Frequently Asked Questions

We generally enter all of our orders before the market opens each week. These orders are always "Limit Orders".

For new orders, we post our Limit Order in each of the Portfolio Tools. The price is based off of the Friday close. But, keep in mind that there are circumstances that often occur where we may be willing to pay a higher price to get the stock; or we may not want the stock unless we can get it at or below at the Friday close; or, in some cases, we may set a limit order well below the Friday close because we feel there may be a pull-back in the market and we don’t want to pay up for a position that we might be able to pick up at a lower price.

The prices we put in our Portfolio Tool and as displayed in the list of new positions for each portfolio on the website, will be our limit order. If we have any exceptions to this strategy, we will let our subscribers know via email.

Our Limit Orders are GTC (Good Until Canceled), where we normally keep these orders open for the entire week, unless filled, of course. If we fail to pick up the position at our price, we will either change our Limit Order price per share or cancel the order.

There are many on-line brokers; some are more responsive than others; some charge more than others; some cater more to large investors; some focus on stock trading; some focus on options trading.

We have researched the entire landscape of on-line brokers and have given many of them a serious test run by actually using their trading platforms and working with their customer support staff.

Since our strategies involve both stocks and options, we particularly focused on looking for a broker that could provide best-of-breed services and support for both our stock strategies and our options strategies. We also looked for a broker that could provide our subscribers with a level of service and support that we can recommend without reservation. After doing the research and testing the on-line broker landscape, we selected thinkorswim* as our stock and options broker of choice. Here are the main reasons why:

1. You will not find a more robust trading platform anywhere. The thinkorswim trading platform is a thing of beauty. Their stock trading platform is outstanding and we are particularly impressed with their options trading platform. For many, options trading can seem complex, but thinkorswim offers the cleanest, simplest and most intuitive options and stock trading experience we've seen. It is extremely powerful, feature-rich, and lightning-fast, yet not overwhelming to the non-technical user.
2. The thinkorswim platform is rated "best for options traders" in Barron's ranking of online brokers, 3/6/2006 and 3/5/2007. Barron's is a registered trademark of Dow Jones & Company © 2007.
3. When you talk to the tradedesk at thinkorswim, you are talking to folks who know what they're talking about. Not only are they responsive, but they have all been floor traders and they know how to get your trades done the way you want.
4. But, more than that, the staff at thinkorswim goes out of its way to work with you... quite unlike most brokerages.
5. Many of our subscribers are very experienced traders; others are at the other extreme, and are easily intimidated by brokers and brokerages. We never have to worry about our subscribers contacting thinkorswim. If you are a savvy, experienced investor, you will be very comfortable working with thinkorswim. They can handle the most complex trades you can come up with. On the other hand, if you are new to investing, you will never be talked down to. You will find the thinkorswim staff to be patient and sincerely interested in helping you get educated and comfortable with trading stocks and options.

When you purchase a stock, you have the ability to tell the broker that if the price of the stock falls to a certain point, to sell it. This provides you with a safety net from losing too much of your investment. Basically, a stop loss is an instruction to your broker to close out your position -- sell a stock you own -- if the price of the stock moves to a pre-determined amount.

Example: You buy a stock at $30 per share, and you do not want to lose more than $5 per share if the stock price drops. So, you would put a Sell order in with a Stop at $25 to "stop the loss". If the price of the stock drops to $25 or lower then your Stop Loss would be triggered and you would have sold your shares at the $25 stop loss.

Our pricing model tells us what the stop-loss should be for each of the stocks in the TurnerTrends portfolio. We provide you with that information each weekend in the TurnerTrends Report, so you can modify your stop loss settings for the upcoming week. We set stop-losses once per week. And, as the stock moves up in price, we move the stop-loss up for the next week.

It all depends on which of our portfolios are being considered.

• For our Market Trend portfolio, we hold a maximum of 20 positions when fully invested and will trade, on the average, about 3 times per week. That's about 150 trades per year.
• For our Stock and Option portfolio, we hold about 10 positions when fully invested and will trade, on the average, about 3 times per month, which amounts to approximately 30-40 trades per year.
• For our ETF Total Return portfolio, we hold a maximum of 10 positions when fully invested and will trade, on the average, about 2 times per month. That equates to about 15 to 25 trades per year.
• For our 10 Must Follow Rules portfolio, we hold a maximum of 10 positions when fully invested. We only execute opening buy trades once a month. That means we will have 30-40 trades per year.

