Review by Frank, May 10, 2009

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Leebs Million Dollar Portfolio
Portfolio has only been a major money losser and customer service - delivery of promised free books for subscribing - has been none existent. Nothing but emails saying that it is delayed and will come soon is all I have received in 3 months. Sent in my cancellation request today - swaiting to see on refund.

Review by Charles, August 24, 2009

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I am very disappointed with this service. After subscribing found out that there was only one holding in the portfolio, an ETF short position and it’s way under water. Canceled after three days, that was over a month ago.
Still waiting for the promised refund. When I call all I am getting is excuses.

Review by John, September 28, 2009

Leeb sees a severe crash coming. Bets heavily on that fall in the market. I did not think this was investing–just gambling. Sees gold charging well above $1000.00. No info on stocks to hold, as yet. So, I cancelled within one week. Said my refund would be prompt. No action on his part for 10 days. Still waiting and hoping. I suspect he is an honest man, but the service is poor. No books as promised and as I said, “no refunds as yet.”

Review by Martin, October 3, 2009

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Dr. Leeb is a brilliant man, but he got bamboozled by some mathematicians into believing that their analytics could predict changes in the broad market. I gave him 3 months paper trading his choices and lost a virtual bundle. Last month he sold his position on the SP shorties and embarked on a bizarre and complicated put strategy and buying on margin. He is trying to make up for lost ground by doubling down - very risky and contrary to his promise of being a low-risk way to make quadruple your money. He stated lately that you should only have a modest portion of your funds in his strategy - how’s that for confidence?

I pulled the plug and did get a prorated amount back and I am satisfied. For much better readings on trends, email me at askportner@gmail.com. I have found a service that you might like.

Review by Estefano, October 22, 2009

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I am still a subscriber. I signed up in February and his one pick, Short S&P500 ProShares (SH) is way underwater. He has since sold that loser and doubled down by shorting the S&P and buying gold and long treasuries. He doggedly follows his MDA indicator which is flashing that a big bear market is imminent. I guess the contrarian part of me believes him. Luckily, I didn’t compleely follow him by shorting 150%. His advice on buying gold has kept me whole…

Review by Pete, October 30, 2009

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Isubscribed to this back in February and it’s been down since the second week. His first recommendation, which was the only one for months was the ETF SH, the short of the S&P500. After being under water for a couple of months he sold that and tried to go even more bearish on margin while buying a closed end gold fund. I suppose that’s meant to be a hedge since his first trade was a loser. As others have commented, a book was promised that didn’t come until I wrote and asked for it. About a month later it arrived. I did cancel about a month ago, and am still waiting for the prorated refund. I’d stay away from this, although SH may still be profitable if the gloom and doomers are correct.

Review by Ripped Off, November 4, 2009

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Cancelled the service almost three weeks ago. They do not respond to any email. They answer the phone and promise the refund is being processed. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Regardless of the value of the financial advice they have shown zero customer service. Question is who to file a formal complaint with their refusal to send the refund.

Review by Recent subscriber, November 24, 2009

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Used the service for about 1 month. Total waste.
Canceled within the trial period and was promised
a refund. However even after 2 months, did not get
the promised refund. Now, I have disputed my credit
card charges, hopefully would be able to get my
money back through that means. Not only is Stephen
Leeb a useless waste person, he is also a big fraud.

Review by Jim, November 25, 2009

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Leeb has been holding the bearish EFT from shortly after the March low - waiting for the market to retest that low. Then he increased the (underwater) position and then later doubled down using margin. He swapped it for another bearish bet, but the position has continued to go against him.

With that said, I have done well using the comments on gold stocks from his daily emails and from the teasers for his other services.

A piece of advice - if you contemplate subscribing to any of his newsletters ASK FOR THE PERFORMANCE RECORD of closed positions. I had done that and the records were NOT impressive. I concluded that it was all snake oil.

Review by Mike, December 12, 2009

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A total loser from day one. If Leeb’s money is where his mouth is he will soon be bankrupt.

Review by R. Tracer, January 2, 2010

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Dr. Leeb’s new service is a total waste of the reader’s time and money, in my opinion. Once you read one issue, you have read them all. I cancelled and it took 3 months and 4 phone calls to get the pro-rata refund. In the last phone call, I was referred to a “supervisor” who recorded the call. I rate customer service a zero. I strongly suggest that you spend your investment subscription money elsewhere!

Review by Lynn, February 18, 2010

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This wasn’t what I thought it would be and didn’t work with our current investment strategy. I called to get a refund and they said they would issue a full refund right away. 10 business days later and no refund. Now I will dispute the transaction with American Express and they will go after them and I will get my refund. Unfortunately I should have looked them up on this website before subscribing! Had I read all the bad reviews, I wouldn’t have subscribed in the first place.

Review by Dale, February 20, 2010

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I would have given zero stars if that option was available. Leeb claimed he had found the holy grail of tools with this MDA indicator and that it was thoroughly back tested. His recommendations were to rely on this tool. I have determined that his tool is worthless as a timing aid for when to buy and when to sell. Also, Leeb advised certain precious metals investments; these recommendations were not based on MDA results, hence, Leeb abandoned his own tool and changed his investment methodology. Leeb started with $250k in Feb09; now its down to $150k in Feb10. Hardly a good start toward having $1M in three more years.

