Can anyone recommend a good web based investment advisory?

[princeplanet]

What about the "Intelligent Investor"?

 

[Tannin]

TII is stable, methodical, and ethical. They don't try to be all things to all men, they aim to provide a good depth of analysis on a modest number of stocks. They are not interested in trading, derivitives, speculation, complex securities, TII focuses pretty closely on finding and following good, profitable companies which are undervalued. I have been a member for about a year and I think they do a very good job of it. I make my own decisions and don't always agree with their views - for example, they have gone right off Metcash now where I reckon it's just become outstanding value - but when in doubt, TII is a great touchstone.

I subscribe to a couple of other investment newsletters also, and rate one of those other two as poor, the other as good. TII certainly gets a pass mark from me. I'll renew my sub when the time comes.

 

[princeplanet]

TII is stable, methodical, and ethical. They don't try to be all things to all men, they aim to provide a good depth of analysis on a modest number of stocks. They are not interested in trading, derivitives, speculation, complex securities, TII focuses pretty closely on finding and following good, profitable companies which are undervalued. I have been a member for about a year and I think they do a very good job of it. I make my own decisions and don't always agree with their views - for example, they have gone right off Metcash now where I reckon it's just become outstanding value - but when in doubt, TII is a great touchstone.

I subscribe to a couple of other investment newsletters also, and rate one of those other two as poor, the other as good. TII certainly gets a pass mark from me. I'll renew my sub when the time comes.

Hey thanks for that. And which other do you recommend? Re they worth the fees asked? I'm moving away from my previous FA and into Commsec, but not as a trader, just an investor for a mid to long term. I have no time to learn to be a good trader, so paying for good investment advice maybe necessary. Or could I just use Commsec for it's buy/hold/sell recommends?

 

[Tannin]

No worries, PP, glad to help.

The Motley Fool (fool.com.au) can seem rather lightweight if you read their open-to-the-public pages, but their subscription service is a little different. The Motley Fool Share Advisor (as they call it) consists of a single main email per month, with weekly updates. Every month they recommend one Australian stock, plus one international (usually US) stock. They track their recommendations and monitor them, providing guidance as circumstances change.

Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but in reality it's probably enough for many investors, especially ones who are gradually building up a portfolio. After all, you can't buy stocks in everything at once, and it's much better to concentrate on your one best idea than mess about with too many different things.

The Fool's portfolio only stared in about December, adding one local stock a month. That's ... ewr ... 8 stock picks. Only one of them is trading below the starting price at present (by 1.2% - note that the All Ords is down 1.5% over the same period) with all the others up by anywhere between 0.4% and a very nice 81% in one case. So that's an excellent record! Their overseas picks have not gone so well: some are up, some are down.

They also mention other local stocks from time to time but don't track those in any formal way. I subscribed, perhaps against my better judgement, in response to one of those special offers which seemed pretty reasonable at the time, and despite not really needing yet another investment newsletter subscription. But over time I have developed a lot of respect for the organisation. As things have worked out, I have not yet bought any of their formal first-pick recommendations (except for one company which I already owned before I joined) but I have picked up on two or three of the other stocks they have discussed. These have not done anything amazing for me at this stage but I'm happy to hold and watch them gradually go up. (So far so good!) I'm happy to recommend the Motely Fool Share Advisor too. I'll most likely renew when my subscription comes up. I think the service is a worthwhile one and it sits well alongside my Intelligent Investor subscription - two quite different services, both valuable, neither one expensive as these things go.

 

[Tannin]

As for Comsec's buy/sell/hold recommendations .... I have nothing much nice to say about them. They strike me as being almost random, though I must confess that I don't look too closely at them and have never tried to count up their wins and losses - maybe they are brilliant and I just never noticed! They seem to me to focus almost entirely on the large cap majors (ASX top 20ish stuff) and I have no idea whether they provide a useful analysis or not. As a rule, I tend to avoid the big blue chips 'cause I reckon most of the value can be found at the small-cap end of the market where the companies aren't so throughly picked over. Still, you get it for nothing with your Comsec account, so you might as well read it. By the way, they practically never say "sell"! Perhaps they are afraid of offending some company which might be looking for a broker to underwrite a capital raising before too long!

 

[Tannin]

Finally, to be complete I should discuss the one I recommend against. This isn't a true stock-picking newsletter; it's a sort of three-way hybrid between something like the Intelligent Investor and the financial columns of a newspaper and an advertising press release agency. It is the pay-for arm of the Business Spectator and it is called The Eureka Report.

