Liquid Millionaire, ISACO, Stephen Sutherland
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So actually he had £12,200, spent £5000 of it on the subscription and ended up with £15,200 so a gain of about 25% in fact. On 1 May 2009 the S&P was at about 860, it has since been as high as 1370, a rise of over 60%. If however he paid £10,000 for the ten year subscription he would have started with £17,200 and would still not be at break even.
Impressive results until you consider the costs.
The problem with Paul's response is this.
He is quite happy speaking on behalf of his clients, claiming their clients found it inaccurate, just like he also likes to claim they get good returns on the market, however no evidence is ever provided apart from the claims they make. He may as well claim he has created a perpetual motion machine, because without evidence one could claim anything.
Paul recommends we read their 200 "UNBIASED" reviews on amazon for their book. What a joke. We all know very well, they are biased, The Investors Chronicle hilights this in their article where it says they effectively hired a PR company asking for their positive review, which they were not prepared to do. The rest of the reviews most likely includes employees. Nevertheless not all reviews are biased, there are others which hilight how their book is solely a sales book and people would end up learning nothing after reading it.
I recommend everyone who has been burnt by this dubious business to go onto their Liquid Millionaire book on Amazon and write a good honest review so we can prevent people buying it or their service, because they have been innocantly lured into getting involved after reading biased reviews organised through PR companies and the like.
ISACO is a dying business, after 10 years they have 250 clients? What a joke. Being extortionate in asking for almost a persons ISA limit to begin the ISA service is ridiculous, and their website does not even try to help their clients all it does is tell people the same rubbish spread out over three pages.
You asked......
So how do you get around the FSAs requirement about not providing individual advice?
"Not allowed to give personal recommendations. Limited to advice that does not consist of tailored recommendations to individuals and does not amount to a "personal recommendation" as defined in the FSA handbook"
It’s a really good question. The overall process of application for FSA authorisation took about two years and that’s much longer than they usually take. The reason it took so long is because ISACO has a unique business model and the FSA found it difficult to pigeon hole us.
Even though three of us at ISACO are qualified Financial Advisers, we do not offer financial advice per se.
When trying to work out what “box” we fit into, the FSA and our compliance team were coming up with things like “blanket advice” and “general advice.” In the final stages of the process, because they finally realised what we did, the FSA insisted we change the disclaimers to... "Not allowed to give personal recommendations. Limited to advice that does not consist of tailored recommendations to individuals and does not amount to a "personal recommendation" as defined in the FSA handbook."
When reviewing our business, the FSA finally understood that ISACO was not providing individual one to one financial advice and instead offering “Shadow Investing.”
Shadow Investing is a platform that allows multiple clients to mirror the Stocks and Shares ISA transactions of a full time investor.
Here’s how Shadow investing works
When the investor buys, the clients buy. When the investor moves into an ISA Cash Park the client moves into an ISA Cash Park. Whatever return the investor makes on his Stocks and Shares ISA account, the client makes the same on theirs and clients control their own account.
In summary, ISACO does not offer traditional one to one financial advice. We also don’t hold client money. We also don’t manage client accounts. The responsibility, management and performance of the client’s account therefore lies with the client and not ISACO.
But what we do offer is Shadow Investing; a platform that allows multiple clients to mirror the Stocks and Shares ISA transactions of a full time investor.
How our service works and how it differs from other financial services businesses is carefully explained when clients come on board.
Clients are fully aware that they are NOT getting individual financial advice and aware of the risks of investing in the stock market. They understand that they are getting information from a full time investor. The service is a little bit like getting a daily call from the investor with him giving his take on the market and whether or not he is making any changes to his ISA portfolio. What the client does with that information is their business. But because clients pay for this information, I suspect that almost all of them use it to their advantage.
All new clients also get a 30 day guarantee just in case they change their mind just after coming on board.
Hope that helps.
I’m not sure. I think that because we are unique it’s simply how the FSA has decided to pigeon hole us. If you like, I can see if I can fix up an appointment to speak to our compliance department about it? Let me know. But first, can you tell me a little bit more about yourself.
I’ve provided lots of information in a timely fashion which means you know who I am and you know about my company but I know nothing about you. What is your name? What’s your background with trading? Do you invest in Stocks and Shares ISAs? Do you have a SIPP or personal pension? Do you live in the UK? Can you also tell me more about the target market for this discussion board? It would be great to know more about you.
