More Details on the Extension of Our $1,000,000 Challenge

UPDATE (April 2, 2021): since 2011 we have been offering to award the first person who was able to demonstrate that another financial professional was able to at least match the investment forecasting track record of Mike Stathis since he began publishing investment research in 2006.

After one decade of failing to receive a single submission to challenge our guarantee, we decided to officially close this offer (see below).

This decision should in no way be taken to imply that we no longer believe Mr. Stathis holds the leading forecasting track record in the world.

We remain confident that Mr. Stathis continues to hold the world's leading investment forecasting track record. As such, we are willing to extend this offer on an individual basis if we receive sufficient materials which present a reasonable case that warrants expenditure of our time and effort to address the challenge.

We are even open to reducing the offer to the previous $100,000 so that the entrant is not required to risk loss of his/her own money if (when) they lose the challenge. 

Quite simply, we remain anxious to address all reasonable challenges. But each challenge must be of sufficient accuracy and detail to warrant our attention.

Please note that we will only entertain one entry at a time. If you submit a challenge during a period when we are addressing a previous entry, we will inform you of this and provide you with an estimate of when we believe we will be able to address your challenge (when possible).

Individuals are permitted to submit only one challenge.

Any and all offers to extend this guarantee are up to our discretion.

If we feel a submission does not meet minimal threshold required to warrant our time and effort to present a counter case, the individual will be notified of this. If this individual does not agree with our analysis and decision, the entrant can pursue this matter in a court of law. 

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August 2017 marked the eighth year we offered a cash reward for anyone who could provide evidence that there was another financial professional who could at least match Mike Stathis' track record in investment forecasting and analysis since 2006. 

Prior to the recent expiration of this $100,000 reward, we launched a similar contest but raised the stakes to $1,000,000. This offer expired in June 2017. See here.

Last month we announced the extension of this $1,000,000 challenge, through sometime in 2018. We also extended the period covered by this challenge by another year, from late 2006 to October 2017.  

Today we are announcing the official expiration date of this $1,000,000 challange.  

We will accept all serious submissions for this challenge up through August 31, 2018 on a first-come, first-serve basis.

We will make all research publications available for analysis for official entries once they have satisfied the basic requirements. Until then, you can begin to analyze Mike Stathis' track record here, here, here, here, here, here and here.  

If you don't feel sufficiently qualified to perform a proper analysis of forecasting track records or if don't have adequate time to put in all of the work needed for this challenge, feel free to send this to anyone you think might stand a better chance of completing a reasonable entry.  

You can even send this to the clowns positioned in the media as "experts" and ask if they would care to enter this challenge.  

Some Background on Our Track Record Challenges

In 2009 we began offering a cash reward to anyone who could provide evidence to refute our claim that Mike Stathis holds the leading investment forecasting track record.

As you might recall, this offer arose from our initiative to demonstrate to the public that the U.S. media engages in blatant censorship in order to achieve its hidden agendas. 

Note that the launch of this challenge had absolutely nothing to do with boasting. It was about waking the public up to the fact that the media intentionally promotes con artists, shills and idiots in order to profit, while pretending to have the audience's best interests in mind. In reality, the media works against its audience and on the side of advertisers. 

We have since devoted an unthinkable amount of time and resources towards proving this claim. Over the course of a decade, Mike has uncovered and explained the various tactics used by the media to control, deceive and defraud its audience. Mike's work in media analysis alone has positioned him as one of the world's top media experts. 

This project has also led to the creation of what we believe to be the world's largest digital (written, audio and video) library of financial charlatans, exposing their miserable track records and marketing tactics. These massive collection of data are located on the AVA Investment Analytics website, most of which have been reserved for the benefit of Members and Clients of AVA Investment Analytics. 

We estimate that having access to this massive library of educational resources is likely to prevent the average retail investor from losing a minimum of $300,000 over their life time by avoiding the countless marketing gimmicks and scams from the enormous army of charlatans found within the so-called mainstream and alternative media, as well as the various copywriting investment newsletter syndicates. 

This estimate does not include any potential savings or avoidance of missed investment gains that might result from the opportunity costs associated with poor investment decisions made as a result of following the recommendations of these charlatans. 

Mike has demonstrated how the financial media works with Wall Street in order to deceive and mislead the investment public. It's quite simple. Financial media programs feature individuals introduced to its audience as financial/investment/economic "experts" in order to create the impression that these "experts" are going to provide their audience with valuable content. But the reality is much different. Anyone who has bothered to check the background of these "experts" and carefully examined their track records will realize the severity of this scam orchestrated by the media. 

In reality these many of these "experts" have shady backgrounds, while others have been sanctioned by securities regulators.  But the common trait shared by all of these "experts" is that they have terrible track records and hidden agendas that are misaligned with the investment public. 

The only objective these "experts" have is to market themselves and their business in front of as many gulliable sheep as they can. And because these "experts" know much more about sales and marketing than investments, even if they wanted to help investors, they are not capable of providing valuable content. But they are very capable of the kind of bull shitting you'd expect from snake oil sales men. They know how to toss around relevant terms in order to create the perception that they are knowledgable enough to help guide investors. They also attempt to impress their audience with pseudo-intellectual ramblings. But truly experienced financial professionals (that is, real experts) realize these "experts" are hot air motor mouths looking to hook more fish.  

Make no mistake about it. The "experts" you see and hear about in the media are only experts in sales and marketing.  In reality, they are charlatans. 

These charlatans are able to generate large sums of money from the free promotion they receive from the media. And they leverage this opportunity to pitch their books, subscription services, financial services and other products to the retail investment public that has been informed by the media that these "experts" are "smart guys" and "great investors." 

Some of these charlatans misrepresent or deceive the sucker audience into thinking they are big time money managers or hedge fund managers. In reality, they are attempting to market their business. One of the easiest ways to tell when you are dealing with a charlatan and/or clown is to check and see if they write for Jim Cramer's boiler room copywriting firm, The Street or the related Real Money. In fact, if you ever see this mentioned in the bio of anyone, you should stay far away from them because having worked for this boiler room should tell you all you need to know.  

