James Altucher’s Secret Income PitchI subscribe to Altucher’s newsletter which was a modest amount. As with all these services, I now am inundated with new, more expensive services. It is somewhat annoying but also somewhat informative. I was really confused by this promotion when it shows him picking a couple strangers at random and show them how to make Instant Cash in a matter of minutes. Poof, you have money in your account. He is selling naked puts. However, i looked more closely at the first two examples he does and I am really confused. I am familiar with options but not an expert. I have always read that when selling naked puts, you should chose a strike under the current stock price. And of course, be ready to own it if exercises. You hope the stock is range bound or heading up.
However, in his examples he is selling puts higher than the current price. Although at the time of sale, if immediately exercised it would still be slightly profitable due to the intrinsic value. However, here is what happened with one after i went back to my charts and reconstructed what could happen. On 8/15/17, AAPL was at 161.62 when he sold the 9/27/17 165 put for 6.45. Three days later, AAPL hit a low of 155.11. Over the next two weeks or so it went back up to 164.94 but then dropped to a low of 149.99 before expiration. So within 2 days, unless you traded out right away, I see this as a loser trade. Am i missing something?
The second example is the same thing with DIS, which was at 101.82 at time of sale of put. On 8/15/17 he sold the 9/29/17 104 put for 3.20. DIS went to high of 103.45 on 8/30/17, then dropped to a low of 96.26 on 9/9/17 and closed at 98.57 on expiration date. Again, I see this as a loser trade.
Am i missing something? Anyone using this service at $2000/year? Or any other of his services? Any input or correction of my thinking is welcome. Thanks.
This is a discussion topic or guest posting submitted by a Stock Gumshoe reader. The content has not been edited or reviewed by Stock Gumshoe, and any opinions expressed are those of the author alone.
Seems to me what you are “missing” is the greed and hope that would cause you to believe this service could be worth $2,000.
You’ll continue to get these offers for the more expensive products, probably with the “guarantee” that if you don’t make money, you’ll get a 2nd year membership free…. Stay cautious!
the guarantee is not “IF” you don’t make 2000 per month…. the guarantee is “IF” he doesn’t SHOW you 2000 in profitable trades per month- very different.
What’s the difference? If Altucher provides trades that are profitable but the subscriber doesn’t elect to make it, that isn’t the service’s fault.
What he doesn’t cover clearly in his ads is that you have to have the full purchase price of the underlying stock left in reserve in your account to make the naked put trade. His account on his ads has 651K in it. He recommends having at least 20K in yours and never calls it what it is…selling naked puts. Most of his trades require 20 to 30K be left in your account which means there are some trades you can’t make because you are underfunded and, if you do one of his trades, you’ll have no funds left to do any more until you close the trade you made. Therefore, unless you’ve got six+ figures in your account you’ll only be able to make a few trades. You pick one of his losing trades you wind up with the stock and no money in your account. He calls this “owning a stock we always wanted” I subscribed and found out he makes a lot of losing trades. I wasn’t in it to “own a lot of stocks I never wanted”. Advice? Don’t touch this scam with a 10 foot pole!
I like the guy- he’s interesting. lets see how it plays out, you can also do 3 months but no free computer 🙁
I knew I saw that option! I know I can afford that before the 20th, I’m too Up for this! James is highly respected.
James is a doofus who has turned himself into a shill for the newsletter scammers!! Now, suddenly, he’s a “millionaire expert” (pushing other people’s scams.)
I’ve seen this same option dodge played by other “experts” in other venues (sidewalks, restaurants, etc.) and now it’s something James has created????
James is “highly respected” by his fellow con artists!!
Hi , I have joined his subscription and have cancelled it right away costing me 550 dollars for a 3 month subsription. It is not a scam but it will only work when you have at least 14000 dollars to play with. This “small “detail they forget to say once you order. You earn money with selling puts. In my case i had 3500 dollars to play with. With this I was able to buy 1 recommended put , earning 150 dollars. the put expired and had no obligation to buy the stock. So in my case I could max earn 450 dollars in 3 months, costing me 550 dollars. Your are given a tip every week. Each week you have to invest at least 3500 dollars. If I would have that my earnings would have been max 600 dollars.
