Monday, May 23, 2011

Ben Stein: Hypocrite

Over at Reuters, the CatFish points out that:
In 2004, Ben Stein wrote a thin book called How to Ruin Your Financial Life, a collection of short sarcastic chapters giving extremely bad advice. Chapter 32 is entitled “Invest in Penny Stocks”, and it aims directly at the purveyors of “advice” about the same:

If you buy GE at $25 and it goes down by $.50, you’ve lost 2 percent, but if you buy XYZ at $.50 and it goes down by $.50, you’ve lost 100 percent.

This will never happen to you, though, because you’re only buying really top-quality penny stocks, the GEs and GMs of the penny stocks — only they haven’t been discovered yet.

Plus, you’re only buying after you’ve gotten really hot tips, and when you know for sure that you’re going to watch that stock zoom into the stratosphere.
In other words, Stein considered penny stocks, a very bad place to put your money. My intention is not to debate the merits, or lack thereof, of penny stocks, some are good investments, a lot are not. My focus here is on Stein. In his book, he is clearly anti-penny stocks. It could be argued there is some difference between penny stocks and micro-caps, but not a lot, especially when considered relative to the Blue Chip stocks Stein suggests are better. And nano-stocks are for the most part all penny stocks. So what is Stein hyping these days? Micro-cap and nano-cap stocks. Check out the first minute and 30 seconds of this clip.



According to Accredited Members Inc., “a leading publisher of micro cap investment research”:
Stein firmly believes micro caps have a place in every investor’s portfolio and that the kind of in-depth research AMI brings to its readers can mean the difference between success and failure in investing in the micro cap space. “AMI does the kind of research that can result in triumph and avoid tragedy in the micro cap world. An informed investor is the best kind of investor,” said Stein, “and in the micro cap and nano cap world, AMI is an important path to being informed.”
And, oh yeah, Stein is now AMI's spokesperson:
A longtime proponent of the entrepreneurial spirit in America, Emmy-winning game show host, best-selling author and award-winning financial pundit Ben Stein has signed on to serve as the official spokesperson for Accredited Members Inc., a leading publisher of micro cap investment research. In his role as official spokesman, Stein will lend his legendary brand of wit and astute perspective on financial investing to endorse Accredited Members' independent research reports and industry analysis, investment tools, world-class conferences and quarterly Accredited Members Magazine.

1 comment:

  1. Ben Stein should apologize to Ron Paul:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOV0qCW7nBA

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQsrYG85WpM

    Ron Paul says "Ben, you're an embarrassment" at the 2:16 mark of the first video.

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