# Fat Prophets - opinions?



## Mega

Recently I have been considering to subscribe to Fat Prophets. They seems to perform quite well and their idea "Buy in gloom, sell in boom" looks like good one. In fact I've used this approach myself for long time and it worked for me. Now I have many other things to do and really keen to have someone to do such research for me. Fat Prophets seem to fit the picture. Does anyone has expirience with them? Any opinions?


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## wayneL

*Re: Fat Prohpets - opinions?*

Why do you want to pay someone else if what you are doing is already working?


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## Mega

*Re: Fat Prohpets - opinions?*

Trading stocks is not my main business any more. Researching stocks takes alot of time and it prevents me from doing other things. After 7 years in the market I think to move on. But I believe that stock market is good place to preserve the capital (sound strange but in my expirience it is primary goal of a good investor - making money is secondary goal). Thus I need someone reliable with good reputation who will do research in about same style as I did.


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## RichKid

*Re: Fat Prohpets - opinions?*

I just realised that my post sounds like fan mail for Fat Prophets! But really, I took a long time figuring out who was best I felt more comfortable with their open approach. Best Advice Is:  TRY BEFORE YOU BUY! 8)

There are a whole lot of tipsheets that give you samples. I've started another thread on Tipsheets so if you want to compare have a look.

I'm still trying out FatProphets so my opinion is still being formed but I have very little that is negative to say at the moment. They also have 30 day money back guarantee but I don't know if it's that easy to get out once they get your cash.

RichKid


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## stefan

*Re: Fat Prohpets - opinions?*

I did comment on their strategy somewhere else in this forum already. Personally I don't think you should invest with somebody like fat prophets if you don't have time to check what they are trying to recommend. In this case you would be better off investing into a professional fund rather than putting your money onto the line by following a stock tip sheet. 

You can't have it all. You either put the time into research or you leave it to somebody else. But if you do, you better make sure you know what's going on behind the doors. I VERY MUCH doubt that ANY of those stock tip companies would stand a proper investigation into their performance figures. 

My 2 cents worth of advice:
Stay well clear of these Gurus. 

Happy trading

Stefan


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## Mega

*Re: Fat Prohpets - opinions?*

Well... That's good point that no one should rush into buying stock just on recommendation of some Guru. And I believe that doing so will be act of stupidity. ;D 

I simply do not have time to do bottom up analysis, reading through balance sheets, calculating actual (which I believe is actual) company worth and comparing it with market capitalization and then reading and tracking current news about particular company. I would prefer someone to do this job, give me list of companies which fit my model and then I can do abovementioned steps only to recommended stocks.

When I read through FP site I was surprised with their "openness" but when they claim that their performance was audited by big accounting firm I would really like to have name of that company (and such company probably will want to have their name out there as well). I would like to verify their claims before I will commit my money to something which they claim to be good enough picks. I always have doubt that any tipster may be ramping up the stock for their own benefit (provided they have good number of subscribers).

On other hand I took the list of their former recommendations and recalculated their performance. If the list is actual and no bad recommendations witheld then their claim for their performance seems to be true. Probably I will be able to say for sure when I will buy up their old issues and recalculate their performance.

In my opinion there's not big difference between fund managers, tipsters + stock exchange or banks... In all cases there are three components: your money, manager, investment vehicle. They just blended different way. As combination of stock picks + stock exchange provides more flexibility than managed fund I prefer to have greater control over my capital.

Stefan: I will invest your 2 cents of advice and then will see what kind of dividents I will get...


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## Joe Blow

*Re: Fat Prohpets - opinions?*

Mega, I need you to correct the email address in your profile ASAP.

I'm getting your automated alerts for this thread bounced back at me.

Thanks!


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## starlight

*MA's and Fat Prophets*

Well since my last post I have been looking around these and other sites regarding a simple entry and exit point for some sort of system.
Seems the majority prefer moving average types, 3 13 39  5 15 30
etc. All warning of whipsaws etc. Some say include a Directional movement indicator to avoid the above.
We have ppls for and against including ROR , OBV and ADX in the above
analysis
Yes I am looking to  go down the path of Mechanical Trading.
Anyhows I am in Darwin, and last Thursday I went along to a Fat Prophets
investment evening, The two boys were there explaining their golden rules and future of gold, oil and the finance sectors.
Wasn't a bad evening.
Cheers
starlight

ps a pat on the back for the admin ppls who look after this forum.


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## RichKid

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*



			
				starlight said:
			
		

> ............Anyhows I am in Darwin, and last Thursday I went along to a Fat Prophets
> investment evening, The two boys were there explaining their golden rules and future of gold, oil and the finance sectors.
> Wasn't a bad evening.
> Cheers
> starlight
> ps a pat on the back for the admin ppls who look after this forum.




Hi Starlight, 
Welcome to ASF! Must be hot up there nowadays with summer in full swing.
Like to share what the fat boys had to say about futures, gold, oil etc?
I'm interested.

Also, thanks for the thumbs up about the admin- Joe is the main workhorse, slowly but surely taking this site to dizzy heights!!


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## starlight

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*

Hi Richkid
We dont have the four seasons here in the Top end, Its either the WET or the DRY.  The Wet is here with us now, high humidity and welcome rain at some times.  The monsoon should really wet us when it normally arrives here around Christmas.

A brief was not issued at the meeting, so I had to take notes......

The Fat Boys (your term :>) advised on avoiding the Banks, avoid the US, avoid international trusts funds portfolios.  Also avoid growth!!! I misssed the meaning of that???
The good news was LHG Lion and OSA. 
Their Golden Investment Rules were a bit contradictory, I dont believe you can have a plan and be contrarian within the same plan.


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## RichKid

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*



			
				starlight said:
			
		

> Hi Richkid
> We dont have the four seasons here in the Top end, Its either the WET or the DRY.  The Wet is here with us now, high humidity and welcome rain at some times.  The monsoon should really wet us when it normally arrives here around Christmas.
> 
> A brief was not issued at the meeting, so I had to take notes......
> 
> The Fat Boys (your term :>) advised on avoiding the Banks, avoid the US, avoid international trusts funds portfolios.  Also avoid growth!!! I misssed the meaning of that???
> The good news was LHG Lion and OSA.
> Their Golden Investment Rules were a bit contradictory, I dont believe you can have a plan and be contrarian within the same plan.




Thanks starlight, yes, I should have remembered about the tropical climate (or is it subtropical?).

Yeah, don't know what they mean by avoid growth, maybe they expect lots of volatility. They have their own hold and hope strategy, not stop losses from memory, they are all about stock selection and seem to have a good track record (I haven't audited it myself though), there is a thread here on ASF on Fat prophets that you may like to look at, do a search it should come up or ask me. LHG is already running so they're okay on that front. Will look at OSA too. Their site has lots of free tips, they publish them so that the public can jack up the price once the subscribers are on it early imo. the FP site is quite good btw.

Look forward to chatting with you more, enjoy the forums!


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## starlight

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*

Thanks Richkid
It is tropical, and we are now in our build up towards the wet.
Yes I have been to the FP site many times, but please remember FP lean towards investment not trading.
I went along to their course because it is a novelty to see such (may I say)
'talent' here in the Top End re ASX.
Is that right? you have posted 1700 odd posts here?
oh dont forget Lion 
cheers
sl


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## kerosam

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*

hi fellows, thought i'd chip in a bit...

i subscribe to Fat Prophets weekly recommendations. bought about 5 stocks on your recommendation list but sold out all but one. they seem to be investors more than traders. my subscription finishes next june or will be monitoring their performance.

starlight, missed the seminar in darwin by the fat boys... was down with a flu bug. i hope the coming wet season is forgiving... can't take another cyclone warning.


