Issue 8

09/15/04

Supporting Our Troops by Remembering 9/11

Issue #8 - Supporting Our Troops by Remembering 9/11

1. Thoughts on 9/11 and Supporting Our Troops
2. Partnerships and Other Websites
3. Successful Investing Manifesto to be Published
4. The Mutual Fund Cost Debate
5. Help Protect Against ISP Filtering

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Dear Friends,

There were many things competing for our attention this past
weekend, but I hope that you took some time to reflect on the
effects of 9/11 on our lives over the past 3 years. Let me share
with you some of the thoughts that have been on my mind throughout
this past weekend, before I launch into the rest of this issue.

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Thoughts on 9/11 and Supporting Our Troops

Monday I heard from an excellent friend that her brother, who is
also my friend, is to soon return from an eventful tour of duty in
Iraq. Now while that is definitely cause for celebration, another
friend reported to refresher training this past Friday, Sept. 10th,
soon to be shipped out for up to 2 years to an unknown destination
in the Middle East. The first friend is a young single male, just
entering the prime of his life as he is not even 24 years old. The
second friend is a mother, a nurse, a nationally ranked 400M runner
and at the young age of 49, old enough to be the first friend's
mother. Both are a part of the US military's mission to eradicate
terrorism around the world and this past Saturday, on the 3rd
anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the US, I contemplated just how to
truly support our troops in this time of war. While I've never
served in the military, the aforementioned friends join a long list
of family and friends who have spent time in the military and thus
deserve our undying gratitude for being willing to make the ultimate
sacrifice for our freedoms. As I'm sure is obvious by my statements,
I believe that in this time of war, our troops deserve our full
support in both word and deed. To only partially support them is in
my opinion just as detrimental to the troops as any single ambush,
attack or battle through which they must endure. While it is true
that our military is highly trained and specializes in bringing a
severe response to our enemies, when their mission is undermined
constantly by one segment of our society or another, we cause them
to suffer unnecessarily, after all they are only human. Our troops
deserve better than that, especially because they are our family,
our friends, and our colleagues and have volunteered to put their
lives in harms way, so that you and I can have our freedoms.
Whatever our personal beliefs about war may be, we can all agree
that no one wants to be at war. However, once we have begun to
fight, we must be united in our efforts to support those who protect
us. To do otherwise, is to place our troops in even greater danger
by encouraging the enemy to fight harder and longer, under the
illusion that we will give in and allow a lesser enemy to chase us
away. Unfortunately that is something we have done in the past and
it has emboldened our enemies enough that they have attacked us
countless times over the past 25 years, knowing full well we would
not respond. The time for that attitude to change has long since
arrived. Teddy Roosevelt said it best, when he stated that America
ought to speak softly, but carry a big stick. With that said, I
thank our military for being that big stick, because without them
9/11 wouldn't be a one-time attack. I also thank President Bush for
judiciously using our military to remind those that would kill us
all if given the chance, that America still knows how to use her big
stick, no matter how many voices demand that we give our big stick
away to the UN. Finally, I wish to welcome the tens of millions of
soon to be democratically governed Iraqis and Afghans to the free
world and to the fellowship of countries liberated by America over
the last 100 years. It was definitely a pleasure to see the evidence
of their liberation in their participation in this year's Olympics.
I also pray that they won't be the only people to be liberated in
America's quest to once again rid the world of those whose only goal
is our destruction, first it was Nazism, then Soviet Communism and
currently Terrorism. To quote Winston Churchill, "We will fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight
in the fields and in the streets, we shall never surrender".

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Partnerships and Other Websites

A significant portion of my time in recent weeks has been devoted to
a large number of websites that are now linking to Investing With
Mom, all of whom are now listed on our referral page. While many of
them are simply providing reciprocal links and may not have much of
interest to you, I did want to highlight a couple of joint ventures
that Investing With Mom is now involved in.

The first is with an excellent research site on the topic of
personal finance, Debt-Free-Personal-Finance.com, and
while the site does provide a significant quantity of data
regarding all areas of personal finance, it more importantly deals
with the question of being debt free. Investing With Mom has been
picked to be the official stock market advisory service of Debt Free
Personal Finance and so from time to time, I will be publishing
articles from recent Investing With Mom issues, on their website.
While you could get the information here first or by going to
their stock picks webpage, I highly
recommend you use Debt Free Personal Finance as your online
reference site for all things related to being debt free in your
personal financial situation. Also, while you are there be sure to
let them know that you heard about them from Investing With Mom.

