If you are a person potentially interested and new(er) to the website, here are the pertinent posts to become familiar with the journey.
- The overall goal and why I'm aiming for $7 approx million [Jan 7, 2008: Reader "Pledges" Toward Mutual Fund Launch]
- Frequently Asked Questions [May 26, 2008: Frequently Asked Questions] Very important to read
- Why I need your state [May 23, 2008: Investment Pledges by State] Keep in mind a state's eligibility can be turned "on" overnight once we're up and running
- Most recent updates (this November) [Nov 4: General Updates]
Let me copy the same caveats for pledges as always:
- Assume a pledge amount that is firm based on a
fund opening in "6 months" time frame
- Assume at any point in 2009/2010 the market may be down 30% from here
- Make your pledge based on liquid assets that are not currently in some high octane mutual
fund that loses 40% when the market falls 30%, nor gains 50% when the market gains 40%. That money is not something that can be counted on in a volatile market.
Format: first name, last initial, pledged amount, and state you live in. To be clear, you are not sending me money that I'm going to hold until launch when you 'pledge' - you are simply making a verbal commitment: "when you are up and running, I have $X amount ready to invest". You can attach a comment to this post or as most people do, send me an email (my address is found on the upper right of the blog) with the above information. I'd prefer an email if possible.
| Name | Amount | State/Country |
| Brian | 5,000 | ??? |
| Heather | 10,000 | ??? |
| Bob B | 50,000 | AR |
| Ed S | 5,000 | AZ |
| Alan N | 15,000 | AZ |
| Armour B | 50,000 | AZ |
| Dharminder M | 100,000 | AZ |
| Pat L | 10,000 | AZ |
| Art H | 50,000 | CA |
| Benjamin W | 5,000 | CA |
| Dave K | 100,000 | CA |
| Greg B | 25,000 | CA |
| Kurt C | 10,000 | CA |
| Ron W | 10,000 | CA |
| Tom L | 25,000 | CA |
| Ted C | 5,000 | CA |
| Brian L | 50,000 | CA |
| Rich P | 30,000 | CA |
| Shannon V | 5,000 | CA |
| Sunil K | 10,000 | CA |
| Anatoly S | 10,000 | CA |
| Wesley W | 20,000 | CA |
| Burt B | 10,000 | CA |
| John L | 5,000 | CA |
| Alven Y | 5,000 | CA |
| Piyush M | 5,000 | CA |
| Paresh P | 5,000 | CA |
| Dinesh K | 5,000 | CA |
| Naresh P | 5,000 | CA |
| Jay S* | 5,000 | CA |
| Shang C | 50,000 | CA |
| Henry C | 3,000 | CA |
| Charles Y | 100,000 | CA |
| George | 5,000 | CA |
| Ross T | 5,000 | CA |
| James H | 5,000 | CA |
| Dana K | 25,000 | CA |
| Walt C | 30,000 | CA |
| Charles L | 20,000 | CA |
| Greg W | 20,000 | CA |
| Raj | 10,000 | CA |
| Judy M | 20,000 | CA |
| Dave H | 20,000 | CA |
| Adam B | 50,000 | CO |
| Alecia C | 75,000 | CO |
| Mike H | 15,000 | CT |
| Mark B* | 25,000 | D.C. |
| Vic C | 10,000 | FL |
| Wes T | 10,000 | FL |
| Ron S* | 100,000 | FL (sailing) |
| Olivier N | 10,000 | FL |
| Bob H | 3,500 | FL |
| Chris I | 20,000 | FL |
| Patrick L | 100,000 | FL |
| Dave C | 25,000 | FL |
| Kevin D | 5,000 | FL |
| Sandy S | 50,000 | GA |
| Mark L | 2,500 | IA |
| Jeff M | 20,000 | IA |
| Ian J | 5,000 | ID |
| Jay S | 10,000 | IL |
| Ben | 10,000 | IN |
| Jake R | 50,000 | KS |
| Bill H | 5,000 | MA |
| Bruce W | 2,500 | MA |
| John B | 20,000 | MA |
| MB | 20,000 | MD |
| Raeann | 10,000 | MD |
| Mark | 60,000 | MI |
| Ralph B | 25,000 | MI |
| Scott L | 7,500 | MN |
| Tom S | 20,000 | MN |
| Marshall H | 5,000 | MO |
| Wolfgang S | 7,500 | MO |
| George L | 10,000 | NC |
| Brian C | 5,000 | NC |
| Colleen P | 5,000 | NC |
| Adam B | 5,000 | NJ |
| David B | 50,000 | NJ |
| Frank G | 500,000 | NJ |
| Henric B | 25,000 | NJ |
| Ryan T | 7,500 | NJ |
| B Shah | 2,500 | NJ |
| Rama R | 4,000 | NJ |
| Richard H | 100,000 | NJ |
| Vijay K | 75,000 | NJ |
| Andrew | 100,000 | NV |
| Gary M | 10,000 | NY |
| Rob T | 20,000 | NY |
| Igor O* | 375,000 | NY |
| Jason N | 30,000 | NY |
| Tim C | 20,000 | NY |
| Atul R | 5,000 | NY |
| Rob #2 | 6,000 | NY |
| Marc E | 7,500 | NY |
| Bob M | 100,000 | NY |
| Adam M | 10,000 | OH |
| Justin K | 10,000 | OH |
| Dilip K | 5,000 | OK |
| Blake V | 100,000 | OK |
| Bill G | 10,000 | PA |
| Jatinder M | 10,000 | PA |
| V.K.K. | 20,000 | PA |
| Bruce R | 100,000 | PA |
| Joe C | 10,000 | PA |
| Nathan S | 3,000 | PA |
| Robert T | 75,000 | RI |
| Heidi H | 25,000 | RI |
| Doris S* | 100,000 | SC |
| Steve | 100,000 | SD |
| Dave S | 20,000 | TN |
| Matt S | 10,000 | TN |
| Pankaj S | 5,000 | TN |
| Joe P | 10,000 | TX |
| Doug M | 40,000 | TX |
| H.S. | 2,500 | TX |
| Ian* | 50,000 | TX |
| "Phong" | 10,000 | TX |
| Jason D | 5,000 | TX |
| AZ | 10,000 | TX |