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## starlight

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*

Hi Kerosam
You sound a bit worried if we do have a cyclone warning, sounds like you experienced Tracey.


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## RichKid

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*



			
				starlight said:
			
		

> Thanks Richkid
> It is tropical, and we are now in our build up towards the wet.
> Yes I have been to the FP site many times, but please remember FP lean towards investment not trading.,,,




Hi Starlight,
Yes, investment is there ethos. I've posted a lot but that doesn't mean quality I'm afraid! I like fat prophets explanations and general layout.
I notice they have some big winners, and some big losers and don't use stop losses, that's a worry but they must be doing well with this bull market.
Interesting to discuss these tipsheets....


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## It's Snake Pliskin

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*

Starlight,
I like the avatar!

"Don't go for growth...."
I like that one. The industry is designed to beat you into submission just to support those who have interests in the industry. 

Snake


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## kerosam

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets- starlight & snake pliskin*

Starlight,

only here for about two years but the stress i got from Ingrid was bad enough. hope the early down pour this season will minimise the build up peak early next year.

Snake pliskin, i think it is a good idea to discuss about Fat prophets recommendations... to get others' opinions. i hold GGN, one of their recommendations. Got them at 33 cents and was glad there are finally some up movement after 2 months. Telstra was a disaster.

how about yourself?

note: would we start a new thread instead?


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## It's Snake Pliskin

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets- starlight & snake pliskin*



			
				kerosam said:
			
		

> Starlight,
> 
> only here for about two years but the stress i got from Ingrid was bad enough. hope the early down pour this season will minimise the build up peak early next year.
> 
> Snake pliskin, i think it is a good idea to discuss about Fat prophets recommendations... to get others' opinions. i hold GGN, one of their recommendations. Got them at 33 cents and was glad there are finally some up movement after 2 months. Telstra was a disaster.
> 
> how about yourself?
> 
> note: would we start a new thread instead?




Kerosam,
I'm not sure what your last line means but I don't subscribe to any tipsters or recommendation companies.


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## starlight

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets*

I dont subscribe to any either Kerosam.
Am working on a mechanical trading plan, I think thats what it is refered to here. I wish to stop being influenced by the newspapers and other media  regarding the markets.


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## RichKid

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets- starlight & snake pliskin*



			
				kerosam said:
			
		

> Snake pliskin, i think it is a good idea to discuss about Fat prophets recommendations... to get others' opinions. i hold GGN, one of their recommendations. Got them at 33 cents and was glad there are finally some up movement after 2 months. Telstra was a disaster.
> 
> how about yourself?
> 
> note: would we start a new thread instead?




Hi Kerosam,
I was thinking of starting a new thread and then realised it would be easier to merge this thread with an existing one on fat prophets, so here we are, all the fat prophets discussion in one thread. There's also a thread on the Fat Prophets listed investment company called the fat fund in the ASX stock chat forum.


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## RichKid

*Re: MA's and Fat Prophets- starlight & snake pliskin*



			
				kerosam said:
			
		

> Snake pliskin, i think it is a good idea to discuss about Fat prophets recommendations... to get others' opinions. i hold GGN, one of their recommendations. Got them at 33 cents and was glad there are finally some up movement after 2 months. Telstra was a disaster.
> 
> how about yourself?
> 
> note: would we start a new thread instead?




Hi Kerosam,
I was thinking of starting a new thread and then realised it would be easier to merge this thread with an existing one on fat prophets, so here we are, all the fat prophets discussion in one thread. There's also a thread on the Fat Prophets listed investment company (LIC) called the 'fat fund' in the ASX stock chat forum: https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=967&highlight=fat+fund.


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## kerosam

personally, reading and obtaining recommendations from research companies such as Fat Prophets helped me understand a bit on T/A and F/A and charting.... as a newbie who got no idea of investing or trading, info from these research companies do give me some bit of education and some directions... imho.

anyhow on Fat Fund, did bought them at $1 NTA was then 98 cts, now its about $1.03 or something... sold them to buy some specs. each and every month fat prophets inform holders on new buys and so forth (and their reason for the investment)... FATS was 93 cts few months ago and bounced back to 97 t 98cts range.... yet to see it hit above $1.05.


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## carpets

*Re: Fat Prophets - Opinions*



			
				kerosam said:
			
		

> personally, reading and obtaining recommendations from research companies such as Fat Prophets helped me understand a bit on T/A and F/A and charting.... as a newbie who got no idea of investing or trading, info from these research companies do give me some bit of education and some directions... imho.




Ive been following the fat prophets reports for about a 2 years, and as a relatively new investor in the stock market, their research has been pretty good. I usually buy on most of their recommendations, but have been  stung a few times (most recently on MSC). From my limited experiece, (and i think most people will tell you this!) you need to conduct your own research and make your own judgements on whether a stock is worth investing in. Its encouraging to look at some of the success stories from the guys at fat and also to look at their annualised returns on all of the stocks they invest in. Its worth noting they have only been in the red a few times over the entire time they have been putting out their recommendations.  
For me, its been a good starter to know what stocks are worth looking at and to have some experienced (or more experienced than me) people give what seem, accurate reports and recommendations.
Carpets.


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## RichKid

I'd like to see the fat prophets recommendation history put to the test using the vital stats we use to calculate expectancy etc and see it all as an equity curve with a full system test. If any current subscriber is able to do that that'll be great, I'm sure people like TechA will be happy to help as he loves fiddling with this stuff.


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## kerosam

richkid, how do you intend to do that? I can check out their history of buy and sell of stocks, if that's what you mean.


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## tech/a

Rich

In "Safe Stratagies for Financial Freedom" by Van Tharp,Barton and Sjuggerud

They explain "How" to trade newletters and stock picking services.
Combine their principals with that of Radges in his book
"Adaptive Analysis" and I believe that any fundamental trader can be very profitable.


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## Milk Man

> In "Safe Stratagies for Financial Freedom" by Van Tharp,Barton and Sjuggerud
> 
> They explain "How" to trade newletters and stock picking services.
> Combine their principals with that of Radges in his book
> "Adaptive Analysis" and I believe that any fundamental trader can be very profitable.



 Ive heard this reffered to as fishing. I wonder if these newsletter punks hold their small cap recommendations before they ramp them in their newsletters. That would be illegal would it not?

 That Rivkin's nose must be pretty sore since he picks winners 70% of the time. :


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## RichKid

kerosam said:
			
		

> richkid, how do you intend to do that? I can check out their history of buy and sell of stocks, if that's what you mean.




We'd just need the vital stats (ie entry price, date, exit price, capital allocated (fp have criteria by which they measure their performance- ie $2k a pop etc). Start at inception, all the past reports are there. This is only for a dedicated systems tester/student as it'll take time, I'm happy to chip in with manual data entry type stuff as we can just share a spread sheet or something around, I don't have the experience or skills to do it all- we'd best do it offline or by email/pm. It'll take the subscriber time to record all the details (I don't subscribe), maybe we can just do it upto the end of the last financial year or end of this calendar year. The software can then filter the results (eg performance by closed trades only, or performance for financial year or calendar year, maximum drawdown etc)

I was intrigued by what Nick Radge had in his book about how a tip sheet boasted it had 70% accuracy (winners) etc but had no positive expectancy. I'm keen to see how the prophets measure up- it'll probably help subscribers too as they'll know where they stand. 