The fact is that real money managers and hedge fund managers with legitimate funds don't make regular appearances in the media. When you see a fund manager who always seems to be in the media, you can bet they either don't have much real business so they are trying to hook some fish from the audience, or else they are trying to promoting their stocks in order to get the sheep audience to jump aboard their trade so they can cash out with gains. 

It would be a different matter if these charlatans had good track records or their books actually provided real insight that helped investors. Despite the fact that many investors who fall for the media scam actually think these clowns are spot on with their "insights" and forecasts, the facts speak for themselves. The clowns and charlatans promoted by the media as "experts" are consistently wrong and often clueless. 

So why do so many people fall for the media scam? The sad reality is that in today's world, most people gravitate towards the celebrity-like personna of these "experts." Anyone who receives a good amount of media expoure is able to have this kind of impact on the masses. The reason for this behavior delves into an entirely different topic which I won't bother discussing here. But you should note that this phenomenon is well-known and accounts for the growing trend of positioning Hollywood stars and pop singers and other entertainers as spokesmen for global agendas such as "climate change."

The point is that those who are seduced by this "celebrity status" (as seen by the "experts" in the media) lose their ability to think clearly and objectively. In fact, many of these individuals never possessed this basic skill, which explains why they fell for the media scam to begin with. 

Top Six Questions to Ask BEFORE You Trust Investment "Experts"

The truth of the matter is that the media intentionally features these "experts" in order to make sure its audience is steered into the gutter. This generates higher advertisement revenues from its sponsors, most of which are Wall Street firms and affiliated financial services companies. 

You see, because these "experts" are wrong the majority of time, those who listen to them will eventually lose large sums of money.  This ultimately benefits financial firms which advertise on financial shows and networks that feature these "experts." Thus, if you are one of the sheep that follows the advice or recommendations of the media's "experts" you are going to lose money. Probably a very large amount. It's that simple. 

And once you lose money won't you eventually seek some "professional" assistance? Okay so don't you think those ads and logos you see on those financial programs you watched have been subconsciously imprinted into your mind? In fact, they have. This is all known based on extensive research. So naturally once you feel a sense of desperation after having suffered huge losses, chances are very high that you're going to contact one of the financial firms you saw advertised or in same way associated with the financial programs you watch.  A similar pattern of behavior plays out with radio and print media. 

And if you are one of the media executives overseeing this scam, could you not charge higher fees for ads? Of course you could, and you do!

After all, this scam causes a larger than normal percentage of the audience to seek out the assistance of financial firms. Therefore, any media show that is able to execute this scam will command top dollar for ad slots.

The only other variable the media executive needs to worry about are ratings. The higher the ratings, the more ad dollars you can demand for ad slots. This is why the financial media bends over backwards to create Hollywood-like productions to ensure the illusion of value has been created before your very eyes.

These productions ensure the full gamet of entertainment has been covered, from babes and boobs to comradery. It's all about creating a "feel-good" production. This is the business of Hollywood. The productions cause the audience to engage more. And the audience becomes more attached and loyalty to these productions due to the emotional stimulation they receive by watching these scam networks.

The media crime bosses who orchestrate this scam make sure cover every angle when they design each production, from the "feel-good" (sexual arousement) response the male audience gets when they see the babes and boobs, to the "feel-good" environment created when the charlatans incite a gambling mentality as they rattle off the "trades of the day."   

But you aren't going to ever get any real investment insight from these productions. It's all cheap entertainment dished out by bimbos and baboons. It's all smoke and mirrors. It's Hollywood. The idea isn't to provide the audience with value. The idea is to keep the audience entertained so they will tune in.

Once they are tuned in their guard is dropped and they confuse cheap entertainment with investment insight. That's when the losses begin.  And unless you are either a very seasoned and sophisticated investors or else you have come across Mike Stathis, you aren't likely to understand this scam.  

Similar to all large-scale scams, every player shares a piece of the pie. Some of the money collected from the media scam trickles down from the financial industry when it receives new business due to increased demand that has been generated by the media.

Where does this money trickle down to? The media in the form of more ad dollars.

The money also trickles down to the media's "experts" who sell more useless books and newsletters. 

The cycle is endless, often leading to a perpetual loop for many because the sheep who read these books and newsletters and act on the advice usually end up losing large sums of money or else miss out of tremendous investment opportunities because they have been fear-mongered to stay out of the stock market. Regardless of the path they took to achieve their losses, most ultimately head back to the financial media seeking better guidance from the media's "experts." And the process repeats again. It's truly sad and pathetic. But unfortunately, it's reality.

Everyone wins except the audience who fell for this media scam. But of course the sheep always claim they "won't fall for it," or "they just watch Jim Cramer but never act." Some individuals who insist they won't fall for these scams are delusional. Most often, individuals who tune into the media fail to recognize how the human mind works, so they fool themselves into thinking they won't get sucked into the scam. These are the same people who fail to recognize how deterimental using social media is. They are also likely in the same group of population that thinks "free" services are really free.

It's critical for these "experts" to kiss up to the agendas of the media or else they won't be invited back to the show. Remember, because these "experts" obtain large sums of money as a result of being promoted by the media they will do whatever it takes to please the media. That means these "experts" have the best interests of the media in mind because this ensures their own interests are preserved. Thus, they really work for the media.  

Some of these "experts" function to create confusion or a sense a urgency in order to cause investors to trade more frequently. This benefits the various online brokerage firms that pay for ad spots. Other times the "experts" make inaccurate, exaggerated or baseless claims in order to manipulate securities.

A critical component of this scam is that financial advisers are able to side step much of the compliance they face in the securities industry by making generalized soliciations in the media and then claiming the investments were unsolicited when individuals who follow this "expert" in the media hand over their money to the "expert" or his investment firm.  Essentially they are using the media to get past securities compliance. This is a topic I have previously discussed. And it's something very few if anyone else has noticed.

