Schaeffer’s Investment Research of Cincinnati, run by Bernie Schaeffer, has been sending out e-mail promotions which are as clever as they are opaque. The solicitation  is to join the Elite Trader service. Some of the statements in the e-mail are odd and incredible.

The e-mail lays out the case for the service. People who have already signed up, the letter says, have made a promising decision. ”And in the next few days, they’ll get their first of at least 50 trades primed to deliver big gains in short order.”

The e-mail has a long list of “some of the winning trades my Elite Trader subscribers have cashed in on in the last 12 months…” All of them are up  in the triple digits. The letter does not point out what positions the firm took on  investments in which it lost money.

The part of the e-mail that is the most puzzling is that “you’ll also get at least 50 MORE trade recommendations in the next 3 months…with each one targeting gains of +100% or more.” Looking at that with a cool analytic eye, it raises the question of what happens if Schaeffer’s cannot find 50 promising trade recommendations. Targeting returns of +100% seems attractive at first blush, but what if none of the investments return triple figures, or even double figures?

The conclusion of the e-mail has another strong pitch: “So let me summarize…when you join Schaeffer’s Elite Trader by midnight TONIGHT, you’ll get a minimum of 50 trades in the next 82 days…each targeting gains of +100% or more.
And your cost? A measly $79. That’s less than $2 per trade. It’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to bank a multitude of big winners over the next 82 days.”

Two dollars a day may be a lot if that +100% part does not work out at all.

Douglas A. McIntyre