MARKETING LIES

I am amazed at the 180-degree turn that the major brokerage firms have taken in their marketing strategies over the past year. Gone are the get rich quick commercials with “Stewart”, and “truck drivers owning their own country.” We have returned to the stuffy, conservative commercials of old, with voice-overs by William Dafoe and Steve Martin.

Do investors really have that short a memory?

Did everyone soon forget the snake oil these hucksters tried to sell you (successfully, I might add) a year ago?

Never underestimate the power of television. The big bad brokerage business is now pulling out all the stops in an effort to reinvent themselves into protectors and builders of wealth that will guide you to the Promised Land.

That of course is nonsense.

Big brokerage caters to its corporate clients. They make the bulk of their money doing business with the dotcoms and Enron’s of the world, not you. There is an incredible conflict of interest inherent to all these investment banks. Because of this, the information that is passed on to the individual investor is worthless. Those research reports that your broker passes on to you are not worth the paper they are printed on.

You would think after all the recent market turmoil that securities analysts at the big firms would be much tougher in grading stocks.

Scary stuff!!

This is an example of how biased and twisted research has become. It is impossible to build a strong portfolio with this type of information. Are we to actually believe that over 99% of all stocks are buys? These facts may be quite frightening to most investors. However, there are places individuals can align themselves with to receive unclouded information. They are the independent portfolio managers.

We at Markowski Investments research portfolio managers from all over the world to determine who has the longest and most prestigious track records. Each and every manager must have at least a 20-year track record that is in the highest percentile against everyone else in the field. All of these managers must have no ties to any investment bank or handle any type of equity underwriting. They have one business only, to make their clients wealthy. We have put together a team of managers that has no rival anywhere or anyplace. These true professionals are available to all of our clients. So the next time you see commercial from a big investment bank on television, laugh and change the channel.