When I was about to say that The Plain Bagel is doing Coffeezilla's version of investigative coverage here, only for more traditional assets like nano-cap equities.
@@ThePlainBagel You sound like my most-addicted-to-coffee friends. Since, analyzing traditional assets is too mainstream for Mr. Investigator of edgy markets, why not crowdsource some help from trusted volunteers/supporters/fans? Anyway, great video!
From financial education to proper investigative journalism. Great work!!! Also... honestly, a bit painful to see what we are competing with. I got reached out by an agent from Canada about these types of 'opportunities' a while ago. Very young guy. Office on Google maps in really sketchy place. Yikes
Yeah its crazy how much creators get for these sponsorships. Do a few of these per year and in only that you earn enough to up your production values and can afford to make much better videos. Just gotta get rid of all your morals
That made me cackle, lol. What's even the point of saying that? 😂 You might as well just say you were sponsored, who's gonna go "Oh, well they might be sponsored but they might NOT be!!" LOL
After cutting scrotum with the Manscape lawnmower multiple times and paying 90 $ a month for AG1 to almost vomit every day instead of buying a multi vitamin for 15 $ a year, I realized: If a product is advertised on all your favorite podcasts, just don't buy it under any circumstances.
There is a certain paradox between what is advertised and what you actually need. At the very least, the product must be expensive enough to cover all the ads, and those Manscaping guys run a LOT of ads. The reality is if you need a certain type of product, you might get a much better price if you look for such a product yourself, as many things have VERY cheap Chinese versions. To be honest, I am not sold on any kind of dietary supplements, since regular healthy food so much cheaper, and the body is built to survive on most normal things humans eat.
You don't need AG1, nor likely even the multivitamin. Those are complete scams. In fact, if the podcast is at all medical or science related, I would say it casts doubt the credibility of that podcast. Unlike a random video game TH-camr, they can't just claim ignorance.
Multi vitamin are really bad for kidneys if you don't know what you're doing. Please make a blood test with a nutritionologist before taking supplement. AG1 are Ok, too expensive for their nutritive value, but at least they're as balanced as a meal. Do no replace all meals completely though, it's fine a few time a week, but nutrition is complicated, nobody really knows everything that happen and we're still missing data on digestion. The best is to cook yourself, limit meat intake to at most one meal a day (meat broth for flavoring is okay to eat every meal).
That’s Marin Katusa and it appears that $1.25M promotion was for a TH-cam video and more importantly a recommendation in Marin’s newsletter. The promotion was for the company Uranium Royalty Corp, whose Chairman and founder is Amir Adnani. Fun fact: Amir Adnani and Marin Katusa are good friends and go way back. I think they were classmates back in the day.
Sadly, many content creators I respect (well, not so much anymore) also shill for gold a LOT. One even went so far as to say "people won't know that they HAVE to buy gold (and crypto)". I won't name names but.....who am I kidding here. It was Tom Bilyeu Seriously, guys, you are advertising investing in something that ONLY gains value if......people buy it. And if that wasn't enough, they often use the language of "are you tiring of watching the government deflate the value of YOUR hard-earned money?" As in, the most obvious kind of emotional manipulation out there. I get that they are just paid to say this, but I don't care - if it comes out of your mouth, I am holding you accountable for that opinion (the only acceptable exception is being forced to say things under duress).
I mean in general gold is not a BAD investment, it's very low risk and almost certainly going to be worth more in 5 years than it was when you bought it. It's better than keeping your money in US dollars or some other currency because the price of gold goes up over time as demand increases and supply decreases whereas the US dollar goes down in value over time by design to discourage the hoarding of money and encourage investment. That being said these companies that run the ads are total scams. You're buying gold at a massively inflated price point where it'll be nearly impossible to sell that gold for a profit, even if you waited 20 years to sell it. That isn't an investment - that's tricking people into paying more for a commodity than it's actually worth and in my opinion a scam.
TH-camrs aside, there's nothing wrong with diversifying with metals. Just do not use the many Gold IRA groups that are just middleman and will rip you off. One can spend a little time to find a reputable bullion dealer and a financial institution that deals in IRA accounts for metals and will work with a depository that actually stores your metals. It takes minimal effort to research the info you'd need compared to the amount of time people waste on a daily basis.
Seeing that spreadsheet representing the amount of work you had to put in, massive applause to you Richard & keep up the work. Very inspirational indeed!
"this video may or may not be sponsored" is not a sentence worth saying. That's like blatantly admitting that it was sponsored while implying that you yourself dont trust the product
A little like a Biden pardon. Hunter is pardoned for crimes that he may or may not have committed over the last decade. What the hell are the things we don't know about YET.
A broker needs to be willing to loan you the shares and then there's the margin costs. These stocks are junk so most brokers would require 100% to short them if they'll even let you
Dangerous game as liquidity on these nano caps stocks will be non-existent, and after big pumps your short interest may go through the roof with no way of closing your short. These low volume stocks are just to easy to short squeeze
It would be very interesting to do a similar spreadsheet on the notorious pumper Jim Cramer. If he says buy a stock then it's time to sell. I can't believe how many people think he's a guru.
cramer really isnt that bad, he was an incredibly good fund manager but having to pick stocks nightly is really hard! you don't have nearly enough time to thoroughly research the stocks you talk about and by nature it reduces the quality of the picks i think someone of his standing could be charged w/ market manipulation for that regardless @@aussie_al
I really appreciate you covering this topic Richard. Being paid to promote a stock is probably the single biggest conflict of interest you could create for financial influencers. I think it destroys the credibility of the entire space. I think it also is problematic in that it invites a lot more strict regulation, which could impact our ability to freely discuss stocks in the future. To be clear - I've never been paid a dime to promote a stock and will never accept a penny to do so. I've also decided to never invest in micro-crap companies specifically because I don't want my videos to have an impact on stock price. POET is one of the worst examples of abuse. That company was headed towards bankrupcy, burning tons of cash every quarter, cash balance going down, debt going up. Then they pay for the pump. Looking at the share count grow 60% year over year, that's absolutely insane and shows they clearly paid to get stock price pump so they could sell shares into the pump. About as clear-cut as it gets... Again, appreciate the video - I'm going to be sharing it.
