| Company type | Publishing company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Genre | Financial advice |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Founder | Bill Bonner |
| Headquarters | , |
| Parent | The Agora |
| Website | agorafinancial |
Agora Financial is an American publishing company, based in Baltimore, Maryland, that produces print and email publications, books, and conferences directed toward providing financial advice, commentary, and analysis.
A subsidiary of The Agora network, Agora Financial was founded in 1979 by financial writer and essayist Bill Bonner, the author of Empire of Debt and Financial Reckoning Day. [1] [2] [3] Bonner's co-author Addison Wiggin is the executive publisher of Agora Financial. [4] Wiggin served as executive producer and co-writer on the 2008 feature-length documentary film I.O.U.S.A. . A film about the growth of the U.S. national debt, I.O.U.S.A. was based on Empire of Debt, and was financed by Agora Entertainment, another Agora, Inc. subsidiary. [5]
The company publishes a number of financial newsletters focused on advising investors on making money in energy, metals, emerging technologies, and small-cap stocks, including the Daily Reckoning, Outstanding Investments, and Capital & Crisis. Agora financial also founded the Richebacher Society, a group focused on continuing the work of the late economist Kurt Richebacher.
Byron King, editor of two of Agora Financial's publications, Energy & Scarcity Investor and Outstanding Investments, has served as an oil industry analyst in the media, specifically in the wake of British Petroleum's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. [6] Other members of the Agora Financial staff have provided analysis for CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg. [7] [8] [9] In March 2011, Agora Financial acquired Laissez Faire Books, a libertarian bookseller based in New York. [10] Established in 1972, the bookseller publishes and distributes libertarian books, with a focus on economics and finance. [11] Jeffrey Tucker, author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo, and It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, as well as former editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, was hired as Laissez Faire's executive editor. [12]
Since 1999, the company has hosted the annual Agora Financial Investment Symposium. Held in Vancouver, British Columbia, the conference is Agora Financial's largest event of the year. [38] The conference brings together a large number of speakers discussing emerging financial trends, as well as panels and debates. [39] Past speakers have included Steve Forbes, Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and James Howard Kunstler. [40] Each year, the conference is built around a central theme, with "A Tale of Two Americas" the theme selected for 2013. [41]
In the investigations following 9/11, the SEC determined that an unusual number of investors had purchased put options on American Airlines immediately prior to September 11, 2001. Further investigation found Agora's Options Hotline newsletter and its editor Steve Sarnoff as responsible for faxing some 2,000 subscribers the recommendation to buy put options on American Airlines on September 9, 2001. [42] Sarnoff was investigated for insider trading with the SEC eventually concluding “all suspicious trades were checked out, and the SEC satisfied itself that the traders had no advance knowledge of 9/ll.” [43]
In October 2019 the Federal Trade Commission sued Agora Financial for promising a "100 percent success rate" cure for Type 2 diabetes within 28 days, without any changes to diet or exercise, if customers would buy Agora's books, newsletters, and other products. The suit also addressed a bogus "Congressional Checks" or "Republican Checks" scheme where customers who were Republicans could receive government backed checks ranging from $900 to over tens of thousands of dollars and to get the information on the checks customers would need to pay $4.95 for shipping for a book, Congress’ Secret $1.17 Trillion Giveaway, and subscribe to Agora's Lifetime Income Report newsletter, which costs $99 a year. The book however contained only information on dividend investing and nothing about free Congressional checks. [44]
In February 2021 Agora Financial and some of its affiliates agreed to pay more than $2 million to settle the FTC charges. The FTC reported Agora tricked seniors into buying materials that falsely promised a cure for type 2 diabetes or promoted a phony plan to help them cash in on a government-affiliated check program. [45] [46]
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks, which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies that are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Investments are usually made with an investment strategy in mind.
Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements (pump), in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price (dump). Once the operators of the scheme "dump" (sell) their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. This is most common with small-cap cryptocurrencies and very small corporations/companies, i.e. "microcaps".
BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange which is located on Dalal Street. Established in 1875 by cotton merchant Premchand Roychand, it is the oldest stock exchange in Asia, and also the tenth oldest in the world. The BSE is the world's 6th largest stock exchange with a market capitalization exceeding US$5 trillion on May 21, 2024.
National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) is one of the leading stock exchanges in India, based in Mumbai. NSE is under the ownership of various financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies. It is the world's largest derivatives exchange by number of contracts traded and the third largest in cash equities by number of trades for the calendar year 2022. It is the 7th largest stock exchange in the world by total market capitalization, exceeding $5 trillion on May 23, 2024. NSE's flagship index, the NIFTY 50, is a 50 stock index that is used extensively by investors in India and around the world as a barometer of the Indian capital market. The NIFTY 50 index was launched in 1996 by NSE.
Penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade for less than one dollar per share. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses the term "Penny stock" to refer to a security, a financial instrument which represents a given financial value, issued by small public companies that trade at less than $5 per share. Penny stocks are priced over-the-counter, rather than on the trading floor. The term "penny stock" refers to shares that, prior to the SEC's classification, traded for "pennies on the dollar". In 1934, when the United States government passed the Securities Exchange Act to regulate any and all transactions of securities between parties which are "not the original issuer", the SEC at the time disclosed that equity securities which trade for less than $5 per share could not be listed on any national stock exchange or index.
Value investing is an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis. Modern value investing derives from the investment philosophy taught by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd at Columbia Business School starting in 1928 and subsequently developed in their 1934 text Security Analysis.
In business, a boiler room is an outbound call center selling questionable investments by telephone. It usually refers to a room where salespeople work using unfair, dishonest sales tactics, sometimes selling penny stocks or private placements or committing outright stock fraud. A common boiler room tactic is the use of falsified and bolstered information in combination with verified company-released information. The term is pejorative: it is often used to imply high-pressure sales tactics and, sometimes, poor working conditions.
Contrarian investing is an investment strategy that is characterized by purchasing and selling in contrast to the prevailing sentiment of the time.
The Motley Fool is a private financial and investing advice company based in Alexandria, Virginia. It was founded in July 1993 by co-chairmen and brothers David Gardner and Tom Gardner, and Todd Etter and Erik Rydholm. The company employs over 300 people worldwide.
Bill Bonner is an American author of books and articles on economic and financial subjects. He is the founder of Agora Financial, as well as a co-founder of Bonner & Partners publishing. Bonner has written articles for the news and opinion blog LewRockwell.com, MoneyWeek magazine, and his daily financial column Bill Bonner's Diary.
Jeffrey Albert Tucker is an American libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin.
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information. The setups are generally made to result in monetary gain for the deceivers, and generally result in unfair monetary losses for the investors. They are generally violating securities laws.
In business and investing, term microcap stock refers to the stock of public companies in the United States which have a market capitalization of roughly $50 million to $250 million. The shares of companies with a market capitalization of less than $50 million are typically referred to as nano-cap stocks. Many micro-cap and nano-cap stocks are traded over-the-counter with their prices quoted on the OTCBB, OTC Link LLC, or the Pink Sheets. The larger, more established micro-caps are listed on the NASDAQ Capital Market or American Stock Exchange (AMEX).
Laissez Faire Books (LFB) was an online bookseller originally based in New York City when it first opened in 1972.
Frank Porter Stansberry is an American financial publisher and author. Stansberry founded Stansberry Research, a private publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1999. He is the author of the monthly newsletter, Stansberry's Investment Advisory, which covers investments and investment theory in commodities, real estate, and the stock market. Stansberry is also the creator of the 2011 online video The End of America, in which he predicts the imminent collapse of the United States. In 2002, the SEC brought a case for securities fraud, and a federal judge fined him $1.5 million in 2007.
Stansberry Research is a privately owned American publishing company founded by Frank Porter Stansberry. The company is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices in Florida, Oregon, and California. The company specializes in investment research with an information services product line consisting primarily of monthly and bi-monthly advisory newsletters written by a variety of financial editors. Topics include natural resource, power, oil and mining company investments, as well as health care and biotechnology. Value, corporate bond and alternative investing are also featured. The company claims its newsletter has subscribers in over one hundred countries.
Addison Wiggin is an American writer, publisher, and filmmaker. He is the host of the YouTube show The Wiggin Sessions, covering financial markets, the economy and politics. He writes the financial daily The Daily Missive. Addison is also the host and editor of The Essential Investor, a resource for individuals who manage their own money.
The Agora is a Baltimore, Maryland-based network for over thirty companies in the publishing, information services, and real estate industries. Agora was founded in 1978, in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. The Agora Companies operate independently from cities around the world.
Cabot Wealth Network is an independent investment advisory company based in Salem, Massachusetts. The company's primary service is the publication of 12 investment advisory newsletters, which cover a range of investment styles, with an estimated 225,000 readers. It also publishes the Cabot Wealth Daily website and newsletter. Founded in 1970 by the late Carlton Lutts Jr.
Mark J. Hulbert is an American finance analyst, journalist, and author with a focus on expectations of stock market investment newsletters, contrarian investing, and quantitive or technical analysis.