Thanks, Trader J. Always appreciate your insights and knowledge. Been busier elsewhere than I would like lately, hence the delay in my reply.
Two questions for you:
Have you ever heard of or used a system called Automatic Investment Management, or AIM, for investing? In a nutshell, I describe it as a better version of dollar cost averaging. The difference is, you put in all the money up front ($10K or more is best), and it can be in either one stock, a group of stocks, an index fund, whatever. The beauty of the system is you don't care so much about stock appreciation as its volatility, and it's completely automatic, taking all emotion out of deciding whether you should buy more, sell, etc.
Here's the most beautiful aspect of it –– you can still make huge profits over the long term if the equities you select stay at the same price, as long as they're volatile. Ironically enough, the system is also less risky than trading stocks by themselves too, since it keeps a cash reserve based on performance.
The system comes from a book written in the late 1970's called (you'll have to excuse the title) How to Make $1,000,000 in the Stock Market Automatically ( Amazon link) by Robert Lichello. He made four revisions to it before he passed away in 2001.
I have an Excel spreadsheet for tracking the program, sent to me by a guy who'd written an article about AIM I found by searching.
It is also beneficial to select stocks that pay a dividend to offset the cost of commissions. The one I picked last year, KEMET Corp. (KMET) was up over 12% by itself, but trading with AIM it was up over 16%.
Obviously, with a fund, dividends will be a given, but there are downsides there too (front end and back in loads, or 12b-1 fees in the case of mutual funds).
I'm still backtesting stocks for use with AIM, looking for highly volatile stocks that also pay a dividend. Guess what? That's a pretty small group of stocks depending on how high you set the beta (volatility) for your search.
There is more to it than this, and I'm sorry if I come off as a commercial for the system, but I'm a believer.
There is a SI board dedicated to AIM run by a great fellow, OldAIMGuy: A.I.M Users Group Bulletin Board
That said, I like to "gamble" with my play money to buy and sell individual stocks. I'm going to use AIM for my long term retirement money.
So, here is question two, have you ever looked into Axon Enterprise, Inc. (AAXN)? They used to be TASER International as they sell TASER systems for law enforcement, but they rebranded when they started selling body cameras as well. These days, if you see pretty much any police body camera video, you'll notice the "AXON" name in it, along with the other data. They also provide cloud services (recurring revenue!) and video analysis software which is growing in popularity and adoption.
AAXN is up over 50% YTD and has held up quite well in the recent market selloff.
AAXN's board is run by yours truly: Axon Enterprise, Inc. (AAXN), formerly Taser Intl. |