Any way you look at you are always going to get screwed from ad-based content. If you need a reminder read this. 

But the ad-based scam certainly does not end with broadcast media. You see, virtually every ad-based website and blog plays off of big media content. So for example, when Jim Cramer rattles off his daily list of "good stocks" and "bad stocks," and the pin heads hosting other useless shows like Fast Money rattle off their "best trades of the day," thousands of websites and blogs provide transcripts of this trash, as well as commentaries and so on.

Website operators with ad-based content always follow big media because their only objective is to maximize the number of page views. This leads to optimal ad dollars. Similar to big media, the only thing website operators care about is getting paid by advertisers. They don't give a damn about providing value. More clicks means more ad dollars. So if you want the most clicks, you obviously need to focus on topics seen or read by a large audience. This explains why the sheep effect has never been as predominant as it is today.  

Mike has also demonstrated over and over again that these so-called "experts" are invariably Jewish or represent Jewish-run firms. This is perhaps the most interesting observation because it points to another not-so-obvious agenda which he has also alluded to.

The fact of the matter is that the media and financial industry are controlled by the Jewish mafia. Because Jewish people are invariably loyal to other Jews (often exhibiting pathological loyalty) they want to keep the money taken from gentiles in the hands of Jews, if all possible. This explains why Jews dominate so many industries. These aren't just a bunch of Jews solely with business interests. We are talking about a huge crime syndicate that has been working to destroy western civilization for a very long time, but this a topic of discussion for a different time. 

Make no mistake. Although gentiles make up the vast majority of the media audience, some Jewish individuals are also victimized by the ad-based media scam.  But that doesn't matter to the Jewish mafia. When it comes time to pick and choose between tribal loyalty and money, they will always choose money. 

Where does all of this money come from that goes into the hands of the financial industry, financial media and the con artists who provide useless content? Main Street.

There is no one in the world who has explained this entire ad-based media charade better than Mike Stathis. 

If there is only one thing you take from this presentation hopefully it will be to avoid every so-called "expert" in the financial media. Do not buy their books and do not listen to anything they say unless you want to lose money. The best action would be to avoid the financial media altogether.

There is no one in the world who has explained this entire ad-based media charade better than Mike Stathis. 

In order to demonstrate that the media has explicitly banned Mike Stathis in preference of airing charlatans with terrible track records, we have previously shown evidence of contact we made with major television and radio networks, as well as print and digital media. We still have many of the email exchanges with producers, editors and reporters.

In fact, as Mike has discussed many time in the past, the only reason why he left the venture capital industry to focus full time on the public markets was because he was being banned by all media. This ban later expanded to webites that post feature authors. Essentially, Mike's voice was being completely shut out. And becaue his only intent from the beginning was to help investors avoid the market collapse, his efforts were being wasted since he was unable to reach the public. In response, Mike started the AVA Investment Analytics website in 2009 so he could freely publish his work.  

We began this crusade in 2006 and continued through 2010. We spent large sums of money specifically for the purpose of getting our message out to the investment public. We purchased contact numbers and emails lists. We hired PR agents, and paid for ads. We sent media packages, emails, and made phone calls to hundreds of reporters, editors, producers and just about anyone we thought would listen. 

We did everything we could to try and warn Main Street. Mike even offered to give free talks to relevant industry groups across the United States. Unfortunately, in most cases these groups were only interested in promoting delusions of easy money rather than warning its members of the dangers ahead.

This is yet another story that will be told in detail some time in the future. But you should note that these industry groups are all sales and marketing machines with business interests in promoting only positive pumping of their industry rather than providing a balanced assessment so the members can make well-informed business and investment decisions. 

We even contacted networks like BET because Mike was desperate to alert the public about the collapse he was certain would occur. But even BET was interested in what Mike had to say. As it turned out, blacks suffered disproportionately from the consequences of the financial crisis. To all of the black individuals out there, just imagine if BET had only allowed Mike to warn their audience. Once you understand how the media operates you will realize that even BET is controlled by the Jewish mafia.

Instead of providing their audience with valuable insight, black talk show hosts promote Jewish con artists. For instance, consider that Steve Harvey recently promoted Tim Sykes, the penny stock scam artist on his talk show.

Make no mistake. Mike sacrified a huge amount of time, energy and financial resources specifically to warn the public about what he believed would lead to a depression.

The amazing thing about this huge undertaking is that Mike was still working in the venture capital industry and had no intention of resurrecting his Wall Street experience in order to begin an investment research firm. This is why you will not find any mention of AVA Investment Analytics or any other self-promotion of any kind in the original extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse, published in 2006.

This is in contrast to just about every other investment-related book written before and after America's Financial Apocalypse. As you might have noticed, rather than providing real research and valid insight, virtually every investment-related book is a sales and marketing piece to promote the author's investment firm or newsletter.  And very few of these books were even written by these authors.

Similar to charlatans like Tony Robins, Robert Kiyosaki, Kevin Trudeau and Donald Trump (just to name a few) who have formed their careers based on a variety of lies and gimmicks, the financial charlatans you see and hear about today have all used ghost writers. The reason why these books are rarely ever written by the stated author is because these guys are all marketers. This also explains why they have been so wrong. This is just one more reason why the publishing industry has become complete trash, especially in the business and investment genre. 

Once Mike realized that he had been black-balled by traditional media, he concluded that his only option would be to go to the so-called "alternative media." As previously documented, Mike contacted just about every single major alternative media radio show, from Alex Jones and Jeff Rense to George Noory and David Icke; yes, the nut jobs. 

