Review by john sloan, February 2, 2009

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HI everyone
I have all my monthly Safe Money issues plus the special alerts back to Oct 2003. When Travis posted the idea of writing these reviews, I for fun went back and wrote a summary of each issue - too long to post here now. But Martin Weiss has been right on - early noting the coming collapse of housing - mortgages, banks - recommending gold and some funds. Maybe a bit too early in adding inverse funds as shorting is always very volatile. His business for years has been investigating banks and insurance companies and his ratings scores are more valid than Moody or S&P and the others. He has testified to congress repeatedly about the overall weakness of the financial system. Now they have a web site also and a free newsletter - Money and Markets - but Safe Money is quite reasonable - I think about 50 a year.
I would be happy to post or send my summary of monthly issues of Safe Money - For now I will note that the current -January 2009 - issue continues his theme - headline is “EPIC battle to prevent collapse” - He expects DOW to go to 5500. He writes’ Wall street melt down is inevitable” He recommends gold bullion, dollar inverse funds, T-bills, several reverse index funds.
I have not bought more than a few of his recommendations but have made money on all that I bought.

Review by Daniel Victor, February 7, 2009

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I’ve only subscribed since October 2008 [wish I'd seen it a few months earlier!]. The advice is very sound,and the report really makes sense.Two caveats only - ETFs decay over time as the underlying indices rise and fall - especially the ultras.Also,they keep tring to sell you other,more expensive stuff.

Review by John McKay, February 7, 2009

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Performance of Picks/Advice	Not Rated
Consistency	Not Rated
Interesting to Read/Educational	Not Rated
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money	Not Rated

Although this newsletter’s recommendations are ultra-conservative, nevertheless they have been “right on the money”. The advice is sound for all who wish to protect capital. The work done on banks and insurance companies has been invaluable. I have not bought any of Weiss’ recommendations, but I believe him to be genuine in wishing to help people preserve their capital. Of course, other services are pushed, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it? They are in business, after all.

Review by Barbara, February 7, 2009

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I have subscribed to Safe Money for 7 years and find it very easy to read, informative and accurate. At times I have felt Weiss was too alarmist, yet he has always been right. I feel that he is honest and really wants people to preserve their wealth and prosper.

Review by Eleanor, February 9, 2009

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I have subscribed since 1995. His advice is sound, but sometimes he expounds on his father’s experience too extensively: but then again, it puts all his advice into perspective. He is not a trader, and his reccommendations are conservative. He has called this catastrophy over the past few years, using sound economic principles. I find both Dr. Weiss and his team a valuable souce for well thought out and knowledgeable guidance.

Review by Stan, February 15, 2009

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Most of his picks are terrible. Right now, he wants everyone to put most of their money - 75% into short term treasury bills. Sure, that’s safe for not losing, but it’s not safe if you miss the opportunity to ride the initial bull charge up.

I like some of his commentary and he has made some correct calls over the last few years. I like his calls about the economy and certain sectors, but his investment picks aren’t too good.

He was early to tell people to get out of the market and he’ll be late to tell people to get into the market.

Review by John, February 17, 2009

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Very good value and very accurate forecasting (warnings) also. Smart guy. Only negative is the barrage of email ads for more expensive stuff.

Review by A, February 21, 2009

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Either Stan is a disgruntled past “Safe Money Report” employee or he might be employed by a financial institution that Safe Money revealed a financial weekness in or maybe he works for another newsletter. As the name of the news letter implies, Safe Money’s primary concern is to keep your money safe. Safe Money has done an admirable job of warning their subscribers about where they think the market and sectors of the market are heading. I have read the free and the subscription services of Safe Money for years. If I had to say something negative about Safe Money it would be that they have on occasion been a bit early before their prophetic warnings have come to pass, but they sure do have a knack for being right. Thay are at the top of my list for being a trustworthy Financial newsletter.

Review by Joan, February 21, 2009

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Value for the Money

Weiss is a permabear, so he’s right recently. His recommendation to go heavily into a Treasury $ mkt at <1% interest was fed by his extreme fearmongering… and he has a bit of a conflict of interest given that he owns/runs a Treasury $ mkt with something like triple the industry management fee.
His insurance company and bank ratings (available thru thestreet,com) are excellent and much tougher than normal ratings.

Review by Edwin Schmidt, M.D., February 23, 2009

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I have taken this and many other newsletters over the years. I believe Martin Weiss’s advice is the most reallistic and timely that I receive.

Ed Schmidt

Review by Randall S., February 24, 2009

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I really took notice when Martin posted a serious warning back in 2007. Of the five letters I receive, I look forward most to Safe Money. His inverse ETF recommendations have helped stem the carnage by about 50%. I feel his conservative views, borne out by his father’s recollections from the 30’s Depression, are serving his clients well in this fiscal meltdown.

