News & Articles

Educational Event Recordings and Handouts

Coach, Is Offense or Defense More Important? (Robin Ware, Mike Torbenson and John Blais - October 30, 2024)
Presentation Handout / PERT Cheat Sheet
Welcome to today's exciting game where both offense and defense take center stage. 

Defense Coach Robin Ware will explore the Portfolio Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), demonstrating its defensive applications by identifying companies with declining fundamentals. She will evaluate whether these companies should be sold to safeguard our portfolio from potential losses. 

On the offensive side, Coach Mike Torbenson will leverage our insights from the SSG and use the PERT to show how we can enhance our portfolio's returns. He will also discuss which positions we might consider increasing for better performance. 
A team is a team, and by bringing it all together, John Blais will share some best practices for effectively utilizing the PERT within a club setting.

Every Picture Tells A Story (Dori Raser/ Lynn Treffry July 29, 2024)
Presentation Handout  / Questions and Answers
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  In this session, we begin to learn how to read pictures and what they can tell us about a company.  This session will focus on understanding a company's growth and what it tells us about the future sales and earnings per share growth.   It will also touch on what the picture tells us about a company's value.

 "Retirement & The Tax Man" (Christi Powell - February 29, 2024)
Presentation Handout / 2023 Important Numbers / 2024 Important Numbers
Nowhere does it tell us to give the taxman more than we must.  Depending on the source of the funds to pay living expenses in retirement, you may face very different tax rates. You want to have an organized plan that manages tax efficiently and also addresses income-related monthly adjustment amounts (IRMAA).

You need a retirement tax strategy that will:
* identify the types of taxes faced at various stages
* address how taxes impact Social Security and Medicare
* and plan when to tap different accounts so you don't overpay taxes.

Join us as Christi Powell shows just how to do that!

2023

"Tinker to Evers to Chance (aka Triple Play)" (Avi Horwitz and Mark Mechenbier - October 30, 2023)
Presentation Handout / Live Link List (Value Line Tool Guides and Library Access) 
Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance are most widely known because of the poem about them. Playing for the early 1900 Chicago Clubs they made the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the best double play combinations in the history of baseball.  If a double play is great, how about a triple play?

George Nicholson threw us a curve ball and coached us on how to go for a triple play.  Join Mark Mechenbier and Avi Horwitz as we dig into his George Nicholson’s ideas about triple plays.  We will learn how triple plays can help our portfolio hit a home run.

"Don't Stay Tied Up At The Dock.  Let's Get Our Sea Legs! " (Fred Rhamy Jr. - August 30, 2023)
Presentation Handout / Macroeconomic Indicators and Links / Creating a Dial Indicator
George Nicholson stated “. . . individual investors need to be educated about how the economy works”. Let that old sea dog Fred Rhamy, Jr. help you understand the economy and economic indicators that cause the tides to rise and fall and explore how each stage of the economy might affect a particular company’s growth.

Cast off from the dock and get your sea legs as he explains the terminology stock analysts use every day and teaches you how to do your own analysis. He is amped to show you how to anticipate rough seas ahead. After all, anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm!

"ROE, ROE, ROE to Float Your Boat Return on Equity (ROE)" (Ron Mauer - June 29, 2023)
Presentation Handout
When you are sailing along growing your portfolio, the last thing you want is to spring an unexpected leak because you didn’t check the condition of your boat. When you are investing, you want to make sure that there are no surprises when you ROE.

Join Ron Mauer as he paddles through Return on Equity (ROE) and looks at what contributes to Return on Equity and what potential pitfalls and hidden surprises you can spot.

"Preferred Procedure Simplified" (Avi Horwitz  - January 30, 2023)
Presentation Handout / Additional Handout
Preferred Procedure is exactly what it implies. It is the preferred method for determining future earnings per share growth. It uses a simplified Income Statement to project what earnings per share (EPS) will be in the future.

 Many people struggle to understand Preferred Procedure. This session will touch on understanding what we look for when we use Preferred Procedure, how it relates to our Stock Selection Guide and how it ties back to the company’s Income Statement. We will explore each of the components of Preferred Procedure that help us with our judgment about future EPS growth. As one attendee said, “I have been doing this for 30 years and now I finally understand Preferred Procedure.”

2022

"Finding Hidden Gems - Continued" (Mary Enright, Avi Horwitz,  Tim Janneck - November 30, 2022)
Presentation Handout
1.  The Space Between the Lines - We are familiar with the Stock Selection Guide. We see lines that show the growth of Sales, Pre-Tax Profit and Earnings Per Share. But what about the lines you don’t normally see, and what might be hidden in blank spaces.   Join Mary Enright as she explores how to improve your SSG judgments by learning to read the things you just don’t see.
2.  Help! I Married the Stock - Many of us struggle with selling stocks. In this session Avi Horwitz will look at why it is so important to sell and the effect of not selling.  We will look at a case study showing how not selling can reduce return on your portfolio.
3.  Why did I do that? - Most people simply make investing decisions unaware of the factors that influence those decisions. Sometimes we regret a decision we made and are not quite sure why we made it. In this segment, Tim Janneck will look at some of the underlying psychological reasons for investing decisions so that the attendee can learn to consider whether these factors might be influencing their future decisions.

