It is registered in accounts overseas, for example in Ireland, but is then invested in whatever assets the company chooses to invest it in.

 The interactive chart shows the 50 US companies with the most profits stockpiled “overseas” to avoid taxes in the US, while the actual money is wherever, including in US-based assets (click on the image or HERE for all 50, where you can hover over the blue bars to get the amounts)

More on money moving:

Smart Money is Exiting The Market

Way back in 2008, Warren Buffett made a million-dollar bet with Ted Seides of Protégé Partners that he could beat the hedge fund manager’s performance over a 10-year period using a single handpicked mutual fund. At the time, if you recall, hedge funds were the “bomb” and many investors wanted access to managers who could supposedly beat the market as our economy lurched into the Financial Crisis.

Fast forward to today and this bet has rattled the hedge fund industry to its core. I’d even go so far as to say it might help kill it. But that’s not the real story.

What you need to understand is that headlines the media will run when Buffett wins two years from now will not be correct: index funds are not better than hedge funds. More importantly, they never will be.

Something else has made all the difference… and believe me, Buffett knows exactly what it is.

More precisely, he knew from the very get-go why he wouldn’t lose.

Here’s what you need to know when it comes to your money.

Buffett’s bet is pretty simple when you take it at face value, which is probably what Seides did when he accepted the bet that a single, simple index fund that invests in the S&P 500 would outperform five handpicked, actively managed “fund of funds” Protégé selected.

Buffett chose the Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares, while Protégé selected five “funds of funds” that, in turn, held positions across a wide variety of specialized portfolios in other hedge funds – hence the name. Practically speaking, Buffett went for the “meat and potatoes” while Protégé opted for a five course gourmet dining experience.

Eight years in and with two years to go, the Admiral Shares have returned 65.67%, while Protégé’s funds have tacked on only 21.87%. I love underdogs as much as the next guy, but there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Protégé can win at this point.

Many people believe the underperformance is because hedge fund fees are so high, and they’re not entirely off base.

Admiral Shares, for example, charges 0.05% a year, while hedge funds commonly charge 2% of assets under management and skim 20% of the profits right off the top. Effectively, this structure means the “breakeven” for hedge fund investors is far higher.

To that end, a recent Fortune article on Buffett’s bet pointed out that the S&P 500 has returned approximately 6.5% a year for the past eight years, but that a hedge fund using the fee structure I’ve just outlined would have to post numbers north of 9% a year to generate an equivalent amount of money for investors.

Unfortunately, Protégé chose “funds of funds,” so there’s another layer of fees which in this case was around 3% a year, also according to Fortune. That means the hurdle needed to beat the Admiral Shares effectively jumps to at least 12% a year.

But again, fees are a red herring.

The real reason Buffett is winning his bet is something else entirely – Buffett chose to concentrate his assets. As one of the world’s most successful investors, he understands that diversification actually drives returns toward the mean and effectively reduces them over time. So he goes out of his way to avoid it.

Normally, Buffett does that by learning a lot about one or two key companies and investing accordingly. In this, however, I think he knew that the United States stood on the cusp of a massive capital realignment.

Certainly his public commentary at the time reflected that. So, too, did his investment choices. If you recall, he paid $5 billion to buy into Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and another $300 million to pick up shares of General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE).

Having spent 65 years as a professional investor, I believe Buffett understood that money would flow into large-cap companies because they offered the most upside and were collectively priced at the deepest discount by virtue of the Financial Crisis. That meant he could pick a single index fund and get away with it.

Further, Buffett prefers to buy when there’s a discount to intrinsic value, because that means there’s a built in margin of safety in case things don’t go as expected with whatever he’s buying. In 2008, that thinking applied to the entire market, not just specific stocks.

But most of all, Buffett knew he was buying real businesses with real potential and real upside. And that’s why he could make a single choice, and why he knew it would pay off over such a long time horizon.

