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"Call for reforms after Storm Financial collapse"

"THE nation's corporate watchdog has rejected criticism that it should have intervened before Storm Financial collapsed.

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission also rejected claims it should and done more to protect about 3000 investors who lost their life savings."

More by Anthony Marx from the Herald Sun is here;


http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25943459-664,00.html
 
"CBA hunting wrong heads: Storm"

"Commonwealth Bank of Australia's crackdown on its Queensland staff continues with the departure of another senior state manager. A junior manager who worked at the bank's Aitkenvale regional office, linked to collapsed adviser Storm Financial, is also facing disciplinary action."

Read more by Duncan Hughes on page 20 in the The Australian Financial Review of 18/8/09.
 
Solly said:
"CBA hunting wrong heads: Storm"

"Commonwealth Bank of Australia's crackdown on its Queensland staff continues with the departure of another senior state manager. A junior manager who worked at the bank's Aitkenvale regional office, linked to collapsed adviser Storm Financial, is also facing disciplinary action."

Read more by Duncan Hughes on page 20 in the The Australian Financial Review of 18/8/09.
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gee i will go get the paper to have a read of this-so theres been some more movement inside the bank- i wonder what the real story is i really hope it now comes out- hey bunyip i agree that the stormies need to take some responsibilty but its really damn hard living through all of this-the pressure gets damn hard sometimes and you feel like packing up and shooting through-but one thing i can promise this like black duck aint going anywhere until this whole damn thing is over and thoise that have buggered up fix what they have done-so my message today is dig in and fight until we get this sorted-and dont give a toss what anyone else says or thinks-no matter who they are- ive still got a fire in my guts about all of this and nothings going to put it out-
 
chrisgee said:
gee i will go get the paper to have a read of this-so theres been some more movement inside the bank- i wonder what the real story is i really hope it now comes out- hey bunyip i agree that the stormies need to take some responsibilty but its really damn hard living through all of this-the pressure gets damn hard sometimes and you feel like packing up and shooting through-but one thing i can promise this like black duck aint going anywhere until this whole damn thing is over and thoise that have buggered up fix what they have done-so my message today is dig in and fight until we get this sorted-and dont give a toss what anyone else says or thinks-no matter who they are- ive still got a fire in my guts about all of this and nothings going to put it out-
Click to expand...

Good on you Chris. Yeh, I know it's hard for you folks who got stormified. It's good that you and a handful of others on this thread are admitting your part of the responsibility...it takes character to do that.
Hang in there mate and keep the fire in the belly - you'll come through this OK I'm sure.
And if you're ever going to have another crack at the stock market, make sure you first read Stan Weinstein's book - 'Secrets For Profiting In Bull And Bear Markets'.
If you read that book and implement the strategies it suggests, you'll have more knowledge and ability than 90% of people who play the market.
Any investor who read Weinstein would never have gone near Storm or any other Financial Planner - they would have had the ability to take charge of their own investments.
Not only that, but they would have known how to recognise when it was time to vacate the market before the crash really set in.

I mentioned this book early in this thread. It costs 30 - 40 dollars and can be found on the shelves of most bookshops.
I wonder how many Stormers went out and bought it - my guess is very few.
 
bunyip said:
Read Stan Weinstein's book - 'Secrets For Profiting In Bull And Bear Markets'.
If you read that book and implement the strategies it suggests, you'll have more knowledge and ability than 90% of people who play the market.
Any investor who read that book would never have gone near Storm or any other Financial Planner - they would have had the ability to take charge of their own investments.
Not only that, but they would have known how to recognise when it was time to vacate the market before the crash really set in.
Click to expand...

Fantastic advice, i read the book after Julia put me onto it, and it so opened my eyes. I quantified his do's and don'ts, wrote some software from it, let the programme choose my stock and my profits have gone up immensly. It's taken away the element of gambling and changed it to trading with purpose. Top advice Bunyip .
 
darkside said:
Fantastic advice, i read the book after Julia put me onto it, and it so opened my eyes. I quantified his do's and don'ts, wrote some software from it, let the programme choose my stock and my profits have gone up immensly. It's taken away the element of gambling and changed it to trading with purpose. Top advice Bunyip .
Click to expand...

It was me who put Julia on to it. I'm sure she'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the knowledge Julia gained from Stan Weinstein's book was instrumental in getting her out of the market somewhere near the top.

Early in this thread I told of a relative of mine who borrowed a pile of money to sink into the market through a Financial Planner. She was sitting on 100% profit when my knowledge of Weinstein's methodology told me the market had run out of steam.
I advised her to cash out at least half her investment. Her FP told her not to.
A little later when I felt certain the bull market was finished, I told her to quit her entire investment. Her FP told her not to.
In both cases she took the advice of her Financial planner and ignored mine.
She paid a heavy price as the market crashed and changed her 100% gain into a heavy loss.

Stormers would have saved themselves a lot of grief if they'd known and implemented the strategies of Stan the Man.
 
Thanks for the book rec - have ordered it from the library. I'm one ex-Storm client who has been busy reading and self-educating. So far have read and mostly digested Smart Trading Plans (Justine Pollard), Active Investing (Alan Hull) Trading in a Nutshell (Nick Radge) Charting for Dummies (various) Candelstick Charting (can't remember author)and am currently trying to understand Predicting any Market (Jeff Greeblatt) but finding it very heavy going - a bit over my head I think.

