Meet the Experts

Christopher Ruddy

Christopher Ruddy, a noted journalist and entrepreneur, is CEO and president of Newsmax Media Inc., one of the nation's leading news media companies.

In 1998, Ruddy founded Newsmax, a multimedia publishing company that publishes online and offline content in the fields of news, politics, health and finance. Newsmax.com ranks consistently as one of the country's most trafficked news Web sites.

As a journalist, Ruddy previously worked at The New York Post and The Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

A Newsweek cover story named him as one of America's top 20 most influential news media personalities. He also studied as a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

Ruddy sits on the Board of Directors of the Financial Publishers Association, the industry organization representing investment publications that reach 25 million Americans monthly.

He holds a B.A. summa cum laude in history from St. John's University in New York and a master's in Public Policy from the London School of Economics.


David Frazier

David Frazier has an extensive background in the financial services industry and has invested, speculated and traded in the financial markets for more than 30 years. In addition to working as a business analyst, merchant banking analyst and equity research analyst, David has worked in sales and marketing at institutional investment firms, including William O’Neil & Co. (the publisher of Investor’s Business Daily) and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. He’s also operated his own investment consulting firm, where he provided research and analytical services to Dan Sullivan’s The Chartist, Leeb Capital Group, Meeder Investment Management and The Flex-funds family of mutual funds. From September 2007 to January 2012, he wrote a very successful investment newsletter for Newsmax Media, with his Conservative Model Portfolio outperforming the S&P 500 Total Return Index by 27.9% from the inception of that portfolio on September 18, 2007 to the time that he left Newsmax on January 24, 2012.

Frazier now operates an investment research firm that offers financial market research and analytical services to registered investment advisors (“RIAs”) and high net-worth individual investors, and he serves as a contributing writer for Newsmax Media’s Financial Intelligence Report and The Franklin Prosperity Report. Additionally, Frazier provides securities recommendations and related information for Newsmax’s Insider Trader Alert service.

Frazier holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, with a major in Finance and a minor in Economics, and he’s taken numerous post-graduate courses in Finance and Accounting at Harvard University and the University of California at Los Angeles. In addition, he has passed the FINRA Series 7 (General Securities Representative) and Series 65 (Investment Advisor) exams. He lives in Jupiter, Florida with his wonderful wife and daughter, Yumiko and Christina.


Robert Wiedemer

Robert Wiedemer is a managing director of MacroView Investment Management, an investment-advisory firm for individuals with more than $200 million under management.

He is the author of The Wall Street Journal best-seller, Aftershock, with more than 200,000 copies sold.

He is a regular contributor to Financial Intelligence Report, the flagship investment newsletter of Newsmax Media.

He predicted the latest downturn in the economy in his landmark 2006 book, America's Bubble Economy, which Kiplinger's chose as one of the best business books of that year.

Mr. Wiedemer has been featured in the major press, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Dow Jones Newswires, The Hedge Fund Journal, Barron's, Reuters, The Associated Press and others. He is a frequent commentator on TV, including on CNBC's Squawk Box and Fox Business News.


Tom Hutchinson

Tom Hutchinson has had a lengthy career in the financial markets, having been a financial adviser for 15 years. He put together and monitored hundreds of income-oriented investment portfolios, and provided many retirees with a dependable income they could use to pay their bills without having to spend the principal balance.

Tom Hutchinson guided these investors through just about every kind of market and learned what it takes not just to generate a high income but also to preserve and even grow principal.

As a financial writer, Mr. Hutchinson has written income newsletters, created sample income portfolios, and provided his readers with timely market ideas. Studying the markets has been Tom’s full-time job for many years, and he often spends as much as 80 hours per week researching companies and analyzing trends.

He has also spoken about investing at many public events and held several financial licenses.


Bill Spetrino

Bill Spetrino is a professional investor who has made millions for himself and his clients through strategic investing.