Review by Bob Brown, March 15, 2009

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Yes, I think it’s true, as Joan says, that Martin Weiss is a perma-bear. In bull markets he tends to be wrong, and in bear markets he’s right. If he has a newsletter archive that goes back 25 years or so, you can check this out. If I remember correctly, he said that his father made a bundle investing borrowed money in the Great Depression, which seems to have galvanized him into bear-ishness for his entire current incarnation.

To be fair, I have not subscribed to “Safe Money Report,” but about 20 years ago I did buy his bank rating publication (now apparently a part of “SMR”), which I did find very useful and informative. (I’d like to find his current bank ratings without having to subscribe to “SMR.” Can anyone help me out? [Would love to find a "safe" bank -- probably a local one.])

And, in about 2000 (give or take a year — I can’t remember exactly) my father subscribed to a pair of options trading “services” offered by Weiss and his cohort, Larry Edelson. He lost about $200,000 in just a few weeks by following their picks to a “T.” It can be said that they were nearly 100% consistent in picking losing options trades. I know because since my father had poor eyesight, I placed the trades for him.

Review by Bud, March 20, 2009

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I subscribed to Stock Options Trader and promptly lost 25K. I used to subscribe to Safe Money and around 2002 the permabear called the mortgage crisis 7 years in advance. Safe Money is too safe. Edelson was responsible for all the above mentioned losses including the ones with Joan up above, he was completely out of control and way off the mark in those days. I did however respect their prompt response when I asked for the receipt for Stock Options Trader and got it. After I received it, I joined the class action lawsuit by some Florida lawyers who tell me that at least I will get a settlement for the cost of the service.

Review by OT, March 22, 2009

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He is a permabear and given the last year he’s right. The nightmares he’s given me helped me pull out of the market in Oct so mission accomplished. His picks were bad during the boom years but pretty good now. Yes he bombards you with more expensive package deals incessently. I’ve subscriber for 10 years. He does show you how to preserve your money. I’m not complaining.

Review by Spenser, March 22, 2009

Hey Bud! Could you give me some more info about the class action lawsuit? I’d like to join up but don’t know how. Thanks!

Review by andrew, March 22, 2009

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If 50000 people buy an investment package for $1500 per subscriber to follow a $1000000 investment strategy then you get what you deserve. Do the maths folks. Who do you think has won on this deal?

I had some respect for this crowd until a month ago. This would be one of the best scams I have ever seen. The man has no conscience, despite all his rhetoric and hand wringing about caring about people. I am just amazed at the gullibility of ordinary folk.

Only Elliott Wave International seem to have a handle on this financial mess - and a 30 odd year record of good advice.

Review by NYCguy, March 22, 2009

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I subscribed to Safe Money around 2000. I later subscribed to Larry Edelson’s “Real Wealth” around 2005. Both reports were about $89 or $99/yr at that time. I have since monitored their recommendations because they send you almost daily email once you have been a subscriber.

I would have to say that Weiss is a Permabear, or as the saying goes; “a broken clock is right twice a day”. Throughout the largest bull market of this century, Weiss was warning that a crash could happen any day, and always recommended keeping most of your money in Treasuries. As a result of this terrible advice, I did not take full advantage of the stock-options issued to me by the companies where I worked. I always sold my options too soon, missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.

Now Weiss is correct, the bear market he was predicting for over 20 years has finally hit us with devastating results. But the profits being made now with shorts/puts will never make up for the decade or more of being too conservative during the biggest bull market of my lifetime.

Larry Edelson is definitely a gold bug, and hates silver to the point that he excludes it entirely from his research. I found this to be rather strange. I didn’t do well with his picks.

Other analysts working under the Weiss umbrella often contradict some of what Weiss is saying. Lately, Weiss was so convinced that this would be a deflationary only depression, and was highly touting Jack Crooks who has been wildly bullish on the dollar, and very bearish on the Euro and gold. As the last week illustrated, clinging to one idea too tightly is a good way to suffer major losses. The dollar plunged by a record amount, and the Euro and gold soared, all contrary to what Weiss/Crooks have been predicting relentlessly, day in and day out. If you visit Crook’s blog he is still convinced that we are in a dollar bull market! Weiss has moved on and is now touting a new analyst from Germany who plays both the downside and the upside. A little late Dr. Weiss, seeing as your followers have suffered life altering losses from your previous “broken clock” predictions. Let’s hope we can make enough profits now so that we don’t end up pushing shopping carts and living under bridges. Disclosure, although I continue to follow their blogs, I am no longer a subscriber for obvious reasons.

Review by Contessa June, March 25, 2009

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I noticed a big change in Weiss’ free newsletter a few months ago.
I found out soon after that he was bought or joined with the Street.com. I believe one of Agora’s publications. They deal in EXTREMELY lengthy stories and partial info to get you to join their paying publications.
I have noticed several newsletters now doing same thing..I click them off.
I have lost faith in Weiss and his group. Especially with his new :
“I am putting up one million of my own money (of course, if enough of you fall for this I will have made it all back)

Also , his online seminars are a waste of time. All sales pitch.

