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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

This article, originally titled “‘Universal Voice Control’ and ‘The End of Google as We Know it,’” was published on May 11. The ads have recently been coming in hot and heavy for this service, with the new ads headlined “Want to Invest like Jeff Bezos” and “Jeff Bezos’ Next Big Bet”, so we’re re-running this […]

Lou Basenese has a new service over at Agora called The Takeover Alert ($1,750), and he’s all but promising that he can identify takeover targets in advance… and give you the chance to make $29,000 profits from stocks that surge dramatically in just a day. To which the first response from any reader should be, […]

New service that aims to use Louis Basenese’s “M.A.R.K.E.D” methodology to identify stocks that are on the verge of being takeover targets. Basenese had a similar newsletter called The Takeover Trader several years ago.

I went into a lot more detail on the David Fessler’s teased “ultra-lithium” company on Tuesday, but there was also some curiosity about the second lithium stock he hinted at in those ads for his Oxford Resource Explorer, so I’ll take a quick look-see at that one as well. If you want to go back […]

Several folks have been writing in with questions about Stansberry’s “Dirty Thirty” promotion for his Big Trade newsletter ($3,000 for three years, no refunds), so that’s where we’re pointing the Thinkolator today. The pitch is not a new one — Porter Stansberry preannounced his “Dirty Thirty” idea last Fall and started selling subscriptions around November, […]

Motley Fool Canada launched a new dividend-focused newsletter service called Dividend Investor Canada earlier this year, and they’re now promoting it using a promise that they’re finding retail’s “next generation of ‘hidden millionaires.” And, of course, the bait that they dangle to entice you to subscribe is a report with some “secret” stocks that they […]

For those who’ve been paying attention, we finally got the expected official Dataram/US Gold name/ticker change…. it’s now U.S. Gold Corp, an the ticker is now USAU. The stock is not moving at the moment, which makes sense — I’d guess that the highest probability near-term news is a secondary offering, which would be negative… […]

“This rare private deal could score you up to 3,000% returns over time — or more!” That’s the attention-getting intro to the latest ad from Jim Rickards, who now has yet another paid newsletter service with Agora Financial — this one that he’s selling today is called Jim Rickards’ Private Dealflow, and it seems to […]

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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