It has a wide variety of articles from an equally wide variety of contributors, some on-staff, most outsiders. These articles can be really interesting; highly informative; completely lacking in relevance; aimed mostly at pushing a particular product which "just happens" to be the one the guest author writes and sells; right down to downright rubbish. I was stupid enough to get carried away after reading one and bought MCE at $3.54. Dumb! I eventually got out for $1.98 and they went on all the way down to $1.66. Fortunately, it wasn't a large parcel and I have learned a couple of things about (a) not paying any attention to a chap named "RM" and (b) stopping out losses a bit quicker. Some of the other recommendations were pretty awful too, though doubtless there have been successes amongst them.

Anyway, as an investor's advisory, I reckon it has been a dead loss. Only the fixed interest colums are worth reading, and you should be able to get hold of those elsewhere without subscribing. And just to put the kybosh on it completely, a few months after I bought my 12 month subscription, they sold out to, of all people, Rupert Murdoch! I wrote to them and told them not to even bother sending me a subscription renewal notice.

But the idea of a broad-ranging general-finance-news website is a useful one. The Business Spectator/Eureka Report is obviously off the radar now, but what to replace it with? The finance columns of the major dailys (The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian) are OK so far as they go, but they don't go far enough. I have taken to reading the Financial Review most days now (the printed version even! that's the first time I've bought printed newspapers this century!) and that's OK, and I'm also visiting Macrobusiness regularly. When my Eureka Report subscription expires, I'll consider subscribing to Macrobusiness and/or the Financial Review - but neither of these as guides for stock picking, that's something specialist newsletters like the Intelligent Investor and the Motley Fool are much better at.

 

[Julia]

As things have worked out, I have not yet bought any of their formal first-pick recommendations (except for one company which I already owned before I joined) but I have picked up on two or three of the other stocks they have discussed. These have not done anything amazing for me at this stage but I'm happy to hold and watch them gradually go up.

What's your plan if they go down?

(So far so good!) I'm happy to recommend the Motely Fool Share Advisor too. I'll most likely renew when my subscription comes up. I think the service is a worthwhile one and it sits well alongside my Intelligent Investor subscription - two quite different services, both valuable, neither one expensive as these things go.

Have your profits from the shares bought following their advice exceeded the cost of your subscription so far?

 

[ROE]

afr.com worthy of a subscription....they provide the clues and articles you draw your own conclusion
after a while you can picture together take over tarket, good bad management and stocks to stay away etc...

 

[Tannin]

What's your plan if they go down?

I have stop-losses set. They haven't been triggered. One came not too far from them at one point but has recovered nicely and is moving up into the green now, little by little. I reckon it's good for a fair bit more upside though, so I'm sitting put for a good while yet.

Have your profits from the shares bought following their advice exceeded the cost of your subscription so far?

For TIE, yes, easily.

For MF, about even - but to be fair, I have been a bit off-script insofar as I didn't like several of their #1 recommendations or already had something similar and let them pass in favour of also-ran choices. That's OK. People who (unlike me) follow the recommendations a bit more closely would be ahead at this stage.

For the ER, not a hope. But that's not really why you would subscribe to it. It's more like a general newspaper sort of thing.

 

[princeplanet]

Wow, Tannin, they're some pretty strong views you're throwin' down there! Will be interesting to see if anyone cares to agree or disagree....

 

[tech/a]

You'd have to go a long way to beat THE CHARTIST.
Run by NICK RADGE for a very modest fee you are at
The right hand edge of 5 live traded methods.
You have access to extensive and regularly updated
Analysis of a vast number of stocks/commodities/indexes.

You can trade directly from Nicks selections while following
The complete trading process from entry to stops to exit.
Or you can have your portfolio handled by Nick ( for
The larger portfolio trader ).

Nicks been around over 20 yrs. Has published 3 books the latest
UNHOLY GRAILS
He's ASIC licensed and having known him for 20 yrs can say
He's easy to talk to, a genuine oasis in a desert of sharks.
Everything is transparent and Nick defends his professional
Business standing with gusto.

He has an introductory period which is very reasonable.
If you want to know more google "THE CHARTIST"
From there you can give him a call his number is on the site.

 

[notting]

I've been sitting back waiting for the above post. Set up nicely for it!