Review by fabien hug, March 25, 2009

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Performance of Picks/Advice	Not Rated
Consistency	Not Rated
Interesting to Read/Educational	Not Rated
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money	Not Rated

I was almost ready to subscribe when he started to tout a way to safeguard one’s retirement a couple of month ago. I watched the video and he was promoting his new currency service with Crock “there is always a bull market in currencies”. I really dropped when I saw that; you lost 50% of your assets in the stock market and you are supposed to make it back gambling on currencies!
That was it.

Review by Bob S, March 25, 2009

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I agree with many of the other reviewers - Martin seems to be a permanent bear. I’ve been a subscriber for nearly 5 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited that he’s finally hit a home run. He did a great job in September telling subscribers to completely get out of the market. But I also fear he will be late telling folks to get back in.

I am down on two of the inverse index ETFs he recommended. I didn’t buy them right away, but with the market now lower than when I did buy them, I find the loss of value disappointing.

I do like his cautious approach, which is why I’ve been a long term subscriber. Many may mock the fact that he recommends Treasuries, or big cash positions - but had I kept everything in cash for the past 5 years, I’d be way ahead of where I am now.

One note in response to Andrew’s review here about Weiss’s new Contrarian Portfolio service - I don’t consider it a scam to get a lot of subscribers to sign up for a service that they think might be valuable. Weiss is in business to make money - how is that a scam? I signed up to try it out, and the best thing about it is the communication. They are still working out improvements - but it is the only service that I’ve subscribed to where subscribers can blog to each other about the recommendations. And Claus, the money manager handling the $1,000,000 account is even responding to issues that many will bring up in the blog (like stop losses). So time will tell whether that service is going to pay for itself or not. The service has only been in existance for a week so far.

Review by Ray, March 25, 2009

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I have subscribed to “Safe Money” for almost two years. The subscribers that label him a “Permabear” may be right because everything I have read in the service has been bearish. That having been said, if I had gone to cash (Treasuries) a year ago as he advised, I would be way ahead of the game. Like Bob S., I too am trying the Contrarian Portfolio. It is fully refundable within 90 days. I’m only using one tenth the value of the reccomendations and will use the rest of my portfolio to pursue much more bullish positions when the time comes if their recco’s do not.

Review by newowl, March 25, 2009

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I have subscribed for years. I always understood that he was ahead of the curve about predicting the fall of housing etc. I think that he has been waiting to duplicate his father’s success during the depression. He can’t see the trees because he is only interested in the forest.
That said he has made some good picks along the way. For the price there is a lot of good information in his newsletter.
The newsletter that I trust for market timing advice is The Shepherd Investment Strategist. It is much cheaper than the new newsletter that Weiss is promoting and will do the same thing; it will recommend sectors and strategies at an appropriate time.

Review by Smitty, March 27, 2009

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I have had numerous investment advisory newsletters for 3 to 10 years including Agora Financial Reserve for which I paid $5000 about three years ago for life time subscriptions to a half dozen or more newsletters–those of which actually report their portfolios have done poorly since mid 08 with the exception of Don Amoss. Agora’s general advice to buy gold has also fared well.

But I digress: I’ve had Weiss Safe Money and Edelson Real Wealth for about 8 years. I’ve had mixed results. Although their recomendations often make a lot of sense, somehow I haven’t made much $ following their advice. However, I admit that I failed to follow their advice in the last several years to sell investment real estate–I should have. Also, I did not follow Weiss’ advice during the bull market of the 90s and made a ton of $$$, but failed to limit my losses in 08 so lost 1/2 a ton of $$$.

To BOB BROWN above:
Yes Bob, it was as bad as you recall. Because of a different class action suit (against the trading exchanges-details of which I don’t understand), I was recently required to submit all the trades made for me in 2004 as recommended by the Weiss Options program. I believe Weiss eventually paid a fine related to the program for some technical reason. At any rate the trades were automatically executed by a brokerage house so I didn’t really understand it or notice what they bought. In that program, I naively trusted their judgement (and knew even less about options then than I do now). I invested $50,000. After about a year I closed the account with about $2000 left, almost a 100% loss. If a reader is thinking, “What fool would let himself lose almost 100%??–I agree, I was a fool, based on having been stopped out of significant profits in the past,trusting Weiss, knowing little to nothing about options, and in the middle of the slide, there were just enough gains to not close the account. Get this: when I recently had to submit the details of every trade to the class action, there were about 30+ trades and EVERY TRADE WAS A PUT!!!. All PUTS in the middle of the biggest bull market in decades or maybe ever.
So why haven’t I rated Weiss lower or abandoned these losers? Maybe I never learn, or just maybe, none of the other advisory letters are any better, they are just permabulls. (I was not following Elliot Wave until 2009. Elliott Wave definitely called the bear slide and made huge profits). The other advisory newsletters just keep recommending buying long. I can’t recall any of them advising me to go to cash in mid 08. The $50,000 I lost with Weiss Options pales beside the massive losses I took in 08. The Weiss view that we don’t always live in Bull markets is an valuable balance to other advisors which always recommend going long.

