retired mechanical investing

$598 for “The Value Line Investment Survey® - Smart Investor” Is that the one? VL web site is very unclear on the details. I assume that’s per year? Again, VL does not say.

Their web site is always a bit unclear.

But yes, that’s the traditional fee and it sounds plausible.
It used to be about $600/year (list) for the “regular” (1700 stock) edition, and $1000/year for the “plus” edition which has skimpy coverage on more stocks, total about 5700 these days.

Best approach is traditionally to phone them and ask for whatever subscription gets you the Windows software and access to the weekly download files for updates,
which used to be called the “Value Line Investment Survey for Windows”.
That way you’re sure you’re getting what you want.

Then ask for a discount. Can’t hurt.
Sometimes you get one just by asking.
Also, if you pay multiple years in advance (I bought 5 years) they give you incremental discounts, though you have to believe they’ll stay in business.

Jim

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What about those who run things on a Mac and not Windows?

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What about those who run things on a Mac and not Windows?

Beats me!
I believe the correct answer is “you’re out of luck, buy something else”.
The “download software” link has only one choice.

Though for the particular very simple screen I suggested, it would be possible (though cumbersome) to do with their on line screener.
I used to generate my MI screen picks that way.

Jim

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What about those who run things on a Mac and not Windows?
Parallels, Proton, VMWare or similar could work. Perhaps VL have a recommendation?

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$598 for “The Value Line Investment Survey® - Smart Investor” Is that the one? VL web site is very unclear on the details. I assume that’s per year? Again, VL does not say.

I’ve been paying $23.99 a month for the VL Investment Analyzer for the last 25 years.

Elan

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What about those who run things on a Mac and not Windows?

Bootcamp!!!

Apple’s solution to additionally install a superior operating system on a Mac and to be able to easily switch between both.

Just kidding. Not with Bootcamp but with the “superior”, as my whole life I programmed/wrote books about what I actually saw as an inferior OS (Windows!) and silently always envied Mac owners.

Two little hopefully entertaining stories as I have nothing else to do this moment, waking up on a Portugal holiday in Lagos to heavy rain and being at least for the morning confined to my apartment.

  1. Around 25 years ago Apple Germany wanted me to write one of my books about Microsoft Excel for Windows for the Mac. They suggested lending me one to be able to do so. As I was always curious about Mac’s with their fantastic reputation I talked with my publisher, we agreed upon the project, and Apple sent me one.

When the box arrived I put monitor and Mac on the table, connected the cables, and reached to the right side of the Mac for the On/Off switch, as I was used to from my IBM PC. My hand didn’t touch anything. Ok, so left side. Same. No power switch!

I thought: “On the back? Now, that’s not exactly user-friendly!”. Standing up, walking around the table. There was no power switch on the back of the box either. I sat down again, thinking: “Come on. After all I heard about not needing to look into the manual to operate a Mac. Here I am, already needing it just to switch it on?”.

I was baffled. While sitting there my view fell onto a key with a strange symbol of a half-eaten Apple. I pressed it - and watched in awe the Mac coming to life!

Then I was wondering how to install Mac Excel. Would I be able to without looking into the manual find and start what must be the Mac’s aequivalent of Window’s Explorer to look into the content of the first of the set of 7 or 8 disks and to find and start an installation program?

I inserted the disk and again watched in awe that without doing anything, without starting an Explorer like thingy, completely by itself, a disk icon appeared on the screen. I clicked on it and, oh wonder, did not as expected see the content but was directly asked whether I wanted to install Excel!

From that moment on I was taken. I wrote the book, and it was clear when I would not business-wise need Windows but had only private needs for a computer it had to be a Mac!

  1. (still raining) Contrary to that I stayed with Windows as my over many years hand-selected collection of Windows software perfectly fulfills my needs. Nevertheless the curiousity and envy always remained and therefore I was pleased when my partner gave me her old 2011 MacBook Air as birthday present which she retired many years ago as being useless for her (She has 2 Pro’s and an iPad, is working on all 3 devices parallel, continously cursing the Pro’s as being too slow (Poor machines; their user throws unbelievably demanding stuff and tasks onto them)).

Not even a working Mac OS was on it anymore. She went away and I told her I’d try to install Mac OS. After many days I finally managed to not only install High Sierra but dual-boot Mac plus Windows 10.

“Many days” as Bootcamp does not support installing W10 on a pre-2012 Air. I had to find out the hard way why: Trying to manually install W10 always at the very end fails when the Intel graphics driver is installed. The very best people can manage on that machine is to have W10 without sound and with only the MS basic graphics driver with very poor resolution.

It took several full days and many failed tries until I found the complex solution which Apple itself apparently couldn’t find: To install W10 in MBR mode! Which requires to before set up a Hybrid MBR. Only then for whatever reason the Intel graphics driver installs successfully. That’s the only way to have dualboot with a fully(!) working Windows 10 on a pre-2012 Air.

Now the funny part: She was far away and had no idea what I did, expecting me only to install Mac OS on the empty machine. We skyped and I showed her Windows 10 on her Apple. A loud scream (She can scream VERY loud)! Windows 10 on her Apple? Blasphemy!!!

I booted again, now Mac OS. All good :slight_smile:

Rain stopped. Sun’s coming out. I hope it was entertaining.

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Bootcamp!!!
Not on modern - M1 - Macs, so it’ll depend on the Mac being used as the everyday computer. At least right now as there’s no way to legally load and run a non-OEM supplied version of Windows on an ARM processor.

Parallels / VMWare etc. do work though - https://macexpertguide.com/boot-camp-alternatives/ .

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Alternatives.
Zacks, good screening website. Their proprietary ratings and features like saving screens requires a subscription, but really good detailed financial data including quarterly revenues is out there for screening & download.

the =GOOGLEFINANCE function in Google sheets leverages a lot of Yahoo finance but can bring most of the useful fundamental data into array tables right in sheets. And it refreshes in seconds upon opening the sheet.

preferred-stock.com for detailed free information on preferreds (not covered by VL at all).

Barchart.com for every market technical statistic you would ever need, most available free including their proprietary PAMA symbols history (with a small amount of tedious scraping).

Stockcharts.com for deeper / combined technical / relative strength idea screening.

Brokerage screeners and trading apps (Fidelity’s is pretty good, and its ActiveTraderPro app is fully functioned.

And of course StockInvestorPro.

The only things you won’t get are VL’s proprietary calculated fields including Median Appreciation Potential and their own earnings forecasts, but whatever.

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