Working as an exploration geologist, I deal with junior Canadian mining companies regularly. I will say that, especially in the last 10 years, there has been an explosion in small resource companies where the only goal is to mine the shareholders. This is a rough estimate from one geologist, but I'd guess roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of current resource plays don't actually have claim to anything remotely economic to mine. This has been an issue for the legitimate resource companies, as so much potential capital is being siphoned away for- ...I guess I should call them "imagination pumping schemes."
To be clear, it is also very common for a junior mining company to not have income or sales, as it takes many years and tens of millions of dollars to permit and develop a mine, so that is the usual. For example, I've seen projects where one drill hole costs $300,000+ USD, and it will take at least 10 to just gather the data for a preliminary economic feasibility study, plus significantly more money for a pilot plant etc.
I am shocked, SHOCKED I say that there are sketchy sponsors and ethicless creators on this platform. My rule still applies and serves me well: If a TH-camr is shilling it, I don't want it.
My own rule is a bit more nuanced than that, but yeah, in general if it's getting shilled on here it's FOR SURE getting extra scrutiny before I'll consider buying into it. Exceptions to this include: - If the TH-camr is advertising their own store (GamersNexus) or their own signature product (Adam Ragusea and his signature chef's knife; I have one and it's actually great!) or something that they themselves made (such as albums of their own music, books they've written, etc.) - If the TH-camr uses affiliate links to buy products that they themselves use (Rainman Ray's Repairs does this for the tools and other car repair & service products that he himself uses) - If the product is relevant to the channel content (though this condition obviously falls flat in finance youtube space, but in 3D printing and electrical engineering the sponsors in those spaces are usually pretty legit! Keysight for example regularly sponsors ElectroBOOM and Great Scott! and they're one of the leading brands for oscilloscopes) If it's literally anything else, it's gotta pass a pretty stringent sniff test. And the ironic part in all of this is that sponsors like Raid: Shadow Legends and War Thunder actually pass the sniff test better than other "generic" sponsors like VPNs, in part because they actually deliver the products/services as advertised without having to resort to much disingenuous FUD or hype. 😂
Kudos to Richard here. This obviously was a lot of work from a full-time financial analyst, dad and youtuber on his little spare hours left. The quality of this investigation (Because it is what it is) is impressive and I wish there were more honest and diligent TH-camrs like him out there to look out for the little guy.
The last part of the video was especially galling. I work for a major PR firm and the behavior of the marketing firm would get you fired and probably blacklisted from any major agency. great catch
It's funny to me that the same people who claim to UNVEIL THE TRUTH and reveal all these conspiracies either are so dense they don't do their own due diligence or are actively exploiting their own audiences. You can't make this shit up
Where has the SEC been for the last 5 years? Nft scams, crypto scams, alt coin scams, scams in literally every financial TH-cam video comment section, insurance agents shilling IUL's, pump and dumps on TH-cam... Great video, I wasn't aware this was a thing
They've started going after all this stuff but they had limited funding. That's why during the campaign donors on either side (including the Silicon Valley types like Sacks, Andreessen) were loudly complaining about the SEC (and cfpb now).
This video is more like "Investigative Journalism" than financial education. I can only imagine the amount of time & energy you've spent. Good Job Richard !
I’m proud to say none of the YT channels I watch have ever promoted stocks or investments of any kind. After watching this, I’m actually pretty proud of that
They could just be hiding it. The reason TH-camrs get away with this stuff is because their viewers are too trusting of them. Don’t trust the guys you watch either.
I went to see a wealth management consultant last year and had to sit through the better part of an hour of disclosures, documents, graphs and contracts before I was even allowed to consider investing with his company, and he's an expert. Don't trust anyone who tries to do anything less.
Task & Purpose, too. Both solid content creators. Neither of them are financial influencers, so I have to think that they just took the money without looking closely at the source.
Wow, that was a pretty intense video. Glad you haven’t been corrupted by shady money making practices. You must have spent tens of hours on this. Keep up the great work.
The fact that a huge amount of these channels are right-wing/conspiracy is a complete non-shocker, the grift game is so lucrative on that segment of the population
It's like when NBC and CBS get paid millions to air pharma commercials and their news divisions push their drugs and never, ever criticize big pharma. Except that's far, far worse than a couple of stocks.
I'm part of a handful of Slack groups that records experiences with sponsors, and as a result I was able to avoid offers that were (1) for sketchy products or services, (2) from sketchy companies with oddly frequent connections to Moscow, (3) handled by sketchy middlemen with an established history of underpaying/avoiding payment, or most commonly all three. I haven't gotten any offers like that in the past year, but I've always been curious to reach out to craft businesses where I or my collaborators have an existing relationship and are actual consumers of that product. Alternately, I'd really love to get a sponsorship for a letter of the alphabet. That's when you know you've made it.
What people need to realize is that "Raid Shadow Legends" is basically the level of company that all these ads are. Every company that pays TH-camrs to boost them are "Raid Shadow Legends."
