Bob Chapman
The creator of the International Forecaster, Bob Chapman.
Mr. Chapman lived 76 full years. He was born in Boston, MA and attended Northeastern University majoring in business management. He spent three years in the U. S. Army Counterintelligence, mostly in Europe. He speaks German and French and is conversant in Spanish. He lived in Europe for six years, off and on, three years in Africa, a year in Canada and a year in the Bahamas.
Mr. Chapman became a stockbroker in 1960 and retired in 1988. For 18 of those years he owned his own brokerage firm. He was probably the largest gold and silver stockbroker in the world during that period. When he retired he had over 6,000 clients.
From 1962 through 1976 he specialized in South African gold shares. He and his family lived in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) and Johannesburg, South Africa from 1970 to 1973. During that time he did a great deal of further study into the South African mining industry.
Mr. Chapman belonged to The Traders Association for 25 years. He did all his own trading. During his South African years some was done directly through Johannesburg, but 95% was done through London brokerage firms. Hence, he has extensive contacts, both in London and on the Continent.
Starting in 1967 Mr. Chapman began writing articles on business, finance, economics and politics having been printed and reprinted over the years in over 200 publications. He owned and wrote the Gary Allen Report, which had 30,000 subscribers. He currently is owner and editor of The International Forecaster, a compendium of information on business, finance, economics and social and political issues worldwide, which reaches 10,000 investors and brokers monthly directly, and parts of his publication are picked up by 60 different websites weekly exposing his ideas to over 10 million investors a week.
In 1976, after the Soweto riots, Mr. Chapman began buying North American shares exclusively for his clients. Up to that point only a handful of American and Canadian issues interested him, due to the high dividends the South African shares had paid out over the years. Between 1976 and 1988 his business surged from 1,000 to 6,000 clients, so the bulk of his business ended up being Vancouver Stock Exchange issues. For this reason he is very conversant with the quality of management, geologists, properties and traders on today’s North American scene. He is well known.
From 1976 to present he has spoke and given workshops at over 200 business conferences worldwide, and has been on radio and TV hundreds of times. Until his retirement he was always judged by the attendees to be one of the top three speakers and never once was lower than first in workshops due to his vast knowledge of the mining business and his grasp of worldwide financial markets and political scenes.
In June of 1991, at the request of business associates, and due to retirement boredom, he began writing the International Forecaster.
In January 2012, Bob was diagnosed with pacreatic cancer. In May 2012 he returned to the US were he spent his remaining days with his family. Bob passed away at 12:15pm, June 4th, 2012. He will be missed by many but remembered through his memories, influence, guidance, contributions, and our continuation of truth through the IF.