Mutual Fund Timing With Your Own Computer

Feeling a little frisky? Investor Roger Hagan has devised a new hobby for erstwhile dabblers in the stock market. Take a basic computer spreadsheet, daily plug in seven magic numbers easily garnered from either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, and pore over the resultant graphs to determine optimum buy and sell periods for mutual funds. Sound simple? It ain't; or at least it isn't if you don't know a blue chip from a chocolate chip. Not for novices, the program assumes a reasonable familiarity with stock market terms and principles. On top of that, the viewer has to know his or her way around a spreadsheet (Hagan demonstrates how to build a spreadsheet using an older version of Supercalc on a 286 with a 20MB hard drive), since it will be necessary to translate the Supercalc instructions into Lotus-ese or whatever spreadsheet is being used. Using several indicators from the NYSE, S&P 500, and Dow Jones index, Hagan's timing system signals players when to buy (at the end of a dip), and when to sell (at the end of a peak) and move one's funds into money markets until the next "buy" signal. Since he began using the system in 1988, Hagan claims to have harvested an 18% yield as compared to the S&P's annual growth of 12%. For maximum security, Hagan also has a line on the graph which he calls the "Titanic warning signal," meaning that the market shows signs of taking a prolonged deep six. At the conclusion of the tape, a series of other videos and guides by Hagan are listed. While greenhorns won't get diddly out of this, savvy investors who have a bit of computer nerd in their personality will likely want to give Hagan's system a whirl. a good choice for public libraries. Recommended. (R. Pitman)