Zack Miller

It’s Fall 2009 and financial advisers are…not making any changes??

Thank, r wohlner. I do have an answer and am writing a free ebook on the subject.
Essentially, advisers should take up the mantle of content marketing online. That is, using their acumen, writing abilities, and their persuasion, to create and distribute really compelling financial content online. Build a community. Build a following.
From there, it's about funneling prospects into a process that convert a portion of them to some type of product or service.
Hey, isn't that what Seeking Alpha is all about?


On Oct 15 03:15 PM rwohlner wrote:

> Zack, good post. I'd be curious as to some of your suggestions for
> a Plan B.

Intel: Using Sentiment to Forecast Earnings

i guess sentiment worked?! Intel delivered. I'm trying to understand how the changes in sentiment of an individual stock vis-a-vis similar changes in the S&P say anything about predictability. Here we've seen that the delta in sentiment for INTC was growing more slowly than that for the S&P. Does that mean that S&P will completely blow away earnings?

The Housing Bounce: Why It's Artificial

does it matter?

But Cash Is Earning Zero

amen!

The Coming Crude Oil Pullback: Using Contracts for Difference (CFDs)

interesting article. where would i turn to get access to CFDs?

Whither Banks' PR?

nice article, Felix.

Facing dwindling cigarette sales, some tobacco companies (PMI) are hiking prices even as other consumer products firms freeze them. The shift has helped them smoke expectations, and when the economy rebounds they may be better positioned.

think you mean, PM, no?

All the news that’s fit to trade

Good point.

From Dick Johnson's article:

"No attention is given to the qualitative nature of the news – positive, negative or nuanced. The authors also do not explore why reporters decide to write more, less or not at all. (The Soltes study does analyze “busy news days,” when a flood of business or nonbusiness news overwhelms XYX Company’s little press release, and confirms that issuing news on busy days has little benefit – although companies obviously can’t control when Michael Jackson dies or GM goes bankrupt.)"

No focus on "newsworthiness" -- mostly on volume and frequency.

How to Measure a Website's Success

Is there a way to measure engagement in terms of activity during the avg time spent/month. Meaning, you want to see that these people are actually involved. I guess the pageviews/visit tells you that they're consuming content.

Book Review: The Guru Investor, by John P. Reese

Good post, David. Agreed on all the points -- I've used this book as a text for seminars I've given to give attendees just a taste of the research process as used by professional investors. Clearly, there is so much more going on behind the scenes, but I've found it illustrative to show valuation-driven screens.

E*Trade's Online Advisor Hopes to Lure DIY Investors

Thanks for the comment, Henry. I tend to agree with you. These tools are still in their infancy, especially consumer-facing ones and the trick is integration. The first discount house -- by the way, they should now be seen as investment platforms -- to get providing professional-grade advice through automation should reap a lot of assets. It'll be interesting.

E*Trade's Online Advisor Hopes to Lure DIY Investors

Hi Geoff,
Thanks for the nice feedback. This was by no means an exhaustive piece on the space. Rather, I saw it as a product review which I tried to put into context.

Clearly, FinancialEngines and your work are much more rigorous in this space. Online Advisor is a tool that fits well into E*Trades larger platform. E*Trade has approached this exactly this product as a service they've layered on top of a trading platform. FinancialEngines -- at its heart -- is providing portfolio guidance.

Year to date, 11,600 registered brokers have left the industry in the U.S. That figure could reach 35,000 by year-end.

are these people who have left left or would this number also include brokers who have gotten licensing as financial advisors (RIA)

MarketRiders: Portfolio-Building and Asset Allocation Via ETFs

It's interesting -- contrary to what the article says, I went to the website and checked. They do offer this system via a registered investment advisor with Schwab clearing.

Sounds interesting but their marketing is a little disingenuous. Most active managers don't beat indexes. Fine. But they're creating system that actively trades ETFs. Why can they do actively trade while others can't? Where is the backtesting info?

Dunno.

GeoCities = MySpace = Newspapers?

I think Jeff's point wasn't exactly addressing the role of a news medium. His point was that newspapers, just one product of a news medium, should look at themselves as a platform if they want to stay in business. The role of information, or to inform, must come from another direction.