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UPDATE (April 2, 2021): since 2011 we have been offering to award the first person who was able to demonstrate that another financial professional was able to at least match the investment forecasting track record of Mike Stathis since he began publishing investment research in 2006.

After one decade of failing to receive a single submission to challenge our guarantee, we decided to officially close this offer (see below).

This decision should in no way be taken to imply that we no longer believe Mr. Stathis holds the leading forecasting track record in the world.

We remain confident that Mr. Stathis continues to hold the world's leading investment forecasting track record. As such, we are willing to extend this offer on an individual basis if we receive sufficient materials which present a reasonable case that warrants expenditure of our time and effort to address the challenge.

We are even open to reducing the offer to the previous $100,000 so that the entrant is not required to risk loss of his/her own money if (when) they lose the challenge.

Quite simply, we remain anxious to address all reasonable challenges. But each challenge must be of sufficient accuracy and detail to warrant our attention.

Please note that we will only entertain one entry at a time. If you submit a challenge during a period when we are addressing a previous entry, we will inform you of this and provide you with an estimate of when we believe we will be able to address your challenge (when possible).

Individuals are permitted to submit only one challenge.

Any and all offers to extend this guarantee are up to our discretion.

If we feel a submission does not meet minimal threshold required to warrant our time and effort to present a counter case, the individual will be notified of this. If this individual does not agree with our analysis and decision, the entrant can pursue this matter in a court of law.

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August 2017 marked the eighth year we offered a cash reward for anyone who could provide evidence that there was another financial professional who could at least match Mike Stathis' track record in investment forecasting and analysis since 2006.

Prior to the recent expiration of this $100,000 reward, we launched a similar contest but raised the stakes to $1,000,000. This offer expired in June 2017. See here.

Last month we announced the extension of this $1,000,000 challenge, through sometime in 2018. We also extended the period covered by this challenge by another year, from late 2006 to October 2017.

Today we are announcing the official expiration date of this $1,000,000 challange.

We will accept all serious submissions for this challenge up through August 31, 2018 on a first-come, first-serve basis.

We will make all research publications available for analysis for official entries once they have satisfied the basic requirements. Until then, you can begin to analyze Mike Stathis' track record here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

If you don't feel sufficiently qualified to perform a proper analysis of forecasting track records or if don't have adequate time to put in all of the work needed for this challenge, feel free to send this to anyone you think might stand a better chance of completing a reasonable entry.

You can even send this to the clowns positioned in the media as "experts" and ask if they would care to enter this challenge.

Some Background on Our Track Record Challenges

In 2009 we began offering a cash reward to anyone who could provide evidence to refute our claim that Mike Stathis holds the leading investment forecasting track record.

As you might recall, this offer arose from our initiative to demonstrate to the public that the U.S. media engages in blatant censorship in order to achieve its hidden agendas.

Note that the launch of this challenge had absolutely nothing to do with boasting. It was about waking the public up to the fact that the media intentionally promotes con artists, shills and idiots in order to profit, while pretending to have the audience's best interests in mind. In reality, the media works against its audience and on the side of advertisers.

We have since devoted an unthinkable amount of time and resources towards proving this claim. Over the course of a decade, Mike has uncovered and explained the various tactics used by the media to control, deceive and defraud its audience. Mike's work in media analysis alone has positioned him as one of the world's top media experts.

This project has also led to the creation of what we believe to be the world's largest digital (written, audio and video) library of financial charlatans, exposing their miserable track records and marketing tactics. These massive collection of data are located on the AVA Investment Analytics website, most of which have been reserved for the benefit of Members and Clients of AVA Investment Analytics.

We estimate that having access to this massive library of educational resources is likely to prevent the average retail investor from losing a minimum of $300,000 over their life time by avoiding the countless marketing gimmicks and scams from the enormous army of charlatans found within the so-called mainstream and alternative media, as well as the various copywriting investment newsletter syndicates.

This estimate does not include any potential savings or avoidance of missed investment gains that might result from the opportunity costs associated with poor investment decisions made as a result of following the recommendations of these charlatans.

