This Site Will
Now Be Free
In a transition to retiring
from the paid newsletter business, I am scaling back the time
that I devote to answering member questions.
The bottom line: if
enough people visit the Google-provided ads, the site will
continue to run and remain free. If not, we will either switch
back to being a subscription service, or we will cease sharing
our investment strategies online.
This website's model portfolios
will continue to be published, but the weekly summary of the
past week's market events will be scaled back. Also, the site
will take on more of a do-it-yourself approach as I won't
be able answer the continuous stream of questions that we
receive from subscribers. More on this below.
In the past, many of you have written with
worries that the site would close when I retired from the
business. I assured you that retirement would probably be
a long way off, and even then I would likely continue the
site in some capacity since I will always be doing the investment
research for my own use. With the success of our portfolios,
the chance to retire from the newsletter business has come
much earlier than anticipated.
Our philosophy has been that if you are
paying us to watch the markets, then we should be here whenever
the markets are open. Because of that, it has been many years
since we've had a vacation. With the success of our own investments
in our model portfolios, it's time to remove the nose from
the proverbial grindstone.
The site will continue to run mostly as
it has all these years. But we will no longer spend our Friday
evenings poring over the market's machinations and summarizing
the week's events. In the long run, most of the market news
is just noise anyway.
For those that have written recently with
worries about the market over the past few weeks, step back
and look at a slightly bigger picture. The S&P 500 is
up 0.6% year-to-date while our Primary Stock Portfolio is
up 13.99%. Over the last twelve months, the S&P 500 has
only risen 4.9% versus 26.8% for our Primary Stock Portfolio.
The recent volatility in the market is not unusual for the
summer months.
***
WHAT THIS WILL MEAN
TO SUBSCRIBERS
The Good
- The model portfolios will continue to
be updated.
- We will stop charging for site
access on June 10. The site will then be free. But with
a catch. The site will continue to run if the advertisements
pay for the cost of running the site (web servers, etc.).
So go ahead and visit the sponsors. Again, the bottom
line: if enough people visit the Google-provided ads, the
site will continue to run and remain free.
- I may add more portfolios to the site.
Since I won't be spending a large portion of my time answering
subscriber emails, I may decide to add portfolio ideas to
the site. Less time doing routine business tasks means more
time for investment research.
- I may even decide that vacations are
overrated and revert back to the weekly routine that is
this site. But in that case, I will have to charge subscribers
once again.
The Bad
- The main difference will be a decrease
in the frequency and size of the weekly market update. The
updates will be smaller and may no longer be weekly. If
I get bored, I may comment on the markets as frequently
as I have in the past. Or I may just decide to spend my
Friday afternoons working in the yard, taking the dog for
a walk, or taking my lovely bride out for dinner. But if
you miss reading about the market noise, tune into CNBC.
- Email notices for sell signals will no
longer be sent out. However, buy signals will still be emailed
to you. So visit often and check out our sponsors in order
to keep this web site free. Buy/sell recommendations and
weekly updates will still be provided on the site. Long-time
subscribers know from past experience that, for the most
part, one needn't buy exactly on the same day as we do.
Your timing may even be better than ours. Of course, for
the Short-Term Portfolio, where timing is more critical,
we don't send out email notices anyway because it's updated
daily. At this point in time, I plan on continuing to update
the Short-Term Portfolio daily.
- While we will continue to perform investment
research and publish it on the site, but we will no longer
be able to answer all of your email questions. We've always
prided ourselves on quickly and thoroughly answering questions
from subscribers, and this takes a tremendous amount of
time. We considered this part of the benefits of paid subscription.
Removing this service was the main reason for our decision
to stop charging for the site.
-Rex M. Jacobsen
Sr. Editor
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