Evaluation

by Albert W. Thomas

As you know I have been trying to restore sanity to the insane premises Wall Street has been teaching its brokers and you for all these years. Their insanity has become so pervasive that it has become conventional wisdom. The brokerage houses have taught everyone to act insanely and to think that what they are doing is sane. Wall Street has taught you the insanity of doing research, dollar cost averaging and buying and holding. Anyone who can rub two brain cells together can figure out that all these are lies. A book written 40 years ago by Nicholas Darvas called “How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market” came to the same conclusions I have, namely, brokers don’t know anything and research is worthless. He gives a good explanation as to why he came to those conclusions. You might still be able to get the book at the library as it is out of print. Why is research worthless? There is one good source of information about almost any listed company as well as many unlisted companies from Morningstar. They are the nexus for stock market information. You can find out more things about a company than you will ever need to or want to know. You will be inundated with information, but there is one thing they do not know. Will the stock go up after you buy it? And that is the only thing that counts. When you ask your broker about a stock he will go to the company file that has all the statistical information about almost any company. He thinks that stuff is good. If it is so good why doesn’t he buy it? Because down deep he knows it is worthless, but he can’t admit that to you or even to himself. His company has taught that you must do research. In his defense he does not realize he has been a good student, but has had a bad teacher. You would think that after doing this nonsense all those years he would catch on, but he doesn’t because everyone around believes it is true. He is in an insane asylum. Everyone looks normal. You cannot evaluate an insane evaluation system with insane evaluation. Once you realize it is insane you must leave it. Don’t argue with the insane person. Now you have shaken lose from that weird thinking you will be able to look back on it to wonder why it took you so long to come to your senses.

Unfortunately, in the insane asylum known as the stock market all the doctors (brokers) are also insane. The doctors in the insane asylum went to medical school to learn how to treat the patients so the could get well. On Wall Street you go to the doctor (broker) who is supposed to help you become financially well, maybe wealthy. Almost none of these Wall Street experts ever learned their profession. They have all been taught the three great prescriptions that make no sense at all: Do Your Research, Buy and Hold and Dollar Cost Averaging. This is what the brokerage houses teach. As I said previously research is worthless, as it will not tell you if a stock is going to go up. Buy and Hold is taught the wrong way. It is OK to Buy and Hold as long as the stock is going up, but not when it goes down. No broker is taught how to protect a customer’s money. When I was a floor trader I learned in a hurry not to hold on to something that was losing money. The very simple prescription for this is called a Stop Loss Order. Brokers hate them and will discourage you from entering them. Why? Because it means he will have to watch your account because if a stop order is not properly and timely executed he must pay it out of his pocket. Brokerage houses do not teach brokers how to use this simple method to protect capital. The house does not want to become known that it will sell a company’s stock when it turns weak. The brokerage company makes more in good will from the poor performing company than they do in commissions from you because if they ever encourage selling it means they will not get a chance to handle an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for that company. Suppose they did have a stop protection policy for customers and they then had an IPO that came out at $30 per share, but instead of going up it went down. The customers would not lose more than $3 or $4 per share because of their protective stops, but the house would then be stuck with all the unsold stock. It is OK for you to have this money-losing dog, but they sure don’t want it in their inventory. You can see how logical this is, but you won’t hear it from a broker. Stop orders are not insane. The insane conventional wisdom that both brokers and customers have been taught cannot remain once it is exposed to truth. You must take the initiative with the stocks you own to protect yourself from loss of capital. If your broker argues with you there is one solution - fire him and find a good broker who will protect your money. Just because he has learned an insane system doesn’t mean you have to be nuts too. Author of “If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!” www.mutualfundstrategy.com comments to al@mutualfundstrategy.com 1-888-345-7870