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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

I like reading Howard Lindzon, a hedge fund/venture capital guy who became a widely-followed trend pundit and co-founded StockTwits, and he now has a newsletter in partnership with Agora… so Gumshoe readers were curious about what he’s selling, and, frankly, so was I. Let’s dig in, shall we? Lindzon is a prolific opiner, so you […]

Monthly stock-picking newsletter from Howard Lindzon, the hedge fund/VC investor and StockTwits founder who invests in and writes about his “trend ideas,” which tends to mean tech/growth stocks.

Jason Stutman’s “upgrade” newsletter, The Cutting Edge ($1,499/yr), is out with a teaser campaign that promises you the chance at riches from “Charged Ore” … and, in fact, an actual sample of that ore itself as part of your subscription. So what is “Charged Ore,” and what’s this little Nebraska mine that Stutman thinks will […]

This one’s not exactly a tightly-controlled secret (though the ad makes it sound like one), but we’ll put the Thinkolator on the case anyway… we’ve gotten lots of questions about the latest marijuana pitch from Jimmy Mengel, who is advertising subscriptions to his Marijuana Manifesto service ($1,999/year) — seems that plenty of people want to […]

Higher-end trading advisory from Manward Press, which was launched as an Agora affiliate in 2017 and promotes itself as “publishing ideas that lead men to richer, fuller lives that overflow with freedom.” Andrew Snyder previously worked for the Oxford Club and other Agora publishers.

A few more company updates for you as we finish up the Annual Review… almost done now, though a couple stragglers remain. Medical Properties Trust (MPW) ~2% position, $9.87 cost basis, currently ~12$. I’ve held this volatile hospital REIT for more than four years now, through a couple ignored stop-loss triggers along the way when […]

Now that we’re facing the first bout of stock market volatility in years, I thought I’d share some of my general thoughts from a few months ago with everyone — this originally appeared as part of a Friday File for the Irregulars back before the tax cuts were passed, about a week before Thanksgiving last […]

James Altucher took a little break from his self-chosen role as “most overmarketed cryptocurrency pundit on earth” to promote his publisher’s Microcap X Advisory recently, talking up the possibility that a particular little biotech stock could surge 54,000% because of expected FDA approval on February 17. So… let’s dig into it, shall we? The ad […]

Recent Author Comments

On "The Casino That is Rigged For You" (Better than Berkshire!) -- what's Porter's hinted-at pick?

I haven't looked in the last month or two, but last wrote about it here:https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/green-zone-fortunes/the-next-google-answers-eccentric-billionaire-makes-a-big-bet-on-a-tiny-ai-company-tease-from-green-zone-fortunes/[...]

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On "The Casino That is Rigged For You" (Better than Berkshire!) -- what's Porter's hinted-at pick?

Have never heard of that one, but I'll try to take a look. Anything in particular you like about them?[...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

BTBT, per Altucher. Don't know whether he actually made the investment yesterday or not.[...]

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On Microblog: 320,000% DNA stock

Sounds like that's the second coming of Adam O'Dell's "Imperium" pitch -- I did indeed cover that back in 2021 and 2022, the stocks did terribly... and I covered the updated version, which teases some different stocks, a few months ago:https://www.sto[...]

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On Microblog: What are two of George Gilder's MOONSHOTS?

I've written about Verses a couple times since it went hyper-promotional in the first half of 2023 -- they have finally gotten revenue growing, but I still don't trust the business. It might work out, but with them borrowing money and issuing shares at a [...]

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On Microblog: Any opinion on how I should vote my BOC shares?

Sorry for not getting back to you... I don't have a problem with the current proxy and executive compensation, after being relatively reassured that it was in line with what they were doing before.I will be interested to see what's said at the meeti[...]

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On Microblog: Trading volatility of DJT

I'm sure this isn't what you want to hear, but that stock is so dramatically over-followed that there aren't really any cost-effective ways to trade it -- you can buy puts or calls to bet on huge changes of direction, but so many people are already doing t[...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

Thanks for acknowledging my noble sacrifice :)[...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

We love you, too, David. Thanks![...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

Thanks! Glad to have you here, stick around and tell all your friends :)[...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

Pretty low, I think, which is why I sold the $10 options to reduce the cost of the $2 ones to roughly "in the money" levels.[...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

Thanks... guess they're not promoting Scheidt as much as the old Agora did.[...]

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On What's Altucher's $5 "Big Buy Alert" Stock? Pick teased as, "I'll Invest $50,000 into this $5 stock before 2pm on Wednesday"

Thanks for the confirmation... and the GDOT news, which I guess he must be teasing for a different letter.I know some of the Paradigm folks don't really get into individual stock picking, like Jim Rickards, but didn't know Zachary Scheidt was one of the[...]

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On Answers: Tilson's "Nuclear Renaissance" Tease for "Recession-proof stocks"

He's been running with that one since the Spring of 2023 (https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/the-big-secret-on-wall-street-this-week/de-tease-porters-secret-energy-grid-obamas-screw-up-and-reagans-premonition/), but yes, the ads continue to roll teasing [...]

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

Will take a look, but that sounds a lot like New Found Gold, which Williams' colleague Luke Burgess was pitching a while[...]

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

That's a different type of firm -- more of a commodity trading company, right? Interesting call, sort of a play on the interest in gold rather than the gold price itself.[...]

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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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