Beware investment promoters

Sir Bob Jones Photo/File

Beware investment promoters

Advertisements offering 'miracle' products such as slimming creams, or instant wealth 'secrets' persist. One would think even the simplest mind would deduce their fatal flaw.

IN the 1950s a Wellington student, later to become an accounting profession stalwart, paid his way through university via newspaper advertisements bearing the heading, "Banish Vile Nicotine Stains". In return for payment he'd post back a piece of pumice. As they worked there were no complaints, although not so when he widened his products range with his "Cut Your Power Bills in Half" advertisements and in return for payment, sent back small plastic scissors. That induced customer dissatisfaction and the Police told him to desist. But, what an amusing court case had they prosecuted him.

Judges were a stuffy lot then so he might have been nailed, but not so today. Many would be euphoric having such a case and thoroughly enjoy composing a learned written judgment, possibly in his favour.

Nothing's changed since and ridiculous advertisements offering "miracle" products such as slimming creams, or instant wealth "secrets" persist. One would think even the simplest mind would deduce their fatal flaw. Take advertisements offering winning horse-racing formulas. Plainly if possessing such knowledge it would be against one's interest to share it rather than be full-time exploiting it. But that elementary reasoning seems beyond many people, as evidenced by the adverts' continuation.

I'm specially amused by the wordy full-page adverts offering to teach the path to riches through foreign exchange trading. The tenor of these semi-literate presentations is that the promoter, impassioned by altruism, wants to share the wisdom, this benevolence ignoring his required hefty fees.

Following the 1980s economic liberalisation most banks engaged in this activity, employing highly paid purported experts. Subsequently many incurred massive losses, one long-established British bank even being wiped out. Some losing dealers, now pejoratively labelled rogue traders, were imprisoned, although the now famous bank-destroying one thereafter made a very good living on the international speaking circuit.

In accord with the anything's possible, sky's the limit, spirit of the eighties, a foreign exchange trading company set up in my Wellington headquarters building, speculating on clients' behalf. The principals had the harebrain theory, such ideas abounding at the time, that young Maori girls had a special flair for this and employed a swag of them, co-incidentally all pretty, who we would lure up to our office for day's-end drinks. Pointlessly however, for off they'd go to beaver through the night, trading in the foreign money markets.

That company met its inevitable tearful end as it's a closed-shop game in which profits are matched by corresponding losses. In fairness it's also a vital financial system activity, indeed it's how John Key madehis wealth. As with alllarge-scale speculative activity, it provides an all-important constant market, enabling forward price guarantees for exporters andothers, and smoothing out price fluctuations. But it's a high-risk activity, and certainly not for mum and dads to speculate in, more so given economists notorious inaccuracy on forward currency movement predictions.

The word "investment" is one of the most abused in the English language, being applied to an astonishing range of bad propositions. Our cities are cluttered with poseur commission agents, struggling to pay the phone bill but with business cards calling themselves investment bankers.

One favourite is the Bradford Exchange, an American outfit which periodically advertises spectacularly bad taste creations as "collectibles", the inference being possessing investment merit, a preposterous claim with their objects. So too the flogging of easily created sporting memorabilia, although the market for these appears to be waning as few were flogged by the commentators during the last Ashes series.

On the other hand, genuine sporting memorabilia fetch huge sums. Muhammad Ali's gloves which he wore against Sonny Liston, recently sold for a million dollars and a week later, $400,000 for those he used in the first Frasier bout. Likewise with items belonging to past famous figures, as constantly reported in the newspapers. These are still essentially speculations as evidenced by the art world when artists fade in favour andthe value of their work dives.

American bookshops have large sections devoted to the attainment of instant wealth, often bearing the contradictory word "secret" in their title. Most pertain to the share market or residential property, yet for all of the hype, where are the rich residential investors? When earlier this year I labelled the flaw-ridden house-speculating proposal of something called The Dunn Fund as The Dumb Fund, the promoter pulled it off the market. He's bided his time and is now relaunching it.

Mindful of the famous adage, "there's a sucker born every minute", nothing will change. This was not said by the great showman P T Barnum as widely believed, but about him by a rival. Despite the odd fake mermaid, Barnum brought great pleasure to the public and was a decent man, which cannot be said of many modern day "investment" promoters.