“Government Guaranteed Zero-Downside Gold?!” Outstanding Investments

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | March 29, 2008 1:54 pm

This one has been around for quite some time, but I thought many of my newer Gumshoe friends might have missed it. It’s a teaser for Agora[1]’s Outstanding Investments[2] newsletter — which is their cheapest one at $49 a year. But hey, even at $49 a year, why pay if you don’t want the newsletter? If you just want to know the gold[3] investments they’re teasing us with, read on …

The “Government Guaranteed” gold investment — also called “zero downside gold” — is one of the five ways they’re recommending you invest in gold in their special report, “Bullion and Beyond: Five Stunning Ways to Get Richer on the Epic Metals Boom Ahead.” As far as I can tell, this is almost identical to the ad that they sent out about a year ago (and again and again throughout last year), and it looks like the teaser investments also remain the same.

But the one that really catches the attention of many of my readers is the “zero downside” — especially in this market environment. It can be frightening to buy gold at close to $1,000 an ounce if you vividly recall it trading at a few hundred dollars just a few years ago … or if you recall the collapse from $850 an ounce during the last wild bull run for gold a couple decades ago. So “zero downside” certainly sounds appealing.

How do they describe it?

“This new U.S. government-backed guarantee
lets you own gold with no risk… but with 100%
of the gains should gold prices take off.

Here’s the catch…

You must act on this by April 15 , 2008…
or you risk missing the official deadlineand
getting shut out of this forever…”

How can you resist that? Why on earth would anyone buy regular old gold if they could get this instead?

Well, that’s why the devil is in the details — and in the very misleading “100% of the gains” bit in that teaser.

You see, this “government guaranteed” gold investment is a Certificate of Deposit offered by Everbank. And the latest iteration does have a “funding date” of April 15, 2008 — though it has nothing to do with tax day, and they have consistently offered new versions of this product every few months. This latest one is a seven-year CD, all the previous ones have been five year CDs.

The principal is guaranteed, and it is insured just like any bank CD (up to $100,000). So that’s the good part.

What’s the bad part? The devil in the details?

Well, this is a seven-year CD, and you lose the guarantee on principal if you cash out early. So if you might need the money before 2015, this is definitely not the way to go. But that’s technically true of many CDs, so that’s not the big deal.

The big concern, at least compared with the way this investment is teased by Outstanding Investments, is that you are unlikely to get anywhere near the full 100% return in the spot price of gold over that time frame.

You see, this is not like a regular index fund. It does have the principal guarantee, so you can’t lose any money (unless you consider losing purchasing power due to inflation — you get the actual cash back, no guaranteed minimum yield).

But someone who didn’t read the fine print on the Everbank product term sheets might really misunderstand what their return will be like compared to the return on an investment in physical gold. Especially if they counted on the marketing language in the Outstanding Investments letter (I don’t know if this is still the case, but several times in the past when I’ve seen these products recommended it turned out that the newsletter publisher also had an affiliate relationship with Everbank, meaning they also get a kickback if and when their subscribers buy the CD. This is definitely not illegal and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with it if it’s not influencing their advisory decisions, especially since they disclose it to their subscribers, but it still might give a reasonable person pause).

You see, Everbank’s CD return on these “marketsafe” products is not based on the change in the price of gold from the funding date to the expiration date. It’s essentially based on the average price of gold between those two dates.

As you might imagine, those numbers can be very different, especially in a bull market for the commodity. A look at the back of the product sheet for this CD from Everbank will make this clear to you — in the raging bull market for gold from 1974 to 1981, for example, gold went from just over $100 an ounce to almost $600 an ounce. So if you had held gold for that time period, you would have had about a 450% return. If you had held the MarketSafe CD for that time period (it didn’t exist then, this is a hypothetical), your return would have been 145%.

There is a positive flip side in declining gold markets or if you happen to catch a seven year period where the price spikes up and then declines — so for most of the seven-year periods between 1978 and 1997, the CD would have outperformed the spot price of gold. That’s mostly because the CD couldn’t lose money, since the return on gold for most of those seven year periods was negative. For the last ten years, the CD dramatically underperformed the market as gold moved from under $300 to over $800 an ounce.