To paraphrase the great man himself, the scorecard for investment decisions will be provided in business results over time, not by prices on any given day.

related: Another famous investor Jim Rogers on “Buying Panic”

Expectations for a correction around the corner are high right now. Although by itself it probably makes a correction less likely, here’s a list to keep in mind. Also 2 stocks in long term uptrends to take advantage of a bounce

• In this week’s issue:

• Weekly Commentary
• Strategy of the Week
• Stocks That Meet The Featured Strategy
• 

  In This Week’s Issue:

  – Upcoming Webinar – 3 Strategies for Profiting in the Stock Market
  – Stockscores’ Market Minutes Video – Don’t Fight the Trend That You Trade
  – Stockscores Trader Training – Trading Corrections
  – Stock Features of the Week – Pull Back Plays

  Webinar – 3 Strategies for Profiting in the Stock Market
  Saturday May 21
  11:00am PT, 2:00 pm ET

  This week’s webinar is “3 Strategies for Profiting in the Stock Market”. I will review three strategies I use to take advantage of stock market volatility. Long term traders will learn a simple signal that the long term trend of their favorite stock is reversing and it is time to get in or out. For those seeking a shorter term approach, I will demonstrate strategies to move in and out of stocks over a number of days or even just a few hours. I will demonstrate my easy to use tools that make this a quick and simple process.

  Click Here to Register

  Stockscores Market Minutes Video – Don’t Fight the Trend That You Trade
  Don’t fight the trend is a well-used trading cliché but an important one to understand. The key is to trade with the appropriate trend for your trading style. That and my weekly market analysis explained.Click Here to Watch To get instant updates when I upload a new video, subscribe to the Stockscores YouTube Channel

  Trader Training – Trading Corrections
  Expectations for a correction around the corner are high right now which, by itself, probably makes a correction less likely. However, in the interest of being cautious, here is a list of things to keep in mind when the market is correcting:

  1. Stocks Can Go Down To Zero – I often hear investors tell me that they bought a stock because it had fallen so far already, it just had to bounce back. After all, stocks can not go down forever. Yes, that is true, stocks can only go down to zero and then they stop, but a stock that does go to zero is eternally gone. Do not buy something because it appears to be on sale, you should only buy something if it is more likely to go up than down.

   

  2. Never Average Down – averaging down is the practice of buying more of a stock you are losing on as the price falls. Investment advisors sometimes refer to this as dollar cost averaging, but basically, it is all about buying more of a stock that has proven your original decision wrong. If you were betting on a horse that was in last place half way down the back straight of the Kentucky Derby, would you go back to the wager window and add more to your bet if you were able to? Of course not! Buying more when you are wrong is no different, so just wait until the market proves you right and average up.

  3. Trade With Who Is In Control – next time you are in an airport, hop on one of those moving sidewalks that speeds you to the gate. When you get off, turn around and hop back on but this time, going against the traffic to understand what it is like trying to trade against the momentum of the market. Yes, it is possible but it sure is a lot harder than going with the flow. The market is no different; you will always have an easier time if you select strategies that are appropriate for the market condition. To understand whether the buyers are in control or the sellers, look at a chart of the stock or market index. If the tops are falling, the sellers are in control. If the bottoms are rising, the buyers are in control. So long as you can draw a line on the chart with a ruler, you can do this analysis and save yourself from a lot of difficulty.

  4. Don’t Apply Logic – many investors make the mistake of using logic to make their trading decisions. The market will do a lot of things that do not make any sense because the market has information that you don’t have. A stock that “should” be going higher may not because a large shareholder has learned that there are problems that the general public does not know about. Or perhaps a large shareholder has a liquidity problem and has to sell stock whether they like it or not. You can not argue with what the market does and you will never convince the market that it is wrong. You just have to do what the market tells you to do.

  5. Don’t Take More Risk Than You Are Comfortable With – the great enemy of every investor is emotion. It makes us break our rules and lose our discipline. We are emotional because we have an attachment to money that we must learn to minimize if we are going to have a chance of beating the market. The first step toward that goal is to find comfort in the risks that you take. If your exposure to financial loss is too great, you will break the rules and forget your discipline because you don’t want to feel the pain of the loss. If all you are facing is a manageable amount of discomfort, you are more likely to trade well.

  6. Markets Predict, Not React – the market is a leading indicator for the economy; it tends to move at least six months early. This means you can not look at the world around you and use what you see to make trading decisions. Since the market looks ahead, so too must you and think about what will happen in the future instead of what has already happened.

  7. Diversification Does Not Mitigate Risk – this market is a perfect example of how you can not diversify away risk. An investor with money in bonds, commodities, industrials, technology and banking is feeling losses in all areas. The best way to manage risk is to limit losses. If the market proves you wrong on a decision, get out and take the small loss. Never let small losses grow in to big ones.

