Investment

» SteveT - Beating the Market Isn't Easy -- Any Way

THE HUGE GROWTH IN THE POPULARITY of hedge funds over the past several years, coupled with the subsequent mediocre performance of many of them, has taught us all many valuable lessons about investing.

But there's one lesson that I think needs to be drawn that really hasn't been: The disappointing performance of many hedge funds shows that stock picking is no easier to do successfully than is market timing.

Of course, it's not immediately obvious why we should draw this lesson from the data. But the assumption behind the market-neutral offerings of many hedge funds is that it is easier to pick stocks than it is to time the market.

This assumption is rarely made explicit. Hedge-fund sales people simply will trot out the usual statistics about how difficult it is to time the market successfully and argue that, because of this, their funds should concentrate instead on constructing portfolios equally balanced between owning stocks that will outperform the market and shorting those that would underperform -- portfolios that theoretically will make money regardless of whether the market goes up, down, or sideways.

But note carefully that this conclusion does not strictly follow from the initial argument. Successful market timing may indeed be difficult. But to conclude from this that managers should instead concentrate on equity selection, one would need to show that it is easier for them to be successful at picking stocks than at market timing.

I believe that conclusion is false.

How did I determine that? I turned to the Hulbert Financial Digest's database of investment newsletters' performance and in particular to the track records the HFD calculates for newsletters' market-timing advice.

The HFD calculates these latter records by constructing a hypothetical model portfolio for each newsletter that mirrors its actual model portfolio in all respects but one: Every time it buys an individual stock, the hypothetical timing-only portfolio instead purchases an equal-dollar amount of the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index.

All the transactions in these hypothetical portfolios are executed at the close of the days in which subscribers would actually be able to act on the newsletters' recommendations. So, they accurately represent what a subscriber would have been able to achieve in the real world if he or she had acted immediately on the newsletter's advice.

The performances of these hypothetical timing-only portfolios enabled me to find out how many advisers' market-timing recommendations perform better than a buy-and-hold strategy does. And by comparing their returns with those of the newsletters' actual model portfolios, I could further determine how many of the newsletters' stock selections beat the market.

The proportions in both cases turn out to be statistically indistinguishable, meaning that both approaches work equally well or badly.

Over the last decade, for example, 30% of the newsletters beat a buy-and-hold strategy with their market-timing advice, when performance is measured on a risk-adjusted basis (as is appropriate).

To be sure, this shows that successful market timing is not easy by any means: On average, the newsletters did not beat buy and hold with their market timing advice. But, at the same time, these results show that successful market timing is not impossible.

But even more crucially, this proportion of newsletters able to beat a buy-and-hold strategy with their market-timing recommendations is no lower, on average, than the percentage that can beat the market with their stock-picking skills.

To be sure, in some periods more newsletters were able to add value with their stock picks than with their market-timing calls. But in other periods, it was just the other way around. On balance, over periods of 10 years and longer, my analysis showed no significant difference.

Some might object to my using the performance of investment newsletters to shed light on the hedge-fund industry. Many on Wall Street consider newsletter editors to be nothing more than lunatic self-promoters, for example. What can their successes and failures tell us about hedge-fund managers?

But if 30% of lunatic self-promoters can beat the market on a risk-adjusted basis with their market-timing advice, then surely the investment professionals who manage hedge funds should be able to do at least as well. Why, therefore, do so many hedge funds eschew market timing?

Also, there are significant doubts about whether hedge funds are regularly adding value with their stock picking.

To be sure, analyzing hedge-fund returns is complex, requiring proper adjustment for any of a number of various statistical factors. But consider one study, conducted by Clifford Asness, Robert Krail and John Liew -- all of whom are principals of AQR Capital Management, a money-management firm that also runs several hedge funds.

After extensively analyzing the CSFB/Tremont Hedge Fund indices from 1994 through 2003, they did not find evidence that the average hedge fund was beating the stock market on a risk-adjusted basis.

What does this mean? For stock picking and market timing, success is very difficult but not impossible for all managers, be they investment newsletter editors or hedge-fund managers.

Why have so many hedge-fund managers nevertheless assumed they can pick stocks more easily than they can time markets? My hunch is that at least part of the answer lies in the different ways in which they approach security selection and market timing.

