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Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe

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

Dave Forest has updated his pitch about the “Bitcoin Key” to include some hype about a mysterious factory in the desert, including some aerial photos, so although he’s still teasing the same stocks he was with the first version of this ad back in October, we’re re-posting it with a few updates to help new […]

“Upgrade” service from Adam O’Dell, focused on recommending relatively small stocks in trending industries, goal is “100% gains in 100 days.”

Happy New Year! The world is turning to a focus on (maybe) rising interest rates, fear of inflation, and “value” stocks in many ways, or at least so says the perpetual punditry machine that is investment media. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen next month, of course, or for the next year… nobody should […]

The Motley Fool is launching yet another “upgrade” portfolio service to start this year, they call it Showdown 2022 and it’s essentially an evolution of what Stock Advisor used to be — Motley Fool Stock Advisor started as essentially a monthly competition between brothers David and Tom Gardner, with each picking a stock each month […]

Higher-end portfolio service from the Fool that features competition among four separate portfolios run by different analyst teams with different strategies (led by Emily Flippen, Tom Gardner, John Rotonti and Ayal Cusner).

This article was first published on April 27, 2021 — the Motley Fool is again pushing the story heavily in its ads here in early 2022, so we’re re-posting it here for your information. The future expectations for the “secret” company, and the valuation, are very similar to what they were when these words were […]

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a lovely solstice and holiday season to you, whichever traditions you choose to embrace.  It’s awfully dark and cold here in New England as the year begins to turn, and I hope you’ve got enough love and friendship to keep you warm… I’m having a nice end of the […]

This article was originally published on September 18, 2019, what follows has not been updated. It seems that the plague of celebrity endorsements is washing across the newsletter world these days, with CNBC star Robert Herjavec pitching a “buy private companies” network, former House Speaker John Boehner touting a marijuana stock service, and now, political […]

This article was originally published in October, but we’re getting more reader questions about it and Matthew Carr has a second version of the ad that focuses a little less on Apple and the iPhone, so we’re re-sharing our solution below. What follows is based on a slightly different ad, but the “secret” $10 growth […]

Here’s a little lead-in to the ad we started to see rolling on Friday from Empire Elite Growth ($5,000/yr, no refunds “on sale” for $2,000): “This the first page of a 49-page document officially released in the same year that President Trump promised “a new American moment.” “The document struck down a federal law, which […]

Recent Author Comments

On Microblog: Altuchers stock tease APPLE supplier.

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[...]

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On "Trade of the Decade" 10-Bagger Picks teased by Junior Resource Speculator

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[...]

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On Lichtenfeld's "The Tiny Company Nvidia Can't Ignore"

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[...]

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On Porter & Whitney's "New Form of Money" -- What's "The Secret U.S. Currency No One Told You About?"

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[...]

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On Lichtenfeld's "The Tiny Company Nvidia Can't Ignore"

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[...]

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On Friday File: NVIDIA, Booze, Poland, Sky Quarry... and Happy Birthday, Warren Buffett!

Interesting, new one to me -- thanks![...]

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On Friday File: NVIDIA, Booze, Poland, Sky Quarry... and Happy Birthday, Warren Buffett!

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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On "America's Second Coming" Picks from Porter Stansberry

Don't know anything about it -- are they planning to build a mine (PEA or feasibility study?), or is it just a discovery?[...]

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On Friday File: NVIDIA, Booze, Poland, Sky Quarry... and Happy Birthday, Warren Buffett!

$377 is still my preferred buy level, but it hasn't hit my preferred level very often over the years. My "max buy" is currently $463, which is my latest estimate of intrinsic value per share.[...]

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On Friday File: NVIDIA, Booze, Poland, Sky Quarry... and Happy Birthday, Warren Buffett!

The DNOPY ADR represents half of a share on the Warsaw exchange.[...]

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On Friday File: NVIDIA, Booze, Poland, Sky Quarry... and Happy Birthday, Warren Buffett!

Succession planning (make the portfolio easier for next CEO), likelihood of higher taxes, high concentration, or just a richly valued market Sparking him to remember his regret that he didn't sell some KO shares when it was trading at 50x earnings a couple[...]

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On Friday File: NVIDIA, Booze, Poland, Sky Quarry... and Happy Birthday, Warren Buffett!

For which stock?[...]

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On "Stimulus Stipends" teased by Jason Williams -- Can you really "Claim $7,882 Every Quarter?"

Depends on how T-Bills change over the next few months, mostly. The big reason to buy REIs or any dividend paying stocks is that the dividend can rise, which won't happen with a bond... but most REITs are under pressure and not raising their dividend much[...]

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On Friday File: Gold, Keys and "Quality" that's Just Too Expensive

Thanks Shaun. A lot of investing is about accepting that a lot of your decisions are going to be "wrong" in the fullness of time... so when possible, especially when your level of certainty is low, make the decisions smaller.[...]

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On "Stimulus Stipends" teased by Jason Williams -- Can you really "Claim $7,882 Every Quarter?"

Haven't seen that ad, but if it's about investing it's probably one of Amazon's landlords -- a warehouse REIT like PLD on the e-commerce side, or a data center REIT like DLR on the AWS side.[...]

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On Reveal: "NVIDIA's Secret Partner" teased by Shah Gilani

For now, at least, looks like ALAB bottomed out around when most newly public companies do... in the week or two surrounding the end of the six-month lockup period, when insiders began to do some post-IPO selling. We'll see how things settle down in the[...]

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On "Stimulus Stipends" teased by Jason Williams -- Can you really "Claim $7,882 Every Quarter?"

If greed didn't often overrule judgement, there wouldn't be many retail investment newsletters.[...]

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On Friday File: Gold, Keys and "Quality" that's Just Too Expensive

I give up on trying to predict recessions, the economy is so different than it has been in the past... but I agree, the risks of a really bad stock market are more acute than they've been in a while. If only because valuations remain extended.Doesn't [...]

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On What's "The Last Retirement Stock You'll Ever Need?" (Called "NVIDIA's 'Secret Royalty'" in teaser pitch from Dylan Jovine's Behind the Markets)

Well, they're also all a little desperate after subscriber numbers have plummeted over the past couple years -- everyone's hunting for a pitch that works to bring in new subscribers.[...]

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On Alex Green's "Emergency Summit" Picks for Fed Rate Cuts

Not very "AI," but a high end travel services firm. Seems tough to scale, In my opinion, but I've never looked deeply at Lindblad.[...]

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