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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’ve already shared the major portfolio change I made this week, adding that IPO to my Real Money Portfolio yesterday, and I have also separately posted my notes and thoughts from the CNBC Delivering Alpha conference for my favorite people (yes, that’s you!)…. but I have a couple other things to note as well, so […]

I spent the day on Tuesday at the Delivering Alpha conference, which is hosted by CNBC and Institutional Investor — it’s not the kind of confab that includes “secret” or special ideas that you can’t hear about elsewhere (it’s hosted by CNBC, after all, and they broadcast from the conference all day), but it’s an […]

This is the third time I’ve bought an IPO on its first day of trading, and the second time I’ve bought exposure to a SPAC over the past year — hopefully it will work out as well as the others. I saw Chamath Palihapitiya speak at the Delivering Alpha conference on Tuesday, along with Starwood’s […]

Ian Cooper has been a newsletter pundit for a long time, I’ve mostly noticed him covering options trades and tech, biotech and natural resources stocks… but this is the first big widely-circulated teaser pitch I’ve seen over his name in a while, and I don’t think I’ve written about him since 2010. When last we […]

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about this spiel, which was for a recommendation that Mampilly was supposed to release yesterday (and presumably did) to his Extreme Fortunes subscribers, so I’m taking a look… despite the fact that I’m a little sick of writing about bitcoin. Extreme Fortunes is the “high end” newsletter Mampilly writes […]

Today we’ve got a quickie just to answer some reader questions — and, frankly, it’s a quickie mostly because we’ve covered this pitch several times before, in slightly different variations. This time around, the tease is coming from Charles Mizrahi in ads for “Charter Memberships” in his new Park Avenue Investment Club… which sounds pretty […]

Mizrahi’s latest value investing service, started in the Summer of 2017 — he says that he has three “model” portfolios: “Prime Time for large- to mid-cap stocks, Special Situations for mid- to small-cap stocks, and Bargain Basement for small caps at especially affordable prices.” Newsletter has closed.

We’re all growing more and more immune to hyperbole, I hope, but the combination of hype-filled newsletter pitches, shallow commentary from attention whores on CNBC, and clickbait headlines is enough to put you off investing in the market at all… how many times can you hear words like “collapse” and “beaten down” and “nightmare” applied […]

This article was originally published on January 12, 2017. I have updated my disclosures and the Irregulars Quick Take, and added some comments and number updates to update my thoughts on the stock, but many of the quotes are from the earlier version of the ad and not everything has been updated. The company being […]

Who can resist that headline? Louis Navellier is peddling his Emerging Growth newsletter by promising a special report called The Stock of the Century… so, naturally, we wanna know what that stock is. And we don’t want to pony up $995 for an Emerging Growth subscription to find out, frankly — if we paid that […]

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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