Tech,
Thanks, I've also noted Guppy's suggestions in his books, I'm keener on Nick's views but would use a tip sheet as the universe to focus on before filtering out some to find low-risk set ups. Most tip sheets have the same stocks anyhow.


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## kerosam

richkid,

i'll see what i can do... i just want to make sure that the info provided will not be unfair to prophets subscribers and the prophets themselves. will probably do it thru email....

note: might take a while.


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## tech/a

RichKid said:
			
		

> Tech,
> I'm keener on Nick's views but would use a tip sheet as the universe to focus on before filtering out some to find low-risk set ups. Most tip sheets have the same stocks anyhow.





You can use the first 55 pages of Nicks book (The Holy grail of the book in my view) when trading ANY trading methodology even selections from investment newsletters.


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## RichKid

Milk Man said:
			
		

> I wonder if these newsletter punks hold their small cap recommendations before they ramp them in their newsletters. That would be illegal would it not?




The prophets do have list of them (they list the stocks) it's in the disclosure section but they don't say when they bought or sold or anything else- guess we're just suckers.


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## RichKid

kerosam said:
			
		

> richkid,
> 
> i'll see what i can do... i just want to make sure that the info provided will not be unfair to prophets subscribers and the prophets themselves. will probably do it thru email....
> 
> note: might take a while.




It sure will be time consuming but then you'll know how to better manage their picks- you're just applying the mgmt/mathematical analysis methods mentioned by Nick in his book (as Tech says) but we need to do the stats first.
I don't think we should have it public either (ie details of recs) as it would clearly be unfair to paying subscribers. Just figures would help with maybe equity charts, if at all. 

PM if you need help and I'll chip in via email. Glad you have experience in testing etc so you'll know what to do. Keen to see how they measure up as they have one of the leading 'headline' percentage returns in the tipping sector, and they are not cheap.


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## Dan_

Here's a brief summary of some of the Fat Boys picks thanks to E*Trade

I checked this before and there were a lot of negatives prior to this summary.

I just dumped into excel and tidied it up a little


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## mlennox

mega if your short on time divise a purely technical trading strategy based around say 5 indicators will cost you 30mins a night, ive made over 40% since august trading a system like this, short position times 1day to a week


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## RichKid

Dan_ said:
			
		

> Here's a brief summary of some of the Fat Boys picks thanks to E*Trade
> 
> I checked this before and there were a lot of negatives prior to this summary.
> 
> I just dumped into excel and tidied it up a little




Thanks Dan, very interesting, obviously it'll take a lot of work to fully analyse their work...I'm sure they've got figures themselves locked away somewhere.


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## michael_selway

Dan_ said:
			
		

> Here's a brief summary of some of the Fat Boys picks thanks to E*Trade
> 
> I checked this before and there were a lot of negatives prior to this summary.
> 
> I just dumped into excel and tidied it up a little




Hi thanks, do u have the lastest version?

also what does it mean by "greyhound/cattledog/labrador"?

Thanks

MS


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## RichKid

michael_selway said:
			
		

> Hi thanks, do u have the lastest version?
> 
> also what does it mean by "greyhound/cattledog/labrador"?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> MS




The fp site has explanations in the free section.


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## kerosam

I've picked their top 3 and bottom 3 (in returns). I've also omitted those companies that went broke. Not in any order:

Company          Buy            Sell

MSC               $0.154       $ 0.029
TMS               $0.75        $0.085
SBM                $0.22        $0.045

MCC                $1.25         $6.60
AHD                $2.04          $4.33
CTX                $2.15          $8.72

They have a new mining and resource section. If you are a subscriber, check it out.


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## bunyip

Fat Profits policy of buying in gloom and selling in boom might be OK for a long term investor, but its not a sound policy for an active trader. Depends on what you want to be.....trader or investor. There's a big difference between the two.

Regardless of how bright the future prospects of a stock might be, as an active trader I can't think of a worse strategy than buying a stock that's drifting aimlessly, going nowhere, or worse still heading south. And then hanging on and hoping, (for God knows how long) that it's price is going to turn around and start giving me a decent return on my investment. 
Similarly, I can't think of a worse strategy than selling a stock because its booming. If its trending strongly in the right direction, the prudent policy is to ride the trend as long as it continues (which is usually much longer than most people think it will be), and keep moving your trailing stop progressively higher so as to lock in increasing amounts of profit.
Limiting your losses and letting your profits run are two of the most profit- enhancing tactics that traders can use. This strategy virtually ensures that your average winner will be substantially larger than your average loser, yet few traders stick to this commonsense policy. Most of them do it the other way around......they take big losses but grab small profits too quickly before they have a chance to turn into big profits.

Some people subscribe to trading recommendation style newsletters in the belief that they themselves don't have the time to do the analysis.
But how much time does it really take to run a scan with your charting software to find strongly trending stocks that are currently retracing for a few days. Such stocks supply you with a list of candidates to put on a 'red alert' watchlist, so that you can buy them as they finish their retracement and resume their uptrend.
This type of analysis can be done on a couple of hundred stocks in about half an hour a day. Or in about an hour once a week, if you work from weekly charts. And its easy to learn how to do it......there are heaps of books available to show you how.

Fat Profits and trading newsletters in general get the thumbs down from me.
Learn how to do the analysis yourself, get yourself the right software to help you do it......its not hard to outperform the newsletters if you put a bit of time and effort into learning your craft. And it doesn't have to be a time consuming activity either.

Bunyip


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## bunyip

Mega.....You wrote:

"Researching stocks takes a lot of time and it prevents me from doing other things."

I agree - researching stocks is time consuming.
But there's a simple solution to your problem.....don't do any research. There's no need to - tens of thousands of traders and investors have already done the research for you, and their findings are reflected in the trend of the stock.

AMP fell from $13 to $3 between March 2002 and August 2003. Shortly after it's downtrend began it was patently obvious, even to someone of little experience in chart reading, that the stock was heading south east on the chart.......a downtrend. 
Why was it downtrending? Because traders and investors were quitting the stock en masse. 
Why would they do that? Because tens of thousands of them had researched the company and found out that it was in trouble, and it's future prospects were none too bright.
In which case, you could have made money from the AMP downtrend by selling the stock short, or buying put options.
Or if you owned the stock, you could have bailed out long before it's value was decimated.
The point is that you could have got quite an accurate summary of the fundamentals of AMP without spending one minute of your time doing fundamental research. Just look at the chart.....all the information you needed was graphically displayed for you.

Look at the current price action of AMP. Nice uptrend in place, particularly when viewed on the weekly chart. 
Why is it uptrending? Because tens of thousands of investors, having done their research, have formed the opinion that the stock has good fundamentals. No need for you to research AMP to profit from it - the research has already been done for you. If an uptrending stock shows temporary weakness by pulling back for a few days as profit takers bail out, 
and then the uptrend resumes as buyers come back in, it presents you with an ideal opportunity to hitch a ride on the trend and make some money.

