Review by James, June 15, 2009

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Larry Edelson’s Real Wealth has made some very good picks recently, accurately taking advantage of the strong up move. Unfortunately, he publishes at Weiss Research and I also have a subscription to Martin Weiss’ SAFE MONEY, which continually preaches the sky is falling. Thus I didn’t take any of Edelson’s long recommendations and missed out completely! He uses CYCLE analysis to help with timing and apparently he’s quite good at it. Buys are generally in the natural resources which makes sense to me. Cost of the service is low too, $99/yr if I remember correctly. Overall, highly recommended!

Review by E.Matt, June 30, 2009

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According to my opinion the best and most intelligent newsletter I have run into and I have read and subscribed to about one hundred or more in the course of time.

Review by wesm, August 24, 2009

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I do not consider him any better than anyone else. cancelled my subscription after one year. Wesm

Review by Portfolio Man, August 25, 2009

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All,

I have had this subscription for 2 months and the jury is still out for me. This is my last Weiss subscription as all of the other ones have LOST ME TONS OF MONEY. Just see my posting on this site under “Million Dollar Contrairan Portfolio”. This sums up The Weiss Group and it subscriptions.

Unlike all of the other clowns at Weiss, Larry seems better to a degree (ie tallest midget at the moment). However, I know his strategy is natural resources but he is all over the board with cycle timing and than flips back to fundamentals. Maybe he has some type of combination he uses, not sure. Last time I said a person didn’t have a strategy, Claus Vogt strung up a 10 pick losing streak. I will give him a chance for another 4 months and than rate his performance. His last 3 months have been good but you could have thrown darts at the Wall Street Journal and got the same performance as everything is up. So I cannot give him that much credit because he has kept up with the S&P 500. If that is the case, don’t waste your money subscribing, just buy the S&P ETF.

Review by Goldbug, August 31, 2009

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Stumbled into Larry’s Real Wealth after cancelling Million Dollar Portfolio because Larry uses a more technical approach in trading than a fundamental approach which lost me some money in this recent rally. Larry and Claus seemed to have opposing views on the stock market but the bottom line is that Larry’s recommendations made back the money I lost from MCP and then some. I also made back some losses incurred with other newsletters as well. One of them is Andrew Gordon’s Red Flag Insider. Larry does acknowledge that the economy is still in the dumps and gold and commodities will skyrocket.

Review by disappointed, September 14, 2009

Lost money on many of his reccomendations. Stopped out. Some months he has stopped out as losses many of his reccomendations. The peopple who got in when gold was 350 are doing well.

Review by Nancy S, September 30, 2009

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So far so good with Larry since March 10th 09. Wish I had listened to him that first month as I was also short the market with Martin Weiss and lost a bundle on the market’s rebound. I’ve gained most of that back - some with Larry’s advice, some with advice from others and my own picks. Glad I didn’t do Claus’s contrarian portfolio, as I was very close but decided not to since I was not happy with their “hold” rec’s on the shorts while I was watching my gains go down the tubes. I’ll be very focused on Larry’s timing for 1) buying gold and silver, and 2)market turn for shorting - as he’s already said he believes that we will have a multi-month drop after the rebound fizzles out.

Review by Robert, October 22, 2009

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Over the past few years I have subscribed to many of the Weiss Products , ( now a thing of the past , losing a large % of my capital on their Reco’s ) which is how I became interested in Larry Edelson , I subscribe to Uncommon Wisdom and Real Wealth and while I do believe in his Investments , I also have lost money on his Recommendation’s , Gold was suppose to be in for a sharp substantial pullback , so we shorted it and even after it hit the stop loss he still echoed the pull back was intact , so we shorted it again hoping to regain our loss, it wasn’t until gold reached $1,060 that he then switched and said it was the , ” the next leg up with its 1st target $1,100 then $1,300 which he announced that he had predicted all along.They truly hype the crap out of any gains but don’t mention the loss’s . As far as I’m concerned the Weiss Group cover all base’s so someone has to be right . I originally went with Jack Crooks only to start the losing ball rolling , I didn’t think anyone could be more wrong than him , that is until Claus was introduced , who I followed and lost a packet and being Australian I’m disadvantaged via not being able buy the ETF’s or Shares etc that American citizens can so can only take advantage of the reco’s of Larry’s that are open on the ASX and thus his Gold reco which added more Loss . I should of listened to his Dow prediction and the Dollar however after so many Loss’s in the Weiss Camp I was very hesitant to go with anyone or anymore of their groups reco’s .At 1st I believed in them , seemingly being a godly , family orientated man doing his best to get his message out to us his fellow man and make Washington listen but have a very different opinion now. They are in it purely for the money and don’t give a second thought about you or preserving your wealth , only building theirs.