Thanks for the reply, Robert. It’s probably me, but your numbers aren’t adding up.
Your first trade made $150. You said that equals $450 after 3 months. But that means only 1 trade per month. Doesn’t the program offer weekly trades? Assuming it does, and assuming the average profit is $150, that’s $600 per month, $1,800 after 3 months. Also, I would think the $150 profit per trade is likely on the low side.
One question: how many recommended trades per week are given?
with Robert’s capital, he can only trade once a month and gain $150 which adds up to $450 after 3 months . I saw jame’s ad yesterday and was doing some research on the guy before deciding to join the 3 month program.
Wow. That’s super deceiving? And no refunds. And they make it so simple for you to order (them to pocket YOUR money). And, that’s probably why they were using James’s account in the public experiments, and they computer he was using says $0.00? But, that was his earnings of $0, not his funds balance. SMH
Unfortunately, you need a LOT more than $14,000. So many of the trades go the wrong way, you end up holding more and more stock. You can sell the stock before they recommend you do in order to stay liquid, but you end up losing money on the trade. I’ve been using the service 5-6 months and I think I’m a little better than break even. I still like James a lot as a person but so much of this service is not as advertised I’m a bit disappointed.
I know. where’s his guaranteed $3,000 month? His ads and that insipid video say you can do this with little money–a total lie!
I’m looking for that sales video or print ad. If anyone has it let me know?
I bought into his first teaser Atlchur report ” found almost nothing of real substance. but good reading.. yes..
I almost pulled the trigger on the Altucher’s Secret Income , but after reading several reports, it seems like a waste .
I went ahead and jumped in on the crypto trader report he is pitching . First disappointment, the scripted teaser ad stated he will give his weekly pics, but turns out its only one report a month. So tag me in April 2018 and I will let you know if it was worth it. ( BTW if you click through the scripted version and move your curser towards the “x” to close page , you will get an offer pop up offer $500 for 1/4 instead of 2k for annual. )
I noticed the same thing about the Crypto Trader, and because he is so sales tacky I opted to believe he wasn’t being completely honest about his service. I want to hear from people out actually getting some results.
I’m a subscriber of the crypto report. I’ve divided the price up between two other investors so the premium was cheaper. I like the information we’ve received thus far but remember this particular report isn’t for instant gains it’s for creating wealth over a 3-5 year period based on how much of a coin you own. With that being the case and with the coins we’ve all purchased thus far that have actually been extremely stable versus other garbage coins that get a lot of hype I’m absolutely satisfied with this report but of course won’t know if it’s worth what we’re paying until we get a few years down the road. His new report however that shows selling naked puts seems a bit disingenuous because I think it’s aimed at people who aren’t necessarily well versed in trading but may have moderately sized brokerage accounts. I also don’t think he really stresses exactly the level of risk involved when it comes to selling options versus buying them. If you get some overzealous trader who just starts selling 10 contracts to get thousands of dollars in premiums not realizing how much he’s on the hook for if things go awry, it can literally bankrupt someone. Just the same though I do like Altucher, I think he’s a very intelligent person and I do enjoy hearing what he has to say about certain topics, crypto especially. However I think we would have to hear from someone whose used the “secret income” report for a year or so to really get a solid review of how well that particular service performs. I personally buy calls and puts versus selling them at this time because I know exactly how much my risk is and how much I can lose versus having options exercised on me at a later date for thousands of dollars if I’m naked and not covered on the option.
Please see my reply to Mike, who replied to Diane’s comment dated Oct 26, 2017. I screwed up and spent the 2 grand. I also did a trial on his crypto report but got my money back. Bitcoin was going to 100K by the end of 2018 at that time according to him. These services advice change like the wind. You can get equal or better advice on youtube for FREE!
I have nit gotten one useful idea on crypto from this self called comedian,not one
Woul loved your get my money back and unsubscribe
Charge-back the money by calling the card customer service number you used to buy the subscription. Contest the charge based on the grounds that his marketing is deceptive and does not deliver the content as promised. When enough consumers do this, the card brands will eventually shut him down. He’ll only be able to accept crypto…. But wait, that already happened to him! And he made it seem as if he designed the sale of his book a few years back that way on purpose. Rumplestiltskin. Altucher is a shameless, self aggrandized marketer with little substance who has no qualm whatsoever in taking your money so that he can spoon feed you more hype and take more of your money. It amazes me how much vacuous fluff this guy produces. Don’t give that guy the time of day, let alone a dime of your money.
i ubsubscribed and got a refund.Thankful for no more emails from this faker.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for contacting me.
