Stock Gumshoe

Dan Amoss has added a new twist to the “100-F” teaser that I wrote about here a couple months ago, so I’m adding a new twist as well. He’s now calling this “Retirement Recovery Insurance,” and using examples of folks like laid-off auto workers who are using this strategy to make more money than they made when they were working.

With the incredibly dramatic fall in the markets just over these past three weeks, the appeal of a strategy that bets against the market — or that specifically searches out weak stocks to bet against — almost doesn’t need to be stated. I’m including most of what I wrote about this teaser below, with the explanation of what 100-F documents are.

But as we get started I do just want to offer a small reminder that momentum runs both ways, and the investment decisions that are comfortable are not necessarily those that are most profitable in the long run. To some degree, overloading your portfolio on the short side today is not too different than buying internet stocks in 2000 — it’s expensive, and it’s popular. Could still be right, but the odds might be challenging.

100-F Documents, of course, are nothing but a made-up name that sounds official …

Dan Amoss says that the “100-F Document” is filed in Washington, D.C., and will give you inside information into a company’s troubles, and let you bet against the company before it makes headlines.
Read the rest of this entry »

When the world looks bleak, the skies darken, and the locusts appear to be swarming on CNBC, we can always count on one thing: Newsletter editors will be trying whatever they can to convince you that they see the way forward, or that they have a safe haven for your money.

Karim Rahemtulla is no different than most — he’s teasing us today with an investment idea that will guarantee that you get paid, and who doesn’t want to see something like that these days? The newsletter he’s trying to sell is called Strategic Income, one of many letters from Rahemtulla, and from the vast Agora universe in which he toils.

Is it new? Innovative? Dramatic? Probably not for many of you … but there is a “there” there, even if it’s buried under a pile of marketing manure. I’ll try to explain it for you.

First, let’s see how Rahemtulla sells this. He has invented a new term for us, he’s calling this investment the “Surety Income Certificate” — no such thing exists, of course, but this is part of a long tradition, you have your copywriters devise a term that captures the essence of what people want, with some tenuous connection to reality … and then you charge subscribers to find out what the heck they mean when they say “Surety Income Certificates.” Read the rest of this entry »

OK, so the vacation rerun pile is getting a little thin here … thought you might be interested in seeing all of the many ads that have been sent in the past year promising that you can get cash payouts that are better than dividends, and easy as pie.

These ads all tout one version or another of an options trading strategy … for your reading pleasure.

Market Commmissions

Unclaimed Dividends

Transfer Dividends

California Overnight Dividends

Secretive Price Fixing Ring Snatches Cash

Tier Two Equities