(1) Is there "Investment Life" after Mutual Funds? The investment world (or
at least the media) is in a quandary: (2) what is the average
investor/speculator to do? (3) Who can you trust? (4) If everyone knows just how
corrupt Mutual
Funds really are (and have been for decades), why are they still throwing
money at them? (5) Is there a safe(r) alternative? (6) Can a financial
professional function without the funds? (7) Did Mutual Funds make YOU lose
money over
the past several years? (See below.)

Investing always involves more questions than answers, and the idea that Wall
Street has those answers and that they are imbedded in the products that they
market to the "moneyed" public, is simply evidence of "The Brainwashing of
the American Investor". So, too, is the myth that Mutual Funds are a safer
investment mechanism than a properly constructed portfolio of individual
securities. Perhaps they should be, in concept. In reality, they haven't been
for
decades.

Investors have always searched for a safe and easy way to protect and to grow
their portfolios. This used to be accomplished by applying a combination of
management and investment principles to the process. A diversified portfolio of
high quality, profitable companies, and an appropriate amount of less
volatile income producers was pretty easy to create, to manage, and to monitor.
It
still is. The original Mutual Fund managers actually knew how to do this, were
paid to do it, and were not at all influenced by the incredible confluence of
outside forces that impacts their decision making today. In their original
form, Mutual Funds were Trustee and Investment Committee directed within the
retirement benefit community, and a stepping-stone to a properly diversified
individual security portfolio on the personal level. Before the three-ring Wall
Street circus came to town, there were only two "classes" of securities,
retirement programs were not self-directed, the DJIA was an economic indicator,
investing was personal (and certainly not a competitive event), and the Yankees
won
the American league pennant most of the time.

Almost everything (except the Yankees) changed with the onslaught of the "new
generation" of Mutual Fund marketers and "self directed" retirement vehicles.
Wall Street invented market prediction techniques and new subdivisions of
securities; investment products were mass-produced in every shape and size,
model
and color, with the same level of "product differentiation" success as in the
automobile industry; sales literature was sold as research/analysis and
financial institutions became indistinguishable from one another. People
actually
pay extra not to collect current interest and loss taking is seen as a good
thing. Unproven "team-player" Mutual Fund managers receive signing bonuses that
would shock professional athletes, and 60 second "sound bites" reported on CNBC
define today's investment reality to the masses. A calendar year is now long
term, buy high, sell low a religion, and absolutely everyone, from accountants
to wedding planners, can sell Mutual Funds for extra cash. Wall Street is Las
Vegas in pinstripes and red suspenders.

Are today's late trading, market timing, and executive suite scandals going
to change things dramatically? It's doubtful, simply because Mutual Funds are
so profitable for the institutions, so mindlessly easy to sell for financial
professionals, and the only available investment medium for hundreds of millions
of employees throughout the country! But is there a better way to invest
safely and profitably in spite of all the problems? Yes Virginia, there is
investment life after Mutual Funds.
--------------------------------------------------
Answering the six questions in the first paragraph, from the pages of the
Business Best Seller: "The Brainwashing of the American Investor". (1)
Absolutely, in the same way as before they became popular to the masses. (2)
Rediscover
individual securities, after taking a crash course in the principles of
investing. (3) Yourself, once you've taken the course. (4) Most investors have
no
choice, those that do learn their lessons slowly. (5) Yes, individual securities
in a plain vanilla investment plan sketched personally in pencil. (6) They
can if they want to, but it's a lot more like work. Most won't try. (7) Nope,
you'll have to take the blame for that yourself.


Steve Selengut
advisor@...



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