Stooping this low was a major concession for Mike because he considered his work to be somewhat academic and completely credible, based on detailed and documents arguments, as opposed to the fluff that's typically published in order to spread some agenda and market goods and services of the author. Hence, Mike felt his work represented the antithesis of what alternative media stands for. Instead of ridiculous conspiracies and facts that had been spun into fiction, Mike's work represented incredible insight with no agendas or bias. But he was desperate to try and help Main Street, even if it meant focusing on the segment of Main Street that follows alternative media. 

Some of you already know how this turned out. Again, Mike was completely ignored by alternative media after the word on him had already been put out by so-called "mainstream media." 

In the early stages of our directives to reach out to alternative media, we contacted the Alex Jones Show, Infowars. After having received our media kit, Jones indicated that he was very anxious to speak with Mike. And why wouldn't he be? After all, similar to other cons like Ron Paul and other so-called "libertarians," Alex Jones created a career based on telling everyone how bad the government and the banks are, right?

But alas, instead of the typical knuckle heads he had been using to back his claims, he had the opportunity to interview Mike, a credible Wall Street expert. In fact, prior to our contact with Infowars, Jones had not even interviewed anyone from the financial industry. Jones had only been interviewing the liar, fraud and Jewish con man, Bob Chapman, a washed up commodities broker from decades ago who had a history of making completely false and ridiculous claims on Jones' show.

Jones told us he wanted to finish reading America's Financial Apocalypse before scheduling a date for an interview. This was in early March 2008, just before Bear Stearns collapsed.  Mike was ready to warn people that Bear Stearns was in fact a partner with Lehman in having fueled the MBS market and thus was extremely vulnerable to a collapse.

But he never got a chance to issue a public warning. Incidentally, during the same time period he was also denied the opportunity to warn thousands of Charles Schwab customers at a trading expo held in Dallas on the weekend before Bear Stearns collapsed. This latter incident is a story that Mike has previously shared. 

Once Jones finished the book, we never heard from him or his monkeys again despite numerous attempts to contact him over a period spanning several months. We felt this to be extremely odd. But then we began to listen to his show to see if he was using any material from America's Financial Apocalypse.

We noticed that Jones began to completely focus on the economic issues. And then we noticed he began interviewing all kinds of shady guys who were pumping gold. And then we realized why he dropped all contact with us. In America's Financial Apocalypse, although Mike advised investors to buy gold and silver, he emphasized the need to trade the volatility of these metals. And he highlighted the low fees that were charged by gold and silver ETFs.

Essentially, Mike was in favor of buying gold and silver ETFs because of the low transaction costs and daily liquidity. This is the prudent way to handle gold and silver. And that is a fact. Mike realized that Alex Jones had gone from being a small time gold pusher to becoming one of the biggest gold pumping media con artists in the world. In some regards he was even bigger than Glenn Beck.  

Around one year later (perhaps late 2009) we caught Jones using Mike's articles on his websites without our permission. He even made sure to remove all references at the bottom of the article which mentioned America's Financial Apocalypse and Mike's website. 

By then Mike was already well aware that alterative media was functioning as a gold pumping portal and was receiving the majority of its ad revenues from gold dealers and related products that fit into the doomsday narrative. Mike was already writing articles exposing this scam. 

By no coincidence, Mike was already being banned throughout the Internet, as well. You see, it's all about ad dollars. Websites are no different than television and radio stations because in each case, they provide ad-based content. What that means is that the content is geared specifically for the benefit of the advertisers, not the audience. 

Before you can even begin to understand the significance of Mike having been completely banned by all media, you must first understand that he was well ahead of the curve when the bottom fell out of the economy, in having forecast the details of the financial crisis, as well as having documented the big picture ramifications and impact of this crisis more accurately than anyone else in the world. This is a fact. 

Unlike the Jewish charlatans paraded through the media on a daily basis, Mike was not afforded the opportunity to expand upon, update and interpret events as they happened. Hence, as incredible as his track record on the financial crisis is, it would be even more remarkable if he would have been able to reach the public through frequent appearances in broadcast media.  

Once his efforts to help the public defend itself from the most horrific financial collapse in world history were derailed, Mike wanted to make sure the public knew that he tried to help them but was prevented from doing so by the media. 

In order to demonstrate that the media banned him and to help raise more awareness as to the criminal nature of the media, Mike began by offering $10,000 to the first person who could prove there was a financial professional who could match his investment forecasting track record since late-2006 to current (which was August 2009 at the time).

The main objective was not for Mr. Stathis to boast about his track record but to convince the public of the vital importance of ignoring the media. 

By 2010, after more than one year without any submissions we increased the offer to $50,000.

By August 2011, we raised this amount to $100,000. After more than two years of waiting, we failed to receive even a single submission, so we extended the expiration period several times as we anxiously awaited submissions. See here. 

To this day, after eight years and more than 500,000 views of this offer (which is quite a bit considering Mike Stathis has been completely banned so his exposure is virtually nonexistent) we have not received a single entry.  See here. 

In July 2016, as the expiration period of this $100,000 offer was approaching, we extended it once again to 2017. See here. 

A few months earlier (January 2016) we also introduced the sum of $1,000,000 to be awarded to the first person who could provide evidence that another financial professional has a better investment forecasting track record than Mike Stathis, from 2006 through 2016. This offer expired in June 2017. See here.

As of today, we have reopened the $1,000,000 challenge through August 2018. We are also extending the duration of the track record analysis to October 2017.

In order to entertain only the most serious challenges for this $1,000,000 award, we require the candidate to risk $500,000 of his or her own money if proven wrong. But if proven right, they will receive $1,000,000.

Similar to the previous challenges, we would first determine whether each submission had sufficient basis and adhered to the official rules prior to moving forward with the process of assessment by a third party auditing/consulting firm.¹  

If it is determined that the challenge submission has sufficient validity to warrant a legitimate challenge, it will be forwarded to a third-party auditing/consulting firm for analysis and comparison to Mike Stathis' track record, along with any rebuttals by Mr. Stathis or his designated agents to the submission. ²

We have made this new $1,000,000 challenge available to all serious candidates.

