Did you know that writing bullshit about market is a multi million dollar industry? There is an interesting piece on marketwatch about Investment Newsletters
"Are there some good newsletters?" said John Markese, president of the American Association of Individual Investors. "Yes, but you still have to find one."
Deciding which newsletter fits your investing needs isn't easy. Perhaps 1,000 publications in the U.S. cover a gamut of investment styles. Many are buy-and-hold stock portfolios culled from old-fashioned gumshoe analysis. Others are disciples of share-price momentum and relative strength, while some rely on elaborate market-timing formulas or sophisticated futures, options and similar leveraged products.
Newsletters typically are delivered to subscribers weekly or monthly, with interim updates via e-mail alerts, Web site access and "hotline" telephone numbers. Such an insider's pass to authoritative, expert opinion certainly sounds appealing, but sometimes a newsletter's claims and tactics are difficult to understand, let alone justify.
"We've seen just about everything," marquees said. "Newsletter writers writing something, then claiming it means something else, or writing things that could not be deciphered. Short of 'My dog ate the newsletter,' we've read it all."
The investment newsletter business is itself no dog. By some estimates the industry takes in several hundred million dollars a year in revenue, but it's essentially unregulated. A 1985 Supreme Court ruling determined that financial newsletter publishers are not investment advisers under Securities and Exchange Commission regulations; all anyone really needs to pontificate on stocks is a printer and a mailing list.
The economics of newsletter is such that it makes lot of business sense for the writers. If you are a mediocre trader it reduces your market risk by giving you steady income. There is also no dirth of gullible fools willing to pay for such garbage. The new trend I have noticed is people using the blog to build loyal readership and then convert it in to paid service.
There is a constitutional protection for newsletter writers. No wonder you find so much bullshit in them.
Newsletters are exempt from the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (according to a 1985 US Supreme Court ruling) and are not required to
* Register with the Securities and Exchange Commission as investment advisers,
* Provide proof of the number of subscribers they claim to have, nor
* Publish complete records of their past recommendations.
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