Successful Investing

This past Saturday, the Hicks family gathered at my sister's house to celebrate my mother's 65th birthday. We'll celebrate my father's 66th birthday in about a month.

My parents have been retired for about three years now...

They're healthy and in decent shape. Their only dilemma is where to watch little league games on the weekends, since they have 11 grandchildren (five from me).

So I made sure as they got closer to retirement, they wouldn't stress about money. This was a little tricky, because my parents were retiring at a time when the economy and stock market were seizing up like a car engine with no oil.

But I made one thing vitally clear to them: During this period, return of capital is more important than return on capital.

Preserve the cash ? that's what fortunes are made of. (It also helps you sleep well at night.)

I told them eventually, the market will come back. We have to be ready when it does.

I've been preaching this for years...

You may remember back in November of 2011, I gave you my 5 Rules for Successful Investing.

With the Dow now making new record highs, let's revisit those rules...

Note: My rules don't address specific sectors, because sectors that are in favor one decade won't be the next; this is a template for investing in any market sector in any market environment.

1. Protect the cash: That?s how fortunes are made.
   Depending on the market environment, there are times when I make five trades in a day.

   But there are also times when there?s no investment to make. I?ve gone days, weeks, even months without deploying investment capital... but when I?m ready, I have a nice big bankroll to use. So be patient.

2. You need to take 100% control.
   As my above experience proves, you need to have 100% control of your financial destiny. If your broker or money manager dismisses your concerns, questions, or objections, fire him immediately.

3. Liquidity.
   Make sure the investments you are in are liquid. If you get stuck in an investment that goes ?no bid,? you could be in an investment (housing, for example) for months, even years, with no way out.

4. Trust your instincts.
   If something doesn?t feel right, chances are it?s not. This is why investment newsletters like Wealth Daily exist: The editors at Wealth Daily do not get paid by pitching funds or stocks (like money managers). We get paid by the success of our investment ideas. If you make money from our ideas, you stay with us?? if you lose money, you leave us. Pure and simple.

   And finally...

5. If you?re going to speculate, go where the boom is.
   This one really is simple. As you know, we?ve been following the boom in the Bakken oil shale and the boom in the Marcellus for years. In fact, we were one of the first investment newsletters to bring this to your attention.

   Companies heavily involved in the Bakken are making money hand over fist ? and so are the shareholders of those respective companies.

Stay on top of the hottest investment ideas before they hit Wall Street. Sign up for the Wealth Daily newsletter below. You'll also get our free report, Wealth Daily's 2013 Gold Outlook.

My parents have followed my rules to a "T."

Right now, they're heavily invested in the market. And every single investment they're in kicks off dividends and/or partnership distributions from REITs or MLPs. Every month, they collect a dividend/distribution check for a few thousand dollars.

Their house was paid off years ago, and they have no debt. So the dividends they collect every month more than cover their expenses?? with some money leftover to treat themselves to breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

One important fact about this: They don't need to touch their original principle capital.

The principle they have acts like an engine, doing all the hard work for my folks to live comfortably. They should be able to do this until the end.

Unfortunately, many Americans are dipping into their retirement funds to make car payments and mortgages and to buy food.

This is setting up a future crisis the U.S. government feels it needs to address...

More on that in next week's Wealth Daily.

Forever wealth,

Brian Hicks

Brian is a founding member and President of Angel Publishing and investment director for the income and dividend newsletter The Wealth Advisory. He writes about general investment strategies for Wealth Daily, Energy & Capital and the H & L Market Report. Known as the "original bull on America," Brian is also the author of the 2008 book, Profit from the Peak: The End of Oil and the Greatest Investment Event of the Century. In addition to writing about the economy, investments and politics, Brian is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox and countless radio shows. For more on Brian, take a look at his editor's page.

Media / Interview Requests? Click Here.

Source: http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/successful-investing/4057

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Prairie dogs disperse when all close kin have disappeared

Mar. 7, 2013 ? Prairie dogs pull up stakes and look for a new place to live when all their close kin have disappeared from their home territory--a striking pattern of dispersal that has not been observed for any other species. This is according to a new study published in Science by behavioral ecologist John Hoogland, Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Appalachian Laboratory. He has been studying the ecology and social behavior of prairie dogs in national parks in Arizona, South Dakota, and Utah for the last 40 years.