We will accept all serious submissions up through August 31, 2018 on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Due to the resources required to address each challenge, we will only consider one submission at a given time. Each challenge is considered to be officially submitted only after the contestant has satisfied our escrow guidelines, the contestant has acknowledged receipt of all official rules, Terms and Conditions, we have received at least an overview of the challenge, and we have acknowledged that the contestant has complied with all official rules and agrees to the Terms and Conditions of this challenge. 

The period to be analyzed for the $1,000,000 challenge is November 2006 through October 2017. ³

If the contestant wins the challenge, he or she will receive $1,000,000 from AVA Investment Analytics. There will be a legally binding agreement backing it up. 

What Topics are Covered in this Challenge?

The forecasting research universe and respective time periods for this challenge are as follows:

1) Detailed explanations of the events leading up to and responsible for the real estate collapse and financial crisis (2006 - 2009).

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006)

2) Investment-related forecasts and guidance issued prior to the financial crisis.    

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006) and Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble (2007)

3) Characterization of the long-term issues that have caused the U.S. economy to struggle through an economic recovery (must have been documented prior to 2008). 

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006)

4) Forecasts and predictions related to the aftermath of the collapse of the real estate and financial industries (late 2006-2012). 

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006) and Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble (2007)

5) U.S. stock market forecasts and guidance, as given by the Dow Jones Industrial Average,  the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite Index (since late 2006).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

6) Identification and discussions of various market and macroeconomic risk factors pertaining to market valuation, performance and risk for the US capital markets, including general macroeconomic forecasts. 

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

7) Chinese stock market forecasts and guidance, denoted by the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI) since official inclusion into our research coverage universe (2010).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

8) Indian stock market forecasts and guidance, denoted by the closed-end fund, India Fund (IFN) since official inclusion into our research coverage universe (2010).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

9) Brazilian stock market forecasts and guidance, denoted by the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (EWZ), since official inclusion into our research coverage universe (2010).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

10) Identification and discussions of various market and macroeconomic risk factors pertaining to market valuation, performance and risk for the three emerging markets we cover, including general macroeconomic forecasts. 

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

11) Securities analysis and guidance since official inclusion into our research coverage universe (June 2009).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor research publication

12) Precious metals (gold and silver) analysis and trading guidance since official inclusion into our research coverage universe (late 2006).

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006), the Intelligent Investor and the CCPM Forecaster research publications

13) Commodities analysis and trading guidance since official inclusion into our research coverage universe (2010).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor and CCPM Forecaster research publications

14) Foreign currencies analysis and trading guidance since official inclusion into our research (2010).

- this material can be found in the Intelligent Investor and CCPM Forecaster research publications

15) Various macroeconomic forecasts, from interest rates to big picture analysis (since late 2006).  

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006), the Intelligent Investor and the CCPM Forecaster research publications

This challenge pertains to the total summation and breadth of coverage of Mike Stathis' forecasting track record as shown by the above topics.

However, if the forecasting research from the financial professional you wish to enter as a contestant does not cover all of the research topics listed above, we are willing to accept challenges focused on the contestant's track record pertaining to the financial crisis. We will also accept challenges that deal exclusively with U.S. stock market forecasting for the time period listed above.

If you think you know another financial professional who can beat Mike Stathis' track record, we encourage you to start getting your case prepared. 

Perhaps you'd like to submit Peter Schiff's track record as an entry.

What about Harry Dent? Maybe Jim Rogers or Marc Faber?

How about Jim Rickards? 

Jim Cramer? Doug Kass? Dennis Gartman?

What about Josh Brown and Barry Ritholtz?

Nouriel Roubini? Robert Shiller? 

After all, these are the guys who always receive daily promotion as "experts" in the media, so shouldn't they have great track records?

If not, then why are they being aired by the media on a daily basis? 

THIS IS THE $1,000,000 question. 

If the contestant wins the challenge, he or she will receive $1,000,000 from AVA Investment Analytics. There will be a legally binding agreement backing it up. 

As previously stated, for this challenge, you will need to have $500,000 in cash ready to transfer to an escrow account tied to official rules, terms and conditions of this challenge in order to be officially entered. We will also escrow $500,000 into the same account tied to the same provisions. 

If you lose the challenge you will forfeit the $500,000 in escrow. But if you win, you will receive $1,000,000 from AVA Investment Analytics ($500,000 from escrow plus the return of your $500,000, plus another $500,000 from AVA Investment Analytics payable within 12 months). 

How Will Each Track Record Be Analyzed and Scored?

The rules determining the accuracy of each forecast will be based on several criteria. Below we have listed some of these criteria:

1. Hit-Miss Ratio or the percentage of accurate forecasts. There will be no cherry-picking of results. You will be required to demonstrate that your submission includes all forecasts from your source made during the given time period. And we will need verification of this.  

2. Timing matters. No one has a crystal ball, although some of the charlatans promoted as "experts" seem to think they do since they claim to be able to pinpoint exactly when a market collapse will happen. And when their "prediction" fails to materialize, they keep changing the dates. This is not forecasting. It's a broken clock marketing scam used by con artists. Real forecasting mandates that things change over time, so forecasts must be adjusted to account for these changes. 

3. Precision of the forecast, including provisions for different scenarios. Real forecasting involves a scenario analysis, both in order to assess what's going on and in order to construct a forecast. Because no one has a crystal ball, it's important to provide different scenarios which could lead to a variety of outcomes based on changing information so the investor is able to react and respond to the research. 

4. Understanding of the big picture as determined by previous forecasts.

The full details and guidelines of the criteria used to determine the accuracy of track record submissions will be disclosed once we have acknowledged an official submission.

Remember that the contestant will have up to 60 days to complete the final draft of their submission after being notified that their submission has been accepted.  We will also provide an additional extension of 30 days after we provide the official rules, official judging criteria, and Terms and Conditions so that the contestant can make potential modifications to their submission, if needed. 

