Stock Gumshoe

Your friendly neighborhood Stock Gumshoe tends to focus on US-based investment newsletters and the hype they generate, but that’s not because this phenomenon is restricted to our fair shores. Newsletters and advisories proliferate around the world, even if the center of newsletter land continues to be the area within 100 miles or so of my home here in Washington, DC, where most of the larger publishers are located.

And sometimes, the newsletters from across the various ponds come up with something worthy of attention, too — the ones I’ve looked at most are Dan Denning’s publications from Down Under, partly because he is the indirect offspring of US investment newsletters and uses similar marketing, and the Fleet Street Letter from the UK, which is just as aggressive and colorful as our lovely advisory services on this side of the Atlantic.

Today, it’s Fleet Street that catches our attention again, though it’s not their flagship publication but Tom Bulford’s Red-Hot Penny Shares that graces the inbox on this chilly and gray Monday morning.

The stocks I’ve looked at from their stable in the past include Begbies Traynor, which has actually been a pretty decent pick for the last six months or so (this “corporate gravedigger” went up nicely in the few months after they teased it in April, but has fallen back down recently — and fallen further still if you’re looking at it in dollars, thanks to the Pounds long-predicted fall). Bulford in particular has also gotten some Gumshoe coverage before, including two energy-related names, one for a Falklands oil driller and another for a “torpedo techique” natural gas service provider. Corac, the “torpedo technique” firm, has actually done quite well this year, though with oil cratering the Falkland Oil & Gas pick has clearly had its troubles.

But still, we’ve seen some decent picks from this crowd in a year when there have been precious few of those, so why not give them another look?

Today’s stock being teased by the Bulford for the Red-Hot Penny Shares is another energy-related name, and like Corac it’s a company with a technology that might help the oil & gas industry to boost their reserves. Even with oil falling to near $60, all the big multinationals need more reserves, and they’re harder to get with national oil companies increasingly dominating the market … so what are we looking for here? Read the rest of this entry »

This comes from our mates across the pond, the folks at the Red Hot Penny Shares newsletter. And they’re just as worried about oil in Merrie Old England as we are here in grumpy new Washington, so clearly the newsletter editors over there are just as eager to get your blood bubbling about a hot new oil stock.

I looked at an energy-related teaser from these folks way back in January, by the way, so if you happen to have fond memories of the ‘ol “Torpedo Technique” gas compressor company, that was brought to us by these same Red Hot Penny Shares folks. That pick, by the way, looked pretty good for a little while but is now down about 30% in the last month.

And the Gumshoe just loves it, of course — the more ideas the better. I’d rather not pay for them, though, so let’s see if we can’t figure out just what company they’re talking about here. I think we all know that England has been a significant producer of oil and gas thanks to the North Sea, but we also all probably have been hearing for years about the decline of those fields … so where is this 10 billion barrels of oil?

I’m so glad you asked.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’re getting a little bit off the beaten path here — this one was sent to me by a few British readers, though with the enthusiasm that I’ve seen from many of my readers for new energy technology companies I thought there might be some broader interest.

The teaser (it’s here if you want to see the whole thing) is an interesting indicator of the fact that newsletter and stock tout services use Read the rest of this entry »