For most animals, individuals leave a territory, or disperse, to avoid competition with nearby relatives, such as mother or sibling. For three species of prairie dogs, however, individuals are more likely to disperse in the absence of nearby close kin. Females are 12.5 times more likely to disperse when close kin are absent for one species, and 5.5 times more likely for another species.

Prairie dogs are large, burrowing rodents of the squirrel family. They live in colonies in grassland ecosystems of western North America, and forage aboveground on grasses and other plants from dawn until dusk. Within colonies, prairie dogs live in territorial, contiguous family groups called clans, which typically contain one mature male, two to five mature females, and one or two adolescent males. Hoogland has been trying to figure out which individuals disperse from the territory of birth, and why.

"The key to our research is that we live with the prairie dogs for five months of every year," says Hoogland. "Students and I climb into our observation towers at the study-colony at dawn each morning before the prairie dogs wake up, and we stay there until the last individual has submerged into its burrow for the night."

The prairie dogs all have numbered eartags (which are inserted at weaning and remain their entire lifetime), and the flank of each individual is uniquely marked with fur-dye so that it can be identified from a distance. The researchers therefore can document which prairie dogs get captured by predators, which ones mate and produce offspring, and which ones disperse to new territories.

"Prairie dogs are excellent models for a study of dispersal because they are easy to live-trap, mark, and observe," says Hoogland, "And they usually move only short distances to nearby territories."

Why are prairie dogs so different regarding dispersal? According to Hoogland, prairie dogs resemble other animals and compete with nearby kin for resources such as burrows and mates. But prairie dogs also cooperate with kin in the excavation of burrows that can be as deep as 15 feet; in defense of the home territory against prairie dogs from other territories; by giving alarm calls when a large predator such as a coyote attacks; and by helping to chase small predators such as long-tailed weasels. Another important cooperative behavior is communal nursing (the suckling of non-offspring), which can be life-saving for the unweaned offspring of close kin when the mother of those offspring dies for any reason.

Hoogland hypothesizes that the benefits of cooperation with close kin exceed the costs of competition with those same close kin. When all close kin disappear, individuals disperse because they have nobody with whom to cooperate. When the option is available, prairie dogs frequently disperse into a territory that contains close kin who dispersed there earlier -- so that benefits from cooperation are once again available.

This study is featured in the March 8 issue of Science.

Scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg actively study the effects of land-use change on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and how human activity may influence their health and sustainability on local, regional and global scales. The scientific results help to unravel the consequences of environmental change, manage natural resources, restore ecosystems, and foster ecological literacy.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. J. L. Hoogland. Prairie Dogs Disperse When All Close Kin Have Disappeared. Science, 2013; 339 (6124): 1205 DOI: 10.1126/science.1231689

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/OmKTb_FYLe8/130307145444.htm

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NBA: Memphis 91, Portland 85

Published: March. 6, 2013 at 11:52 PM

MEMPHIS, March 6 (UPI) -- Mike Conley and Tony Allen each made two free throws in the final 16 seconds Wednesday to wrap up a 91-85 triumph for Memphis over Portland.

It was the 10th win in 11 games for Memphis, which became the sixth NBA team this season to reach 40 victories.

The Grizzlies overcame a 12-point halftime deficit and took the lead for good on a jumper by Tayshaun Prince with 4 minutes remaining.

Portland found itself just two points behind after a layup from Damian Lillard with 17 seconds left, but Conley and Allen came through at the foul line to clinch the victory.

Marc Gasol led Memphis with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Conley had 20 points and Jarryd Bayless added 13.

Lillard scored 20 to pace the Trail Blazers. Portland had won its previous two games, but shot just 31 percent from the field in this one.

Source: http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2013/03/06/NBA-Memphis-91-Portland-85/UPI-97761362631920/

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Insecure Writers Support Group ? March | Joanne Phillips - a writer's ...

March 6, 2013 ? 2:21 pm

It?s the first Wednesday of the month which means it?s ? Insecure Writers Support Group day! Thanks as always?to Alex J. Cavanaugh for hosting and organising this fantastic event. You can check out the rest of the participants here, and pop along to visit?some more insecure writers and offer your support.

Well, I?m going for a fairly upbeat tone to my IWSG post this month. I?m reflecting back on a few of my recent insecurities and seeing whether I?ve improved ? or not.

