That’s the question that I receive from readers more often than any other — and my response is always disappointing, because I don’t and can’t really have one.
And the real answer is getting to be a bit of an overused question here at Gumshoe HQ — a big “what do you think?” for the masses of Gumshoedom — but it’s at the core of what we’re trying to do.
OK, so most of what I spend my time at is sifting through investment newsletter teasers and finding the truth (and sometimes the gem) that’s buried beneath the pile of, well, fertilizer. But we’re really all about people getting more fully informed, putting some of the hype aside, and making their own choices and sharing opinions — no newsletter is going to manage your portfolio for you, or make you rich, or turn around a sagging financial life.
But lots of them can help. I’m not anti-newsletter, I don’t think the folks who put out these missives every day or week or month are criminals or shysters … with some exceptions, of course — most of them, at least those from the major publishers that we see most often, are really trying to come up with good recommendations and helpful commentary. I don’t like the hype-filled promises of wealth that fill their ads, because I think those boasts and promises are what stick with people even as the more sensible and nuanced commentary that fills most of the actual newsletter issues is skimmed over or quickly forgotten by many investors. The big promises are what catch our attention, and they remain there in the lizard brain at our core, giving hope for ridiculously flashy financial salvation without work, research, patience, saving, discipline or sacrifice … or luck.
So when we look past the overpromising and the large type that promises 20% dividends or 800% gains, which letters do people actually end up finding most useful (and hopefully profitable)? Is it the background or education that these letters provide, or the udpates on their portfolios, or the unearthing of heretofore unknown investment opportunities or particularly nimble skill in picking buy and sell points for stocks or options? Or is it just the reassurance of having someone in your inbox each week, advising you to stay the course even if the headlines are freaking you out?
I can’t tell you that — I don’t subscribe to these ad-hyping newsletters that I write about, partly because there are too damn many of them, but mostly because it wouldn’t be very fair or sporting as I try to dissect their ads and unearth their “secret” ideas with the help of the Mighty, Mighty Thinkolator.
But your fellow readers can tell you — that’s why, in addition to sharing the teaser picks we unveil, we collect reader reviews of newsletters and allow for lots of free and open commenting on our articles. And we collate and average those reviews to give rankings of the newsletters — not rankings based on my opinion or on any measure of actual portfolio performance, but rankings based on what subscribers actually think of the letter.
So… wanna know what the “best” is? You can simply go to the Newsletter Rankings page… that will let you browse by ranking, or to filter them alphabetically by title… or even to search for particular publishers or authors.
We haven’t been calling the reviews to your attention much of late, so for many of these newsletters the subscriber reviews have gotten a bit stale — they might reflect a surge of pessimism from 2009, for example, or a particularly good few months from 2008 or 2011 that made folks love a letter … so we need your help.
If you’ve ever subscribed to a newsletter, please review it for us.
As we’ve seen from many, many comments in recent months, readers are overwhelmed by the number of letters, their crazy marketing aggressiveness, and their inability to keep up with dozens of email updates, so folks clearly want help in separating the wheat from the chaff. Can you help?
If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter, just click on it on the ranking page or search by title (search box is at the top right), and on each newsletter page you should see both some “stars” that you can use to give a ranking to various aspects of that letter, plus a comment box below for submitting anything else you want to say about that newsletter.
Reviews are moderated to try to cut down on spam, so your review might not show up instantly. And though we add new letters and trading services frequently there are some newsletters in the cast of thousands that just aren’t in our system yet, so please contact us if you’d like to submit your opinion of a newsletter or service that you don’t yet see on the site and we’ll cheerfully add it.
And I’ve got an extra inducement for you today.
The person who submits the most thoughtful and helpful reviews over the next couple days will either get upgraded to a lifetime membership in the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars (a $200 value, if we do say so ourselves), or, if you’re already a lifer, I’ll send you or your favorite charity a check for $100. They can be positive or negative reviews, and you can submit one or two or a dozen or more, whatever you have time and inclination to share.
So please, think of the letters and services you find helpful and useful, and those that you’ve found frustrating and disappointing, and share your opinions with us. Not only will you be helping your fellow investors to sift through the fog, but you might even earn a little something for yourself. And while you’re at it, hop on over to the most recent plea for help from one of our valued readers and let them know what your top two or three newsletters are with a brief comment.
Thanks for participating in this great adventure, and thanks for reading and commenting and reviewing and sharing your experiences with the great Gumshoe community — you make my work a daily delight, and I do appreciate it.
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I like Morningstar mostly for the information it provides. I like to do my own Valuations and use Morningstar as a check. Their articles on investing I would judge as fairly good at least the ones in areas of interest. I use Seeking Alpha to obtain information and investing ideas. I recently found Guru Focus and found their educational articles to be quite good, well written and informative. I still and using only the free part of the web site as I am in the evaluation stage of their site. Some of the Guru’s are well known even legendary like Warren Buffet.
