(Bull's Eye Investing Ten Years Later, cont.)

What does the current environment of earnings and valuations tell us about the prospects for the US stock markets in general over the next 3-5-7-10 years? This week we have part two of "Bull's Eye Investing Ten Years Later," which we started last week. These two letters have been co-authored with Ed Easterling of Crestmont Research. We take a look at research we did almost ten years ago as part of my book Bull's Eye Investing, updating the data and asking,"Are we there yet? When will we get to the end of the secular bear market?" We will start with a few paragraphs from last week's letter and then move right along.

It's been almost a decade since I co-authored with Ed Easterling of Crestmont Research some research in this letter that later became chapters five and six of Bull's Eye Investing. Although the ten-year anniversary of the book is actually 2013, the current vulnerabilities in the markets encouraged us to revisit the material a bit early, to prepare you for what lies ahead. Reflecting back to yesteryear gives us the opportunity to assess the accuracy of our insights.

I am in Tuscany at the moment, watching the sun set over the Tuscan hills; so I will thank Ed for doing the heavy lifting in this letter while I get to relax, although there is so much going on and I am such a junkie that I am forced to get my current-events fix every day. I must say, the news certainly provides some very pure adrenaline rushes. But more on that at the end. For now we take the longer view of the stock market that I first wrote about at the end of the last century, and to which Ed added some real meat in early 2003.

But first, I am pleased to be able to announce the release of the rest of the videos of the 2012 Strategic Investment Conference, co-sponsored by my partner, Altegris, which we held last month. David Rosenberg (and many attendees!) said this was the best conference ever, featuring a world-class lineup of economic and financial leaders. Our very enthusiastic attendees created a roomful of energy that the speakers seemed to feed off of, and everyone brought their "A" game. It really was quite special. And now we have the videos.

Those of you who are members of my special program for accredited investors, called the Mauldin Circle, can access the conference videos by going to the "My Information" section at the bottom of your personal home page, when you log into www.altegris.com. I can't think of a better way to sharpen your investment outlook than to partake of the insights of some of the best minds in the world, including Dr. Lacy Hunt, Niall Ferguson, David Rosenberg, Jeffrey Gundlach, Mohamed El-Erian ... not to mention your humble analyst.

In order to view the videos, you must be a member of the Mauldin Circle. This program has replaced our Accredited Investor Newsletter Program. My partner Altegris and I have worked hard to enhance the program, which now includes access to webinars, conferences, special events, videos, accredited newsletters, and presentations featuring alternative-investment managers and other thought leaders and influencers.

The good news is that this program is completely free. The only restriction is that, because of securities regulations, you have to register and be vetted by one of my trusted partners, which in the United States is Altegris, before you can be added to the subscriber roster. This will be a quite painless process (I promise). Once you register, an Altegris representative will call you to provide access to the videos, presentations, and summaries from the speakers featured at our 2012 Strategic Investment Conference.

Click here to initiate your membership in our exclusive Mauldin Experience Program. After you have talked with the Altegris representative, you'll be able to view the first set of five videos, featuring Dr. Lacy Hunt, Jeffrey Gundlach, Niall Ferguson, David Rosenberg, and Mohamed El-Erian, as well as the final set featuring Dr. Brock, our two all-star panels (one with Marc Faber), and yours truly. I think you will find the presentations particularly relevant this week. And now, let's think about secular bear markets.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cheshire Cat.
"I don't much care where . . . " said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
". . . just so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Bull's Eye Investing was the book that really helped establish this letter. It dealt with a host of investing ideas, secular market cycles, value investing, alternative investing, and more. It is still in print some nine years later and has had a very positive response. Today I can share that I have taken that material, updated it, and written a new book, part of the Little Book series done by Wiley, called The Little Book of Bull's Eye Investing – Finding Value, Generating Absolute Returns, and Controlling Risk in Turbulent Markets.

Rather than talk about a book I am going to do, I have waited to announce this one until it is off the presses and being shipped. Technically, the publication date is May 8, but Amazon will be shipping before then and it will be in book stores in short order. I am quite pleased with it and think you will find it's a great way to "catch up" with my thoughts on the nitty-gritty of investing and allocation.

Today's e-letter is the introduction and part of the first chapter of the book. You can order the book on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/bullseye. And get a few extra for friends, family, and clients! Now, let's get started.

Warren Buffett says buy. Jeremy Grantham says it will get worse. Both are celebrated value investors. Who is right? It all depends upon your view of the third derivative of investing. Today we look at valuations in the stock market. This is the second part of a speech I have given in the past few weeks in California and Stockholm. I am updating the numbers, as the target keeps moving. While from one perspective things look rather difficult, from another there is a ray of hope. What can you expect to earn from stocks over the next five years? It should make for an interesting letter. Note: this will be a little longer than usual, but part of it is there are a LOT of charts.

I should note that I am rewriting this on Monday. For the first time in over 8 years, I missed my Friday night deadline (see below). Last week's title for the letter was "The Economic Blue Screen of Death." By that I referred to the old "blue screen of death" that we used to get on early versions of Microsoft MS-DOS and Windows. You could be working away and suddenly, for no apparent reason, the computer would freeze up and you would get a blue screen. The only thing you could do was unplug the computer and hit the reset button - losing everything that was not saved when the computer crashed.

