Review by Rog Blake, February 9, 2009

Overall Rating
Performance of Picks/Advice
Consistency
Interesting to Read/Educational
Customer Service
Value for the Money

Yet another offshoot from Doug Casey’s International Speculator, Big Gold focuses on gold and silver producers. While his other publications focus on highly volatile junior explorers, these companies are generally larger, easier to trade, and much more mainstream. For example, Yamana and Silver Wheaton are typical of their picks. I get this one for free since I already subscribe to other Casey newsletters.

Their picks got clobbered with the downturn, but many have recovered quite a bit of ground. Unfortunately, when the market tanked they advised their readers to be cautious, especially of silver companies. For a newsletter that constantly promotes the idea of gold going to the moon and silver following after, you’d think they’d see this as an enormous buying opportunity. Luckily, I ignored their advice and have reaped the rewards.

Their rationale on why gold will skyrocket may be interesting the first couple of times you read through it, but it gets old quickly. Also, like many other gold promoters, they trudge out the old argument that gold went to $850 in the last gold bull market and that the inflation adjusted price would be $3000 (or more) today. This always seemed like a weak argument to me.

I believe Big Gold is not too expensive (I think it’s $100/year), but their picks are pretty obvious. If you’re at all interested in gold and silver, you can find the same information for free on the web.