WARNING: Non-Sharing of Information.

Compass Investors, LLC (CI) can only offer the HORIZON™ service if all users pay for our services. The sharing of the content of any HORIZON™ Action Report will cause significant harm and financial damage to CI. When subscribing you agreed to not share the content of any HORIZON™ Action Report in any form whatsoever - including website access - with anyone, either directly or indirectly.

In the event of the violation of this non-sharing provision, CI reserves the right to (1) immediately discontinue the HORIZON™ plan for the entire company, and (2) prosecute for lost revenue and damages to the fullest extent provided by U.S. law.


 

****CONFIDENTIAL****

Horizon™ Action Report:
Microsoft 401(k) plan (August 17, 2009)

Table of Contents

 

IMPORTANT: Regardless of whether the market or economy is moving up or down you can always count on these 5 things as a subscriber to Horizon™:

  1. In good times it will maximize gains;
  2. In bad times it will protect your plan value and minimize the "Drawdown";
  3. When the bad times end, HORIZON™ will recover any plan value drawdown in the shortest amount of time;
  4. By retirement, HORIZON™ will far outdistance any other approach in building your plan value amount; and
  5. Horizon™ will do all of the above with the lowest risk.

No other approach can do this. One of our market-savvy subscribers best described HORIZON™ as taking "3 steps forward and one step back" while all the other approaches they had seen over the years were "1 1/2 steps forward and one step back."

You are always best served by staying the course with Horizon™, and on the path towards achieving realistic, Retirement Income Security.

As part of our ongoing commitment to provide the finest possible services to you, should you have any questions, suggestions or problems please e-mail us at [email protected].

 

Your Current Subscription Refund Guarantee Period Results
(January 1, 2006 to August 17, 2009)

 

Note: Stated performance results may be understated by the amount of any current fund distributions. Results of any fund distributions will appear in your next Action Report.

 

As of August 17, 2009, HORIZON™ has guided the Microsoft 401(k) plan to a 14.8% pure investment return (excludes plan growth due to contributions) over the past 43-months since the current Subscription Refund Guarantee Period started on January 1, 2006. This far exceeds the two Subscription Refund Guarantees that only Compass Investors can offer.

While these short-term results are outstanding, you should never forget about the superior results that Horizon™ provides over the long-term. HORIZON™ is the ONLY strategy that you can count on to produce maximum gains in Up Markets Cycles and protection of Plan value in severe Down Market Cycles thereby always keeping you on the path towards having Retirement Income Security.

During the Market Cycle that began 01/01/1997, as of 08/17/09, an initial $100,000 starting investment guided by Horizon�s™ Adaptive Asset Allocation™ (AAA) strategy grew by $367,274 to $467,274, a growth of 367% (excluding any additional contributions).

This compares to the value, over that same period, invested in the following alternatives:

  • The Plan Index (PI)* grew by $128,015 -- Horizon's™ growth was 187% higher.
  • The best performing Formulaic Asset Allocation (FAA)** fund (Barclays Global Investors LP 2040 I) grew by $67,543 -- Horizon's™ growth was 444% higher.
  • The S&P 500 Index grew by $43,751 -- Horizon's™ growth was 739% higher.
  • A Money Market investment grew by $55,041 -- Horizon's™ growth was 567% higher.

 

Looking at the chart above, you can see how shortly after the start of the last sustained down market (March 2000) Horizon™ experienced its largest percentage loss and then immediately began to contain additional losses. This type of behavior is what would be expected to be seen at the start of the next down market cycle. NOTE: Click on the chart to see the exact values by Action Report period.

You can also see how, as the 3-year down market persists (2000 to 2003), Horizon's™ value: (1) surpasses the best Formulaic Asset Allocation (FAA) approach, and (2) quickly returns to and exceeds its pre-Down Market high (i.e., recovers the loss) by the time the next Up Market begins (in March 2003).

Never forget that your key to success is always to focus on your long-term results that you will achieve over market cycles, not on short-term results. Providing for your Retirement Income Security (RIS) is a "marathon not a sprint." HORIZON™ outperforms all other approaches over all market cycles�maximizing plan growth during up markets, limiting loss during down markets and quickly recovering any lost plan value after a down market ends�leading to the largest plan value by the time you retire.

