Lose the Lot the Trading Way

I frequently review and criticise advertisements for their subtle, or blatant, attempts to seduce us into buying something, whether by selective manipulation of the facts, use of utterly irrelevant images or sound bites or by playing on our emotions to create a false connection with a brand. How refreshing  - and yet rather chilling, for reasons I will explore below - to see one that appears to be direct and honest.

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This one popped up on a website offering online word and puzzle games and has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm rather baffled why the advertiser thought it worthwhile at all but, leaving that to one side, what we have here is someone offering gambling trading in - well, they don't bother to say what it is you will be trading, it probably doesn't matter much because if you are sort of the person whose eyes light up with pound dollar signs at the word "trade" and do an instant mental find-and-replace with the phrase "easy money" then no doubt this ad will suck you in.

I'm glad they regard themselves as a "broker with integrity". The strap-line "Sharks and Co, brokers who'll take you to the cleaners before you can grab a coffee" was probably rejected at an early planning session. But it is the little paragraph at the foot that compels our attention. Having used large letters to promote themselves as intermediaries for trading, they then inform us that 73.5% of "retail investors" (you and me, in plain talk) lose money this way.

Now, if you are someone like Boris "Don't bother me with statistics" Johnson you can blithely ignore this warning, assume that you yourself have no less than a million to one chances of losing and go ahead and put yours and the nation's shirts on a bet. [This piece of anti-Brexit rhetoric is brought to you entirely free as a bonus for reading this far: Ed] And, if you are anyone with a brain, you will surely look at this and think "Gosh, thanks for the warning, guys, my money stays where it is". What we seem to have here, ladies and gentlemen, is an anti-ad, an ad that actually begs its readers to stay away from the poison on offer, and therefore surely one of the most honest ads ever submitted.

Now for the chilling part. Admen do not deliberately waste money. They must have inserted this notice, not to put off potential customers but to draw them in. They are, I assume, complying with an industry regulation by putting up the warning of losses but they don't care that they are encouraging such losses. The ad runs anyway. Therefore, they must assume that plenty of readers are indeed brainless and reckless and furthermore that, even though the ad is encouraging people to lose money through making trades on things they clearly do not understand, this company is going to enable them to do it. It is exactly the same as a dealer in hard drugs saying (in large print) "Feel great and relaxed, sniff all your troubles away" and then in small print below "Drugs lead to dependency, addiction, despair and suicide". 

A cynic like myself, who despises all forms of commercial advertising, will ignore this sort of ad anyway. But how many will be tempted to click on the "Trade now" button so that they can "trade directly from advanced charts" (and that really is snake-oil)  and, get this, "analyse market trends". Yup, in a world where skilled professionals do nothing else but study and analyse markets, you, the ignorant amateur, can outfox them all and decide how to invest your savings just by looking at a few lines on a screen and maybe extrapolating them through cunning use of a pencil and ruler (note: drawing lines on a computer monitor with a pencil may damage the glass). And then you can join the three-quarters of investors who lose money (and how much do the winners actually make, you may ask, but don't ask me because I haven't a clue).

We shall not be studying 100 types of charts, with or without the tempting promise of overlays. We shall not be clicking on the button to trade now or at any time.

Would you like to invest in the Ramblings Financial Derivative? Charts with overlays are available  (once we can find that old pack of graph paper stuffed down the back of the desk and sharpen up a few coloured pencils). Send all the money you have to the usual address. Terms and conditions apply including the one that says we don't have to answer any enquiries or account to you for your money. Warning: You'll lose everything with this utterly useless investment but as you probably haven't bothered to read this far, we have no scruples about putting this warning at the bottom of the page.