Robert

Review by csprings, October 29, 2009

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Subscribed 3 months ago.
Close to break even.
Best pick: RTP. Worst Pick: None have been terrible, but with the most recent pullback about 50% have stopped out for losses.

Pros: Specific monthly guidance on natural resource picks with entry points and stops. Metals, water, energy.

Cons: Don’t expect more than monthly guidance. It’s not clear his best picks are given out to those of us in the cheap seats. Constant upselling to more expensive subscriptions. Some of his best pickes are in ‘bonus’ reports, and as such, are not guided or included in the core portfolio. That leaves it up to us to manage or make decisions about these extra picks month to month.

This is more of a buy & hold based on his macro view than a trading service. He uses his cycle stuff to try to somewhat time entries, and the protective stops provide some protection, but it would appear that you need to have held your positions through one or two pullbacks, i.e. for a year or so of bull runup before you get far enough ahead that the stops are protecting a profit vs. limiting loss.

His cycles approach is interesting and different, but it is not clear that it is any less hocus pocus than other technical approaches. The charts he displays show clear contradictions…periods when the cycle said gold should have gone down and it went up instead. Other times the cycle would seem to indicate a large correction should have occurred, and instead only a small pullback occurred.

Out of the stable of Weiss advisors, Edelson’s cycle predictions stood him better in this last rally than the other advisors. As a result, new high priced Weiss subscriptions have been rolled out, one based on the cycles, and the most recent that has been clogging my inbox is his $89 Real Wealth report juiced up with options for $2,500.

It may be that I am getting paranoid, but I am beginning to wonder if it is worth it to subscribe to any advisor who maintains multi-tier pricing schemes…cheap seats vs. box seats. I spend too much time wondering what intel is being withheld from the cheap seats.

I’m still sticking with Real Wealth, but I’m not going to pay one penny more than the $89, and I hope other subscribers out there will make their dissatisfaction with this constant upselling known. Given the low operating overhead of this type of advice operation vs. publishing a real monthly magazine, $89 should provide plenty of profit for what is essentially a one man newsletter operation.

I’ll try to update this after I’ve been on board for a year.

Review by csprings, October 30, 2009

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I wish this site had a way to update a review.
I entered a review just yesterday, and then realized I really hadn’t done my complete due diligence on Edelson’s Real Wealth report.

I spend about 12 hours analyzing every trade the service has recommended since 2004. There could be some flaws with the data I downloaded, but I’m pretty sure it’s in the ballpark.

The service started mid-2004. I am only evaluating the trading advice. Larry advises investors to keep about 15-20% of their portfolio in gold- bullion, & gold funds like GLD. The other 80% he trades in a number of resource related stocks and funds. I only evaluated the performance of the 80% that is traded month to month.

The stock that has been kindest to him has been RTP.
The most unkind have been gold miners, I think. It seems like he buys a lot of gold miners of all sizes, and many of them stop out within a month or so, and none of them have hit a home run as far as I can tell.

Here’s the results on that 80% of the portfolio that is traded, keeping in mind this is roughly estimated from 4 years of newsletters and somewhat incomplete disclosure as to what exactly happens to all positions… a position will just disappear from the newsletter tracking from one month to the next, so you have to figure out what happened. For the most part the way the service works, is that a position is opened with a stop. Once it starts to be profitable, the stop gets adjusted upwards once a month or so until finally the stop is hit, and then it disappears from the newsletter. There were a few cases where specific sell recommendations were given, but 90% of the time the stock is just allowed to stop out. Occassionally the newsletter would note that the stop was hit, more often the stock just disappears.

