Ian King is out with another promo for his Automatic Fortunes newsletter published by Banyan Hill, and like most such “presentations” he makes some huge predictions to tantalize you with dreams of wealth. And though it sounds an awful lot like the “most important tech stock of 2019” pitch he was making last fall, I […]
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 isn’t a brand new ad, it’s been circulating for a couple months now, but I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently and haven’t covered it before… so I’m digging in. The pitch is from Eric Fry, who launched Fry’s Investment Report as an entry-level stock-picking newsletter fairly recently (last summer, I think), and the […]
May 11, 2020
Fry’s Investment Report
Entry level monthly newsletter that says it will look at “big picture trends that drive huge, multiyear moves in entire sectors” and pick stocks for that trend “at the best prices.”
May 8, 2020
Friday File: A Hodgepodge of Earnings
I’m still able to generate some enthusiasm about specific stocks that I think are appealing enough to buy at these prices… but I find it very hard to be optimistic in a macro sense right now, it really feels to me as though the market is whistling past the graveyard and being far too sanguine […]
Since Star Wars day just passed (May the Fourth Be With You!), I guess it’s time for a “Death Star” story — this one comes from an ad for The Wealth Warrior ($99/yr), which is Jason Simpkins’ security and defense-focused intro-level newsletter from the Outsider Club. And the headline, of course, sounds terrifying: “Beijing’s Death […]
The latest ad from Louis Navellier for his Growth Investor newsletter is a doozy… full of images of Louis Navellier driving his midlife crisis Porsche supercar around and showing off the red “turbo” button, with that serving as a “you’re too dumb to get it otherwise” metaphor for the tremendous potential of 5G wireless. We […]
A quickie for you to start out this week, since gold is on the lips of many investors and I got a question about this Mark Skousen teaser. The little excerpts of the clues I got indicated that this wasn’t a heavily distributed teaser ad, it was an “upgrade” pitch to get the subscribers of […]
We’re used to seeing biotech stocks surge because of the results of a clinical trial… but it’s quite crazy to see the whole market pinning its hopes on a clinical trial. Gilead’s (GILD) Remdisivir had some weak results leak last week and that helped inspire the market selloff (“Oh no, we won’t get a drug […]
Today I’m throwing in a little bonus article, since it’s an interesting topic, everyone seems to be obsessed with gold again this week (though gold prices took a little tumble yesterday), and a few folks have asked about E.B. Tucker from Casey Research and his “Gold Placements” pitch. If that doesn’t sound familiar, he has […]
April 30, 2020
Strategic Trader
Pricier upgrade from Strategic Investor. Offering to give you “multiple ways to profit” because “the era of ‘easy money’ is over”. Formerly edited by E. B. Tucker (until mid-2020).
I got several reader questions this week about a new recommendation from Dave Lashmet at Stansberry — it looks like this was issued as a recommendation for regular Stansberry Investment Advisory subscribers, not one of Lashmet’s more expensive biotech-focused newsletters, and it’s very light on clues… but let’s see if we can give you anything […]
April 29, 2020
Gilder’s Technology Report
The entry-level newsletter from George Gilder re-launched in 2019 as the George Gilder Report, sort of a continuation of the Gilder Technology Report he published in the 1990s, and then moved back to it original title later on. Monthly newsletter promising “little-known investment opportunities that are tied to emerging technology trends.” Switched publishers a few […]
Today’s ad that we’re finally covering, after tons of requests, is for Gilder’s Moonshots, which is the latest publication launched in George Gilder’s return to newsletter world. Here’s the headline from the ad: “‘Don’t invest in 5G stocks or even buy yourself a 5G smartphone… until you’ve heard about this chance to triple your gains […]
April 29, 2020
Gilder’s Moonshots
Higher-priced offering from George Gilder, aims to find small cap “moonshot” stocks that will benefit from his vision of the technology future.
The latest teaser pitch from Jeff Brown has gotten a lot of attention from Gumshoe readers… so let’s dig in and get some answers (and yes, some readers already posted their findings in our discussions area… so we’ll see if they got the right answer). The ad is all about a microcap biotech stock that […]
April 27, 2020
Motley Fool Canada’s “Triple Down” Stock
The Motley Fool loves to use terms like “double down” and “triple down” in its ads for some reason, and this latest one basically extends a previous Motley Fool US pitch to Motley Fool Canada… but I’ll cover it quickly for you because the questions do pile up about these ideas. The pitch is in […]
We’re now a month past the “bottom” that the market hit on March 23 in the heat of the panic, and although the world is thinking about opening up now and throwing ever more “rescue” money from helicopters, we’re still not all that close to predicting when “back to normal” might hit… and just now […]
April 21, 2020
Trade Note: Tax Loss Harvesting
I share Trade Note updates with you, my favorite people, whenever I do any meaningful buying or selling in between Friday Files, but they’re usually shorter notes in the comment threads — today I’ve chugged through a string of relatively small trades that I need to update you on, and I’ve got a few minutes, […]
April 17, 2020
Friday File: Cheap Insurance and Expensive Silver
Here’s my soothsaying bit for this week, which you should feel free to ignore — like everyone else who’s predicting the future, I’m probably going to be wrong. I don’t think, even now, that we’re pricing in even the bad news that is already almost certain this year… or if we are, we’re pricing in […]
The newest ad for Whitney Tilson’s Empire Stock Investor ($49, renews at $199) is all about this “Taas” business, and I’ve gotten a few questions since it started circulating a week or two ago… so let’s dig in! The basic idea is that “TaaS,” which is “Transportation as a Service,” is going to take off […]
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[...]