They calculate the return by choosing 14 dates during those seven years, averaging the spot price of gold on those 14 dates, and giving you the difference between the price of gold on the “Initial Value Date”, which is six months from the funding date, and the average of all the Pricing Dates (including that initial date). So one real key to this is the “initial value date”, but you have no idea what the price of gold will be on that date until six months after you’ve already committed your money. And it can be quite confusing — if gold shoots up to $2,000 and then back down to $500 over the next seven years, it’s going to be a trick of fate, depending on what the price is on those specific 14 days, what your return will be, if any.

The MarketSafe CD isn’t bad or evil, of course, it’s just a financial product with specific terms that share the risk between the CD holder and the bank in a way that they believe will make it profitable to them. It might work out in your favor, and it’s probably a good match for the needs of some people, but it’s definitely not a simple CD that gives you a principal guarantee and 100% of the return on gold over the next seven years — and folks who are used to traditional bank CDs might make some assumptions about this one without reading the details, which could lead to some frustration or disappointment. You can read the factsheet here[4] (and no, I do not have any kind of affiliate relationship with EverBank). They also do the same thing, with similar rules and requirements, for Silver, for Japanese REITs[5], and a few other esoteric investments.

Oh, and the only investment in actual gold that’s really guaranteed, as far as I know? That’s the gold coined by the US Mint, and they only guarantee that it contains the amount of gold they say it does, not that it will be worth anything in the future. I assume most other national mints make this same guarantee, which is why there’s an active secondary market in bullion coins[6] like American Eagles, South African Krugerrands, or Canadian Maple Leafs. Guaranteed to be gold, but no guarantee that gold becomes more valuable.

What are the other gold investments that they’ve been touting in this email? I don’t know that I’ve looked at all of them before, but the “Gold for a penny an ounce” one is almost certainly eggs[7]-on-march-25.html" target="_blank">Yamana (AUY), which we looked at from another advisor’s ad recently.

Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...


The Gold ETF that they call “the safest way to own gold” is almost certainly just what you think it is, GLD, the ETF that represents physical gold that’s held in a vault for you (not an ETF of gold miners, which is also available).

And the “one gold stock to buy if you’re only buying one”, the company that is “ten steps ahead of every other gold producer” is, I’m fairly certain, Agnico-Eagle Mining (AEM) — the details are limited, but the general idea of the company is a match and it does have the identical teased 18 cent annual dividend. I looked at this one earlier[8], when it was recommended by Robert Hsu[9] for his Asia[10] Edge subscribers.

So more gold stuff for my the fantabulous Gumshoe readers on a lovely weekend. Enjoy, and let us know what you think about any of these investments, or any other grand ideas you’ve got about gold.

full disclosure: I do not own any investment mentioned here and will not trade in any of them for at least three days. I do own a small amount of physical gold and shares in another gold miner, Centamin Egypt.

Endnotes:
  1. Agora: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/agora/
  2. Outstanding Investments: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/outstanding-investments/
  3. gold: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/gold/
  4. read the factsheet here: http://www.everbank.com/documents/termSheets/MS_CD_GB_7yr_Apr08.pdf
  5. REITs: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/reits/
  6. coins: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/coins/
  7. eggs: http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2008/03/skousen-the-goose-thats-set-to-lay-golden-profit-a%20href=
  8. I looked at this one earlier: http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2008/01/robert-hsus-bullion-bull-goose-island-gold.html
  9. Robert Hsu: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/robert-hsu/
  10. Asia: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/tag/asia/

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/outstanding-investments/government-guaranteed-gold-outstanding-investments/


17 responses to ““Government Guaranteed Zero-Downside Gold?!” Outstanding Investments”

  1. If you want to invest in gold, you should do it directly. These hybrid investments generally only profitable to those that are selling them. Though the spin is usually good!

    Best Wishes,
    D4L

  2. Shawn says:

    Three years ago Agora pumped Seabridge gold. At the time you could get in at under 5 bucks a share. I got in at 4 and out at 16 last spring. It has since climber to 40 and now looks like a bargain again at 24. If you think gold will continue its bull run, SA should make another nice run.