Note that we will only provide all official rules and the full official Terms and Conditions and other details for this challenge once we are confident the contestant is serious.

We will only consider an individual to be a serious contestant by satisfying the following: 

a. Once we have verified that the contestant holds at least $500,000 in cash in a major bank ready to be transferred into an escrow account linked to the full Terms and Conditions, and official guidelines of this challenge,

b. After the contestant has submitted their entry and it as been approved as a reasonable challenge for debate. ⁴

c. We have verified the claims made by the contestant, including verification of the track record of the selected financial professional.

Although a good deal of Mr. Stathis' forecasting track record since 2006 is publicly available, the majority of this research has not been made available to the public in order to preserve the value of our research, our methods and to avoid disclosing longer-term forecasts and insights.

If the contestant would like access to all of our research during the coverage period prior to submitting their official entry in order to estimate their chances of winning the challenge, we will only grant complimentary access to our full research research library, including all written, video and audio publications pertaining to this challenge after the contestant has transferred $500,000 into the selected escrow account and has presented us with a compelling entry.

If the contestant prefers to obtain full access to our research database files prior to transferring $500,000 into the escrow account, he or she can pay a fee to access to our archived research database. This fee will be determined at a later date, but it will not exceed $10,000. ⁵

Review of Submission Process:

Submit Challenge Summary-> Provide Evidence of $500,000 Cash Held in a U.S. Bank Account -> Wait for Approval of Challenge Overview -> Receive all Official Rules and Terms and Conditions -> Deposit $500,000 into Escrow -> Deposit Estimated Fees for Third-Party Auditing/Consulting Firms in Separate Escrow -> Submit Full Challenge within 60 days 

For naysayers who are unfamiliar with my background as a financial professional and my track record (here, here, here, here, here, here and here) I suggest you examine these things in order to assess my credibility. Note that this is only a small portion of my track record. 

You should also understand a bit about my educational background and experience on Wall Street. You can learn about that here.  

In reality, very few if any individuals who read this who are not already familiar with my comprehensive track record will not bother to devote the time, effort and intellect required to analyze it. I know this to be a fact because this reckless behavior in part it accounts for one reason why so many people are so easily fooled today.

Others might not be able to comprehend the relevance of having worked on Wall Street advising institutional investors and fund managers, as well as having worked with and advised venture capitalists. There is in fact a term to describe this gap in understanding. It's called ignorance.  

The fact is that the vast majority of individuals rarely examine an issue or claim sufficiently or with clear logic. Instead, they are driven by quick news bits which are often reinforced by the media's flooding effect. This mentally destructive and potentially dangerous behavior has been the result of the Internet and has been compounded by social media. Combined with poor thinking skills, flawed logic and overall bad judgment, these individuals will swear to you that they are informed or that they are correct. Meanwhile, intelligent and wise individuals laugh at their delusional mind set. 

If you are not familiar with the details of my track record, most likely it is due to one or more of the following possibilities:

1) You have permitted your mind to be infested with con artists and shills from the media (mainstream and alternative).

2) You are too lazy to spend the time required to diligently investigate my track record.

3) You lack adequate knowledge and understanding of finance, economics and investments to analyze and interpret my track record with accuracy. 

4) You lack critical thinking skills so you have convinced yourself of things that are not consistent with reality. 

Sadly, many individuals lack even the most basic critical thinking skills required for this examination, which is why they have most likely fallen for the various con artists promoted by the media as experts. Quite simply, the vast majority of individuals today lack the ability to formulate a logical analysis of even the most basic arguments. A discussion of the cause and impact of this sad reality will be held back for another day.   

Normally, I do not mention anything about my accomplishments unless it is for a very good reason because I do not like to boast about myself as a way to gain attention, unlike many others. Again, it's never been about ME. I have always pointed to my track record in order to inform the public that I have been banned so that people understand that the media cannot be trusted. 

Skeptics and those who have an axe to grind are always looking for anything they can use to counter an argument even if what they come up with has very little to do with the premise of the argument or the underlying substance of the conclusions.  

For the lack of anything else of substance to criticize about me, some claim that I have an agenda because I promote myself, my track record and my books. Again this shows the kind of mental midgets that exist in today's world. If virtually no one knows about you, your track record or your publications, you are not self-promoting. You are informing people. If you have been banned who else if going to let people know about you other than you? As well, because I do NOT advertise or market my services or track record in any way, I have virtually no exposure whatsoever.  You are unlikely to find mention about my track record or insights even on blogs because most people are that stupid and just follow the herd.  Self-promotion by definition implies that you have a large amount of exposure.

When you have devoted several years specifically for the purpose of trying to help main street avoid a historic collapse (in other words, AFA was not written to be used as a launch for a business), yet you have been banned by all media despite having predicted the causes, consequences and severity of the financial crisis more accurately than anyone in the world,  I think it is critical to make sure people learn about this. The point is not to highlight me or my track record, but to emphasize that the man with the best track record has been banned. This is what people need to know. Understanding this alone can prevent most people from losing money in the future. 

Others who are upset because I have identified and detailed the motives, means and tactics of the gold pumping syndicate, the role of the Jewish mafia in worldwide fraud, and other issues are desperate to defame me in order to attack my credibility. They will even point to ridiculous arguments such as, "he uses foul language" and "he yells" or "I don't like people who are critical of others" in order to somehow equate that with a reduced level of credibility.  All I can say is STICK TO THE FACTS. STICK TO MY TRACK RECORD. 

If you aren't coming across people in the financial industry who are yelling and cursing when they talk about the historic fraud that continues to this day, then you are dealing with a shill or else one of the fraudsters. I've been through the fraud. I remember how millions of elderly investors had their retirement dreams destroyed from the fraud committed by Wall Street and the media during the dotcom bubble. I suppose when you have a real expert who is more concerned about defending main street from the crooks than growing his bank account by appealing to the dumbed down masses, you're likely to encounter a man who yells and curses. 

