98 Percent Winners
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Honesty
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Quality
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Cost
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Support
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Verified Trades
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User Experience
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Summary
98 Percent Winning Trades is a shit-show of fraud and faked trades. The owner of 98 Percent Winners is a former registered investment advisor that was fired by Ameriprise Financial for talking elderly people into investing their life savings into worthless penny stocks. A long history of regulatory fines, sanctions, and working at shady investment companies.
This latest financial endeavor was spawned by the grand overlord of financial hucksterism himself…Timothy Sykes. Avoid.
Thanks for reading today’s review of 98 Percent Winners
What is 98 Percent Winners? The company is a stock picking service that operates via text message and private Twitter feed. The cost of the service is as follows:
- $498 for three months of trading signals.
- $998 for six months of trading signals.
- $1998 for 12 months of trading signals.
There is no month to month subscription option.
The website first appeared in late 2014. Through 2015 and 2016, TradingSchools.Org has received 19 inquiries pertaining to the company. Approximately half of the inquiries were a general request to review. The other half were complaints from paying subscribers.
The company claims a money back guarantee to any subscriber that is not happy with the results of the service.
This is certainly a nice, and official-looking certificate. Unfortunately, none of the individuals that contacted TradingSchools.Org were able to actually receive a refund.
Performance Claims
98 Percent Winners is certainly making some outrageous claims regarding trading performance. In fact, the company claims that all trades are real, authentic, and have been tracked since 2014 by Timothy Sykes at Profit.ly. In the past couple of years, TradingSchools.Org has written extensively about Timothy Sykes and how average investors have been ripped off by trusting his reporting service.
The following trades, from 2013 and 2015 were reported as “real trades” by Profit.ly. As you can see, a nearly 100% track record of supposed winning trades, totaling $199,866 in “verified” trading profits.
From 2016, 98 Percent Winners began posting trading results directly on their website. And it’s a real humdinger of supposedly 100% verifiable trading that resulted in another $731,000 in trading profits.
In fact, after reviewing a spreadsheet of the trades, we discovered that the company claims of “only” delivering 98% winning trades is actually inaccurate. The true number of winning trades is 99.9% winning trades!
If you are up for a bit of humor at the audaciousness of this track record, then I recommend that viewers take a look at just the 2016 results. It is simply amazing.
Lack of Disclosures
One of the first things that I look for are disclosures that detail whether the trades are real or hypothetical. If no hypothetical disclosure is included, then it is the position of the SEC that the track record is real. This is an important distinction because if the SEC were to look at this website, and all of the trades are not actually real…then a heavy fine and a civil injunction are highly likely. 98 Percent Winners has no performance disclosures whatsoever.
Who is running this company?
Normally, when I look at a website like 98 Percent Winners, I just chuckle and move on to the next name on my list of possible reviews. I mean really, whom would be so naive to believe such a track record? However, after speaking to several of the victims, I discovered that the truth about whom was running this company is actually quite interesting. My initial suspicion was the company was being offered by a high school kid looking to make a few bucks with a petty hustle. However, I was completely wrong.
Introducing Douglas Cmelik
It turns out that the 98 Percent Winners is actually owned and registered to a person named Douglas Cmelik. The website also contains the official address listed as 805 O Street, Suite 122, Lincoln Nebraska. A search of this address reveals that the location is actually Ameriprise Financial. In fact, Douglas Cmelik even had the audacity to list the official phone number of 98 Percent Winners as the same number as Ameriprise Financial. Many of you are probably not aware, but Ameriprise Financial is a large and well-respected company. I found it quite shocking that Douglas would actually use the same address and phone number.
Dirty Doug
It turns out that dirty Doug Cmelik is a pretty shady character. A search of Finra revealed that Doug has actually been a registered financial advisor since 1997. This turd blossom of a financial advisor has been out peddling all sorts of shady investment advice for a very long time. Let’s take a closer look at some of his many fines and sanctions that have been levied by Finra.
- $20,000 civil lien in 2009
- $7,580 damages granted for peddling penny stocks to an elderly person 2011. All money was lost.
- $9,773 damages granted for misrepresenting yet another penny stock to an elderly person in 2011. All money lost.
- $3,521 damages granted for selling another elderly person a penny stock. All money lost.
- $110,000 damages granted for convincing yet another elderly person into investing in a penny stock company named PEI Worldwide. SEC investigation revealed it was a fraud. 2013.
- $10,000 civil and administrative penalty by Finra for using his position at Ameriprise Financial to convince elderly investors into investing in unauthorized penny stocks.
Can you imagine this guy, sitting in a plush and respectable Ameriprise Financial office giving your mother advice on which penny stocks to invest? Sitting in his comfy chair, with his starched shirt and tie, and trusty looking smile…out to fleece the naive and simple. Truly, the wolf was guarding the henhouse.
Invest with Doug Cmelik, and you will enjoy your retirement eating only cat food.
Of course, Ameriprise Financial eventually caught onto Dirty Doug’s scheme and fired this pathetic moron. But not before Doug convinced 65 of Ameriprise clients into investing into worthless penny stocks. So what does Dirty Doug do next? Get a job at a company named NDX Trading. And what happens next is entirely predictable…the company turns out to be a scam, and is forcibly shuttered by the SEC. Apparently, they were fleecing yet more elderly investors and were fined $5.5 million dollars.
After the NDX Trading fiasco, what does our financial turd-master do next? What the heck, he makes up a fraudulent website touting 98 Percent Winners! This guy is a real winner.
Wrapping Things Up
Thanks for reading. I wasn’t going to write about this moron. But the more digging on Douglas Cmelik, the more crap that turned up. And I doubt this guy is going away anytime soon. Given his sophistication at fraud, it is really only a matter of time before more innocent people are scammed.