I learned anything promoted by a TH-camr is either trash, overpriced or a scam in some other way. These people build a level of trust with people. Sad to see them throw it away.
Yeah, most really are. There are a few exceptions (in Germany Trade Republic and Scalable Capital (new brokers kinda like Robinhood only with less gamification and mostly without leverage and the hard stuff) or companies like soda stream are a few exceptions to the rule.
I don't have anything to say about Ground News. Also there's companies being promoted that also advertise on other platforms. Those are mostly ok. Anything that you almost exclusively see advertised on TH-cam is likely to be garbage indeed.
I would imagine there have been more than a few shady advertisers who have tried to get their snake oil on this channel. So I appreciate that the Plain Bagel has managed to avoid that temptation, and instead continue to provide great content.
Truly exceptional work! I just hope that the translated versions of this video go viral on as many platforms as possible since this menace plagues not just one country or region but the whole wide world, courtesy of the social media networks and the internet.
I feel sorry for the people who bought TH-cam's paid version (whatever it's called) to avoid ads, then every d@mn video we see has some stupid sponsorship message.
the 'skip section' button w premium automatically takes you to the end of the ad, or even if you start skippibg through a commonly skipped thru section it pops up
Thank you for this clear and concise video, and the work went into compiling the data into the spreadsheet. I think this may be one of your most interesting and important videos yet.
"I went through 123 TH-cam videos promoting stocks to dig into the companies behind the sponsorships" - Your effort behind this video is massively impressive!
I feel like an ETF that inverses TH-cam sponsorships would be printing money. Also shout-out to Canada once again for being horrifically behind on securities regulation and the provinces all having to do their own patchwork legislation.
Oh my god, the implications of this practice are absolutely bonkers. Thanks for this super fascinating deep dive. There are so many layers of issues here!
One of the thing I did a few years ago was to stop watching those crazy financial influencer who would able to find a new insight everyday, post it on youtube everyday and promote one crazy stock or another everyday. Whenever I read book from top investors like warren buffett, charlie monger, etc . those guys say they are lucky if they can have one insight per year. Simple rule of thumb, if youtuber was a great investor then they would not need a sponsorship from some random company.
Really enjoyed this, thank you for taking the time out to do this. The editing and flow was amazing, so well that it makes the work look easy, but we appreciate your time and effort. Keep up the good work.
Oh I really really appreciate the work man. IT's not for nothing, I promise you. I and many others will now be looking for these sponsored disclaimers and will dig into the history, names and adress of the companies promoted.
Lot of spending on 'share-based compensation' too. Seems like their business model is to raise money, and spend that money on marketing to raise more money to pay out millions of dollars a year to company insiders.
Oh boy, old guy here. Talk about memories of the VSE and "Murray the Pez." It pays to do your research before you dump your hard-earned cash into penny stocks...if at all. I really enjoyed this video. Thanks for putting it all together.
Wow, this surely is a new frontier for this channel. Amazing, clean presentation of in depth research with matching transparency and little to no overreach. Bravo Richard. Well done.
This is the kind of investigative reporting I’d hope to see business outlets like CNBC and Bloomberg do, yet it’s intrepid people like Richard diving in and doing the good work. I hope business media outlets watch this and follow up (and making sure to clearly reference your work)
I realized a while back that blogs were kinda doing something similar. They'd tell their readers to buy because it's going to go up. Then the readers buy and it goes up. Then others see it's real and buy and it goes up. Meanwhile, the blogger sells for profit and cashes in.
This is one of those things where you stop to think about it and it's obvious - but even knowing that I think a lot of people have felt the temptation to get sucked in at one point or another. Great video as it clearly demonstrates just how bad these opportunities are in a way that will crush the future temptation.
I believe the strength of a thesis can be gauged by how trivial it might initially seem to prove, yet in this case, the proof only becomes more fascinating as it unfolds. Bravo!
Not gonna lie, the guy incites mistrust immediately, have had an uneasy feeling about him for a while, and that's before his course or whatever he calls it
Even worse is that Joe tries to sell himself as some moral Christian when he’s really just lying to himself and scamming people. It’s always the most outwardly pious people that are really the most morally corrupt.
He was the comment below this one saying Richard is right and he'll have a response video out soon. Haven't seen the channel before, what's he usually like?
@@somethinglikethat2176 Joe does these long form videos about how great of a time it is to get into gold. But don’t get directly into gold. You want to get into mining stocks but make sure you get into junior mining companies focused in this area of Canada. And then he’ll pivot and say “I know of just the company” but he won’t disclose that he’s being paid by that company. I didn’t realize what was happening the first few times I watched him. Then I noticed he and two other financial TH-camrs plugged the same company the same week. Go look at his recent video he did on Bitcoin. It turned out to be a paid promotion for something called Swan Bitcoin.
Kinda funny the influencers talk about how they bought the stock like that's supposed to show they believe in it when in actuality it's closer to insider trading, they're essentially saying, "I knew there was going to be a big promotional push to pump the price so I bought some just before that happened."
Incredible work worth the subscribe.
(this comment may or may not be sponsored)
Thanks Coffee, that's high praise coming from you!
When I was about to say that The Plain Bagel is doing Coffeezilla's version of investigative coverage here, only for more traditional assets like nano-cap equities.
@@ThePlainBagel funny i was thinking about COFFEE 🙂
@@ThePlainBagel You sound like my most-addicted-to-coffee friends. Since, analyzing traditional assets is too mainstream for Mr. Investigator of edgy markets, why not crowdsource some help from trusted volunteers/supporters/fans?
