The Deep Woods FAQ

How to Optimize Delivery to Your Email Account
How is Jim Woods Associated with Mark Skousen, Bryan Perry, Bob Carlson, George Gilder and Jon Johnson?
What is your site’s privacy policy?
What is preferred stock?
What exactly are zeros, and where do I buy them?
How should I build my portfolio?
Should I invest in individual stocks, mutual funds or ETFs?
Can I follow the Successful Investing Plan with the mutual funds I already own?
Account Access
AOL User Information
My question isn’t answered here, how can I contact you for more help?

How to Optimize Delivery to Your Email Account

Unsolicited email, commonly referred to as SPAM, poses a major challenge when it comes to delivering the emails that YOU have paid us to deliver. As the volume of SPAM increases, ISPs and have become increasingly zealous in their filtering efforts. We have partnered with the industry’s leading delivery experts to do everything we can to ensure delivery of our emails, but there are a few steps you should take on your end to guarantee delivery.

If you suspect that you are not receiving your trading services from Jim Woods, or you notice sporadic delivery, you should be sure that our email address is included on your “whitelist” or “approved senders list.”

Here are the 2 most important steps you can take toward guaranteeing delivery of our alerts:

  1. Add our address (financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com) to your address book
  2. Ask your Internet Service Provider’s technical support (or your company’s email administrator) to add our sender information to their SPAM filter’s whitelist:

Please consider the following tips and adjust your email client to ensure that you don’t miss a single alert or hotline.

AOL

For AOL version 9.0: you can ensure that valued e-mail is delivered to your Inbox by adding the sending address to your “People I Know” list.

  • Open the latest alert or hotline from Jim Woods.
  • Click the Add Address button (over on the right) to add that sender to your “People I Know” list.

Alternatively, you can simply send an e-mail to financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com

Even if the e-mail you send doesn’t get through (for whatever reason), the act of sending it does the job of putting the address into your “People I Know” list–and that’s what counts.

If you’re using an earlier version of AOL, you’ll need to set your Mail Controls instead. Here’s how:

  • Go to Keyword Mail Controls.
  • Select the screen name your alerts and hotlines are coming to.
  • Click Customize Mail Controls For This Screen Name.

For AOL version 8.0: Select Allow email from all AOL members, email addresses and domains.

  • Click Next until the Save button shows up at the bottom.
  • Click Save.

For AOL version 7.0: In the section for “exclusion and inclusion parameters”, include the domain of the “From” address (markskousen.com).

Yahoo

To ensure that alerts and hotlines are delivered to your Yahoo Inbox (not the Bulk Mail folder), you can instruct Yahoo to filter it to your Inbox. Here’s how:

  • Open your Yahoo mailbox.
  • Click Mail Options.
  • Click Filters.
  • Next, click Add Filter.
  • In the top row, labeled From header:, make sure contains is selected in the pull-down menu.
  • Click in the text box next to that pull-down menu, then enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • At the bottom, where it says Move the message to, select Inbox from the pull-down menu.
  • Click the Add Filter button again.

Hotmail

If you’re using Hotmail, you can ensure that alerts and hotlines are delivered to your Inbox by adding the “From” address to your Safe List. Here’s how:

  • Log on and click the Mail tab to get into your mailbox.
  • Click Options (it’s over at the top right, next to Help).
  • Click Junk e-Mail Protection.
  • Select Safe List.
  • In the space provided, enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click Add.
  • When you see the address you entered in the Safe List box, click OK.

Alternatively, you can add the “From” address to your Contacts list:

  • Open the most recent e-mail from the sender you want to whitelist.
  • Click the Save Address button. (It’s over to the right in the line of options just above the e-mail.)
  • Click OK.

Outlook 2003

If you’re using Outlook 2003 for your e-mail, you can make sure alerts and hotlines are delivered to your Inbox by letting Outlook know you consider it safe. There are a few ways you can do this:

  • Open any e-mail alert or hotline, then add the sender (financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com) or the sender’s domain (markskousen.com) to your Safe List by selecting Actions > Junk Email > Add Sender’s Domain to Safe Senders List.

Or…

  • Add the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to Personal Contacts in your Outlook Address Book.

Earthlink

If you’re using Earthlink, you can make sure alerts and hotlines are delivered to your Inbox by adding the sending address to your Address Book. Here’s how:

  • Click on Address Book (it’s over on the left, below your Folders).
  • When your Address Book opens, click the Add button.
  • On the Add Contact screen, find the Internet Information box.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com into the top Email box.
  • Click Save.

