This article was originally published on December 7, 2021. It has not been updated, but we’re re-posting it here thanks to a surge of new reader questions. The “secret” stock teased is up about 30%, roughly keeping up with the surge in oil prices into late February, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine (though oil […]
Author Bio
Travis Johnson is an individual investor who founded Stock Gumshoe in 2007 as a way to air his dissections of overhyped marketing pitches... and to share the "secret" stocks that stock newsletters hype to get your attention and your subscription dollars. His thinking? If you already know what the "secret" stock is, you can make a much more reasonable and thoughtful decision about whether or not to commit to an expensive newsletter subscription. (And if you don't pay for the info, you'll be more free to think for yourself about whether or not the investment is worth your money.)In his charmed life he has been, among other things, a university faculty member, a fundraiser, a writer, and a world-champion ice-cream scooper. Now he runs Stock Gumshoe for you, allowing us all to discuss and dissect the latest overheated stock ideas... as well as review and talk about investment newsletters and enjoy the commentary and opinions of Stock Gumshoe's other special contributors and the discussion with our unusually attractive, erudite and polite readers. He lives with Mrs. Gumshoe and all their little Gumshoes in the wilds of Western Massachusetts.
Author Archives
This article was originally published on February 10, 2022, but we continue to get questions about variations of this ad so we’re re-posting it here. What follows has not been updated or revised, other than the disclosures. I always like reading the pitches from Dan Ferris, I guess partly because he cultivates the mien of […]
March 4, 2022
Friday File: The Curtain Comes Down
It seems almost silly and trivial to think about the quarterly updates from our various investments right now, but I’ll get to a bit of that in a moment — and my top 20 positions in the Real Money Portfolio do all now have updated “buy below” prices, for whatever that’s worth. First, though, my […]
I don’t usually cover the same newsletter twice in a row, but after my look at the Motley Fool’s Firecrackers teaser I got a bunch of questions about a similar pitch that same newsletter made last week…. and the two stocks are about as different as could be, so I’ll give it a quick look. […]
March 2, 2022
What’s that “God Chip” Company Pitched by Jimmy Mengel?
This article was originally published on May 21, 2021. We are getting many questions about this ad again this week, so we’re re-floating it to the top — the ad is still in circulation and does not appear to have changed in any meaningful way, and what follows has not been updated or revised since […]
I’ve gotten a bunch of questions in the past couple days about the Motley Fool’s latest pitch for their “Microcap Mission” — they’re selling a service called Everlasting Firecrackers, which is microcap portfolio service, under Fool co-founder Tom Gardner’s “Everlasting” umbrella of services, that has an active list of 48 recommendations (subscription is nonrefundable — […]
February 24, 2022
Friday File: A Couple Minor Updates
I’m on vacation this week, but thought I’d at least share a note with some updated thoughts on a few of our Real Money Portfolio holdings, since we had quite a few of them report this week. That’s not really the market’s focus as I type, of course, I guess we’re all watching Russia’s invasion […]
February 18, 2022
Friday File: Warm Blankets and Rollercoasters
In a week that created some pretty massive tumult among the growth stocks I own, I’m going to start today’s note on a very different topic. Don’t worry, we’ll get to Shopify and Roku and Fastly and all the others, but first, something that helps make the heart rate a little steadier. I just made […]
February 18, 2022
Paul’s Secret Portfolio
“Upgrade” service from Paul Mampilly that recommends trades that are shorter-term or more unusual than in his other services, often of small emerging companies or “meme stocks.”
I’ve gotten a bunch of reader questions over the last week or so about Alex Koyfman’s latest teaser pitch for a “Plastic Killer” out of Canada, so that’s where the Thinkolator is pointed today. The ad is for Angel Publishing’s Microcap Insider (currently being sold for $1,999, 90-day refund period), and this is the latest […]
I’ve had one persistent reader ask about this one a few times in the last week or so, and it’s a publisher I haven’t heard of before… and the kind of idea that sounds intuitively interesting, since I do love subscription businesses… so we’re going to check it out today. The pitch is from Swen […]
February 11, 2022
Friday File: Profiting from Infrastructure and Inflation
Remember the good ol’ days, from, say, 2010 to 2018, when it was really, really unusual for a stock to move by more than 3-4% in a day? Man, I miss those days. It used to be that you could skim through a list of stocks, your eyes would be drawn by something that jumped […]
February 11, 2022
McCall Report, The
Entry level newsletter from Matt McCall focused on emerging technologies and trends. Similar to past newsletters he ran at Investorplace before switching to Stansberry.
February 7, 2022
Deal closes Feb. 11: What’s Katusa’s “2022 Project Gold Rush?”
I haven’t looked at a Marin Katusa ad for a while, so this one caught my eye when a few readers asked about it. Katusa typically focuses on mining stocks, and is often particularly interested in targeting private placements in small mining companies (a private placement is just a company selling shares of itself privately, […]
I’m continuing to reset my “buy” prices and opinions for all of the companies in the Real Money Portfolio as part of my Annual Review process, so you’ll be seeing those “max buy” and “preferred buy” numbers popping up next to the stocks on the Real Money Portfolio page as those companies file their quarterly […]
February 3, 2022
Future Giants
“Upgrade” newsletter that focuses on finding “microcap” stocks that can become large companies.