  3. G IMBURG says:

    Gold, a dollar denominated metal, appears to be closely tied to the value of our currency. The dollar on the forex is trading sideways in a range bound channel as the FED tries to prevent futher erosion of larger instituitions as they try to maintain liquidity notwithstanding overwhelming massive writoffs and debt. Essentially,the FED is allowing banks and now hedge funds to borrow money at the FED window to prevent a depression last seen in the 1930s. That was the last time the FED used this expansive program. I think this move only highlights how serious the problem really is.
    All this being said, and the lack of transparency, I personally think the dollar has more downside as the the CDO market unravels and the debt problem is revealed in its full magnitude. On this basis,hedging the dollar with gold still appears a very good investment over the longer term.

  4. Bev Fehrenbacher says:

    Enjoy your web site.

  5. Mark says:

    Hey man, thanks for this website, it is really helping me out. I also own shares of Centamin and trust that it will do well over the next few years considering its size.

  6. Myron Martintakeprofits@rogers.com says:

    THINKER SEZ: Thanks for the fine print sleuthing one the Everbank CD, the copywriters are often very loose with the truth.

    What particularly bugs me is the liberal use of the word FREE in the teasers, which in my vocabulary means “with no strings attached” !
    A REPORT being offered for FREE is not really free if you have to buy a newsletter for $4900. or even $49. for that matter Saying you get a years newsletter service for FREE is also misleading if you have to BUY the first year and then supposedly get the SECOND year for free. Two for the price of one is not FREE, it is at best a 50% DISCOUNT!

    YES, AGORA AND ITS AFFILIATES DO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH EVERBANK, and they acknowledge they receive a commission when their subscribers buy an Everbank product. I own both Agnico Eagle and Yamana and still think they have room to run An even BETTER long term gold investment once the gold rallyare the, really catches fire from the general investing public rather than the limited number of goldbugs, are the juniors like one currently being teased that has substantial production in CHINA which i was fortunate enought to discover several years ago and bought at $1.23 and is now at almost $3.and set to go much higher is gold prices continue to rise. JINSHAN Gold Mines JIN /TSX-V

  7. Bob says:

    I just stumbled onto your website recently. Thinks for your valuable comments. This is an excellent site.
    I do have a CD at Everbank in Nordic currency that appears to be doing well (around 11%). I was wondering if JINSHAN Gold Mines and Centamin Egypt can be bought on the NYSE, Nasdaq, or other marked listed here in the good ole USA?

  8. brenda says:

    Hi Bob. No, they are both available through pink sheet listings but neither is listed in the US. Both are listed in Canada, and Centamin at least has some dual listings — in Australia and London, I think.

  9. Bud Devlin says:

    If Visa is as i believe a good inventment then why is this ad necessary ?

    I was just in New York City to hunt down 3 new GameChangers for you.

    My meetings began at 6 in the morning, so I stopped at the Wall Street Starbucks (a GameChanger in the midst of turnaround, as you know) and, as I drank my coffee, I checked how people paid for their lattes.

    Out of the 26 who used a credit card, almost 100% used Visa.

    At that very moment, across the road, the Visa IPO was storming the stock exchange.

    Offering cash has become as socially unacceptable for high-speed transactions as writing checks is in the express lane of your grocery store.

    Visa’s ads changed our habits—changed the game.

    Today, 55% of all transactions in this country are cashless. And Visa is mopping up.

    The Card War Is Over

    The battle for your wallet is over. American Express has its niche, and some will always carry a MasterCard. But everyone will use Visa for cash.

    “Life,” like the ads say, ” takes Visa.”

    The 1.5 billion Visas out there will double in quantity. The $2 billion in Visa transactions will double, too. The Visa infrastructure, 10 years in the building, can sustain such a staggering volume without a single dollar being spent on upgrades.

    It all goes to Visa’s bottom line.

    And the stock, newly minted and so shiny on the New York Stock Exchange? Oh sure—that’ll double too, and likely quadruple over the next 5 years.

    Many of myGameChangers subscribers grabbed Visa right at its IPO, and locked in 37% profits in just ONE DAY!

    But that’s just the beginning! Now it is time to look at Visa’s real goals and this, my friend, is where it gets thrilling.

    Life Takes Visa But
    Visa Takes China

    Visa first changed the game the day its founder, Dee Hock, created a new type of organization.