The same sort of simple analysis and trading strategy can be applied to any liquid stock that starts uptrending or downtrending strongly.
WPL is a good example.....uptrend began in early 2003. Three years later, the stock is more than four times it's 2003 value. 
Once you saw WPL heading steadily north east on the chart, making higher peaks and higher troughs, did you really need to spend hours or days of your time doing fundamental research on it?
Thousands of investors had already researched it for you and their findings were very positive, otherwise why would they be piling into the stock and pushing it higher week after week?

A common fallacy among stock market players is that if you want to profit from the market, you have to read the financial papers, company reports, brokers newsletters etc to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments in the economy and within individual companies.
Its simply not correct.....I've been trading the markets for 10 years or so and for the last eight of those years I haven't read a financial publication, a brokers newsletter or a company report. 
The most reliable information is in the charts. Learn how to interpret them, learn how to identify trends, learn how to recognise retracements, watch for the trend to resume following the retracement. 
You won't need to spend your time doing boring company research, and you won't need to hand your hard earned money over to Fat Profits either.

If you want some good books on how to identify trends and how to hitch a ride on them, I'd suggest.....

"Dave Landry On Swing Trading" by Dave Landry

"Secrets For Profiting In Bull And Bear Markets" by Stan Weinstein

The trading methods expoused by both these men are simple to learn, easy to implement, and require very little time input from the trader or investor.

Bunyip.


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## captain black

:iagree:

I noticed that these 2 posts above are your first 2 posts here Bunyip. All I can say is keep it up, great deal of common ("uncommon" ) sense.


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## RichKid

captain black said:
			
		

> :iagree:
> 
> I noticed that these 2 posts above are your first 2 posts here Bunyip. All I can say is keep it up, great deal of common ("uncommon" ) sense.




Yes, I agree, great posts, and very clear too, keep it up Bunyip!


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## RichKid

kerosam said:
			
		

> I've also omitted those companies that went broke.




just as an aside It's important to note (imho) the ones that go bust as they do count, that's the ultimate bottom dweller imho. Thanks for the stats!


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## Julia

captain black said:
			
		

> :iagree:
> 
> I noticed that these 2 posts above are your first 2 posts here Bunyip. All I can say is keep it up, great deal of common ("uncommon" ) sense.




Hello Bunyip,

Well, aren't you a breath of fresh air! What basic common sense.  Hope you stay with us.

It will be interesting to see if your oh so sensible post meets with opposition from those who feel they have to justify their decisions with vast amounts of complicated TA or detailed reading of every last word in a company report.

Thanks and good wishes.

Julia


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## michael_selway

bunyip said:
			
		

> Mega.....You wrote:
> 
> "Researching stocks takes a lot of time and it prevents me from doing other things."
> 
> I agree - researching stocks is time consuming.
> But there's a simple solution to your problem.....don't do any research. There's no need to - tens of thousands of traders and investors have already done the research for you, and their findings are reflected in the trend of the stock.
> 
> AMP fell from $13 to $3 between March 2002 and August 2003. Shortly after it's downtrend began it was patently obvious, even to someone of little experience in chart reading, that the stock was heading south east on the chart.......a downtrend.
> Why was it downtrending? Because traders and investors were quitting the stock en masse.
> Why would they do that? Because tens of thousands of them had researched the company and found out that it was in trouble, and it's future prospects were none too bright.
> In which case, you could have made money from the AMP downtrend by selling the stock short, or buying put options.
> Or if you owned the stock, you could have bailed out long before it's value was decimated.
> The point is that you could have got quite an accurate summary of the fundamentals of AMP without spending one minute of your time doing fundamental research. Just look at the chart.....all the information you needed was graphically displayed for you.
> 
> Look at the current price action of AMP. Nice uptrend in place, particularly when viewed on the weekly chart.
> Why is it uptrending? Because tens of thousands of investors, having done their research, have formed the opinion that the stock has good fundamentals. No need for you to research AMP to profit from it - the research has already been done for you. If an uptrending stock shows temporary weakness by pulling back for a few days as profit takers bail out,
> and then the uptrend resumes as buyers come back in, it presents you with an ideal opportunity to hitch a ride on the trend and make some money.
> 
> The same sort of simple analysis and trading strategy can be applied to any liquid stock that starts uptrending or downtrending strongly.
> WPL is a good example.....uptrend began in early 2003. Three years later, the stock is more than four times it's 2003 value.
> Once you saw WPL heading steadily north east on the chart, making higher peaks and higher troughs, did you really need to spend hours or days of your time doing fundamental research on it?
> Thousands of investors had already researched it for you and their findings were very positive, otherwise why would they be piling into the stock and pushing it higher week after week?
> 
> A common fallacy among stock market players is that if you want to profit from the market, you have to read the financial papers, company reports, brokers newsletters etc to keep yourself up to date with the latest developments in the economy and within individual companies.
> Its simply not correct.....I've been trading the markets for 10 years or so and for the last eight of those years I haven't read a financial publication, a brokers newsletter or a company report.
> The most reliable information is in the charts. Learn how to interpret them, learn how to identify trends, learn how to recognise retracements, watch for the trend to resume following the retracement.
> You won't need to spend your time doing boring company research, and you won't need to hand your hard earned money over to Fat Profits either.
> 
> If you want some good books on how to identify trends and how to hitch a ride on them, I'd suggest.....
> 
> "Dave Landry On Swing Trading" by Dave Landry
> 
> "Secrets For Profiting In Bull And Bear Markets" by Stan Weinstein
> 
> The trading methods expoused by both these men are simple to learn, easy to implement, and require very little time input from the trader or investor.
> 
> Bunyip.




hehe nice, u forgot current and forwad P/E, EPS, and forecast EPS.

Eg NCM had a great trend until the results came out recently.

Basically the P/E wasnt justifyable at current prices.

If u used "trend analysis" u may have lost some money. But it may do well in the future if Gold prices continue to climb.







thx

MS


----------



## wayneL

michael_selway said:
			
		

> hehe nice, u forgot current and forwad P/E, EPS, and forecast EPS.
> 
> Eg NCM had a great trend until the results came out recently.
> 
> Basically the P/E wasnt justifyable at current prices.
> 
> If u used "trend analysis" u may have lost some money. But it may do well in the future if Gold prices continue to climb.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thx
> 
> MS




we getting a bit:topic ....but regarding NCM.... err... we were speaking of trends, yes?

Taking a few step back and having a look at the big picture, we've only really gotten back to the mean of the trend. We can afford to go all the way down to $16 and still be "in the trend"

Thats if we're looking at that time frame  

But for the mercenary ST trader, NCM could be offereing a "buying opportunity" (GAWD I HATE THAT OVERUSED CLICHE') at the lower extremities of the regression channel. That's if POG still wants to boogey.


----------



## bunyip

Michael has stated......."if u used "trend analysis" u may have lost some money."

................................................................................................

On the contrary, the competent trend trader could have nailed a nice 23% to 25% profit from NCM between early November and mid January or mid February, (depending on which exit strategy was used) and then dumped the stock before the rot set in.
Here's a trend trader's perspective on how NCM could have been traded.

On 25/10/05 NCM bottomed out at $16.86, then began a new uptrend on the daily chart. This brought the daily trend into harmony with the weekly trend, which was already up. One thing I've learned about trading trends is that you go a long way towards stacking the odds in your favour if you trade when both daily and weekly trends are heading in the same direction.
NCM ran up 16.6% over the next couple of weeks before a bout of profit taking caused a  pullback that wiped 5% off the stock over the next few days, creating a perfect buy setup, but NOT a buy signal. The actual buy signal was given at around $19.35 on Nov 14th once the pullback ended and the uptrend resumed.

