Welcome to the arena of “penny stocks.” These are stocks that sell for $5 or less a share. This book is a collection of interviews of fifteen successful individuals who have entered into the exciting world of microcap investing. They come from different walks of life. They share a love for small companies with great futures. These investors have one thing in common: a successful investment system named “Bowser’s Game Plan.” The Game Plan helps with the selection of compa…
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This book is a huge scam. It gives worthless testimonials that tell you nothing about how to buy and sell Penny Stocks. Additionally, it is potentially the worst written book I have ever read. Riddled with typographical errors it appears to me an opportunity to fill up pages so that the author can make money rather than offering any real decent product. Additionally, it seems that the majority of the other reviews of this book were written either by the author of this book or by one of his close friends because they are nowhere near the truth. If you buy this book, do not say you weren’t warned.
First let me say that although at least two chapters in this book are repeated verbatim in Max Bowser’s other book, “Making Dollars with Pennies” (chapters I identified are “Wannabe Ostracized? Buy Minipriced Stocks” and “Why does Merrill Lynch hate $2 Stocks?”), this is definitely not the same book in a different cover and you are really missing out on a true gem if you don’t get this one.
In contrast to “Making Dollars with Pennies”, which was more of a “how to” type of work, this book mainly consists of profiles of successful investors, which are for the most part excerpted from past editions of the Bowser Report (therefore, if you’ve been subscribing to the Bowser report for a while you’ve read practically everything in this book – still, it’s refreshing to read it all bound up as a book). About two thirds of the profiles are of past or current subscribers who are following Bowser’s “game plan” and doing well (although the figures are presented in a fuzzy manner). The remainder are various participants in the small cap stock market. Strangely, the one interview with a bona fide celebrity, Lou Dobbs of CNN, fell flat with me; he seemed out of his element.
The subscriber/”Winners” represent a broad cross section of Middle America, with all of the everyday problems of regular people (divorce, illness, unemployment or a general lack of money to invest). A significant portion of those profiled have a military background, and they are not necessarily of the World War II generation where military service was well nigh universal in men. Bowser himself retired from the military before starting his “Bowser Report” in the 1970s and one suspects that perhaps his subscriber base grew through word-of-mouth among military people. If there is anything in particular that sets the winners apart, it’s that they all appear to be self-starters who are willing to stick to their guns with investment ideas and let the chips fall where they may. They also appear to show significant emotional maturity towards their investments. Although they often invest in companies profiled in Bowser’s Report, they tend to view the investments as “their” picks, whether the stocks ultimately end up winning or losing. They don’t run to Bowser and whine.
Although I don’t know specifically how many people subscribe to the Bowser Report, Bowser’s market strength is alluded to in the book more than once, particularly in the days following when Bowser issues a buy recommendation on his “Company of the Month”. As Bobby Cohen, a market maker, reports on page 176:
“Max, on the Monday after you pick a Company of the Month – there is a huge number of buy orders. A market maker doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know there’s something happening with the stock.”
Because the interviews in this book span the 1990s, one can see in retrospect how much the internet has changed the investing landscape, such as when Lenny, interviewed sometime around 1996, remarks [p. 75]:
“Do you realize how difficult it is for a guy sitting here in a small town in Maine to get the phone numbers of these companies [that Bowser covers]?”
I rate this book so highly not because any particular investor in this book is brilliant. In fact, they each appear to have significant flaws. The impressiveness of the work comes from seeing the American everyman & woman grapple with independence in a stock market that is blatantly not set up to serve them first. Rather, it is geared towards mutual funds, pension funds, brokers, etc., all of the big players. To see all of these people go against the grain and succeed is very heartening.