"Finding Hidden Gems" (David Lenig, Diane Gillit, Candace Baker - August 31, 2022)
Presentation Handout /  SSG Guidelines for Beginners / Screening Quick Start Guide / Other 20 Percent Checklist - Balance Sheet
It has been said that a picture paints 1000 words. Our Stock Selection Guides (SSGs) give us a visual insight into the companies we are studying or already in our portfolio.

This class will explore what our SSG picture should look like and what is happening when there is trouble. The skill achieved will be the ability to recognize troubling signs before your portfolio is impacted too greatly.

"In Search of Hidden Gems" (Dan Harter, Dori Raser, Barry Detloff - March 30, 2022)
Presentation Handout
It has been said that a picture paints 1000 words. Our Stock Selection Guides (SSGs) give us a visual insight into the companies we are studying or already in our portfolio.

This class will explore what our SSG picture should look like and what is happening when there is trouble. The skill achieved will be the ability to recognize troubling signs before your portfolio is impacted too greatly.

2021

"What's Wrong With This Picture?" (Barry Detloff - September 30, 2021)
Presentation Handout / ROE Class Link / Template
It has been said that a picture paints 1000 words. Our Stock Selection Guides (SSGs) give us a visual insight into the companies we are studying or already in our portfolio.

This class will explore what our SSG picture should look like and what is happening when there is trouble. The skill achieved will be the ability to recognize troubling signs before your portfolio is impacted too greatly.

"The First Cut is the Deepest" (Lynn Treffry - August 31, 2021)
Presentation Handout / First Cut Stock Study Report (SBUX) / Stock Selection Guide (SSG) Guideline for Beginners  / First Cut Stock Study Report Form
BetterInvesting’s Stock Selection Guide is a great tool for studying stocks, but even as advanced investors we sometimes lose sight of what we should be looking at, where we can go to research a company, and forget how we arrived at our judgments.

BetterInvesting’s First Cut not only can clue us in as to what others are thinking, but using the First Cut form, along with some additional BetterInvesting Guides, can help us do a more in depth and more complete study. Is it any wonder they say that “First Cut is the Deepest?”

"Diff'rent Strokes for Diff'rent Folks" (Kim Butcher, Mary Enright, Mike Torbenson - June 29, 2021)
Presentation Handout  / Stock Study Handout
Each person has their own Stock Selection Guide, based on their judgment and on what they think is important when studying a company. Join us as three experienced instructors present their
view on a company that each one studied independently.

They will discuss what they felt it was necessary to look at and what their judgment was for growth, price-earnings ratio, and low price, as well as the total return, based on their judgment. How similar do you think their judgment will turn out to be?

"How Can I Be Sure?"  (Cy Lynch - April 29, 2021) - Handouts
The Stock Selection Guide (SSG) helps guide our judgments by focusing on what really matters in evaluating the quality and value of potential stock investments. We can be more confident about our SSG judgments using outside s ources. In this session, Cy will explore ways we can use these sources to verify and validate our judgments, identify red flags in stocks we are studying, and find stocks to study.

Gee! I Wish I Had Noticed That (Identifying Red Flags) (Brian Altschul - March 31, 2021) - Handouts
When we study a company there are often warning signs hinting at potential issues. These warning signs can help reduce the risk of judgment errors about the company.

We often miss these red flags because we are not sure what to look for. This session will cover many of these red flags and help you to avoid saying “Gee! I wish I had noticed that.”

2020

The Years Keep Rolling By (Avi Horwitz - November 30, 2020) - Handouts / Q&A Handout
At BetterInvesting we invest for the long-term.  We project the future over the next five years, but the seasons spinning round again, the years keep rolling by, and we may not look closely at our company.  Often, we are lulled by our initial judgment and do not adjust our expectations as things change.  This session will look at two more years of the case study we started in Ch-Ch-Ch Changes.  We will consider what we might have missed in our analysis and determine what each additional year tells us about the rolling five-year time horizon.


CH-CH-CH-Change (Avi Horwitz - October 26, 2020) - Handouts
/  Q&A Handout
We invest in companies because they seem to be on track to meet our investment goals.  Sometimes we get blindsided when things change.  We can avoid surprises if we turn and face the strange. This session will look at how we can improve our chances of spotting a changing company.  It will cover how we can visually analyze the company’s income statement and determine what might be changing.  Digging into a case study will help us apply what we learn and how we might try to analyze what the changes mean.

Preferred Procedure Simplified (Avi Horwitz - July 20, 2020) - Handout 
Additional Handout  /  Follow-Up Q&A Handout
Preferred Procedure is exactly what it implies. It is the preferred method for determining future earnings per share growth. It uses a simplified income statement to project what earnings per share will be in the future.  Many people struggle to understand Preferred Procedure.  This session will touch on understanding what we look for when we use preferred procedure, how it relates to our Stock Study Guide and how it ties back to the company’s Income Statement.  We will explore each of the components of preferred procedure that help us with our judgment about future EPS growth.  As one attendee said, “I have been doing this for 30 years and now I finally understand Preferred Procedure.”

Why the Tortoise Sometimes Wins (Avi Horwitz - June 29, 2020)  - Handout 
Follow-Up Q&A  Handout
Sometimes your portfolio is better off with the tortoise instead of the hare. A tortoise, slow and steady, can provide a good rate of return while adding stability and income to your portfolio. Join Avi Horwitz and learn an approach to studying slower growing companies that factors in both stock analysis and portfolio management. This session will look at why price earnings ratio and valuation are so important, and where you might find return on a stock investment.