How to manage the trade from then on?........
1. Place a stop loss order to ensure that your trading account doesn't suffer major damage if the trade doesn't work out as expected.
2. Move your stop to break even as soon as your open profit equals twice your initial risk.
3. Trail your stop progressively higher to lock in profit as it accrues.
4. Let your trailing stop take you out of the trade when the trend has run it's course. 

How to trail your stop?
I'm yet to discover the perfect strategy for trailing the stop. There are however a number of techniques that work quite well. Trend lines are one of them......draw a line under the price action, make sure this line connects at least three troughs, move your stop up to within a couple of percent of the price action if the trend line is breached.
On the NCM daily chart the trend line connects the troughs that occured on Oct 25, Dec 16, and Jan 30.
This trend line was breached when price traded below it on Feb 13. The breach of the trend line was a warning that the trend was getting weary and might be about to end. In which case, the prudent action was to raise the stop loss to within a couple of percent of the current price. This would have resulted in your stop taking you out of the trade at a touch below $24. 
Profit - 23% in 3 months.

An alternative trailing stop strategy would be to move the stop up to just under the troughs of Dec 1, Dec 16, and Jan 6. This would have resulted in an exit a month earlier and at a slighlty better price.
Profit -  25% in 2 months.

In mid February when the trend line was breached and the stock was making lower peaks and lower troughs, it told us that the many thousands of investors who researched this stock had found reasons to doubt that it had further upside potential.
I don't know or care what these reasons were......as a trend trader I don't need to concern myself with specific details of the reasons behind every move in a stock or market. I can't make any money out of reasons, but I can definitely make money out of trends. Therefore the most productive use of my time is to analyse trends, not the reasons behind the trends.
I couldn't care less about PE's or projected PE's or earnings forecasts or new pipeline deals or new gas discoveries or any of that stuff that you fundamentalists spend so much of your time researching. Sure the fundamentals are important and they have a big bearing on the behaviour of the stock. But why should I spend one minute of my time researching the fundamentals when thousands of you have already done the research for me. To get a summary of what your fundamental reseach has told you I can simply look at the chart. 

If the consensus opinion among you is that the stock has brilliant fundamentals, chances are that you'll all be piling into it and pushing it higher and higher. And I'll just wait for a bit of a dip in the price action, then I'll climb aboard and go for a ride. At the same time I'll place a stop loss so that my worst case scenario is a small loss if the trade doesn't go as planned

If the consensus opinion of your research is that a company has awful fundamentals, (e.g. AMP a few years back) then you'll all be dumping the stock like its got the plague, causing it to downtrend. Some of the more switched on traders among you may even be selling it short or buying put options so you can profit from the declining prices.
As a trend trader I'll have many opportunities to sell the stock short each time it puts in a brief rally against the downtrend.

If your research finds that the stock has mediocre fundamentals, then chances are that you and all the other fundamentalists won't have much interest in it, and your lack of interest will be reflected by the stock drifting sideways on the chart.
As a trend trader I'll leave that stock alone because it won't interest me either - I'm only interested in those that are trending strongly either up or down.

Regardless of whether we use fundamental analysis or technical analysis, we're all trend riders by virtue of the fact that we want our stocks to trend strongly in the right direction, and we want to ride that trend at least until we make a decent profit.....we want to be trend riders.
Considering that nearly all of us want to be trend riders, it seems only logical that we should put our efforts into studying trends, rather than what causes the trends, or what might cause them in future. 

By studying trends you learn......
*How to recognise them as they're beginning.
*How to guage their strength so you trade only in the strongest trends.
*How to identify simple entry setups so you can safely enter the trend.
*How to limit your loss if the trend fizzles out shortly after you enter.
*How to progressively lock in your profit as the trend moves in your favour.

And perhaps most important of all, you learn to recognise when there is no trend in place. This enables you to avoid stocks that are drifting aimlessly, going nowhere. Its these sort of stocks that tie up your capital for months at a time, costing you money not only in holding costs, but worse still, in lost opportunity costs.
Kerosam said earlier in this thread that he bought GGN for 33c on the recommendation of Fat Profits, then sat in it for 2 months before it went his way.
I'd have a lot more respect for Fat Profits if they'd recommended GGN as a buy on 28/11/05 as it came out of a pullback a couple of weeks after beginning a new uptrend.
This buy signal was, incidentally, one of the simple setups you can learn in about 10 minutes from "Dave Landry On Swing Trading", and his other book "Dave Landry's 10 Best Swing Trading Patterns And Strategies".
Buying GGN on Nov 28th at around 35 as the stock powered upward would have been a far better strategy than buying it months ealier at 33 and tying up money in a non performing stock.....money that could have been put to better use by investing it in a strong trender. 
Be assured that I'm in no way meaning to criticise Kerosam here - I'm simply pointing out how simple trend analysis could have could have enabled him to avoid the pitfalls of tying up his money in a non performer for months at a time, and how it could have given him an entry at the perfect time just when the stock was taking off.
The lost opportunity cost of buying stocks that are going nowhere is enormous. In this business its critically important to have your investments performing strongly for you, and if they're not, then quit the trade and redeploy your capital in a more productive stock.
As U.S. billionaire Donald Trump said....."Limit the downside - the upside will take care of itself".

I'm strongly opposed to Fat Profits and other newsletters that put you into stocks that are directionless, or worse still falling, and they tell you nothing about how to control losses. 
The money spent on newsletter subscriptions could be better utilised on some decent books that teach you how to recognise the setups for yourself. And on some decent charting software to help you more efficiently operate your trading business.
The temptation is strong to try to cut trading costs by using free chartng software such as that offered by online brokers like Comsec or Westpac.
I think this is false economy. Could your free software run a scan to find that perfect buy setup on GGN in late November?
If not, then maybe you need to consider how much this 'free' software is costing you in lost opportunities. This trade could have yielded you a profit of well over 50% in just over two months if you knew how to ride trends. A 50% profit on a trade of just 3 or 4 grand would have more than paid for decent charting software and a couple of good trading books. This would have been money better spent than a subscription to a trading newsletter written by people who are happy to recommend stocks that are downtrending.

If anyone is wondering if I got on that NCM trade - no I didn't.....although I'm an Australian living in Australia, I don't trade the Australian market.
But I do get on many others just like NCM. My objective as a trend trader is to take bites out of strong trends, and just keep repeating the process over and over again, trend after trend after trend.
Sometimes the market bites me back, but by using stops loss orders and strict money management I ensure that I only get nipped rather than seriously bitten.

Bunyip


----------



## voigtstr

*Fat Prophets*

I'm thinking about subscribing to pat prophets to assist with selecting stocks to invest in. What are the pros and cons (apart from the initial outlay obviously).

Cheers
Simon


----------



## disarray

i am close to wrapping up my first year with fat prophets on their general advice (ie. not mining). i initially went with them because a piece of their free advice in the sunday telegraph performed well and this was my first toe into the waters of investing. 