• September: Procrastination and daughter?s first day at school
• October: Doing an MA in creative writing
• November: Going to the Festival of Romance as an Indie author
• February: Public Speaking

Well, back in September I was worried about all this new freedom once my daughter started school. Ha! What a joke! There is no freedom ? there is just more and more stuff to do, and less and less time for writing. I?m not sure how this has happened, but it?s up to me to sort it out. I know I need to be more disciplined and impose proper working hours on myself. (But where?s the fun in that?)

In October I was worried about the MA I?d just started. I felt out of my depth and unsure if I could operate on the level required. I?m not worried about that anymore. I?d say I was slap bang in the middle of ability and talent in the group ? not the best by a long chalk, but I?ve got as much right to be there as anyone else.

In November?I was anxious about going along to the Festival of Romance and being asked the dreaded question: ?Who are you published by?? It did happen, and I held my head up high and said, ?I?m Indie.? And no one sneered or threw things at me. (Although there was a horrible incident with a mean-spirited author ? check out?December?s IWSG?post.)

My little space of loveliness

And last month I confessed to all and sundry about my stammering past and very real fear of speaking in public. I had some wonderful messages of support, and I?ve made it my mission to challenge myself to at least one safe-ish speaking event this year.

I feel quite exhausted after all that! Right now I don?t have time to be insecure about anything writing-related ? I?m too busy running to catch up with all the things I?m supposed to be doing/supposed to have done already. But I hope you are having a good week and in the words of the very lovely Frasier: ?I?m listening ??

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Source: http://joannegphillips.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/insecure-writers-support-group-march/

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U.S. doctor's "gutsy" move led to baby's cure from HIV

JACKSON, Mississippi/CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) - The doctor who cured an HIV infected baby for the first time is happier talking to children than to adults and is finding all the attention since the news came out a little overwhelming.

Dr. Hannah Gay and colleagues Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga of the University of Massachusetts and Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported on the child's case at a medical meeting in Atlanta on Sunday.

"The breakthrough has been exciting and I'm very hopeful that that's going to lead to future research that will give us some answers," said Gay, a Mississippi pediatrician and soft-spoken mother of four adult children.

But the attention is difficult for a woman "much more comfortable talking to children than adults," said her husband, Paul Gay. "She didn't anticipate this kind of explosion of attention."

Dr. Gay, a 59-year-old native of Jackson, Mississippi, likes to spend time designing needle points, singing in her church choir and reading theology or medical literature when she's not working 12-hour days treating patients, in a state with the nation's highest poverty rate.

"She is the most unlikely person in the world to be getting this kind of international attention, really," said Jay Richardson, her former pastor at the Highland Colony Baptist Church. "You don't ever hear her talking about herself or trying to promote herself in any way. She's a quiet, humble person. Extremely intelligent. Very committed to her faith. Very involved in her church. Very committed to teaching children the bible."

Except for six years working in Ethiopia as a missionary, Dr. Gay has spent the bulk of her academic and professional career at the University of Mississippi, where she received her undergraduate and medical degrees and met her husband of 37 years. She has worked the better part of her career at the university's medical center serving the state's youngest victims of HIV.

During that time, Dr. Gay has published several articles about ways to keep mothers from passing HIV infection to their babies and participated in the federally sponsored Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group, which studied the use of the aggressive treatment of children who are at high risk of infection.

Her daughter Ruth Gay Thomas says as an AIDS specialist her mother has had to fight the battles of her patients, overcoming access to healthcare and the stigma that comes along with being infected with HIV in the United States.

"She practices compassion and huge, unimaginable amounts of patience with her patients and their families," Thomas said. "She really has to embody a whole lot more than just the smart doctor that knows the right medications to give."

To treat her own rheumatoid arthritis, Dr. Gay takes medicine that affects her immune system. "She has that in common with her patients, but it's been a problem because with her compromised immune system, she can't have as much of a hands-on touching of her patients that was always so satisfying for her," her husband said.

When a rural hospital in Mississippi delivered a premature baby girl in July 2010 from a mother who had just tested positive for HIV during labor, it was only natural that they would turn to Dr. Gay. The child's mother had not received any prenatal care, nor had she gotten any treatment for her HIV infection, putting the baby at high risk of becoming infected.

Dr. Gay chose to start the baby on the full treatment regimen of three potent drugs when she was just 30 hours old, even before the child's infection was confirmed.

