Review by Bob, September 21, 2009

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

Reviewed: Casey Investment Alert

Casey Investment Alert recommends highly speculative stocks, mostly junior mining stocks on the Toronto exchange. This is one of Casey Research’s “premium” services (read: uber expensive). Some of you looking at all that red in your International Speculator portfolios might be wondering, “Does Casey Research save all the good stuff for the high rollers paying for CIA?” Don’t worry, the short answer is that the main difference between CIA and IS is that CIA subscribers spend more money to lose just as much as you do.

Some of the “winners” are stocks you can never get, because they were bid up past the “buy up to price” within 5 minutes of the recommendation going out and never came back down.

Most of their recommendations from the past two years are still under water. The maddening part is that CIA has blown the few real winners it has had. CIA recommended Rare Element at about $1.00. It then crashed to less than half that like everything else. But then Rare Element started to recover. When it was about 20% up from the initial recommended price CIA told us to “take profits”. “Taking profits” on a stock that’s up only 20% means to sell it. So I did. The stock then tripled. The same thing happened with Romarco. In short, don’t buy when CIA tells you to buy, and don’t sell when CIA tells you to sell. That being the case, what do you need CIA for?

Many of their recommendations are for “private placements”. These are available only to qualified investors. To be qualified you need one million dollars in liquid assets and enough screws loose that you’re actually willing to buy a CIA recommendation. A rare combination indeed.

The bottom line: There are cheaper and easier ways to make money.