12 months later i am unimpressed and i won't be renewing. the advice i have received on this board has been far better than some of the rubbish fat prophets have offered up. the continue to harp on about how they are awesome contrarians and all you have to do if you are mired in some of their bad advice is to just buy more and await the turnaround (ala NEM). then they put sell advice on stocks that have not had their fundamentals change and continue to increase in value.

i am also extremely unimpressed with the fact their mining section is seperate from their general stock section, were they combined for the same price then i might consider it more reasonable but as it is i think their general offering is lousy. maybe their mining offering is better but seriously, if you couldn't make money on the commodities boom you don't belong in the market in the first place.

i am also noticing a bias creeping into their advice so as far as i am concerned they are no longer trustworthy. i am getting a vibe some of their recommendations totally ignore both fundamental and technical analysis to the contrary and instead they are more interested in pushing their products and by extension other pies that they have their fingers in.

if you are a new investor, looking for long term holds (which means you will ignore all the rest of their advice after the initial piece) then maybe they are a reasonable introduction to the market based on their fundamental analysis. if however you have found this board, are willing to do a bit of reading on how to understand charts, then you can do a better job yourself.

should you wish to join then i think their mining section advice is probably better to take advantage of the commodities boom, but after a bit of t/a study and reading threads on this board you'll be able to figure it out yourself and probably do a better job. but if you do join, at least its a tax deduction.


----------



## voigtstr

I'm planning on investing 2k every month or two months (depending on shift penalties at work). I figure I'll get to act on at least some of their "buy" recommendations.

How many buy recommendations were there per month by the way?

Were the recommendations practical? ie was it like buy at $xx.xx when the price was already $xx.xx + $yy.yy?

Cheers
Simon


----------



## explod

disarray said:


> i am close to wrapping up my first year with fat prophets on their general advice (ie. not mining). i initially went with them because a piece of their free advice in the sunday telegraph performed well and this was my first toe into the waters of investing.
> 
> 12 months later i am unimpressed and i won't be renewing. the advice i have received on this board has been far better than some of the rubbish fat prophets have offered up. the continue to harp on about how they are awesome contrarians and all you have to do if you are mired in some of their bad advice is to just buy more and await the turnaround (ala NEM). then they put sell advice on stocks that have not had their fundamentals change and continue to increase in value.
> 
> i am also extremely unimpressed with the fact their mining section is seperate from their general stock section, were they combined for the same price then i might consider it more reasonable but as it is i think their general offering is lousy. maybe their mining offering is better but seriously, if you couldn't make money on the commodities boom you don't belong in the market in the first place.
> 
> i am also noticing a bias creeping into their advice so as far as i am concerned they are no longer trustworthy. i am getting a vibe some of their recommendations totally ignore both fundamental and technical analysis to the contrary and instead they are more interested in pushing their products and by extension other pies that they have their fingers in.
> 
> if you are a new investor, looking for long term holds (which means you will ignore all the rest of their advice after the initial piece) then maybe they are a reasonable introduction to the market based on their fundamental analysis. if however you have found this board, are willing to do a bit of reading on how to understand charts, then you can do a better job yourself.
> 
> should you wish to join then i think their mining section advice is probably better to take advantage of the commodities boom, but after a bit of t/a study and reading threads on this board you'll be able to figure it out yourself and probably do a better job. but if you do join, at least its a tax deduction.




Yes my experience was similar, prescribed for three years and have been out two years now.   Continued to watch recommended stocks trend down.  I also had the Mining Subscription in unison for 12 months with similar results.  

I changed for the better when I picked up a very good text on tend following, had already been through tech analysis and that learning combined has made all the difference.

I now hold a small porfolio, never more than five stocks, and I study the bejesus out of them before I take on board and then watch them like a hawk.  You cannot do that with a lot of stocks, and I put in at least 30 hours a week, 20 of that during trading time.

I follow the hottest trends and fundamentals in the product, the market and the stock.   And any doubt at all and I get out.   A good trender though eg AVO would stay put unless it was to fall in two days below the trading channel.  Some say Trading Range or similar.

Learn to do your own thing, but dont' do it at all till you feel certain in your own mind.  Anyone elses opinion is risky  (that's the Warren Buffet way)  And if you have not read some of him you should not be in the business 

Anyway, just my slant and I'm not perfect by any stretch


----------



## disarray

voigtstr said:


> How many buy recommendations were there per month by the way?




they release a newsletter with about 5 - 6 items on it. maybe a piece about the state of a bit of the economy (and credit given here, their analysis is insightful) and 4 or so stocks that are on high rotation. maybe a new stock will be entered into the portfolio from time to time. you can sign up for a free copy of their newsletter to see what its like (and if you're going to the that sign up for the chartist newsletter as well). 



> Were the recommendations practical? ie was it like buy at $xx.xx when the price was already $xx.xx + $yy.yy?




they were pretty slow to spot a trend imo. they would set usually say around when to buy / sell but it was usually too late.



			
				explod said:
			
		

> A good trender though eg AVO would stay put unless it was to fall in two days below the trading channel. Some say Trading Range or similar.




coincidentally AVO is what introduced me to them. bought my first parcel at 73c based on their sunday telegraph piece and i watched with excitement as it grew. i went and signed up but unfortunately didn't know about mining being seperate so that was a negative from the outset.

i found out later from my rep that they had a sell recommendation on it in the $1 - teens. i continue to hold and accumulate.

another good point - my rep was pretty good. he would ring every now and then to check up on me and he didn't attempt to sell any more products (unlike some of the other brokers / commodities traders i have enquired about) and he would give me info on AVO even though it was in mining. that is a tick for them.

as always i'm not an advisor, do your own research, follow your own path, take responsibility for your own destiny etc. etc.


----------



## Miner

My experience with Fat Prophets is not good.
They push very hard to sell and bragging master.
The sale reps are intimidating.
Point is to recommend Blue Chips you do not need to pay $995 for a newsletter. They do not brag when their recomm fail.
So do your own research and ASF forum is one of the best.

Regards


----------



## beatrice

My expierience with Fat Prophets is similar to others. I can truly say that there is more insightful information on ASF.
I did have a win on their initial Bannerman recommendation. Bought at .68 sold at $2.00 and got my wife a new Raymond Weil watch on signing up.

( I think the brownie points for the watch were a bigger win than Bannerman!)

I also agree that the extra subscription for the mining report was a waste of money.

As Bunyip says, watch the trends, look at the charts and research, research,research.

To all ASFers, keep up the good work.


----------



## voigtstr

I was planning on the one year sub for both the regular stocks and the mining stocks, so there is no surprise re the mining stocks being separate. What would they be trying to upsell me on top of that? I dont really need a watch (got a nice little Seiko perpetual caledar a few years back and I'll treat myself to a Rolex when I turn 50)

The main reason for signing up is to be made aware of companies that otherwise wouldnt have been aware of (eg Paladin, if I hadnt seen it on one of their sample sheets)


----------



## Nick Radge

voigtstr,
One of the main reasons I visit ASF is because it alerts me to stocks that I wouldn't normally look at. I come here to see what stocks people are talking about then I go away and look at the charts to see if anything suits me.

My 2c...

Nick


----------



## Nicks

Fat Prohpets - be careful of their great promises, like many others whom emerg promising so much on the stock market (Optionetics anyone??).

