It may have been a coincidence, but two weeks ago I wrote an essay called, "Making a Quick Killing," and last week I wrote about two VectorVest users, Mr. David Price and Dr. Sarosh Quereshy, who did very well, indeed, in the recent CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Both gentlemen got off to a good start; then made huge profits during the last week of trading. That was no coincidence.

Actually, both gentlemen were in sync with VectorVest's guidance, and both managed their portfolios in a similar fashion. They started out very well by using the "Stalwarts" strategy, faltered a bit; then made huge killings when the market exploded off of the July 15th bottom. David made $1,000,000 in the last two days of trading and Sarosh gained 38% in the last week. They did exactly what I hope you will do: they learned how to use our guidance and act on their own. What do I mean by that?

I firmly believe that market direction is the single most important thing you need to know in order to consistently make money in the stock market. You must let the trend be your friend. So we work very diligently on indentifying the market's trend. We want you to buy long in an up market and go into cash and/or sell short in a down market. Therefore, market direction is the headline story on our Home Page. The Market Barometer and the Color Guard at the top of the home page give immediate, visual representations of what the market is doing. Read them like you would a traffic light. Green is go, (up), yellow is caution, (transition), and red is stop, (down). That's the easy part.

The hard part comes in knowing what to do with this information. Since different investors respond differently to the same information, we provide guidance to three types of investors: Prudent, Aggressive/Traders and those who are "Riding-the-Wave." Implicit in this guidance is the belief that the market will follow a path suggested by our indicators. For example, if we have three red lights and a DnDn situation like we had after yesterday's close, our guidance will be to play the market to the downside. This is all well and good, but you cannot commit your trades until you see what the market is actually doing at the time you trade. YOU MUST GO WITH THE FLOW.

Last night we said we "will go short tomorrow with one of the following strategies if the market moves to the downside." Well, the futures were pointing up this morning and the DJIA is up about 200 points as I write this essay. Consequently, we haven't gone short yet today and it doesn't look like we will. This should not surprise you. Please read my essays of 12/23/05 and 11/24/06. They explain in detail how we manage the Model Portfolio. Memorize what these essays say, and you will be on your way to doing what Dave and Sarosh did: use our guidance, act on your own and Become One of the Best.

Congratulations to Mr. David Price of Columbus, Ohio for achieving the 2nd Prize Award of $100,000 in CNBC's Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Fantastic! How did he beat all but two other guys in a contest of over 254,000 contestants?

Of course, he used VectorVest. According to David, VectorVest was the catalyst that sent him to the top ranks of the contest. He implemented the Stalwarts strategy, buying the top four stocks when the contest began on May 12, 2008. He said that Stalwarts kept his portfolio moving up and moving down, but staying in the top 25 ranking. Then when the market started moving down, he sold out of his Stalwarts picks and just selected stocks "hit and miss." This approach sent him down to 31st place in the overall contest.

Then, he said that when I wrote about the consolidation pattern on Friday, July 11, 2008, that was enough for him. He spent a good deal of time testing the five strategies that I recommended to go long with on the 16th and said that he liked Odd Fellows Long and Pirates Long. He then selected Pirates Long because the stocks it returned were mostly financial stocks, which everyone knew had been beaten down the worst. So he bought Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Wachovia and Regions Financial on the 17th and by the end of trading on the 18th when the contest ended, his portfolio had climbed from $1.8 million to $2.8 million, leaving him in third place and winning $100,000.

Wow! What a story. We're very happy for you David, and we're extremely proud that VectorVest helped you become a $100,000 Winner.

A GREAT TRY.
On June 12, 2008, Dr. Sarosh Quereshy was in 1st place in the CNBC contest and said it was because of VectorVest. He too was using Stalwarts and he did very well until the big correction occurred the week before the end of the contest. He fought back from 116th place to 10th place using bank and financial stocks as the contest end was nearing. His portfolio was up 38% in the last week of the contest, but he still didn't win! Ouch.

Dr. Quereshy says that if that had been his IRA, he would be retired now. Nevertheless, it must have been a great thrill to come so close to winning. Our compliments go out to Dr. Quereshy on A Great Try.

STOCKS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.
Many of you have noticed that we have put a new feature on the Home Page of our website called "Stocks You Should Know About." This feature highlights "Best Performers > $1.00" when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is going up and "Worst Performers > $10.00" when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is going down. You have also asked for the strategies we use to find these stocks. Here they are:

Best Performers > $1.00: Price (Split Adjusted) > $1.00, AvgVol > 100000, %PRC > 2, REC = B, RV > 0.90, RS > 0.90, Sorted by RT*CI Desc.

Worst Performers > $10.00: Price (Split Adjusted) > $10.00, AvgVol > 100000, %PRC < -2, REC = S, RV < 0.90, RS < 0.90, Sorted by RT*CI Asc.

These strategies will be placed into the UniSearch Tool this evening. As far as the website goes, these strategies are being run on VectorVest RealTime every 60 seconds, but with a 15 minute delayed signal. If you actually have VectorVest RealTime, you can run them on a refresh cycle time of your choice with actual, real-time pricing. If you don't have VectorVest RealTime; then visit www.vectorvest.com to watch a fascinating display of Stocks You Should Know About.