Mike has demonstrated how the financial media works with Wall Street in order to deceive and mislead the investment public. It's quite simple. Financial media programs feature individuals introduced to its audience as financial/investment/economic "experts" in order to create the impression that these "experts" are going to provide their audience with valuable content. But the reality is much different. Anyone who has bothered to check the background of these "experts" and carefully examined their track records will realize the severity of this scam orchestrated by the media.

In reality these many of these "experts" have shady backgrounds, while others have been sanctioned by securities regulators. But the common trait shared by all of these "experts" is that they have terrible track records and hidden agendas that are misaligned with the investment public.

The only objective these "experts" have is to market themselves and their business in front of as many gulliable sheep as they can. And because these "experts" know much more about sales and marketing than investments, even if they wanted to help investors, they are not capable of providing valuable content. But they are very capable of the kind of bull shitting you'd expect from snake oil sales men. They know how to toss around relevant terms in order to create the perception that they are knowledgable enough to help guide investors. They also attempt to impress their audience with pseudo-intellectual ramblings. But truly experienced financial professionals (that is, real experts) realize these "experts" are hot air motor mouths looking to hook more fish.

Make no mistake about it. The "experts" you see and hear about in the media are only experts in sales and marketing. In reality, they are charlatans.

These charlatans are able to generate large sums of money from the free promotion they receive from the media. And they leverage this opportunity to pitch their books, subscription services, financial services and other products to the retail investment public that has been informed by the media that these "experts" are "smart guys" and "great investors."

Some of these charlatans misrepresent or deceive the sucker audience into thinking they are big time money managers or hedge fund managers. In reality, they are attempting to market their business. One of the easiest ways to tell when you are dealing with a charlatan and/or clown is to check and see if they write for Jim Cramer's boiler room copywriting firm, The Street or the related Real Money. In fact, if you ever see this mentioned in the bio of anyone, you should stay far away from them because having worked for this boiler room should tell you all you need to know.

The fact is that real money managers and hedge fund managers with legitimate funds don't make regular appearances in the media. When you see a fund manager who always seems to be in the media, you can bet they either don't have much real business so they are trying to hook some fish from the audience, or else they are trying to promoting their stocks in order to get the sheep audience to jump aboard their trade so they can cash out with gains.

It would be a different matter if these charlatans had good track records or their books actually provided real insight that helped investors. Despite the fact that many investors who fall for the media scam actually think these clowns are spot on with their "insights" and forecasts, the facts speak for themselves. The clowns and charlatans promoted by the media as "experts" are consistently wrong and often clueless.

So why do so many people fall for the media scam? The sad reality is that in today's world, most people gravitate towards the celebrity-like personna of these "experts." Anyone who receives a good amount of media expoure is able to have this kind of impact on the masses. The reason for this behavior delves into an entirely different topic which I won't bother discussing here. But you should note that this phenomenon is well-known and accounts for the growing trend of positioning Hollywood stars and pop singers and other entertainers as spokesmen for global agendas such as "climate change."

The point is that those who are seduced by this "celebrity status" (as seen by the "experts" in the media) lose their ability to think clearly and objectively. In fact, many of these individuals never possessed this basic skill, which explains why they fell for the media scam to begin with.

Top Six Questions to Ask BEFORE You Trust Investment "Experts"

The truth of the matter is that the media intentionally features these "experts" in order to make sure its audience is steered into the gutter. This generates higher advertisement revenues from its sponsors, most of which are Wall Street firms and affiliated financial services companies.

You see, because these "experts" are wrong the majority of time, those who listen to them will eventually lose large sums of money. This ultimately benefits financial firms which advertise on financial shows and networks that feature these "experts." Thus, if you are one of the sheep that follows the advice or recommendations of the media's "experts" you are going to lose money. Probably a very large amount. It's that simple.

And once you lose money won't you eventually seek some "professional" assistance? Okay so don't you think those ads and logos you see on those financial programs you watched have been subconsciously imprinted into your mind? In fact, they have. This is all known based on extensive research. So naturally once you feel a sense of desperation after having suffered huge losses, chances are very high that you're going to contact one of the financial firms you saw advertised or in same way associated with the financial programs you watch. A similar pattern of behavior plays out with radio and print media.