Riding an uptrend and exiting once the trend ends seems to be the common theme - and has been working for me so far. Fine tuning the conditions for entry and exit is a work in progress - there seem to be a thousand ways to "skin a cat" and I'm finding it difficult to settle on one method.

A common theme in just about every book I've read is the importance of risk and money management, position sizing, diversification and stop-losses. I've read those chapters a number of times :D:D I've even considered actually buying a book and posting it to a certain person in Belmont as his attitude was obviously:

risk and money management = let my clients take all the risk and I'll manage the money I make off them

position sizing = getting my clients to take the largest investment position the banks and I can squeeze out of them

diversification = actually still think an index fund following asx 200 gives good diversification, and

stop losses = what's that? :banghead:

I would obviously be better off today if I had started my financial education prior to walking into a Storm office - but I foolishly used to believe that professionals could be trusted to behave in a professional way, and that my bank and my financial planner had their client's interests at heart :eek: I'm now older, broker and wiser - but unfortunately also cynical, suspicious, doubting and still a little bit bitter and twisted:rolleyes: I'm finding the hardest part of getting back into investing is that the confidence to decide on a strategy and stick to it is still lacking. Second guessing not only everyone else, but also myself, is a legacy of having been a "stormer", and one that will take some time to get over I think. Ah well, at least now if I lose the lot it will be all my own fault and nobody elses :eek:
 
Bunyip , i hope Julia knows your riding her "coat tails" on this book , KIDDING , it is a great read and should just about be mandatory before your allowed to trade. It certianly would have prevented the whole "storm" Sh1tf1ght.
 
Good News For ANZ Storm Clients

At no time did ANZ have a formal relationship with Storm. However, ANZ has currently identified around 160 of our customers who may have borrowed from ANZ to invest through Storm Financial. Following the review of the 160 customer files, we have determined that the lending decisions for a small number of customers did not comply with ANZ’s credit policies and we are undertaking further review to assess whether others could also be in that group.
We are in the process of contacting those customers who we have identified in our review where our lending policies were not followed correctly. Where it is established that there has been non-compliance with ANZ policies and procedures in lending to these customers we will ensure they are treated appropriately and fairly. Our approach will include assessing financial hardship on a case-by-case basis having regard to their individual circumstances and rectifying financial detriment that resulted directly from any action on ANZ’s part.
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Starting to gather momentum it would seem.
 
DocK said:
Thanks for the book rec - have ordered it from the library. I'm one ex-Storm client who has been busy reading and self-educating. So far have read and mostly digested Smart Trading Plans (Justine Pollard), Active Investing (Alan Hull) Trading in a Nutshell (Nick Radge) Charting for Dummies (various) Candelstick Charting (can't remember author)and am currently trying to understand Predicting any Market (Jeff Greeblatt) but finding it very heavy going - a bit over my head I think.

Riding an uptrend and exiting once the trend ends seems to be the common theme - and has been working for me so far. Fine tuning the conditions for entry and exit is a work in progress - there seem to be a thousand ways to "skin a cat" and I'm finding it difficult to settle on one method.

A common theme in just about every book I've read is the importance of risk and money management, position sizing, diversification and stop-losses. I've read those chapters a number of times :D:D I've even considered actually buying a book and posting it to a certain person in Belmont as his attitude was obviously:

risk and money management = let my clients take all the risk and I'll manage the money I make off them

position sizing = getting my clients to take the largest investment position the banks and I can squeeze out of them

diversification = actually still think an index fund following asx 200 gives good diversification, and

stop losses = what's that? :banghead:

I would obviously be better off today if I had started my financial education prior to walking into a Storm office - but I foolishly used to believe that professionals could be trusted to behave in a professional way, and that my bank and my financial planner had their client's interests at heart :eek: I'm now older, broker and wiser - but unfortunately also cynical, suspicious, doubting and still a little bit bitter and twisted:rolleyes: I'm finding the hardest part of getting back into investing is that the confidence to decide on a strategy and stick to it is still lacking. Second guessing not only everyone else, but also myself, is a legacy of having been a "stormer", and one that will take some time to get over I think. Ah well, at least now if I lose the lot it will be all my own fault and nobody elses :eek:
Click to expand...


Alan Hull is another whose methods I rate highly. In many respects his investment strategies are similar to Weinstein's.

Alan used to (and possibly still does) run a subscription service which included a weekly newsletter identifying the strongest sectors and the most promising stocks in those sectors.
And in a bear market he finds the best shorting candidates by identifying the weakest sectors and the weakest stocks in those sectors.
I knew a couple of blokes who used his newsletter and swore by it.

An interesting thing about Hull's and Weinstein's approaches is that neither of them diversify by holding stocks across a wide range of industries. Some investors might see this as a risky move, but in reality it makes plenty of sense. Zero in on the strongest sectors and focus on the strong stocks in those sectors. Once that sector runs out of steam, find the next sectors that are on fire.
Far from being a risky strategy, it maximises portfolio performance by investing always in the outperformers. The risk aspect is controlled by prudent position sizing and stop losses. Once a stock stops outperforming, you get rid of it and find another outperformer to replace it.

Diversification sounds good in theory, but it can be a two-edged sword. The downside of diversification is that it puts some of your funds into non-performing stocks - these funds can be more gainfully employed in strongly performing stocks.
Bear in mind that we're not talking about a 'hold forever' approach here....the idea is that you hold them only while they perform. They stop performing, you get rid of them.
But constantly culling non performers and keeping strong performers in your portfolio, you end up with a portfolio of strongly performing stocks that maximise your returns.
 

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