To Bud:
I also would like to recover my fee on the Weiss Options, could you forward the contact info?

Does a fool ever learn? I don’t know, because like others above I have invested in Weiss’ Million Dollar Contrarian venture. His German manager of the account who has actually directed/advised specific investments for German banks, sounds to me to be much more of a an account manager/investor, whereas I think Weiss is more of a economist/theorist. Edelson sounds good at times, but I don’t know if he’s ever managed big money. For myself, I believe small investors are like high school football players taking on an NFL team. I hope Weiss’ German advisor at least played college ball.

Smitty

Is Weiss a permabear? He claims that like his father that after the markets tank even further and that when the economy is truely recovering that he’ll go long. We’ll see.

Re Elliot Wave: I think Weiss gets a lot of his thinking from Elliot wave, just takes out the tecnical and adds fundamental data. Elliot has been warning about a big correction in gold and silver–so far I’ve lost a lot of $ because I’ve been selling the metals over the last few months.

Smitty

Review by Bud, April 2, 2009

Spenser, it is too late to join the class action. I was solicitated from that law firm a year ago this past January. You only had a couple of months before the trial which ended in a settlement to respond with all kinds of documentation including the receipt. You may have gotten the solicitation and thought it to be junk mail; at any rate, I’m sorry that you weren’t able to participate. I am still waiting for the check.

Review by jan, May 2, 2009

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I have subscribed for 18months, believing there was credibility because of the safe bank ratings.
I believe the recent effort to get subscribers to buy his book at 29.99 and send copies to their politician, to friends etc, buy multiples and get an equivalent value in a service from Weiss, was plain opportunism. He lied by saying it would cost them nothing. He aimed to get 50,000 signatures to take to Washington, and you could put in a signature if you bought a book.t was self promoting opportunism, and profitable. As are his video/online seminars nastily promoting his products.
Additionally several months ago I responded to his request for “help” as in “I need your help”" to find out what we really need to know. Oh, I read the broken hearted responses from people who had lost homes and savings, and Weiss recommended they buy BONDS. When every sane analyst was fully aware of the danger. As well he wanted them to sign up with him to manage their money etc, he is, in my opinion, exploitive and manipulative.
I am revolted in fact. I really warn people to be careful of this man.
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Review by RDC, May 2, 2009

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Anyone who expected any advice and recomendations to happen overnight would been and will still be disapointed. While the market is being manipulated by proping up failed institutions anything can happen. The market will eventualy fall and reflect the economy instead of the hype, spin and hot air it is based on at the moment

Review by Frank J, May 2, 2009

Anything offered by Dr. Weiss or his group (including Edelston “the gold expert”) should be viewed with a jaundiced eye. I once paid 5K for an options newsletter of Weiss’s and then lost my shirt in one month following his recommendations. So, did many others who put their trust in him. Consequently, the SEC fined him heavily, pointing out Weiss’s blatantly false advertising and other deceptions in arriving at their decision. The fact that he continually advertised (via a barrage of e-mail ads) that his latest option picks made money when they actually lost money is indisputable, as I saved his ads and submitted them to the federal investigator assigned to the Weiss case. In sum, Dr. Weiss is like a broken clock. Twice a day the clock is correct through no effort of its own.

Review by Dave, May 4, 2009

The two biggest mistakes I have made in my investing “career” were to not get out of the market a year ago, and then later to follow Martin Weiss’ advice to sell everything, which I finally did in late February, thus missing one of the largest upturns in market history. I would be far better off financially had I never heard of Weiss Research. He is still predicting a depression. Perhaps he will be right (his arguments are still compelling), but as of now his followers have paid a very high price in missed gains and have not done well in various inverse ETFs.

Review by Jimmy, May 5, 2009

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I’m on my 3rd or 4th year of subscription. I’ve followed most but not all recos, however with only a portion of my investments. Results, I think, are mildly positive. As indicated in these previous reviews, “premature” is the best description of Weiss advice. And I’m beginning to think that also applies to the new “Contrarian” letter.

Review by Giuliano Gatta, May 12, 2009

Dear Stock Gumshoe:It has something of a trickster.He keeps sending you requests for new services that are just one a repetition of the other.But what I will never forgive him is his pounding on silver in 2001.He started calling it a dead duck and never stopped not even when facts denied it .The missed gains he caused had been enormous because I was invested in silver.To me it has been the greatest blunder I have ever seen.He completely missed uranium and base metals bulls.The only good thing is he gives you your money back if you ask for it.