Quote Fat Prophets newsletters:
"Hurry - rush me without delay the name this Chinese gold miner, and ALL 16 current Fat Prophets Report buy recommendations so that I can start on the road to stock market riches. I understand I'll also save almost $400 off the usual price, an offer that may never be repeated. 
Start Now"

hmmm starting on the road to riches just by signing up. It will certainly make Fat Prophets rich.

and marketing tactics like this to appeal to novices:

"Take a look at the next three examples, all stocks which we've previously recommended as buys to our Fat Prophets Australasian Report and Mining & Resources Report Members… 

QBE Insurance - up 600%*, not including dividends 

Terramin Australia - up 540%* 

SP Telemedia* - down 45%* 

(Based on prices taken on 3rd September 2007) 

Whoops. So we got one wrong… so far at least. As we said earlier, our stock recommendations are not perfect. 

But, critically, as you can see from the above small example, the gains far outweigh the losses."

So novice John Doe thinks he is smart and says, hey they are being honest and admitting losses, but I can see that their gains far outweigh the losses, so i'd still be very smart to sign up, they cant be dodgy if they admit the truth when they make losses. Remember, these are only selective examples they are quoting. You dont hear much about their stock picks with massive losses. Notice how they selectively pick 2 stock with 100s % gains and one with 45 % loss.

I find FAT PROHPETS are VERY selectiive in what they claim of their success, and very cunning at spruking their product. For example I read their newsletter this week and it raved on something to the words of how they recommended PDN which has traded over $10, and at that price their members would have been sitting on a 900% gain or something. 
It is misleading in my opinion to quote high points on potential gains one could have had, as they are quoting a shares high point for 'what you could have had' if you were with Fat Prophets. Its easy to focus on the shares high point when raving about how much you would have made, not the low point on how much you could have lost! For example, I wouldnt have liked to be one whom bought PDN at $10 now. 

For the amount of money I would have had for all my shares high points... I could have had Warren Buffet and Gordon Gecko around for a dinner party.

AVOID things that always spruik themselves as fantastic and focus on select examples.

Stick to ASF!


----------



## Julia

Nicks,
Do they give the buy dates of those quoted success stories, e.g. QBE?


----------



## kgee

After Gavin Wendt ? Put out a mid week bulletin to its members to hold BMO and 2 days later BMO goes down the toilet.....well I don't spose they like being reminded of that call


----------



## Nicks

Julia said:


> Nicks,
> Do they give the buy dates of those quoted success stories, e.g. QBE?




Hi Julia, not in the newsletter they dont.


----------



## jersey10

*Fat Prophets - is it any good?*

I have learnt some technical analysis / charting techniques that i am confident in using.  Logic tells me that if i can identify stocks that are fundamentally good investments and can trade them using charting i should have better returns.  I am considering subscribing to fat prophets in order to get recommendations that i can apply my TA techniques to.  My question is do you think this is a good way of going about it? Is Fat Prophets subscription worth the annual fee they charge?


----------



## Teddy Bear

I had a FP subcription - resources which has run out.  I did not resubscribe thinking the grass may be greener on the other side.... Out of the three I have tried I would certainly go back to FP once the other subs have expired as my biggest profits even in the short term where coming from suggestion they where issuing.  Only thing I found was that buying and tech/fund info is good but selling instructions where few and far between so if you want to trade anything other than long term you have to make the exit call yourself.
Good luck


----------



## RichKid

*Re: Fat Prophets - is it any good?*



jersey10 said:


> I have learnt some technical analysis / charting techniques that i am confident in using.  Logic tells me that if i can identify stocks that are fundamentally good investments and can trade them using charting i should have better returns.  I am considering subscribing to fat prophets in order to get recommendations that i can apply my TA techniques to.  My question is do you think this is a good way of going about it? Is Fat Prophets subscription worth the annual fee they charge?




I only have experience of fat prophets mining- it's hard to mix and match ta and fundamentals with some of the illiquid and extremely volatile micro caps that they recommend...otherwise they are a great fundamentals filter for the mid caps and blue chips imho....but you can often get extracts of their popular reviews via google (they sell content to various sites eg Etrade). They are intended for med to long term investors, although I note very few of the positions are held for years and years- they recommend selling when valuations blow out or if they get it wrong (eg MSC- see the thread here on ASF).

One thing going for them is that they have an independently audited and clearly detailed performance history and methodology, they also listen to subscribers (not sure if they still do) when you can't get filled or if there is some similar problem and they adjust their reporting accordingly. 

I follow their macro calls via the free emails (see their site to sign up for it)....there is also a fat prophets mystery stock thread here on ASF where you can work out the stocks they're tipping: https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=229460#post229460


----------



## kerosam

Has anyone tried & been successful with their CFDs report? I was a subscriber but stopped cos I'm begining to use TA more than fundamentals. But I did learn a bit e.g. on how to evaluate on a mining stock, thru FP more than any other medium.

Always bargain when you subscribe with them. e.g. ask for additional 4 months when subscribing for 12 months... had mine extended thru bargaining for the past few years.


----------



## eddyeagle

Interesting to see that one of the stocks they have been plugging recently - View Resources - today went into voluntary administration! There will be a lot of p1ssed off subscribers! 

Not the first time this has happened either. They recommended Henry Walker Eltin a few years back and they went into administration shortly after! 

I wonder if they'll be mentioning this on their weekly marketing letter? Unlikely!


----------



## SenTineL

Yeah but it doesnt mean all subscribers buy every stock they recommend.


----------



## josjes

That's the worst part about Newsletter tipsheet. They recommend 20-30 stocks, an average investor can't afford to buy them all, they buy 5 of the 20, one of them goes bust, one of them underperform, one of them makes money,  two of them stagnant. End result ?? you might as well put your money into Index fund.


----------



## bunyip

eddyeagle said:


> Interesting to see that one of the stocks they have been plugging recently - View Resources - today went into voluntary administration! There will be a lot of p1ssed off subscribers!
> 
> Not the first time this has happened either. They recommended Henry Walker Eltin a few years back and they went into administration shortly after!
> 
> I wonder if they'll be mentioning this on their weekly marketing letter? Unlikely!




When Rene Rivkin was alive he did the same thing as Fat Prophets.........a number of times his 'Rivkin Report'  recommended falling stocks in companies which were basket cases that ended up going broke. 
Not that I ever subscribed to his newsletter myself, but a friend of mine did, and he passed them on to me.
One stock that got repeated 'buy' recommendations from Rivkin was Pasminco (PAS) as it plunged towards oblivion.

I'm firmly of the belief that if you're going invest in the market, you need to be capable of doing your own analysis and making your own investment decisions.

A few years ago I read some words that stuck in my mind........_*Blessed are people with technical analysis skills, because they can profit from the markets for the rest of their lives without having to rely on the opinions of others.*_


----------



## swill

Fat Prophets, more like no prophets.
Tried them for a year and did nothing but lose money.
I am a beginner to the seen so i decided to try these
guys out, BIG MISTAKE. Subscribed to both the Australasian
and mining reports and only one of the recommendations
that i bought went up. Even today i have a look at some of the
stocks they picked and its a laugh, big loses across the board
and yet there were never any sell recommendations.
Now i do my own research and have been doing well, not one to
bag people but they cost me a lot of money.


----------



## SM Junkie

Swill

Fat Prophets are long term fundamentalists, so expecting to make money in one year given the state of the market, seems a little unrealistic IMO. I'm not suprised you are unhappy with their recommendations because based on your post, I don't think your approach to the market melds with their philosophy.

The companies they recommend seem mostly to be mid cap companies and many are still in the start up phase so I'd expect many will take several years for them to get into full production and others, well they are just going up and down with the rest of the market. But if the companies have good prospects, good financials and good management, then over the long term they should do reasonably well.