It was a bold move. Most babies exposed to HIV in the womb or during labor would have been given a six-week course of one or two drugs intended to reduce the risk of acquiring infection until tests could confirm she was infected.

"The doctor made a judgment call that the risks for this baby were so high that they were going to assume the baby was infected," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a part of the National Institutes of Health or NIH.

Some critics have questioned Dr. Gay's decision, which may have exposed the child to the risk of toxic medications without confirmation of her infection.

"This was a gutsy call that turned out to be correct," said Fauci, adding that if it had turned out that the baby was not infected, they could have withdrawn the drugs. "They made the right guess."

Dr. Gay continued to treat the child until January 2012, when she was 18 months old and her mother stopped bringing the child in for appointments. Gay's team tracked her down in the fall of 2012, but the mother had not given her child any HIV medication since January.

Before restarting treatment, Gay did several tests, fully expecting that the virus had come roaring back. But none of the tests detected the virus. That's when she brought in colleagues Luzuriaga of the University of Massachusetts and Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who did a series of ultrasensitive tests. They were only able to find trace amounts of genetic material from the virus, but nothing capable of rekindling the infection.

The child, now 30 months old, remains off medication and continues to fare well. "We can't find any virus to treat at this point," Dr. Gay said.

She said it is not clear what the child's story will mean in the wider scheme of HIV research, but she hopes it may lead to a cure for other babies infected at birth.

"I guess the message that I want to get across to the public very strongly is, we don't know yet if we can create the same outcome in other babies." she said. "It's far too early to draw too many conclusions. There's not a cure in sight this week."

Dr. Gay said she is glad that this is happening in Mississippi and hopes it boosts the state's reputation.

"But it's a whole lot bigger than this one child, the University Medical Center or the state," she said. "It may take a long time, but I hope it will point us in the right direction to come up with a cure we can consistently apply to other babies worldwide."

Colleagues at the medical center are planning a celebration for Dr. Gay to "let her know how proud we are," said Amy Smith, a nurse practitioner who works with the doctor. "She's the type that wouldn't want a big fuss made about her, but we're going to do it anyway."

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen and Emily Le Coz; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-doctors-gutsy-move-led-babys-cure-hiv-003120207.html

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Video: Both sides look ahead to budget talks

>> the politics of this impasse let's bring in david gregory moderator of "meet the press." david, you sat down with speaker boehner for an interview. do you get a sense there is a face saving solution for either side in this?

>> reporter: well, i think for the republicans they have rallied around the idea this may be a clumsy way of cutting spending but is still a spending cut and that is preferable to raising taxes . i talked about the dynamic with speaker boehner between him and the president harkening back to the meeting they had friday. here is part of that exchange. what goes on in these meetings? you talk about a nice conversation. you keep talking about your relationship being pretty good with the president. it's hard for any of us to believe that, given how personal it seems, given how pointed the language seems to be, and that you're just at such a basic philosophical, ideological, practical disagreement. i mean, you've got -- congress left town.

>> we had a very pleasant meeting, but it was also a very frank meeting. i made it clear to the president that he got a trillion dollars worth of tax hikes in obama care. he got another $650 billion worth of tax hikes on january 1st . you can't tax our way out of this problem.

>> this is the issue. right now as speaker of the house , boehner has already faced the revolt among tea party conservatives, other conservatives in his caucus. he can't do any more in his estimation and, you know, you think about the leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell , he's up for re-election in kentucky next year, so he has little room to maneuver. it seems like this is going to go a little farther down the line, lester, into the big budget talks. that's where you could see some trading around taxes and entitlement cuts then.

>> that leads to my next question because as kristen pointed out the sky didn't fall today. this is going to roll out over a series of weeks. is there another deadline that may be a bit more subtle but that both sides have their eye on to get this done?

>> i really think it's the budget talks. what we learned yesterday, the president and speaker boehner say they don't want to shut the government down in several weeks over the rest of the funding for this year.

>> all right. david gregory , thanks very much. a reminder you can see david's entire interview with house speaker boehner tomorrow on "meet the press" here on nbc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/51020873/

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Email Marketing: still going strong in the 21st Century. | Mike Berry ...

