Your Investment References

A TradiStrategy That Consistently Beats All Major Indexes

Are you looking to outperform the market and optimize your profits but are not sure how to pick the right stocks? Has investing become a chore? Do you find yourself investing in hot stocks after they have made their big move? Would you like to learn how I increased my portfolio by over 400% in under 7 years? Do you want to discover how I have outperformed the market over the past 3 years by a margin of 5 to 1?

Do You Hate Research? . . . I do!

I have always wanted to find an investment strategy that made sense. An investment strategy in which I do not need to know the intricacies of the market, predict market trends or follow specific stocks. How can I get the inside information of what is hot before the rest of the market knows? I can't. Nor do I need to.

Plus, I don't have that kind of time to commit to in-depth research. Like you, I have a regular job that I need to devote my time to. I am not a day trader; nor do I want to spend all of my free time on the computer doing research. Always following the stock market and getting stock quotes is not how I want to spend my free time.

I Avoid Individual Stocks . . . they are too unreliable!

Everybody wants to buy low and sell high. While millions of people do make money this way (and many millions loose money), I have found an easier and more effective way to use the market to my advantage. I do not trade in stocks. I do what I can to avoid individual stocks. And I consistently beat the market . . . month after month after month.

If not stocks, what's the alternative?

Like many people, I got heavily involved in the stock market in the mid to late Nineties. Tech stocks were going through the roof and I, like everybody else, wanted a part of the action. It seemed an easy way to make money. Everybody was getting rich. You did not need a special investment strategy to beat the market.

During this time, I engrossed myself in the financial markets. I wanted to learn as much as I could without giving up my day job. I was trying to find the next best tech stock, IPOs and the occasional pre-IPO offering. But it was not until I discovered options trading that I discovered an investment strategy (The Yager Trading Strategy) that can work in any kind of market . . . Bull, Bear or stagnant.

That's right...OPTION trading!

And I am not talking about stock options or writing covered calls. Options trading...I started selling options on S&P futures, using different methods and trading strategies. And I did well. VERY well.

Between July 1998 and January 2000 (a span of 18 months), from my option trading system, I turned an initial $25,000 investment into $167,615. That's over 670% increase. And this was not paper money where you buy a stock and it has a certain listed value. This was real, taxed income. Profits collected on a monthly basis.

Market fluctuations and volatility have diminished greatly since then...reducing the premiums. Those types of returns are no longer available, but the option trading strategy is still very sound. I still consistently beat the market. Even the years the DJIA, Nasdaq and S&P were all down, I posted more than a 22% gain.

Learn the option trading strategy or see how to make money with this strategy. I describe the strategy and show actual recent trades on YagerInvesting. The information is FREE. No subscription required. This is a method for risk capital only.

Against The Top Down Approach To Picking Stocks

If you have heard fund managers talk about the way they invest, you know a great many employ a top down approach. First, they decide how much of their portfolio to allocate to stocks and how much to allocate to bonds. At this point, they may also decide upon the relative mix of foreign and domestic securities. Next, they decide upon the industries to invest in. It is not until all these decisions have been made that they actually get down to analyzing any particular securities. If you think logically about this approach for but a moment, you will recognize how truly foolish it is.

A stock’s earnings yield is the inverse of its P/E ratio. So, a stock with a P/E ratio of 25 has an earnings yield of 4%, while a stock with a P/E ratio of 8 has an earnings yield of 12.5%. In this way, a low P/E stock is comparable to a high – yield bond.

Now, if these low P/E stocks had very unstable earnings or carried a great deal of debt, the spread between the long bond yield and the earnings yield of these stocks might be justified. However, many low P/E stocks actually have more stable earnings than their high multiple kin. Some do employ a great deal of debt. Still, within recent memory, one could find a stock with an earnings yield of 8 – 12%, a dividend yield of 3- 5%, and literally no debt, despite some of the lowest bond yields in half a century. This situation could only come about if investors shopped for their bonds without also considering stocks. This makes about as much sense as shopping for a van without also considering a car or truck.

All investments are ultimately cash to cash operations. As such, they should be judged by a single measure: the discounted value of their future cash flows. For this reason, a top down approach to investing is nonsensical. Starting your search by first deciding upon the form of security or the industry is like a general manager deciding upon a left handed or right handed pitcher before evaluating each individual player. In both cases, the choice is not merely hasty; it’s false. Even if pitching left handed is inherently more effective, the general manager is not comparing apples and oranges; he’s comparing pitchers. Whatever inherent advantage or disadvantage exists in a pitcher’s handedness can be reduced to an ultimate value (e.g., run value). For this reason, a pitcher’s handedness is merely one factor (among many) to be considered, not a binding choice to be made. The same is true of the form of security. It is neither more necessary nor more logical for an investor to prefer all bonds over all stocks (or all retailers over all banks) than it is for a general manager to prefer all lefties over all righties. You needn’t determine whether stocks or bonds are attractive; you need only determine whether a particular stock or bond is attractive. Likewise, you needn’t determine whether “the market” is undervalued or overvalued; you need only determine that a particular stock is undervalued. If you’re convinced it is, buy it – the market be damned!

Clearly, the most prudent approach to investing is to evaluate each individual security in relation to all others, and only to consider the form of security insofar as it affects each individual evaluation. A top down approach to investing is an unnecessary hindrance. Some very smart investors have imposed it upon themselves and overcome it; but, there is no need for you to do the same.