The former virtually cries out for intense quantitative analysis and the construction of huge databases containing myriad variables on each of thousands of different stocks. It's enough to keep an army of computer programmers busy indefinitely, especially since the data are perpetually changing. Analyzing the data also appears to be intellectually quite stimulating.

Market timing, in contrast, often presents a different set of challenges, ones that quants often find less interesting. The inputs to successful market-timing models change relatively rarely, for example, perhaps making them seem unexciting.

Because of this, furthermore, hedge funds might find it awkward to charge their huge management fees if they were to focus on market timing.

Whatever the reasons, it is clear that beating the market is difficult no matter which road you travel. Those on one road don't have an easier job just because they point out how difficult it is for those who have taken the other.

Mark Hulbert is founder of The Hulbert Financial Digest. He is a senior columnist for MarketWatch.

Comments? E-mail us at online.editors@barrons.com

URL for this article:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB1141...

-- posted by SteveT

» Normxxx - Bullish bandwagon

Jumping on bullish bandwagon

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch | 3 April 2006

ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch)— There was a huge jump on Friday in bullish sentiment among investment newsletter editors. From a contrarian point of view, that's not a good sign.

Big increases in bullish sentiment are never good news, of course. But their bearish significance is at least attenuated when the increases come in the face of big jumps in the market itself.

But Friday's jump came in the face of a declining market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU : 11,144.94, +35.62, +0.3% ), for example, fell 41 points on Friday, or 0.4%, after opening the session higher. A similarly-sized decline was seen in the S&P 500 index (SPX : 1,297.81, +2.98, +0.2% ). To get a sense of how much bullish sentiment jumped on Friday, let's turn to the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI). This index reflects the average equity exposure among a group of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest. From Thursday's close to Friday's close, the HSNSI jumped from 48.3% to 60.8%.

The HSNSI's historical range is from a high of 79.7% to a low of minus 81.8%. So the current reading is approaching the bullish extreme.

Historically, as contrarian analysts like to remind us, bull markets like to climb a wall of worry. So the current data suggests that the market currently has a fairly weak sentiment foundation.

How much weaker? Contrast those situations over the last 20 years in which the HSNSI was as at least as high as it is currently. On average over the subsequent three months following such situations, the Dow Jones Wilshire 500 index produced a 2.0% return. In contrast, the Dow Jones Wilshire produced a three-month return of 4.6% following those other situations in which the HSNSI was below 60.8.

The contrast is even starker for the NASDAQ Composite (COMP : 2,336.74, -3.05, -0.1% ) , which makes sense since over-the-counter stocks are particularly sensitive to changes in investor sentiment. The NASDAQ Composite's average three-month return following HSNSI readings at least as high as the current reading was 0.6%, vs. 6.2% following times when the HSNSI was lower than it is right now.

These contrasts are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

That doesn't guarantee that the stock market will have be a below-average performer over the next couple of months, needless to say. But it does mean that the sentiment winds will not be in the market's sails if and when it tries to rise.

______________


The contents of this letter/report does not necessarily reflect the opinions or viewpoint of normxxx. They are provided for informational/educational purposes only.

The content of this message is not to be construed as constituting market or investment advice. It is intended for educational purposes only. Individuals should consult with their own advisors for specific investment advice.

-- posted by Normxxx

» Normxxx - The perfectl storm?

The perfect seasonal storm?

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch | 3 April 2006

ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch)— Not only is it April, it's the second year of the four-year Presidential term. Does that mean you should get out of stocks?

Some who play the seasonal patterns believe you should, pointing to the confluence of the bearish phases of two separate seasonal patterns. A perfect seasonal storm, if you will...

The first of these two storms is the well known "Sell In May and Go Away" pattern, according to which the stock market typically performs poorly between May Day and Halloween.

The second is the Presidential Election Year Cycle, according to which the stock market is weakest during the first two years of a President's term of office

[ Normxxx Here:   And, especially during the second year. ]

and therefore has an above-average chance of forming a major bottom around the time of the mid-term Congressional Elections.

According to their devotees, either of these seasonal patterns by itself would be reason enough to avoid stocks until later this year. But the combination of both of them together would appear to add up to a particularly compelling bearish case.

