Penny Stock Specialist

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Small cap, low-priced stocks newsletter, editor formerly published a similar letter for TheStreet.com

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Gumshoe Articles & Teaser Picks Revealed

“Saudis to Quit Oil Business?” Penny Shale Firms

Frank Curzio is tantalizing us to subscribe to his Penny Stock Specialist newsletter (Stansberry & Assoc.) by teasing about a few penny stocks in the shale gas business — but of course, that’s not enough, there has to be a huge back story as well. And the story this time, should you choose to sit [...]

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Can You Profit from “Idle Irons?” (Curzio)

Today I’m sniffing out a solution to a teaser that is just a couple sentences long — not really a “hyped to the moon” stock like so many I write about, but one that sounded interesting to me (and to enough of my readers that the questions are piling up a little bit). It’s from [...]

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“Chinese Penny Stock Lands Deal with Wal-Mart”

“What happens when a tiny Chinese Penny Stock lands a deal with Walmart? “This tiny company’s amazing new product line will be sold by the world’s biggest retailer (with 4,258 U.S. stores). Similar deals have rewarded early investors with gains of 1,838%… 748%… and even 10,775%. “‘Our factories are working overtime to keep up with [...]

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“The Secret Penny Stock that Supplies Apple”

Well, the folks at Stansberry are now releasing the penny stock newsletter that they’ve been testing for a few months — and of course, they’d like you to subscribe. The editor is Frank Curzio, who used to run a similar newsletter at TheStreet.com focusing on stocks under $10. So just as a warning, both Curzio [...]

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Subscriber Reviews

Posted by Twinkie on Mar 3, 2011 @ 8:18 pm

I subscribed 15 months ago for $99 and they have upsold me numerous times – even after I talk myself out of it quite a few times first! Although the pitches ARE embarrassingly crass, I still get lured by something, so it’s clear to me their dreadful ads work. Being upsold to an alliance membership – one that costs $600 for a “lifetime” plus $150 a year maintenance(giving you ALL their $99 letters- 6 or 7 of them?) not only overwhelms me with spam, but ALSO overwhelms me with pure reading, ideas, picks and clashing takes on the market. Porter, Dan Ferris and Jeff Clark have been calling for a market crash since early to mid-December and shorting it, while “Doc” Effrig, Steve and Frank are blissed out and making money. It’s unsettling to someone indecisive, which I obviously am. Curzio’s is one of the better letters,well-researched; he picks more winners than not and does get stopped out on stocks that then go on to make hay. (SD). He picked Sprint as well as Citi, Triquent Semiconductor a long time ago – and Deer the first time I think last winter – it may have stopped out the first time. He writes so convincingly I am more inclined to buy his picks but with over 100 or maybe 150 to consider over a year from so many letters, I am usually too worn out to actually buy much of anything – and of course kick myself when they turn into big winners, which they point out (but I don’t notice the other ones that got stopped out or even lost 100% in the cash of a bad option unless I happen to have bought them). I have noticed that on thinly traded stocks like Matt Badali’s new Jr. Resource Trader, there is a huge spike at market open before I even get his letter, so it appears that someone there buys in ahead of time. Seems odd they would allow that, but Porter is quite cavalier about the fact that he makes a LOT of money selling newsletters. I actually had better, more consistent returns with Motley Fool Pro, but persuaded myself that $1500 was too much to pay for such buy and hold advice. Porter “grades” the newsletters in January and I was amazed at the returns, which made me want some other letters – it took me awhile to realize that a “fair” time period of 18 months including the crash in 2008, followed by one that started in March 2009 and ended December 2010 was going to really skew things a lot, compared to taking the annual return Jan. through Dec. – and the returns are a lot less wonderful and MUCH scarier if you see what happened BEFORE the recovery. One little secret – they sometimes pick up and reccomend each others’ picks after awhile – so while the stock may be up a dollar past Matt’s buy price when Frank or Steve recommend it, it’s the same stock. IOW, I don’t feel the more you pay the more you get for the higher-priced letters. When Jeff is right, it’s great, but I’m not sure his win ratio is that much higher than Frank Curzio’s – whose was only @55% last “period” vs Clark’s 63% on short report.

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Posted by LongAndStrong on Mar 2, 2011 @ 3:04 pm

As others have said, Frank is a good analyst. But the 25% stop-loss forces you to book a lot of losers, which quickly disappear from his published portfolio. It’s not as bad as his boss, Porter Stansberry, who plays the same game, but it still will drag down your rate of return. I’d rather see a multiple buy strategy where Frank takes another look at down 25% and makes a fresh decision on adding more or selling.

One good thing Frank did when he joined Stansberry is ignore their incredible bearishness all through 2009. They totally missed the market upturn, and Frank started right off saying yeah, the government is screwed up, but, hey, we can make some money here. Stansberry didn’t turn positive until mid-2010. Lately, in the Stansberry Spam, Porter Stansberry has been bragging about being up 22% since the market bottom – in a market that’s doubled!

The whole organization except Frank seems devoted to their World Dominators, the big dull blue chips like MO, KO and WMT. Why they think they can add any value on these stocks for their subscribers escapes me, with dozens of Wall Street analysts covering them. So Frank is a breath of fresh air, although the 25% stops will kill you.

Sjuggerud is the other Stansberry moneymaker, and he doesn’t make as many entry mistakes as Frank, so he doesn’t get stopped out as much. Also Mike Williams has made money with his junk bond picks, so far, but that is really a pro’s game.

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Posted by PennyChaser on Mar 2, 2011 @ 2:06 pm

Frank has some really good picks. Biggest problem is to get the stock at his buy up to price. This is a problem in general with Stansberry. Most Stansberry picks are stocks with low volume and by the time you can get your order in the price has moved up. I realize it is tough to pick penny stocks with high volume. Stansberry should not be able to publish their cost on a stock until one day after the newsletter is published. Too many times they will crow about an incredible run up in their pick at a cost that most of their subscribers never were able to buy at. A one day waiting period to establish a base cost would at least make the marketing a little more honest.

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Posted by Michael Arold on Feb 9, 2011 @ 6:58 am

Frank is IMO one of the best small cap stock analysts out there. The newsletter name is a little bit misleading, since his picks also include names such as Citigroup with a market cap of 140 Billion USD. Barely a penny stock.
Personally, I would NOT subscribe to the newsletter if Frank would indeed discuss penny stocks, but that’s just me.
Frank offers good fundamental research and can be considered a “value guy”.
I subscribed to the newsletter, because I’m a technical orinted short-term trader and hope to benefit from the fundamental insight. I’m carefully tracking performance of my “penny stock specialist trades” and will evaluate towards the end of 2011 if the newsletter “gave me an edge.”

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Posted by Caulker on Nov 10, 2010 @ 9:17 am

Penny Stock Specialist

Frank Curzio does a good job of finding low priced stocks with good prospects. I have had mixed success due also to the more volatile nature of this catagory. His picks are not like all the spam and junk mail paid recos we all seem to get in abundance. Worth subscribing to.

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