Review by William, May 15, 2009

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Terrible. Martin Weiss is an idiot. Subscribed for 10 years throughout the 90s.
Missed out on the entire raging Bull market as Weiss always had us short or buying puts on the markets.

Broken clock is right twice a day, wrong the other 99.99%.

Weiss is that broken clock.

Sorry, but he has zero intuition on market direction… zero.

Willaim

Review by wdg, May 22, 2009

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Performance of Picks/Advice	Not Rated
Consistency	Not Rated
Interesting to Read/Educational	Not Rated
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money	Not Rated

Review of Weiss’s Safe Money Report
I just
found this site last week, when googling a newsletter teaser. Gumshoe seems to be a great idea and I support your efforts.
I currently subscribe to Weiss Safe Money, Jim Shepherd’s Shepherd’s Investment Strategist, and Elliott Wave.

I have subscribed to Safe Money Report for 10 years, and I have subscribed to several Weiss premium services with mixed results. I agree with the review writers that are tired of the screaming headlines and overblown marketing style. I still trust and use Weiss’s bank ratings, insurance ratings and bear market “SAFETY’.
It’s way too early to tell if the Million Dollar Portfolio will fly or not, but I admire the explanations and can see the logic behind Claus Vogt’s thinking. My goal with Weiss is to avoid losing. I have been able to use the Safe Money Ideas and have learned to sift through the fairly heavy additional sales crap.

I follow Jim Shepherd for my major investment focus and he displays sound reasoning and I made a total portfolio gain of 16% for 2008. His model looks like it fits this market well. I rate Shepherd’s Highly.

I have only spent 6 months reading Elliott Wave and it appears to make more sense the more I read. Prechter’s EW Theorist seems to give me a good Big Picture. The socionomics is interesting but will take me some time to tell if it’s useful for investment decisions.

Review by Ron A, May 23, 2009

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I have subscribed to the Weiss “Safe Money” report for a while. Following his instructions I bought 50 shares of DOG, PSQ, and SEF. His May issue still said buy these. He never said to sell, and I took a bath before I realized what was happening.
Should haveknown better because he states that “editors and research staff do not hold positions in companies recommended…”
If he is not willing to put his money where his mouth is…I shouldn’t have either.

Review by Larry Jones, May 24, 2009

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All the naysayers regarding Martin Weiss’ “short”comings are right on. Although I had subscribed for a period back in year 1999, I can attest to the legitimacy of the complaints offered in the prior comments relating to Martin being a permabear and missing just about every bull run imaginable. I too, out of sheer morbid interest, continue to opt to receive the fear-mongering Weiss emails. They make me want to scream. I also believe Martin is highly manipulative and cares nothing about others. He appears to be a true psychopath who actually hopes and prays for a depression in order to recreate his father’s experience at making millions in a crisis.
It was on the weekend beginning Friday, March 6th of this year that another alarmist email from Martin Weiss came that proclaimed “All Hell was to break loose” the coming Monday March 9th. Well, the Hell broke loose alright, to the upside just as I had previously anticipated. Here’s the bad part: the @#$! Email made me rethink my strategy. I had just bought a significant amount of US Bancorp $12.50 March calls on Thursday March 5th. After getting the email from Weiss and questioning my own wisdom (which I now know far exceeds that of Weiss) I sold those calls at a loss before the end of Friday. Within 2 weeks their value had increased 5-fold, which would have earned me a quick 50 grand. But, regrettably, I did not trust myself as I watched, with a sick stomach, the market continue to climb. The best advice for anybody out there who seeks to abide by his advice is to cancel all Weiss services and emails, though some of the other associates are seemingly very competent and far less alarmist and opportunistic. That one stupid email has changed my future for the worse. Feel free to email me at larryjones777@comcast.net

Review by Damien, June 8, 2009

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Improperly named service. Should be called “Martin Weiss’s Never Ending Self-Serving Promotional Media Machine”. He even sends you his world’s coming to an end emails on Sundays and holidays. Another losing service I bought into along with the MDCP. That’s the new service that assists you in buying high and selling well never because they don’t believe in stops, just mental notes. That’s an example of some of the secret sauce that makes this service so invaluable. One pick alone is down after today over 18%, but no need to worry as Claus has a mental stop in his head. I can only pray that Claus doesn’t get hit by a car on the autoban because it would be difficult to find another money manager who could lose my money as fast as Claus can.

Review by j.t., June 11, 2009

Damien: Your reviews are hilarious as well as true. You should take over for Conan whats his name on late night TV.

