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$impleMoney Newsletter; Spy Guy Has Sky High Investment Returns -- Again!

Dr. Joe Scifers, ex-CIA and founder/manager of the Montecito hedge fund, announces that his $impleMoney Newsletter's recommended stocks gained 33.3% in 2004. The newsletter has outperformed the Dow, S&P 500, NASDAQ, and 99% of all US equity mutual funds in each of the last four years.

His newsletter's Best Stocks List gained 34% in 2001, 7.2% in 2002, and 67% in 2003 for a cumulative gain of 219.8% through 2004. His one-word secret of success: "beta."

When he mentioned beta during an appearance on CNBC, the conversation stopped while beta was explained to the viewers. Thought Scifers: "It was like we were introducing some arcane and esoteric investment concept... why, after all these years is beta so little understood, so completely under-appreciated, and so widely underutilized by the individual investor?"

For investing professionals, beta is the most widely used measure of risk. To ignore beta is to ignore risk. Simple risk labels such as low, medium, or high are insufficient for today's market. By design, the beta (risk) of the broad market is 1.0. Higher betas are more risky, lower betas less risky. "Keep in mind," says Scifers, "a stock with a beta of, say, 2.0 must perform twice as well as the market; if not, the stock is under-performing and you are not being adequately compensated for the level of risk you are taking. Every investor should know the beta of each stock or mutual fund purchased and, importantly, the average beta of your portfolio." During 2004, the average beta of his recommendations was 0.75, or 25% less risky than the broad market. Dr. Scifers' current guidance is an average beta of no more than 1.1, slightly above the risk of the broad market.

Successful investing is about managing performance and risk. The less successful investor focuses on performance and essentially ignores risk. "I believe," said Scifers, "that the single greatest improvement in returns comes from explicit consideration of risk by using beta." For more on beta or subscription information, go to www.scifers.com.

Scifers has a Doctorate from the Harvard Business School, graduated the US Naval Academy, and holds graduate degrees from Stanford and Columbia. In addition to the CIA, he has worked at the Rand Corporation and in the White House.

Distributed by Market Wire