Sam Stovall, Standard & Poor's Chief Investment Strategist, is one analyst who has urged investors to consider sitting out of the stock market during the second and third quarters of this year.

Stovall based this advice on a study of how the stock market tends to perform during each of the 16 quarters of a presidential administration. The study extended back to 1945.

"On average, the second and third quarters of the second year of an administration produced the worst returns in the S&P 500 (SPX : 1,297.81, +2.98, +0.2% )," according to Stovall. "The average returns of those two quarters were minus 2.0% and minus 2.2%, respectively. Only one other quarter, the first quarter of the first year of an administration, produced a negative return, which was minus 0.3%."

It is darkest before the dawn, however.

Stovall goes on to point out that, after these two sub-par quarters during the second year of a presidential administration, "the market tends to bounce back with the two strongest performing quarters of the [entire four-year] cycle. On average, the fourth quarter of the second year and the first quarter of the third year average about 7.5% return each."

Before we rush out to sell all our equity positions, however, it behooves us to assess the statistical strength of Stovall's analysis. That's what I did for this column, and upon doing so I discovered that some parts of Stovall's analysis are more statistically significant than others.

Like Stovall, I too segregated the stocks market's historical returns into the 16 quarters of the presidential administration. And, not surprisingly, since Stovall and Standard & Poor's are so careful with statistics, I also found that during the second and third quarters of the second year of a president's term, the stock market has indeed produced returns that, on average, are lower than those of any other quarter.

But that doesn't mean that there is any statistical significance to these results. Over the 60 years covered by Stovall's study, there would have been just 15 presidential elections. That's a precariously small foundation of data on which to draw broad generalizations.

In fact, when subjecting the data to rigorous tests of statistical significance, I found that— at the 95% confidence level typically used by statisticians— we cannot say that the stock market's returns are below-average during the second and third quarters of the second year of a President's term.

This is just another way of saying that the picture painted by the data is too fuzzy. We just can't be sure that the poor returns of these two quarters aren't just random noise. And until we can be more confident, betting on this particular pattern is little more than a shot in the dark.

One of the seasonal patterns that Stovall wrote about did jump over the high hurdles that skeptical statisticians place, however. At the 95% confidence level, we can indeed conclude that stocks tend to turn in above-average returns in the last quarter of the second year of a presidential administration and in the first quarter of the third.

What this means: In about six months from now, stocks will enter into a period of such strongly positive seasonality that even skeptical statisticians have to sit up and take notice. But that doesn't mean you should completely avoid stocks until then.

______________


The contents of this letter/report does not necessarily reflect the opinions or viewpoint of normxxx. They are provided for informational/educational purposes only.

The content of this message is not to be construed as constituting market or investment advice. It is intended for educational purposes only. Individuals should consult with their own advisors for specific investment advice.

-- posted by Normxxx

» SteveT - Recent Insider Selling Re-examined

By MARK HULBERT

THE HEADLINES IN RECENT WEEKS have been scary indeed. Corporate insiders, who presumably know more about their companies' prospects than do you or I, have been selling the shares they own of their companies' stock at a near-record pace.

"Spike in insider selling alerts equities analysts," read one typical headline in March, this one from the Financial Times, which went on to point out that "selling of U.S. stocks by company officers, directors and other insiders last month reached the highest level since just before the bursting of the dot-com bubble."

Before you rush to your computer to transmit sell orders for everything you own, however, you might want to consider a different reading of the data. Believe it or not, when properly interpreted, recent insider data not only do not paint a bearish picture but a modestly bullish one.

That, at least, is the contention of Nejat Seyhun, a finance professor at the University of Michigan, who has extensively studied the behavior of corporate insiders and what that behavior can tell us about the overall stock market.

The starting point for Prof. Seyhun's argument is something that many researchers have noted before him: Not all insider purchases and sales are created equal. Some of those transactions tell us a lot about what the insiders think about their companies' prospects, while others tell us next to nothing. And yet the raw data on which the scary headlines are based make no distinctions between the various types of insider transactions.

The single most important factor to take into account in interpreting the current data, according to Prof. Seyhun, is insiders' option exercises. That's because option exercises have a perverse effect on the insider data that get reported.

