Where would computer industry related subjective discussion questions go?

Computer programs that provide mutual fund market timing switch recommendations.

• I am researching historical practices of mutual fund market timing for the period prior to September 2003. This is an investment approach that involves rapidly switching funds between an equity mutual fund and a money market mutual fund. Since September of 2003 there has been an industry wide crack down on the practice of mutual fund market timing and a number of mutual funds have paid large settlements to the SEC to settle charges that they allowed market timing that was not in the best interest of mutual fund shareholders. The particular angle that I am researching is the extent to which mutual fund market timing was an out in the open accepted investment alternative in the months and years prior to September 2003. Over the years a number of investment books have been published recommending mutual fund market timing as a way to increase investment returns and reduce volatility. There have been a number of newsletters that an investor could subscribe to in order to get recommendations as to when to switch into and out of specific mutual funds. For an additional fee, some newsletters would send an investor a fax or e-mail alert advising them when to make a mutual fund switch. There were also software programs that could be purchased or leased advising an investor when to make a mutual fund switch. What I am specifically looking for is 4 types of reference: 1. Books that have been published which recommended investment techniques for market timing mutual funds. The entire book need not be on the topic of mutual fund market timing so long as there is an in-depth discussion of how to market time mutual funds in one or more chapters of the book. For example the widely popular book "Market Wizards" devoted several chapters to mutual fund market timing. 2. Newsletters that were available on a subscription basis which made specific recommendations for when to buy and sell mutual funds in a market timing investment program. The newsletter may no longer be in circulation, but it would be sufficient to get a the name and the last available contact information for the publication. 3. Services that would actually give an investor a phone call, fax or e-mail recommending a specific mutual fund market timing switch to be made on a particular date. 4. Computer programs that could be purchased or leased to provide specific signals for when to purchase and when to sell mutual funds as part of a market timing investment approach to mutual fund investing. Although all four of these are related questions and likely could be answered by a single researcher I would like specific and detailed research on all 4 categories. Accordingly I am submitting this same research question with 4 separate headings so that I can offer a $200 research project for each category of reference. In this specific question I am asking for research on topic FOUR: computer programs that are or at one time were available either for sale or for lease that would make specific recommendations on specific dates for the purchase and sale of mutual funds as part of a mutual fund market timing strategy. It may be that some of these programs are no longer being offer for sale or lease, and in that event the last available contact information for the computer program would be sufficient. Thank you for your help.

• Answer:

