Stock Gumshoe

Those of you who have long toiled in the dusty, grimy classrooms of Gumshoe University will probably recognize this one — it’s an ad that has been around for years, with adjustments and variations depending on the market’s pulse and on the price of gold.

The essential promise is that Steve Sjuggerud has found a “secret currency” that is gold, but outperforms gold. So what’s the promise this time?

Today, with gold having enjoyed a nice run up to $1,000 or so per ounce in the past year before falling back to below $800, he’s promising that he has found a way for you to still get in on the momentum — because he has an investment that goes up after the gold price rises.

Sounds pretty cool, no? Imagine if we could do that for other investments, just wait for them to go up and then say, “hey, I’ll take some of those shares after all … Fire up the time machine, please!”

It’s almost irresistible. So what is it?
Read the rest of this entry »

This is actually an odd little teaser that a few readers sent in to me recently — including one who offered a solution that is actually correct (forgot to ask for permission, so I won’t mention the name). Smart readers here, as always.

What we get here, in exchange for subscribing to Steve Sjuggerud’s True Wealth, is an explanation of how you can use “Form SSA-521″ to increase your Social Security checks. The teaser says that “every retiree should read this” … and there’s some truth to it, certainly. Though you don’t need to subscribe to anyone’s newsletter just to find out what it is.

I won’t go into great detail on this one — it’s not super sneaky as so many of these teasers are. There is, for example, actually a form number 521 involved, they didn’t just make it up.

What the teaser tells us is that many people can raise your social security payments, and that very few people did so last year, and that even most Social Security Administration employees have never heard of it before. It essentially is a way to restart your Social Security clock — if you have applied for Social Security you know that your payments are much higher if you wait a few years than if you take the payments as soon as you become eligible.

Essentially what’s being teased here is a way to double dip at the government soup tureen. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Sjuggerud, whose name I think I have probably spelled half a dozen different ways in the last couple years, has a new ad for his True Wealth newsletter — and it’s teasing yet another compelling investment idea with a made-up name and an incredible promise.

Here’s how the ad opens:

“Take 10 minutes to sign a “Guaranteed Retirement Contract,” and you could get $2,250 per month… for life

“This alternative to stocks, bonds and mutual funds is now offered by more than 100 U.S. companies. Your payouts are guaranteed not to drop in value, and will be delivered EVERY SINGLE MONTH for the rest of your life. The only question is…

“Do you qualify?

…

“It’s a scary world out there for American retirees.

“Stocks and real estate are plummeting. Government bonds and CDs pay a measly 3-4%. If that weren’t bad enough, pension plans are falling apart… and even supposedly “safe” banks and Wall Street brokerage firms are collapsing.

“But there is one very safe solution few Americans have considered…

“In short, I want to tell you about what Barron’s calls, ‘The new way to retire.’”

So that sounds pretty exciting, no? Personally I’m a ways away from this kind of product, and I can’t retire as long as writing for folks like you is this much fun … but the idea of guaranteed ANYTHING really gets folks to look up from their Sudoku and pay attention. Read the rest of this entry »