RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Special People You might be correct. The game is skewed and as a small guy, odds are against me big time. But....
One works with information that is provided by people in the position of trust and authority and, based on that, one makes decisions. As a small investor,you have to rely on the quality of the advice and analysis provided - at least it should be the case if a title of the person is a certified financial advisor who is associated with a large multinational firm. I trust my auto mechanic too to inspect and fix my car. I do not have to research the car breaks design to death before getting the service; we all have to trust other people as we live in a quite a complex world.
This whole situation with my portfolio provoked some interesting thoughts. As a small investor, one does have a very limited time and tools to deploy when checking the validity of information presented. Yes, there is Stockhouse and other sites and blogs but in many cases it is not transparent enough to know what is a spin and what is a genuine advice or warning; people posting anonymously may have different agendas and all you need is just an email to register. I, for one, was asked at one point to post a very favourable feedback on a Stockhouse forum by someone who clearly should not have asked that - I did it because I considered that person a friend too at that time and did not realize quickly enough the dilemma associated with doing so.
Well, what if there was a site where a small investor could go and search & post data showing the performance and quality of the advice and service they got from his/her advisor; this would not be anonymous posting and users would have to register. I wish I had that kind of resource available few years ago and so do couple of my friends that fell into the same trap as I did. By the way, they are considering filing the formal complaint too. It helps to know that I am not alone.
I am an IT guy and as a result of this terrible experience I decided that to make a difference I should use what I know best and focus my fight that way - shame and expose with no spin, based on performance data and facts that are verifiable for others to see and judge. The website model is in an early development stage, functional envisioning is done and will be ready next year for a pilot - kind of "No Spin Zone" for small investors to go and check things out before committing money to any advisor or stock.
That is all I will say for the time being. I wish everyone all the best with CGX and I welcome any constructive feedback.