When an insider acquires stock through exercising an option, and then sells the shares he acquires, only the sale is conducted at the then-current market price. Since the insider data that get reported in the popular press focus on open-market purchases and sales, option exercises will make it look as though insiders are primarily selling and only occasionally buying. Needless to say, this will significantly skew the ratio of insider selling to insider buying.

Other factors that should be taken into account when interpreting insider transactions, according to Prof. Seyhun:

* Who is the insider undertaking the transaction? Securities laws define insiders to include a firm's officers, directors and largest shareholders. Officers, for example, typically know more about a company than the largest shareholders, so officers' transactions should carry greater weight.

* How big are the transactions? Other things being equal, larger trades should carry more weight than smaller ones. That's because the latter are more likely to have been made for reasons having nothing to do with the insider's opinion about his firm's prospects -- such as the insider's personal financial situation.

* Did the transaction occur in the wake of a falling price for the stock of the insider's firm, or in the wake of a rising price? According to Prof. Seyhun, selling into strength is not nearly as bearish as selling into weakness. Just the reverse is true for purchases: Buying into strength is a stronger bullish signal than buying in the wake of weakness.

All these factors and more are discussed in a book Prof. Seyhun wrote, titled Investment Intelligence From Insider Trading, published by MIT Press.

None of these insights is new, however. Prof. Seyhun has written about them on numerous occasions over the years, for example, and other researchers have also written on similar themes.

But what is new is a formula that Prof. Seyhun recently devised to weight each insider transaction according to these various factors. He applied this formula to every insider transaction over the last 30 years, and then calculated for every month a ratio of weighted insider buys to weighted insider sells -- a ratio that Prof. Seyhun calls an Insider Confidence Index.

As is evident from the accompanying graph, Prof. Seyhun's Insider Confidence Index is markedly different from the ratio based on the raw data. Notice that the two series begin to diverge markedly in the early to mid-1990s.

According to Prof. Seyhun, this divergence was spawned by two factors. The first was a change in securities regulations that previously had required insiders to hold for six months any shares that they had purchased pursuant to an options exercise. After the change, insiders were allowed to sell immediately. The second factor, which was not unrelated to the first, was the explosion in option grants to insiders.

In back testing, Prof. Seyhun found that his Insider Confidence Index had statistically significant ability to forecast the stock market's return over the subsequent 12 months. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but nothing is. And it represents a big improvement over a ratio based on the raw insider data alone.

Prof. Seyhun says that the average level of his Insider Confidence Index is 60, and that anything above 60 is bullish for the stock market -- while any reading below that is bearish. That's good news for the current stock market, since his Insider Confidence Index currently stands at 77.3, significantly above average.

Prof. Seyhun's conclusion? Contrary to the doom-and-gloomers who believe the insider data are painting a very bearish picture, "2006 is likely to shape up as a good year for stock investors."

Mark Hulbert is founder of The Hulbert Financial Digest. He is a senior columnist for MarketWatch.

Comments? E-mail us at online.editors@barrons.com

URL for this article:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB1144...

-- posted by SteveT

» runner26 - June Newsletter Review

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Jun 1, 2006

ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- As we contemplate what the markets have in store for us in June, it's worth noting that May acted more like a mixed-up March: It came in like a lamb and out like a lion.

The first couple weeks of May saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU: news) come with a hair's breadth of a new all-time high. But just as it was about to do so, the stock market reversed course. For the month as a whole the DJIA declined by 1.8%.

To find out what's next, I decided -- as I often do in such instances -- to turn to the top-performing market timing newsletters. I defined this group to be the ten services with the best risk-adjusted market timing returns over the last decade, according to the Hulbert Financial Digest.

Note that by focusing on performance over a 10-year period, I made sure that I would include neither bullish stopped clocks (who looked like geniuses in the late 1990s) nor bearish stopped clocks (who shone during the 2000-2002 bear market). Another factor in favor of using the trailing ten-year period to determine who are the best timers: The stock market's overall return over these ten years (9% annualized, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index (97199001: news) ) is more or less in line with the long-term historical average.