Anyway, great video!
yessss the crossover
The only thing that can stop a bad company with a spreadsheet is a good guy with a spreadsheet
You mean it's the spreadsheet that gives us the super power?!
*Only thing protecting us from a bad company with a spreadsheet is a good company with a spreadsheet.
@@Iawaitguy with a spreadsheet > company with a spreadsheet
@@ecoideazventures6417 knowledge
My rule of thumb is if a TH-camr is selling something I ain’t buying!
Companies promoting their stocks instead of their products is a giant red flag
Ya I totally agree. That's why you should invest in my anti fraud company, Fraud Under (FU)
When it gets detected for OTC issuers, OTC Markets will flag the company for promotional activity.
There are also rules for promotional activity btw.
Always, it's like someone selling you a rug and you buying it noticing they're ready to yoink it like a looney tunes bit lol
Crypto as well
unless you are boeing then it is your product
From financial education to proper investigative journalism. Great work!!! Also... honestly, a bit painful to see what we are competing with. I got reached out by an agent from Canada about these types of 'opportunities' a while ago. Very young guy. Office on Google maps in really sketchy place. Yikes
Yeah its crazy how much creators get for these sponsorships. Do a few of these per year and in only that you earn enough to up your production values and can afford to make much better videos. Just gotta get rid of all your morals
"This video may or may not be sponsored" is a wild statement
It's clearly a Schrödingers sponsorship, the TH-camr only finds out if it was sponsored once the money is observed in their bank account.
I thought this was a joke Richard made in the video, I didn’t think someone actually said this 😂
He's basically saying "I'm a conman. Trust me at your peril."
That made me cackle, lol. What's even the point of saying that? 😂 You might as well just say you were sponsored, who's gonna go "Oh, well they might be sponsored but they might NOT be!!" LOL
"This could be or could be not a dumping schema"
After cutting scrotum with the Manscape lawnmower multiple times and paying 90 $ a month for AG1 to almost vomit every day instead of buying a multi vitamin for 15 $ a year, I realized: If a product is advertised on all your favorite podcasts, just don't buy it under any circumstances.
Oof. I'll keep shaving with the cheap disposable razors for my ballsack's sake!
There is a certain paradox between what is advertised and what you actually need. At the very least, the product must be expensive enough to cover all the ads, and those Manscaping guys run a LOT of ads. The reality is if you need a certain type of product, you might get a much better price if you look for such a product yourself, as many things have VERY cheap Chinese versions. To be honest, I am not sold on any kind of dietary supplements, since regular healthy food so much cheaper, and the body is built to survive on most normal things humans eat.
You don't need AG1, nor likely even the multivitamin. Those are complete scams.
In fact, if the podcast is at all medical or science related, I would say it casts doubt the credibility of that podcast. Unlike a random video game TH-camr, they can't just claim ignorance.
Multi vitamin are really bad for kidneys if you don't know what you're doing. Please make a blood test with a nutritionologist before taking supplement. AG1 are Ok, too expensive for their nutritive value, but at least they're as balanced as a meal. Do no replace all meals completely though, it's fine a few time a week, but nutrition is complicated, nobody really knows everything that happen and we're still missing data on digestion. The best is to cook yourself, limit meat intake to at most one meal a day (meat broth for flavoring is okay to eat every meal).
@@Nash9r talk to an actual doctor. Most people do not need supplements and they do not improve the average person's health in any significant manner.
Whoever managed to get 1.25 mil for a promotion on a 48k sub channel robbed them blind LOL.
I didn’t notice that 😭😭 highway robbery that is
Marin Katusa has always been a big scammer.
That's just siphoning money out from the company. The TH-camr might be one of the people on the board
That’s Marin Katusa and it appears that $1.25M promotion was for a TH-cam video and more importantly a recommendation in Marin’s newsletter.
The promotion was for the company Uranium Royalty Corp, whose Chairman and founder is Amir Adnani.
Fun fact: Amir Adnani and Marin Katusa are good friends and go way back. I think they were classmates back in the day.
It’s called money laundering. The TH-camr is probably getting his cut.
If gold was such a good investment i wouldnt see ads for it every three seconds
Sadly, many content creators I respect (well, not so much anymore) also shill for gold a LOT. One even went so far as to say "people won't know that they HAVE to buy gold (and crypto)". I won't name names but.....who am I kidding here. It was Tom Bilyeu
Seriously, guys, you are advertising investing in something that ONLY gains value if......people buy it. And if that wasn't enough, they often use the language of "are you tiring of watching the government deflate the value of YOUR hard-earned money?"
As in, the most obvious kind of emotional manipulation out there. I get that they are just paid to say this, but I don't care - if it comes out of your mouth, I am holding you accountable for that opinion (the only acceptable exception is being forced to say things under duress).
I mean in general gold is not a BAD investment, it's very low risk and almost certainly going to be worth more in 5 years than it was when you bought it. It's better than keeping your money in US dollars or some other currency because the price of gold goes up over time as demand increases and supply decreases whereas the US dollar goes down in value over time by design to discourage the hoarding of money and encourage investment.
That being said these companies that run the ads are total scams. You're buying gold at a massively inflated price point where it'll be nearly impossible to sell that gold for a profit, even if you waited 20 years to sell it. That isn't an investment - that's tricking people into paying more for a commodity than it's actually worth and in my opinion a scam.
TH-camrs aside, there's nothing wrong with diversifying with metals. Just do not use the many Gold IRA groups that are just middleman and will rip you off.
One can spend a little time to find a reputable bullion dealer and a financial institution that deals in IRA accounts for metals and will work with a depository that actually stores your metals. It takes minimal effort to research the info you'd need compared to the amount of time people waste on a daily basis.