Review by j.t., June 15, 2009

Bob Brown
Martin sold his bank rating service to thestreet.com
Go to thestreet.com - click ‘Portfolio & Tools’
On drop-down menu click ‘Banks & Thrifts Ratings’
Follow instructions - fill in banks name
This service is free

Review by SteveD, June 17, 2009

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Subscriber since September 08. Thanks to all who have shared an opinion. I read his most recent book, and drew the conclusion that he positions for a deflationary depression. If this happens, it will happen in spite of every politicians’ every effort to inflate the economy, because debtors benefit from inflation, not deflation-and the voting populace in America is rife with debtors! So, Weiss probably misses the mark on this one.
But Weiss’s bailiwick is safety. OK, fair enough. But I have to agree that 75% of your portfolio in short term Treasuries is overkill for safety. Heck, even Jeremy Grantham said recently that he sees some compelling values in stocks right now, and Jeremy is extremely cautious.
The croupier says, “Place your bets.” The prudent investor hedges bets. Go with some deflationary bets (cash), but go with some inflationary bets, too.

Review by Sammy, June 21, 2009

I made the mistake of believing the fear and hype of the latest product from Weiss in his million dollar portfolio. I should have known better. I ran across a copy of his 1980s book “How to Survive the Money Panic” and really believe he is on a mission to do the same thing his father did and will look for disaster everywhere it might seem to appear and wants to be a savior. Unfortunately, this makes him a constant bear. I am down 18% now after 3 months….so much for capital preservation.

He also said the fund would be closed to all new investors after the urgent close date, but they keep mysteriously appearing… probably because old ones are bailing.

On the plus side he does give a 90 day money back guarantee.

I don’t mind playing the downside of the market, but I”m tired of hoping it will crash just to break even with the fund’s manager Claus. Although the analysis has been very interesting and I must say I can’t fault his reasoning, the timing is horrible and removed from actual trading practices. We can’t get him to let us know what his “mental stops” are.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson in following a market guru and I supposed it was worth the price for that.

PS: 1000 people X 1500 = $1.5 million. A quick half million profit even if the “fund” goes to zero. We have no idea how many are in the fund as the blog posts are monitored. You can bet, though, that profit will be preserved no matter what the fund does with new members even past the absolute final join date.

Sammy

Review by Super_unhappy, June 24, 2009

Instead of Safe Money Reports… or Million Dollar Contrarian… Dr. Weiss should change the name of his services to Unsafe Money Reports… invest your money using my recommendation, I sure will help you lose your money.

The sky is falling all the time…. He pray in the fear of others. It is shameful!. … but even more shame on me for actually listening.

The one thing that he does have is that he returns you your money promptly..

Buyer behave…. he is a SCAM!

Review by Kate, July 2, 2009

Overall Rating
Performance of Picks/Advice
Consistency	Not Rated
Interesting to Read/Educational	Not Rated
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money

I agree with all the critical remarks made about Martin Weiss. Martin alarmed us that the DOW would reach 5,000, and told us to sell everything. To add further injury, he advised us to buy inverse ETFs and leverage inverse ETFs. I made a huge mistake taking his advice that I regret for life. I bought several leverage inverse ETFs positions. While the market was rallying +35%, Martin kept preaching the imminent collapse. All the while, in fear, I kept holding the decaying inverse positions. He was right about the collapse; all my inverse positions collapsed. Many of my positions collapse over 70%. Beware of Martin Weiss!!! He knows best how collapse your life saving. Money and Market “experts” do not know how to make money. They give the UNSAFEST advice.

Martin Weiss, you misguided your readers about the inverse ETFs. You did not address the inherent decay and danger in these instruments. You did tremendous harm to people and you need to be accountable.

Review by carodox, July 3, 2009

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Value for the Money

I have been following Weiss since around 2002 and have subscribed to his Safe Money Report. His chief value to me was a counterbalance to market cheerleaders and creating enough cognitive dissonance for me to try to learn what it was all about. I don’t know if I would have made money or lost it, had I been in the market these past 7 years. I have managed to hold on to my principle and am roughly even after 7 years. I have not followed all his recommendations and made money with some of his picks. What is clear to me is that the market is risky, no one can time the market consistently, and with so much federal manipulation, it is hard to call anything based on fundamentals.

What really bugs me about Weiss however is his sleazy marketing which in the past months has hit a new low. After he deluged us with pleas to buy his new book for FREE by virtue of a rebate to us for the full amount on any service he offers, he raised the price on all his services! Now he has blogs where he asks readers for their opinions and then congratulates them heavily and designs a new service to give the suckas what they asked for — Over the past few months COET was a disaster. The Million Dollar Contrarian Portfolio is underwater.
His seminars end with advertising for premium services at hefty prices. The man has chutzpah!

They say the market vacillates between fear and greed. Weiss is capitalizing on fear. The past 7 years have been volatile and unpredictable, thus, he has plenty of ammunition. The fact that he’s been right a few times gives him some credibility. His Dr. Goody-Integrity-Safety-Brainy M.O. is getting old.

The fact is we are in a totally manipulated market driven by investor psychology and no one knows what way that will turn in the near term. I have not done a study, but it appears to me what the market should do and what it does, are not highly correlated.