The answers to my questions would really help because our service is niche and suited to certain individuals who have at least £50,000 in disposable income. Is that the sort of wealth your average member on this board has?
The thing is, I don’t want to waste your time and I know you don’t want to waste mine and if you want to continue to ask lots of questions, it’s good to know who I am speaking to.
Thanks.
Well I'm not sure about the average wealth here but what I would say is that nobody (other than people who just joined) will have anything to do with a company that talks about being a millionaire with 3 minutes work a day. Likewise your previous incarnation, Filthy Rich Investments, would be treated with complete scorn. Better to just keep quiet and hope you dont attract any more attention here.
The good news - It is possible to get rich in the markets
The bad news - It takes A LOT of hard work, there are NO SHORT CUTS, NONE, REPEAT NONE.
But selling a course and at the same time telling people there are no short cuts and they have to work very hard is not what most people want. Hence few sales.
So a marketing gimmick is needed to gloss over the nasty part about having to work hard. And 99% of the time the marketers love to use the old work just x minutes a day and you can get rich.
I've heard of 30 mins before, and I've heard of 20. But never just 3 mins
Also, if you spend those 3 mins when you're having a dump in the morning you actually kill 2 birds with one stone!
But what about if you work more than 3 mins?
Can I make 100 million if I work 300 mins a day (that's only 5 hours)?
And can I make a billion if I work 3000 minutes a day? I know that would mean I'd have to work 50 hours a day but let's not let a minor fact like that get in the way of selling
The bad news - It takes A LOT of hard work, there are NO SHORT CUTS, NONE, REPEAT NONE.
But selling a course and at the same time telling people there are no short cuts and they have to work very hard is not what most people want. Hence few sales.
So a marketing gimmick is needed to gloss over the nasty part about having to work hard. And 99% of the time the marketers love to use the old work just x minutes a day and you can get rich.
I've heard of 30 mins before, and I've heard of 20. But never just 3 mins
Also, if you spend those 3 mins when you're having a dump in the morning you actually kill 2 birds with one stone! But what about if you work more than 3 mins?
Can I make 100 million if I work 300 mins a day (that's only 5 hours)?
And can I make a billion if I work 3000 minutes a day? I know that would mean I'd have to work 50 hours a day but let's not let a minor fact like that get in the way of selling
As a matter of courtesy, it would be ever so kind of you if you could answer my previous questions. I ask again because if you or your board members don’t match ISACO’s target market client, it means there is a mismatch.
ISACO unfortunately does not offer a service that’s for the mass market. Instead it’s aimed at time starved affluent individuals who believe that a full time investor with a great track record has the talent, time and energy that they may lack to beat the stock market.
With your other comments, you are right that we haven’t always been ISACO. As I said to Moira O’Neil at Investors Chronicle, the business was originally called Filthy Rich Enterprises. Calling our business Filthy Rich was a big mistake.
Businesses do make mistakes and this was one of our first and a large mistake at that. As soon as we realised the name Filthy Rich was creating an inaccurate and negative perception of our company, we changed the name to Fast-Track Education.
This was a better choice but still way off the mark, mainly because the name Fast-Track was too generic. We all knew we needed to be called something that was unique and at the same time said what we did. ISACO came as a combination of ISA and CO as in Company. ISACO plans to keep this name indefinitely.
The good news - It is possible to get rich in the markets
The bad news - It takes A LOT of hard work, there are NO SHORT CUTS, NONE, REPEAT NONE.
But selling a course and at the same time telling people there are no short cuts and they have to work very hard is not what most people want. Hence few sales.
So a marketing gimmick is needed to gloss over the nasty part about having to work hard. And 99% of the time the marketers love to use the old work just x minutes a day and you can get rich.
I've heard of 30 mins before, and I've heard of 20. But never just 3 mins
But what about if you work more than 3 mins?
Can I make 100 million if I work 300 mins a day (that's only 5 hours)?
And can I make a billion if I work 3000 minutes a day? I know that would mean I'd have to work 50 hours a day but let's not let a minor fact like that get in the way of selling
You also mentioned about “…being a millionaire with 3 minutes work a day.”
