Frequently Asked Questions

• Does this really work?
  • It has a long track record of success. In fact, over the most recent five years, these strategies yielded roughly twice as a much profit as the Dow, S&P, or Warren Buffett.
• Could I do just as well on my own?
  • Maybe. Over the past 10 years, the typical investor has earned 2.6% annually. If you earned more than 43.4% in 2013, an average of over 27% per year compounded since 2009, or an average of 12.5% over the past ten years, you don’t need SWA. Otherwise, you are foolish to not see what we’re doing each month.
    
    
• Is it really simple?
  • There is a maximum of 60 stocks to buy/sell once a year. Nothing else to do. Go, relax and enjoy yourself.
    
    
    
    
• What about cost?
  • Pay just $295 plus a worst case $960 per year for brokerage fees, assuming you use a typical on-line broker. That’s $1255 per year or just 20 basis points on a $600,000 portfolio. Active mutual funds typically charge four times this much, while some index funds may be a little cheaper. It’s worth noting that the very few money managers who have produce five and ten-year results similar to SWA, require at least a $500,000 minimum investment and charge 8-to-10 times this much.
    
• What about taxes?
  • Like an index fund, your non-IRA/401K income will typically qualify for long-term capital gains treatment. If you are in the top tax bracket that’s 25% more in your pocket, after tax. Obviously for tax advantaged accounts (e. g., IRA, 401K, SEP), this is not an issue.
    
• Isn’t $295 per year pretty expensive?
  • You get what you pay for. $295 per year is $0.81 day or $5.67 per week; that’s cheaper than buying a Big Mac value meal at McDonalds. And, subjectively, comparing SWA to a typical market letter is like comparing a dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House that McDonald’s Big Mac meal.
• But, what if I don’t get value out of reading Strategic Wealth Advisor?
  • We’re confident that you’ll look back and say, “Strategic Wealth Advsior is the best investment I ever made.” However, if we’re wrong, you can cancel within 90-days and pay nothing.
• But what about all the “experts” who say I should buy gold or warn of “Dow 6000 by 2016?”
  • Most of these gurus have terrible long-term track records Consider this, Harry Dent was right about the 90s booms, but has been mostly wrong since them. “Doomer” Nouriel Roubini has forecast 9 of the last 3 bear markets; even a stopped clock is right occasionally. Multi-label publishers like Porter Stansbury offer many publications with contradictory advice; after-the-fact, they cherry-pick those past results proclaiming those that were right and disavowing those that were wrong. Like the “doomers,” the “gold-bugs” have been right a few times, but over the long-term they’ve dramatically under-performed.
• I really don’t know anything about your company. Shouldn’t I worry that SWA might be some kind of fly-by-night operation that just wants to take my money?
  • We have helped major corporations analyze the economy and forecast its future with uncanny accuracy for over 30 years. We’ve been publishing for over 22 years. Our publications include Audio-Tech’s Business Book Summaries, Business Briefings, Trends Magazine and Innovation@Work. Our clients and subscribers include most of the Fortune 500, top Federal & state officials, and hundreds of leading business & financial advisors as well as thousands of highly respected professionals and entrepreneurs. We expect to be around another 30 years and we have no intention of hurting our reputation. You can be confident we’re prepared to honor our commitments.
• Why don’t you give investment advice or offer an investment product like an ETF or Mutual Find?
  • We are researchers, analysts, business consultants and private investors. In those capacities, we discovered how to make money for ourselves and we’ve made that knowledge available for our members to use as they see fit. Managing money is a different business with a different set of core competencies. As business guru Tom Peters often reminds us, “the best companies stick to their knitting.”