I eliminated one of the ten top performers because it is a purely mechanical model based on the calendar. Its good performance notwithstanding, its current posture tells us little about the market's near term prospects. (Read an earlier column of mine about this timing system.)

That leaves nine newsletters in this group of top timers. What follows is a brief synopsis of what each of them is currently saying about the stock market. (The newsletters are listed alphabetically.)

Blue Chip Investor: Bullish. Editor Steven Check's valuation model shows stocks currently to be fairly valued relative to corporate bonds. His model portfolio is about 90% invested in stocks.

Bob Brinker's Marketimer: Bullish. In his most recent issue, which was published in early May, editor Bob Brinker anticipated a market correction and wrote that "subscribers looking to add new money to the market could be well served by a cautious approach at this time." However, by no means was he giving up on his longer-term bullish stance. Should a correction unfold, he added, it would be healthy: "Clearly, the stock market has come a long way with little or no weakness, and therefore we would regard any short-term correction that develops as a health restoring event." His recommended allocation to the stock market remains 100%.

Chartist and Chartist Mutual Fund Timer. Bullish. Editor Dan Sullivan acknowledges that the bull market is "long of tooth." But he nevertheless is convinced that the market "is still quite capable of working its way out of this rough patch." Sullivan's model stock portfolio is around 78% invested and his model fund portfolio is more or less fully invested.

Investors Guide to Closed-End Funds: Moderately Bullish. Editor Thomas Herzfeld's "U.S. Equity Funds" model portfolio is around 80% invested.

No Load Fund Investor: Neutral to Moderately bullish. Editor Mark Salzinger believes that strength in the economy will "limit any downdrafts in the [stock] market." Nevertheless, in early May (his latest issue) he also wrote that "the big picture has become murkier." Therefore, he argued, "now is a good time to rebalance your portfolio if appreciation has caused has caused your U.S. equity exposure to exceed our recommendation." Still, Salzinger did not use the occasion to change his recommended allocation. His so-called "Wealth Builder" portfolio, his letter's most aggressive, currently allocates 70% to U.S. equities and another 15% to international stocks.

Timer Digest: Bullish. Editor Jim Schmidt bases this newsletter's market timing model on a consensus of the top market timers. His consensus of the top ten based on performance over the last 52 weeks is bullish, with 6 bulls, 2 bears, and 2 neutral. His consensus of the top ten for performance over the last two years is also bullish, with 7 bulls, 1 bear, and 2 neutral. The newsletter's model portfolios currently are about 60% invested in stocks, on average.

Vantage Point: Neutral to Moderately Bullish. Editor John Harris concedes that "risk is rising" in this market, and he rates the market's intermediate trend as "neutral to moderately bullish" and the market's longer-term trend as "bullish but weakening." Harris' recommended stock portfolios are 100% invested.

Vickers Weekly Insider Report. Cautiously bullish. Vickers Stock Research, this newsletter's publisher, detects signs that corporate insiders dramatically pulled back the pace of their selling in the wake of the market's recent correction, which is positive. "Insiders as a group seem to view the current correction as a controlled and expected event after a significant run-up, and not the beginning of a catastrophic downturn." The newsletter's two model portfolios are, on average, about 36% invested in U.S. stocks.

The bottom line? All 9 of these top timers are bullish to at least some extent, and none is an outright bear. The average equity allocation among all 9 is around 79%.

I did a similar review for my March 2006 Trading Strategies column, and at that time the average equity allocation among the top timers was 75%. So, if anything, the top timers are slightly more bullish today than at the beginning of March.

Since that earlier column, by the way, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has tacked on nearly 200 points. Not a huge gain, to be sure, but not the bear market that many of the doom and gloomers were worrying about three months ago.

What stocks and funds are these newsletters recommending to take advantage of the market strength that they are anticipating? Four stocks currently are recommended by two of these 9 newsletters:

Abbott Labs (ABT: news)

Google (GOOG: news)

Home Depot (HD: news)

PACCAR. (PCAR: news)

Six mutual funds are recommended by two of these top timers:

Dodge & Cox International fund (DODFX: news) .

Muhlenkamp Fund (MUHLX: news) .