 

Compass Investors' Subscription Refund Guarantee

 

Compass Investors provides its subscribers with two unprecedented Subscription Refund Guarantees. No other investment approach offers any guarantees. Only Compass Investors can, and does.

Following your 5th anniversary of becoming a subscriber, the value of the HORIZON™ investment made on January 1st of the year you enrolled will always be greater than one of the following two investment alternatives. And if it is not, you may cancel your subscription and receive a full refund of the prior year's fees.

Definitions
* The Plan Index (PI) investment is defined as the return from an equal distribution of your dollar balance, reallocated each Action Report period, into each of the available fund choices. The Plan Index is essentially the average return of the available funds.

** If your plan includes a Formulaic Asset Allocation (FAA) fund (e.g., Life Style, Life Cycle, Life Stage, Balanced, Target Date Retirement, Balanced, etc.) then the performance of the domestic FAA fund in your Plan that had the best return during the year prior to the start of each guarantee period. Otherwise, the performance of a 70/30 Equity/Fixed Income mix of the best performing funds in your Plan during the year prior to the start of each guarantee period.

Click to see the current Subscription Refund Guarantee chart.

Determining YOUR results since subscribing to Horizon

You can use the Compass Investors Estimated Return Calculator™ to determine your approximate Plan returns since you started using Horizon™. Click here or on the graph above to display the Market Cycle Performance Table which contains the input data you will need when using the calculator.

You can use the Compass Investors' Average Annual Return (AAR) Calculator™ to determine what your investment returns were prior to you starting to use Horizon™.

Selected Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

 

The answers to these, and many others, can be found in the FAQ section of our website.

Remember, the path to the Retirement Plan Goal -- growing the value of your Retirement Plan with low risk so that you can have your final salary every year for as long as you live -- requires a commitment to a long-term view. It is a marathon, not a sprint. You should not focus on recent performance -- either up or down. Horizon's™ unique approach of identifying best positioned funds combined with adjustments every 5 weeks assures stability and conservation of retirement plan value during down markets and accelerates the growth of plan value during up markets. HORIZON™ tremendously outperforms the best of the most commonly used and advocated retirement plan strategies during all market periods. That is why Compass Investors is able to offer you our unprecedented Subscription Refund Guarantee.

 

Current Period Fund Analysis (August 17, 2009)

As always, please try to make your reallocations as soon as possible to avoid any short-term trading penalties.

Fund Name Score Model Portfolio Allocation
STLBX BGI LifePath Index 2010 Fund M NA 0.0%
STLCX BGI LifePath Index 2020 Fund M NA 0.0%
STLDX BGI LifePath Index 2030 Fund M NA 0.0%
STLEX BGI LifePath Index 2040 Fund M NA 0.0%
STLFX BGI LifePath Index 2050 Fund M NA 0.0%
PTTRX PIMCO Total Return Account 65 0.0%
VBISX Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund 25 0.0%
CASH Fidelity Institutional Money Market Fund 2 0.0%
OAKBX Oakmark Equity and Income Account 60 0.0%
VIVAX Vanguard Value Index Fund�Institutional Class 115 19.5%
FCNTX Fidelity Contrafund - K Class* 77 0.0%
VIIIX Vanguard Institutional Index Fund�Plus Class 103 0.0%
FDGRX Fidelity Growth Company Fund - K Class 108 0.0%
VIGRX Vanguard Growth Index Fund�Institutional Class 96 0.0%
RussGG Russell International Growth Account 5 0.0%
RussGV Russell International Value Account (24) 0.0%
ARTMX Artisan Mid Cap Account 137 23.4%
RLPIX Royce Low-Priced Stock Fund�Institutional Class 187 31.9%
VSCIX Vanguard Small-Cap Growth Index Fund�Institutional Class 148 25.2%


Compass Investors Horizon™ is an independent publication of Compass Investors, LLC and is not associated with Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Corporation assumes no responsibility for the Compass Investors Horizon™ service. Actual investment choices are the sole responsibility of the subscriber and it should be noted that the performance results contained herein may not equal future performance. Under no circumstances will Compass Investors, LLC be liable for any losses incurred as a result of a subscriber's allocation decisions.

Copyright © 2004 - 2026 Compass Investors, LLC. May not be copied or distributed without a license or express written consent.