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Strategies & Market Trends : A.I.M Users Group Bulletin Board -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken Adams who wrote (18712)	12/13/2021 5:44:08 PM
From: OldAIMGuy	2 Recommendations Recommended By Condo Ken Adams Respond to of 18928

Hi Ken, I started investing shortly after college in the early '70s. It couldn't have been a worse time to have been putting money into the markets. Every dollar I put in instantly seem to fall to $0.80! That continued thru around 1975. Then things started to perk up. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Heck, I was using everything I'd learned in my college investing class and nothing was working. It wasn't me, it wasn't the companies I chose, it was the MARKETS! I was too inexperienced to understand it at the time. Every time I invested back then and the price/share would immediately go down, I'd say to myself, "If I only had some extra cash I'd buy more of XYZ" - what ever the company was. I started to listen to myself in the late '70s and early '80s and started sidelining some cash each time I bought some new stock. If it dipped, I added. It started to work. In 1986 a friend told me about an article called "The Ever Liquid Portfolio" and sent me a copy. It was in there that I saw reference to Mr. Lichello's book. After reading about AIM it felt like a warm pat on the back. Here was Mr. Lichello recommending exactly what I had stared doing. His method was far more robust than my 'seat of the pants' efforts and by January of 1988 I'd adopted AIM completely. At the time we were a family of four with very young kids. The recovery of the stocks I'd bought in the '70s was enough to jump start AIM and keep it moving. October 19, 1987 almost derailed the whole mess, but Cash and AIM saw me through. Several times over the years we had to have some family meetings about cost control and vacations and things when market were stormy. Like in that quote, I just plain got lucky for the most part. AIM gave me the strategy and structure to stick with very long term investments to see the fruition be realized. Along the way there were always MAALOX Moments but also some very productive times as well. With only a slightly different, less fortunate turn of luck, I would have probably given up. What started as a hobby became my vocation, however. Thanks for bringing all of this up. Best wishes, OAG Tom

To: Ken Adams who wrote (18712)	12/14/2021 1:06:07 PM
From: OldAIMGuy	2 Recommendations Recommended By Condo Ken Adams Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

Hi again Ken, An interesting question was raised over on the AIM board at Investors Hub that sort of fits with yours. Here it is and my reply: JD writes - Emergency Protection How can I protect my AIM programs in the event of my sudden demise or incapacitation? I want to protect my accounts from possible significant losses in such an emergency. I could engage a financial manager, but I don't like paying as much as 1.5% every year for this protection. Another option is to switch to very conservative funds or ETFs, but this method limits growth. I'd appreciate any comments of references on this matter. Thanks! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My reply - Good morning JD, Re: Keeping an AIM portfolio alive into the Future....... Some of the answer would be dependent upon how the account and positions are currently structured. Is it mostly individual company stocks (your comment would make me think so)? That might make it harder to find a bank trust department, investment advisor or mutual fund family who would be able to step in while maintaining an existing portfolio. Another question I'll ask is do you have a family member who is also interested in investing who would be willing to take on duties to continue your efforts? Most brokerages will allow you to add someone with limited power of attorney for your account so they can make trades for you. This might solve your problem while affording you the opportunity to teach AIM to another generation. A "Family Office" doesn't need to be a formality, just a convenient arrangement. I happened to meet four bright and experienced investment advisors who were all approaching the point they no longer wanted to work for one of the big brokerage firms at about the same time. They were looking for a sound fiduciary model for their high net worth clients' core portfolios that would be at least as good as owning an S&P500 Index fund and be more proactive to true market conditions. They wanted to "hang their own shingle" and start an advisory company for their clients, moving them from the big firms to their new RIA. That was in 2000. They saw big storm clouds on the horizon and wanted to reposition their clients before the first raindrops fell. These four were on average about 15 years younger than I and that looked interesting, too. I was looking at this same question at that time. AIM had done a great job for me, the AIM Users had grown to a healthy group of investors with all sorts of novel ideas but my immediate family was either uninterested or too young to bring on board. I'd been on my own for a very long time and didn't see myself even remotely fitting into the Three Piece Suit world going forward. I liked what I was doing but thoughts of estate planning were on my mind and I realized, like you, there were limited ways for me to address my situation. It turned out my goals and theirs were running on parallel tracks for slightly different reasons. By satisfying their desire for something new for their clients core positions I was also creating something that satisfied my own requirements for perpetuation of my investment efforts. While there were some delays in seeing all this come together, we eventually, in 2003, had the basics in place. In 2008 we formalized everything with a new investment advisory with a significant portion of total assets under management being monitored basically with Mr. Lichello's AIM concept as the strategy. Not all of this story will be helpful. I hope you see that others have had to face this dilemma as well. Maybe others will chime in on how they plan on addressing "succession planning" with their investments. Best wishes, OAG Tom