MSN

If you’re using MSN version 9 for your e-mail, you can make sure alerts and hotlines are delivered to your Inbox by adding the sending address to your Safe List. Here’s how:

  • Click on Settings: E-mail | Junk e-mail (it’s at the bottom left of the screen, just above Calendar).
  • On the E-mail settings screen, click Junk E-Mail Guard.
  • Select Safe List.
  • In the space provided under “Add people to the safe list”, enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click Add.

For older versions of MSN, you add our sending address to your Safe List like this:

  • Click on E-mail settings (it’s at the bottom left of the screen, just above Calendar).
  • On the E-mail settings screen, click Junk Mail.
  • Select Safe List.
  • Click Add an item to this list.
  • When the Add To Safe List box appears, enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click Add.

Verizon

If you’re using Verizon for e-mail, you can ensure that alerts and hotlines are delivered to your Inbox by adding the “From” address to your Safe List. Here’s how:

  • Go to your Verizon Inbox.
  • Click Options.
  • Select the Block Senders tab (near the top of the screen).
  • On the Block Senders screen, you’ll see both a “Block Sender List” and a “Safe List”. In the space where it says, “Enter e-mail address or sub domain to always accept even if the domain is blocked”, enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com

Gmail

If you’re using Google’s Gmail for e-mail, you can ensure that your alerts are delivered to your Inbox by either adding the sending address to your Contacts list or by marking any incorrectly filed e-mail as “Not Spam”. Here’s how:

  • Open the latest issue of the e-mail you want to whitelist.
  • Click the More Options link. It’s on the title line of the e-mail, over on the right, next to the date. (If you see “Hide Options” instead, then you already have the extra options visible and can just skip this step.)
  • When the extra options are visible (just below the subject line), click the Add sender to contacts list link.

Alternatively, you can just send an e-mail to financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com, and that will add the address to your Contacts list automatically.

Even if the e-mail you send doesn’t get through (for whatever reason), the act of sending it does the job of putting the address into your Contacts list–and that’s what counts.

If one of your alerts or hotlines has been filtered into the Spam folder, you can prevent that ever happening again:

  • Click on the Spam link to open your Spam folder.
  • Click on the wrongly filtered e-mail to open it.
  • Click the Not Spam button at the top of the e-mail (right next to “Delete Forever”).

SpamCop

If you’re using SpamCop to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the “From” address to your Whitelist. Here’s how:

  • Open your browser and go to this page: http://webmail.spamcop.net/
  • Log into your SpamCop account.
  • Click on the Options icon in the toolbar.
  • Under Mail Management (in the middle), click SpamCop Tools.
  • Select Manage your personal whitelist.
  • Near the bottom, where it reads “Click here to add to your whitelist”, click on Click here.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com in the first empty slot.
  • Click Submit.

SpamAssassin

If you’re using Spam Assassin to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the “From” address to the Whitelist in your User Preferences. Here’s how:

  • Search your hard drive for the spamassassin folder, then open it.
  • In that folder should be a file named user_prefs. Open it with a text editor (Notepad, for example). If there is no such file, you can create it. The detailed instructions are at http://spamassassin.taint.org/doc/Mail_SpamAssassin_Conf.html.
  • Make a new (blank) line in the file. On that line, enter whitelist_from, followed by the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Save the file and close it.

Spamkiller

If you’re using McAfee’s Spamkiller to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the “From” address to your list of Friends. Here’s how:

  • On the Spamkiller sidebar, click Friends.
  • Click Add.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click the OK button.

Mailblocks

If you’re using Mailblocks to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the “From” address to your “Accept Mail From” list of addresses. Here’s how:

  • In Mailblocks, click the Addresses tab.
  • Select New.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • In the Receiving Options, select Accept Mail From This Address.
  • In the Other Options, make sure Display in People Picker is not selected.
  • Click Submit.
  • Click OK.

MailShield

If you’re using MailShield to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the “From” address to your list of Friends. Here’s how:

  • On the MailShield toolbar, click Friends.
  • Click Add.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click the OK button.

MailWasher

If you’re using MailWasher to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt valued e-mail from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your list of Friends. Here’s how:

  • In MailWasher, select Tools.
  • Select Blacklist & Friends.
  • On the right-hand side is the “Friends” list. Click the Friends Add button.
  • Select Plain email address.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com then click OK
  • Click OK again.

CleanMyMailbox

If you’re using CleanMyMailbox to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding our “From” address to your Whitelist. Here’s how:

  • Click the Whitelist button.
  • Add to the list the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click the Submit List button.

Oddpost

If you’re using Oddpost to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by marking it as “Not Spam”–but only if it has been incorrectly identified as spam in the first place. Here’s what to do:

  • Find any e-mail alert or hotline that’s in your Probably Spam folder.
  • Click on that e-mail to select it.
  • Click the Move to Inbox and Mark as Not Spam button.

