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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

Ian Wyatt has been out over the past couple weeks with some “webinars” in which he talks up the coronavirus outbreak (for an hour!) and then ends his show with a tease about several “special reports” on the stocks he thinks will make you a lot of money as we fight COVID-19… and, of course, […]

It’s been an unusually active month in the Real Money Portfolio — a couple big sells, several brand new positions, and quite a bit more churn than I usually have. Those transactions have mostly been fairly small, the largest position that I opened or closed was the sale of my sub-2% Facebook position, but that’s […]

For those who like brevity, I just posted a spreadsheet version of the Annual Review, with a very brief comment on each stock along with a “buy below” price for all of the stocks I own and the “stop loss” price (some of which disagree with each other, since I use human decisionmaking on top […]

We’ve had a lot of questions pop up over the past couple days about the Motley Fool’s “FAZER” stocks, which will apparently be the focus of a “special presentation” they’re making tomorrow morning. The gist of the email, which comes from Eric Bleeker, is pure FOMO — it triggers all the feelings of angst in […]

It’s been a wild ride for the past couple weeks of coronavirus panic, and this week has been especially crazy (and still isn’t quite over)… though it’s encouraging that my Real Money Portfolio has been a little bit stronger than the market so far this year — partly because of brilliant stock selection, I’d like […]

This article was originally published on January 6, 2020. Neither the ad we’re covering nor this article has been updated since then, though I’ve added a small update note at the end. The stock is back to where it was before the first promo pitch was mailed, and the latest emails pointing to this teaser […]

Today we’ve got a teaser pitch from Dylan Jovine’s new service, Takeover Targets, which he says is “half price” for charter subscribers (that would be $997/year, and unlike many higher-end newsletters they say they do offer refunds for 30 days)… and, as you might imagine, the service is all about identifying companies that might be […]

Advisory that aims to recommend a new “takeover target” stock that they think will be acquired each month. Initial teaser ads indicate a lot of these will likely be biotech stocks.

Earnings season is winding down, with only a few of my larger holdings yet to report, and so is my Annual Review of all of the stocks in my Real Money Portfolio — so I’ve got another installment of that for you today, sharing my updated opinion on a bunch of holdings (including a few […]

OK, I know, it’s getting a little ridiculous that I still haven’t covered the whole portfolio of stocks with my annual review updates — but for some I’m waiting to see what the quarterly update tells me, and for others, well, I’m just trying to catch up. Here’s what I’ve got for you by way […]

It’s Friday and I’m mostly working on my Friday File and Annual Review for the Irregulars, but I couldn’t resist a quickie answer for you on this latest Investorplace pitch… Matt McCall is selling his Early Stage Investor service ($1799, nonrefundable) with a spiel about eight life-changing microcaps in his “Microcap Millionaires Portfolio.” He gives […]

Recent Author Comments

On Friday File: Pangea's Wizard for Gold Riches?

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[...]

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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)

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,[...]

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On What's the Stock Behind Simpkins' "Project Wingman: Tiny AI Defense Stock With 20x–50x Potential?"

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[...]

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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)

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.[...]

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On $4 Gold Stock -- "Greatest Gold Trade Ever?"

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.[...]

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On $4 Gold Stock -- "Greatest Gold Trade Ever?"

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[...]

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On $4 Gold Stock -- "Greatest Gold Trade Ever?"

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.[...]

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On $4 Gold Stock -- "Greatest Gold Trade Ever?"

Yep, a 12,500% return would mean it grows to a $63 billion market cap. I guess it's theoretically possible someday... but no.[...]

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On Answers: "Apple's Silent AI Suppliers" -- Who are Luke Lango's "Three Tiny Companies" for "Apple's Next Trillion Dollar Bet?"

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[...]

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On Answers: "Apple's Silent AI Suppliers" -- Who are Luke Lango's "Three Tiny Companies" for "Apple's Next Trillion Dollar Bet?"

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 [...]

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

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.[...]

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On Friday File: Cold Quarter... and a Bunch of Little Buys

There's certainly risk of the brand plateauing. I think it's still looking pretty solid, but only time will tell, I guess.[...]

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On Friday File: Cold Quarter... and a Bunch of Little Buys

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[...]

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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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