Our goal is to minimize the number of trades. But, the market dictates the number of trades. When the market moves into a downward transition, we may move all to cash. When it is in a bear trend, we may hold more long positions in short ETFs (a short Exchange Traded Fund is an ETF that increases in value as share prices for its holdings decrease in price). Since we use a trend-based strategy for entry and exit points, we tend to trade more when trends have shorter durations; we trade on a much less frequent basis when trends have longer durations.

If you own a stock as of the ex-div date and later sell it before the dividend is paid, you'll still get the dividend.

We have very specific rules for Industry and Sector diversification. We arbitrarily limit our investments according to the following percentages:

• No more than 30% in any one Sector, and
• Nor more than 20% in any one Industry.

We also use Sector and Industry technical trends as a component of our stop loss calculations (see Stop Loss discussion, above).

Yes, we show you 100% of the portfolio and 100% of planned trades before we make them. We tell you, ahead of time, which stocks we plan to buy, which stocks we are increasing our position in and the exact price at which we will sell those stocks.

We also provide you with a "Portfolio Calculation Tool" that is updated each week to match the portfolio after the planned trades. All you have to do is plug in the total amount of your investment, and it automatically calculates the number of shares you should own to match our portfolio trade-for-trade.

Each weekend you will receive our "Weekend Update Report" for the upcoming start of the trading week. We give you the new stop loss settings for each stock, the percent each stock represents in the portfolio, and all the planned buys (including how much each new buy represents in the portfolio). That way, you can match our trades, trade-for-trade. We absolutely do NOT make any trades or changes to the portfolio without telling you first.

No, we don't tell you when to sell, but we do tell you when we plan to sell. We use stop-loss settings to get us out of a stock. Our pricing model tells us what the stop-loss should be for each of the stocks in the TurnerTrends portfolio. We set stop-losses once per week. And, as the stock moves up in price, we move the stop-loss up for the next week.

Occasionally, we will sell a stock that has less of an opportunity for profit than another. We will also notify you of this via email.

By keeping an equal value in each stock in the portfolio, we limit our downside risk. There is no guarantee that a stock will hold its value and we may encounter a sudden downward change in price. The loss could be relatively significant on a percentage basis and it is better to not give any stock more opportunity to negatively impact our profitability than another. So, with a 20 stock portfolio, that would mean we want to stay pretty close to 5% as a goal for the total value held by each stock.

Sometimes a stock will take off and will grow so large that we have to sell off some shares to keep the equity distribution level. So we take the profits from the sale and put those profits to work either in other portfolio stocks or by adding new stocks to the portfolio.

Yes, our Stock Master Pro is the only tool of its kind available to individual investors. We chart all Sectors and all Industries and provide Buy/Sell indicators for each based on our proprietary technical analysis system.

Currently, we have the following 4 portfolios:

1. Market Trend Portfolio, which has a maximum of 20 positions when fully invested
2. Stock and Option Portfolio, which has a maximum of 10 positions when fully invested
3. ETF Total Return Portfolio, which has a maximum of 10 positions when fully invested
4. 10 Must Follow Rules Portfolio, which as a maximum of 10 positions when fully invested

All of our holdings are long positions. We never hold short positions.

We understand that situations change, and you may wish to cancel the automatic renewal of your TurnerTrends subscription. Simply call us at 512-577-2810 and speak to one of our staff. You may only cancel the automatic renewal portion of your subscription. We do not provide refunds of any kind. The information you have received is equal to or greater in value than the amount of subscription you have paid. Even if you cancel your automatic renewal, you will continue to receive information from TurnerTrends through the expiration date of your subscription. You will also continue to have access to the website for any information associated with your subscription until such time as your subscription expires.

Keep in mind that our subscription prices go up from time to time. We have raised our prices several times in the past and it is likely we will raise our prices again in the future. However, we NEVER raise subscriber prices. The price you sign up at (even if it is a special discount or trade-show price), is your price for life! But, if you cancel, and then re-subscribe at a later date, your subscription fee will be based on the then current price of the subscription you desire.