Author/Editor
Dr. David Eifrig
Publisher
Stansberry Research
Description
Coverage of retirement issues, discounts and deals, and investment strategies and concepts. Not focused solely on being an investment-picking letter but does make recommendations.
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Rating: 4.1/5. From 75 votes.
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4.1
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Rating: 4.1/5. From 75 votes.
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The wisest investment newsletter of the Stansberry bunch, along with the other Eifrig newsletter Income Intelligence. Conservative, long-term winning investments in a diversified range of markets.
Terrible advice! I have lost mucho dollars following the “strong buy” recommendations of this guy. Take a look at TEVA, BP, ETP, and several others to see what I have lost over the past year.
I too am a subscriber and find Doc’s advice typically spot-on. If Stansberry’s Top Performance stats are to be believed, Doc is by far the best of the bunch. While I don’t recall the exact figures, Doc’s credited with 130 winning trades in a row and previously he beat the 150 figure. To me, that seems pretty good…
I’ll add that I’m a biotech and medtech headhunter and have spent pretty much all my days in that world for 25 years so I do tend to follow his life science investments a bit closer than many others. I have learned a fair amount from the “Doc” over the years and think his is conservative, calm and pragmatic.
Pretty obvious simple recommendations. Most you will be already owning or well known stocks which whole world already knows or owns. And then lectures on put on sun screen to avoid cancer and eat healthy, wear Bluetooth while talking on cellphone kind of lame articles. Least useful newsletter.
The author Dr. David Eifrig does not like any negative criticism or negative feedback. If you do, they bully you and cancel your membership. Most recommendations are on how to eat healthy and how to control sugar and salt, what vitamins to eat etc. It’s for novice retired old people. The portfolio is pretty simple most stocks and mutual funds you already know and own. You don’t need newsletter for that. Be careful with this Author. Thanks
My experience must have come at a low ebb for the buy recommendations…three buys…three losses, although one, Shell Oil, has eventually turned profitable. Seems that I have a knack for choosing the lowers from market letters while others may buy into other choices and profit. For that reason, I am no longer a subscriber.
This is a well written newsletter with good stock picks most of the time. The 25% stop loss is a bit much, but overall it has done quite well for me over the last couple years while I’ve been a subscriber.
Have any of you (or know anyone) tried Dr. Eifrig’s income method of covering options? For $3,000, you get 2 years of his Retirement Millionaire, and a step-by-step videos with info on how to unlock your brokerage account for instant cash. His 95% success rate could allow you to collect $1,000s each month, starting immediately. Scam?
Retirement Millionaire is less than $100 per year. The cost you are referring to is for Retirement Trader which is entirely made of covered call option and naked put trades. To earn at least $1000 per month you have to start with a good size account and do a lot of trading. From his current portfolio, five of his 15 naked puts have ended in having to buy the stock, so you would have to have enough to cover that cost, he then sells covered calls on stocks owned.
Dr Eifrig probably recommends selling puts or put spreads. In option trading, this is has the highest probability of success.(Covered calls are probably the safest) You collect the “premium” up front. If you know a little about options, have a decent trading account and extra money that your broker wants you to have in the event the trades go against you, Barcharts.com actually gives you a listing of these types of trades along with ranked probabilities for success. They do this continuously every day for free. That is just a start. My advise. You can be successful for 10 times in a row with these trades, however, all gains could get wiped out if you have to take assignment if the stock price takes a big hit. Know the company you’re trading options in. Also pay attention to the direction of the trade. Is it Bullish or Bearish? Pay attention to the expiration dates and the earnings calendar of the company. I have found that there is higher risk if you hold options thru earnings announcement dates so I usually plan to get out before then and buy(or sell) option expirations accordingly. I chart all of my trades and get a gain loss calculation to understand my risk as well as my reward. Schwab Street Smart does a good job with this. Get some training. If not, you’ll pay for it in trading mistakers anyway. If this is too complicated then take Eifrig’s recommendations. His recommendations are probably usually pretty good.
The link for Barcharts.com is:https://www.barchart.com/options/put-spreads/bull-put?page=1&viewName=main&orderBy=breakEvenProbability&orderDir=desc
Just found this web site and wish I had found it a long time ago. Over a few of decades I’ve wasted many dollars on useless newsletters and advisory services that the reviews here would have helped me avoid.
In any case, Retirement Millionaire has been one of the “keepers”. It is not geared to make you big dollars fast. It is very conservative and over the 8 years I’ve been following the recommendations, it has proved to have solid, long term returns.
