RagingBull.com
Type of site
Financial literacy
Day trading
HeadquartersLee, New Hampshire
URLwww.ragingbull.com
Launched1997; 27 years ago (1997)

RagingBull.com is a website focused on financial literacy and day trading.

History

RagingBull.com was founded in August 1997 by Bill Martin with college partners,[1] Rusty Szurek[2] and Greg Wright, who were 19 years old at the time. 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.[10] RagingBull was integrated into eSignal.[11]

In June 2017, Chuck Jaffe was named chief editor of the website.[12] After a short, 6-month "experiment" with Jaffe as editor, the site changed direction and Jaffe was released from his position as Chief Editor of RagingBull.com.[13]

FTC Suit and Settlement

In December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission said the company operators have defrauded consumers out of more than $137 million over the past three years. FTC attorneys are seeking federal court orders freezing company assets, halting the alleged fraud scheme and awarding relief to consumers, including refunds and restitution.[14]

In March 2022, a settlement was reached where RagingBull.com as well Sherwood Ventures LLC and defendants Jason Bond and Jeff Bishop paid $2.425 Million to address what the FTC called "bogus stock earnings claims" and a hard to cancel subscription service.[15][16]

References

  1. ^ a b Hechinger, John (November 30, 1999). "AltaVista to Acquire Raging Bull, A Popular Financial-Chat Web Site". The Wall Street Journal.
  2. ^ "Rusty Szurek: Executive Profile". Bloomberg L.P.
  3. ^ a b KIRSNER, SCOTT (May 31, 1999). "First Companies Are Serious Business". Fast Company.
  4. ^ a b Koprowski, Gene (May 1, 1999). "E-Reality". Entrepreneur.
  5. ^ Anders, Jason (October 1, 1998). "Raging Bull Web Site Gets Venture Capital From CMG". The Wall Street Journal.
  6. ^ Brick, Michael (November 29, 1999). "Alta Vista to Acquire Raging Bull in Stock Deal". TheStreet.com.
  7. ^ "Terra Lycos Buys Raging Bull From CMGI's AltaVista Unit". The Wall Street Journal. January 31, 2001.
  8. ^ Hu, Jim (January 2, 2002). "Terra Lycos lassos AltaVista's Raging Bull". CNET.
  9. ^ Schiffman, Betsy (January 30, 2001). "Terra Lycos On Acquisitive Rampage". Forbes.
  10. ^ Ali, Rafat (February 1, 2006). "Lycos U.S. Sells Quote.com to IDC For $30 Million Cash; Wired News Next?". GigaOm.
  11. ^ "eSignal Debuts the New Quote.com" (Press release). PR Newswire. September 27, 2006.
  12. ^ "Chuck Jaffe, Host of "Money Life Radio Show," Named Chief Editor of RagingBull.com" (Press release). PR Newswire. June 15, 2017.
  13. ^ "RagingBull.com experiment with Jaffe ends after six months". Talking Biz News. December 1, 2017.
  14. ^ "Company offering pandemic stock tips accused of $137M fraud". Washington Post. December 7, 2020. Archived from the original on December 7, 2020.
  15. ^ "Online Investment Site to Pay More Than $2.4 Million for Bogus Stock Earnings Claims and Hard-to-Cancel Subscription Charges". March 8, 2022.
  16. ^ "FTC knocks out Raging Bull's deceptive earnings claims". March 8, 2022.
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