Let me be clear to avoid confusion. If a target market client follows our rules and guidelines, we really do believe it is possible for them to become a Stocks and Shares ISA or pension millionaire. But we have never said they’ll make it overnight and we’ve never said it’s going to be easy.
We’ve also never said you will become a millionaire guaranteed. Instead we provide clear strategy that if followed will help them to become a tax-free millionaire. Of course, the individual has to want their goal badly enough and have the resilience to stick with it for the long haul. Adhering to rules for a long time, possibly 7-10 years or even longer is not going to be easy. But when a person is clear and has a burning desire to succeed, it really is possible to achieve.
Let me be clear, this is not a get rich quick scheme. Instead Shadow Investing is a long-term way of building tax-free wealth. With the three minutes per day promise, when a client signs up they get a subscription to ISACO's Daily Market Updates which do take under 3 minutes to read. In case you were wondering what that is, the Daily Market Update’s inform clients whether ISACO’s lead investor (Stephen Sutherland) believes it’s safe to invest and what exactly he is investing in, helping the client to shadow invest his trading activity.
The Daily Market Updates also help in down markets too. If Stephen believes we have entered a bear market, he alerts clients to say he’s moving into an ISA cash park. This helps protect profits made in the bull market.
With only one or two trades to make in a year, clients do find the service time friendly and do confirm that Daily Market Updates do take less than three minutes per day to read.
However, the shadow investing system is far from perfect and there is no guarantee that we will beat the market. We do make mistakes and sometimes we get our timing wrong and some years we underperform the market. All the risks and how the system works in various market environments are fully explained to prospects before coming on board.
What we’ve found is that the people who tend to dislike or are wary of Shadow Investing are people who are cynical, pessimistic or don’t have enough cash to make it work.
We’ve found that the cynical individuals have previously been burned by a financial adviser who didn’t keep their promises or burned by some kind of course or seminar that promised riches overnight.
Some of the people who don’t have enough cash to make it work can afford the service but they don’t have enough capital or annual income to invest on an ongoing and continuous basis.
To make it work, most of our clients commit to investing their full annual ISA allowance each and every year for the term of their subscription. These people also commit to investing the full ISA allowance for their partner.
When we know where people are starting from financially and what their annual “adding” intentions are, it tells us whether the service is suited to them. We see this as acting extremely responsibly. The last thing we want is an unhappy client because we know that if we do have unhappy clients, it’s not good for business. This is why our policy is to always make good each and every client. We always have and always will make good unsatisfied clients. Again we see this as highly responsible behavior. I hope all this helps.
Love the subtle put down.
FYI, it really does PAY to be cynical in this business especially towards people marketing very expensive courses that fail to publish their long term track records..........
Common sense really.
PS. The ISA stock limit is what, £10k a year, so that will be around £70k in cash deposits over 7 years. And that's the same time period you reckon to be able to turn it into a cool million.
Question: Why with those sorts of investing skills are you marketing yourself to the small time man in the street? Many of the big funds would pay a FORTUNE for that sort of talent, literally a fortune................
Also I love the self-help Tony Robbins style nonsense -
IF YOU WANT IT ENOUGH YOU CAN HAVE IT - JUST THINK POSITIVE AND IT WILL ALL BE YOURS............
Yes if you disagree you either don't have enough money or don't have enough determination. It's the usual stuff all these guys use, just like any get rich quick scheme.
By the way why would 'filthy rich investments' be any less appropriate a name than 'liquid millionaire'? Both convey an image of easy money for zero effort (well 3 minutes effort to be precise).
Firstly Shadow Investing is a long-term way of building tax-free wealth. I understand what you mean about the similarities of Filthy Rich and Liquid Millionaire and it’s a good point.
The reason why Stephen chose “Liquid Millionaire” for his title was because he wanted the book title to be catchy, unique and memorable. In hindsight, he now believes that a better title suited more to our target market would have been “Stock Market Boom” with the sub-headline, “How to Make Money in ISAs.”
You are right. The three minutes per day promise could very easily convey that it’s easy to become a millionaire. Once again this is mistake of ours and we apologise for the blunder. I can assure you that this was not our intention.
The three minutes per day promise is the length of time it takes to read the Daily Market Updates which are the Shadow Investing reports clients get that allow them to Shadow Invest Stephen’s Stocks and Shares ISA trading activity.