I’m a former aerospace engineer, “gear head”, believer in hard numbers, and active trader. I’m am online from market open to close every day. After the close, download the data from 10 active accounts and have daily performance spreadsheets going back 10 years. About 75% of the total portfolio is in equities, 10% in bonds and the remainder used for options both buying and selling, covered and naked along with spreads, butterflies, iron condors …
Dr. Eifrig’s recommendations are ones that I feel comfortable with not having to watch like a hawk. To that end, I have my wife’s and each of my boys portfolios 90% populated with his recommendations. My wife’s because she is very intolerant of risk and volatility makes her crazy(er). The boys because there will be a time when I won’t be there to manage their investments and it’s not looking like they will be taking an interest any time soon. With these positions, I’ll be comfortable to let the investments sit until they wake up the day before retirement and realize that maybe they should have put something aside.
Again, the recommendations are conservative, with little turnover. Dr. Eifrig won’t issue a recommendation every month if he doesn’t find one that fits the criteria. I believe this is ideal for someone who doesn’t want to watch their portfolio daily and would rather “check in” once a month and still be able to sleep at night.
One additional point. Dr. Eifrig (and many of the other Stansberry authors) are firm believers in “trailing stops” and frequently suggest 20%, 25%, 50% stops based on the expected volatility of the recommended issue. Several years ago I subscribed to a service called “TradeStops” that recommends stops calculated on the actual historical volatility of that specific issue. If you enter your portfolio into the database, the system will email you when the stop has been hit. Additionally, based on the volatility, it will recommend position sizing based on what you want your maximum loss size to be. Using this system has been the single biggest improvement by far to my investing returns over my 30+ year investing career. Again, because of my engineering background, I’m a fan of using actual numbers to drive decisions rather than succumbing to loud voices and arm waving.
On a more general topic, here is what I use to evaluate a new (to me) newsletter of system. I set aside a fixed amount that I’ll use for the testing. Then I’ll invest in increments of 5% of the trial amount, keeping a dedicated sheet in addition to my normal one. I track each trade for both total and net income (loss) along with the holding period, percentage and annualized percentage. It doesn’t take long to see if you’ve got a winner or looser on your hands. If I decide to keep the newsletter or system, I’ll use TradeStops for position sizing and stops on equities. For options recommendations/systems, I’ll start with a $1000 dollar net investment and after a number of successes, I’ll double the position sizing. I’ll continue this up to a maximum of 4% of the total portfolio. If I have a string of failures, I’ll cut the future investment size in half. To me, any option strategy that exceeds a 65% win rate is a winner, IF it results in net profits. It’s a subjective call as to if it’s worthwhile based on the size of the profit vs the effort and number of transactions.
One final word on Dr. Eifrig. I highly recommend using the covered call strategy (not the naked puts) from his “Retirement Trader” if you want to learn the ins and outs of options.
Sorry so long, hope it’s helpful.
loved your “crazy(er)”
Before TradeStops developed its volatility based trailing stops you had to pick a percentage or a fixed amount for your trailing stops. it is a relatively new development. So unless you subscribe to TradeStops, you still have to do it the old fashioned way. Also TradeStops has 3 different “methods” of exiting a position, of which the dynamic volatility is only one.
for retirement trader, a more aggressive version of retirement millionaire (requires much more attention , and has better returns over the long term and employs options )
In one sense covered calls and naked puts are 2 sides of the same coin. The returns are about the same. Theoretically. You can do covered calls in a IRA. Few brokers have a system that will let you do a naked put or even a put spread in an IRA. (I only know of one, who is merging with Schwab, who does not) But if you get cleared to do a naked put or put spread in a regular account, the return on money that is “locked up” is better with puts. A lot of the trades do not go your way, initially. That can be like 10% in one year to 50% or more in a bad year. With a covered call you can just place another covered call. With a put, you either take a lose (if you choose to do that), roll the trade forward (which few advisors mention as it seems to be “too complicated” for most readers), or get the shares put to your account and then you can sell a covered call. For the last one, that’s going to put a dent in your amount available for trading , or CASH.
Note, Options are not inherently more risky than stocks, IF you use them properly. If you use them properly, they can be less risky than stocks.
It’s been a while since I subscribed to Retirement Millionaire. As a source of investment recommendations it was a complete waste of money. That appears to be unchanged. The strong points of Retirement Millionaire are personal advice on lifestyle and purchasing discounts. Not recommended.
Eifrig is a conman. Stay away from him and his prodcuts.
How about specifics … not just personal judgements,
I got the come-ons, as a current subscriber. I’d like to know what is “America’s No.1 Retirement Stock?” (Dr, Eifrig, Brett Aitken, may not be the same)