Review by Peter Dannenfelser, February 20, 2010

I subscribed on December 16th, 2009 and after revieving the material, I decided it was not for me since I am a small investor. I called on DEcember 23, or 24, and cancelled and the credit of $495. has NEVER been refunded to my Discover Card

Peter Dannenfelser - and yes, I am unhappy with the service.

Review by Debra, February 22, 2010

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Clueless is the best adjective for this service. This one is just as bad as another million dollar service I had. That one was run by Martin Weiss. Both men are good at marketing, poor at investing other peoples money as well as their own and both will eventually end up in court defending themselves from multiple lawsuits.
I’m still waiting for my refund from Leeb. I canceled his service over seven weeks ago and I’m getting worried because all I’ve gotten is basically “the check’s in the mail”.
Steer clear of this poor service.

Review by Steve Day, February 23, 2010

Let me just add my voice to the reviews already written, ditto! Don’t waste your money on this letter. Based on his brilliant market thesis, “Market Dynamics Analytics” (MDA), this letter so far exhibits poor timing. Basically this portfolio is short the S&P 500, long gold and silver and long treasuries. It’s down about 40% since it was initiated, mostly due to being short the market, via SH and now via selling short SPY, all on 100% margin.
Nothing good to say here. Sorry Dr. Leeb, you need to take MDA back to the drawing board, it’s a failure.
Certainly not worth the $500 fee for one year of sub par performance and advice.

Review by Bill B., February 25, 2010

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Subscribed last spring. Tried to cancel in December. FINALLY got my refund end of February after repeated calls and emails. Get this, the operator told me that they could only process a certain number of refunds per week… That should tell you all you need to know. Interesting reading, but that’s about all. They’ll be no MILLION dollars in 4 years.

Review by Lukester, February 25, 2010

I agree with MARTIN who posted in October of 2009, that in fact Dr. Leeb is a brilliant man. I’ve known and read his work for a decade, and he’s most assuredly a far better and more astute market observe than the Weiss Group. Also, I think Leeb has far, far more integrity than the Weiss Group. That said I also fully trust all the reports here from members, about what a crappy service this “Million Dollar Portfolio” has been. Dr. Leeb got two Masters degrees and a PHD *concurrently* (I think at the University of Chicago) and is said to be able to resolve quadratic equations in his head. =:-). He’s a decent man, and was one of the very earliest to warn of Peak Oil and “Peak Commodities” fully a decade a go.

I was there reading him on these topics and he proved prophetic. His flagship newsletter The Complete Investor is a very solid newsletter with a very large circulation in the markets and goes back 20 years! It’s thesis has been “long and strong commodities” for the past decade and it’s been very right on this thesis.

So he’s definitely getting tarred and feathered a bit here on this thread, but I have little doubt in all the contributors here being correct, he simply blew it, big time, exactly as MARTIN has pointed out, by placing this blind trust in a couple of Mathematic’s professors cooking up some exotic mathematical algorithms to “tell us” what the market was going to do. The irony is that this MDA algorithm has been flashing a big bear signal on the markets for the past year (since the March 2009 lows) - which went **flatly against** Leeb’s own long time flagship publication - The Complete Investor - which was instead in it’s effective positions, remaining **long** the entire commodities spectrum all this time!

We can only roll our eyes heavenward and wonder how long it will take the long esteemed Dr. Leeb to relinquish his new algorithm toy. The supreme irony overall, is that the underlying thesis, that this massive rally from March 2009 was indeed a very large bear market rally, is in all probability a CORRECT THESIS, which is what was making his MDA indicator insist on remaining short or out of the markets all this time. And we do indeed have a high probability of another severe bear market retest this year which will (partially) validate it.

But of course all that will serve to evidence in hindsight, is that Dr. Leeb’s MDA indicator got the underlying truth right, but completely flubbed the TIMING, which renders it’s future performance questionable to say the least. This also illustrates the wonderful newsletter intelligence we can glean at Stock Gumshoe. Here’s an author, Dr. Stephen Leeb, who really has a superb reputation on the long term. He remains very highly regarded by many of us, and is not to be confused with Martin Weiss *at all* in terms of his overall stature. But as the Stock Gumshoe contributors clarify, he’s really blown it with this latest product, and should retire it in a hurry before his long and good former reputation gets too tarnished by it.

I also remain disturbed by the difficulty subcribers have had to obtain prompt refunds as reported here. I do know Dr. Leeb and his group to have been highly reputable for several decades until now. They are right up there with The Aden Forecast in terms of seriousness and quality - or ,will I need to say “they were”?

Review by bill ripley, March 14, 2010

I subscribed in November 2009 and cancelled in December 2009. As of this writing, I am still calling and writing in an attempt to obtain my promised refund. In addition to having not received my refund, I was *immediately* solicited by email to *swap* my Million Dollar portfolio subscription for another (ETF trader). I declined, and since that time have cancelled all Leeb subscriptions. In the interest of fairness, I must tell you that the refund for other subscriptions *was* prompt. I cannot imagine what’s going on with Million Dollar Portfolio, but it has left me with a permanent bad taste in my mouth after 10 years of enjoying my subscription to ‘Complete Investor’