AN UNKNOWN person calls and asks you to invest in the foreign exchange or commodities market. What do you do? The best advice is to hang up.
Foreign exchange and commodities are high risk markets which require more than a dilettante's knowledge of the subjects. Returns can be high but so can losses.
The potential for profit lures many traders, many going to great lengths to solicit clients.
Although securities and commodities dealers are forbidden to make cold calls, unknown numbers are still dialed.
Sellers acquire a mailing or a marketing list and then work their way down the columns of unsuspecting consumers, making even the riskiest of markets sound enticing.
''They are very flattering,'' said one person who has been on the receiving end of several calls. ''In many cases they talk in language which is slightly above the man on the street.'' Not able to understand the market jargon, the small investor may feel too embarrassed to ask for explanations.