  8. The Market Never Lies – all markets express the opinions of those who trade it and the wisdom of the crowd is far smarter than you or I can ever be. If you learn how to read the true message of the market, you can make money by doing what it tells you to do. If, instead, you try to outsmart the market, you will likely get your ego delivered to you in the form of debits to your trading account. Do you think you are smarter than thousands of people?

  9. Everyone is Smart in a Bull Market – riding a trend is the best way to make money, but many investors confuse their trend timing with investment intelligence. The truly good traders are those that can beat the market in all market conditions. Don’t fall in to a false sense of security if you make money while everything is going up because you are likely to give it all back. For most, profits in the market are just short term loans.

  10. Leverage is a Double Edged Sword – all of the problems that we are seeing in the market and the economy right now are because of leverage. Yes, you can improve your return if you borrow money to make money, but always remember that you can also increase the loss potential if the market goes against you. If you use leverage, it is even more important to manage risk and have discipline. If you don’t understand the true risk that the leverage of margin, options and other derivatives provide, don’t trade them.

The Pull Back Play market scan looks for stocks that are in longer term upward trends but have suffered recent weakness, taking them back to their upward trend lines where they then show signs of bouncing. I ran this scan on Monday after the close for the Canadian market and found the following stocks which meet the strategy requirements.

1. T.TET
T.TET had a sharp run higher in April but has been pulling back since it hit resistance at $5.80. It hit the upward trend line of resistance a few days ago and is now breaking the pull back, should go back toward $5.80 as long as support at $4.20 holds.

2. T.TCK.B
T.TCK.B has a strong long term weekly chart but has been suffering from some profit taking through May. Now that it has pulled back to the upward trend line, it is trying to bounce and return to its upward momentum. Support at $11.90.

related: Critical Inflection Point

References

• Get the Stockscore on any of over 20,000 North American stocks.
• Background on the theories used by Stockscores.
• Strategies that can help you find new opportunities.
• Scan the market using extensive filter criteria.
• Build a portfolio of stocks and view a slide show of their charts.
• See which sectors are leading the market, and their components. 

Disclaimer
This is not an investment advisory, and should not be used to make investment decisions. Information in Stockscores Perspectives is often opinionated and should be considered for information purposes only. No stock exchange anywhere has approved or disapproved of the information contained herein. There is no express or implied solicitation to buy or sell securities. The writers and editors of Perspectives may have positions in the stocks discussed above and may trade in the stocks mentioned. Don’t consider buying or selling any stock without conducting your own due diligenc

Another week of volatility, but with no real resolution to the burning question of “where do we go next?”

Is this a continuation of the broadening topping process that began 15 months ago? Or, are the markets setting up the next bullish advance to all-time highs?

Unfortunately, while we can all speculate, the reality is that we will not know for certain until a decision has been made. As such, this is why I have kept long-term investment models conservatively allocated up to this point and still maintain a 50%+ exposure to cash.

The reasoning is simple. If the markets re-establish the bullish trend, I can rotate from the safety of “cash” back into equity-based risk. However, and unfortunately for those individuals that continually tout “buy and hold” investing, if the market breaks to the downside the next bull market rally will be primarily used making up previous losses.

This is an important concept to understand. Historically speaking, when markets have a combination of high valuations and declining earnings, outcomes have been less than favorable. Yes, eventually the markets, and subsequently investors, did get “back to even.” However, as shown in the chart below, the markets make new highs roughly about 5% of the time. The other 95% of the time the markets are making up previous losses.

“Getting back to even is not a long-term investment strategy.”

….read and view larger charts HERE

….read and view larger charts HERE

…a must view from Michael Campbell: People Choose Free Candy Bar Over $150 US in Silver

There is a general consensus that valuation indicators are not very useful for market timing. Despite this, the financial media and the blogosphere feature an avalanche of articles warning that the market is seriously overvalued. Your retirement account might drop 50% at any moment. There are countless worries in the world.

Many investors have been “scared witless” (TM OldProf) by this, missing out on a great opportunity. Is it now too late? What is the current potential for market gains?

Here are three things you do not know about valuation:

…continue reading HERE

related: Then there’s, the most successful fund manager ever Stanley Druckenmiller saying: ‘What Part of “Get Out of The Stock Market” Don’t You Understand?’