The ads are for overpriced gold.
lol those are gold dealers, not gold. Gold is a decent investment
Seeing that spreadsheet representing the amount of work you had to put in, massive applause to you Richard & keep up the work. Very inspirational indeed!
Yeah. Richard is now effectively an investigative journalist and I love it.
Every financial influencer:
“The contents of this video are not financial advice”
Proceeds to give financial advice
"this video may or may not be sponsored" is not a sentence worth saying.
That's like blatantly admitting that it was sponsored while implying that you yourself dont trust the product
A little like a Biden pardon. Hunter is pardoned for crimes that he may or may not have committed over the last decade. What the hell are the things we don't know about YET.
We can neither confirm nor deny
may or may not get paid. ideally get paid though. Bias to sell
Average -34% return on these investments? So you are saying that shorting TH-camr stock picks would be a viable strategy? 😅
That's an even better return than betting against Jim Kramer.
A broker needs to be willing to loan you the shares and then there's the margin costs. These stocks are junk so most brokers would require 100% to short them if they'll even let you
Dangerous game as liquidity on these nano caps stocks will be non-existent, and after big pumps your short interest may go through the roof with no way of closing your short. These low volume stocks are just to easy to short squeeze
I get my finance news from a bagel and my rap news from an uncommonly thin Irishman. I don’t need anything else.
😂
yes, his car pictures are also some of the most amazing I have seen. he is a one stop shop, lacking only bagels
Hahaha $@me!
So looking out for scams with one and what, joining the scams the rap expert is shilling?
Wise man
Incredible work. But who is sponsoring THIS video??
NordShark
The people watching
You are?
Good question and also thank god we have legitmate people who get paid to push stock like Cramer.
Good rule of thumb - if a TH-camr is promoting a specific stock, it's because they are benefiting from it at your expense. No exceptions.
Common sense isn't so common.
It would be very interesting to do a similar spreadsheet on the notorious pumper Jim Cramer. If he says buy a stock then it's time to sell. I can't believe how many people think he's a guru.
Sounds like Graham Stephen! That's probably why he went political and partnered with other influencers, because his old channel is a scammy mess.
At someone's expense, anyway
cramer really isnt that bad, he was an incredibly good fund manager but having to pick stocks nightly is really hard! you don't have nearly enough time to thoroughly research the stocks you talk about and by nature it reduces the quality of the picks
i think someone of his standing could be charged w/ market manipulation for that regardless @@aussie_al
A gold youtuber I used to watch promoted a gold mining stock and in his ad showed himself down 50% said he was gonna "dollar cost average" lol
Lol down 50% and still shilling
i quit watching dan hurd after he started randomly shilling stock ticker and all for some used car salesman type dude with a mine. shady as.
@@aar0n709 it was worse tbh dude seemed older, might not have known what he was getting into
I really appreciate you covering this topic Richard.
Being paid to promote a stock is probably the single biggest conflict of interest you could create for financial influencers. I think it destroys the credibility of the entire space. I think it also is problematic in that it invites a lot more strict regulation, which could impact our ability to freely discuss stocks in the future.
To be clear - I've never been paid a dime to promote a stock and will never accept a penny to do so. I've also decided to never invest in micro-crap companies specifically because I don't want my videos to have an impact on stock price.
POET is one of the worst examples of abuse. That company was headed towards bankrupcy, burning tons of cash every quarter, cash balance going down, debt going up. Then they pay for the pump. Looking at the share count grow 60% year over year, that's absolutely insane and shows they clearly paid to get stock price pump so they could sell shares into the pump. About as clear-cut as it gets...
Again, appreciate the video - I'm going to be sharing it.
Well said checkmark I’ve never heard of
Hey Joseph just wanted to say thank you for all your videos, one of the best financial TH-camr out there! Have a good holiday brother .
@@LowTide941 Joseph is cream of the crop in the finance space
Who tf is Richard?
What about TH-camrs paid to promote FTX? that doesn't count?
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't trust sponsorships of any kind
Working as an exploration geologist, I deal with junior Canadian mining companies regularly. I will say that, especially in the last 10 years, there has been an explosion in small resource companies where the only goal is to mine the shareholders. This is a rough estimate from one geologist, but I'd guess roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of current resource plays don't actually have claim to anything remotely economic to mine. This has been an issue for the legitimate resource companies, as so much potential capital is being siphoned away for- ...I guess I should call them "imagination pumping schemes."
To be clear, it is also very common for a junior mining company to not have income or sales, as it takes many years and tens of millions of dollars to permit and develop a mine, so that is the usual. For example, I've seen projects where one drill hole costs $300,000+ USD, and it will take at least 10 to just gather the data for a preliminary economic feasibility study, plus significantly more money for a pilot plant etc.
I’d be interested in your take on Teck and their projects in the works
@@vincentoliver1228 Tech Resources or Rock Tech?
“The only goal is to mine the shareholders”. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry over this one.
The old saying is that a junior mining company is "a hole with a liar standing next to it."
Your work should be recognised as a public service. THANK YOU for all the time and care you put in your videos!
I am shocked, SHOCKED I say that there are sketchy sponsors and ethicless creators on this platform. My rule still applies and serves me well: If a TH-camr is shilling it, I don't want it.
Your rule will get checkmated by a hydrohomie
So choose a better rule.
I farted
Tbh doing some research before taking the sponsorship should be mandatory imho for the content creators.
My own rule is a bit more nuanced than that, but yeah, in general if it's getting shilled on here it's FOR SURE getting extra scrutiny before I'll consider buying into it.
