So Weiss has just released their first cryptocurrency ratings.
If you want to see them for yourself, just check it out here.
Ta-da! (sound of grasshoppers in the background).
According to the Weiss Research Institute, the best crypto investments at the moment are:
- EOS (B)
- Ethereum (B)
- Cardano (B-)
- NEO (B-)
- Steem (B-)
Most of the projects received C rating or lower. I was surprised to see projects like Lisk, Aeon, Ark, Qtum, Monero, and few others being rated as average. However, that's just my opinion.
What do you think about it?
I'd also like to remind you that Weiss Research is a private company after all. That means that they are aiming at making money (like every other profit-seeking company in the market) and looking after their interests first. Also, they have a record of being fined by SEK for violations of Investments Advice Act.
Here's an excerpt that I found about it on Stack Exchange that stems from 2012 (literally one of the first results on Google).
Is Weiss Research, Inc. a legitimate financial research company?
This company was a reputable rating agency for many years. See Weiss Research website, ratings section for a very different perspective on Martin Weiss's work than the websites with which he is now associated.
I checked both links provided, and agree with the questioner in every way: These appear to be highly questionable investment research websites. I use such strong terms based on the fact that the website actually uses the distasteful pop-up ploy, "Are you SURE you want to leave this site?" Clearly, something changed between what Weiss Ratings was in the past (per company history since 1971) and what Martin Weiss is doing now.
Regarding Larry Edelson
Larry Edelson seems to have been associated exclusively with questionable websites and high-pressure investment advice since 2007. From 1996 through the present, he worked as either an employee or contractor of Weiss Research.
Let's answer each of your questions.
Did they accurately predict the events they claim? Weiss Ratings were accurate during the 1990's, and widely respected through at least 2003, see findings by the United States General Accounting Office in 1994 PDF, that confirm that Weiss Ratings reports on insurance companies, maybe banks too, were more consistently accurate than those produced by the major credit rating agencies e.g. S&P, Moody's, Fitch. There was similar acclaim for Weiss ratings in the late 1990's, until about 2001.
Do the free ratings lists they publish reflect this high level of accuracy? I don't think so, certainly not at the present time. In the past, their ratings were of course fee-based, not free. In fact, the Weiss Ratings website primarily offers fee-based ratings reports now, just as it had been doing in the past. I am not familiar with these new, free investment reports, and they don't seem to be the same as the high-quality fee-based reports associated with Weiss in the past.
Do they appear to give sound advice, now? Well, there were charges filed against Martin Weiss and Larry Edelson by the U.S. SEC, settled in June 2009 PDF, (settlement included return, formally known as "disgorgement" of $2.5 million in investor funds):
On June 22, 2006, the Commission instituted settled administrative proceedings against Weiss Research, Inc., Martin Weiss, and Lawrence Edelson (collectively, “Respondents”) for violations of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 in connection with their operation of an unregistered investment adviser and the production and distribution of materially false and misleading marketing materials.
Full details about Weiss Ratings operations, including its history from 1996 through 2001, when it operated in compliance with securities laws, then from 2001 through 2005, which was when the SEC filed charges for regulatory violations, are available from the June 2006 U.S. SEC court documents PDF.
Finally, this quantitative assessment, "Safe With Martin Weiss? (December 2010) by CXO Advisory (providers of "objective research and reviews to aid investing decisions") for its readers concluded the following:
In summary, the performance of Martin Weiss’ premium services in aggregate over the past year is unimpressive.
*The study methodology was good, but I recommend reading the article (I posted the URL) to fully understand what caveats and assumptions were done to reach that conclusion. *
So, do they even have the credibility to rate cryptos? Do they do someone's bidding? Or is it just their first attempt to restore their business reputation and relevance? I know that some of the investment rules apply to the cryptocurrencies as well, but my advice is not to trust them blindly. It might be just another Warren Buffet level advice here.
Keep your cool, do your own research and maintain level-headed approach. As the crypto ecosystem grows, it will attract more and more players into it, and Weiss is just another one of them. Over the years there were many influential and experienced investors who talked about crypto, but most of them don't seem to get it yet.
It's not just investment. It's a full-scale revolution.