OK, first off, let's take it from an objective perspective. I used to work for one of the largest stock brokerage firms in NYC (in the World Trade Center), and have been a day trader for a number of years, and believe it or not have been involved with the gaming industry (casino's) for the last 20.
A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted.
That being said, I am experimenting with MARL...key word right now being experimenting without money invested other than in the newsletter and software.
Let's take this a step at a time.
If you think that MARL is going to give you a "day trade" where you can be in and out of the market in a few hours, I would ask that you question this. Real day trading is a very difficult and risky way to play the market. It takes a special kind of personality, a good bankroll, excellent software (usually not available to the individual except at great cost), money management, and even then most people lose their shirts.
In actual trading, the longer you are in a stock, meaning
1) being involved for the long haul, which can be for 30 years and require your funds to be locked up for extended periods of time, or
2) simply buying a stock when it goes over its 200 day moving average and selling when it goes below it (which makes decent gains with this approach and keeps you out of down markets)
are probably the safest and most conservative ways to invest.
BUT they ARE boring.
Retirement funds are not for penny stocks. Putting retirement funds in a good mutual fund is probably your best bet. Playing with penny stocks is for a small amount of funds that you can AFFORD to lose. It is not for the majority of your bankroll. Consider it a night in Las Vegas and you'll catch my drift.
When it comes to investing for retirement, I would strongly suggest putting your money in mutual funds with about 10%-20% of your portfolio in gold and silver as a hedge against inflation and calamity. I would also strongly suggest looking at fabian.com and signing up for their newsletter. It has been around for a VERY long time and has excellent results. Just don't get involved with their sector buying letter which costs like $1500. Stick with the basic newsletter. It is time tested. The website also has a calculator that will prove to you that if you are 25 years old and invested just $100 a month for the next 40 years, you would easily retire with over a million dollars plus by age 65.
NOW, let's continue.
The ad for MARL is meant to entice you to buy the newsletter for $47 (a ONE TIME fee and very reasonable at that) and after enrollment, you have the option to be a "tester" of the software for $97 more (which means reporting back to the company your results on a regular basis your results/purchases etc.) Both of these ads make it sound like you have a short period of time to take advantage of the opportunity, or else you might miss out and never get a second chance, or God forbid have to be put on a waiting list.
This may actually be true, but it is also a basic marketing ploy called using scarcity. It drives sales just like saying if you "buy now, you also get this other item for FREE." However, I was intrigued by the fact that the newsletter was only $47 and you NEVER had to pay for it ever again. That is pretty much unheard of in the newsletter industry so my interest (no pun intended) was piqued!
I did some research on the web before buying, and there are mixed reviews but "mostly" positive. "Most" will tell you that if you get the newsletter and use it ONLY, there will be ("obviously" winners and losers,) but that the winners far outweigh the losers and you will profit. That is TRUE and NECESSARY about trading in general, whether it be stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, options, penny's..... whatever. You have to have your winners make more than your losses, otherwise what are you doing this for, right?.
Now as for the ad on the web, I think they are basically telling the truth about the background of the developers, and the product. Today, I looked at the recommended stock by MARL and its chart, and to be honest, it looked from a "technical" point of view to be a decent purchase....everything was pretty much lined up. (I have only had the software for one day, so I can't give you more info than this one stock.)
BUT stocks do not just move on technicals. They move on fundamentals as well. Where the newsletter DOES give an advantage is that not only does MARL give a technical analysis of the stock using well known indicators, but the writers of the newsletter then back it up by doing research into the company ITSELF (called fundamental analysis). They talk to the CEO, go to the business and check out the headquarters, look at profit and loss statements, examine the product and past, current and future sales, and do what we should ALL do with MARL, once the software gives us a recommendation,.....that is we should find out everything about the company before we put our money into it. After all, we aren't just buying stock, we are becoming part owners (even if just for a short time) in that company, and if a stranger came up to you and said "put money into my company" and you didn't find out everything about it first, then in casino layman terms you are a SUCKER.
That is the main reason why the newsletters "picks" do so much better than just owning the software and buying willy nilly whatever MARL says.
There is no silver bullet or perfect system,..... not in the market OR gambling.
Buying the software does give some advantages. Included are 2 excellent .pdf files which outline
1) how MARL works and
2) gives a fairly comprehensive look (although for beginners) at how the markets work, how to buy stock, the different types of orders and recommended brokerages, etc.. Even as a seasoned trader, there were a couple of new things I learned.
Being part of the newsletter ALSO gives you access to real people who can answer questions as well. This is a VERY valuable service because getting information out of a broker unless he is full service (and which you pay much higher commissions for) is very important. Many online brokers have crappy (and that a technical term) customer service. And most of those CS people don't have a clue about the market. So having good people through this newsletter is very nice indeed.
So why is the software and newsletter so cheap? My guess is that these guys are building up to something a lot bigger (which is basically what the web ad states.) The unit that costs $28K is probably a lot more sophisticated than what you (and I) are buying, because what we ARE buying for $97 is a piece of software that ACCESSES the MAIN database where the $28K version of the computer is doing ALL the work. The owners say that word of mouth will help them promote the bigger computer setup. That is probably true considering the amount of buzz the baby MARL and the newsletter are generating.
So what is the bottom line here?
Investigate everything that the newsletter and baby MARL gives you. Check out the stock, see if the recommendations rise in value more than the losses accumulate and test the newsletter for a few weeks, even a few months before actually sinking any cash into a stock. Most of these reco's are for holding the stock for a few days, weeks, or even months which is also fully outlined in the reading material. The newsletter will give you SELL signals as well. Baby MARL will not, so you'll have to come up with your own exit strategy. (200 day moving average?)
There is an 8 week period where you can try the newsletter at no risk. That should give you some insight and a chance to test it briefly.
I am not an affiliate of MARL or the company and am not trying to sell you anything. I am simply giving you my unbiased objective point of view. I hope this helps to give some perspective.