Dear Mr. Berko: Palm Beach Research Group, a financial think tank in Florida, is offering a plan called FS2081. The folks there say it’s guaranteed to pay me $11,384 a month. This plan is used by members of Congress to supplement their retirement income. PBRG also offers great advice on the stock market, cryptocurrencies, options and other lesser-known investments. What can you tell me about this financial think tank? I’m especially interested in the $11,384 guaranteed monthly income. I’m thinking of selling my 281 shares of Pfizer, which I bought at $35 last year on your recommendation. I think I’d like to use that money to trade cryptocurrencies, as recommended by PBRG.
— SB, Akron, Ohio
Dear SB: Please, please and a thousand pleases, don’t. Palm Beach Research Group is an assembly of flimflammers, pseudo-apostles, psychopaths and sociopaths who think they’re a think tank. Many folks who’ve had contact with PBRG would call it a stink tank. This insidious group of grifters scams most everybody who’s foolish enough to subscribe to its numerous tip sheets, which should really be called dip-sheets.
PBRG is a malignant cancer that primarily infects investors with room temperature IQs and should be prohibited from disseminating its crapulous advice on the internet. PBRG peddles its proprietary research to male investors with postherpetic neuralgia, to right-handed stupids who are morbidly obese, to women with severely impaired cortical functions and to frightfully simple Americans who believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Meanwhile, PBRG’s $11,384 deal, “guaranteed like Social Security,” is a risible scam that’s pure cotton candy dreams with sugarplum promises wrapped in candy cane packages. It’s baldfaced bull, just like PBRG’s innumerable “stock profits” and 2,000 percent cryptocurrency profit claims. Here’s an interesting question: If the people at PBRG can make 2,000 percent returns trading cryptocurrencies, why would they waste time and money selling “how to” tapes and not use that knowledge to make money themselves and make it faster? If you’d like to have an afternoon of great fun, go to Google and type in “complaints Palm Beach Research Group.” You’ll be gabberflasted and then thankful that you followed my advice.
Don’t, don’t, please don’t sell Pfizer (PFE-$43.25). Though its shares suffered a sad-sack performance during most of the 2000s, this research-based global pharmaceutical company finally has its pills in order. This year, PFE comfortably exceeded its consensus earnings by discovering new synergies to reduce costs, corporate tax cuts and an accelerating top-line growth. If you watch TV, you’ll note the frequent adverts for Xeljanz, a rheumatoid arthritis drug with revenues up 34 percent from a year ago, and Eliquis, a blood thinner with revenues up 36 percent. PFE’s Prevnar 13 and Lyrica have provided further support. And I must mention Ibrance, an oncology drug with $2 billion in revenues; it should be up 26 percent. All those drug commercials are so hale and wholesome and the “patients” so vibrant that I want to run out and get me some of that stuff. PFE’s fecund pipeline is well-stacked with late-stage pharmaceuticals, and PFE believes that it sees opportunity for 25 approvals by 2020, with at least 15 having blockbuster potential.