You people want a 98% winner (or should I say loser)?? What ETF has gone from a split adjusted 2.4 million to its current 7.50 in a little over 5 years and there are always plenty of shares to short? If you don’t like that try the other one that has gone from 2.7 mill to 8.20.
I’m not following you Chuck. Which ETFs are you talking about?
Pretty much, it is possible to mathematically prove that all 2x and 3x ETF’s must go to zero. So they keep reverse-splitting to try to get the value up.
TNA, the ETF most used by 98percentwinners for day-trading has never reversed split. It actually split 2:1 April 02, 2013. Since its Nov 2008 inception it split adjusted, its reinvested dividend average CAGR is well in excess of 20%.
Maybe you are referring to inverse, leveraged ETFs?
Regardless, leveraged ETFs aren’t designed for L-T trading.
“Regardless, leveraged ETFs aren’t designed for L-T trading.” Yes. A corollary result of them all mathematically going to zero in the long run.
All the leveraged funds, not just the inverse ones.
How is this relevant to 98percentwinners?
It may not be. I was responding to a specific post from Stray Dog to Chuck, where he asked a specific question. Threaded conversations can wander off topic. it is the nature of the beast.
“Invest with Doug Cmelik, and you will enjoy your retirement eating only cat food.” lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXdMFof1j0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1eIIQ6s_u0
Thank you for posting this review.
Coincidentally, I recently ran across this guy on Seeking Alpha where he comments as digger1234. According to his own comments there, they don’t allow him to post his website URL there.
He’s rugby on profitly.
P.S. There’s a typo in the address. It’s 8055 rather than 805. And a tax record search shows a different business at that address and suite.
“He’s rugby on profitly.”
It appears that he deleted “rugby” from profitly.
He’s still posting as digger1234 on seekingalpha.com
First, why does this TR even get 1 star? I think you need to scale from -5 to +5. 1 Star implies they are doing something right. I think they get -5 Stars for out and out fraud.
Second, hypothetical disclosure. I have yet to see one of these TR post hypothetical results. They can not even make money trading sim with no commissions and a lenient sim generator. Everyone of the TR I have been in (that even post results) have posted FAKE, not hypothetical results.
Third, how could anyone think someone with a 98% win rate (unless he is risking 1000 ticks and going for 1 tick reward) would give away his secret. This guy would be hidden away better than the Unabomber.
And finally what a loser I must be, my trading win rate is in the low 30%. Man could you imagine how rich I would be if I could nail a 98% win rate. I would have my own jet and be next to all the top models in bikinis feeding me grapes and waving fans while on my boat (need a dreaming Icon in here). Screw Emmett, this guy must be real. I want to believe. I believe, I believe. Where do I sign up??
low 30% win rate is very impressive Rob, in-line with the best in class. How is your risk-reward? With that type of win rate & im assuming consistency why would you be looking for something better on this website? With good money-management you could do very well
I know what you mean where amazingly bmt/fio flavored sim journals of the year even show better results than what’s shown in these attempts by TR hosts to do “live” trading on their sim accounts. Far better than what that wunderkind Alex/zobeil/sielaff showed in his filibustering sham room.
I wonder if a lot of the emails and complaints from victims Emmett receives about each vendor review could be edited for anonymity and posted along with the review. I’m curious to see how these people rationalized the “98%” claim to something worth shelling out for, when Emmett questions how could anyone take the ludicrous spreadsheets with almost no losers seriously.
Are these poor elderly with fading faculties that this huckster is preying upon again? or first time newbs that first stumbled on the site for the first time without ever seeing anything else about retail trading on the web.
“Are these poor elderly with fading faculties that this huckster is preying upon again?”
No – his service is an ETF signal service, which most of them wouldn’t subscribe to.
sez who? Pete?
His service is an ETF day-trading signal, so it’s not something that’s usually associated with a senior citizen rip-off.
Alright, I stand corrected as the vendor has a significant history of going after elderly newb investors, and follow along rooms are often still targeted at older newbs as Emmett often mentioned he would masquerade as one to get an easier red carpet before he revealed himself as TS, and that ETFs are often marketed to older investors as more conservative, safer instruments, so that’s why I’m curious what kind of victims contacted Emmet with complaints about 98%. . If you’re not Pete than it’s a breath of fresh air as anyone could see besides his irresponsible blaming on b_ooks for his losses, his main motivation of his posting since Mook review was his unhealthy grudge against me as a primary motivation for his bs posts throwing out Trump like oilatradingacadmy nut dave when I had nothing to do with everyone else dumping on him far back before Mook.
“what kind of victims contacted Emmet with complaints about 98%”
I would assume it’s about the signal results.
I have nothing to do with “Pete.”
What a scumbag preying on senior citizens with their last savings. Sad that the sham westworld of trading scams extend not just to the dying middle class but also the elderly. A new years resolution could be learning to realize instead of 98% winning it’s more like 98% of accounts end trading after losses. The scam vendors that were investigated by the CFTC always seemed to show they stopped trading live long ago with overall losses. This guy should be locked up before anymore damage is done.
This guy simply DOES NOT lose!! When is Vladimir Putin sending the KGB guys to kidnap and whisk him to Russia to trade for the Putin’s personal accounts and those of his pal funds in Cyprus and Swiss banks. 98% Doug and 93% Stephanie Kammerman will surely help Kremlin undo the fall in oil prices in last two years.
Happy New Year Emmett. The SHIT STORM of fraud keeps piling up! The worst part is, it seems to be endless! Even many of your GOOD GUYS ended up being not such good guys. This business is definitely a cesspool where all the lowlifes seem to congregate to fleece the unsuspecting. Really sad stuff