Because it only takes three minutes per day to read the shadow investing reports and because there is only one or two trades per year, the service is extremely time friendly.
With the shadow investing service, Stephen watches the market live each and every day so clients don’t have to. And he carries out in depth after-hours analysis so clients don’t have to. When he buys, the client buys. When he parks in cash, they park in cash. This is why we say it’s a three minutes per day service.
If you or any other member would like to speak to me on a one to one to answer your questions or discuss your concerns, it can easily be arranged. Please call 0870 757 8554 and we can book you in for a chat. I hope that helps.
I agree, you should be wary of every business that suggests they can help you achieve your financial goals especially if they say they can do it fast or that it’s guaranteed.
You can’t be lazy with your research - you have to do your due diligence. We have always said this to prospects. We always make sure they have carried out extensive research on ISACO so that they feel comfortable about doing business with us.
You are right, there are a lot of scam artists and get rich artists who peddle their snake oil on innocent naive individuals and it makes me and all the team at ISACO furious.
It also makes us angry how many unscrupulous financial advisers are out there too. With ISACO being in financial services and selling a “new” service called “Shadow Investing” I can see why people would be wary. I also agree that using names like ‘Liquid Millionaire’ and ‘3 minutes per day’ can often convey the get rich quick message which is the polar opposite to what message we are trying to portray.
It’s clear that we’ve made some big mistakes and we want to thank your members for pointing this out to us. Moving on, with your note about of putting in £10K per year, as I mentioned in an earlier post.
“To make it work, most of our clients commit to investing their full annual ISA allowance each and every year for the term of their subscription. These people also commit to investing the full ISA allowance for their partner.”
That means a minimum of £20k per year for 10 years. However what we have to remember is that most of our clients are mature individuals meaning they are not starting from scratch with their ISA accounts. ISAs have been around since 1987 and that means some clients already have substantial investments in ISAs when they come to see us.
For example, if a client has an ISA portfolio of £500k when they first make contact with us, and they say they intend to add each year the full ISA allowance for both themselves and their partner, getting to a million pounds over a 10 year period then becomes more believable.
And I agree that a person trying to make a million from zero putting in £10k per year over 10 years and trying to get that £100k to grow into a million has got his head in the clouds. You are right, doing something like that would be almost impossible. To gauge if people can make it to millionaire status in 10 years or less depends on many factors such as where the client is starting from and what they intend to do with adding additional capital to their ISA account. It also depends on the risk profile of the client, their attitude and what the market does. But it does not end there, it also depends on what investments they buy, when they buy them and when they move into cash too and let’s not forget those thousands of daily decisions which are should I buy, hold sell or switch.
Question: Why with those sorts of investing skills are you marketing yourself to the small time man in the street? Many of the big funds would pay a FORTUNE for that sort of talent, literally a fortune................
Thank you for the kind compliment and I will gladly pass it on to Stephen. Stephen does plan to offer his services to institutional clients in the future because he agrees with you that accuracy in timing the markets is a very valuable and needed skill. Just to be clear about who our target market is because it is not the small man in the street.
Our target market are a UK Citizen, A1, Male, 50-65, wealthy/ high net worth / affluent, business owner / retired business owner/ professional, adventurous long-term capital growth investor, and has more than £50,000 in disposable income.
In the UK there are 3.3 million people who belong to this description. That means only one in twenty people in the UK match our target market. Shadow Investing is therefore a premium service not aimed at the small time man in the street. If you or any other member would like to speak to me on a one to one to answer your questions or discuss your concerns, it can easily be arranged. Please call 0870 757 8554 and we can book you in for a chat. I hope that helps.
OK here is an offer for you. I will come and audit all your trade calls since you started business. I will post an honest report of how people would have done had they 'shadowed' you over the years. No cost to you but you pay my travel.
Thank you for your support
After consulting with our finance director, and in the interest of our clients, prospects and future clients we feel it would be best that if we were to officially audit Stephen’s ISA Stocks and Shares ISA account, it would be best conducted by one of the four largest accountancy companies in the UK. The result of this would be a completely unbiased and transparent audit. I will be signing off now as I feel we have covered all the points brought up.
Please post future comments and questions to my personal email account paul (at) ISACO.co.uk
Also as I’ve mentioned on quite a few occasions now, if you prefer please feel free to call me on 0870 757 8554.
Pazienza
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