Trident Confidential Newsletter

[Lemmywincks]

Hmmm that sounds a bit dodgey. Anyway my two work colleagues swear by it, so will give it a shot anyway. Might as well while it is a bit cheaper. For anyone else who is interested, deal expires on Sunday. Cheers

The term is whisper/conversation marketing isn't it? You marketing folk never learn. The problem with your plan is Google and its ranking system. You see, when you type your businesses name into Google, you are going to see this thread. The more comments and views the higher the page will be on googles ranking system.

So pat yourself on the back for your brilliance at marketing by letting everyone know you are a complete con.

 

[Porper]

Hmmm that sounds a bit dodgey. Anyway my two work colleagues swear by it, so will give it a shot anyway. Might as well while it is a bit cheaper.

Some people just won't listen. You know now that they had an employee posting as a satisfied customer and you are still going to join? Unbelievable.

 

[pppp]

Trident Confidential Newsletter is a scam.
It is a front for chanelling their customers into Halifax Investments to trade their shares.
Halifax Investments have the shonkiest trading platform out there at the moment and are always blaming Saxo for its woeful performance. Trident Confidential obviously receives kickbacks for pushing new clients their way. Trident is an advertising newsletter dressed up with speculation to look like financial advice.

 

[mjim]

Trident Confidential Newsletter is a scam.
It is a front for chanelling their customers into Halifax Investments to trade their shares.
Halifax Investments have the shonkiest trading platform out there at the moment and are always blaming Saxo for its woeful performance. Trident Confidential obviously receives kickbacks for pushing new clients their way. Trident is an advertising newsletter dressed up with speculation to look like financial advice.

So does the company / owner actually trade? or all that is hypothetical? (meaning no risk to the Newsletter seller!)

 

[Value Hunter]

There is something very fishy about this group. How is that Trident managed funds (Trident Global Growth fund and Trident income fund) have gotten abysmal returns way less than the relevant indexes and yet their stock picking newsletters (run by the same person Lance Spicer) are apparently getting stellar returns at the same time? Now I understand the newsletter and funds don't have exactly the same portfolios but they run on a similar strategy and are managed by the same person so the astounding divergence in performance is puzzling to say the least. One necessarily wonders if the hypothetical returns posted for the newsletter are actually genuine.

 

[systematic]

One necessarily wonders if the hypothetical returns posted for the newsletter are actually genuine.

Oh...; I've discovered that all sorts of interesting things go on with the reported results of some of these educators / newsletter writers. A year or two ago; I almost posted to the forum, to ask whether I was being unreasonable for being so incredulous about the suddenly changed results of one of these people that I had accidentally noticed (in this case, it was an Australian, fairly well-known author / educator / newsletter provider) only to find that he/she was was not the only one who engaged in the (IMO) bizarre practice of retro-fitting back-tested results!
I could go on (I contacted this particular person, and they replied - with a lame but very friendly answer) and the bit that pee's me...is that I actually CARE that some people subscribe to these things. And - these are the better ones! Never mind the actual scammy ones...which also get people in.

Secondly, the thing I've never understood is:

Why some of these people (and here I've NOT got any particular mob in mind) go to all the efforts of advertising / making websites / writing books...or whatever...why turn to tricks in reporting results? Why not just produce a newsletter that simply beats the market? It's just not that hard to do! (Yes, for the discerning reader - I am being deliberately flippant...especially given my previously posted number one philosophy that humility is required to beat the market...but still. I'm not immune from ego and behavioural bias!) Anyway, that aside - the thing is, many people (my own small attempts on this forum included) have posted portfolios or trading diaries etc that handily beat the market. That is, after all, one of the beauties of a forum like this...you can't go back and re-doctor the results!

So...if you're going to go to all the trouble of running a business about it...why on earth would you not produce something that beats the market, without any trickery?

Because I kinda like chatting with newer investors and those finding their feet etc..there is a part of me that wishes I'd finished the financial planning part of my degree that would have allowed me to post my own newsletter, in this overly-regulated country (that still doesn't protect people, anyway!). At least (warning: ego-driven comment ahead) it would have actually beaten the market, in real-time, after costs, without any twisted, 'oh...we re-tweaked some parameters and re-ran the back tests(!)'

Sheesh!

rare rant over...sorry!

 

[systematic]

Oh; and let me post a clarifying point:

I have no problem someone saying, 'I've found some better parameters for System XYZ and here are the newly back-tested results - we'll use those going forward'.

But I do have a problem when, (a) the person re-states the results of the above system and (b) does not provide on their site the 'real-time' results of a would-be trader (i.e. subscriber), without the benefit of a newly retrofitted set of parameters.

I now feel like I've hijacked the thread - as this is not referring to trident or whatever the topic of this thread was. My 2 replies should probably be moved to a new thread that discusses the stated performance of stock market newsletters / educators etc. I blame Value Hunter; for the post that got me all fired up, lol

 

[Miner]

Trident Confidential Newsletter is a scam.
It is a front for chanelling their customers into Halifax Investments to trade their shares.
Halifax Investments have the shonkiest trading platform out there at the moment and are always blaming Saxo for its woeful performance. Trident Confidential obviously receives kickbacks for pushing new clients their way. Trident is an advertising newsletter dressed up with speculation to look like financial advice.

great PPPP
Could you or some one please throw light on Motley Group ? If they are same and a bit more sophisticated ?
What about Potter Publishing ? They seem to be unapologetic in giving recommendations and let the investors loose 40 to 45 percent. Of course investors are fools too.

 

[Value Hunter]

While we are on the topic of performance reporting, some listed investment companies seem to have very strange reporting standards for performance figures. For most LICs the "performance" figures they claim always seem to be higher than what common sense would dictate.

For example Platinum Asia Fund (ASX code: PAI) in its July monthly update declared its performance since inception in late Spetmeber 2015 was 15.5% (after fees and expenses). Yet the NTA was only $1.10 pre-tax and no dividends have yet been paid. The floating NTA was around $0.98 (listing expenses meant the NTA was below the floating share price of $1.00). So how does an increase from around 98 cents to around 110 cents (roughly a 12 to 12.5% increase) constitute a 15.5% return?

ASIC and the ASX really need to tighten up their definitions of how performance is calculated.