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thom calandra

- Thom Calandra

This is my first personalized basket, or Motif. I conceived it this past week.

I will buy it Monday. It's a collection of roughed-up resource prospectors and producers.

I like the Motif concept. See below. This first one is called Ruffled Resources and has 18 gold, silver, coal, uranium, platinum companies in it. Anyone can buy it or customize it. It looks like a powder keg. We'll see.

Motif Investing is a licensed broker with a headquarters in San Mateo, California. It is getting a buzz. The offices look close to where we created the original DBC Online, and MarketWatch.com -- before we moved it to San Francisco in the late 1990s.

On Motif, I can create my own ETFs (baskets), adjust my own weightings, track performance -- and I pay $9.95 per trade. When I purchase 18 stocks online at Schwab, for a comparison, I pay 18 times $8.95. Each trade costs a broker's commission.

Motif is interactive: feedback, for example. Plus, this can be distributed via social media. Charted, graphed, illustrated.

Give it a whirl. It cost me nothing to open an account -- online and simple. There are scores of themes already created by users, and by professionals via the broker: Motif Investing. These include Couch Commerce, Content Is King, Nano-Growers, War Machine. Black Gold. Even combinations of existing ETFs -- such as one called Deflation that has long-bond durations.

You can imagine all the flavors.

One thing Moif lacks is penny-sized equities, from Canada, from Australia and from OTC Markets in the USA.

My Ruffled Resources has a few of our TCR favorites, including Endeavour Silver, Great Panther Silver,Platinum Group Metals and Gold Standard Ventures.

Comments welcome, TCR subscribers.

-- Thom Calandra

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