Spam Inspector

If you’re using Spam Inspector to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process. Here’s how:

  • Open Outlook.
  • On the Spam Inspector menu or toolbar, find and select Manage Friends List.
  • In the Add a New Friend area, select E-mail.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click the >> (add) button.
  • Click Close.

Spam Interceptor

If you’re using Spam Interceptor to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your list of Trusted senders. Here’s how:

  • Open Spam Interceptor and select Authentication Lists.
  • Click Trusted.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click Add.

Spam Sleuth

If you’re using Spam Sleuth to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your list of Friends. Here’s how:

  • Open Spam Sleuth.
  • From the File menu, select Configure.
  • In the Friends category, make sure Active is selected.
  • In the space provided for the list, make a new (blank) line and on it enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click OK.

SpamButcher

If you’re using Spam Butcher to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your Know Senders list. Here’s how:

  • Open Spam Butcher and click the Configure button.
  • Select the Known Senders tab.
  • Under Known Good Senders and Recipients, click Add.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com and click OK.
  • Click OK.

Spameater

If you’re using Spameater to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your list of Approved Senders. Here’s how:

  • On the Spameater sidebar, click Filters.
  • Select the Approved Senders tab.
  • Click Add Filter.
  • In the Address space, enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • For Address Type, select Full Email Address.
  • Click OK.

SpamNet

If you’re using Cloudmark’s SpamNet to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your Whitelist. Here’s how:

  • Open your Outlook Inbox.
  • On the Cloudmark SpamNet toolbar, click Options.
  • Click Advanced.
  • Select the Whitelist tab.
  • Click the Add button.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com and click the OK button.
  • Click OK again, then Yes, then OK one last time.

SpamPal

If you’re using SpamPal to filter your incoming e-mail, you can exempt alerts and hotlines from the filtering process by adding the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com to your Whitelist. Here’s how:

  • When SpamPal is running, find the SpamPal icon in your Windows system tray and right-click on it.
  • Select Add to Whitelist.
  • Enter the address financial@alert.eaglefinancialpublications.com
  • Click Add.

How is Jim Woods Associated with Mark Skousen, Bryan Perry, Bob Carlson, George Gilder and Jon Johnson?

Jim Woods, Mark Skousen, Bryan Perry, Bob Carlson, George Gilder and Jon Johnson are part of the Eagle Financial Publications group of financial investment analysts.

What is your site’s privacy policy?

Eagle Financial Publications always respects your right to privacy. Full details on our privacy policy can be found here.

What is preferred stock?

Preferred stock shares are issued by a company as debt instruments, much like corporate bonds. The company promises to repay the money lent by the investor and to pay interest (usually quarterly) to the preferred shareholder in the form of dividends.

The first group of stock a company issues is common stock; a company may then issue preferreds. Preferred-stock holders get “preferred” treatment over common-stock holders: Only after preferred-stock holders have received their dividends do common-stock holders receive any dividends. If a company should go bankrupt, preferred-stock holders will receive principal before common-stock holders, but after creditors and bondholders.

If interest rates fall, the issuing company must still pay out fixed preferred dividends. The prices of common stocks rise and fall with market conditions, but preferred-stock holders receive a fixed dividend year after year. Generally, this leads to greater price stability with preferreds than with common-share ownership.

Preferreds have similar characteristics to bonds, but there are several differences that will affect you and the issuing corporation. Bonds are simply IOUs issued with a promise to repay by a certain date. Both bonds and preferreds pay a specific dollar amount each year. From a tax standpoint, companies would rather issue bonds.

New issues are regularly offered with five-year call protection. That means the issuing company can’t pay off the loan (and must continue to pay you interest for at least five years). Brokers may try to convince you to sell a preferred at a profit rather than let it get called away from you at the call price. Most often, this advice is unable to stand up to mathematical testing.

Most preferreds are NYSE-listed and trade just like common stocks. You can open The Wall Street Journal any day of the week, turn to the NYSE stock listings, and find your preferred stock. Your issue has solid visibility.

So, here are the guts of how to play the preferred game. Let’s say you buy a new issue 7% preferred at the usual $25 with normal five-year call protection. Your preferred’s management cannot call your issue away from you for five years, and then only at $25 a share. And the entire time, you collect 7% per year, regardless of what the stock market does.

What exactly are zeros, and where do I buy them?

Treasury zero coupon bonds are a special kind of Treasury for growth-oriented investors. Like T-bills, notes, and bonds, they are loans you make to the government. However, they pay no interest while the loan is outstanding. Instead, the interest accrues, and you get paid all at once, along with the return of your principal, at maturity. But be aware that zeros are federally taxed as if they did pay current interest. You must pay taxes annually all along the way, just as if you had actually received the interest payment, even though you don’t. The term “zero” refers to the fact that you receive no current income. Zeros are for the investor who does not need current income.

