Management style:

We consider ourselves to be value managers. Our goal is to find stocks we can buy and hold which we believe have advantages not easily duplicated by other competitors. We believe Warren Buffett would call these advantages a "moat". If we do our job correctly, the turnover in our portfolio is usually less than 20% a year. We are well aware that there are quite a few money managers who have been trained to be value investors which make it a pretty crowded field in which to compete effectively. We have tried to augment our thinking in stock selection to include more emphasis on future trends in the business and less on its past performance to help us select better stocks to own. We give a hearty thanks to the writings of Charlie Munger, Clayton Christensen, Bill Miller and Warren Buffett who have helped us see there is more than one way to invest in common stocks.

Record:

Our long term track record from 1998-2007 is audited by the accounting firm of Elliot, Robinson and company, LLP, Springfield Missouri.

Our track record return is calculated after the deductions of all commissions and fees by the custodian firm. Management fees were NOT deducted from the value of the audited account. Past results are not any indication or guarantee of future results. Said another way, since 1998 we have navigated the markets successfully given the knowledge base we had at the time and the opportunities the market offered to us that we could recognize. The markets will change in the future and we hope to be able to change with them while offering a good return to out clients. How our returns will be after the market changes is unknown by everybody including us.

The Trend Management portfolio returns listed on this web page are taken from an actual cash account of Mark Brueggemann. The same account was used for the entire length of the auditing process. This account did not use margin and there was no use of options or derivatives. The advisor feels that the performance of this account adequately reflects the returns of his other equity accounts. The advisor believes in asset concentration which means the top five stocks will represent a large percentage of the accounts total assets. As of December 31, 2008, the top five stocks represented 75% of this portfolio's assets. The IBD index is composed of 20 growth stock mutual funds as chosen by Investor's Business Daily. The S+P 500 index is an investment vehicle that will allow you to invest in the stock market with lower management and transaction fees than the costs you will incur at Trend Management, Inc.