The Turnaround Letter's Performance Speaks For Itself

To ensure totally unbiased results reporting, The Turnaround Letter relies primarily on Hulbert Financial Digest to report on our performance results.

What is Hulbert Financial Digest? It is Mark Hulbert's online, interactive tool for researching and rating the performance of over 190 investment newsletters and advisors.  Established in 1988, it is a completely independent, impartial, and authoritative rating service that arms subscribers with the facts about stock and mutual fund investment newsletter performance... "the bible on who gives the best investment newsletter advice."  These tables reflect figures through December 2011. 

The Hulbert Financial Digest compares The Turnaround Letter investment results against the Wilshire 5000. 

% Gain/Loss

1 Year

3 Years

5 Years

10 Years

15 Years

The Turnaround Letter

-10.32%

27.12%

-2.16%

10.14%

8.94%

Wilshire 5000

.98%

14.93%

.12%

3.80%

5.73%


 The Turnaround Letter ranking compared to 198 investment newsletters tracked by The Hulbert Financial Digest

Period

Ranking

Return

20 years

2nd

13.2%

15 Years

8th

8.9%

10 Years

12th

10.1%

 

Year by year look at The Turnaround Letter returns compared to the Wilshire 5000

 

 

Year

The Turnaround Letter Returns

Wilshire 5000 Returns

1999

34.21%

23.56%

2000

-6.96%

-10.89%

2001

15.58%

-10.97%

2002

3.54%

-20.86%

2003

59.44%

31.64%

2004

28.58%

12.48%

2005

9.39%

6.38%

2006

26.25%

15.77%

2007

-2.21%

5.62%

2008

-55.38%

-37.23%

2009

75.62%

28.33%

2010

30.41%

17.16%

2011

-10.32%

.98%

 

Turnaround Letter returns compared to the S&P 500

% Gain/Loss

1 Year

3 Years

5 Years

10 Years

15 Years

20 Years

The Turnaround Letter

-10.32%

27.12%

-2.16%

10.43%

8.94%

13.20%

S & P 500

2.05%

14.22%

2.87%

-.27%

5.43%

7.82%

TLCorner

Don't Chase the Headlines

The recent unfortunate accident involving the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which is owned by a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., raises an important investing question: Should you bail out of a stock if the company is affected by a serious negative event? Unless the event could be part of a series or trend, the answer is usually “no,” for two reasons.

Read More.

Should You Buy Kodak Stock Now?

The argument in favor of buying Kodak stock goes something like this: Now that Kodak has filed for bankruptcy, its stock trades for about 30 cents; but since it traded for more than $30 just a few years ago, doesn’t that mean it has to be cheap? Unfortunately, there are two major fallacies with this argument.

Read More.

Good Brands are Not Enough

One of the things we like to see in a potential turnaround stock is a strong brand name. That will often provide the foundation on which the company can build its turnaround. However, the recent Chapter 11 filing by Hostess Brands and Eastman Kodak are reminders that well known brand names alone may not be enough to save a company. In both of these cases the brand names are widely recognized, but the products with which they are associated no longer represent strong business franchises.

Read More.

What did The Turnaround Letter see that others did not?

Questions & Tips

AskGeorge

With so much turmoil and uncertainty in the U.S. economy, and even more fear of collapse overseas, do you ever recommend just getting out of the stock market all together and hunkering down with something safer like bonds?

I never recommend getting out of the stock market entirely--or even making major changes to your allocation to stocks. The stock market is so unpredictable that if you bail out, the risk is very high that you will miss a significant upturn. Moreover, even if you make the right call to get out of the market, you then have to muster the courage to get back in. 

Read More.

What is your opinion on investing in foreign turnaround companies?

There are certainly good opportunities in foreign turnarounds, but also very significant risks as well. The market inefficiencies that provide unusually high return potential for turnarounds here in the U.S. are probably even greater in foreign markets. However, there may be special, local features that affect foreign companies that we may not understand when we view them from afar. 

Read More.

In our normally quite efficient securities markets, why are there certain structural factors that make bankruptcy securities inefficient and therefore potentially unusually profitable?

The structural factors relating to bankruptcy securities can be both legal and psychological. As an example of a legal factor, many institutional investors (such as insurance companies or mutual funds) are not allowed, either by law or by their charter, to hold bonds that have defaulted and no longer pay interest. 

Read More.

Bankruptcy Investing

George reflects on bankruptcy investing activity & trends seen in 2010. Read more.

Where are Interest Rates Headed?

Where will interest rates be at the end of 2012, as measured by the 10-year U.S. Treasury Note (which was at 2.0% on January 20)?
See Poll Results Poll Archive