I was a few days ago reading an advertisement from Fisher Investments (because it’s not worth I won’t bother to reproduce the link here).
The advertising said that if you have half a million portfolio, you should download free the latest report from a “famous” Forbes columnist.The report should offer you a stock market prediction, plus research analysis you can use right away in your investments portfolio.
We at doitinvest.com wonder if there is anybody out there who still believes in this crap. Especially after the famous Madoff scheme has been falling apart in pieces. And after traders after traders admitted that they had systems which were not superior, but…breaking the rules.
The above mentioned crap investments book promises you to:
– teach you how to benefit from the current volatile environment (brilliant! do they explain you that you might also loose a hell of a lot of money in the current volatile environment? they never show you the other side of the coin!);
– why keeping the cash might hurt you later (unless you are a complete anti-talented investor of course now the shares are undervalued and you should invest soon – or at least before the recession ends; the question which no book can answer is “where”?)
– and well, we at doitinvest.com like this more than anything else – it’s the aroma of insider trading, watch this out – they claim they know which types of stocks are most likely to capture the next bull market.
Leaving aside that the next bull market will come in more than one year (most probably in 3-5 years), which is a detail nobody will tell you, we and your street neighbour can tell you too which are those bulish stocks. And this for free, you don’t have to send us any email address: these are the undervalued stocks which are basically 90% of the companies listed now on NYSE who have a higher than 50% likelihood to survive the current market crash. Again, you don’t have to be a genius to pick a well balanced investments portfolio and wait for a couple of years to make a lot of money.
Beyond the dumbness of this investment book full of truisms, this free download copy, advertised on some big investment blogs, is just another marketing fad. The book gives you some general hints (no specific clues on what to do), in order to wet your appetite for the stock market investment. But since you remain clueless (because the brochure does not tell you anything useful), you are of course in need to seek some specialised advice. And of course Fisher Investments, the same brilliant company who claims to have the keys to your fortunes, is well placed to administer your portfolio… And therefore you are strongly encouraged to contact one of their consultants.
Smart marketing? If you don’t use your common sense, yes. Otherwise, you’d better stop wasting your time and for building a nice investments portfolio, just read some useful information or learn how to build your portfolio. Come on you lazy investor, it’s not so difficult…