Ask Mike:
Just what is Autotrading?

Question:

Jon S, 'Investing Conservatively' listener from Denver writes:

I am interested in your ETF total return program. However, when I called my broker, they have never heard of 'auto trading', unless it's institutionally related.

Do you folks issue any type of e-mail where I then can inform my broker about what trades to execute, instead of 'auto trading'.

Thanks,

Jon

Mike's Response:

Hi Jon,

I am surprised that your broker has 'never heard' of autotrading. This is a fairly common service provided by many online brokers.

Autotrading is where you enter into an agreement with your broker in whom you instruct your broker to follow a specific set of rules, guidelines and/or trading instructions provided by you. Your broker, then, makes trades on your behalf according to those instructions. You could, for example, provide your broker with a copy of the information we publish, with the instructions to your broker to proportionately trade your account so as to stay in sync with a TurnerTrends portfolio.

This action should NOT be construed as TurnerTrends providing trading information to your broker on your behalf. If you choose to use our published information for autotrading, you do so at your own risk. TurnerTrends is an information-only publication and does not make securities trading recommendations of any kind. We merely tell you what we plan to buy and sell in our own model portfolios.

As a subscriber to a TurnerTrends portfolio, you are provided with an Excel worksheet each weekend that includes:

• Ticker
• Number of Shares
• Limit Order price per share
• Percent of the total portfolio each position holds, including new positions we plan to buy
• Stop Loss setting for each position, including the new positions we plan to buy

If you plan to match us trade-for-trade, then you will want to proportionately buy and sell the same stocks that we buy and sell. This worksheet is designed to show you exactly what percent of your investable funds should be allocated to each position in our portfolio, if your goal is to match us trade-for-trade.

This worksheet is called our 'Portfolio Tool' and can be downloaded each weekend from our website with all the planned trades for the upcoming week. In addition, through out the week, it is updated each time we make a change to the portfolio, including all trades and stop loss settings.

As a courtesy to you, we provide your broker with access to this same Portfolio Tool. Your broker will use this tool to determine how many shares to buy or sell to keep your brokerage account in sync with our portfolio.

Regards,

Mike