    He imagined the world’s first virtual company in 1970, organizing itself to allow banks to compete for customers while collaborating around brand-building.

    GameChanger Artist
    Joe Saunders

    Dee Hock’s heir and today’s resident genius at Visa is a man you probably never saw interviewed or even knew existed. Joe Saunders is a quiet magician, a methodical, focused, almost scientific alchemist who has turned dross into gold several times in his career.

    As CEO of Visa, Saunders has never made a secret of his strategy: China (and the Pac Rim generally) are in his crosshairs.

    The goal is dominance. First, he made Visa the brand. Then he made it “cash equivalent.” He took these two assets public and can now use fresh billions to buy his way into key markets. Phase Three begins with the Beijing Olympics in August.

    My advice to anyone competing with Saunders: Quit and leave while you still have legs to walk on.

    His name for this invention: the “chaordic organization.”

    American Express has an (expensive) address: World Financial Center, New York, NY.

    But Visa lives in your wallet.

    That was Dee Hock’s breakthrough.

    Not since Marlboro Man rode off into the sunset has any brand been more successful.

    Visa’s second GameChanger revolution was to get itself favored over cash. Now remember, Visa itself never extends credit—the banks behind each individual card do that. Visa simply gets paid per transaction. So it is a riskless strategy to drive down the size of the average transaction.

    Key here was to abolish the signature requirement on small purchases. That speeds up the line at Starbucks—and makes it simply easier to use a card instead of cash. Visa’s business soared—and MasterCard was crushed.

    Visa’s third GameChangers revolution is a breathtaking grab for Asia’s new middle class.

    I’ll give you some insights into this now, but I’ve laid out all the details in a brand-new report, Visa Takes China. It is a report you will read and reread as you build your position in the stock. And best of all, it’s FREE. Icing on the cake: It’s available here and now.

    Playing the Olympic Card

    Unless you’ve been living in an igloo for the past 3 years, you know China’s booming. The arrival on the world stage of a new 200-million strong middle class is the investment story of our generation.

    But cashing in on this opportunity has been problematic for Western business and investors. China plays by China rules, and China rules are very different—just ask the managers at Wal-Mart, Yahoo and eBay. Or just ask investors in hot China solar stocks or the like.

    But the prize—capturing the China retail market—is glorious. Retail sales in China grew 13% in 2006, 17% in 2007 and will likely top 20% in 2008.

    During the recent New Year’s holiday, spending was up a whopping 60% from last year.

    And yet most of this spending happens without a credit card. Cash or a complex system of credit notes (“chits”) carried by local Mom and Pop stores keeps the system creaking along.

    Visa’s impact on all of this would be like that of oil on a set of rusted gears.

    Make no mistake: Visa is set to dominate Asia—China in particular. It comes in as a global brand, yet it operates as a local, being issued through local banks.

    In Times Like THIS…

    I was one of the first analysts to identify Google, Harley, Starbucks, Broadvision, Medtronic and Ciena. The list is longer than this, but you get the idea: big, big winners—1,000% to 7,000% profits—in companies that changed the game and grabbed huge, sustainable competitive advantages.

    I call them GameChangers and…

    ..You Need Stocks Like THAT!

    For more than 30 years, I’ve lived on the cutting edge of business innovation. Now I’m going to show you how to spot Wall Street’s next monster winners.

    Winners like this, identified by my GameChanger System to create awesome wealth:

    Broadvision 7,140% PROFIT
    Cisco Systems 4,350% PROFIT
    Parametric Technology 4,200% PROFIT
    VeriSign 3,800% PROFIT
    Ascend Communications 3,300% PROFIT
    Ciena 3,200% PROFIT
    Cedar Fair 2,500% PROFIT
    Harley-Davidson 2,150% PROFIT
    Medtronic 2,100% PROFIT
    Outback Steakhouse 1,275% PROFIT
    Apple 1,250% PROFIT
    Applebee’s 875% PROFIT
    WebTrends 850% PROFIT
    Dick’s Sporting Goods 833% PROFIT
    aQuantive 800% PROFIT
    Boston Scientific 650% PROFIT
    Cree 600% PROFIT
    Color Kinetics 425% PROFIT
    SunPower 425% PROFIT
    Suntech 400% PROFIT

    Game over.

