I never saw his advertisement, but I just found Michael Parness' book at Amazon: "After losing most of his savings by following a stockbroker's advice, Parness opened an online trading account in January 1999 and turned $33,000 into several million dollars in less than a year. He now owns the financial Web site http://TrendFund.com, one of many paid subscription-trading services. His advice here is blunt and honest: the stock market is a game; trading involves a lot of research, persistence and hard work; it is definitely not for everyone; and don't trust the analysts, because "all analysts suck." The sense of humor he brings to his trading rules makes this easy to read, even if he doesn't come up with any earth-shattering revelations that will guarantee success. He sticks to the basic strategies of trend following: "fading the gap," using protective stops, going short as easily as going long, and disciplined money management. He is particularly amusing in his chapter "Hot Tips from Hell," a clever take on how bad advice leads to surefire losses."
It's definitely a caveat emptor deal. Some article a while ago had a pretty good quote about the whole "turning $33,000 into millions" thing - something like "...if I put $30,000 on the pass line at a craps table at Caeser's and threw a seven and then let everything ride six more times and each time threw a seven or eleven, I'd walk away with millions - but would you want to learn how to gamble for a living from me?...". Don't know if he just got lucky piling up tech stocks during the bubble or if he's really the top tier trader that's claimed. All I can say is that I tried his "service" a year or so ago and fealt ripped off. Also, I'm skeptical of any service where the trader is always in and out of every trade before the entry/exit is called to the paying group and where bad trades are dismissed after the fact with something like "everyone should have exited that XXX trade for a nickel loss". I also couldn't digest the constant stream of "who's your daddy", "Kachingo", and all the other crap. Personally, I just fealt the whole thing wasn't professional. And now that I've seen the infomercial, it's all much clearer BTW, Rigel - it's not $29 - that's just the come on - you pay that upfront (plus shipping and handling presumably) to get his tape and then if you keep it 30 days they hit you for $200 after the fact and presumably want to sell you even more tapes that cost $50-200 each and also try to sell you on the $250-400/month "service". At least Don Lapre and Carlton Sheets don't come off like bozos when they're hyping in their infomercials.:eek: But, as always, to each their own.
You thing it is embarassing watching a clown like Waxie, just think of what shread of dignity went up in the air for Joe Theismann, a former superstar, who has now turned into the infomercial pawn...sad indeed
Since were on the subject... Has anyone caught the info commercial LEARN "2" SPREAD TRADE (as opposed to "directional" trading as they say in the commercial) For only 3 payments of 59.95 we will teach you how 2 "spread" trade the markets. But wait act now & we will make one of those payments for you so its only 2 payments of 59.95. They use an example of a stock that is supposed to beat earnings but doesn't & drops 20 points. If you new how to "spread" trade, Instead of losing 40%(because of coarse you had all your money in this one stock), you have made 150% WOW! This commercial brings some great late night humor if any of you catch it...They never mention the word "option" once.
Some of the best material was Jake Bernstein's "Seasonals" which ran on the tube back in 1997-98 before the NFA got a little ticked off and decided to fine him $500,000 and lift the commercials permanently off the air...The basic theme of the show(which was just a few punchlines away from being an SNL skit) was that if u just opened up Jake's book and looked at that day of the year entered a buy if it was seasonally bullish or sell if seasonally bearish u would make out like a bandit...In their pathetic attempt to find the most ordinary and downright moronic people available in this country, they showed one guy straight out of the barn saying, "geez, dat dem jake, all I dew is look at dem seasonals, call me broker and watch the money pour in"...The whole thing was so bad, I guess the NFA took it off the air because it just embarrased the industry...
just recently got an email from trendfund, that they have 1700 paying subscribers. Now I understand where all the kachingos are comming from.
...it also explains why he likes to pump light volume shares. Imagine even half of those members going with his signal with 1000 shares?