Mad Money Machine

Lazy Portfolios

If you haven’t figured it out yet, you should know that I like being lazy.
Lazy portfolios won again last year. Paul B. Farrell has another great article about the lazy portfolios.

Oh, and by the way, compare their results with the IFA portfolios. The 3- and 5-year winner, the Aronson portfolio, had 15.4% and 13.3% annualized gains, respectively. While the IFA Indexfolio(tm) 70, a fund with an equal bond weighting, had 15.19% and 14.07% annualized gains, respectively.

The 1-year winner, Swenson’s, gained 17.62% while the IFA Indexfolio(tm) 60, their portfolio with a 30% bond weighting, did 17.12%.

Note that the IFA returns are after all fees and expenses.

Also note that Ferrell does not calculate the standard deviation of any of the lazy portfolios.

MMM-050: What is the Risk?

I ENCOURAGE YOU TO Download this show thru iTunes!

but, if you just can’t possibly deal with that then go ahead and
Play show 50, right now 

Standard Podcast [ 33:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Email me, or comment, or Call me on the Mad Money Machine voicemail line at 206-734-4763

Will you buy an iPhone? It is the product that people are literally crying for. Wouldn’t it be great if it had more memory though?

David Beckham comes to the USA.

I got Rollerblades for a late Christmas present (wink wink).

Whither Day Break?

Which is the best way to invest? Go out now to the Forums and tell me why you must have some stocks in your investments.

MMM is getting attention from brokers, mutual fund managers, and commission-based advisers. But they would rather have you not listen to this show.

The Answer: What if everyone indexed?

Shining the light on risk.

Our Tool helps you calculate the financial impact of eating less.

The MMM Board of Directors game. We’re looking purely at returns and not risk, remember.
Hey BOD members that haven’t made any trades yet: Are you still with me? Let me know!

I talk about my strategy for picking stocks Cramer-style. I think I have a list of many of his Action Alerts Plus stocks for his charitable trust. And I read them all to you on the show. Isn’t that wonderful?

Matt Krantz’s article about the risk of T. Rowe Price.

I’m proud to be sponsored by Index Funds Advisors at ifa.com. I’m going to help you go through each of the 12 Steps for Active Investors with snippets of the author Mark Hebner’s own podcast.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Sometimes I Feel Like a Golden God

Our Guru has the simplest investment strategy I’ve ever read. Market returns ARE superior returns. And following his strategy assures achieving market returns!

I was interviewed by Derek Simon on his Taking Stock podcast.

Read the discussion at the Forums about the $2000 per child Social Security plan.

Our guru from show 49, Henry Blodget, was on Fast Money. A hen in the fox house.

Download the show directly MMM-050.mp3

Music from music.podshow.com

Disfunksion – The Groove Mine

The Answer – Eric Vardeman

Lonely – Remix – Paul

Money – Theory in Motion

Bliss – Rob Costlow

Runaway Train – Under Feather

Two good articles for you today

First up, Ben Stein’s Investing Strategies for the New Year. By my calculations his recommended portfolio from last year went up 20% in 2006. Let’s see what he has to say for 2007. Hopefully, not much change, right?

And a new article from the guru of show 49, Henry Blodget, says “Don’t Buy the 10 Hot Stocks for 2007.” Everyone needs to have the good messages repeated to them because the bad messages come so often.

The hour to buy TMO?

Cramer said on his show yesterday to buy Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO) today between 10:00AM and 11:00AM. Holy precise prediction, Batman! Looks like a lot of people took him up on his offer, as you can see in the accompanying chart. The price stepped at that hour, then fell after all the buyers left.

Stock(s) of the year watch is on

See down the right-hand side of this page? (http://MadMoneyMachine.com for you feed readers) I have put into a Yahoo stock widget all nine of the stocks that Jim Cramer said were his stocks of 2007. You can click on each one to get a chart and see their performance. Remember, its not just that they do go up, but how high relative to the indexes that matters.

Pay particular attention to the first-place stocks in the three categories Value, Growth, and Speculative: MO, NYX, and LVLT respectively.

