Link to article: The Truth About False and Deceptive Advertising

Nice article by Sienna Kossman at U.S. News. Published 7-22-13.

The Truth About False and Deceptive Advertising

Investopedia Special Offer

Everyone knows the feeling upon reading an advertisement like this. Excitement melded with a sense of rush melded with anxiousness not to mess it up and be "that idiot".  Perhaps nearly 30 years of bad-ad inundation or perhaps just my mind's skeptical nature, but I hold dear to my heart the old adage, "if it is too good to be true, it is". Therefore, upon receiving this special offer in my inbox, instead of excitement and get-to-it-iveness, my bullshit-o-meter reeled and immediately I fed my trash.

Haha, you didn't get me, Mr. Special Offer. Much as I really really really want to "click here to get the ticker symbol!", I didn't!

Well, almost didn't, I was intrigued by the potential money this advertisement was promising, plus intrigued by it being sent by Investopedia, "the premiere resource for investing education, personal finance, and market analysis...". Therefore, I wanted to investigate the claims made by this advertisement. Do the claims equal reality and the facts?

Can buying this stock actually turn $10,000 into $2,518,668? Can this occur even if the market crashes?

First, I "clicked-here":

markettrendsignal.com

Hmmm, it wants my email address and is subscribing me to some newsletter. What a let down. Note the disclaimer when you scroll down:

Enter email, TELL ME THE STOCK SYMBOL!

Full disclosure: I gave it 15 minutes of my life, it seemed like it could go on forever. However, I got the proverbial cream to my cream-filled donut within that amount of time. The video basically described how good this newsletter, DirectionAlerts, will be for improving my investments in a slide-show format. A gravelly-voiced man narrates, beginning rather direly, stating how a market crash looms near. Well, a market crash always looms near. To add to their case they bastardize quotes from a variety of PhD level experts (note: I personally did not authenticate them). However, within a couple of minutes I learn of my stock:

Tenneco, Inc (TEN). A quick search and I find Tenneco is a Fortune 500 company specializing in production of automotive components and technologies. Performance of this stock in the last 10 years (Morningstar.com):

The video goes on and on about how DirectionAlerts can help you turn $10K into millions, but you will need to read the newsletter to find out how. Therefore, I stopped watching.

With a little research, I agree with the statement that $10,000 could conceivably turn into over $2 million by buying TEN, of course, depending on when you buy or sell, but in the past it was possible. However, this gets to the deeper question on whether this was possible even if the market crashes?

I really find no supporting evidence for that second question. It is not possible to see into the future, and there is no guarantee that this stock will perform as it has previously. Also, the video claimed that a "buy and hold" strategy is not good if you want to make money in the stock market, that "timing is always involved". Although I am an investing novice, from everything I have learned, heard from more learned people, or read in the last week, it is impossible to time the market. If the market crashes and your $2 million is in TEN stock, your stock will most likely crash. Only if you liquidate those stocks do you have a shot at keeping those millions. So I am calling bullshiznit on the second claim.

Maybe if I had watched the rest of the video I would have learned all of the secrets to timing the market, and could have made TONS of money. I doubt it. Maybe, if I keep reading the newsletter I signed up for I will learn the secrets to timing the market. I doubt it. 

It was a ploy to get people to sign up to their newsletter, nothing more.