I will continue to read Weiss’s free newsletter for counterbalance, but ignore his specific stock picks. I like analysis by Mike Larson and Nilus Mattive. However, Larson’s picks in COET were disasterous.

Review by Portfolio Man, July 6, 2009

Overall Rating
Performance of Picks/Advice
Consistency	Not Rated
Interesting to Read/Educational
Customer Service
Value for the Money

The real problem with Martin, Claus (MCP) and Mike (COET) is that they do not know how to trade based on the news and their research. They have a lot of good data but don’t know what to do with it. Hence, just panic everyone now and they will subscribe!!! However, in his new product offering for $2K, you can time the market with some trends and waves. In that model, they show an up market this year. However, if you look at MAM today, Martin is saying the sky is falling again and to follow his safe money picks. MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY!!! His latest natural resource play is down 13% from the beginning of June when he recommended it. I guess that is par for the course once again. He recommends and you lose 10% in the first month just like MCP. I think I am going to short all of their picks when recommended, I would be up huge. I don’t understand how his picks can be so bad and people on his blog keep thanking him. For what??? Do they like losing money or are they shorting everything he says??? Wish I knew. This has to be one of the most confusing services I have read, listened and subscribed to. My only subscription with MAM in Larry Edelson. I hope he continues on the correct path otherwise, I am moving on. There is to much conflicting message from Weiss Research in general.

By the way, I know this subscription is only $99 a year but I have lost a couple of thousand in a short period of time with his inverse funds and latest natural resource pick. Sad thing is, he had buy inverse funds at market prices in his January through May editions and didn’t say to buy them in June (35% higher). What changed in June? Buy them high and don’t buy them lower and dollar cost average in??? But what do you want from a $99 newletter. However, the COET and MCP that cost between $1K and $2K, I expect a lot more. Just an FYI - I took a bath with both of their subscriptions!!! Buyers beware!!!

Review by Portfolio Man, July 8, 2009

Overall Rating
Performance of Picks/Advice
Consistency	Not Rated
Interesting to Read/Educational	Not Rated
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money	Not Rated

Consistent with Safe Money’s theme, a new stock for the conservative portfolio was a natural resource play and said to buy at market which was $14.58 (closing price on June 5th). Now it trades at $12.19 or a (16%) loss a little more than a month later. Just like your MCP offering you have, how can you pick so bad. Almost everything these 2 services suggest buying is in the 10% loss club within the first 30 days. I could have thrown dart at the WSJ and picked better stocks that have gone up in the last 3 months. This is horrilbe performance. Plus we are sitting on a bunch of inverse funds that are deep in the red with no real insight. If you were a fund manager, you would be fired!!!! With investment advice like this, I am not sure how you are still in business.

Review by Tom in Midlothian, July 9, 2009

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I have been reading Dr Martin Weiss for a number of years and
have respected his market positions and the education he is
constantly attempting to provide. I signed on to his “SAFE
MONEY” report, @ $50.00/yr, in April of this yr, and though
very conservative, have had both a solid gain of over 22%, but
more IMPORTANT, the learning experience a novice as myself
needs with positive results. Self directing my savings is new
for me, and I would recommend this letter to the novice investor based on personal experience. Gonna LIVE LARGE;
Tom in Midlothian

Review by Mark P, July 9, 2009

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Value for the Money

Perma bear - but he NEVER admits a mistake (and he’s made some whoppers) and he’ll keep shoveling the same crap even when it’s obviousl he should give up the ghost. Moring of the London subway bombings “Panic in the Dow - Here’s how to profit.) Market didn’t react as he predicted and if you’d done as he said you would have lost a buinch of money but he never admits he flubbed. That’s jsut one example.

I was never so glad when a financial newsletter subscription ran out.

Review by Portfolio Man, July 10, 2009

Tom in Midlothian - how the heck did you make money since April using Safe Money??? That is impossible as his inverse fund picks are deep in the red since April and his conservative picks of gold and other natural resources are down. Also the rest is in T Bills (no return)??? Are you sure you picked the right newsletter to rate or do you work for Martin Weiss? There is no way possible you made money unless you did the complete opposite of what he did.

By the way, this month’s newsletter was real insightful (I am being sarcastic). He put the transcript for his new product offering about timing the market in there. I can listen online if I want, I don’t think it was appropriate to have it plastered throughout the entire letter. I hope this newsletter does not turn into a market brochure for more expensive products that don’t work like MCP. He obviously doesn’t want to preach for another month about the sky is falling.

Review by Portfolio Man, July 16, 2009

For those who want to read the truth about Martin and MAM, type in the search bar above “Million-Dollar Contrarian Portfolio” and read those reviews on this website. Martin does not deserve 2.5 stars for his “UN-Safe Money” subscription. Maybe he should rename the report and call it “Your personal guide to wealth destruction”. His motto should be, why lose money on your own, I can help you by joining one of my high high paid subscriptions. I am down huge with his selections on this subscription as well. It should be a 1 star best case.

