I have no experience with the "Snider Method" but the idea of attending a seminar for a couple thousand bucks brings back an ugly memory...

I flew several trips with a former Western Captain. He was in his early fifties and hadn't saved much at all. He spent the money and attended some Wade Cook seminars on "investing". He was convinced this was going to be his ticket to financial freedom and a nice retirement lifestyle.

Wade Cook ended up going to prison and I shudder to think what happened to that Captain's finances.

For those of you that have had some success with the Snider Method, I'm happy for you and I wish you continued success.

IMHO investment performance should be measured against a standard. For example, the Standard and Poor's 500. If you're up 15% but the S&P 500 is up 30%, that's not so hot. To take that one step further, the index you use as a benchmark should have a similar risk profile as your investments.

Orvil, your statement "Thus far, I haven't had any realized losses" sounds like accounting speak.

Suppose you had $10,000 and invested $5,000 in each of two stocks. Stock A was owned for exactly one year when it was sold for a gain of 20%. Stock B on the other hand dropped 50% in that same period, but is still in your portfolio.

The portfolio is now worth $8,500 (less than you started with). But you "haven't realized any losses".

I submit you've lost 15%, whereas you could claim you've made 20% because you are only considering "realized" transactions.

They will assign yellows with reduced raw in raw value order. It does not allow you to supersede the silos or raw value in each bucket. If you have an off day fly yellow in they will generally honor it first if there are no regular reserves available to cover it.

Max yellow pickup is ALV+15

Wasatch,

You bring up some valid points. Your example is a valid argument. I won't dispute it at all. This year if I had not sold covered calls using this management method, I would have had even higher returns. But, the strong feature of this trading method is in down markets. It will continue to return 10% to 12% in a flat or down market. It's tortise versus hare.

I will state that I do a little more accounting work than is generally required of this investing method. The returns that I quoted previously were actual gains, cash in hand. This is a cash flow system. There is nothing strange about it.

This is why I hate getting involved in these kinds of discussions. Buyer beware. It's self managed, self directed, takes no more risk than owning a stock or mutual fund and provides risk managment practices. Works for me and at least four or five others posting about in the last day or so.

If you don't want to do it, don't.

And if you're a moderate you go to the middle which is to the right of the two on the left and left of the two on the right which means, that just like in real life, you get nothing for your lack of effort. :D

As my favorite radio guy says- Great Moderates of American History... does such a book exist?

I'd ride all of 'em and decide if I should be an elephant or a donkey.:cool:

Its a little bigger than a normal Jepp revision. At least on the 73 that's how its been playing out.

American Moderates seldom become great, but they choose who does.

LOL :) I feel your pain, orvil. I've been around the block a few times on this discussion too.

Everybody else:

The disconnect seems to occur with the proper way to measure a cash flow investment versus the way to measure a capital appreciation investment. Following the rules of the Snider Method, there are no "realized losses" unless one of your positions goes bankrupt and the stock becomes worthless. And the method uses some pretty elaborate screening of financial data to make sure we are investing in companies that are likely (notice I didn't say guaranteed) not to go bankrupt. So assuming none of your positions ever go bankrupt, you will never realize any losses. This leaves whatever cash flow the position produces (and possibly a small amount of capital appreciation as shares are sold) as the yield.

It's kind of like investing in a rental property. You are using the property for the objective of producing cash flow, not counting on the house to appreciate in value to make money on it. You're not going to sell it for less than you paid for it and, as long as it's producing the desired cash flow, you're a happy camper and are meeting your objective with this investment. When you finally decide to sell the house for at or above what you paid for it, the cash flow was the vast majority of your return. The market price of the house at any particular point during the time you owned it is irrelevant. The only relevant market price is the one for which you finally sold it. And you predetermined that you would not sell it below your cost.

Sorry for the lengthy illustration. Hopefully it helps to understand the fundamental difference between a cash flow investment and a capital appreciation investment. Like orvil said, if you don't want to do it (Snider Method), then don't.

That was pretty good. Is that yours?

If so, may I borrow it? :)

oooh, D0 is now right there with the stock and oil price on deltanet.

smart move. I just wish A0 was published to show how the pilots kick *** and make up a lot of time.

Scratch that, I was ON times published in relation to A0. That way it ain't our fault when the gates not available.