A trained accountant, he graduated from John Carroll University in Ohio and spent a decade teaching. A lifelong entrepreneur as well, Spetrino set out to understand and codify a simple dividend investing strategy for amassing a retirement nest egg, an idea that eventually led to the creation of The Dividend Machine newsletter for Newsmax in 2009.

Using his strategy, Spetrino picks the kinds of dividend stocks Warren Buffett or the late Sir John Templeton would recommend — long-term cash generators that also can offer handsome appreciation potential.

Personally, he's used his simple system to such great success that in the course of a little under two decades, his intially modest dividend portfolio of a few thousand dollars grew to generate all of his family's living expenses and more.

He consults with a worldwide base of clients on investing and tax planning from his home in Ohio.


James Davidson

James Dale Davidson is respected investment writer and editor of the Strategic Investments newsletter.

Along with Lord William Rees-Mogg, Davidson co-authored the book The Sovereign Individual, as well as The Great Reckoning, and Blood in the Streets. He also wrote The Plague of the Black Debt - How to Survive the Coming Depression. Davidson is also the founder and former head of the National Taxpayers Union.


Barry Elias

Barry Elias is an economic policy analyst.

He has served as consultant to Dick Morris, former political adviser to President Bill Clinton, and was acknowledged by Mr. Morris in his three most recent books: Catastrophe (2009), 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan (2010), and Revolt! (2011). He also served as a policy strategist to Herman Cain during his 2012 Republican presidential campaign.

Mr. Elias, a member of the Newsmax Financial Brain Trust, provides weekly commentary to Newsmax Media’s Moneynews.com.

He collaborated on education policy with S.P. Kothari, Deputy Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and he has been in discussions with Dr. James Heckman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, to collaborate on a future book release.

Mr. Elias graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the State University of New York at Binghamton with a degree in Economics.


Hans Parisis

Etienne "Hans" Parisis is a Belgian-born bank economist who has advised global billionaires and governments on the financial markets and international investments. Parisis currently resides in Panama City, Panama.


Axel Merk

Axel Merk is the portfolio manager for the Merk Hard Currency Fund, a no-load mutual fund that provides U.S. investors with exposure to a basket of hard currencies from countries with strong monetary policies to seek protection against the depreciation of the U.S. dollar.

He also is founder and president of Merk Investments, an independent investment adviser implementing growth, value, gold, and cash strategies.

Merk closely follows trends that affect world markets and watches global currencies with a macroeconomic approach focused on building long-term value for his clients


Geoff Garbacz

Geoff Garbacz is the co-founder and one of two principals in Quantitative Partners, Inc. (QPI). Geoff and his team at Quantitative Partners have over 36 years of experience on Wall Street. Prior to the formation of QPI in 1995, Geoff worked for The Robinson Humphrey Company from 1990 to 1995. Before that he worked for Capital Institutional Services (CAPIS) as an institutional sales person covering accounts in New York from 1986 to 1990. Geoff is a graduate of Gettysburg College with Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Geoff and his wife reside in Madison, Wisconsin.


David Skarica

David Skarica is a sought-after speaker for investment seminars and conferences throughout the United States and Canada and an expert on the gold and commodities markets. Skarica is one of the youngest people on record to pass the Canadian Securities course. Skarica’s book, The Great Super Cycle: Profit from the Coming Inflation Tidal Wave and Dollar Devaluation, delves into the ramifications of the world’s debt bubble and how investors can protect themselves and profit.


Lisa M. Ruth

Lisa M. Ruth served as an analyst and Special Projects Officer with the CIA for 15 years. Later, she co-founded a consulting firm in West Palm Beach, Florida, providing advice on geopolitical investments, risk analysis, and mergers & acquisitions advice to private clients. Currently, she is CEO of CTC International Group, Inc., an international intelligence firm. She frequently appears on Newsmax TV and writes for a variety of publications. She has an MA in international relations from the University of Virginia, and a BA in international relations from George Mason University.