MMM-049: Play the Financial Freedom Game

I ENCOURAGE YOU TO Download this show thru iTunes!

but, if you just can not possibly deal with that then go ahead and
Play show 49, right now

Standard Podcast [ 31:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It is not just about getting rich, it is about getting FREE: Financial Freedom.

2006 was a fantastic year for stocks. Surprisingly good. 2007 will also be surprising… we just do not know whether surprisingly good or surprisingly bad.

The Money Machine beat the Mad Money in the 2006 Portfolio Smackdown.

We have 24 Board Of Directors volunteers who will scientifcally determine if following Cramer’s stock picks can beat the IFA Indexfolio(tm) 100.

YOU TOO can play the MadMoneyMachine.com Portfolio Smackdown. Get your free $100,000 play money to try and beat the index.

http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/StartViewGame.aspx?id=MadMoneyMachine.com

You’ve seen the 12-Steps tab?

Sign up to have discussions in the new MMM Forums area.

Subscribing, in podcasting lingo, means automatically downloading the feed, not paying a fee.

DIGG ME PLEASE!

The Toolcrib item this time helps you plan 2007.

Why does Jim Cramer rarely talk about Percentages when discussing a stock’s performance?

Predictions from Fox Saturday morning shows.

Our Guru is banned for life but is now on the right track.

Go and see the movie We Are Marshall.

Get ready for MY forthcoming book: Paul Douglas Boyer’s Mad Money Machine: Play Video Games, Get Rich!

Get your copy of the rulebook for the Financial Freedom game here:

One of the best plans I’ve ever heard for Social Security was to give every newborn child in the USA $2000 at their birth and invest it in the market. So try it for yourself: Go to IFA.com and click the Benchmark Your Portfolio tab and see how much $2000 will grow in 65 years.

Music from music.podshow.com:

Superfly – Stereophile http://music.podshow.com/music/producers/producerLibrary/artistdetails.php?BandHash=ec65b0e5d3ceb9aba6c25ae750549d86

Living Life Dreaming Dreams II – A Single Voice http://music.podshow.com/music/producers/producerLibrary/artistdetails.php?BandHash=abd54304e71878fc698c4ebb2f6689ca

Money – Theory in Motion

Runaway Train – Under Feather

Music from Garageband.com:

Desperation Song – Carbon Leaf

All 12 Steps in one program

In addtion to the link at the top of MadMoneyMachine.com, I hereby publish all the 12-Steps for Active investors in the feed for your iPod listening pleasure. Even *I* like to go back and listen to this. The music is great. And the message is urgent.

Copyright (c) 2006 IFA Publishing, Irvine CA

All music from the Podsafe Music Network at music.podshow.com.

Download the show directly: 12 Steps

The subject matter in the 12-Step Program for Active Investors is used with the permission of IFA Publishing, Inc. and can be found in Mark Hebner’s book: Index Funds: The 12-Step Program for Active Investors (available at amazon.com) and on the Index Funds Advisors web site, ifa.com. Sources, disclosures, and data supporting statements can be found at ifa.com.

Businessman? nahhhh. Inventor and Genius? Oh yahhhh.

Your results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man 75% Hulk 65% Superman 55% Batman 55% The Flash 55% Supergirl 48% Spider-Man 45% Robin 43% Green Lantern 30% Wonder Woman 23% Catwoman 10%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Happy New Year: Some Announcements

I have some announcements for you:

1. YOU can be a part of the 2007 Portfolio Smackdown. Get an account at the MarketWatch Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE) and take your pretend $100,000 and see if you can beat the IFA Indexfolio(tm) 100>. Try to pick stocks Cramer-style or any style you wish to see if active investing beats passive investing. Or, pick a Set-It-And-Forget-It portfolio at the beginning and see if your portfolio gets a better return in 2007. Sign up now, it is free right here:
http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/StartViewGame.aspx?id=MadMoneyMachine.com
The trading starts January 2nd (but of course the markets are closed), so sign up and get started right away! But can start at any time.

