Investors & Friends:

There is no new investment activity to report since our last weekly update.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending February 12, 2010, is attached.

Upcoming IPOs

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Etcetera

Excerpts from the Trading Desk were picked up on HedgeHogs.net (1), HedgeHogs.net (2), and CarbonCaptureReport.org

Hedgehogs is a social application platform for the hedge fund and investment community and those who serve it.

Carbon Capture Report, a service of the University of Illinois, monitors the latest news and social media on climate change. Their technology offers a unified view of the public discourse across both mainstream and social media channels.

Investors & Friends:

Here's a summary of our investment actions from the past week.

Long Stocks

1) We sold the last half of our position in the Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX) on 1/29 @ $53.25 for a 16.9% gain.

Return calculation = ($53.25 sale price - $45.54 cost basis) / $45.54 cost basis x 100% = 16.9%.

The date we opened the trade was 5/1/08.

Option Strategies - Covered Calls

2) Infinera Corp (Nasdaq: INFN) - We sold Jul $7.50 calls for $0.55.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending February 5, 2010, is attached.

Upcoming earnings calendar for our portfolio holdings

2/23 - Home Depot Inc (NYSE: HD)

Upcoming IPOs

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Etcetera

1) Many traders make the mistake of trying to turn every trade into a homerun. In reality, homeruns are few and far between - just ask Joe Torre. It's better to keep going for base hits. -- John Carter, President of TradeTheMarkets.com

2) What's more interesting from a trading standpoint is that because the SPX settles within the projected range a bit more often than expected, it suggests that the VIX, and therefore out-of-the-money option prices, overestimate the likelihood of the big price changes. Sure, they happen. We all saw that last year. It suggests, though, that while past performance is certainly no indicator of the future, and the big price moves can happen at any time, the VIX seems to think they happen a little more frequently. That pushes up the value of out-of-the-money options, which pushes up the value of credits for selling out-of-the-money verticals. Maybe that will give you something to think about in 2010. -- thinkMoney, Winter 2010

3) In the torment of the last few years, encompassing both the stock market decline and its emerging recovery, stocks' behavior was dominated by macro-economic, macro-financial and liquidity considerations. This largely explains why both the decline and the recovery were unusually indiscriminate: good or bad quality, expensive or cheap, stocks moved more or less in tandem and stock selection turned out to be less useful to investment performance than usual. In an economic and financial environment that is less-violently volatile and more in the process of normalizing, stock selection should regain its historic preeminence over macro considerations.
-- Francois Sicart, Founder and Chairman of Tocqueville Asset Management

4) Excerpt from interview With Jason Zweig, author of Your Money and Your Brain

The last photo of your brain in the book was of your insula, which is one of the centers of pain and disgust, and it's lighting up when you think about slot machines. Can people change their reactions by reconceiving things, for example thinking that slot machines are bad rather than good?

Yes, I think so. I didn't discuss this a lot in the book, but there is evidence that rehearsal and repetition and continually imagining things can change your emotional response. We all know things like, at least in theory, you can make a toddler stop sucking its thumb by painting something bad-tasting on the baby's thumb. In theory, you can do stuff like that with investing too. You could do it by keeping better records and by involving other people in your actions, so that if you really feel that you are going to keep procrastinating on putting money in your 401(k) and you really know you should, but you just somehow never, the best day to do it is always tomorrow. Then what you do is you get someone else involved and you create social pressure that makes it unpleasant for you not to do the right thing, so you dare your friends and you say, "I am going to finally take the plunge and I am going to increase my contribution in my 401(k). If I don't, then I have got to buy you a case of scotch." Then you know that if you blow it, you not only have to buy your friend an expensive present, but you are going to be humiliated.

Investors & Friends:

Here's a summary of our investment actions from the past week.

Long Stocks

1) We sold half of our position in the Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX) on 1/25 @ $54.88 for a 20.5% gain.

Return calculation = ($54.88 sale price - $45.54 cost basis) / $45.54 cost basis x 100% = 20.5%.

The date we opened the trade was 5/1/08.

Option Strategies - Covered Calls

2) Infinera Corp (Nasdaq: INFN) - Our July calls reached 80+% of their maximum value, so we closed them out.

Option Strategies - Naked Puts

3) Cisco Systems Inc (Nasdaq: CSCO) - We sold April $18.00 puts.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending January 29, 2010, is attached. We added a new page to compare the relative performance of different asset classes including the dollar, bonds, and commodities. Since we introduced the "Executive Summary" page some time ago, we're now phasing out the "What the Crowd is Talking About" page.

Upcoming earnings calendar for our portfolio holdings

2/3 - Bristow Group Inc (NYSE: BRS)

Upcoming IPOs

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Investors & Friends:

Here's a summary of our investment actions from the past week.

Option Strategies - Covered Calls

1) Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) - Our June calls reached 80+% of their maximum value, so we closed them out.

Option Strategies - Naked Puts

2) Home Depot Inc (NYSE: HD) - We sold January $15.00 puts.

Long Stocks

3) We bought Symetra Financial Corp (NYSE: SYA) on 1/22 @ $12.95.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending January 22, 2010, is attached.

Upcoming earnings calendar for our portfolio holdings

1/26 - Infinera Corp (Nasdaq: INFN), Nucor Corp (NYSE: NUE)
2/3 - Bristow Group Inc (NYSE: BRS)

Upcoming IPOs

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Etcetera

"We are here today to repeal Glass-Steagall because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom."
-- Former Sen. Phil Gramm, on passing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999

"Without a system of wise restraints, gross immorality and extreme craziness will happen in markets. They need to be dampened. Sin and folly needs to be stepped on."
-- Charlie Munger, 2009

Investors & Friends:

Here's a summary of our investment actions from the past week.