    Plus, as a top sponsor of the Olympics, Visa’s brand building reaches an extraordinary apex in 2008. China will be glued to the TV for weeks, and Visa will be in every frame, every day, with the promise that life—vitality, the spirit of winning, achievement, pride—all are enabled by Visa.

    Visa is the gold medalist of the Olympics—and investors will reap the rewards of Visa’s brand-coup for years to come!

    The case for Visa is open and shut, as I prove in Visa Takes China. So what’s the best strategy for profiting?

    In Visa Takes China, I show you two methods—conservative and aggressive—for capturing the Visa phenomenon. These strategies are based on my 30-years’ worth of experience in bringing GameChangers like Visa to the open market.

    You see, there’s a “quiet period” that individual investors can use to their advantage. Plus there are numerous other tricks and techniques surrounding an IPO “aftermarket” that all put money in our pockets.

    Details in Visa Takes China—available FREE right here.

    In A Single Move

    GameChangers like Visa can change your fortunes—in a single move. That’s WHAT A GAMECHANGER IS—WHAT IT DOES.

    They disrupt, upset the applecart, change the rules—and grab a sustainable competitive advantage.

    GameChangers thrive in uncertain times like this because they NEVER STOP INNOVATING.

    Broadvision was a GameChanger. I identified it as such, and clients who followed my advice made 70 times their money.

    Ciena and Ascend were GameChangers identified by our system.

    They were thirty-baggers.

    Medtronic and Harley-Davidson were GameChangers, and our system clearly flagged them early and publicly.

    They were twenty-baggers.

    Applebees, VeriSign, Cisco and Dick’s Sporting Goods changed the game. My clients and I were there collecting our 1,000%-plus profits.

    In times like this—you need stocks like that! Join here.

    Visa is the latest GameChanger to join our famous Buy List, and it is the perfect stock to buy FIRST as a new GameChanger subscriber. Let me show you how to do it right.

    As a new GameChanger subscriber, you join the company of stocks so charged with potential, they crackle.

    We were up 37% in hours in Visa at the IPO last week.

    PLUS our newest GameChanger is getting ready to spin off not one but TWO new IPOs in the coming weeks. I want you here for that!

    AND our GameChanger power recycler is up 25% in the past WEEK.

    AND our GameChanger carbon fiber maker is up 19% in the last TWO WEEKS.

    AND our GameChanger handset maker leapt 14% in one day last week as Wall Street figured out cell phones are still in a bull market.

    AND I could go on, but why don’t you come on over to see for yourself?
    Let’s find GameChangers together. Begin here.

    Georges Yared, Editor
    GameChangers

  10. Bud Devlin says:

    why does Georges Yared think we need a subscription if Visa is a good investment ?

  11. cindy says:

    Get Rich from the U.S. Navy’s Little Secret
    There is a secret, carefully guarded “energy discovery site” just 113 miles northeast of Los Angeles, Calif., The U.S. Navy has given it a code name: “China Lake — Navy One.”

    A California Energy
    Site So Secret,
    You Can’t Even See it
    Without a Top-Level
    U.S. Navy Clearance…

    But a former Navy ‘insider’ is now ready to disclose the names of five ‘secret’ energy companies that could make you $372,340…

    The Navy has already collected $194 million from this discovery.

    This is from Penny Sleuth March 20 issue.

  12. StarCruzer says:

    To Myron and all re: ‘Free’ Newsletter subscriptions

    I’ve been in and out of most of Agora’s and Stansberry’s newsletters. Always pay attention to the length of time each allows for a 100% refund following your evaluation. Staying within those windows and canceling accordingly makes the subscriptions ‘free’……. less time value of money. Most of them, if not all, will grant a prorata refund after the evaluation period. In my experience, both publication houses have honored their refund policies promptly and courteously. I still subscribe to a select few of them. This site, to which I recently was introduced, is one that I intend to support financially.

  13. JoeG. says:

    I stumbled into this site while trying to find out about USG-4 reports. This is a great service and worthy of financial support. Thank you for saving me money and keeping me away from the financial hustlers.

  14. Kay McGuiness says:

    According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Georges Yared died on September 7, 2008.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.