I have received your request to cancel your subscription and I am taking care of it today. We appreciate you taking the time to give it a shot.
You will receive a full refund of $89.00. This will be refunded via the original payment source provided.
Please allow 3-5 business days for credit card refunds. Check refunds may take up to three weeks to be returned.
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Agora Financial
Choose Yourself Financial
Seven Figure Publishing
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Yeah, I read above you vitally need a lot of money to invest which they don’t tell you for some reason. Anyone can send reports in crypto, smh. Thanks.
So, what’s the outcome?
Jeff – any update on the Crypto trader?
Can any one tell me Altucher’s Crypto Trader recommendation he claims is worth .24 cents and will soon skyrocket.
the only crypto around that price that looks interesting is LRC
loopring ethereum
I unsubscribed to Altucher and got a refund.One sales pitch after another was too muvh crap to wade through.
I was thinking about subscribing to “Altucher’s Secret Income” in order to take the opposite side of these trades, buying the puts that newsletter readers are being urged to sell, not because I think the trades recommended are necessarily bad ones, but because a bunch of people selling puts with the same underlying, strike price and expiration at the market open on the same date is likely to move the price of the recommended option.
In particular, I was thinking of entering combination orders: buy the put, sell the matching call, buy the underlying stock, and require a tiny profit for the trade, or simpler but riskier orders, such as just offering to buy the put for less than historical volatility and Altucher’s analysis suggest it’s worth, or putting on some other combination order that would at least be approximately delta neutral, such as buying the put and enough underlying to start out delta neutral, or trading some kind of spread at an advantageous price.
I never pulled the trigger on this idea because I doubt the opportunity would be big enough to be worth the newsletter subscription cost and my time, but I mention the idea now in case someone who is more optimistic about it wants to pursue it. Doing so would probably help the other subscribers get their orders filled.
Buying and selling stock options seems more the playground of the seasoned floor person whose market trading experience can handle the calculations easily because of their familiarity with putting on endless trades. Total exposure to the details of placing trades would give ease of handling and insight to whether or not one is reasonable to make. Altucher’s gimmicky attraction using a stranger on the street is based on the naievete that the money is awarded immediately and is yours after the expiration time period has passed. They don’t go into the details of what transpires if the option chosen goes out of the money after you’ve gotten your pittance.
Adam, I think the spread on the options will more than eat up any potential profit. Floor traders, who have a membership at the exchange may be able to capitalize on these opportunities because there cost is so low relative to what we retail traders pay. If you do spot an occasional trade with a decent profit, I would expect the opportunity would not last long. You would need a fast trigger finger to catch these few trades before the floor spotted and took the trade.
To: http://www.gumshoe.com 4/08/2018
James’ pitch threw me for a loop. I was assured that NO money would be needed to make the trades and that I’d make $500-$700 on the put trades. And then find out that I need $14,000 to open my options account to be able to trade or $3,500 account to make smaller trades, smaller profits. OH NO, I’m up shits Creek. I don’t have any money to make the trades, and I’ve gotten involved with a LIFETIME purchase price for his “Secret Income” Plan. OMG. I’m freaked. I only have the money for the purchase because It sounded like I’d make it in return in a month.
It wasn’t said anywhere in his site that I have to purchase anything except his plan. I don’t know what to do. He said it’s not a ”too good to be true” story and his history is trustworthy. But, How can information that important be just LEFT OUT of the story.
That’s terrible, Terri — yes, the fact that people sell “option selling” strategies as “free income” is unconscionable… if you’re selling put options, you’re essentially selling insurance, and selling insurance requires a large pool of capital to ensure that you can back up the claims if something bad happens. Options newsletters often disappoint in real life, too, because you can’t suggest that 500 people all enter the same illiquid trade at the same time without blowing up the price, but they especially disappoint when it turns out that they were selling a magic system to people who don’t know the basics of options trading.
