About

Jim's Bio

Jim Farrish is the Founder and Editor of SectorExchange.com and OnlyETFs.com. His primary goal is to educate people about investing.  He has taught workshops locally and nationally for over 25 years, teaching thousands of individuals, business owners, and advisors how to focus on achieving financial independence. Jim speaks at The World Money Shows in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Orlando annually.  He also speaks at Advisor Symposiums throughout the country.

From these years of experience, Jim has developed web-based investment services and publications for use by self-directed investors and investment professionals. Both of his websites, SectorExchange.com and OnlyETFs.com are updated daily with market scan, watch, and model portfolios, as well as, daily updates written by Jim.  His extensive research is drilled down daily into a comprehendible format for use by subscribers to these sites.

Jim's notes are published daily in SectorExchange.com under Jim’s notes. Log on, Tune in or Attend any of Jim’s forums and learn how to take control of your money. 

Questions on Performance

Stop Being a Money Psycho!

Is the question, “What is your performance?” the most important question to ask when investing your money? Some of you are vehemently shaking your heads up and down and saying “Of course it is.”, while others have your hands on your chins saying, “Is this a trick question?” Then, there are the few of you who are saying “No, I am more focused on the risk of my money than I am on performance.” Remember, performance percentage is historical data derived from an environment that will never be repeated, so be aware before you trust anyone who boasts the most. “What is your performance?” is not the most important question to ask.

The most important issues revolve around strategy, discipline, volatility and risk management, and therefore the questions should be, “How much risk am I willing to take with my money? What strategy is used to invest the money? What downside protection is used? Can I tolerate the volatility in order to achieve the risk?” If the strategy is a one for all and all for one it isn’t likely to fit your specific criteria for investing your money. If you want to be lumped into a pool of investments then buy a mutual fund! If you want to manage your money in alignment with your goals and risk find a service that provides you what you need. The entrance and exit of every single trade made in your investment portfolio should be based only on your risk tolerance, and not the herd’s. Take advantage of the choices you are given in the vast market place!

If you properly manage the risk of positions in a portfolio the performance of the portfolio will take care of itself. Everyone has a different risk tolerance, so if you are standing at the water cooler, in a seminar, or just reading the paper, and someone announces their triple digit performance over the last 12 months, say congratulations! Asking how it was done, and then shifting your money to those investments could be a future problem you don’t want. It usually follows that those who brag about their profits never tell about their losses. Remember, what goes up must come down and without risk management the profits generally evaporate along with the bragger. Knowing what you want is vital to money management and in return key to managing risk relative to your portfolio. In other words, knowing what you want and then developing a strategy to accomplish the goal makes you a better money manager.

As a subscriber to SectorExchange.com your responsibility is to first, define what you want. Both in terms of money management and from the website. Then, and only then, can you manage your risk. Not all the research opportunities provided will fit your risk profile. The data we publish is in a simple to understand format allowing you to determine if you want to accept the risk or skip and wait for the next opportunity. We define the entry point, the exit/stop, and the target on every play we post. In addition, a time frame for the projected holding period of each play is posted. Our data allows you to measure the risk and reward of each play, therefore allowing you to decide what plays to add to your portfolio based on the risk analysis.

All of the research we conduct and publish is implemented. My philosophy is simple; put your money where your mouth is or don’t talk about it. Our advisory clients receive individual money management, not all-for-one and one-for-all. Yes, this takes more time on both parties’ behalf, but the end results are getting what you want from your money based on your goals and not ours.

SectorExchange.com is about research, therefore we don’t have model portfolios and thus, we don’t’ have performance figures for those of you needing the performance fix. So, if you still need the performance fix we provide the archived list of plays posted to the website for the past year. Click on this link and you will see the list, the date entered, the price entered, the exit price, and the date exited. This information is available to help you understand the importance of risk over performance. Our focus is to help investors learn to manage risk while managing their money. Remember, Keep it Simple…, If you don’t you may learn more about risk than you wanted to know!