My father @ 89 yrs old and having suffered as we all have during these last few months with the 'down Dow' is now contemplating going for one of the many financial advisory services that lure you in with small 'secrets' [with big return$], if you just subscribe to their newsletters and start off with super deals and tell you what to buy and then you have to pay more to know when to sell stocks.

His latest get rich dispite the 'down Dow' is Stansberry & Associates.

there have been others.....Whiskey & Gunpowder, DailyWealth, Investopedia Advisor ...to name a few.

My gut feelings are that if they have the 'secret', they will keep it to theirselves, but my father is [almost] convinced to invest thou$ands to get the 'secret', then more investing in 'the secret'.

Any comments, suggestions, or recomendations for advising a vulnurable 89 yr old investor, or has anyone had any experiences with any of the above mentioned firms???

Any comments, suggestions, or recomendations for advising a vulnurable 89 yr old investor......

You might just want to mention one name to him:

Bernard Madoff

My personal opinion on this is that it is very unlikely to be worth the investment.

Professionally I conduct due diligence, fraud investigations and related work. I have often conducted investigations on boiler room ops and similar schemes. What they do well generally (although I have seen some awful examples) is market themselves filling the internet with their own comments and press releases, and it is not just the greedy that get caught, so to that end you need to research them in some depth and ignore what they or their affiliates say about themselves.

That said there is nothing that indicates that this is a fraud, I believe it is subscription business information service, these often recycle information commonly available on the net and charge you for it with opinion that may or may not be qualified. In addition few of their editors appear to have any kind of financial license, or at least none that they claim and basic media research on the individuals will give you a lot of interesting information, much of it derogatory or negative - check comments about the Fleet Street Letter or Dr. Steve Sjuggerud.

If you wanted a professional investigation into this company then it may not be worth it given the relative investment, however you can conduct checks yourself on the company and its people just from the internet. Print these off and show them to your father and his opinion may change.

Please note this is my personal and not professional opinion and I have not gone into any depth in researching this company...I'm not getting paid.

Hope this gives you a starting point,

Luke

Edited January 7, 200917 yr by Luke06

Look, #1 these days is preservation of capital. SIPS insured = a good idea, just mind the limits per account!

Most banks etc. are just selling funds for the 5% agio plus maintenance commission of in Europe

There are ways to earn a bit more with existing stocks - writing call options (earning a fee for offering them for sale at a set price for a set monthly time. but this won't apply here.

Beware of churning = frantic trading activity. In once case, a client lost 95% due to just fees. every day, the advicor would earn commissions, trading commodities etc., and closing these positions. Good for him, bad for the client.

have your father do a proper will and consider a DNR form. Estate planning might be wise, too.

My advice would be - just play it safe and have him fill out instructions to the banks about how to allocate his balances when he dies.

At his age keep it in CD's.