Even though there seems to be much Nick Radge promotion and a bit of exaggeration at times with respect to Nicks Performance going on consistently on this forum by the most prolific poster, there is nothing exaggerated about the above post.

The Chartist is the best place to be for guidance and online advice for trading.

Nick is also fairly priced and you get a good education along the way.
He also picks up the phone which is amazing in this environment, I'd certainly be too afraid to!
Shows confidence and even courage!

Another thing that impresses me about Nick is not just the systematic disciplines and proven systematic winning formulas but the insights he has in general with respect to psychology, market myths and behavior.

There is such a thing as talent and his is for the market, especially the ASX, which tends to be an ideal trading market, most of the time.

Investment is a different kettle of fish.

So I second what Tech/a recommended and am personally glad to have stumbled upon The Chartist through this forums posters recommendations for him.

 

[joea]

You'd have to go a long way to beat THE CHARTIST.
Nicks been around over 20 yrs. Has published 3 books the latest
UNHOLY GRAILS

I purchased Unholy Grails and basically skimmed through it, then gave it to a friend of mine
who is pretty set in his ways with "buy and hold."
It took me a month to get it back. The friend is now busy computing strategies.
This book is what I needed in 2006. However now that I have it, all the better.
About a third of the book is discussions with experts. ...very good. i.e. the comments.

What I like is the Example Strategies. 8 of them. The concept of the thinking behind them.
Following this, is Proof of Concept.

It is interesting because I spoke to a fund manager(in 2004) about this type of concept, and was told
that's not how it's done. I accept now, that not how they were going to do it.

The Preface is the best I have read of any book. It talks about the "Fosbury flop" in high jumping".
How it would not work, and is now the accepted method.

I will close with a comment from the Preface.
"The contents of this book are actually nothing new, although only practiced by a quite few;
indeed the broad concept can be traced back to the 1800's."

The book sums up how to make money out of trading.(in my case more).
And all for an approximate price of a carton of stubbies.

cheers joea

 

[Steve C]

I purchased Unholy Grails and basically skimmed through it, then gave it to a friend of mine
who is pretty set in his ways with "buy and hold."
It took me a month to get it back. The friend is now busy computing strategies.
This book is what I needed in 2006. However now that I have it, all the better.
About a third of the book is discussions with experts. ...very good. i.e. the comments.

What I like is the Example Strategies. 8 of them. The concept of the thinking behind them.
Following this, is Proof of Concept.

It is interesting because I spoke to a fund manager(in 2004) about this type of concept, and was told
that's not how it's done. I accept now, that not how they were going to do it.

The Preface is the best I have read of any book. It talks about the "Fosbury flop" in high jumping".
How it would not work, and is now the accepted method.

I will close with a comment from the Preface.
"The contents of this book are actually nothing new, although only practiced by a quite few;
indeed the broad concept can be traced back to the 1800's."

The book sums up how to make money out of trading.(in my case more).
And all for an approximate price of a carton of stubbies.

cheers joea

Is Nick's latest book something you can just read, or is it neccessary to have read the first two in order to properly understand?

 

[tech/a]

Is Nick's latest book something you can just read, or is it neccessary to have read the first two in order to properly understand?

No
You can read it stand alone.

(Pages 103-109 I think ) are the ducks guts

 

[joea]

Is Nick's latest book something you can just read, or is it neccessary to have read the first two in order to properly understand?

I found the book is a stand alone .
I have not read anything else from him.
In all fairness there have been a number of posts on the ASF, that I have not understood.
I would say "what the hell are these guys on about"?

I now understand.

Actually a guy called Colin Nicholson who wrote 'The Aggressive Investor", has a similar concept
as one of the strategies. He always buys particular stocks relating to highs. In November 2007 Colin told the people in his news letter he was 90% cash and why, and spent the next year and a half writing his next book.

All I can probably say in regard to Radge is, the concept makes sense.
Now I will stick my "bloody" neck out, its one of the few that make sense.
I will add this..
"If you challenge the conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things better than they
are currently done". ... Michael Lewis.

joea

 

[joea]

The book sums up how to make money out of trading.(in my case more).
And all for an approximate price of a carton of stubbies.

cheers joea

I thought I would add.
The stubbies are long gone and I still have the book.
joea

 

[princeplanet]

Any thoughts on Paterson's? Is their site free?

 

[princeplanet]

sorry, gonna bump for a quick response, hopefully.....

 

[princeplanet]

still wonderin'...