Letters
Comment posted online to the AAII Discussion Boards under Watercooler Talk:
The recent technical analysis article was a great step [“Why Technical Analysis Matters,” by Michael Kahn, April 2010 AAII Journal]. Why not establish a category focused on using technical analysis techniques? Make it long-term oriented to increase familiarity with basic tools.
Kadip
Charles Rotblut Responds:
I will get a technical analysis forum created in our Discussion Boards after the new AAII.com Web site launches.
To the Editors:
Add me to the list of those who’d like to see the Stock Investor Pro custom fields used to generate the May 2010 First Cut results [“Tortoriello’s Quantitative Strategies”]. Even a simple text file from which we could cut and paste?
Michael From Arizona
John Bajkowski Responds:
Thank you for the suggestion. Once the redesigned AAII.com is launched, we will create a specific area on the site showing how to create custom fields in Stock Investor Pro.
To the Editors:
I have a comment regarding the health care reform article in the May 2010 AAII Journal [“Investing in Health Care Reform,” by Charles Rotblut].
When discussing the industries that will take advantage of the new health plan, there is no mention of the insurance sector. They prevented the previous attempts at healthcare reform and now they have gotten only the winning part.
Jose N. Tord, MD
To the Editors:
Recently I threw out a collection of Rea-Graham Fund mainframe-generated reports and records I’d saved over the years as a small investor in the fund starting in 1980 [referred to in “Graham’s ‘Last Will & Testament,’” by Wayne A. Thorp, May 2010 AAII Journal].
Jim Rea was a most interesting person who could be found surfing in the afternoons, after the markets had closed in New York, well up into his 80s.
My one bone of contention with Jim was that he followed Graham’s cash/investment allocation rules slavishly, which meant that there was always at least 15% in cash. My contention was that most investors already had the cash part set aside for their rainy days, and thus the cash portion worked as a drag on the fund’s performance.
In any event, as it turned out, the results over time were okay but not spectacular. The monthly reports, analysis of the spectrum, was most interesting reading and a good reason to be invested in the fund.
Ev From Georgia
To the Editors:
Why is MedCath Corporation MDTH still in the AAII Model Shadow Stock Portfolio? It had negative earnings for the full year 2009 and also a subsequent quarter (1Q2010)—which is a reason to sell.
C. Rayner
James Cloonan Responds:
You are correct, it should have been sold in our last quarterly review [reported in the April 2010 issue], but we had a data glitch and missed it. Now it is back into profitability and we won’t sell until it has another losing quarter. Maybe this is one of the rare times that an error winds up helping.
To the Editors:
I just wanted to let you know that I enjoy AAII’s Investor Update e-mails that contain information I probably would not get anywhere else.
I consider this type of thing to be a real perk for being a member.
Ray Meuer
Editor’s Note: You can sign up for AAII e-newsletters at www.aaii.com/email. See “Member News,” for more about our e-newsletters.