Super Stock Picker Forum

Feb 15, 2010
Hi all
Last Friday (Feb 12, 2010) the AMF shut down the Montreal based investment newsletter and website for Ratio Capital alleging that they were offering investment advise and needed to be registered with the AMF.

I was a subscriber (since December). Is anyone else on this board involved?

Bryan

Hey I was receiving their services as well and found out about the news last night, its too bad, but they said they will refund our money for the last quarter paid, and hopefully all they have to do is just register with the AMF and all this will blow over.

Hey Jordo
How long were you a subcriber?
Bryan

Started Nov. 1/09

Jordo
About the same time as me. I just received an email from Denis indicating that they are working hard to get the site back up as soon as possible.
Bryan

Yeah I hope so, I like the way they pick stocks and I like how the pay scale works, if I make money they make money, much more honest system than most ways financial advisors make money.

How well did your portfolio do?

Was up 15% at one point, was around -2% last friday, but if you look at the strategy its fairly solid and you have to ride the market ups and downs to see the 40 and 50% gains eventually. I read a book "How to make money in stocks" which follow the cup and handle pattern and also the Darvas method which uses box range and when stock pops its a buy, ratio uses the same methods.

I'm concerned about the positions they have me in. Are you going to liquidate everything? If not how will you set stops or exit positions?

Well I plan on holding them until they move into a downward trend, if you understand candlesticks, watch for 1 or 2 days of large bearish bars, thats usually a sell point after it seems it has reached a high

http://www.google.ca/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1266264085863&chddm=26359&chls=CandleStick&q=TSE:III&ntsp=0

this was one successful trade, they had me buy Nov 10, the last 2 peaks on jan 11/21 did not seem to drive the price up much more, volume was slowing down, then the bearish signal from feb. 2-4 was the sell point. I would say hang on to them until you either are comfortable with the gains you have made, or the volume slows down and they start a bearish trend.

Email me at bryan@constraints.ca if you want to compare positions and stops.

In 2009 September, Quebec started moves to harmonize its rules with the rest of Canada (a move happening in other provinces also).  The intent of this is to remove the exemption that Ratio was operating under.  The nasty part of reading the little missive a tame lawyer sent me is that it could possibly apply to this website as well.  While this website is cleary in the exempt area of the "old" Quebec law it could be interperted by BC rulings to be a business, in that, the site makes money from the advertizing and e-mail list rentals.

The new rules have snared real estate developers who finance projects with limited partnerships to now register as finacial advisors.

D

DCA
That explains why sites like this one are so hard to find in Canada. QIS is the only other one that I know of now that Ratio Capital is gone.
Does anyone know of any sites that offer a "model portfolio" of canadian stocks?
Bryan

To me QIS looks more like stock promotion rather than stock picking.  I have always found it a bit strange that US portfolio newsleters are a dime a dozen while Canadian portfolio newsleters do not seem to exist.

D

Didn t ratio capital have a near zero return to date?I was watching cause it seemed like a great system but ssp is doing much better  and its FREE! ;)

I started in Dec and had a near zero return to date (up slightly as of yesterday.)
They posted testimonials from others who did well and their main portfolios were generating consistently high returns.
 
Bryan

Spam caused me to wander into an area of old posts.  Thought I would throw in a little update.  I started with Ratio somewhere 1-2 weeks before the axe fell.  In that period I received three stock picks for a small fraction of my small starting portfolio.  Those three stocks (now whittled down to two) have managed to return me 19% annual over the last two and a half years.
At the time these were picks that I would not have made, since then I have become more involved in alternative energy companies (as discussed elsewhere [just thought I would entice you to read the rest of the forums.]).

D