The second is with a wonderful online advertising advisor Evie B.
Her site, is chock full of free information
relating to online advertising, most of which is extremely useful.
Evie is always available and totally helpful. In fact, Evie created
a couple of graphics for me that will soon be appearing on the
Investing With Mom website and are already in an advertising campaign. If
you have the pleasure of working with Evie on any projects, she will
surprise you with her generosity and rapid response. Not to mention
the high quality work she brings to every project she works on. Evie
is definitely a credit to the online business community.

Finally, I wanted to mention one more website that is more than just
a single service or product. Now while it is true that Investing
With Mom doesn't use all of Site Sell's products and services, if it
wasn't for their fantastic and free Value Exchange program,
Investing With Mom wouldn't be in partnership with Debt Free Personal
Finance. Additionally, I am actively pursuing new partnerships that are
arising daily through the one time information upload onto the Value
Exchange system. Investing With Mom is also using another Site Sell
service to properly analyze the data that will be gathered from our
Investing With Mom Advisory Newsletter pre-launch survey. While it's
true that Investing With Mom is using the website development
services of Link Logical Solutions, the main reason is
because of the database that is at the foundation of Investing With Mom.
Most websites however, would benefit from an easier, more cost efficient
method and Site Sell is that solution. If you've always
wanted to have a hobby website, an informational website or even a
small business website, and you don't want to mess with either a
webmaster, extensive coding, or one of the many "free" services that
plaster ads all over your website, then Site Sell is your solution.
Before I forget, Site Sell also has a fun little service that anyone
can use to determine the approximate popularity of any website that
is currently active. Site Sell has placed the Alexa traffic test on
their site and it can be used to find information on any site you wish,
including that Investing With Mom is now in the top 3.5% of all
active websites. While all the date is approximate, Alexa does have
an extensive clientelle worldwide, so they are definitely more
accurate than almost anybody else. The main flaw in the data
provided is that Alexa doesn't have any data coverage with AOL's
millions of users, but other than that this is the online gold
standard for measuring true traffic volume and reach.

Thanks to all these partnerships, Investing With Mom has experienced
an approximately 50% boost in readership since the last issue was
sent out. Unfortunately, we've also experienced a delay in the
rollout of the new Investing With Mom Advisory Newsletter service,
so I've decided to extend our Free Prize offer through the end of
the month. I had hoped to launch by this past weekend, but when I
realized that that wasn't going to happen, I decided that because of
my coaching responsibilities this week, I would have to push the
launch back until next week at the earliest. The Investing With Mom
Advisory Newsletter will launch before the end of September. Now
however, all of you have an additional opportunity to receive both
your Free Prize and up to a 25% pre-launch discount, by reviewing
the new service, completing the accompanying survey and then making
referrals upon completion of the survey. To get started, just go to
Investing With Mom Advisory Newsletter. It's really easy to take
advantage of this Free Prize, especially as the survey only has 6
questions, but the reward is enormous, with the Free Prize alone
worth a minimum of $1620. Please don't hesitate, because when this
offer is over at the end of our pre-launch period, the Free Prize in
it's current form, and the 25% discount will both be gone. Those of
you who have already completed the survey will be receiving your
Free Prizes when we fully launch. Thank you for your patience and
understanding and I recommend that you forward the offer to anyone
else you believe would benefit from this opportunity, as they will
thank you for it.

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Successful Investing Manifesto to be Published

Back in Issue #5, I discussed the development of a series on
successful investing, however before I could present it in this
newsletter, I was offered an opportunity to have it published. The
opportunity came in the form of Change This's brand new Manifesto
publishing service, and it will be titled "Successful Investing for
Small Investors". While I apologize for not being able to properly
inform you until this moment, the opportunity is now ready for your
participation. In order for the final step of actually being
published by Change This to happen, the internet has to vote on
whether they believe it to be worthy of publication. Which is
exactly what I'm asking you all to do. If just half of all of
Investing With Mom's readers go to the Manifesto on ChangeThis.com
and both vote and e-mail my Manifesto out to at least one friend,
then my Manifesto will hit the top of the charts and be placed on
the priority list for publication. It only takes a minute or so,
but the whole process will raise Investing With Mom's visibility by
an enormous margin. Please go now and don't forget to both vote and
e-mail it to a friend, as both rankings are key. Below is a brief
discussion of just one aspect of what will be included in the
"Successful Investing for Small Investors" Manifesto.

