My 1st Million At 33 – yes, you can do it too

I seldom recommend specific stocks for buys or sells. The only reason is that there is simply nothing that can guarantee you, my readers, 100% certainty with profits. The other thing is that while I can suffer huge percentage losses without disrupting my daily financial matters, you may not be able to take such big volatility in stride. But for the very few occassions that I (not including my partner ML’s recommendations) do recommend, here are the performances:

1. I recommended silver on May 4th, 2006, and Aug 22nd, 2006 if you just have $100 to invest. These are long-term recommendations. 2008 year-to-date is 14.25%, but silver only returned 28.5% since May 4th, 2006. I bought my first silver coins for $10 in 2006 January. Now it’s $18 roughly, a 80% total return (less if annualized).

2. I recommended Bershire Hathaway’s shares if you only have about $1000 to $10K to invest on Aug 29th, 2006. This is a long term recommendation. The return since Aug 29th, 2006 would be 4648/3200 -1 = 45%, roughly.

3. I recommended Conoco-Phillips COP on Aug 28th, 2006. That is a return of 80.61/66-1 = 22%. I did issue a potential sell (which I actually sold for $83 on Jan 14th) . The stock dropped to $67.46 this January and came right back up to $80.61. So you could have pocketed almost the same return, if you were able to buy the exact low.

4. I recommended ADM on Jan 31st 2007. The title of my post was “The coming headline in 2008″. I was prescient of the market by almost 1 full year. What do we have now? ALL agricultural products have risen like crazy. Wheat is almost doubled now. Didn’t I tell you that a year ago? If you had invested in ADM, you should have returned about 41.5% since Jan 31, 2007.

5. I recommended UNG on Jul 24th, 2007, and natural gas sectors in general. UNG should have returned 20+%, but due to the inefficient tracking to the spot market price, its return is barely positive. Of course, natural gas sectors have been going gang-buster in the last 30 days. Many names were up by some 20% in a very short time, even better than oil sectors.

6. I recommended purchase of mining stocks on Jun 13rd, 2005. I hit the jackpot and that was the day of the lowest point. I’m a long term investor, and have been holding most of those shares since. My last check with the latest prices, those purchases had a total return of about 77%. The two still losing bets were GFI and KRY among those. But I’m satisfied with a 77% combined (total non-annualized) return.

7. My last recommendation (unsure about the price level however) was JOYG. You would have returned about 12+% if you had bought. The price right now is $68.

I hope you have profited from reading my blog. Probably 95% of the blog or websites that you read, you don’t get to see their performance at all. I always have doubts about them. They can talk big, but nobody knows the actual trading performance. But I’m posting my daily performance/net worth faithfully on my blog. I simply can’t stand un-truth, especially if it’s coming from me.

I do wish that I can recommend more. But this treacherous market is extremely dangerous right now. I recommend cash and possibly gold. The bear market has just shown its force. Investing going forward is a very tough business.