Insert your hackneyed saying here: “There is no free lunch” … “it takes money to make money”…. etc.
And if you want to learn about options trading and the risks and rewards thereof, which are real (though not magical), start with some basic books or tutorials. There are some good basic options videos distributed by Khan Academy here, for example, though there are probably lots of other good ones… and most brokers offer up pretty good options education.
Terri, You definitely need to cancel your subscription from this weasel. Hopefully there’s still time left to allow that. I’m sick of all the weasels at Agora Financial and the likes. If they can skim just a little from a lot of of us, they get fat. Truth is if “they” can make much more money peddling their subscription services to us than they make following their own financial advice. Good Luck!!
I called customer service before deciding to buy the Secret Income. They told me that the recommended amount for it to work is $20,000 which I didn’t have (that was about a year ago). I think that they must give this information in the FAQ and not only when you call and ask.
one sales pitch after another, daily even. no money made here or ideas on how to make any. Waste of time and cash
I will no longer consider anything from agora financial.thevonly saving grace us that I do get a refund from them
How did you get your refund for the Altucher report? Who do you have to contact as I read another post somewhere saying they make it really difficult to get a refund
Wasn’t hard. Just call the phone number they supplied during the business hours for east coast.
i called them
for a refund you have to call the number on the web page to cancel
Ay Dave, I just joined the crypto one, also get sick of all the other sales talk, Does he ever give out anything that can make money period? I’m in for three months or 550.00 Bucks. Will see and then cancel before 3 months ends if no good. Its a shame all those smarts he has just to scam us? Hard for me to believe it, will see. Saw the main list and I could have made that list myself other than a few cheap ones which could turn out. I read another scam who knows that its all going to zero bu july 22 of this year and government will ban 99 percent of all Crypto’s. Maybe that is slowing it to a halt right now if its true. One would not be able to buy or sell any crypto? How would they control China/Binance? But then again I hear it’s all countries due to loosing to much monies, LOL same ole, It could be true. What good would it be if all countries even Russia bans all at once. Of course they will have their own crypto’s Like FED coin, look it up. Who knows its confusing but make sense if can’t tax it.
I called customer service before deciding to buy the Altucher’s Secret Income. They told me that the recommended amount for it to work is $20,000 which I didn’t have (that was about a year ago). I think that they must give this information in the FAQ and not only when you call and ask.
So I kept on the loop and joined another one of his advertised options called The Million Dollar Project (by Bob Byrne) where they give information related to stocks that are going to have a good rise using a strategy called special occasions trading.
I also joined another service which is cheaper at $50 per month called the 3 Minute Daily Trade (also by Bob Byrne). They also give you the option for a lifetime membership for $500 (later by email).
The Million Dollar Project is $3,000 a year and sometimes $2,000 when there are special promotions and if you try to leave the page they offer you a 3-month trial ($750 when $3,000 and $550 when $2,000). The 15 minutes countdown is not real, you can buy even if it goes to 0 (in my experience).
With these strategies, you need less money to start, but the returns are proportional to how much you invest. So if you do your calculations I think that most of these services will work better for people who have at least $10,000 to start with and the 3 months won’t be enough to allocate all your money if you follow the recommendations. You also get better brokers options when you start with $10,000 (better commissions and more options).
I also called to ask what was the minimum amount and in this case, they just told me the amount I want to invest, which is true but I will explain why is better to start with more.
The recommendations are good, you can see all the decisions from the portfolio in the past so you can check that everything is legit and what worked and what didn’t, it is transparent. If you start with a good amount of capital you will be able to make more than what you invest in the membership.
In The Million Dollar Project, there are some stock recommendations that gave more than 40% returns in less than 2 months. Normally the recommendation is to invest 1% up to 2% of your money dedicated to this strategy, so let’s say that you want to recover the investment on the first year and you won a 40% return on a stock recommendation:
$10,000 x 2% = $200
$200 x 40% = $80
$2,000 (cost of 1 year membership) / $80 (return of 1 stock at 40%) = 25 (number of stock opportunities you need on a year to break even).
So if you have $10,000, you will need 25 opportunities with stocks that give you a 40% return during the year just to break even.
