In a previous video I showed how the marketing materials for Kevin O'Leary's ETFs were not providing reasonable public disclosure.
Kevin O'Leary's is a Scam Artist and His ETFs Are Terrible and Come With Huge Fees
Although I would expect the fees to be included in the fund prospectus (I'd imagine this would be required by Canadian securities law just as in the USA) I have never seen any ETFs advertised on their respective websites that do not show the fees. So the fact that O'Leary's funds fail to disclose the fees on the fund family website is a huge red flag.
After digging for quite a while I managed to find the fees charged by O'Leary's ETFs. Even though I have not been able to confirm this information with O'Leary's company (despite several attempts) I believe the basic fee for each of his ETFs is 0.48%.
Note that there could be additional fees in addition to this 0.48% figure which would be discussed in the prospectus, but I have been unable to obtain a copy.
Why would O'Leary want to hide the fees?
It should be obvious that the fees charged by O'Leary's ETFs, (called O' Shares) are extremely high. In fact, O' Shares' fees are around 8 to 10 times higher than similar ETFs offered by Charles Schwab and Vanguard.
Clearly, whoever is really in charge of O' Shares wants to hide the funds' fees as best as possible while betting that the gullible people who have fallen for his fictional TV personality will blindly trust him.
O'Leary and/or whoever is really running O' Shares know that very few investors will bother to read a prospectus for an ETF, especially considering that you can buy ETFs during active market hours and without the assistance of a financial adviser. 1
The fact is that most investors will go be what's posted on the fund's website, including the fund fact page (which also mysteriously fails to show the fees).
Based on my observations, I believe O'Leary and/or O' Shares is (at the very least) engaged in several deceptive marketing practices. First, O'Leary does not directly run the fund company. That is, he is not involved in the day to day operations of the company. How can he be when he's a TV personality?
Most likely receives a licensing fee and perhaps has part ownership in the O' Shares ETF company in exchange for blabbering on CNBC about the ETFs as well as for the use of his name in the O' Shares "brand."
Therefore, he is not involved in daily management of the company other than serving as a marketing blabbermouth. That in itself is deceptive because the public is being led to believe that he is actually running the company. 2
Is this deception legal? Maybe, maybe not.
This is by no means the only example of deceptive tactics from O'Leary. Based on what I have observed, O'Leary has a long history of engaging in deceptive marketing practices.
He's even gone so far as to avoid complying with the Federal Trade Commission's required disclosures for endorsements and affiliate relationships.
That means O'Leary has been breaking U.S. federal law.
Here, I show you more on this dispicable con man, shameless grifter, business bozo and crypto shill.
Based on O'Leary's lack of moral character and disregard for performing an adequate level of due diligence on anyone or any company for which he is being paid to promote, I am willing to bet that Startengine is a very shady company at best.
After all, ask yourself what honest company would want to taint itself by associating with a complete scum bag, liar and con man?
In the video below, get into more details.
1 This is in contrast to mutual funds which are only bought and sold before and after the market close. Many mutual funds are also only available for purchase through a broker.
2 These are the same people who are foolish enough to think that his media celebrity status has anything remotely to do with having a good understanding about investments.
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