I think most investors are happy to get through the credit crunch and bear market on a pretty even kiel and wait for better times ahead. I think you will need more patience. As they say it's "time in the market" that's important (unless you are a trader of course)

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that have been hurting, think of the poor investors in banking at the moment, B&B getting hammered, some banks have lost 5 years of profits. Then there are the likes Centro and ABC investors that have lost a packet as well, so you are not alone.

I'm a long term investor there is no way I have any expectations that a subscription to an analyst service will make me money in the current environment, especially in only one year.  I've been listening to many analysts and I can assure you that many of them are getting it wrong.  I've heard many plugging the financials and only to see them get worse. So no one is infallible.

I'm glad to hear that your own research is doing you well and as you gain knowledge I'm sure you will have some great wins a long the way, but you will also have some spectacular loses as well, hopefully it evens out across your portfolio, it is all part of the game.  Good luck and enjoy the journey.


----------



## eddyeagle

Spot on SM Junkie


----------



## nuking

swill said:


> Fat Prophets, more like no prophets.
> Tried them for a year and did nothing but lose money.
> I am a beginner to the seen so i decided to try these
> guys out, BIG MISTAKE. Subscribed to both the Australasian
> and mining reports and only one of the recommendations
> that i bought went up. Even today i have a look at some of the
> stocks they picked and its a laugh, big loses across the board
> and yet there were never any sell recommendations.
> Now i do my own research and have been doing well, not one to
> bag people but they cost me a lot of money.




Agree.
FP is absolute BS.
Their CFD reports are jokes.


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## SenTineL

Nuking i think SMjunkie has made his point a bit better than you and Swill

What exactly are you guys expecting from the reports?


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## Goldmann

eddyeagle said:


> Interesting to see that one of the stocks they have been plugging recently - View Resources - today went into voluntary administration! There will be a lot of p1ssed off subscribers!
> 
> Not the first time this has happened either. They recommended Henry Walker Eltin a few years back and they went into administration shortly after!
> 
> I wonder if they'll be mentioning this on their weekly marketing letter? Unlikely!




yep - have a mate who subscribes - was thinking about it for a while...but FP are a joke... 

tipping BHP on one hand.. (who isnt hahaha)... yet their smaller plays have died in the ****... 

and its bull**** how people talk about how hard it is to make money in this market... the year previous to this, everything you invested in went up - now the going gets a little tough - isnt this when FP should be providing their most value???

where were their coal plays - where were their Iron plays - CSG??? they totally missed the boat on all of these focusing everyone on smaller gold plays... (they might of tipped AOE i think)...

DIO is the other one... check the graph on that one... they sent out a buy recommendation at $2... and another recently when it was under $1.. now its .70c... still going down today while gold went up 15%.

Fat Prophets equals NO Profits...

would rather give my money to the homeless...

the daily reckoning is an interesting FREE newsletter.. if you like their style you can get access to Diggers and Drillers for a 3 month FREE trial.


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## nuking

same here mate.
i got free 3 month subcription when join CMC.
try 5,6 of their RECOMMENDATIONS.
and guess the results?
all of them gone down badly.
i lost big $$$

I would not used them again even for free.


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## swill

Sorry people although i am no expert i agree totally with goldmann.
I will give a good example of a Fat recommendation.
buy VRE need i say anymore. As for the longterm spiel
they give you what a load of crap. I do agree that if the
company has a lot going for it then to hold on, but some of there stocks
are rubbish. 
As for the you cant expect to make a profit in just one year call please,
you could not expect me to renew the subscription after the losses i
had to take and if i had not sold all of there recommended stocks i 
would be down a lot more. They should be giving me a free subscription
for the next ten years. By the way can anyone tell me why i should
not expect to make some money in one year?
The market may be down but this is a great chance to buy good stocks
is it not. If you want to bring BNB into the discussion i actually made 
some money out of this stock in a one month period(just before the crash) and look where its at now.
Maybe you will win out in the longterm, no arguments from me with that
style of trading but i will take profits and stop losses for the time being.
I think the FAT TEAM should take on weather forecasting maybe they will be
better at that.


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## adobee

I have found it much more bennefical to look at what the investment companies are buying e.g   LINQ LRF .. they specialise in resources, the team understand resources and they also lend the resource companies money.. as such I think they get a fairly good bit of inside feedback as to whats happening with the companies..

I had a watch list of Fat, Eureka, Hartleys etc to see how they all stacked up.. Hartleys seems to be reasonable, I think Eureka spends all day reading this forum for their picks and beleives the hype.. Fats I have actually deleted the watch list after it just went down..  CVN has to be their best pick and they bring it up every couple of months..  Paying someone to tell you to buy BHP is a joke !


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## eddyeagle

Hi, 

Does anyone have any experience with the Fat Prophets CFD report?

Thank


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## GumbyLearner

Fat Prophets suck ass!

You might as well buy your own copy of The Weakly Post for Horse-racing bets!

They are total scam dudes with as much of an idea as you or I.

Total ratbags, forget 'em!

Come again?


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## eddyeagle

Anyone else on here subscribe to FP and think that their Australian Mining reports are written absolutely terrible?

Seriously - these reports wouldn't pass a year 7 English exam! 

There's no beginning, middle or end, no story, no introduction - just a jumble of random technical jargon. 

Gives me a headache trying to get through them!

I have one month left on my subscription and definitely wont be re-subscribing.


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## Miner

eddyeagle said:


> Anyone else on here subscribe to FP and think that their Australian Mining reports are written absolutely terrible?
> 
> Seriously - these reports wouldn't pass a year 7 English exam!
> 
> There's no beginning, middle or end, no story, no introduction - just a jumble of random technical jargon.
> 
> Gives me a headache trying to get through them!
> 
> I have one month left on my subscription and definitely wont be re-subscribing.




I think if you see the return to its own shareholders FAT has provided will tell you the story - Who can not they teach. 

If FAT was so smart to recommend the right scrip then at least they would have made some money for themselves and their shareholders.

The same applies to Bell Potter - Look their share performance.

If you carefully read ASF postings and put the ramping ones into bin, IMO you would get more value for money from your time with ASF.  I must forewarn you that it could be an addiction for some people  to be on line with ASF forum


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## eddyeagle

Yeah their returns are dreadful!

On their website they are still quoting their annual report card from end of 2007! How convenient!

I honestly feel cheated from paying for this service


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## mad macks

None of these stock tipping sites like fat prophets,your money weekly etc can add much if any value to people like us.
Do your own research is the best way.
As an earlier post said: Tipping BHP gee you dont need to subscribe to someone to do that


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## Apache 1961

*Fat Profits*

Has anyone had any dealings with Fat Profits weekly newsletter/ site and if so do they think it was worth the money?

Thanks


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## jsauer

Performance figures of their portfolios are Incorrect !!!
Had a membership for a while and they tried to convince me to extend as their portfolios is supposingly doing so well and customers too. When I challenged this we discussed some shares which were recommended some 2 years ago but never got a SELL recommendation. So these types of old BUYS have never be SOLD and still sit on HOLD are not included in their performance figures as they are "unrealised losses". When I challenged that view of publishing performance figures without this basket of shares potentially sitting on a big loss the guy told me that their services is not for me and hung up!!! I leave it up to you to judge their services!


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## burglar

jsauer said:


> ... I leave it up to you to judge their services!




I know who makes them fat! :


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