I recently chaired the panel on ?Mobile email? at TFM&A (Technology for Marketing and Advertising) in London. The assembled experts concurred that:

a) email marketing is alive and well

and:

b) everything digital is going mobile, especially email (Litmus estimates that around 42% of all email is now opened on a mobile device and this can only increase).

But why does email remain so resilient amidst the waves of change which continue to sweep through digital marketing and in the face of newer, ?cooler? technologies? To answer this, let?s go back to 1999 (younger readers, you may need to ask your parents). At this time, various voices condemned email marketing to death. This view gathered support over the next few years: the new social networking platforms like MySpace were hailed as the next big thing. Email, people said, had had its day ? at least as a marketing channel.

In this new century, these voices proclaimed, we were all going to be communicating by instant messaging and social networks, and even by SMS / text message. So, these people were suggesting, marketers would soon lose interest in the humble email, which would be relegated to the recycling bin of marketing history. And if that wasn?t enough, the fledging Facebook was waiting to take the world by storm.

Now, let?s fast forward (btw why does that expression always remind me of whirring VHS video and audio cassette tapes?) to 2013 where, perhaps surprisingly, we find email marketing in robust good health. But why?

Pre email

In order to understand the continuing success of email, it might help to go back even further than 1999. Some years before the end of the last century, I was employed by various large direct marketing agencies. It was a good time to be in ?DM?, as it became known. Laser printing developed. Advances in data processing technology and personalised printing, addressing techniques and falling costs combined to make one-to-one marketing more powerful and cost-effective than ever before. Compared with broadcast, broad scale, ?untargeted? communications, direct mail offered some impressive advantages. Specifically, it could reasonably claim to be:

? Personal

? Targeted

? Data-driven (i.e. relevant)

? Measurable

And as a result:

? Cost-accountable

This was highly attractive to marketers and, crucially, to their Finance Directors. Direct Mail became respectable and even cool. Major national and global brands started to do DM. Budgets were duly diverted from ?above the line? into this new ?accountable advertising?. Money was made, and bright people lured to work ?below the line?. Direct mail was hailed as a precision ?rifle? to target audiences surgically and efficiently, in comparison with the ?blunderbuss? approach offered by TV, press and posters.

But of course direct mail wasn?t perfect. It needed a lot of managing of issues around lists, data, printing, enclosing and mailing. The cost of print, personalisation, ?lettershop? and postage needed to be factored into any ROI calculation. Also, it just annoyed a lot of people; increasingly bulk mailers were viewed as destroyers of rainforests as well as snake-oil salesmen. The damaging term ?junk mail? was coined and it stuck. Response rates fell.

Email arrives

But then email came along. As Bill Gates strove to install a (Windows) PC on every desk and into every home, and those clunky towers gradually got connected to the internet via equally clunky 56k modems, a new DM channel was born. Email marketing offered all of DM?s advantages, at a fraction of the cost: one-to-one targeting with near instant response!

At last, here was an answer to the DM industry?s prayers (that is unless the praying person happened to own a printing or enclosing business). Response rates to early pioneering cold email campaigns were astronomical by today?s standards. Email list brokers sprang up. This was truly ?direct mail on steroids?? But of course nothing is perfect and junk email attracted its own pejorative label ? SPAM. (No-one appears to know why but Monty Python got the blame?). ISPs invented the spam filter, which became increasingly aggressive; bad guys sent bad emails and email recipients got wise. And cautious. Open and click-through rates fell.

Email finds its place

Today, email isn?t so good for targeting consumers cold, especially when sent by an unknown company and with a sender name the recipient doesn?t recognise. On the other hand, it?s fantastic for communication with B2B contacts who already know your organisation. Most B2B decision-makers check their email at least six to eight times per day. Many B2C marketers and charity / not-for-profit fundraisers also swear by it and can prove that it works. Plus, it works well in conjunction with direct mail.

The Future?

For me, email is and will remain a key online channel. Email marketing preceded MySpace and has effectively outlasted it. Facebook will one day fall from the dominant position it enjoys today. And for those of you who like to stay in control, you might like to consider that your email campaigns are your ?owned media?, whereas your Facebook page is on someone else?s website?

Personally, I wouldn?t bet against email marketing being around in the 22nd Century.

A version of this article first featured in Infobox, the DMA Email Marketing Council?s free e-newsletter.

Source: http://mikeberryassociates.com/email-marketing-still-going-strong-in-the-21st-century/

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