"Minco Gold (NYSE Amex: MGH) shot up by 243%" heralds McCabe's next bullet. Well, not actually, since McCabe used "MHG" as the stock ticker for the price chart between January and September 2009. The most that could have been taken out of Minco over that period would have been 141 percent, but what's a difference of 100 percentage points or so? Apparently, it's as piddling a matter as transposed letters in a ticker symbol.
The last of McCabe's illustrations is that of Midway Gold Corp. (NYSE Amex: MDW), which trumpets a 222 percent profit sometime between May and September 2009. That's better than twice the maximum possible excursion of 106 percent for the period, though.
All this has got me a little worried about paying my taxes and buying holiday gifts with my Guinness Exploration winnings. "Monster gains" could mean virtually anything for a stock that closed at $1.28 on Feb. 16. Given the inflated results claimed in McCabe's track record (an average 526 percent gain), I should be prepared to settle for a "half-monster" 286 percent return—the average of the actual maximum returns.
Still, 286 percent's not bad. But I'd like to be sure that I didn't miss something in my calculations. Catching up with McCabe's not easy, though. The Elite Stock Report's issued out of the well-known financial capital of Fargo, N.D. Specifically, it's headquartered at 3120 25th Street South—you know, in the strip mall right behind the Arby's.
Oh, wait, that's the UPS Store! Yup, indeed it is. Box 347.
Fear not, though. There's a subscription discount card enclosed that points me to Elite's "order processing center" in Sumas, Wash.
Sumas? Never heard of Sumas? It's a town of less than a thousand souls that hugs the Canadian-U.S. border. And the order processing center? Well, it's not behind the Arby's, since Sumas doesn't have an Arby's. It does, however, have a Letterlock mailing service office. And that's Elite's order processing center. Through offices on either side of the border (Letterlock's other office is in Abbotsford, British Columbia), the mailing service offers Canadian post boxes to U.S. customers and U.S. post boxes to Canadians.
Are you starting to see the picture here? There's a pipeline for money to flow from the U.S. to Canada. Guinness Exploration is a Canadian company that just raised $1.5 million to fund the initial phase of the exploration project touted by McCabe. Some $350,000 was paid to Elite Stock Report's publisher to "enhance the public's awareness of Guinness Exploration and its securities." I'll leave it to you to connect the dots.
Clearly, McCabe and his publisher, Jake Landon Publishing, Inc., don't want to be found. Try tracking down the owners of Elite's Web site, www.EliteStockReport.com, and you'll run into a dead end created by Go Daddy's private domain registration service. Finding out who or what's behind the Elite Stock domain name means sending a subpoena through Go Daddy.
And you thought it was hard to get hold of your doctor or accountant.
All this ought to make you think twice, or thrice, about any recommendations made by Elite Stock Report. Or those like Elite.
I'm not giving up hope though. I've marked my calendar and put my copy of the Elite Stock Report in my top drawer along with my lottery tickets. You just never know.
