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What's new this week?

Today we begin a short survey about Managed Accounts to better understand your needs. We would be grateful if you could take a minute to answer the 3 questions located at the top of the "Current Signal" page
We posted a new "Financial Advisor" Magazine article on the "In the News" page

Signal Update

Current Signal Performance as of

Signal Type	Trade Date	Index	Return since issued
		Nasdaq 100
		Russell 2000
		S&P 500
		QQQ

Cumulative Returns since First TimingCube Live Signal () as of

Index	Long Only	Long Only with Margin	Long & Short	Long & Short with Margin	Buy & Hold
Nasdaq 100
Russell 2000
S&P 500
QQQ

Note: QQQ returns are included for continuity sake.

Market Update

Market indices took a beating this week and all finished at their lowest level of the year. Stubbornly high oil prices and a July employment report that fell way short of expectations were responsible for the damage. The Nasdaq Composite plunged deeper into bear market territory to close the week at 1776.89, effectively erasing all its gains since late August of last year! The Nasdaq 100 finished the week 6.08% lower. As for the Russell 2000, it lost 5.74%, while the S&P 500 shed 3.43%.

Of course, this is all good news to our subscribers, since we have had a Sell signal in effect since April 29. The week's action confirmed that we are on the right side of the trend and our Sell signal consequently remains active.

Trend Timing School

Selecting the right brokerage house

Last week we reviewed the few reasons someone might want to open an account at a pure mutual fund company like ProFunds and Rydex. No doubt the majority of investors, realizing they can trade the same exact mutual funds plus just about anything else under the sun at a brokerage firm, will opt for the greater flexibility and wider range of services. With the plethora of brokers to choose from, a shopper is likely to quickly reach information overload and lose track of which factors really matter and which don't.

Even those of us who have been perfectly happy with their full-service broker for a long time should at least take a fresh look at the options available today. Technology and the Internet in particular have caused radical changes in the brokerage industry over the last few years. It is a typical case of the old guard being caught snoozing while younger and nimbler challengers are eating their lunch. You do not often find an industry where some vendors shamelessly charge two, three or even six times as much as their competitors for the same or arguably lesser product.

Most brokerage selection guides begin with the traditional "Do you require a full-service broker or a discount broker?" question. Well, ours doesn't. We are admittedly biased towards the needs of Trend Timers and simply refuse to put-up with the exorbitant fees, trading restrictions and sub-par online trading facilities offered by the likes of Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney or Prudential. Yes, full-fledged financial institutions offer tremendous arrays of services from banking, credit and lending, estate planning, insurance, tax advice and, we almost forgot to mention them, complete investment services. There is nothing wrong with such services and you may well need all of them and even enjoy strolling down to the marble floored local branch office to visit with your personal broker behind his mahogany desk for extensive financial counseling. We just don't feel qualified to help you select a full-service route.

By definition Trend Timers are more in the no-frills do-it-yourself mold and since we know at all times what and when to buy or sell, it makes sense to do it as inexpensively as possible. Discount brokers used to be called online brokers but this has ceased to be a distinction. Even the "discount" appellation is getting fuzzy with early leaders such as Charles Schwab looking more and more like full-service financial institutions (their commissions and fees schedules certainly look the part!).
Due to space restrictions we limited our detailed comparison to six of the most popular brokers: Ameritrade, BrownCo, Charles Schwab, E*Trade, Fidelity, and Scottrade. Yes, there are many others (over a hundred), and even cheaper ones, but due to reliability and safety reasons you probably want to avoid any that aren't well established, do not handle very high transaction volumes or whose discounts seem a little too deep for comfort

With all of this in mind and the data in the table below at your finger tips, the selection process becomes a lot easier. Our requirements are quite simple:

We have to be able to open an account with the amount available. If less than $15,000 check the respective minimums
We must be able to trade online any of our preferred ETFs and/or mutual funds (see the "What to Trade" page). Not all brokers offer the ProFunds and Rydex fund families. You might also want to trade OTC Bulletin Board or "pink sheets" stocks or stocks listed on foreign exchanges, options, bonds or Certificates of Deposits (CDs) which not all brokers offer
We need to trade as frequently as we want, without penalties. Note that some of the firms, Charles Schwab and Fidelity for example, actively discourage frequent trading of mutual funds through excessive short-term redemption fees
Obtain the best price for the services we need

Our recommendation for people looking to simply and inexpensively implement the TimingCube strategies would be to go with an Ameritrade, BrownCo, or Scottrade. We have had good experiences with them and they offer robust services at competitive prices.