RagingBull.com is a website focused on financial literacy and day trading.
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Type of site | Financial literacy Day trading |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Lee, New Hampshire |
| URL | ragingbull |
| Launched | 1997 |
History
editRagingBull.com was founded in August 1997 by Bill Martin with college partners[1] Rusty Szurek and Greg Wright, who were 19 years old at the time, as a hobby.[2] It was begun in a basement with an initial investment of $30,000 from savings and credit card loans.[3]
By mid-1998, the website had 8,000 registered users.[4]
David Wetherell, CEO of CMGI, discovered the website while on vacation.[3] In October 1998, CMGI invested $2 million in Raging Bull for a 40% stake.[5] At that time, the co-founders were each 21 years old.[4]
In February 2000, AltaVista, which was majority owned by CMGI, acquired the website in a stock transaction. At that time, Raging Bull had 425,000 registered members, 12 million daily page views, and message boards where users posted 35,000 messages per day.[6][1]
In January 2001, Terra acquired the website.[7][8][9]
In February 2006, Terra's Lycos division sold Quote.com and RagingBull.com to Interactive Data Corporation for $30 million, which integrated them into eSignal.[10]
In June 2017, Chuck Jaffe was named chief editor of the website.[11] After a short, 6-month "experiment" with Jaffe as editor, the site changed direction and Jaffe was released from his position.[12]
Lawsuit and settlements
editIn December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of defrauding consumers out of more than $137 million over the previous three years and making it difficult for customers to cancel their monthly subscriptions.[13] In December 2021, the owners of the site agreed to pay $700,000 in refunds to New Hampshire customers and an additional $675,000 in administrative fines to settle claims by state securities regulators.[14] In March 2022, RagingBull.com as well Sherwood Ventures LLC and defendants Jason Bond and Jeff Bishop paid $2.425 million to settle what the FTC called "bogus stock earnings claims" and a hard to cancel subscription service. The company also agreed to modify certain marketing practices.[15][16]
References
edit- ^ a b Hechinger, John (November 30, 1999). "AltaVista to Acquire Raging Bull, A Popular Financial-Chat Web Site". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "Young entrepreneurs get VC push". CNET. January 2, 2002.
- ^ a b KIRSNER, SCOTT (May 31, 1999). "First Companies Are Serious Business". Fast Company.
- ^ a b Koprowski, Gene (May 1, 1999). "E-Reality". Entrepreneur.
- ^ Anders, Jason (October 1, 1998). "Raging Bull Web Site Gets Venture Capital From CMG". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Brick, Michael (November 29, 1999). "Alta Vista to Acquire Raging Bull in Stock Deal". TheStreet.com.
- ^ "Terra Lycos Buys Raging Bull From CMGI's AltaVista Unit". The Wall Street Journal. January 31, 2001.
- ^ Hu, Jim (January 2, 2002). "Terra Lycos lassos AltaVista's Raging Bull". CNET.
- ^ Schiffman, Betsy (January 30, 2001). "Terra Lycos On Acquisitive Rampage". Forbes.
- ^ "Interactive Data acquires Quote.com from Lycos". FinExtra. February 2, 2006.
- ^ "Chuck Jaffe, Host of "Money Life Radio Show," Named Chief Editor of RagingBull.com" (Press release). PR Newswire. June 15, 2017.
- ^ "RagingBull.com experiment with Jaffe ends after six months". Talking Biz News. December 1, 2017.
- ^ "Company offering pandemic stock tips accused of $137M fraud". Washington Post. December 7, 2020. Archived from the original on December 7, 2020.
- ^ Bookman, Todd (December 22, 2021). "Lee-based RagingBull settles with state securities regulators". New Hampshire Public Radio.
- ^ "Online Investment Site to Pay More Than $2.4 Million for Bogus Stock Earnings Claims and Hard-to-Cancel Subscription Charges" (Press release). Federal Trade Commission. March 8, 2022.
- ^ "FTC knocks out Raging Bull's deceptive earnings claims" (Press release). Federal Trade Commission. March 8, 2022.