Exceptions to this include:
- If the TH-camr is advertising their own store (GamersNexus) or their own signature product (Adam Ragusea and his signature chef's knife; I have one and it's actually great!) or something that they themselves made (such as albums of their own music, books they've written, etc.)
- If the TH-camr uses affiliate links to buy products that they themselves use (Rainman Ray's Repairs does this for the tools and other car repair & service products that he himself uses)
- If the product is relevant to the channel content (though this condition obviously falls flat in finance youtube space, but in 3D printing and electrical engineering the sponsors in those spaces are usually pretty legit! Keysight for example regularly sponsors ElectroBOOM and Great Scott! and they're one of the leading brands for oscilloscopes)
If it's literally anything else, it's gotta pass a pretty stringent sniff test. And the ironic part in all of this is that sponsors like Raid: Shadow Legends and War Thunder actually pass the sniff test better than other "generic" sponsors like VPNs, in part because they actually deliver the products/services as advertised without having to resort to much disingenuous FUD or hype. 😂
@@AnirudhTammireddy allahu snackbar
Thanks. Amazing works with lots of research and details.
Kudos to Richard here. This obviously was a lot of work from a full-time financial analyst, dad and youtuber on his little spare hours left. The quality of this investigation (Because it is what it is) is impressive and I wish there were more honest and diligent TH-camrs like him out there to look out for the little guy.
Why does this sound like an AI generated comment 🧐
@@RJTradess Beep beep *clinking sound* I don't know what you are talking about sir *Beep* *Boop*
TH-camrs and Committing Fraud, name a better combo.
The TH-camrs that stand plainly beside the bagel and skipped on FTX and other sins.
That builds up some credibility.
That is a better combo. :)
Graham stephan and failing scam companies (yotta & FTX)
Conservatives and manipulation
Tiktokers and crypto rugpulls
TikTokers and conspiracy theories.
The last part of the video was especially galling. I work for a major PR firm and the behavior of the marketing firm would get you fired and probably blacklisted from any major agency. great catch
It's funny to me that the same people who claim to UNVEIL THE TRUTH and reveal all these conspiracies either are so dense they don't do their own due diligence or are actively exploiting their own audiences.
You can't make this shit up
Russia writes their scripts for them.
The true conspiracy was the friends we made along the way after all! 😅 F is for friendship AND fraud!
Spoilers: they dont care and want a check
If the audience self-selects for delusional gullibility it’s almost criminal *not* to milk them.
@@raggedcritical Horrible take
I swear, the more I learn about finfluencers the clearer it becomes to NEVER trust a word they say.
Where has the SEC been for the last 5 years?
Nft scams, crypto scams, alt coin scams, scams in literally every financial TH-cam video comment section, insurance agents shilling IUL's, pump and dumps on TH-cam...
Great video, I wasn't aware this was a thing
What’s insurance agents shilling ILUS?
@@niktak4658 i mean insurance on its own is a scam, im sure anything new they come up with is only more of a scam
Laughing all the way to the bank I presume.
Iuls piss me off so bad. They are all marketed as an "investment"
They've started going after all this stuff but they had limited funding. That's why during the campaign donors on either side (including the Silicon Valley types like Sacks, Andreessen) were loudly complaining about the SEC (and cfpb now).
This video is more like "Investigative Journalism" than financial education. I can only imagine the amount of time & energy you've spent. Good Job Richard !
Bagel man going full Coffezilla ! Alleluia!!
Bagelzilla??
Plain coffee 😅@@bc-guy852
@@bc-guy852 Coffee and bagels!
In the Ten Canadian Dollar Studio!
@@bc-guy852 $BGLZ- pump the stock!
I’m proud to say none of the YT channels I watch have ever promoted stocks or investments of any kind. After watching this, I’m actually pretty proud of that
I never even knew this was an accomplishment but the subscriber counts on those channels tells me it apparently is lmao
They could just be hiding it. The reason TH-camrs get away with this stuff is because their viewers are too trusting of them. Don’t trust the guys you watch either.
That "Be safe out there" always makes me smile. Thank you for saying it all those years.
I love how humble you are. Most people would have just called them out by saying "scam" and would be bashing those companies the entire video.
Bad crypto exchange ad right before a Plain Bagel video. Classic
I got an ad for a decent online bank
I've been seeing Kraken absolutely everywhere online, which certainly gives me...feelings about the probable quality of the product.
Just got an ad to be an early investor in Pacaso. They sell luxury homes, I think? My last chance to by in at $2.50 a share.
This is cool. Spreadsheet Warrior!
spreadsheet supersoldier
I went to see a wealth management consultant last year and had to sit through the better part of an hour of disclosures, documents, graphs and contracts before I was even allowed to consider investing with his company, and he's an expert. Don't trust anyone who tries to do anything less.
Seeing CaspianReport paid $100,000 for a promotion is wild to me
got paid
Task & Purpose, too. Both solid content creators. Neither of them are financial influencers, so I have to think that they just took the money without looking closely at the source.
Who wouldn't take the bag. Honestly. I do not blame him. Also it seems to be uranium company promotion.
I like his content, but he's had a record of promoting dubious businesses for a long time
@bartekchromik3564 anyone would take the bag man.
Wow, that was a pretty intense video. Glad you haven’t been corrupted by shady money making practices. You must have spent tens of hours on this. Keep up the great work.
The fact that a huge amount of these channels are right-wing/conspiracy is a complete non-shocker, the grift game is so lucrative on that segment of the population
I hate having morals sometimes. It would be an easy fleece
@@Waldopolo69I know right, like holy shit the level of expertise needed immediately drops by a significant factor
On some level who hasn't thought of going Robert Kiyosaki on people and selling scam books and $500 seminars?