OK I was going to list the results, extrapolated from a 100k portfolio:
2004: (-1.2k)
2005: +2.1k, 16 winners, 17 losers
2006: +19.3k, 11 winners, 11 losers. RTP was big win at 17k
2007: +26.5k 14 winners, 11 losers. big commodity runup
2008: -8k 13 winners, 33 losers. He continued to buy through downtrend. Some in cash, but still buying and stopping out pretty much all through the crash.
In 2008 he also made one short trade with SDS, but his timing was too early and it lost money. I suspect he saw that short ETFs are too tricky to time for a monthly service, in any case he went back to just trying to time long entries.
2009: the portfolio is up, but perhaps not as much as you would think given all the hype in the newsletters or compared to the major indexes. Many positions are now stopping out for losses with the most current pullback.

Larry would be quick to point out that my returns do not include the appreciation his gold holdings have added; fair enough. He also includes both closed positions and ‘open gains’ for each year’s performance. I only count the money once it is in the bank. That can skew a single year, but over several years it all shakes out.

Bottom line: simpler trend following systems that buy or sell the major indexed ETFs based on the intermediate trend are simpler and more profitable, on balance.

I committed too much of my portfolio to this too quickly, and after more careful review of 4 years performance, I am going to unwind my positions and move on, with the exception of GLD & RTP.

Review by sbwi, November 7, 2009

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Wish I had read the later reviews before subscribing in August. I agree with most of the criticisms and get annoyed with the waffling. Have followed 2 recos and am down on both. Would not subscribe if I had to do it over again.

Review by Portfolio Man, November 16, 2009

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All,

Well, I finally threw in the towel on Larry and Real Wealth as well. I cannot stand anything Maritn Weiss. I did a couple of trades with Larry and lost money as well (however not as big but still a loss). His first pick was to buy the short ETF for gold (lost on that one which is par for the course). Over 95% of all of my trades with all Weiss subscriptions have lost me money and I cannot take it anymore. None of them can pick a stock to save their life. I have a better chance of winning at roulette. Sorry Larry, you are keeping bad company with Martin and group and you still lost me money. I just do not feel comfortable following you anymore. If anyone stays with any Martin Weiss product, I wish you luck (as you will need it). They are the worst service I have ever encountered in the last 15 years.

Review by MikeDAman, November 25, 2009

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Just like another blogger noted the first stock out of the box was an inverse gold ETF. What a disaster, he says they’re small losses but when you add the commission fees in it’s much worse than he would have you believe. He says he’s in Bangkok but I’ve seen him here in Jupiter Florida about five times in the last several months so I’m not sure what the story with that is. Being a Martin Weiss stooge, no I mean Weiss analyst he’s only doing moderately well because the market is doing very well. Larry has a tendency to take credit for things achieved years ago and for making a mole hill of a success should like a mountain of success. I stayed with his service one year, did 100% of what he suggested and I lost money. He says he made money. I don’t know how he could have made money. I don’t think Weiss people really understand the meaning of the word truthfulness.

Review by FedUp, December 6, 2009

Update ALERT for ALL WEISS Publication subscribers, current & prospective.

Weiss is peddling a “new ELITE” subscription “service” for limited time (sign-up before 12/31/09)at a one time, lifetime cost of $595.00 - alleged savings of approx. $499 - touted value of over $10K based on 10 YEARS cost of subscribing separately to FIVE of his other monthly newsletters including his “flagship” ‘SafeMoney’(read reviewers LOSSES on this loser) Larry Edelsons ‘Real Wealth,’ Nilus’s ‘Dividend’newsletter, the ‘newer’ Weiss stable of ‘analysts’ publishing a ‘Currency’ newsletter etc…

Predictably, Martin Weiss boasts about his alleged ALTRUISTIC
motives - purportedly to protect & help ‘health & wealth’ of subscribers - and shamelessly claims this latest inducement to rake in millions in subscriber fees ‘almost’ caused a mutiny from his analysts…and of course his marketing & accounting staff ‘warned’ he will LOOSE millions in ‘RENEWAL’ fees to the individual newsletters he’s ‘bundling’ in this latest high priced, purported ‘LIFETIME’ subscription (which he will - but “lifetime” subscription ASSUMES two highly improbable things: 1)That his firm remains in business which, given the EXODUS & CANCELLATION rates by subscribers suckered by his empty hype & mounting losses & ABYSMAL word of mouth/bad press, is unlikely (bad press alone will diminish any ability to recruit/snare enough new suckers) and
2)that subscribers will have ANY money left to invest IF they follow the recommendations that have caused existing & former subscribers enormous losses & total loss of faith.

