Are you ready to give up trying to be Wealthy....

Most people are, and this is why.

I get letters and emails from people who are “simply over it!”. They have spent a fortune on self improvement, books, tapes CD’s, “mystical software”, clairvoyants…etc and they are still struggling financially.

They give up, and who would blame them. If I had spent thousands on all these shysters I’d be over it too.

Are you one of these people who trusted those people only to find that they were only selling “sizzle” not “steak”?

For instance, have you……. 

• Bought trading software for trading shares, options or betting on horses and spent up to $.10,000?

• Had your broker recommend a stock only for it to immediately drop through the floor. Not once, but time after time?

• Have you bought wealth and investment books in the past, but not really received the rock solid answers you were looking for?

• Been sold an investment by an investment adviser only to find he’s only selling what he makes the most commission on? And of course it wasn’t a good investment?

• Have you subscribed to a newsletter service only to find that it only just “beat the market” or worse?

• Never been able to understand this share market stuff?

• Been too worried about losing money to do anything?

Well, you are not alone. So many people, my staff at Trident Press speak to have mentioned one of these reasons to be suspicious of anybody selling “instant wealth”.

There is no such thing as “instant wealth”! You have to work at it, you have to develop your skills, and you need experience. If you get the balance all 3 right, and you don’t give up…. You’ll end up wealthy. Most people will tell you there are no shortcuts to wealth…. And to a certain extent that’s true, but I do have one I’ll share with you a little later in this article.

As anybody in my position would do I have and do subscribe to investment newsletters, e-letters, advisory services… heaps of them. If I hear through the grapevine that this or that newsletter is out performing, my curiosity get’s the better of me, I can’t help it. I subscribe… and every single time I’m let down. I see they trot out the same old rubbish. It’s like they all get together and swap notes or something. They are all so conservative and conventional in their investment ideas. This will result in mediocrity not the results you were looking for when you read the brochure and the advertisement.

Over the years, I have subscribed to over 100 newsletters around the world and most I have let lapse after my initial subscription period was over. They just don’t cut it in my opinion. Am I being a little too harsh? Do I expect too much? Yes, probably on both counts!

However,  I want to share something with you. Over the last month, I thought I would do some research on some of these newsletters and report to you on what I have found. Now, I’m not criticizing any of them, in fact the ones I am about to mention are probably the best of the best. If I don’t mention one, that’s because it’s probably obscure, is only focused on one type of investment or it’s not displayed consistent returns over the last few years.  

So, let’s have a look at what I have found.

Now, before I start I have to say, getting information about subscription prices and performance returns is almost impossible on the Australian based newsletters. The US based ones are a lot easier and far more accessible.

Some companies won’t reveal their performance, and maybe for good reason, I don’t know, so I left them out

But here is the information I put together using Hulbert’s Financial Digest and each company’s own website. Ranked by the best average return over 3-5 years. Newsletters with losing years have been eliminated.

The Best US – Global Newsletters

The Best Australian Newsletters

So, what do you think? It’s clear the Americans are better at this stuff than the Australians. They all beat their market by wide margins. The best the Australian based gurus could do was “edge past”. Still they did beat the market and that should be applauded…. So many don’t!

While I was putting all this together, I thought I should also include the world’s most popular newsletters so you have an idea of what they are doing. I’m sure you’ve heard of most of them.

Now, what do you think about what’s going on out there. Are you really suspicious as to whether some companies have no idea? I can’t believe organisations with the resources of Forbes, Morningstar and Standard & Poors can’t best the market! Are they employing idiots? Is their analyst recruiting centre the “Happy Acres Sanatorium”?

I can’t miss this opportunity, naturally to point something out…….

Yes, I do produce the best performing newsletter portfolio in the world.

Something I’m pretty proud of. The return of 96.33% is averaged over 3 years, and by the way,  the worst yearly performance is 75% in 2006.

So, why have I done so well? Keeping it simple? Yes, probably. But there’s one other little difference between me and almost everybody in the tables above….. I use my own money! The analysts of most of the newsletters above aren’t putting their money where their mouth is. I do. When you put your own money on the line you tend to be very careful and diligent. That’s what I feel makes the difference.

Now, I should point out a few things that the cynics may be thinking:

•  I don’t use leverage in any form.

•  I don’t invest in CFD’s, options, warrants, futures or any derivatives…. Just good stocks.

•  I invest in the stocks the day after the newsletter comes out and if at another time I usually pay around the same price as quoted in the portfolio, and no I don’t just buy 1 share, a put in at least $10,000 on each one.

• This is my money and I have worked hard for it… I’m not going to throw it away by buying rubbish stocks.

There’s the brutally honest situation. There’s nothing to be gained by telling lies.

There are no shortcuts. It took me ages to get the investment balance right, nearly 20 years to be honest. It’s now my full time job to hone the skills I've acquired…. I’m still learning, more from experience than from other so-called "experts". I really love my job, but I spend long hours researching stocks to ensure the Trident Confidential Model Portfolio invests in only the best stocks I can find.

Twenty years of professional accounting actually did come in handy!

On Monday 8^th of October 2007, I sent out the latest Trident Confidential to my subscribers, I had started doing all the research a month or two earlier, but I had to wait until 6am Saturday morning (Australian Time) before I could start putting it together as I had to wait for New York to close to check to see if all the stocks I wanted to buy (I use Comsec.com.au - easy as falling off a log) were still in range and that there was no bad news to account for. At this point, I start work. I worked all day Saturday, started again at 5.30am on Sunday and continued again Monday at 5.00 am until all 77 pages were complete. Then I rushed to get it out as people are checking their email that Monday afternoon, so the prices that they see are the closing prices from the last trading session. As far as I know, Trident Confidential is the only newsletter of this magnitude that goes to this much trouble.

In the November 2007 edition we announced 15 new additions to the portfolio rated from Low Risk to High Risk.

In 24 hours, this is what happened….. The S&P 500 in New York dropped 0.32% - The ASX went up 0.31% on the Monday.

The Low Risk additions of which there were 5 stocks, went up by an average of 2.08%

The Medium Risk additions of which there were 6 stocks, went up by an average of 2.67%

The High Risk Stock of which there was only one stock, went up 5.74%

None lost money from the purchase price - I like that!

The other 3 stocks (to make up the 15) that were added and notified to members on the 6th September in our mid issue, Brief are up: 13.75%, 28.18% and 33.23% in about a month, they were Low to Medium risk stocks.

There are no stocks in the portfolio in loss at the time of writing. The best profit we’ve had was 2,053% and still going up in the Portfolio at a rate of knots and the worst result was 21% loss. That was a big mistake that I won’t do again!

I review every addition to the portfolio as if I was buying the whole business, lock stock and barrel.

That’s the secret of putting your money where your mouth is. It’s one thing to "talk the talk", it’s a whole other thing to "walk the walk".

Good Investing!

Regards,

Lance Spicer

Next time you sit down with your broker or financial adviser… ask to have a look at their portfolio, you may be surprised by their answer......

Have a look at my Trident Confidential Website - It may change the way you think about investing.