Review by Campbell, August 16, 2009

Overall Rating
Performance of Picks/Advice
Consistency
Interesting to Read/Educational
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money

I subscribed to the Safe Money Report starting in early 2008, just before the crash. My biggest problem with the Weiss group is that they do not seem to understand or communicate the linkage between overseas markets and stocks and the U.S. stock market. While I have lost money on most of their stock choices due to the market decline, I would have pulled my money out of the overseas funds and stocks had I known they would also decline by 40-50%.
Also, I was in one of their recommendations, UNWPX, for years and pulled out because it was a dog of a fund, and to my surprise, Weiss kept recommending it. Like many others, they have over the years, continued to recommend gold which has bounced around greatly and doesn’t seem able to break that $1000 barrier.

Review by Richard, September 12, 2009

I was sucked into a 6 month “discounted” subscription to the Interest Rate And Currency Trader, (no longer available), for $2600. I could not get any of the brokerages to take my business(thank God). It’s track record was terrible. There is a page on his website that, at the bottom, lists links to past performances. From what I can now see, most suck. When I asked for my money back sometime latter, I was told “gee, you should have called us sooner”. I will never again pay more than $100-$200 for a newwsletter. If any were worth more, the headlines would be screaming about them. Martin was telling everyone to sell rental property several years before the downturn, sounding like “crying wolf”, as prices went up for several more years. It became hard to take. I stopped taking the free “Money and Markets” news letter for well over a year because of the hype for high priced services within it, but have since re-enrolled, now skipping over most all of the ads. Be careful with your money.

Review by Steve, October 31, 2009

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Missed the whole runup due to these guys doom & gloom. They forget the whole thing is manipulated by greedy, immoral people who are now in charge of tax payers money. They should rename Gall Street & the Gov. to Ganks as they are one
entity!

Review by John, November 30, 2009

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

Repeated numerous times before, Marting Weiss is a perma bear. Missed the 90’s bull market. You always should be careful of an investment advisor with a set in stone mentality. He will always have his moments of glory (the stopped watch theory) like October 2008 until March 2009. And do you really need an investment advisory to put your cash in a Treasury Fund? I think if you have money to burn his newsletter is a good read for a counter-point on whats going on in the market. He was one of the early ones to see the mortgage crisis. You can see that most of the positive comments on this thread came from subscribers during the early part of 2009 when the bear market was in full force
foHowever, for good investment returns look elsewhere.

Review by Portfolio Man, January 30, 2010

Overall Rating
Performance of Picks/Advice
Consistency
Interesting to Read/Educational
Customer Service	Not Rated
Value for the Money

To Everyone,

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Martin and all of his clowns crystal ball is a rear view mirror. As you know, if you drive looking at your rear view mirror only/all the time, you will get in a car crash 100% of the time!!!! For those of you that don’t understand my analogy, Martin’s picks almost lose 100% of the time. These guys only tell you news that already happened and they base thier predictions based on old/current news which is already priced into the stock. For example:

1) He sent a note out last month “6 to 1 gains” (invest in Brazil), make big money. He didn’t send this note back in March when he was preaching the end of the world was coming and to sell everything including your home and convert to cash. After he mentioned this about Brazil, that was the peak and it has gone down since.

2) Next advertisement a couple of weeks ago “the dollar is crashing hard and a new leg downward is about to start. Get my landmark pick on Monday” Well, the dollar has gone up since that Monday. WTF!!!! The dollar went down for months and he is telling you to short at the bottom. Not right. People, use common sense the market doesn’t go down in a straight line.

3) The best one is when the MCP portfolio started and the S&P went to 666, MCP suggestion was to sell everything or this crash will leave you broke. Worst than 1929. 2008 was just a dress rehearsal for 2009. They were all DEAD Wrong on all predictions!!!

For those idiots that think or still think Claus and Martin is/are going to be right at some point, your bell just got rung and you probably don’t have enough capital left to see their prediction come true (which I personally hope does not happen - you are sick if that is what you want). key word of advice, don’t fight the market trend and/or government intervention, you will lose when it comes to investing. Just follow Weiss products to expereience those type of losses.

Just to repeat what I have said over and over again “STAY AWAY FROM ALL WEISS PRODUCTS, THEY WILL LOSE YOU MONEY EVERY TIME!!!”

See Million Dollar Contrarian Portfolio for all Weiss reviews on all terrible products they offer. STAY AWAY!!!!

Review by Taylor, March 15, 2010

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Interesting to Read/Educational
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Value for the Money

Have been a subscriber for three years. Martin has become greedy to the point of focusing primarily on selling his expensive “premium” services. These services seem to be ridiculously overpriced. Based on the performance of his Safe Money recommendations, I would not touch his “premium” services even if fairly priced. I will not renew Safe Money.