Vanguard PRIMECAP Core (VPCCX: news)

Vanguard US Growth (VWUSX: news)

Vanguard Short Term Investment Grade (VFSTX: news)

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX: news) )

Mark Hulbert is the founder of Hulbert Financial Digest in Annandale, Va. He has been tracking the advice of more than 160 financial newsletters since 1980.

-- posted by runner26

» Gay_Klok - June Newsletter Review

In response to June Newsletter Review posted by runner26:

Kirk

I apologise for writing this here but your private email address in your profile does not work.

Could you please inform me what has happened to our ebooks? I hope you don't erase this or, if you do, perhaps you could let me know by email before you do

regards Gay Klok

-- posted by Gay_Klok

» Normxxx - Dicey market gets dicier

Dicey market gets dicier

By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch | 12 June 2006

NEW YORK (MarketWatch)— Did the stock market just have a key reversal day? When I looked at Chartist's Dan Sullivan on Thursday morning, he was worried but still hopeful about what he called a "dicey market." See June 8 column. It got dicier.

In fact, its subsequent wild action prompted an unusual unscheduled hotline from Sullivan on Thursday night. Perhaps paradoxically, he's actually more hopeful.

Sullivan regards Thursday as "what technical analysts refer to as a key reversal day," because the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU : 10,792.58, -99.34, -0.9%) recovered from triple-digit losses to figure slightly ahead. He wrote: "While it's still too early to tell, we were very impressed by today's turnaround— so much so that we feel an effective bottom has been reached."

But Sullivan operates on a ruthless relative strength system, and the damage was enough to force him to sell American Movil (AMX : 28.96, -1.30, -4.3%) , Cemex (CX : 49.13, -2.50, -4.8%) and Southwest Energy (SWN : 25.88, -1.14, -4.2%) out of his Traders' portfolio. On Thursday night, he was still worrying about Agilent (A : 32.60, -1.13, -3.4%) , Autodesk (ADSK : 34.74, +0.29, +0.8%) , Franklin Resources (BEN : 83.86, -3.10, -3.6%) and Tenaris (TS : 31.85, -1.91, -5.7%) .

Mark Hulbert addressed the idea that Thursday was key reversal day after the market close. See June 9 Hulbert column. He argued that the sentiment, as measured by the Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment Index (HSNSI), which reflects the average stock market exposure among a subset of short-term market timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest, was still too bullish for comfort.

Over the previous two weeks, despite the stock market's waterfall decline, the HSNSI had actually risen by 16 percentage points, from 4.5% to 20.4%. There wasn't the panic contrarians expect to see at market bottoms.

Subsequently, the HNSI has fallen sharply, to 8.3% on Friday night.

Mark Hulbert tells me that he regards this as a step in the right direction, but still not conclusive, because letters are no more bearish on average than they were in late May, although the Dow is 500 points lower.

Then there's Dow Theory Letter's' Richard Russell. Thinking about Thursday, he wrote: "Although there was a dramatic intra-day recovery from [Thursday's] lows, breadth was down, Transports were down and we had over 200 new lows vs. only 27 new highs. Volume was huge, 3.46 billion shares (of course, S&P futures were expiring), and my PTI [his proprietary market timing indicator] remained unchanged but still in the bearish column.

"But after the close I received the Lowry statistics on the day's action, and I must say I was surprised. The Buying Power Index (demand) dropped to a new multi-year low while the Selling Pressure Index (supply) rose 8 points to a new multi-year high. In other words, the internal character of the stock market continued to deteriorate even while the market was recovering from its lows."

Russell is often caricatured as a permabear, although he has in the past shown that he can resist the temptation to panic when even bulls are bolting. See May 13 2004 column.

Now, however, he says flatly: "I think the stock market will be heading considerably lower into the fourth quarter this year. So except for dribs and drabs of oils and utilities, I'm on the sidelines— sitting mainly with T-bills and money market stuff along with gold which I will probably never sell."

______________


The contents of any third-party letters/reports above do not necessarily reflect the opinions or viewpoint of normxxx. They are provided for informational/educational purposes only.

The content of any message or post by normxxx anywhere on this site is not to be construed as constituting market or investment advice. Such is intended for educational purposes only. Individuals should always consult with their own advisors for specific investment advice.

-- posted by Normxxx