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Yes, been there, done that...long time ago. Feel much the same way...
And, yet...
A young college student acquaintence in Texas took KR to heart and ran a
small account, following his 1-2-3 to nearly 1 mil in less than a year.
Apparently, he didn't know any better. Eh? I have since quit mouthing
about others.
Jerry
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> From: Robert Must <rmust@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Omega Mailng List <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: Jake "the Snake" Bernstein and K. Roberts & Re: Promoters
> Date: Friday, February 27, 1998 10:42 AM
>
> Sir,
>
> These guys do you an enormous favour! They supply pigs.
> They feed you. You should send them a letter of a deep
> appreciation!
>
> (Nothing personal. Do not want to disappoint anyone.)
>
> The truth is out there...
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: hans esser [mailto:he96@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: February 27, 1998 11:05 AM
> > To: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Jake "the Snake" Bernstein and K. Roberts
> >
> >
> > as seen on the FORBES webpage - FYI, rgds hans
> >
> > c 1998 Forbes Inc. Terms, Conditions and Notices
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > Commodity shark
> >
> > By William Green
> >
> > JAKE BERNSTEIN is not alone. Another prominent purveyor of hype is Ken
> > Roberts, a college dropout and former life insurance salesman. Roberts
> > convinces neophytes that they can become successful traders with a
> > grubstake of only $1,000.
> >
> > In 1983 he self-published The World's Most Powerful Money Manual &
> > Course, a mail-order book that intersperses tips on futures with
> > platitudes about getting "everything you want (mentally, physically,
> > and spiritually)." He claims to have sold more than 300,000 copies. At
> > $195 each, that adds up to nearly $60 million.
> >
> > Roberts, who touts futures trading as "the world's one perfect
> > business," charges $2,695 for his advanced trading seminar. He hawks
> > trading charts, a course on options, a newsletter and his novel, The
> > Rich Man's Secret.
> >
> > He also owns a piece of a California brokerage firm, Main Street
> > Trading. It charges commissions so highù$95 a tradeùthey virtually
> > assure that most small active traders will lose money.
> >
> > The hype has paid off for Roberts. It has brought him tens of millions
> > of dollars and an Oregon mansion with a cigar room. But where are the
> > customers' mansions? ûW.G.
> >
> > <Picture> By William Green
> > <Picture> Management, Strategies, Trends
> > <Picture> From March 09, 1998 Issue
> >
> > c 1998 Forbes Inc. Terms, Conditions and Notices
> >
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> >
> > There's one born every minute
> >
> > By William Green
> >
> > "I'M TEACHING YOU SOMETHING that I know works," says Jake Bernstein.
> > "It's real simple." Bernstein, 51, is in a Washington, D.C. hotel
> > meeting room mesmerizing an audience of aspiring futures traders.
> >
> > Want to make a killing trading futures? All you need to know, says
> > Bernstein, is that many seasonal price patterns occur year after year.
> > Buy live hog futures on Oct. 30 and sell on Nov. 27. That's a trade
> > that would have made you money almost every year in recent decades, he
> > claims. Bet on the S&P 500 March contract to rise from Jan. 12 through
> > Jan. 18. For 15 years, he says, this trade was a winner 93% of the
> > time.
> >
> > Does anyone believe his nonsense? Unfortunately, yes. Intoxicated by
> > the promise of easy money, audience members line up to buy Bernstein's
> > products, among them his books, with titles like The Seasonal Trader's
> > Bible and The Best of Bernstein: A Treasure Chest of Jake Bernstein's
> > Market Wisdom.
> >
> > His monthly newsletter costs $400 annually; his weekly newsletter
> > costs $895 a year. He sells three other newsletters, plus video
> > courses and a CD-ROM ($695) that lists 60,000 seasonal trades. He
> > offers telephone hot lines and charges up to $2,500 per person for his
> > two-day seminars.
> >
> > Yes, you can fool some of the people all of the time. Commodity
> > Traders Consumer Report, a respected futures publication, tracks the
> > trades Bernstein recommends in his $895 flagship newsletter. If you
> > had acted on these weekly tips from 1988 through 1992, you would have
> > lost money for five consecutive years (assuming typical transaction
> > costs).
> >
> > Let's say you set up a $20,000 trading account in 1992 and executed
> > the newsletter's recommended trades for that year. Your account would
> > have been wiped out. In 1996 you would have lost 95% of a $20,000
> > account. Bernstein's response: "There are always losing periods."
> >
> > He professes to be an expert on the psychology of trading. His
> > qualifications? In registering with the Commodity Futures Trading
> > Commission, the Montreal-raised Bernstein wrote that he held a
> > master's degree in psychology from Chicago's Roosevelt University. In
> > fact, he never completed his master's studies.
> >
> > In the 1980s Bernstein hooked up with an outfit called Robbins Trading
> > and helped to manage futures accounts for investors. James Roemer, who
> > comanaged money with Bernstein, says: "Jake is brilliant, but he can't
> > manage money to save his life. . . . He'd get scared, buy at highs and
> > sell at lows. . . . He kept losing money."
> >
> > Bernstein found an easier way to get rich. Instead of just trading
> > futures he would trade on investor gullibility. In 1996 he starred in
> > an infomercial that has aired on nearly 400 TV stations. It hypes a
> > video course ($180) called Trade Your Way to Riches. In it a farmer
> > named Harold Henkel tells viewers how well Bernstein's approach has
> > worked for him. Henkel, however, now admits that he lost money trading
> > in 1996 and 1997 while using Bernstein's products.
> >
> > On his Web site Bernstein offers to set up customers with his
> > "personal" brokers at Fox Investments, a division of the Chicago
> > brokerage firm Rosenthal Collins Group.
> >
> > Suppose you take Bernstein's recommendation and set up an account at
> > Fox with $5,000-the minimum that Bernstein says you need to become a
> > trader. Your commissions would be $60 to $80 per trade, about three
> > times more than savvy retail customers pay. Bernstein's weekly
> > newsletter offered 195 recommended trades last year. At that rate, a
> > small trader's commissions alone might amount to more than double his
> > or her original investment. Needless to say, Bernstein receives a
> > slice of the brokerage's commissions. A Fox broker appeared in
> > Bernstein's infomercial, touting his seasonal trading approach.
> >
> > Says Bernstein: "There's no arguing with history." Say we: Where are
> > the regulators when you need them?
> >
> > <Picture> By William Green
> > <Picture> Management, Strategies, Trends
> > <Picture> From March 9, 1998 Issue
> >
> > c 1998 Forbes Inc. Terms, Conditions and Notices
> >
> > ~~~~~
> > Did YOU eat your BEEF today ?
> >
> >
>
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