Save time & money with the Portfolio Preserver Monthly Email Report!

If you are looking for an easy and safe way to set-up and maintain a diversified portfolio, look no further - the Portfolio Preserver® monthly email report is for you! All you need to do is answer two simple questions regarding your investment time horizon and tolerance for risk and we will personalize a portfolio just for you.

On or before the first trading day of the month, you'll receive an email report that will tell you precisely how to adjust your portfolio to maintain optimum performance, if needed. This report contains some useful features including:

Simple graphs of how your portfolio would have performed over the last five and ten years compared with the classically allocated portfolio still used by many fund managers. (You'll be doing much better!)

• A table of asset allocations across all achievable returns so you can see exactly how increasing or decreasing risk can affect returns. If you find that at any time you'd like to adjust your risk/return profile, please change your answers to the two questions or contact us and we'll see to it that your next report reflects your wishes.

See for yourself the full features of our email report. Just enter your email address on the Home Investor main page and we'll send you a sample copy. (Note: Your email address is not distributed to any other parties.)

A quick overview of the email report

Setting up your account: Your first report will contain a table of stock and bond asset classes that you will need to set up with your broker. We provide a list of suitable mutual and exchange-traded funds for each asset class that you may wish to use to set up your account. You may transmit this list to your broker who will be able to further assist you. Many brokers now offer commission-free sector and index funds that can save you a lot of money over the long term.

Maintaining your account: On or before the first trading day of the month, you'll receive your personalized report spelling out exactly how you'll need to rebalance your portfolio to maintain your risk/return profile. Most of the time, you probably won't need to do anything, but if you do, you'll receive specific instructions on what changes need to be made. While you can make these changes at any time, it is best to make them as soon as possible. To assist you in making these changes, there is an online Applet accessed from a link in the report that makes it easy to determine. This Applet comes with an instructive tutorial with your current allocations already pre-loaded.

The science behind the report

The Portfolio Preserver® is based upon a Nobel prize-winning mathematical model called Modern Portfolio Theory that is designed to minimize risk at a specified return. The Portfolio Preserver® takes this model one step further by adding a sophisticated market timing strategy that tells you when to enter and when to exit completely a specific asset class.

When the Portfolio Preserver® finds that an asset class is too risky to hold it will tell you to exit it and instead put the proceeds into cash or a safe cash equivalent such as Treasury bills. Our studies show that this approach has outperformed the classical model over the entire range of possible returns and over a time frame greater than five to ten years (depending upon the starting point).

Please note that not all asset classes are suitable for the market timing approach. Bonds in particular are subject to forces external to the market and so they are excluded. However, equities such as stocks, real-estate investment trusts (REITs), and commodities are all influenced by their own market forces and as such they are conducive to market timing and are included.

Advanced advice

The mathematics of portfolio allocation for both the Portfolio Preserver® timing strategy and the classic MPT model are based upon attempting to achieve (at the very least) the targeted average annual return at minimum risk. Any return in excess of the targeted return receives no preference and all such returns are considered to be equal as far as the mathematics are concerned. If your portfolio is achieving consistent returns above the targeted return, then perhaps a more aggressive target return should be considered. This is a sign that the asset classes are currently outperforming their historical averages.

Conversely, if your portfolio is under-achieving, that is a sign that the underlying asset classes are underperforming their historical norms. In times of severe market corrections, return expectations may not be met as all asset classes likely will be hurt. During these trying times, the Portfolio Preserver® will allocate some of your portfolio into the safety of cash or in safe bonds such as Treasuries.

Rest assured that no matter your desired return, your nest egg will be safe by following the Portfolio Preserver® monthly advice.

Email report contents

The first table shows the updated allocations. The table also shows the allocations from the previous month and the resultant changes. Following that are notes highlighting the changes. While all allocations should be followed, a change of 3% or more in an allocation or a change in strategy either in or out of that class, into or out of cash, is significant and should be acted upon as soon as possible.

Following are numerical performance results for the portfolio implementing the strategy compared to a portfolio following classic Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) allocations where all asset classes are potentially always owned and are never exited to the safety of Treasury Bills (except for the Treasury Bills asset class). A comparison to the performance of the S&P500 is also shown.

The next table shows some suggested proxies for investing in the Portfolio Preserver® asset classes. These are investment vehicles that closely follow or exactly represent the index based asset classes used to determine the allocations. These proxies are either mutual funds or exchange traded funds (ETF's).

The first plot is a comparison of how your portfolio has performed compared with such a classic portfolio. In this plot it is assumed an initial investment was made ten years ago. The second plot is the same but it assumes the initial investment made five years ago. Numerical results for the actual annual rates of return as well as for the risk (standard deviation about those returns) are shown.

The above information is all you need to effectively manage your portfolio but some additional information is provided for those who wish to know more.

The next table shows the year-to-date performance of each asset class individually as if those were owned for that entire period.

The Portfolio Preserver® historical allocations for the preceding few months at the required return are then shown. These show what has been recommended recently and may illustrate any trends that may be taking place.

Next is shown what the current recommendations are for the entire range of required returns in the event that you are thinking of changing your risk tolerance or time horizon and desire to see immediately how that would affect the allocations. The range of returns are from the minimum compounded average return to the maximum possible.

The following tables apply solely to the aformentioned Modern Portfolio Theory classic allocations (all assets held long according to allocated percentages.) The first table are the current allocations at the desired return (or the maximum achievable) and the changes from the prior month. Next are the historical allocations for a few prior months and the allocations over the entire range of possible returns. Again these are for classic Modern Portfolio Theory and not based on the timing enhancement model.