Over the weekend, my team and I published our first major work of current investment analysis, which is available for free to the general public.

Considering the market carnage of late 2018, this seems prudent and timely.

Our idea was that failed investment ideas are fairly obvious to all, but ideas that worked in the past—especially those that delivered in spades—may pose a serious threat in the future that isn’t so obvious.

Why?

Times change. So do markets. Sometimes once-great investment ideas expire—and if you leave them in your portfolio too long, they can turn toxic.

Which ones are toxic today?

The details are in the report, but to give you a quick overview, the seven areas I think all investors should be very wary of are:

• Tomahawk Tweets: Investing based on tweets from the White House.
• The Great 2018 Marijuana Mania: Weed is becoming a legitimate business—but that doesn’t mean pot stocks will be winners this year.
• The Short Volatility Crisis: There was a way to profit on Wall Street’s record bull keeping volatility down. That trade is done.
• The Continuing Yield Hunt: Seeking yield in a low-yield environment has pushed many investors into becoming speculators without realizing it. That’s very dangerous.
• The Crypto Crypt: I’m not anti-blockchain. But as with the dot-com bubble, while the technology is real, most of the offerings will be duds.
• (Lazy) Passive Investing: It’s dangerous to put all your eggs in an ETF basket and think that doing so mitigates risk through diversification.
• Leveraged ETFs: This puts the ETF risk on steroids.

Our free special report explains each of these expired investment ideas: what it was, why it worked, why may not work going forward, and what to do if you’re exposed. Even folks who don’t agree with me on some of these investments could benefit from rethinking the risks attached to the others.

I strongly encourage all investors to download my free report and inform themselves about these potentially toxic assets.