And if you are one of the media executives overseeing this scam, could you not charge higher fees for ads? Of course you could, and you do!

After all, this scam causes a larger than normal percentage of the audience to seek out the assistance of financial firms. Therefore, any media show that is able to execute this scam will command top dollar for ad slots.

The only other variable the media executive needs to worry about are ratings. The higher the ratings, the more ad dollars you can demand for ad slots. This is why the financial media bends over backwards to create Hollywood-like productions to ensure the illusion of value has been created before your very eyes.

These productions ensure the full gamet of entertainment has been covered, from babes and boobs to comradery. It's all about creating a "feel-good" production. This is the business of Hollywood. The productions cause the audience to engage more. And the audience becomes more attached and loyalty to these productions due to the emotional stimulation they receive by watching these scam networks.

The media crime bosses who orchestrate this scam make sure cover every angle when they design each production, from the "feel-good" (sexual arousement) response the male audience gets when they see the babes and boobs, to the "feel-good" environment created when the charlatans incite a gambling mentality as they rattle off the "trades of the day."

But you aren't going to ever get any real investment insight from these productions. It's all cheap entertainment dished out by bimbos and baboons. It's all smoke and mirrors. It's Hollywood. The idea isn't to provide the audience with value. The idea is to keep the audience entertained so they will tune in.

Once they are tuned in their guard is dropped and they confuse cheap entertainment with investment insight. That's when the losses begin. And unless you are either a very seasoned and sophisticated investors or else you have come across Mike Stathis, you aren't likely to understand this scam.

Similar to all large-scale scams, every player shares a piece of the pie. Some of the money collected from the media scam trickles down from the financial industry when it receives new business due to increased demand that has been generated by the media.

Where does this money trickle down to? The media in the form of more ad dollars.

The money also trickles down to the media's "experts" who sell more useless books and newsletters.

The cycle is endless, often leading to a perpetual loop for many because the sheep who read these books and newsletters and act on the advice usually end up losing large sums of money or else miss out of tremendous investment opportunities because they have been fear-mongered to stay out of the stock market. Regardless of the path they took to achieve their losses, most ultimately head back to the financial media seeking better guidance from the media's "experts." And the process repeats again. It's truly sad and pathetic. But unfortunately, it's reality.

Everyone wins except the audience who fell for this media scam. But of course the sheep always claim they "won't fall for it," or "they just watch Jim Cramer but never act." Some individuals who insist they won't fall for these scams are delusional. Most often, individuals who tune into the media fail to recognize how the human mind works, so they fool themselves into thinking they won't get sucked into the scam. These are the same people who fail to recognize how deterimental using social media is. They are also likely in the same group of population that thinks "free" services are really free.

It's critical for these "experts" to kiss up to the agendas of the media or else they won't be invited back to the show. Remember, because these "experts" obtain large sums of money as a result of being promoted by the media they will do whatever it takes to please the media. That means these "experts" have the best interests of the media in mind because this ensures their own interests are preserved. Thus, they really work for the media.

Some of these "experts" function to create confusion or a sense a urgency in order to cause investors to trade more frequently. This benefits the various online brokerage firms that pay for ad spots. Other times the "experts" make inaccurate, exaggerated or baseless claims in order to manipulate securities.

A critical component of this scam is that financial advisers are able to side step much of the compliance they face in the securities industry by making generalized soliciations in the media and then claiming the investments were unsolicited when individuals who follow this "expert" in the media hand over their money to the "expert" or his investment firm. Essentially they are using the media to get past securities compliance. This is a topic I have previously discussed. And it's something very few if anyone else has noticed.

Any way you look at you are always going to get screwed from ad-based content. If you need a reminder read this.

But the ad-based scam certainly does not end with broadcast media. You see, virtually every ad-based website and blog plays off of big media content. So for example, when Jim Cramer rattles off his daily list of "good stocks" and "bad stocks," and the pin heads hosting other useless shows like Fast Money rattle off their "best trades of the day," thousands of websites and blogs provide transcripts of this trash, as well as commentaries and so on.

