Agora Financial

• Name — Agora Financial • Type — Publishing company • Industry — Publishing • Genre — Financial advice • Founder — Bill Bonner • Hq Location City — Baltimore, MD • Hq Location Country — United States • Parent — The Agora

A subsidiary of The Agora network, Agora Financial was founded in 1979 by financial writer and essayist Bill Bonner, the author of Empire of Debt and Financial Reckoning Day. Bonner's co-author Addison Wiggin is the executive publisher of Agora Financial. Wiggin served as executive producer and co-writer on the 2008 feature-length documentary film I.O.U.S.A.. A film about the growth of the U.S. national debt, I.O.U.S.A. was based on Empire of Debt, and was financed by Agora Entertainment, another Agora, Inc. subsidiary. The company publishes a number of financial newsletters focused on advising investors on making money in energy, metals, emerging technologies, and small-cap stocks, including the Daily Reckoning, Outstanding Investments, and Capital & Crisis. Agora financial also founded the Richebacher Society, a group focused on continuing the work of the late economist Kurt Richebacher. Byron King, editor of two of Agora Financial's publications, Energy & Scarcity Investor and Outstanding Investments, has served as an oil industry analyst in the media, specifically in the wake of British Petroleum's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Other members of the Agora Financial staff have provided analysis for CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg. In March 2011, Agora Financial acquired Laissez Faire Books, a libertarian bookseller based in New York. Established in 1972, the bookseller publishes and distributes libertarian books, with a focus on economics and finance. Jeffrey Tucker, author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo, and It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, as well as former editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, was hired as Laissez Faire's executive editor.

Since 1999, the company has hosted the annual Agora Financial Investment Symposium. Held in Vancouver, British Columbia, the conference is Agora Financial's largest event of the year. The conference brings together a large number of speakers discussing emerging financial trends, as well as panels and debates. Past speakers have included Steve Forbes, Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and James Howard Kunstler. Each year, the conference is built around a central theme, with "A Tale of Two Americas" the theme selected for 2013.

In the investigations following 9/11, the SEC determined that an unusual number of investors had purchased put options on American Airlines immediately prior to September 11, 2001. Further investigation found Agora's Options Hotline newsletter and its editor Steve Sarnoff as responsible for faxing some 2,000 subscribers the recommendation to buy put options on American Airlines on September 9, 2001. Sarnoff was investigated for insider trading with the SEC eventually concluding “all suspicious trades were checked out, and the SEC satisfied itself that the traders had no advance knowledge of 9/11.”

In October 2019 the Federal Trade Commission sued Agora Financial for promising a "100 percent success rate" cure for Type 2 diabetes within 28 days, without any changes to diet or exercise, if customers would buy Agora's books, newsletters, and other products. The suit also addressed a bogus "Congressional Checks" or "Republican Checks" scheme where customers who were Republicans could receive government backed checks ranging from $900 to over tens of thousands of dollars and to get the information on the checks customers would need to pay $4.95 for shipping for a book, Congress’ Secret $1.17 Trillion Giveaway, and subscribe to Agora's Lifetime Income Report newsletter, which costs $99 a year. The book however contained only information on dividend investing and nothing about free Congressional checks. In February 2021 Agora Financial and some of its affiliates agreed to pay more than $2 million to settle the FTC charges. The FTC reported Agora tricked seniors into buying materials that falsely promised a cure for type 2 diabetes or promoted a phony plan to help them cash in on a government-affiliated check program.