Makes sense, it would be hard to run a lucrative grift on convinced socialists, since most of them are broke af.
It's like when NBC and CBS get paid millions to air pharma commercials and their news divisions push their drugs and never, ever criticize big pharma. Except that's far, far worse than a couple of stocks.
This might get lost in the comments, but your hard work is appreciated. Please keep doing such videos (as well as tiktok reviews).
I'm part of a handful of Slack groups that records experiences with sponsors, and as a result I was able to avoid offers that were (1) for sketchy products or services, (2) from sketchy companies with oddly frequent connections to Moscow, (3) handled by sketchy middlemen with an established history of underpaying/avoiding payment, or most commonly all three. I haven't gotten any offers like that in the past year, but I've always been curious to reach out to craft businesses where I or my collaborators have an existing relationship and are actual consumers of that product.
Alternately, I'd really love to get a sponsorship for a letter of the alphabet. That's when you know you've made it.
^^^^------------ this.
You're always dedicated to collating vast swathes of info to make a more moral choice
What people need to realize is that "Raid Shadow Legends" is basically the level of company that all these ads are. Every company that pays TH-camrs to boost them are "Raid Shadow Legends."
I learned anything promoted by a TH-camr is either trash, overpriced or a scam in some other way. These people build a level of trust with people. Sad to see them throw it away.
Yeah, most really are. There are a few exceptions (in Germany Trade Republic and Scalable Capital (new brokers kinda like Robinhood only with less gamification and mostly without leverage and the hard stuff) or companies like soda stream are a few exceptions to the rule.
I don't have anything to say about Ground News.
Also there's companies being promoted that also advertise on other platforms. Those are mostly ok.
Anything that you almost exclusively see advertised on TH-cam is likely to be garbage indeed.
Man with a spreadsheet! The hero we needed most! Can't get over just how uniquely qualified plain bagel is to unpack this
00:14 “This video may or may not have been sponsored” is a wild statement
My main takeaway? That I’m clearly accepting sponsorships for way too little income. 😂
I would imagine there have been more than a few shady advertisers who have tried to get their snake oil on this channel. So I appreciate that the Plain Bagel has managed to avoid that temptation, and instead continue to provide great content.
TH-cam sponsors are anti advertising as far as im concerned. If I see a company spamming sponsors into TH-cam i stay as far away from it as possible.
Love how Richard just comes out and slams them with casual finance research. Good work 👏
Truly exceptional work! I just hope that the translated versions of this video go viral on as many platforms as possible since this menace plagues not just one country or region but the whole wide world, courtesy of the social media networks and the internet.
I feel sorry for the people who bought TH-cam's paid version (whatever it's called) to avoid ads, then every d@mn video we see has some stupid sponsorship message.
TH-cam premium and we can press a button to skip the segment
TH-cam premium is worth every penny
My free ad blocker is also worth every penny...
I just cut off videos when a promo starts. Negatively affect watch time. 🤷♂️
the 'skip section' button w premium automatically takes you to the end of the ad, or even if you start skippibg through a commonly skipped thru section it pops up
Thank you for this clear and concise video, and the work went into compiling the data into the spreadsheet. I think this may be one of your most interesting and important videos yet.
“As always, be safe out there.” That’s an understatement 😅
This is one of the best researched videos I have ever seen. It shouldn't be free to watch, but I'm so glad it is!
Love your stuff bagel. Hate your excel formatting. Formatting is LIFE.
Yeah I admit the formatting is shit - was really rushing to get the video out ASAP
@@ThePlainBagel I'm in the "no formatting" camp when it comes to Excel spreadsheets - but I'm not showing them to an audience, only myself.
sure am glad to have been following this channel for like at least 5 years. your work is much appreciated!
I don't let influencers influence me, not even the good ones
"I went through 123 TH-cam videos promoting stocks to dig into the companies behind the sponsorships" - Your effort behind this video is massively impressive!
I feel like an ETF that inverses TH-cam sponsorships would be printing money.
Also shout-out to Canada once again for being horrifically behind on securities regulation and the provinces all having to do their own patchwork legislation.
It would if those shares could be shorted, but a lot of them can't be shorted because of settlement issues.
The problem is the overvalued stock might go down tomorrow or two years from now.
@@justin423You could bypass that limitation with a CFD but no issuer would be dumb enough to sell you any.
Wish I could upvote twice. Excellent analysis Richard. Must have been months of work
bottom line: DO NOT INVEST IN ANY COMPANY WHO ADVERTISE THEIR STOCKS IN TH-cam
Make a list!
Oh my god, the implications of this practice are absolutely bonkers. Thanks for this super fascinating deep dive. There are so many layers of issues here!
If these companies were worth investing in, they wouldn't be paying TH-camrs to pump their stock.
Here's an easy rule: don't buy anything pitched to you on any social media ever.
I’m shocked. One of the best research videos I have seen in a while. Keep at it. Great work ❤
This sounds criminal! Thank you for shining a light on these, can we get attention of law enforcement or securities regulators?!
Good luck. New administration will be stripping even more regulation. Dark times.
One of the thing I did a few years ago was to stop watching those crazy financial influencer who would able to find a new insight everyday, post it on youtube everyday and promote one crazy stock or another everyday. Whenever I read book from top investors like warren buffett, charlie monger, etc . those guys say they are lucky if they can have one insight per year. Simple rule of thumb, if youtuber was a great investor then they would not need a sponsorship from some random company.