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The Mutual Fund Cost Debate

Just this past week, I was reading an interesting article on mutual
funds. While the article was not published in an investing magazine
I definitely felt it was informative and worth the quick perusal,
however I also felt that they were discussing mutual funds from an
incomplete point of view. The main objective of the article was to
discuss whether it is wiser to purchase a no-load mutual fund or a
mutual fund with a load, but I would respond that with very few
exceptions it is better to purchase stocks individually. The biggest
reason is simply because the vast majority of all mutual funds
underperform the market, an issue that the article doesn't even
consider. During a raging bull market that is not a problem, as you
will still be getting a good return on your money and so you may not
care that you're not keeping pace, especially as the difference
would probably be just a percent or two. But considering that the US
markets as a whole will probably not do better than 4 or 5% annually
for the next 10 years, it would be much wiser to locate extremely
undervalued companies and purchase them at a discount. While what
I'm saying is not much different than numerous wildly successful
investors, like Warren Buffett and Jim Rodgers, Wall St. doesn't
want to admit that, because then they would lose out on billions in
fees. All you have to do is review past issues of Investing With Mom
to find that even when discussing growth industries, you need to
find value and even then you shouldn't pay too much for it. While
some investors apparently don't want to do any kind of research,
I would venture to guess that none of you would fall into that
category for the very simple reason that otherwise you wouldn't be
reading Investing With Mom. But maybe you have a brother-in-law who
does fit that description, and for them I would argue that Exchange
Traded Funds (ETFs) are better than mutual funds, quite simply
because of the difference in fees. ETFs while not perfect, eliminate
many of the types of fees that mutual funds charge and would thus
result in a higher rate of return. I cannot say that you should
never invest in mutual funds, but I would believe that if you do,
you shouldn't complain when what little money you might have made
gets eaten up by the myriad fees, including those you don't even
know about. Wall St. isn't stupid nor are they going to make it easy
for you to make any money at their game, but if you know going in
that the deck is stacked against you, then you can make wise
decisions that won't cost you your retirement.

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Help Protect Against ISP Filtering

Finally I wish to express my dismay that certain ISPs are blocking
your reception of Investing With Mom's e-mailed issues. Whether that
is problem for you or not, know that I am actively fighting back and
would appreciate your assistance. I'm sorry for the interruptions in
service to some of you and ask for your immediate help. The first
thing you can do, is whitelist Investing With Mom immediately, if
you haven't already done so. Some e-mail providers refer to this as
safe-listing, but it is the same principle. Then, you need to add all 3
of the following e-mail addresses to your address book, iwmom@hotmail.com,
iwm@investingwithmom.com and andy@investingwithmom.com, because in
certain cases I've discovered that it isn't good enough to just
whitelist Investing With Mom. If you discover that you are still not
receiving issues of Investing With Mom in your inbox, then you may
need to inform your ISP that they have not presented a satisfactory
solution and that you are unhappy with their service. One of the
most basic ideas behind e-mail is that you should receive all e-mail
that is important to you and if your current provider fails to
fulfill their end of the bargain, then there may come a time when
you just have to switch e-mail providers. Obviously no provider is
perfect and you cannot expect that, but you should be able to
receive e-mails sent from a list that you requested to be on. In
fact, my main personal e-mail account has been the same for the last
7 years, simply because they have done an excellent job of only
filtering that which needs to be filtered. If that is you, I can
definitely make some recommendations to you, just send me a note at:
andy@investingwithmom.com. In the mean time, if you would like to
learn more about this issue, Site Sell has an excellent, and
extremely comprehensive, resource website covering all aspects of
this issue. It is available at Site Sell's Deliver My Mail solution,
but I will warn you, the Deliver My Mail website is very detailed and
definitely more orientated towards online content publishers. Thus
it may not have any relevance except to inform you, but that's okay
because everyone ought to be informed when it comes to the issue of
spamming versus legitimate e-mail delivery.

My apologies for the length of this issue, but obviously there was a
large number of items to cover. Enjoy the rest of your week and I'll
be back as soon as I can next week. Don't forget to get your Free
Prize by reviewing the new service and be sure to go to Change This
and vote for my successful investing Manifesto.

Investments good for my mom and you,
Andy Prior