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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

High-priced newsletter focused on junior mining stocks, launched in 2017. Sean Brodrick formerly helped with the Oxford Resource Explorer and also helmed the similar Red-Hot Global Resources letter for Weiss a few years earlier.

Tyler Laundon has another big “double” promise for his Cabot Small-Cap Confidential, and it’s about a battery company… but, unlike most of the battery pitches we’ve seen over the past year (almost all of which have really been about lithium), this is a lead-acid battery company. And, really, not actually a battery company at all… […]

I’ve got some notes (mostly brief, I hope) to share about the various quarterly earnings reports that have hit my Real Money Portfolio stocks this week… but I have gotten a pile of reader questions so I wanted to start with a look at Sandstorm Gold (SAND), which announced a pretty big deal earlier in […]

Lots of readers have asked about the latest “almost perfect stock” pitch from Louis Navellier for his Blue Chip Growth newsletter (currently $100 a year), so that’s the Thinkolator’s project for today: What is it? Here’s the tantalizing lead-in: “Imagine… a technology company whose product you don’t install, that reduces business costs by billions a […]

Focused on “using the relative safety of dividend stocks to execute conservative options trades.” Edited by Tim Plaehn, who runs several dividend-related services including The Dividend Hunter.

Service that is “looking for breakout returns from the exciting biotech sector.” Monthly issues/recommendations with weekly updates.

Premium-priced tech stock advisory that aims to find “unique opportunities hidden in the nooks and crannies of Silicon Valley.” Launched Spring of 2016 by Jim Pearce, who also runs the generalist Personal Finance for Investing Daily.

Publishes biweekly, with articles on big picture interest rate and economic matters as well as analysis of individual stock recommendations, both long and short. Tends to contrarian/value focus, with strong stance that market should determine interest rates and money should be backed by gold or hard assets.

I’m on vacation this week so won’t be penning my regular Friday File, but I did want to note that I just did get an order filled for a small position in PCSB Financial (PCSB), the bank that did a mutual conversion offering to its account holders last month and went public on the Nasdaq […]

Newsletter/service that presents private equity investments — in their words: “SMPI is our private equity deal service in which we scout opportunities, perform due diligence, and present our findings to members. “We negotiate favorable terms for these deals thanks to our powerful network and sweat equity, and you can choose whether you’d like to invest […]

As I noted was my intention in the Friday File last week, I’ve now added Skyworks Solutions to my personal portfolio… it’s going in as a 0.5% position at roughly $98 a share, for those who are keeping track (it will be in the next update to my Real Money Portfolio). No other real news, […]

We’ve seen some real shift in the dollar, interest rates, and gold over the past week or so, driven, it seems, mostly by the geopolitical risk that is headlined by Syria — I don’t have any idea how that will resolve itself, but under President Trump and his ability (and seeming inclination) to create “black […]

Another day, another crazy hyped-up pitch from Dr. Kent Moors — this time, he’s advertising his “entry level” Energy Advantage newsletter with a promise that he has found a way to profit from a “breakthrough superfuel.” So what’s the story? Well, let’s start you out with a look at the headline: “This Breakthrough ‘Superfuel’ is […]

Recent Author Comments

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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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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