Website operators with ad-based content always follow big media because their only objective is to maximize the number of page views. This leads to optimal ad dollars. Similar to big media, the only thing website operators care about is getting paid by advertisers. They don't give a damn about providing value. More clicks means more ad dollars. So if you want the most clicks, you obviously need to focus on topics seen or read by a large audience. This explains why the sheep effect has never been as predominant as it is today.

Mike has also demonstrated over and over again that these so-called "experts" are invariably Jewish or represent Jewish-run firms. This is perhaps the most interesting observation because it points to another not-so-obvious agenda which he has also alluded to.

The fact of the matter is that the media and financial industry are controlled by the Jewish mafia. Because Jewish people are invariably loyal to other Jews (often exhibiting pathological loyalty) they want to keep the money taken from gentiles in the hands of Jews, if all possible. This explains why Jews dominate so many industries. These aren't just a bunch of Jews solely with business interests. We are talking about a huge crime syndicate that has been working to destroy western civilization for a very long time, but this a topic of discussion for a different time.

Make no mistake. Although gentiles make up the vast majority of the media audience, some Jewish individuals are also victimized by the ad-based media scam. But that doesn't matter to the Jewish mafia. When it comes time to pick and choose between tribal loyalty and money, they will always choose money.

Where does all of this money come from that goes into the hands of the financial industry, financial media and the con artists who provide useless content? Main Street.

There is no one in the world who has explained this entire ad-based media charade better than Mike Stathis.

If there is only one thing you take from this presentation hopefully it will be to avoid every so-called "expert" in the financial media. Do not buy their books and do not listen to anything they say unless you want to lose money. The best action would be to avoid the financial media altogether.

There is no one in the world who has explained this entire ad-based media charade better than Mike Stathis.

In order to demonstrate that the media has explicitly banned Mike Stathis in preference of airing charlatans with terrible track records, we have previously shown evidence of contact we made with major television and radio networks, as well as print and digital media. We still have many of the email exchanges with producers, editors and reporters.

In fact, as Mike has discussed many time in the past, the only reason why he left the venture capital industry to focus full time on the public markets was because he was being banned by all media. This ban later expanded to webites that post feature authors. Essentially, Mike's voice was being completely shut out. And becaue his only intent from the beginning was to help investors avoid the market collapse, his efforts were being wasted since he was unable to reach the public. In response, Mike started the AVA Investment Analytics website in 2009 so he could freely publish his work.

We began this crusade in 2006 and continued through 2010. We spent large sums of money specifically for the purpose of getting our message out to the investment public. We purchased contact numbers and emails lists. We hired PR agents, and paid for ads. We sent media packages, emails, and made phone calls to hundreds of reporters, editors, producers and just about anyone we thought would listen.

We did everything we could to try and warn Main Street. Mike even offered to give free talks to relevant industry groups across the United States. Unfortunately, in most cases these groups were only interested in promoting delusions of easy money rather than warning its members of the dangers ahead.

This is yet another story that will be told in detail some time in the future. But you should note that these industry groups are all sales and marketing machines with business interests in promoting only positive pumping of their industry rather than providing a balanced assessment so the members can make well-informed business and investment decisions.

We even contacted networks like BET because Mike was desperate to alert the public about the collapse he was certain would occur. But even BET was interested in what Mike had to say. As it turned out, blacks suffered disproportionately from the consequences of the financial crisis. To all of the black individuals out there, just imagine if BET had only allowed Mike to warn their audience. Once you understand how the media operates you will realize that even BET is controlled by the Jewish mafia.

Instead of providing their audience with valuable insight, black talk show hosts promote Jewish con artists. For instance, consider that Steve Harvey recently promoted Tim Sykes, the penny stock scam artist on his talk show.

Make no mistake. Mike sacrified a huge amount of time, energy and financial resources specifically to warn the public about what he believed would lead to a depression.

The amazing thing about this huge undertaking is that Mike was still working in the venture capital industry and had no intention of resurrecting his Wall Street experience in order to begin an investment research firm. This is why you will not find any mention of AVA Investment Analytics or any other self-promotion of any kind in the original extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse, published in 2006.

This is in contrast to just about every other investment-related book written before and after America's Financial Apocalypse. As you might have noticed, rather than providing real research and valid insight, virtually every investment-related book is a sales and marketing piece to promote the author's investment firm or newsletter. And very few of these books were even written by these authors.