I likened this to the economic situation we are in now. With consumer spending "resetting" to a new lower level, we are going to have to hit the reset button on many business plans, and thus investments, as consumers are going to spend less and save more. Is that level 3% less? 5%? More? No one knows, but since we have not had a consumer-led recession since 1982, too many businesses assumed that the US consumer, like Superman, was bulletproof.

What will be the eventual savings rate? Will we get back to 7-9% from less than 1%? Maybe, because people are going to realize that savings today are the key to a happy retirement. That would put the new level of consumer spending a good deal lower than it has been. Thankfully, that climb in savings will not happen all at once but will play out over more than a few years. I think we will look back in the middle of the next decade and be quite amazed at how much US personal savings have increased. However, this is the Paradox of Thrift: what is good for the individual is hard on the economy, as by definition increased savings reduces consumer spending.

This week I am in South Africa and am not as connected as I would like to be due to meetings and slow Internet, so we are going to look at some material from my book, Bull's Eye Investing, which I think is more pertinent than ever. And since lately there has been rather large growth in the readership, there are a significant number of new readers for whom this material will be fresh. When I originally wrote much of this, the markets were coming out of the bear phase of 2001-2. I am adding a few comments in [brackets]. I trust you will find value as we look at the problems that investors face in the struggle to maximize portfolio value.

Like all the children from Lake Wobegon, I am sure all my readers are above-average investors. But I am also sure you have friends who are not, so in this chapter we will look at the reasons why they fail at investing, and how they should analyze funds and determine risk. Hopefully this will give you some ways to help them. I will show you a simple way to put yourself in the top 20% of investors. This should make it easier to go to family reunions and listen to your brother-in-law's stories.

A big part of successful Bull's Eye Investing is simply avoiding the mistakes that the large majority of investors make. I can give you all the techniques, trading tips, fund recommendations, forecasts, and so on; but you must still keep away from the patterns which are typical of failed investors.

A battle plan, we are told, seldom survives contact with the enemy. Nonetheless, military leaders throughout the world wisely persist in making plans they know will be changed time and time again once the battle starts. Contingency plans are made for all sorts of events, whether likely or unlikely, on the off chance that when something goes wrong (and Murphy assures us it will) that there will be a plan to deal with the next crisis, even if it is to declare victory and go home. Armies train to fight in every form of terrain, in all types of severe climes, as who knows from whence the next source of conflict may arise?

What would we think of a military force that failed to plan or train? We might question the political wisdom of a particular course of military action, but we expect our various militaries to be professional - to have planned for many different scenarios in which they might be called to act.

Is being lazy the secret key to riches? Can you grow your portfolio 2,000 percent with just one decisions? Did I spend 432 pages and 200 footnotes [in Bull's Eye Investing] trying to give readers the tools they need to be thoughtful, successful investors when just one page with no troublesome research would open up to them the secret of the ages? With all my study, how could I miss such wisdom?

Today we explore the problem with "single derivative" thinking. It is in my experience perhaps the single biggest mistake investors make. We enter full-tilt, no-holds-barred into the debate as to whether you should mindlessly buy and hold, or whether you should apply some more thoughtful criteria to your investments and retirement portfolios. This is one of the most critical issues with which investors have to deal. Along the way I will explode a few well-worn Wall Street myths, tell you when it will be safe to get back into the water of the S&P 500 (yes, that day will come) and give you some of the more interesting set of statistics I have come across in four years.

This week we look at how to make you a top 20% investor, think about some of the mistakes we all make and much more. I am writing today in Florida and will finish up in Texas tonight before taking off for Philadelphia. Because of the time constraint on my usual research, I am going to borrow a few pages from Bull's Eye Investing and some letters written last year and add a few thoughts. I think this letter contains some very important points that are worth repeating. If you would like more on this line, you can go to chapters 15 and 17 in Bull's Eye Investing (see below how to get a 32% discount.)

I should note that I have just finished a new (free) Accredited Investor E-letter which will be sent out within a few weeks. It has been some time since I have written one, but I am now committed to getting one a month out. I apologize to those who have signed up for the letter and have not gotten one for months. No more apologies, just copy will be my future motto.

This week we start out with the weather and end up buried in the footnotes of the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation as we wonder about expected future returns from the stock market. It is a wide-ranging foray, and I hope an interesting one, as we look at what some see as an impending crisis (which is not all that big, as world ending crises go) and stumble upon the real object where our concern should be focused - our retirement portfolios.

Getting an "A" in College

But first, I noted that my book, Bull's Eye Investing, rose to #19 on Amazon over the weekend (#1 on the finance list), and remains a quite strong 94 as I write this evening. If you have not yet gotten what the New York Times called "serious summer reading," perhaps the comments by readers will help you stop your procrastination. One reader evens speculates on Amazon.com that it could improve your kid's grades. Here is his assessment:

This week, I am going to depart from the regular format, as my book, "Bull's Eye Investing: Targeting Real Returns in a Smoke and Mirrors Market" is in the trucks on the way to a bookstore near you, as well as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. I have arranged for a nice 30% discount on the book for you courtesy of Barnes and Noble.com, a different and excellent source for bulk orders and I launch a special letter just for readers of my book.