Really enjoyed this, thank you for taking the time out to do this. The editing and flow was amazing, so well that it makes the work look easy, but we appreciate your time and effort. Keep up the good work.
TH-cam premium was sold with the understanding that no commercials were on premium.
Ya right.
With TH-cam premium you can "jump ahead" sponsored ads lol 😊
That's kind of funny. Basically they noticed that these youtubers had audiences that were more prone to falling for scams, and capitalised off that.
If the youtubers are misleading or giving untrue information about the company actually being profitable, then it's market manipulation.
Oh I really really appreciate the work man. IT's not for nothing, I promise you. I and many others will now be looking for these sponsored disclaimers and will dig into the history, names and adress of the companies promoted.
Pretty much everything sold via influencer advertising is dodgy.
This has got to be my favorite post of yours since I subbed. Had me reeled in the whole time! It's so titillating
Lot of spending on 'share-based compensation' too. Seems like their business model is to raise money, and spend that money on marketing to raise more money to pay out millions of dollars a year to company insiders.
It's called a ponzi scheme
that's called ELON MUSH COMPENSATION
@@vv-cv6udYeah, Elmo would be flat broke plus tens of millions in debt if it weren't for his various ponzi schemes and defrauding the US government.
@@vv-cv6ud there are many examples. There was a Disney CEO who got billions in options while investors got almost nothing
Boiler Room: TH-cam edition.
Mega work, Bagel! 💪 Exposing these systems and protection future victims! Thanks you! 😊👏
Great work! Just objectively good investigation and reporting
Thanks for doing the hard work for us, mate. I am glad I found your channel some months back. I've learned so much from you.
You KNOW things are getting real when Richard pulls out the spreadsheet 🔥🔥
Richard is to spreadsheets what Perun is to powerpoint?
Oh boy, old guy here. Talk about memories of the VSE and "Murray the Pez." It pays to do your research before you dump your hard-earned cash into penny stocks...if at all. I really enjoyed this video. Thanks for putting it all together.
Are you the new Coffeezilla!?! Love all the work that went into this!
I don't know if I'm cut out for more than one of these a year haha, but I appreciate the positive feedback!
@@ThePlainBagel New idea…share this info and data with Coffeezilla(you don’t even have to tell us). He can take it from here :).
Coffeezilla and Plain Bagel crossover will be called Coffee Meets Bagels
@@MionMikan They've already done a video together before.
@ OMG, I love it! 🤣
Wow. This is mind blowing.
Wow, this surely is a new frontier for this channel. Amazing, clean presentation of in depth research with matching transparency and little to no overreach.
Bravo Richard. Well done.
This is the kind of investigative reporting I’d hope to see business outlets like CNBC and Bloomberg do, yet it’s intrepid people like Richard diving in and doing the good work. I hope business media outlets watch this and follow up (and making sure to clearly reference your work)
This is crazy. Commenting to help with the algorithm. How do these companies get away with this stuff seriously...
I've always been skeptical of any product or service a TH-camr pushes. All kinds of sketchy stuff being pushed by TH-camrs, not just stocks.
I realized a while back that blogs were kinda doing something similar. They'd tell their readers to buy because it's going to go up. Then the readers buy and it goes up. Then others see it's real and buy and it goes up. Meanwhile, the blogger sells for profit and cashes in.
The investigative journalism here is absolutely top notch!!!
Excellent deep dive on this Bagel, well done.
That spreadsheet may be a list of leads on some TH-cam scammers to cover
This is one of those things where you stop to think about it and it's obvious - but even knowing that I think a lot of people have felt the temptation to get sucked in at one point or another. Great video as it clearly demonstrates just how bad these opportunities are in a way that will crush the future temptation.
You're my favorite dominican rap news channel
I believe the strength of a thesis can be gauged by how trivial it might initially seem to prove, yet in this case, the proof only becomes more fascinating as it unfolds.
Bravo!
Now I feel compelled to hunt for a full comprehensive list.
THIS is why I subscribe. The GOAT finance/investments TH-camr. Man really conducted due diligence to expose a modern Wolf of Wall Street type scheme.
I don't mind YT ads at all. It lets me unmistakably avoid these products.
That was an impressive amount of work and research. You are absolutely doing an admirable public service
My eyes immediately started searching the thumbnail for Joe from Heresy Financial.
Not gonna lie, the guy incites mistrust immediately, have had an uneasy feeling about him for a while, and that's before his course or whatever he calls it
Even worse is that Joe tries to sell himself as some moral Christian when he’s really just lying to himself and scamming people. It’s always the most outwardly pious people that are really the most morally corrupt.
I guess I'm a sucker, because I didn't clue in
He was the comment below this one saying Richard is right and he'll have a response video out soon.
Haven't seen the channel before, what's he usually like?
@@somethinglikethat2176 Joe does these long form videos about how great of a time it is to get into gold. But don’t get directly into gold. You want to get into mining stocks but make sure you get into junior mining companies focused in this area of Canada.
And then he’ll pivot and say “I know of just the company” but he won’t disclose that he’s being paid by that company.
I didn’t realize what was happening the first few times I watched him. Then I noticed he and two other financial TH-camrs plugged the same company the same week.
Go look at his recent video he did on Bitcoin. It turned out to be a paid promotion for something called Swan Bitcoin.
Kinda funny the influencers talk about how they bought the stock like that's supposed to show they believe in it when in actuality it's closer to insider trading, they're essentially saying, "I knew there was going to be a big promotional push to pump the price so I bought some just before that happened."
"Surprise surprise." ~ Gomer Pyle
One of your best videos yet!!! Wading into investigative journalism territory 😂💪 love it