| Glenn J | 5,000 | TX |
| Samba V | 20,000 | TX |
| Coby S | 50,000 | TX |
| Alex T | 10,000 | TX |
| Shane V | 25,000 | TX |
| Chair | 15,000 | VA |
| Lisa | 5,000 | VA |
| Zhong L | 10,000 | VA |
| Madhu I | 25,000 | VA |
| Brian D | 50,000 | VA |
| Kevin L* | 125,000 | VT |
| Ron | 20,000 | VT |
| Linda A | 15,000 | WA |
| Scott R | 60,000 | WA |
| Mike H | 2,500 | WA |
| Eric S | 50,000 | WA |
| Cathy K | 20,000 | WA |
| "Himalayas" | 20,000 | WA |
| Tyler | 10,000 | WA |
| Danny N | 10,000 | WA |
| Brian J | 5,000 | WI |
| Jason E | 5,000 | WI |
| Jason | 10,000 | WV |
| Stan T | 10,000 | Z-Canada |
| Steve L | 10,000 | Z-Canada |
| Brian M | 5,000 | Z-Canada |
| Stockspeter | 7,500 | Z-Canada |
| Anurag V | 20,000 | Z-Germany |
| Ken | 250,000 | Z-Hong Kong |
| S.E.H. | 12,500 | Z-Singapore |
| Junyuan | 2,500 | Z-Singapore |
| Tomaz K | 20,000 | Z-Slovenia |
| Ward P | 2,500 | Z-Sweden |
| KP | 5,000 | Z-UK |
| Nestor T | 25,000 | Z-Uruguay |
| Harsh N | 5,000 | Z-UAE |
| Total | $4,882,000 | |
| Goal | $7,000,000 | |
| % of Goal | 69.7% | |
| To Go | $2,118,000 |
/Begin Sales Job
Performance Metrics Since August 2007
2009 YTD results here
I do have results from 2nd half 2007 and 2008 as well, but I was working in another platform that did not allow individual shorting in those time frames, so I was handicapped in my strategy. However, you can see my "first year" results (Aug 2007 to July 2008) here. Short story: we beat the market by about 24% through July 2008 even with major handicaps to our strategy - i.e. only being able to employ HALF of it during a time the market was mostly trending downward. Long time readers will know I called out many individual shorts that ended up falling 50-100% (Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual, Las Vegas casinos, restaurants, retailers, emerging markets, commercial real estate) yet we benefited not one bit from it - so I believe my 2007 and 2008 performance as solid as it was, is substantially understated. In fact we tried to use Ultrashorts (since those were allowed in our old platform) as a hedging technique and even as the sectors these ETFs were betting against fell 50%, we lost money on the Ultrashort ETFs due to their faulty construction for long term holding periods - talk about insult to injury.
I compared myself to my peer groups in the mutual fund world during summer 2008 at various 1 month intervals, we generally were always in the top 10 (not top 10 percentile, but literally top 10 of all equity funds) and had some time as #1. Last time we looked was August 2008.
We left that old tracking platform (Marketocracy.com) late in 2008 due to the reasons above, plus technical difficulties constantly encountered. So there is a "window" in my performance while I searched for something new I could use - we found Investopedia.com in January 2009. That 3 month window was marked by sharp losses in October and then gains in November and December 2008 by the stock market - I was only posting trades on the website at the time but have no "track record" for those 3 months.
So unfortunately I don't have a multi year year track record all in 1 place, nor employing my strategy fully during those 2+ years... only since Jan 2009 can I say it's been what I wanted to do, but this gives you a 40,000 foot point of view of what we've been up to. My estimate is even with the handicaps of not being able to short for the first 16 months, I'd still have the top ranked record among all equity funds since August 2007, and by a long shot. Of course this is only a simulator and actual results in real world would cause more drag to performance, and last but not least I have to give the tagline - past performance is no guarantee of future results. But that's my "resume".
****************
To finish, while economic calls have no bearing on investment results, most of my big picture economic calls from 2007 - early 2009 are all listed for historical reference on my "Economic Forecast / Track Record" tab at the top of the page. I am also confidant that those calls were more accurate than 99.8% of the investment pundits who are celebrated on a daily basis.
The idea of the blog when I started it was to show my track record both on economic calls and investment results in a transparent basis, and hopefully excel. With that track record out in the open, I'd be exposed as a sham or not very quickly. Thus far I am content with what I have shown and the results achieved and if anyone has the time to read the 5000+ posts thus far - they can see for themselves. ;)
/End of Sales Job