In contrast, con artists usually try to create a cult following by constantly preaching economic dogmas (usually pertaining to the government being bad and pretending to advocate individual freedom) and linking that to their delusional broken clock investment ideas. They inflict fear and greed into your mind, hoping to hook you. They also make sure to never alienate any group of any kind because they don't want to diminish the size of the sheep they intend to slaughter. This is why you will rarely hear these charlatans discuss things having to do with race or religion. 

Hopefully by now you know who these guys are. They have been pushing the "freedom, liberty, libertarian" scam for years. And they keep telling you to buy gold because they claim all currencies are worthless and the stock market is going to crash. 

If you don't know who these people are I suggest you should spend some time on our site because I have exposed this genre of doom porn better than anyone else in the world. In fact, I am the first person to have exposed this racket. Everyone else has copied me, of course without so much as mentioning my name for waking them up.

Others will even attempt to mischaracterize my track record or else make blatant false statements about it in order to attack my credibility. All I can say to such individuals is, put your money where your mouth is.

And if you lack sufficient funds to qualify for this challenge, I have the following question for you.

Where were you over the past eight years when I did not require so much as a single penny for contestants to submit their entry for the chance to win up to $100,000 with NO RISK WHATSOEVER? 

As well, only a fool would trust anything written or spoken by anyone who refuses to disclose their real identity (not that doing so implies validity because there are some people who are delusional and do not know it).  

NOTE: if you would like to contest my claim that I hold the leading track record in the world since 2006, you should enter my $1 million challenge.

Put your money where your mouth is like I have.  

Otherwise, SHUT UP.

Let's examine some additional facts regarding my track record.

1)  I predicted the financial crisis, its consequences and detailed how and why things would play out as they did more accurately than anyone else in the world. 

2) I hold the world's best investment forecasting track record since 2006. Furthermore, to my knowledge, I am the only financial professional in world history to back their claim of holding the best track record in the world with a monetary reward.  

I have backed this claim by a $100,000 guarantee which was publicly offered on the home page of our website for 6 years. We did not receive a single submission. In January 2016, I increased this amount to a $1 million with some different stipulations in order to only receive serious entries. To this day we received not one single submission.   

3)  I am the only financial professional in the world to have a written record of having been extremely bearish regarding the US economy and stock market prior to the financial crisis (as detailed in my 2006 book America's Financial Apocalypse), who also turned bullish at the bottom and has remained bullish since then.

I also pointed to a collapse in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to 6500 in this 2006 book. No one else in the world made such an accurate prediction. 

4) I am the only financial professional in the world to have written a book (Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble, early 2007) that advised investors to short the sub-prime mortgage stocks, banks and homebuilders. I even provided a mini-shorting tutorial as well as guidance on when to enter these short positions. 

Check here to download Chapter 12 of Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble. This is the chapter that shows where Mike recommended shorting Fannie, Freddie, sub-primes, homebuilders, GM, GE, etc.

You Will Lose Your Ass If You Listen To The Media

5) I am the only financial professional in the world to have written a book that advised investors to short the prime mortgage stocks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble, early 2007).  

Check here to download Chapter 12 of Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble.

I am also the only person in the world to have accurate predicted in advance that these mortgage giants would require a bailout from the U.S. government (America's Financial Apocalypse, late 2006 and Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble, early 2007). 

6)  The media (both mainstream and alternative) banned me beginning with attempts to get America's Financial Apocalypse: How to Profit from the Next Great Depression published.  

First let me address a common criticism I've run across regarding having been banned. So how do I know I've been banned? Maybe the media just doesn't know who I am. Maybe I lack the credentials to be cited as a reputable source. Here I will briefly address each of these possibilities (I don't want to derail the main topic of this article so it will be brief).  

I know I have been banned because my company has spent large sums of money and effort contacting hundreds of media firms including every major and several minor radio stations, all major TV and newspaper firms and so on between 2006 and 2010. I was directly involved in this process. I know for a fact that many TV producers know me by name because I have been told this by some who work in the industry. I also have many of the emails that were sent out (some as follow-ups to calls, others as the only point of contact). My credentials far exceed the typical requirements of the media. You can judge for yourself. 

Despite having worked at two of the leading Wall Street investment firms, despite having an educational and research pedigree far exceeding that held by the vast majority of authors in who wrote investment books during that period and since, all publishers opted to not even entertain publishing the book upon review of the proposal.

They even gave me ridiculous excuses such as "there are already too many books published in this genre."

Oh really??

The fact is there has never been a book published like America's Financial Apocalypse. Their claims were clearly bogus. Prior to AFA, there had only been a handful of books published discussing a bear case for the US economy. Furthermore, take a look at the vast number of books that were published on the top since then.

You should note that every single one of these books (in my opinion) is fluff, nonsense and/or baseless fear-mongering designed to pump gold or market the author's investment firm or "newsletter."

Needless to say, these books did not expose the reality as I did in AFA. You should also note that the vast majority of the authors are Jewish. Being Jewish and writing about fluff, pumping gold, and/or fear-mongering while failing to expose the truth points to why these books were published while mine weren't (I published several other books after AFA once I formed my own publishing firm).   

[Even though I formed a real publishing company (I did NOT self-publish) the printing company that controls the production, distribution and administrative activities of my books terminated my account for no apparent reason. The person who terminated the account was a complete prick. And I find the fact that he is Jewish to be relevant.]   

7)  After having been banned by publishers, I experienced the same treatment by the broadcast media, and then by the Internet media. 

I then realized how the game is played. If you are credible, speak the truth, expose criminality of the Jewish Mafia and cannot be bought off, you will be banned by all media, including the publishing industry. So much for America's freedom of speech claims.