Long Stocks

1) We sold Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE: BMY) on 1/13 @ $24.70 for a 17.8% gain.

Return calculation = ($24.70 sale price - $20.97 cost basis) / $20.97 cost basis x 100% = 17.8%

Option Strategies - Naked Puts

1) AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) - Our January puts, that we sold, expired.

2) Moody's Corp (NYSE: MCO) - Our January puts, that we sold, expired.

3) United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) - Our January puts, that we sold, expired.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending January 15, 2010, is attached. We added two new Internet resources on p. 25 - an earnings calendar resource and an IPOs calendar resource.

Upcoming earnings calendar for our portfolio holdings

1/22 - General Electric Co (NYSE: GE)

Upcoming IPOs - Week of 1/18

China Hydroelectric* / CHC $15 - $17
Andatee China Marine Fuel / AMCF $6 - $8
Cellu Tissue Holdings / CLU $15 - $17
Symetra Financial / SYA $12 - $14
Terreno Realty Corp. / TRNO $20 - $20

*China Hydroelectric - Offering 3.1 million units, with each unit consisting of one ADS (worth three ordinary shares) and one warrant entitling the holder to purchase three ordinary shares for $15.

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Investors & Friends:

There is no new investment activity to report since our last weekly update.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending January 8, 2010, is attached.

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Confucius said, "Find work that you love and you will never work another day in your life."

Investors & Friends:

Here's a summary of our investment actions from the past week.

Option Strategies - Naked Puts

1) Nucor Corp (NYSE: NUE) - We sold July $25.00 puts.

The Investrio Stock Selector Fund Bull and Bear Market Indicators Report for the week ending January 1, 2010, is attached.

Our 2010 Outlook (the concise version)
In 2010, we'll continue targeting companies with "wide moats" or durable competitive advantages, either going long or selling put options at attractive strikes and premiums. If the puts are assigned to us, these will be companies we'd be happy to own otherwise. We'll also continue targeting high yielders with safe dividends. We'll continue to be on the lookout for short/hedge opportunities to protect the portfolio in the event of a sustained market correction or worse case scenario where we dip back into recession. As far as industries, we'll be watching drug companies (Obama healthcare shouldn't be too much of a drag on profits, and 30 million uninsured will start buying drugs), clean energy (the trend continues gaining momentum in 2010), technology (leaning towards wireless and software plays), and commodities (they continue rising as dollar continues orderly decline.)

We at Investrio wish you all the best and a Happy New Year.

Lead Fund Manager
Investrio

Etcetera

1) A quote for the new year, worth repeating, from George Soros: “If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.”

2) A very smart investor recently described money management as being a form of applied experimentation in the social sciences. You get to think about how the world works, and then you get to make bets based on your hypotheses. These bets are untimed, and they are uncontrolled. Sometimes a good decision can generate a bad outcome, and other times a dumb idea can pay off big. Investing is not a math problem. It's a bet on future events. Take Alessandro Barnini's comment. He is a senior executive at one of the smartest, most sophisticated players in an industry that isn't particularly nimble (Eni, an integrated energy company), yet he still is reduced to hoping for a certain outcome, the impact of which would be huge for his company and its competitors. Think about what no one in Barnini's industry knows that would really help them: the future prices of oil and natural gas. Remember in the summer of 2008, when oil surged above $140 per barrel? Much of the data pointed to still higher prices. The experts had no idea that we were on the precipice of an 80% price decline. Similarly, in 1990 few could imagine that Japan's economic power was higher than it would be at any other point for the next generation. Every signpost pointed to greater Japanese domination of the global economy, yet the country was about to enter into a downturn from which it has yet to recover nearly 20 years later.

3) 2010 marks the point when the U.S. economy will be about halfway through its latest commodity cycle. Another piece of evidence that inflation could be the future financial driver is a study by Barry Bannister of Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc. who
has found that since 1871, stock and commodities tend to trade places for economic leadership. These cycles tend to last an average of 18 years. The study shows that during such cycles, stocks will outperform commodities on a relative strength measure for about 18 years and then handover the reins to commodities for the next 18 years or so. The 1970s oscillated up and down, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average struggling to maintain a break above the 1,000 level because commodities, like oil, were rising to new heights. Oil moved to $11 per barrel by 1974 and $42 per barrel by 1982. But 1982 seemed to mark the end of a commodity cycle because oil topped out and one of the largest stock market bull moves emerged and lasted until the year 2000. The market rallied for 18 years from 1982 to 2000 and has since oscillated sideways in large swings. Meanwhile, commodity prices have risen significantly during this time period. It's no secret that the 2009 stock rally has been tied to the performance of commodities, particularly gold and oil. The year 2010 marks the point when the U.S. economy will be about halfway through its latest commodity cycle as described by Bannister's study. This could spell another nine years of higher commodity prices and volatile, but generally stagnant, stock prices. For 2010, investors may find it worth their while to consider focusing on commodity-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or companies. During times of commodity-leading cycles, growth stocks become harder to recognize and identify, so it seems like common sense to focus your research where, according to Mr. Bannister's report, returns are more likely to occur. However, investors need not limit themselves to the futures and forex markets. There are a number of available ETFs that attempt to invest directly in commodities, such as the Spyders Gold Trust (GLD), iShares Silver Trust (SLV) and United States Oil fund (USO). Additionally, various foreign currencies can also be traded through ETFs. For example, investors may invest directly in the Australian Dollar (FXA), which commonly benefits from Australia's massive ore mines or the Canadian Dollar (FXC), which tends to benefit from rising oil prices on its vast oil reserves.