Similar to charlatans like Tony Robins, Robert Kiyosaki, Kevin Trudeau and Donald Trump (just to name a few) who have formed their careers based on a variety of lies and gimmicks, the financial charlatans you see and hear about today have all used ghost writers. The reason why these books are rarely ever written by the stated author is because these guys are all marketers. This also explains why they have been so wrong. This is just one more reason why the publishing industry has become complete trash, especially in the business and investment genre.

Once Mike realized that he had been black-balled by traditional media, he concluded that his only option would be to go to the so-called "alternative media." As previously documented, Mike contacted just about every single major alternative media radio show, from Alex Jones and Jeff Rense to George Noory and David Icke; yes, the nut jobs.

Stooping this low was a major concession for Mike because he considered his work to be somewhat academic and completely credible, based on detailed and documents arguments, as opposed to the fluff that's typically published in order to spread some agenda and market goods and services of the author. Hence, Mike felt his work represented the antithesis of what alternative media stands for. Instead of ridiculous conspiracies and facts that had been spun into fiction, Mike's work represented incredible insight with no agendas or bias. But he was desperate to try and help Main Street, even if it meant focusing on the segment of Main Street that follows alternative media.

Some of you already know how this turned out. Again, Mike was completely ignored by alternative media after the word on him had already been put out by so-called "mainstream media."

In the early stages of our directives to reach out to alternative media, we contacted the Alex Jones Show, Infowars. After having received our media kit, Jones indicated that he was very anxious to speak with Mike. And why wouldn't he be? After all, similar to other cons like Ron Paul and other so-called "libertarians," Alex Jones created a career based on telling everyone how bad the government and the banks are, right?

But alas, instead of the typical knuckle heads he had been using to back his claims, he had the opportunity to interview Mike, a credible Wall Street expert. In fact, prior to our contact with Infowars, Jones had not even interviewed anyone from the financial industry. Jones had only been interviewing the liar, fraud and Jewish con man, Bob Chapman, a washed up commodities broker from decades ago who had a history of making completely false and ridiculous claims on Jones' show.

Jones told us he wanted to finish reading America's Financial Apocalypse before scheduling a date for an interview. This was in early March 2008, just before Bear Stearns collapsed. Mike was ready to warn people that Bear Stearns was in fact a partner with Lehman in having fueled the MBS market and thus was extremely vulnerable to a collapse.

But he never got a chance to issue a public warning. Incidentally, during the same time period he was also denied the opportunity to warn thousands of Charles Schwab customers at a trading expo held in Dallas on the weekend before Bear Stearns collapsed. This latter incident is a story that Mike has previously shared.

Once Jones finished the book, we never heard from him or his monkeys again despite numerous attempts to contact him over a period spanning several months. We felt this to be extremely odd. But then we began to listen to his show to see if he was using any material from America's Financial Apocalypse.

We noticed that Jones began to completely focus on the economic issues. And then we noticed he began interviewing all kinds of shady guys who were pumping gold. And then we realized why he dropped all contact with us. In America's Financial Apocalypse, although Mike advised investors to buy gold and silver, he emphasized the need to trade the volatility of these metals. And he highlighted the low fees that were charged by gold and silver ETFs.

Essentially, Mike was in favor of buying gold and silver ETFs because of the low transaction costs and daily liquidity. This is the prudent way to handle gold and silver. And that is a fact. Mike realized that Alex Jones had gone from being a small time gold pusher to becoming one of the biggest gold pumping media con artists in the world. In some regards he was even bigger than Glenn Beck.

Around one year later (perhaps late 2009) we caught Jones using Mike's articles on his websites without our permission. He even made sure to remove all references at the bottom of the article which mentioned America's Financial Apocalypse and Mike's website.

By then Mike was already well aware that alterative media was functioning as a gold pumping portal and was receiving the majority of its ad revenues from gold dealers and related products that fit into the doomsday narrative. Mike was already writing articles exposing this scam.

By no coincidence, Mike was already being banned throughout the Internet, as well. You see, it's all about ad dollars. Websites are no different than television and radio stations because in each case, they provide ad-based content. What that means is that the content is geared specifically for the benefit of the advertisers, not the audience.