2. New Discussion Forums! I have set up a new discussion Forum area at MadMoneyMachine.com/forums. Or you may click the “Forums” tab at the top of any page to get there. This is now the place to discuss things. I have temporarily closed the ability to comment on web postings. I’m not really sure if this is the right thing to do yet or not. I can always turn back on the ability to comment, but forums are so much more interactive and usable. At least that is my thinking. What we lose is the ability to directly tie your comments to web postings. And that is something I may reconsider. It is also a pain in the butt that you have to register again for the forums… welcome to unintegrated web applications… but I appreciate your effort and hope to see you there.

At the moment I have just two public forums: one is for show-related comments and the other is for everything else. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Paving the sidewalks?” This refers to the story of a college facilities manager that decided not to put in sidewalks in the new school’s campus and instead watch and wait for the paths to be worn into the grass. Then he would go back and pave a sidewalk over those paths. That’s what I’ll do with the forums. Watch and see what happens.

3. Answer the quick survey question at the right: Which is the best way to invest, carefully picking stocks, buy and hold in index funds, or a mix of these two? No obligation required to vote. I’ll discuss the results in show 50.

4. Please Digg the MMM. The social-news website Digg.com has a new podcasts page. Would you please Digg the MMM and thereby increase it’s ranking? You will need to have an account at digg.com, but it is worth it.

5. Please vote for MMM at PodcastAlley. Thanks.

6. We have 24 members of the MMM Board of Directors. These folks will play in a special private VSE game to pick stocks Cramer-style and see if people under the influence of Cramer can beat the IFA Indexfolio 100. I’ll regularly update the results on the show and at MadMoneyMachine.com/portfolios.

7. Show MMM-049 will come out this Wednesday evening. Check your iTunes subscription or come back here to get it. Whew, three weeks since the last show. I have lots and lots of things to talk about!

Have a happy and especially prosperous New Year!

 

Thanks, BOD Slots filled, Merry Christmas

Wow, thanks everyone for volunteering to be on the MMM Board of Directors. We have over 20 participants and I think that is enough for me to keep track of next year. If you want to participate in the other Portfolio Smackdown slash Investment Guru Challenge, go to vse.marketwatch.com and search for the MadMoneyMachine.com game.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Call for Board of Directors is closed

I was looking for several volunteers to be on the Mad Money Machine “Board of Directors” for 2007. This is a unique opportunity for the hardcore investment junkie and Cramer fan (not to mention, fan of the Mad Money Machine!). Thanks all you folks for signing up.

The core idea is that I want to have a team of people, each picking Jim Cramer stocks to try to beat the BUY AND HOLD INDEX in 2007. So instead of just ME trying to pick the winning stocks that Cramer features, we will field an entire TEAM of people each creating a portfolio and choosing stocks that Cramer suggests. Then we will average the results of all players to see if the Cramer featured stocks beat the indexes. (So if we have 20 players, we will divide the total of all of the portfolio’s values by 20 and compare against the index portfolio’s total.) I think this will help provide a more scientifically accurate answer to the question, “Can following Cramer’s advice make us RICH???”

I will create a Private Game at MarketWatch’s Virtual Stock Exchange and you will get the play $100,000 to invest in 2007. You will buy and sell stocks according to Cramer’s suggestions all through 2007. Don’t worry, you don’t need to watch Mad Money TV show every day. You can read summaries of the show at thestreet.com to get his picks. But you will be responsible for trying to make lots of money in your portfolio.

We need to hurry and get started. Ideally, you would have your portfolios started on January 2nd. But I will allow latecomers since it is getting late in the year.

I will periodically average the results and post the scores on the Portfolio Smackdown page. This should tell us with some certainty whether listening to Cramer’s picks will beat the index.

Additionally…

I will seek your input throughout the year on other ideas, more in the vein of being a member of a company’s Board of Directors. And hey, I may have some other incentives to offer you, just trust me. I’ll also put you on my email list of insider announcements about the Mad Money Machine.

I do want to be able to use your real name and may mention your name on the show or on this website. Hey, I may even call you and have you on the show!

If you join the MMM Board of Directors, I’m counting on you to do your part! So please carefully consider your decision.

TO JOIN:

Simply email me at “feedback” at MadMoneyMachine.com with your name and mention Board of Directors and I will send you an invitation and password to join the Private VSE Portfolio Smackdown game. And I will thank you deeply for helping the investment community in this scientific study.