CYA

You all know what CYA stands for. Of course,Cover Your Assets.

And everyone does it. You have protection againstlosing your car in an accident. You haveprotection against being sued from that caraccident. You have locks on the doors to your hometo protect against theft and personal injury.Question. Do you have a lock to protect from lossin your retirement portfolio?

Bet you didn't even know there is one. You surearen't going to hear about it from your stockbroker or financial planner. If there is such athing why hasn't he told me? Maybe it is becauseit is too expensive.

No, there is no charge for this type of protectionand your brokerage company will do it. It is free.Then why don't brokers and financial plannersprovide this as part of their service? The simpleanswer is it is too much work. If you decide touse the service they will then have to watch youraccount.

Oh, did he say he was going to watch your account?Unless your account in seven figures or close toit you do not appear on his radar screen. Theaverage broker has 300 accounts. Could you watchwhat is going on in each one if you had his job?It is not possible so there must be a way toprotect your money. Yes, and it is automatic.When your stocks are going up and you are makingmoney you don't want to give back those profits,do you? Of course not. There is a simple methodknown to every broker and financial planner, butyou must insist it is done - or you will transferyour account to someone who will. Money talks andhe will understand that.

First you must determine what your risk level is.Are you willing to give back 5, 10, 15% of theprice of your stock when it starts down? If yousay 10% then each week tell your broker you wantan Open Stop Loss Order placed on the closingprice of each Friday (or Monday , Tuesday,whatever) as it moves higher and not to reducethat price.

This way he does not have to watch all thedifferent stocks you have in your portfolio andyou are protected against any big losses. He maynot even want to do this and ask you to placethose orders which you can easily do on theInternet.

Instead of trying to figure out where or when tosell your equity you let the price action of yourstock tell you when it is getting weak. There aremany ways of placing Stop Loss Orders and you maywish to use another method. Many can be found byusing a search on Google by typing in the words"stop loss orders". Your library should have bookson the subject.

For a person who is working or cannot take thetime to follow the market this is the best way toprotect your investments. Consider it a lock onyour profits. Go back and see how this would haveworked if you had done it for the past 5 years.You would be money ahead.

CYA - cover your assets.

Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't BuyIt!" has helped thousands of people make money andkeep their profits with his simple 2-step method.Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.comand discover why he's the man that Wall Street does not want you to know. Copyright 2005