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

To: Jack Park who wrote (6316)	11/28/1998 9:40:00 AM
From: OldAIMGuy	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 18928

Hi JP, Thanks for the thoughtful note. AIM fits someplace between the BuynHold and the short term trading camps. The gains offered by AIM in trading are usually larger per round trip than what many short term strategies attempt. That's one item in AIM's favor. Another is that it retains a position at all times in the equity. Many ST traders make nice annualized profits in their trades, but miss the long term trend by waiting for the next cycle. This is something that frustrated me personally. It bothered me to leave money on the table after a trade. It even bothers me in AIM, but I've learned to live with it, since I know that I still have as many $$$ at risk in the marketplace after a selling spree as I was willing to risk when prices were cheap. Momentum players seem to be better at it, but even professional momentum funds do only marginally better than the market overall. Watching earnings momentum is a tricky thing. Is one quarter of peculiar earnings enough to drop a stock from the model? Or are they looking for longer time horizons than that? I guess I'll have to ask Mr. Stowers of Am. Century Funds sometime. Recently an investor over on the VTSS thread was discussing his strategy. He's pretty much a die hard ST trader. However, he admitted that he's added a new dimension to his investing by retaining a 20% stake in the stocks that he trades. Hmmmmm. Sounds like he's beginning to realize what AIM's about! The time taken to research and "trust" a new investment should be rewarded properly. A 10% short term trade never managed that for me. Not when the stock continued on to a double! AIM allowed me to stay with an investment long enough to realize the potential, yet kept my risk exposure to a measured amount. I've asked this fellow, when he returns to the same stock for a later trade, if he then saves yet another 20% for long term. That would be a novel way for a trader to build a portfolio out of stocks that he's come to know. I applaud your abilities in stretching AIM. Your AI work distills much of what it took me years to learn through experience. As we've seen in recent months, it's the bear markets that test AIM's abilities and our resolve to stick it out. How did the AI-AIM react to this most recent period? I wish I had more background in evolutionary programming and AI, but all I really know is what I've learned over the years reading general articles in Scientific American and from what I've gathered from your efforts. Have you added any new goodies to your site since I last visited? As our first AIM souvenir, how about a small model of a commode or urinal with the words "WE AIM TO PLEASE!!"? Maybe we can start our own TV channel - the AIM Shopping Network! Then, of course, we'll convert it to AIM-NET.COM and go public! We'll get Ford Motor to do a special version of their Explorer as the *"Bobby Lichello"* model! Oh, and don't forget sending out our special Christmas Catalog! This could be BIG!!! I hope the style of my efforts has been acceptable to those that have found the AIM pages and this thread. I've kept it to a "here's what's worked for me" basis. One of the limitations of the point in life where I am is that I don't have "new money" coming into my Equity Warehouse. Therefore I don't spend as much time on stock selection as many others do here. Jim Battaglia and Jeff Weber screen huge quantities of data very regularly looking for new possibilities. We now have Dave giving us input on the Energy sector. This is all really good for the group as a whole. It fills a gap that I'd let grow because I wasn't researching new stocks that often. I'm not even sure I recommend the stocks that I already own!!! Bob Norman many times asks me if I've ever heard of the names of the people that order software from him. Years ago, I usually had corresponded with whomever was making a purchase. That's not true any more. Once in a while I'll have heard of the person, but most are "strangers" to me. I assume that many of them are finding this thread or AIM conversations on other threads and it leads them back to the various software providers and book stores. It truly seems to be a "word of mouth" or "keyboard" event. I was impressed with the fact that posting here stayed relatively steady during the Bear phase we had recently. Much of SI was very quiet. It felt like we were the last bastion of rational investors left!! It was also of interest that Newport sold more software during the crap market than usual. We'll have to get StockSystem.com's take on it as well. If it holds true, they probably had a nice uptick in business in Sept and Oct. as well. The one hole in the software end of things still seems to be for the Mac users. Maybe someone will solve that soon. In the mean time, it seems that Mac users have found their own ways to get AIMing. Well, this is enough rambling for one morning! My butt is getting tired! We've been having great weather here for late November. I'm going to put the Jag to bed for the winter today and take my last ride in the Fiat Spyder as well. They both hibernate during the salty times of the year. I've already put the race car to sleep. The garage is a big pit right now, but I'll clean it in the spring. No use doing it before I have to!!! Best regards, Tom

To: Jack Park who wrote (6316)	11/28/1998 10:17:00 PM
From: Jack Jagernauth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

Hi JP, Further (perhaps finally) I have been observing some friends messing with FT over the last couple of years. That's a great idea, and I still believe that fund switching has a future as I have discussed on my forum in the past. But, for many of the FTers who have finally gone off and hired some guru to switch their funds (and lost there too), I suspect AIM should be their next step. Are you saying that you know people who tried Fastrack and lost money switching/trading mf's? From the little I heard of it, it sounded like an almost sure way to earn 20 to 25% returns annually. Anyway, I have to agree with you that AIM might be a great next step for them to invest/trade profitably, and I might add, to have a life as well. I have been following another thread which is dedicated to fund switching, charting, timing....etc., etc. Some people there are doing well for themselves, for example, 30% return per year; but, there seems to be a bit of guessing required, and many decisions and some stress involved. By the way, whatever became of Don Bell? Wasn't he achieving over 50% returns using FT? I wonder if his method, which I read about at your site some time ago, is still profitable. Regards, Jack