Become a Member

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

Richard Band is one of the pioneers of the investment newsletter industry, his Profitable Investing letter has been around for more than 30 years, but we don’t cover his teaser picks very often — probably partly because the letter doesn’t get aggressively promoted very often by his publishers. But they’ve sensed and opportunity this week, […]

Lots of folks have been asking me about Bitcoin and Ethereum and the other alt-currencies of late, for obvious reasons (well, it’s obvious why folks are curious about it — far less obvious why anyone would seek my wisdom on the subject)… so I’ve got an extended bit of blather about those currencies to share […]

Nicholas Vardy has been pitching this “secret” stock for a few years now — I first noticed his ads along these lines back in 2015, when he called the stock a “Buffett clone” that had beaten Berkshire by 70%, and then looked at it last year when he started using that “greatest wealth compounding machine” […]

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about the “Cash from Gold” pitch out of Agora Financial that hints at how easy it is to get “instant income.” So that’s today’s focus for you, dear readers. The big push at the end of the ad is “Yes, I want to collect at least $1,500 per month […]

Brett Eversole has a new ad letter out promoting subscriptions to True Wealth, Steve Sjuggerud’s “entry level” newsletter service over at Stansberry, and it sounds awfully exciting — how do we make 500% returns, and what’s the “tiny device that’s eating the world?” Well, the ad is all about mobile payments — using your cell […]

“These 4 “Penny Defense Stocks” Are Primed to Soar on… The Pentagon’s Trillion-Dollar Spending Jackpot” That’s the promise made by the new ads for E.B. Tucker’s Casey Report, which is pitching the stocks that they think will become the “new ‘Military Industrial Complex’” as they grow from small-cap size to compete with the megacaps like […]

Note: the first version of this article contained some errors in price and calculation in the examples given, now corrected. I wrote some about Michael Lewitt’s Zenith Trading Circle when it was launched last September, and there have been several discussion threads about it over the past six months as well. From what I hear, […]

Jimmy Mengel is pushing a new Marijuana stock, one which apparently just recently became public, for his Marijuana Manifesto service… so what is it? He calls it a “Marijuana Streaming” company, so that’s music to my ears — I’ve long had a fondness for the “free upside, limited downside” of the streaming and royalty companies […]

Several years ago, Tom and David Gardner at the Motley Fool had a pitch called “The $2.2 Trillion War for Your Living Room,” all about what they described as both the “Death of TV” and “Television 2.0” — it was widely distributed and they used roughly the same ad, off and on, for about four […]

Lots of news on companies in my Real Money Portfolio this week, so I’ll try to keep it fairly brief and share my updated thoughts on a bunch of them. Here goes! Shopify (SHOP), the e-commerce service provider that has been so aggressively pushed by the Motley Fool over the past year, released another fantastic […]

Recent Author Comments

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[...]

Go to Comment »
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 [...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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 :)[...]

Go to Comment »
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![...]

Go to Comment »
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 :)[...]

Go to Comment »
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.[...]

Go to Comment »
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.[...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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 [...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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.[...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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,[...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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.[...]

Go to Comment »
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.[...]

Go to Comment »
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[...]

Go to Comment »
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.[...]

Go to Comment »

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.

More Info