The remarkable thing is that when I wrote America's Financial Apocalypse I was not even aware of the Jewish Mafia, so there was obviously no mention of it. I didn't even mention the word "Jew" once. But that didn't matter because in this book I exposed the fraud perpetrated by Wall Street. I exposed the deception and lies by the US government, I exposed the trade disaster, America's healthcare crisis, the poison of political correctness, damaging impact of illegal aliens, and many other things run by the Jewish Mafia. This is why I was banned.

If the American people truly understood the realities they would revolt. I stood positioned as arguably the best positioned individual to expose the full truth and nothing but the full truth. And I did not care one bit about turning my mission into a profit center. This is why I was banned. 

8)  Instead of airing qualified, unbiased and credible experts, the Jewish mafia promoted shills, gatekeepers, con artists, broken clocks, frauds and idiots; guys like Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, Joe the plumber, Donald Trump and countless others.  

The media also promoted complete clowns and fear-mongering broken clock tools as experts; guys like Peter Schiff, Marc Faber, Jim Rogers, Jim Rickards, Harry Dent, and even scum bags from boiler room copywriting shops as experts. In fact, many of the media's "experts" either directly work for copywriting shops or are in some way affiliated with them as we have previously demonstrated. Combined with their talking head pundit counterparts, these clowns have completely brainwashed the masses. 

The funny thing is that supporters of these clowns still claim that the media was against them or censored them. Such a claim only proves just how stupid these people really are.  It is for this reason that so many Americans remain clueless.  

The media is now positioning Alex Jones into the mainstream scene. This would not be possible a few decades ago. But today, Americans have become so stupid and so brainwashed that it's easy for the Jewish Mafia is exert complete control over their minds using frauds like Alex Jones.

As previously stated, for this challenge, you will need to have $500,000 in cash ready to transfer to an escrow account tied to official rules, terms and conditions of this challenge in order to be officially entered. We will also escrow $500,000 into the same account tied to the same provisions. 

If you lose the challenge you will forfeit the $500,000 in escrow. But if you win, you will receive $1,000,000 from AVA Investment Analytics ($500,000 from escrow plus the return of your $500,000, plus another $500,000 from AVA Investment Analytics payable within 12 months). 

The bottom line is that it is up to each individual who would consider doubting anything I have to say to prove that I am wrong (and please, no individuals with Dunning-Kruger) because I have sufficiently demonstrated my credibility as an unbiased and accomplished financial analyst, investment strategist and critical thinker. Hence, I have earned the benefit of the doubt. My track record speaks for itself. 

Who else is willing to stand by their track record AND back it with $1,000,000?

If you find someone else, let us know but we won't be holding our breath. 

Footnotes

1 We have structured the $1,000,000 challenge in this manner in order to prevent from being overburdened with unsophisticated analyses and individuals who seek to waste our time with illegitimate entries. Structuring this challenge by requiring the contestant to risk $500,000 of his or her own money ensures that the contestant is serious about the challenge. It also ensures that the challenge is more readily available to serious contestants since we will only accept one contestant at any given time.

Only individuals are eligible for this challenge. If a financial professional wishes to make a submission, he or she must do so as an individual as opposed to as a representative of their affiliated financial firm or any other firm. If the entrant disagrees with our conclusions we will provide options for appeal including third-party assessments. Costs for all third-party assessments would come from funds to be deposited into a separate escrow account by the individual contestant submitting the challenge.   

2  If we determine the contestant’s entry lacked sufficient validity to warrant an official challenge, the contestant will be provided with the opportunity to submit their case to a third-party auditing firm (to be selected from our approved list of credible firms) for further review. If the firm agrees the entry possesses sufficient validity to warrant a more in-depth investigation, we will then submit all materials stating our case to a different third-party auditing firm, along with the entrant's challenge. 

The results of the audit from the challenge will not be submitted to the auditing and financial consulting firms that will be responsible for determining the winner of the challenge in order to minimize bias.

We must approve of all third-party firms selected by the individual entrant to provide independent assessment or else the third-party firm must be selected from our approved list of auditing and financial consulting firms.

We have no current or prior business relationships or other ties to any of the third-party auditing or financial consulting firms on our approved list.

The contestant cannot have a current or prior business or personal relationship with the firm(s) or individuals working for the firm(s) selected to perform the third-party assessment. The individual cannot have any friend or relative working for this firm.

All costs for all third-party assessments would be paid for by the contestant. Payments for all third-party assessments will come from funds to be deposited into an escrow account that is separate from the $500,000 escrow account. All payments to auditing and financial consulting firms will be made from this escrow account.     

3  The contestant must sign one or more Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to be provided by us. We reserve the right to make any and all information public with regards to the name and position of the individual submitting the challenge. The contestant agrees to allow us to publish their challenge with or without the results. The contestant will required to waive this right.

4  We will only entertain challenges that have reasonable merit rather than accepting challenges that can easily be defeated because our goal is not to win the $500,000 from contestants, but rather to demonstrate that our claims are factual.

We will only accept one challenge at a time. A contestant be considered as an official entrant once they have provided evidence that they have $500,000 in cash, they have submitted an overview of their entry, and we have acknowledged that they have complied with these requirements. Once we have acknowledged that they have fulfilled these basic requirements, we designate an official date of entry. Once the contestant receives an official date of entry they will have up to 60 days to submit their full challenge in writing.

If we have determined that the challenge is of reasonable merit, we will request the contestant to send $500,000 into escrow. The company responsible for holding the escrow payments will be determined by us. We will have no prior or current business or personal relationships with the company we select to serve as escrow agent for this challenge.

The full legal details of the procedures and requirements of this challenge as well as the official Terms and Conditions will be made available to individuals who have submitted a full entry.  

5 This initial entry need not be final and can be modified for up to six (6) months after we have provided access to our research library. If after analyzing our research library, the contestant has determined that they do not wish to move forward with the challenge, we will provide a clause in the escrow agreement which allows the contestant to exit the challenge with no penalty and receive their entire $500,000 escrow deposit, less any fees and other costs associated with activities related to this process.