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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: accountclosed who wrote (37884)	12/1/1998 4:12:00 PM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 132070

For lower expense ratios look at the Profunds. BEARX is the only one handled by Quick and Reilly and therefore the only one I can use for an IRA. I do view it as strictly a temporary hedge or speculation on a decline in the market and view its expense ratio somewhat like an insurance premium. They do try to actively manage their positions and the turnover is enormous: the opposite of what anyone going long in a fund would ever choose. Ultra funds of the Profunds group double the performance of the indices. But it's all there on the website, so please check it out for yourself. I'd rather just announce what I am doing and indicate where the information is than give advice. I guess the real nightmare is that one of these operations might be fraudulent. By the way, I just learned from the Wall Street Journal this morning that my life insurance policy with the Principal Group, which I have been paying on for many years, has been defrauded of its mutual ownership rights in the company. That is, it's been converted to a stock company in a way that cheats the owner/policy-holders, who ought to have been issued stock. There's a lawsuit, so maybe some class action settlement will produce something. But this is what once was a Bankers Life insurance policy and rated highest in the country. So you really can't count on anything to be and stay completely honest. I mean, I still have what the policy guarantees, but ought to own a part of the company as well and have not been getting the maximum dividends. Instead, the officers are paying themselves huge salaries and stock options. If I make any further of these bear investments, I think I'll split evenly between Ultrabear Profund and Ultrashort OTC Profund. They have a minimum investment of $15,000. BEARX is a lot lower, but I forget what it is.