Fat Prophets - opinions?

[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?

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]

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]

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.

 

[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?

 

[Goldmann]

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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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 !

 

[eddyeagle]

Hi,

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

Thank

 

[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?

 

[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.