Our experiences with our Community of long-term investors
now span a couple of decades. My work with the Chicago team
of Volunteers for NAIC provided a solid foundation for the
experiences I would realize while serving on staff as senior
contributing editor for Better Investing.

Investment clubs are about successful investing -- achieving
superior returns while deploying patience and discipline.
And frankly, discipline often comes easier in groups of
friends who meet regularly to ensure commitment and
accountability.

Our stock analysis methods and portfolio design and
management philosophies are built on the bedrock of a solid
foundation.

We first met Rob Nagler and the bivio team nearly ten years
ago ... and I vividly remember how impressed I was at this
opportunity to reduce administrative processes within
investment clubs -- in effect, liberating the educational
opportunities and potential for superior returns. bivio is
a reference to crossroads ... and decisions made by small
groups of friends are a living testimonial to the wisdom of
communities. Neither bivio nor MANIFEST are really
interested in selling "software" to you ... we're inspired
and motivated by the potential that YOU might implement some
time-honored methods and achieve superior returns.

To that end, we'll be working more closely together as we
try to build better outcomes and faithfully implement those
time-honored methods as we invest with our friends.

In months ahead, we'll take a closer look at MANIFEST. The
dashboards you've had at your fingertips are truly the tip
of an iceberg that is still growing in potential. We'll
also begin to spend more time on stock studies and portfolio
reviews. In fact, we invite you to submit your portfolio
for review in our "Dashboard Diagnostic" series. If you're
interested, drop us an email and we'll explore what we might
learn together. (markr@manifestinvesting.com)

Beyond that, you can help us by letting us know What's On
Your Mind? We'll do our best to share our experiences and
the best practices we've witnessed over the years of working
with investment clubs in monthly columns and the discussions
that erupt between them.

We're honored to be invited by Rob and bivio team to host
these discussions and look forward to what we can develop
together. We've dubbed it expected_returns, because the
formation and vigilance with respect to long-term
expectations (quite frankly) is what sets our Community of
investors apart ... continuously striving to choose the
better crossroad as we seek to outperform "average
investors" and enable better futures.

Best wishes and Better Investing,

Mark Robertson