It is still not too late to protect yourself from further losses.

I am going out on a limb here this morning. I am moved to do so out of a concern for all the nice people out there who are not clients of our management firm and are presently left swinging in the wind of the current bear market just getting started.

I know. Your advisors have assured you that long term equities go up and you should not worry about "short term volatility". But this is worse than a load of manure. Manure at least, helps things grow. Bear markets and long always investment advisors only help capital shrink, frequently by a lot. And this is after all, your hard-earned savings we are talking about. What kind of wilful blindness and self-serving lethargy moves advisors to leave clients fully invested through the contraction of each business cycle? It is actually scandalous. And to think that most advisors are paid handsomely for this dis- service.

For the past couple of years, I have been writing and speaking about the looming threats that were building in the credit markets. "Juggling Dynamite" released in April 2007 looks at these issues in detail. Most importantly I have been trying to explain to people why they ought to care about these threats and how the fall-out could harm them financially. Time after time, I have appeared in national media trying to warn people of the risks. Time after time, people have listened intently and then followed up with the hopeful comment, "but the buy and hold crowd should be okay right?"

So let me state this once again as clear as I can be: "NO THE BUY AND HOLD CROWD SHOULD NOT BE OKAY!"    more »