Your profits are locked in with zeros if you hold them to maturity. But there is another way to use zeros in your portfolio to make even more money. Between the dates you buy and sell your zeros, the value of the zeros in your portfolio fluctuates directly with long-term bond rates. If rates go up, zeros go down. If rates go down, the value of zeros goes up. It’s just that basic.

Zeros are for investors looking to invest both long-term to meet specific goals and in a shorter course of the business cycle to reap more immediate gains. Zeros are not for income investors, novice investors, risk-averse investors or Nervous Nellies. If you are the least bit hesitant, if you are short-term-oriented or green, if you can’t sleep like a baby because of the volatility, please do not consider zeros–they are not for you.

STRIPS (Separate Trading of Registered Interest and Principal Securities) are a type of zero coupon instrument. When I talk about zeros in Intelligence Report, I am talking about government-issued STRIPS. When purchasing STRIPS, I recommend you deal with an active, seasoned broker at one of the primary dealers in STRIPS–like UBS PaineWebber or Merrill Lynch. You can really take a thrashing on brokers’ commissions with zeros. Do not buy from a discount broker because they buy from a primary dealer themselves and add another markup to you. You will pay a front-end sales charge of 3%–5% and more with brokers who are not both primary dealers and active, seasoned pros in the zeros market.

In most cycles, I recommend short and intermediate maturities. In the past, I have used long STRIPS in my program but am unlikely to again. The 1980s and 1990s were most likely a once-in-a-lifetime play for long bonds. Please check the most recent issue for my up-to-the-minute advice on our current strategy.

How should I build my portfolio?

I advise you to maintain a constant balance in your portfolio between fixed-income securities, blue-chip stocks (and/or assorted mutual funds), and gold and foreign currencies. Your most important task is asset allocation. Portfolio balance and diversification tower above your securities selection as the foundation for your investment success. For most investors, I advise a 50-40-10 plan. You want 50% in fixed income, 40% in general equities, and 10% in gold and foreign currencies.

For the equities portion of your portfolio, I advise exactly 32 stocks (if you choose to invest in individual stocks), with no more than two from each industry. You will achieve approximately 90% of the diversification of owning all NYSE-listed stocks. Mutual funds are a great alternative as well. Invest equally in the stocks (or funds) you own, and once your portfolio is established, don’t buy a new stock unless you first sell a current position.

Once your portfolios are in place, do not mix and match fixed income holdings and equities. You want to maintain balance at all times. Why? Because I, like you, do not have tomorrow’s newspaper. We do not know the future.

To construct a brand-new 32-stock Income Multipliers portfolio, proceed exactly as follows: (1) Buy the Top 10 from this month’s Intelligence Report. (2) Starting from last month’s issue, top down, add additional names not listed in this month’s IR. Then continue with the next most recent issue until your list totals a couple of dozen names. (3) Use the next couple upcoming issues to round out your list to 32 names.

Should I invest in individual stocks, mutual funds or ETFs?

For portfolios less than $350,000, absolutely go with mutual funds or ETFs – the commissions you’ll pay for individual stocks are a killer. Of course, even if you have the minimum or more, you may find mutual funds or ETFs to be easier and more rewarding.

Can I follow the Successful Investing Plan with the mutual funds I already own?

Yes. Use the domestic plan buy and sell signals for domestic funds, the international plan for international funds, etc.  If the funds you own have underperformed the funds we recommend and track, consider replacing them.

Account Access

If you need help accessing your account, please contact customer service via phone at 1-800-211-7661, or email at CustomerService@JimWoodsInvesting.com.

AOL User Information

As an AOL user, you are able to take advantage of many of the new and improved features offered with the release of the new versions of AOL. One of these features allows the user to distinguish email from known sources versus email from unknown sources.
To ensure that you receive the weekly email updates and special buy/sell email, please take a moment to add Jim Woods to your address book. This can be done by simply completing the three steps below:

  1. Open an email message that you have received from Jim Woods.
  2. On the far right side of the open email message, click on the Add Address icon.
  3. A separate window will appear called Contact Details. Click “Save” in the bottom left-hand corner of the window and this will add Jim Woods’ address to your address book.
We share your commitment to finding the right investments, and want to ensure that you continue to receive the best information to help you reach your financial goals. By completing these steps, you can rest assured that our best effort will be made to deliver important messages from Jim Woods. If you have any difficulties receiving emails after following these steps, please contact our customer service team at 1-800-211-4766.

My question isn’t answered here, how can I contact you for more help?

Please contact our Customer Service department via email: CustomerService@JimWoodsInvesting.com or at 1-800-211-4766.

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