Diogeron, *OFF TOPIC*
I am sorry to upset you by mentioning Skousen. I subscribed to Skousen for about 3 or 4 months before I dropped it. Since I dropped it, I am obviously not a happy camper. PARTICULARY AS I LOST MONEY, but in some respects I preferred MS to JD.
As you say, MS spends too much of your money touting his personal politics.
I dropped MS because his tolerance for risk way exceeds mine. According to one of his recommended brokers, 90% of what MS recommends are speculations. You have to have a cast iron stomach to follow his advice. I commend you, Diogeron, for sticking it out three years! You must be a high roller. :-)
On the positive side, things I liked about MS:
- not hesitant to cut his losses and move on
- he offers asset allocation advice, the sort that fluctuates according to current economic conditions. Many advisors, JD included (read his Secrets of the Swiss special report), think you should modify your asset allocation according to current economic conditions.
- He offers economic analysis that has the jump on the media band wagon.
_ He seems more aware of issues such as the year 2000 problem
- MS is much more accessible than JD. Each newsletter tells how get questions to him via US mail and email. He also answers readers questions in his newsletter. I also got free tickets to The Money Show so I could meet him face to face (if you can call sitting in an auditorium with a few hundred people as he lectures a face to face meeting. But what do you want from a freebie.) I think MS is quite interested in his subscribers. JD is much more aloof from his subscribers.
To be fair to MS, I had his letter at a time of unusual market turbulence: the asian meltdown. His picks were trashed and he freely admitted it. If he was blind sided by the Asian meltdown, so was JD. I was wanting conservative advice for building a core portfolio, but I can't swear that MS ever promised to deliver such a thing.
I can say JD's ex-Asia picks held up very well during the Asian meltdown and by contrast, MS's advice didn't look so good. Plus I couldn't complete my DD on one portfolio anyway before MS would switch to a new one. Plus I got tired of hearing how MS was buddying up to Newt Gingrich. So I pulled the plug.
A serendipitous effect of cancelling my MS subscription: I used to get promos from JD'spublisher for every damn newsletter they offered, until I had the temerity to actually take them up on their offer to get my money back if I wasn't 100% satisfied! That stopped the junk mail dead in its tracks. Something to think about if you're tired of junk mail from JD's publisher ... |
