At age fifteen he bought a bag of rare Canadian pennies that for a brief period would have made him a millionaire, had he sold them before they crashed in value.
This turned out to be closer to the truth, with the British FTSE100 and French CAC 40 having fully recovered by December, and the German DAX reaching pre-crisis levels by November the next year.
[9] Justin Fox wrote in Time that Armstrong's model "made several eerily on-the-mark calls using a formula based on the mathematical constant pi.
[4] According to an editorial in The Guardian, Armstrong incorrectly predicted that a sovereign debt crisis, or "Big Bang" as he called it, would begin on 1 October 2015.
[14] Armstrong was indicted in 1999 and ordered by Judge Richard Owen to turn over fifteen million dollars in gold bars and antiquities bought with the fund's money; the list included bronze helmets and a bust of Julius Caesar.
[15][16] Armstrong produced some of the items but claimed the others were not in his possession; this led to several contempt of court charges brought by the SEC and the CFTC, for which he served seven years in jail until he reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors.
[17][18][19] Under the terms of the agreement, Armstrong admitted to deceiving corporate investors and improperly commingling client funds—actions that according to prosecutors resulted in commodities losses of more than seven hundred million dollars—and was sentenced to five years in prison.
[1] In 2014, a day laborer sold a box of 58 rare coins, which he said he had found while clearing out the basement of a house in New Jersey—to a Philadelphia thrift shop for $6,000.
In 2019 the US government found out about the coins and claimed them as part of the treasure hoard Armstrong had refused to hand over in 1999, and for which he had served seven years in jail for contempt.
[26] The film presents Armstrong's claims that he is innocent, that the bank involved was at fault, that he was coerced into admitting to fraud, and that the FBI was after his economic model.
A Los Angeles Times critic described the film as "intended primarily as a name-clearing platform for Armstrong to relate his version of the events" and that it lacked perspective due to its failure to present commentary from authorities.
[28] A Washington Post critic observed that "though the Armstrong partisans in the film strongly suggest that [his models work], director Marcus Vetter struggles to convince the lay viewer.