Tell It To Al

China seems to be beating America at its own game: Stock fraud.

Watch ABC News tonight for a report on the billions of dollars Americans are losing after investing in Chinese companies with accounting problems on par with Enron. Click here for a story it has already posted on it’s website.

ABC News calls it “one of the largest sprees of alleged financial crimes in recent memory — one that has gone largely unnoticed by most Americans.

“More than 100 China-based companies have now been de-listed, have left the NASDAQ and New York stock exchanges, have been denied listing, or have withdrawn applications, all following allegations of fraud or accounting irregularities, the ABC News investigation found.”

Follow this circle: Teachers earn a pension. They trust that pension to a professionally managed retirement fund. The fund then invests the money in a private equity firm. The private equity firm then invests the money in a big conglomerate. The conglomerate uses the money to fund gun manufacturers. The gun manufacturers then make amazingly deadly weapons that maniacs can use to shoot teachers and their students.

If there was ever an argument for knowing how your money is invested, this is it.

It’s really no wonder that private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP is now dumping its investment in the company that makes the Bushmaster rifle used in the Newtown, Conn. elementary school masacre. Click here to read the details from Reuters.

What’s amazing is that it was getting public pension fund money to invest in gunmakers in the first place.

Wanna get rich? We have a stock-picking robot that will double your money.

It’s amazing the Securities and Exchange Commission would have to waste its time shutting down such an obviously  fraudulent pitch like this.

You would hope people would be smart enough not to be taken, and laugh it off. But 75,000 U.S. investors fell for this ridiculous pump-and-dump started by two 16-year-old British twins.

Click here to read more from the SEC. And click here to read the SEC’s complaint.

“While touting their supposed breakthrough investment technology on two websites, the [twins] were racking up fees as stock promoters through a third,” said Thomas A. Sporkin, Chief of the SEC’s Office of Market Intelligence.

It’s hard to believe investors this stupid would have any money left to invest in a stock-picking robot.

What if I told you I had a stock-picking fairy?  Would you buy that, too?

Love him, or not, but odds are that President Obama will be reelected in November.

These odds, of course, are only probabilities, so there is plenty of room to bet.

A Chicago-based futures exchange wants to provide options that would essentially allow investors to bet on election outcomes: Who will be the next president, and which party will control the House and Senate.

The Commodities Futures and Trading Commission, however, has put the proposal on 90-day review and one of its commissioners says it amounts to “political poker.”

Yossi Bernart, CEO of NADEX, or the North American Derivatives Exchange, says the options would allow investors to hedge against such things as a potential tax increase, and that it would provide a more accurate portrait of what voters are thinking. Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

Gotta love a venture capitalist with a sense of humor.  Colorado VC Jason Mendelson performs “I’m A VC” with some of his partners. Click here for a better link if the above embedded video doesn’t worm.

Imagine having more than $1 million – not including the value of your home or retirement account – and not feeling rich.

A recent survey by Fidelity Investments reports that 42% of millionaires polled say they won’t feel wealthy until that have more than $7 million.

Fidelity says its a reflection of retirement anxiety. If they’re anxious, how much more anxious should everyone else feel?

Click here to read column.

Vanguard founder John C. Bogle considers himself living on borrowed time since having a heart transplant about 14 years ago.

He’s been using that time to set some things straight about the market and the checks and balances needed to prevent self-dealing people from ruining it for everyone.

At 81, Bogle just released his ninth book, “Don’t Count On It: Reflections on Investment Illusions, Indexing, Capitalism, ‘Mutual’ Funds, Entrepreneurship, Idealism and More.” Click here to read column.

The plan for millions of Americans, apparently, is to die before retirement.

Americans’ retirement funds are a collective $6.6 trillion short, according to a study released in Washington today by “Retirement USA,” a group advocating for a new retirement system. Yes, that’s TRILLION with a T! One used to have to study astrophysics to run across numbers that large.

Click here to read a press release from the group. The numbers are based on projections for workers aged 32-64.

“The key sources of income that retirees have relied on are either under attack – in the case of Social Security – or disappearing – in the case of traditional pensions,” Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, said in the press release.“401(k) plans are not working, and millions of workers have neither a pension nor a 401(k) account.  Clearly, the current private retirement system is failing most Americans.”

Gold prices hit new highs thes week, briefly hitting the $1,100-mark before settling at $1,095 per ounce.

One person who just knew this would happen was Pierre Lassonde, chairman of Toronto-based royalty company Franco-Nevada Corp. When I interviewed Lassonde in August 2003 – when gold hit a lofty $375 an ounce – he told me gold had no where to go but up. Way, way up.

Is sure wish I would have listened more carefully. Gold has nearly tripled since then. How many other investment classes have tripled since 2003?

A bet on gold – to some extent – is a bet that world’s the crazy financial schemes will eventually come to an end. Increasingly, central banks seem to be taking that bet, with India buying 200 metric tons of gold this week. How much higher can it go from here?

I thought I’d check in with Lassonde to see what he had to say now.

Click here to read my column.

And here’s the column I wrote about Lassonde in 2003:

Continue reading…

Watch out. Pineapples are prickly.

Dole Foods Co., now privately held, wants to sell stock to the public, but warns that it might not always have enough cash flow to pay its debts.

The food giant has $2 billion in debt and appears to be asking shareholders to step in where a lender or bond issuer may not.

Click here to read my column on Dole.

(PHOTO: Dole Foods.)