February 2, 2022
Revisiting Koyfman’s “Oil Killer” Teased for 11,300% Gains
We continue to get lots of questions the Microcap Insider teaser pitch for an “Oil Killer” (sometimes also pitched as “Liquid Electricity”)… and this is a story I covered for the first time about a year ago, but I’m taking a fresh look for you today. The ad is undated, and from what I can […]
Price targets are starting to come down for a great many stocks these days, and that’s a reminder that analysts, who issue those price targets, essentially do the same thing you and I do: They try to figure out how much money a company is going to make in the future, and then decide what […]
It’s been a little while since I looked at one of the techno-growth hypefest pitches from Michael Robinson over at Nova-X Report, so when a bunch of readers sent in questions about his “Infinity Chamber” spiel I decided to take a look for you today. It’s all about quantum computing, which isn’t a big surprise […]
January 25, 2022
What’s Angel’s “Infinite Lithium” Stock?
Here’s the lead-in to the teaser pitch about “infinite lithium” that’s generating some questions from Gumshoe readers: “Inside one of the world’s most advanced facilities, a small 65-member team has perfected: ‘Infinite Lithium’ “Scientists have developed a technology for creating an infinite supply of super-rich lithium right here in America WITHOUT having to mine a […]
Recent Author Comments
Posted on September 14, 2024
Posted on September 11, 2024
Several SMRs are in early stage development, none of the US ones are permitted or under construction yet. BWXT works on most of the naval reactors and does other nuclear contracting for the government, including building a microreactor for military bases,[...]
Posted on September 11, 2024
Could be, a lot of the smaller defense contractors have been acquired over the years. Don't know if any of their technology is particularly valuable or proprietary, but they are doing some interesting things with rocket engines and other stuff in addition[...]
Posted on September 10, 2024
Indeed, that's certainly the flavor of the month... there won't really be any SMRs in operation for five years or so, though, even if they proceed without hiccups it will take quite a while for them to be meaningful contributors to the grid.[...]
Posted on September 10, 2024
It wasn't the permit that drove it up to $8, it's been moving up pretty steadily for a few months -- they just didn't bother to update their ad.[...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
I imagine a lot of folks still doubt the permitting will come through, so maybe that doubt will ease over the next 6 months or so. But investors often find it hard to hold on to mining stocks once it gets "real" -- when they're borrowing and spending and[...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
Could be, though if they can really borrow $1.8 billion and the terms are friendly enough, they could perhaps go it alone. I hope it works out for you in the end, either way.[...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
Yep, a 12,500% return would mean it grows to a $63 billion market cap. I guess it's theoretically possible someday... but no.[...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
I think Apple has used ARM's basic chip design tech every since they designed their first chips. Whether they're using "more" of it for this latest chip, or ARM is more involved in Apple's chip design for this one than usual, I have no idea, but the big d[...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
Apple has acquired several voice-enabling technologies over the years, but if they haven't used SOUN to this point it seems unlikely that they need to -- it seems like auto companies are partnering with SOUN so they can avoid having to be captive to Apple [...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
They often throw their promo Picks into "special reports" Instead of the actual model portfolio, but some letters also keep using stocks as teaser picks even after the pundit has "sold" them.[...]
Posted on September 9, 2024
There's certainly risk of the brand plateauing. I think it's still looking pretty solid, but only time will tell, I guess.[...]
Posted on September 7, 2024
I haven't been following this management team long enough to have a great handle on their investor relations skills, but I was surprised that they just mentioned that number and didn't seem to realize it was a bombshell of an announcement that would have m[...]
Posted on September 5, 2024
Haven't suffered through the latest Altucher pitch yet, but Credo was the stock he was similarly touting back in June. (https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/luke-langos-innovation-investor/answers-apples-silent-ai-suppliers-who-are-luke-langos-three-tin[...]
Posted on September 4, 2024
Del Real is out pitching this story again, though with a preamble that one of the three stocks has been acquired for about $3 billion -- so that confirms that the copper stock that I did not unearth above was indeed Filo Corp (FIL.TO, FLMMF), which is bein[...]
Posted on September 4, 2024
Welcome aboard, Chet -- the pitchmen love to get us revved up about quick gains and juice those gambling urges... but sadly, one telltale sign of a great long-term investment is that you don't have to decide whether or not to invest within five minutes. S[...]
Posted on September 4, 2024
Those are the super-levered ETFs that are designed to either generate large options income or one-day levered gains to a single stock. The YieldMax ones are pretty prominent, but there are a lot of others that can let people bet on short-term moves or tak[...]
Posted on September 3, 2024
He's run similar ads all year, though I think he swapped out some of the "secret" partners in more recent ads. First time around it Was TSM, ARM and (maybe) SMCI... in later versions it looks like it was ANSS, ARM and maybe VRT, though they could have sha[...]
Posted on September 3, 2024
Interesting, new one to me -- thanks![...]
Posted on September 3, 2024
Not really, I handle situations on a case by case basis... there are some companies that I primarily own because I see a shorter-term opportunity to make a profit, and I might own that stock for just a few years (or even just a few months, in rare situatio[...]
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That one has certainly demanded some patience. I remain somewhat assured that Nolan Watson has been saying that they've already bought their growth, so they'll likely just be paying down debt and holding off on major deals for a while... but there's alway[...]