come up with some kind of measurable evidence that our system really works.

The beauty of this investment methodology is that it’s not one that’s so doctrinaire that, given the same set of circumstances, everyone could be relied upon to do exactly the same thing. The variables are simply too many and too subjective. Therefore, you can’t put together a control group whose performance you can empirically measure against a benchmark.

Believe me, if I could make my point without seeming to brag, I would. What I buy, when, and for how much, and how my portfolio performs is my own business. So, I’ve tried to avoid talking about my own case and relied on the logic and common sense of this approach to impress people with its validity.

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Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanakkuh, Kwanzaa, or whatever, there’s an almost universal commonality among faiths—and non-faiths—that this is the season to give.

In that spirit, I’ve spent some time putting together as concise a summary of our investment approach as I could. And, because it’s so simple, I’ve been able to cram everything I think anyone needs to know about investing into my thirty-minute broadcast on Take Stock with Ellis Traub this evening at 7:30PM Eastern (6:30PM Central).

As you know, my intent is to separate as many folks from “the herd” as I can; and I’m hopeful that this offering might help them to understand why our way works and the herd’s doesn’t. Read more…

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Has the market yet fully recovered from the beating it took? Everyone who cares, raise your hand!

Now look around. Everyone whose hand is up is a member of the herd!

“Well, I care if the stocks I own haven’t yet recovered,” you might say. But why should that even make a difference? Unless you have a need to sell them right now for some personal reason, you need only to wait a little longer—provided those underlying companies meet the standards for high quality we’ve talked about. And, if they do, you might even consider buying some more!

We’ve just been experiencing a “market correction”; and, as with any “correction,” something that was wrong is made right. Generally, as is the case today, the “wrong” is that stock has been in the hands of those who don’t have a clue as to its real value, expecting someone else to pay more for it than they did.

What’s “right” is that the shares of the well-managed companies are now being gathered up by those who know their real value. And the prices of shares in those companies are rising nicely to regain their true, rational value.

Because there are relatively few companies that meet our high standards, the market average continues to languish. And, as happens in most down markets, it will continue to do so for some time while the quality companies recover smartly.

Are we there yet? Heck, “we” business owners ain’t never left!

But it might be a while yet before “they” come back.

Ellis Food for Thought, Fundamental Investment Views, Investment Concepts, Successful Investing market correction, rational value, recovery, the herd

As typically happens, interest in investing declined in lock-step with the Dow. But there are signs that some color is returning to the cheeks of a nearly moribund body of amateur investors.

Many investment clubs—microcosms of that larger body—attest to the same phenomenon in their ranks. Members lost interest as the market value of their clubs’ portfolios seemed to evaporate while they stood helplessly by; and many clubs lost members or, worse, fell by the wayside.

In view of this, the question must arise in the minds of some whether clubs are even relevant any more.

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