  Hello, sl7-ga! There are several trading software systems available for the home PC, but most of them are geared toward stocks and options rather than mutual funds. There are also programs that track mutual funds but most are geared toward investment tracking and analyzing than for triggering buy/sell signals. I have found a few mutual fund tracking programs that were available before 2003. Some of the websites also provide newsletters so they are also profiled in my answer to your question concerning that subject. == As an introduction, you may be interested in reading an extremely interesting article about the effects of personal computer transactions for mutual fund market timing on the investment industry: "To What Avail? Computer Technology and Mutual Funds." Remarks by John C. Bogle, Chairman and Founder The Vanguard Group of Investment Companies. Grant's Spring Investment Conference. New York, New York (April 3, 1997) http://www.vanguard.com/bogle_site/lib/comptech.html == ************* RUSH TRADE ************* http://www.rushtrade.com/ "Trade Mutual Funds Online - RushTrade Securities, Inc., member NASD, PSE, and SIPC insured. Clients have the ability to trade their mutual fund orders direct from their computer. Free demo. Why trade with RushTrade? -------------------------- Direct Access Trading on all trading systems Suitable for all trading styles: day trading, online trading, swing trading, position trading Fast, secure, and reliable trading systems Experienced support professionals *** Also available: Fixed income, bonds, options, and mutual funds *********** FAST TRACK ************ www.fasttrack.net The fast track site is recorded on the internet archives as far back as 1998. It has seen a progression from a "High Speed Investment Browser to software for the PC. http://web.archive.org/web/20000304082924/http://www.fasttrack.net/ The Fast Track Integrated Communications Browser from a March 4, 2000 webpage http://web.archive.org/web/20000229081943/www.fasttrack.net/ftcomm.htm "This communication package connects with FastTrack's FTP servers to do all communication functions. If you can connect to the Internet, then all the work is already done. FastTrack will use that link. "The communications process may be interrupted at any point and restarted. The FTComm will not resend files which were received prior to the interrupt. Long processes will progress on each reconnection and eventually complete." "Data Update: Gets the latest mutual fund and stock database data (if you have a stock database installed.) "Upgrade Versions: Gets new programs via the Internet. All new files are sent as discrete zipped files that are decompressed at the end of the session. If the session is interrupted, FTCOMM will restart from the last successfully downloaded file. The decompression does not occur until the whole download is successfully completed." Online Integrity Check, A FastTrack Exclusive Feature: "If your database becomes corrupted for any reason, we will restore it online, 24-hours/day, 7 days/week at no charge. Online Integrity Check keeps your FastTrack databases byte-for-byte, bit-for-bit identical to our master databases." "Installation: If you do not have FastTrack or have never installed a particular FastTrack feature, then the Install option will install it for you from our FTP server." By Subscription Only. ******************* AIQ TRADING SYSTEM ******************* http://www.aiqsystems.com/index.html "TradingExpert Pro- award winning trading software for stocks, futures and mutual funds." History http://www.aiqsystems.com/proven.htm "The results are truly impressive. In 1997 the system had a return of 37.7%. Even more impressive is the fact that the average annual return for the entire six year period is 25.04%. That beats the S&P 500 index (and 85% of professional investors) by an average of 6.3% per year!" Contact Information http://www.aiqsystems.com/contactinfo.htm ***************************** MONOCLE MUTUAL FUND SOFTWARE ***************************** http://www.alamopc.org/pcalamode/features/F20010306.shtml From a 2001 article on the website: "Turn your computer into a mutual fund goldmine! So goes the catch line on Monocle Systems home page." "About three years ago, Tony Sagami, founder of Monocle Systems, gave a lively presentation to the APCO Financial SIG. Several of us took him up on his great user group pricing and bought the software and subscribed to the data service. Due to the group interest in mutual funds, a Monocle Mutual Fund SIG was organized.. Walt McGinnis and myself are co-chairs." "Monocle is a mutual fund analytical software program for Windows. It is one of the easier to use financial analytical programs available. It includes automated trading systems show you what the optimal move is following your personalized trading program. The mutual fund?s daily net asset value is downloaded off the internet." "In Monocle, fund-trading decisions are driven by technical timing tools long familiar to stock traders: moving average crossovers, trend line penetrations, and swings of relative strength. The charting package will display these indicators; charts can be marked with arrows to indicate buy and sell points." ********** MONEYFLOW ********** http://www.moneyflow.com/ "Market timing system software, book and report for mutual fund investing." * A $48 annual subscription includes a lease of our market timing software program for use on your home PC." "Goal - Double the 7% annualized average gain of the benchmark S&P 500 Index in conservative accounts." "Strategy - 1) Invest in stronger than market managed funds, index funds or ETF's. 2) Capture the lion share of uptrend profits. 3) Switch to the safety of money market funds to lower risk and limit losses during downtrends." "Tools ~ SUBSCRIBE, PURCHASE or LICENSE our computerized trend I.D. systems. These Excel formatted programs can be installed on your personal computer." (Since 1995) ******************************************* SELECT TIMING SERVICE/DOLLAR LINK SOFTWARE ******************************************* http://www.dollarlink.com/ "STS analyzes mutual fund price patterns to identify short-term trends. It uses Gil Blake's ideas as well as proprietary methods that utilize elements of statistics. Blake is a highly successful mutual funds switcher." STS Details http://www.dollarlink.com/details.htm "Basically, our system, which we call STS (Select Timing Service), generates buy signals whenever a fund's price rises and the monthly change in price is greater than F * average monthly change for that fund. The multiplier F is a key factor here. It is a proprietary quantity and depends (among other things) on the volatility of the fund in question and usually varies between 1.0 and 2.0." DollarLink Software is primarily in the business of developing technical analysis software for real-time traders. It was founded in 1985 http://www.dollarlink.com/about.htm ************ FUND SWITCH ************ http://www.fundswitch.com/ Trades Rydex or Profunds and allows investors to make their own trades through their brokerage account. Software is hosted on the company website. The Strategy: Trade only 1 fund at the time, the status of the signals is Cash, UOPIX or USPIX. Solid system that identifies key entry points in the market. You can manage the system off the market hours, if you have a busy schedule you can send the orders before market open. Short term trading approach, stay in the market only for a few days. The strategy is objective to generate the signals, there are no emotions behind. We disclose ALL our past trades, losses are NEVER hidden, and honesty is a must to our subscribers Performance back to 2000 http://www.fundswitch.com/performance.htm ******************** STOCK MARKET TIMING ******************** http://www.stockmarkettiming.com/ This concept is a little bit different because the software market timing program is hosted on the website as opposed to an individual PC. Investors can select the mutual fund indexes they want to trade as well as view timing signals on the members only page. http://www.stockmarkettiming.com/timing.html ********************* SUCCESSFUL INVESTING ********************* https://iplacereports.com/index.asp?sid=FFP703 This is another "on-site" fund screener. Investors can access the fund screener hosted on site with their membership: "Unlimited use of the subscriber-only website--including access to our interactive Fund Screener--the only online tool that lets me run 4-, 8- and 12-week performance sorts for over 8,000 mutual funds ==== I hope the references I have provided prove helpful for your research. Unfortunately, computer market timing programs for mutual fund trading are not very plentiful. The programs mentioned above were all I could find that were available before 2003, although there may be more that simply do not show up without knowing the exact name or website address. Please let me know if I can clarify anything further. I will be happy to help if I can! Sincerely, umiat Search Strategy computer trading of mutual funds mutual fund trading software trading software computer tracking software trading online stock market trading on your PC mutual fund market timing "computer programs" market timing software