Before you can even begin to understand the significance of Mike having been completely banned by all media, you must first understand that he was well ahead of the curve when the bottom fell out of the economy, in having forecast the details of the financial crisis, as well as having documented the big picture ramifications and impact of this crisis more accurately than anyone else in the world. This is a fact.

Unlike the Jewish charlatans paraded through the media on a daily basis, Mike was not afforded the opportunity to expand upon, update and interpret events as they happened. Hence, as incredible as his track record on the financial crisis is, it would be even more remarkable if he would have been able to reach the public through frequent appearances in broadcast media.

Once his efforts to help the public defend itself from the most horrific financial collapse in world history were derailed, Mike wanted to make sure the public knew that he tried to help them but was prevented from doing so by the media.

In order to demonstrate that the media banned him and to help raise more awareness as to the criminal nature of the media, Mike began by offering $10,000 to the first person who could prove there was a financial professional who could match his investment forecasting track record since late-2006 to current (which was August 2009 at the time).

The main objective was not for Mr. Stathis to boast about his track record but to convince the public of the vital importance of ignoring the media.

By 2010, after more than one year without any submissions we increased the offer to $50,000.

By August 2011, we raised this amount to $100,000. After more than two years of waiting, we failed to receive even a single submission, so we extended the expiration period several times as we anxiously awaited submissions. See here.

To this day, after eight years and more than 500,000 views of this offer (which is quite a bit considering Mike Stathis has been completely banned so his exposure is virtually nonexistent) we have not received a single entry. See here.

In July 2016, as the expiration period of this $100,000 offer was approaching, we extended it once again to 2017. See here.

A few months earlier (January 2016) we also introduced the sum of $1,000,000 to be awarded to the first person who could provide evidence that another financial professional has a better investment forecasting track record than Mike Stathis, from 2006 through 2016. This offer expired in June 2017. See here.

As of today, we have reopened the $1,000,000 challenge through August 2018. We are also extending the duration of the track record analysis to October 2017.

In order to entertain only the most serious challenges for this $1,000,000 award, we require the candidate to risk $500,000 of his or her own money if proven wrong. But if proven right, they will receive $1,000,000.

Similar to the previous challenges, we would first determine whether each submission had sufficient basis and adhered to the official rules prior to moving forward with the process of assessment by a third party auditing/consulting firm.¹

If it is determined that the challenge submission has sufficient validity to warrant a legitimate challenge, it will be forwarded to a third-party auditing/consulting firm for analysis and comparison to Mike Stathis' track record, along with any rebuttals by Mr. Stathis or his designated agents to the submission. ²

We have made this new $1,000,000 challenge available to all serious candidates.

We will accept all serious submissions up through August 31, 2018 on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Due to the resources required to address each challenge, we will only consider one submission at a given time. Each challenge is considered to be officially submitted only after the contestant has satisfied our escrow guidelines, the contestant has acknowledged receipt of all official rules, Terms and Conditions, we have received at least an overview of the challenge, and we have acknowledged that the contestant has complied with all official rules and agrees to the Terms and Conditions of this challenge.

The period to be analyzed for the $1,000,000 challenge is November 2006 through October 2017. ³

If the contestant wins the challenge, he or she will receive $1,000,000 from AVA Investment Analytics. There will be a legally binding agreement backing it up.

What Topics are Covered in this Challenge?

The forecasting research universe and respective time periods for this challenge are as follows:

1) Detailed explanations of the events leading up to and responsible for the real estate collapse and financial crisis (2006 - 2009).

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006)

2) Investment-related forecasts and guidance issued prior to the financial crisis.

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006) and Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble (2007)

3) Characterization of the long-term issues that have caused the U.S. economy to struggle through an economic recovery (must have been documented prior to 2008).

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006)

4) Forecasts and predictions related to the aftermath of the collapse of the real estate and financial industries (late 2006-2012).

- this material can be found in the extended version of America's Financial Apocalypse (2006) and Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble (2007)

5) U.S. stock market forecasts and guidance, as given by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite Index (since late 2006).