Why pay for a “lifetime” of anything from this outfit given the unknowable viability & longevity, never mind sustainability & abdication of accountability (suitability),
regardless of market risks? Even IF subscribers don’t loose their money believing anything these marketers put out, Weiss publishing firm wouldn’t be ‘bundling’ five of their staple newsletters at one price less than the price per - ALIENATING virtually all subscribers to each individual newsletters -
IF they weren’t desparate, loosing subscribers in droves…
They also have a spate of “new” higher price, bait & “UPGRADE” “enhanced” hooks scheduled for role out next year.

One line buried deep in the copy hype references the “$25.00 annual ’service fee’ as the ONLY additional cost to the ONE TIME LIFETIME cost of $595.00 for all five newsletters bundled… that’s $250.00 over ten years IF THEY are still in business, still publishing the same newsletters & no analyst of same LEAVES, departs for greener pastures or, heaven forbid, suffers some other unforeseeable fate AND most importantly, subscribers have any money left.
There are ZERO details about this “fee” but it is akin to the annual maintenance fee’s mutual fund companies charge as Custodian’s of IRA’s, or 12b-1 fees or “loads”…cute.
Weiss newsletters are NOT INVESTMENT BROKERS, MUTUAL FUNDs & as such, this “fee” MAY NOT be legal under SEC rules…?

This is just a warning to all subscribers of any of the Weiss publications - esp. the five he is ‘bundling’ in this so called “ELITE SERVICE” - you are OVERPAYING and about to be ripped off. WHY would anyone continue paying the yearly cost for ONE newsletter when Weiss is now bundling FIVE of his most ‘popular’ newsletters for half the cost of full price subscriptions to each of the five?
THAT is what he’s banking on…bait & switch all those ONLY paying for ONE at average cost of $98/year to “upgrade” by forking over an additional $497. (Nilus’s dividend newsletter is one of the less expensive ones at $49.00/year - his forecasts & some picks are frequently published on other web consolidation sites)

Bottom line: do the math, read all the negative reviews by all who have been BURNED and PROTECT YOURSELF & YOUR MONEY.
Weiss is in the publishing business with the profit motive of building base of PAID subscribers. He does not have any accountibility to you or your money - Caveat Emptor. He does NOT care about you or your money, no matter how much empty rhetoric he spews claiming he does care & ONLY wants to “help” you…He’s only interested in helping himself to YOUR money - not the return of your capital.
THAT is why they never publish ACTUAL results…

Thanks to Travis, the public isn’t as easily “duped.”

Review by Sheppard, December 9, 2009

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I am a new subscriber (2 months) of the Real Wealth Report. I sounded like a good option to protect part of my portfolio from what’s going on this crazy financial world right now. Unfortunately I read from these reviews that Real Wealth Report also does not appear to be a good hiding spot to preserve my wealth and make some extra money. If the Real Wealth Report does not work for the folks in this review, which comparable newsletter does? Could someone post some good alternatives to the Real Wealth Report here? Thanks!

Review by Eric, December 24, 2009

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Just started this summer.
I have been trying several newsletters since last spring, many of them with an end of the world flavour written by gold bugs: Jay Taylot, The Gold and Oil Guy,Real Wealth, Chris Mayer Capital and Crisis/Special Situation.

Mayer called the best shots by far. Real Wealth was OK. I did not follow many of his Larry’s recos as many companies he recommends are Chinese. I personally don’t trust small Chinese companies that much so I stuck to some basic companies like Statoil, Goldcorp, etc.

However, I won’t renew. I am sick and tired of the gold bug crowd with their end of the world vision and feeling of victimization against their governement “out to get them…”

THe only one I will keep is Mayer’s Capital and Crisis. The letter is fairly cheap, his thesis are well explained as well as the companies fundamentals. Also, Mayer is fully aware that many politicians and bankers can’t be trusted but he does not lose his time with them. Through that crappy fog, he looks for a way out through under valued companies. A more positive outlook, not based on victimization.

Capital and Crisis is in the same price range than Real Wealth but it is a better value to me.

All the best!