Let’s do the calculations with a bigger starting capital:
$100,000 x 2% = $2,000
$2,000 x 40% = $800
In this case, you will break even with just 3 stocks giving a 40% return.
The thing is you can learn a lot from the analysis and what they show you related to the research of the stock. You will get recommendations and also explanations about why they chose the stock. So this, for somebody that is just starting, can be very useful.
With the 3 Minute Daily Trade, you get a recommendation almost every weekday. The returns are less and the time you have to hold a stock is also less. Anyway is better to have a good amount of capital if not the brokers’ commissions will suck your profits ($3 for buying and $3 for selling can add up when you are doing a lot of trades and don’t have a lot of capital).
I also think that they can be more open to recommending a certain amount to start with and that this is not for everybody. Their copy is directed to people that don’t know much, so you find out about many of the things required after joining, which can be very stressful if you bought thinking you will get your money back fast.
So their services are overpriced if you don’t have enough capital but can be very useful if you already know what you are doing and just want additional help or a better strategy.
The 3 Minute Daily Trade has been of great help for me, I bought the lifetime option so now it is a fixed price and not a variable one and I can recover it in the next months with the recommendations given.
It is special situations and not special ocassions.
I have made some money from his trades but currently one of his trade recommendations isn’t in the portfolio and unfortunately the price has tanked with this recent market downswing so in a couple weeks I will likely be owning the stock at a not so great price compared to where it will be on expiration, however it is a good company and stock for the long term. This has happened one other time but again, it was a good stock and I have made my money back. What I don’t like is his customer service NEVER answers my questions. Only says this is being sent on to James and then crickets, I hear nothing so James if you read these things your customer service stinks, this is true for any of the newsletters I have signed up for.. For example if you made a recommendation but didn’t make the actual trade for some reason (and that is why its not listed in the portfolio) that should be revealed to your audience or its an SEC violation since you are not a certified to make these recommendations. So please get a new customer service team or answer your emails.
Am I that immune to boredom? I am a fast reader and occasional proofreader of scientific research articles, maybe I became resistant to the hypnotic wordy offer that says: “Also, you could do this with almost any amount to start… but I really feel it’s going to work best for you if you’ve already got at least $20,000 in cash in your account.” towards the fourth fifth of the far TOO long page.
I feel like I’m the only biped on Earth who read it. I also feel that what he feels will work best for you is his way of warning you it will gets crappier results with less to invest (My case, early repayment of mortgage. Yeah! Quite the credit bubble. Well, at least I’m home. A year ago or a year from now I’d try it.)
I am as neutral as it gets on this. I can’t use it. But it can be done, I heartily recommend it to all investors with his $641,00+ in their account. It makes quite a safe cushion if you have to hold a few ten thousands for a time. (It ain’t me! /C.C.R.) It would assasinate the minimal $3,400 as the only cushion if you have to hold for long.
I’ve been in Secret Income for 6 months now. Yes, it’s better if you have at least 20k in or more. It would be best if you could have around 40-50k to be able to take every trade. Now days he starts you off with 5 days of light training on zoom, 1 hour a day and on day 5 everyone makes a trade together. I made 800+ on that one. We funded our starting accounts with 7500k to be able to do that.
The next recommendation was the first one we all did on our own, I sold a put on 100 shares instead of the recommended amount, just to test the waters. I got assigned that put in the end, so I’m glad I didn’t buy more. In fact I’m still holding those 100 share months later, it never did go back up. He issued an alert for us to do something with it before it expired, but I didn’t understand how to do that, since our training was very light and basic and I haven’t taken any of the option trading courses or technical analysis courses to expand my knowledge, so I rode it out, to be assigned. I then sat out for a month and watched the trades, they looked good on paper so I jumped in and made 10k in the next 3 months. So, the trades he recommends via text are valid.
It was fun to be rocking and rolling, and then we hit a rough spot with the crazy markets and I ended up being assigned 6 trades. Which took up alot of capital and I wasn’t able to take the next 3 recommendations Eventually some of the stock went back up and I was able to sell them, bringing my profit down to about 8k.
I would say for the beginner it’s a great learning adventure and gives you some experience. I certainly have not lost any of my principal, only some of my profit thus far. And of course, the experience has taught me that I need to start learning technical analysis and take some options training.