Fugitive Advisor and Ex-CNBC Pundit Pleads Guilty to Multimillion-Dollar Fraud
Story by Kenneth Corbin • 14h
A long-running saga involving a prominent financial advisor who became a fugitive has come to an end, with James McDonald entering a guilty plea to one count of securities fraud, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Throughout the chaos of 2020, McDonald repeatedly—and publicly—forecast a dramatic fall in the U.S. stock market and positioned his clients to cash in on the expected crash through what prosecutors described as a risky short strategy.
McDonald, 53, a Harvard graduate and frequent CNBC pundit, was predicting at least as late as January 2021 that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would drop to 15,000, arguing that the effects of the pandemic shutdown hadn’t been fully realized and predicting that the vaccine rollout would happen more slowly than most were predicting. At the time, the blue-chip stock index was at more than 30,000.
The market crash never happened, and clients of McDonald’s advisory firm, Los Angeles-based Hercules Investments, lost between $30 million and $40 million, according to prosecutors. By December 2020, McDonald was fielding client complaints about the losses.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/fugitive-advisor-and-ex-cnbc-pundit-pleads-guilty-to-multimillion-dollar-fraud/ar-AA1zxNFn?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=a040c3230e514963982525cf5f1793d9&ei=138
