annuities

As you probably guessed we read a lot of information. Some of the information we receive comes via email from other, well, unorthodox sources. We like to know what sales people are doing all of the time, especially in these times of panic.

So, we have seen a tremendous rise in equity index annuity material hit the market place. They are saying; “See, we told you these are good and safe investments.” Well, yes you may have not lost any money on the way down, but you don’t make any money on the way up either, so what’s your point?

No matter what, people, these are not good investments if you seek equity type returns. If you want to barely outperform fixed annuities in a bull market then go for this type of product. If you want to make any money in a declining or sideways moving market equity index annuities are the WORST investment you could buy. You would receive the minimum guarantee of 3% on 90% of your principle or maybe on 100% of your principle versus a fixed product that would yield closer to 4 or 5%, depending where rates go.

I am not saying they are all bad, so save the nasty emails sales people, but the vast majority of them are bad. Times like these make people appeal to your fears and you will make a decision you will regret. What is bad today, in regards to equities, will be good tomorrow, but a bad investment today will remain a bad investment for tomorrow.

On word, we get a lot of buy these stocks now, which are all bogus, never buy a stock because you get an email. Probably the most interesting email we received was from another annuity website. You may have seen it, Annuity MD – I refuse to link to it. This site is just plain ridiculous.

He starts out by saying he was an agent (we could not find is license in Michigan where he is domiciled) and was refused appointment by an insurance company because he told people the “truth” about annuities. It is one of those long one page sites, called a squeeze page which is always a warning sign to any web visitor to quickly hit the back button, where he states that you are being lied to the industry stinks and everyone, except for him, is stupid.

He sells his wears for $47 – it was free when he changed his business model to some lawyer to sue insurance agents, but now its paid again – with an up sell of $97 or a $100 and something fee for his “gold” service, whatever that is. Anyhow, we read his material, yes we paid for it, it is rudimentary at best and not even close to the price tag.

He is trying to sell annuities either through a referral program or himself, we never enquired further. I do not know this guy, but I do know that he also used to run the 2 minute workout site as well, an annuity expert that is also a fitness trainer?? Alrighty then, I guess there is some business diversification for you.

So we bought his material which we now use as light reading material when we are, um, well indisposed at the moment to see what it was all about. As we just stated what he sells you get on our site for free, so you make the call. We now get periodic emails from him and what he is up to, this is what we got last week – the exact email, we know there are grammar errors!:

Dear bob (that’s me, like I’d give him my real name),

Before I get to the bad news, I would just like to ask the following question:

Tony

So I wrote to Tony, here is what I asked:

Dear Tony,

What qualifications do you have in order to provide timely investment advice on this current crisis, i.e. licenses or securities experience?

I have not heard back from him as of yet, that was about 10 days ago. He is selling this news letter for, what he says, ordinarily $99 per month, but is running a special for $47 a month. However, since I am a client I can buy it for only $19.95 a month.

He claims that, and I quote: “When you become a subscriber to this newsletter, it will pay for itself one thousand times over in the money that you’ll save alone! The money you will save and earn as a direct result of this relevant and detailed information can pay you back 1,000 times your minimal investment. What if you don’t invest in the annuity MD Cures newsletter and you end up making one of the mistakes that could cost you thousands of dollars in your future? Furthermore, what if one tip we give you has a significant positive impact on your financial situation (which we believe it will)?”

Talk about fear mongering and profiteering. The point is that there are people who will do anything to make a dollar. This guy is one of them, switching between some rudimentary report to an affiliate of a law firm who sues brokers, WMI or something like that, to now selling this bogus newsletter. It is incredulous that someone would sink to this level.

Just because its on the internet it does not make a viable or worth while product.

The markets have yet to test their lows again, but we are seeing it trading between 200 and 350 down which could lead to a close on the 7800 lows today. However, the last hour of trading is erratic and dangerous to take any position. We are speculating a close of down 400 for the day with Monday being a swing trade day.

Have a great weekend and be careful about bogus sales people.

annuity MD annuities bogus news letters scams profiteers market update market opinion credit crisis Sphere: Related Content