Why I Don't Talk Much About Individual Securities {Also Scaling Back A Bit Over The Summer}

I get asked why I don't talk a lot about individual stocks or ETFs on the blog.  In fact, I've been told by experts in the field that one of the ways I could drive up traffic here would be to discuss more investment opportunities.  I'm not likely to do much of that.  I'll discuss that more at the end of this piece but first the attorney in me feels the need to step up if we're talking about some of our general principles when we write.  .

Here's the legal statement {I originally called this "stuff" but that didn't sound lawyerly enough!}:  Without getting into the specifics of this, I think there's a higher probability of legal and compliance issues if I decide to discuss certain investment recommendations or what we may be doing for clients in some of our investment strategies.  That's why we're not likely to get into  specifics in terms of investment names or recommendations regarding what we might be doing on the blog.  I can't say we don't or won't ever change our minds on this, but it will likely be a rare event.  When we do discuss themes that interest us, we'll disclose our ownership in both a personal and in client accounts if applicable.  We are also not obligated to let you know when our thinking on these themes changes or when positions in client or personal accounts changes.  Also when discussing any of our themes or strategies, you should note that while we will endeavor to give proper disclosure of positions, most of the time we will be discussing investment thoughts or themes that may have already been implemented or are in the process of being implemented for our clients.  Also, we have different investment strategies and it is possible some of the more aggressive strategies could be investing completely opposite from what we are discussing on line.  

We place quite a lot of emphasis on past behavior of markets, sectors or individual securities.  We have developed a probabilistic analysis as part of our investment philosophy that stresses reviewing how these have reacted in the past in order to make some assessment of what they might do in the future.  This is particularly important when it comes to discussing money flows.  When we discuss the overall markets and/or specific themes or ETFs we in general will discuss this in terms of probability-that is the likelihood of an event occurring.  We will usually discuss this in a manner such as this: "Probability suggests that....."  There is no guarantee that such an outcome will materialize in the near future or ever.

Also you should be clear that anything we write about here or elsewhere is purely for informational purposes.  Some of what we write is our opinion on certain events or themes and may prove over the course of time to change or be inaccurate. We make no guarantees that anything we discuss here related to the stock market will be profitable to you.  Also while we strive to check our facts as much as possible and reasonably believe that information to be correct or dependable if based more on opinion, you should know and understand the possibility that such information may prove to be inaccurate.  Where we publish inaccurate information such as regarding a fact or statistic, we will upon its discovery attempt to correct what we have posted.  We will not necessarily review older posts though unless we become aware of an inaccuracy.   We may or may not let you know when something based on opinion or thesis is proven to be incorrect.  Finally in regards to what you read here, you should do your own research, talk with your own advisor or better yet hire us before acting on anything we post online.  You assume all risk if you make an investment or a decision based on what you read at our blog.  

One last thing {Can you tell in another life I was an attorney?}.  We have given you the general outlines of how we write, how we monitor what we write, as well as what and when we will make disclosures.  Nothing written above abridges any other protections we may regarding what we post online.  Meaning, anything we may not have specifically mentioned above does not preclude us from using it as a defense should we need to.   While we would likely do so, we will also not be obligated to inform you should we change any  these procedures. Again we provide what are basically our thoughts on certain events either related to the markets, investing or grander themes as a courtesy to the reading public.  You read and/or act on these postings at your own risk.  You may quote us as long as you provide proper credit and links to this site and the specific post. 

Now for more practical matters:  I don't write an investment newsletter that compensates me.  That is, I don't charge a subscription to folks who want to read what I put up here.  You can get it for free.  My clients, however, pay me to invest their money.  As such I''ll save the ideas for the people that have trusted me with their investments.

I prefer to focus on larger themes and articles that I think my clients might have an interest in reading.  That's one of the reason we discuss here quite a bit an overview of the markets.  My clients have told me that's what interests them.  I'm going to continue writing what they tell me interests them.  In that vein over the summer we're going to scale this back a bit.  I've found as the business has grown that it is becoming increasingly difficult to post on a daily basis in a manner and to the standards I believe readers and especially my clients deserve.   Therefore I'm going to try to spend some time writing about larger themes in investing, discussing a bit more about how we invest money for clients and taking a longer view at some of the themes I see that may impact investors going forward.  Some weeks we may publish 3-4 times, others maybe only once, if at all.  We may also break in with a few blurbs during the day or a few links we think are interesting.  We'll also break in if there's something important that I see and I may be a bit more proactive in just offering up links.  We'll also let you know when the next expected post will be put on line if there's going to be a break, although we may post sometimes sooner then that.

I'm hoping this maybe makes this a bit more interesting to read over time.  Expect the next post here unless something comes over the transom next Wednesday.