When I started investing in the stock market a few years back, I followed the advise of free services (like newsletters and websites). It was the logical thing to do (I thought) since nowadays most every source of “good” info is available online for free (like wikipedia, diccionaries, and google). Their marketing ads make it even simpler to fall for that “common sense truth”. But I learned the HARD WAY that those free market recommendation newsletters and website services were mostly about pumps and dumps (like WLOC and ALIF) or about bad companies that go nowhere. I lost about $2,000 because of those picks. Not much considering the poor souls who lost 50 or 200 grand, tricked like me by very well organized traps constructed by expert marketing criminal companies that should be punished by law and prohibited.
So I subscribed to PAID services hopeing they would care about my money. Those services were Dividend.com (by Rubillo), Penny Stock Fortunes (Agora), Small Stock Specialist (at Stansberry by Curzio), Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor, Technology Profits Confidential (Agora), Emerging China Stocks, and Investment Advisory (Stansberry).
Emerging China and Penny Stock Fortunes dissapointed me the most with their bad picks. Motley Fool was the most educational but their picks dissapointed me too because there was no “buy up to price”, and some of their “buy” picks were actually “hold” at best. Technology Profits Confidential was mucho yadda yadda but poco good picks; specially for technology stocks (bad picks); they did better with biotechnology stocks though.
I have not renewed any newsletter except for Stansberry’s Investment Advisory, which is the one I was most satisfied with for his picks. Yes, he was convicted of fraud but he’s changed. Yet I do skip his anti-government and end-of-the-world speeches, and his detailed “why I picked this stock” explanations since they’re either too technical or detailed for my taste.
Finally, I recently found the Stock Gumshoe and I’m liking what I’m seeing… ๐
I have subscribed to Investech from Mr. James Stack for about a year. Considering that my goal is guidance on general market direction, rather than a model portfolio or the latest canโt miss stock, I am very pleased with the results. Again, this is a limited time period. I am a bit disappointed that they no longer provide specific stock recommendations, only ETFโs, particularly since this was part of my subscription price. I still do not hesitate to say all five stars.
I started with funds maybe 24 years ago, and reading MorningStar at the library. I started resenting the fund fees, switched to reading ValueLine, and dipping my toe in stocks about 3 years later. I never looked back. I have usually had a subscription at all times, maybe 18-19 different ones over the years. Now I’m at my 2 favorites, Gumshoe irregular lifetime, and ValueLine at the library 1/2 day a month. I look over the issues since I was last there, print up bunches of reports each month, and keep them for 1/2 year or until I replace them with a newer, filed alphabetically by ticker symbol. I’m thinking of an expensive subscription, I’m so old and decrepit, it’s hard to get to the library and printers, too much walking. With Gummy and VL, I don’t need anything else.
Comments on Newsletters:
1. Morningstar Stock Investor — Honest thoughtful evaluations. Used to seek out VALUE stocks. Monitor Star & moat status and Fair Value updates.
2. Prudent Speculator — Provided monthly ideas for current value-rated stocks. Well done but dropped when they raised the price.
3. Oxford Club — Very pleased with Analysis, use of 25% Stop Loss, Asset Allocation Model and timely e-mail Alerts. Provides ideas for further analysis.
4. Wall Street Daily — Provides speculative ideas and 35% Stop Loss. limit to 1% of potfolio.
5.Perpetual Income — My personal favorite to invest in income generating stocks. I use it to develop a steady monthly income stream since I am retired.
6. Complete Investor— Many different categories, but provides good substance and ideas in selected categories.
7. Outstanding Investments — FAIR
8. Energy Advantage — POOR
9. Dion’s ETF — Helpful & cheap
Generally, I only renew those that are prioviding meaningful investment ideas and analysis.
The best in Biotech is Prohostbiotech, which is run by people with a real background in science and who cover a sufficient number of biotech stocks to provide a solid range from conservative giants like Amgen to moderates to smaller, highly speculative biotech concerns; they follow their recommendations with biweekly analysis of their entire field of choices, as well as almost daily news reports, primarily on the companies they follow. The service is rather expensive, but they do respond (and rapidly) to individual subscribers’ questions. They also comment on irrational factors moving this area of the market, as well as FDA approval and rejection patterns.
Of more limited range is the McCamant Medical Technology Stock Letter, also fairly expensive, and again with tiers of safety in listing their recommendations.
I have found both services performing well, especially for one with a longer-term investment horizon. Biotech does not lend itself to quick trading, since a medical breakthrough or the failure of a drug can cause earthquake results in a small biotech firm; rumors of takeovers also abound to make trading dangerous. Still, biotech is where medicine’s future lies.
Yes, you’re the best. Your Thinkolater appeals to me, and your writing is thoughtful and intelligent as well as humorous. I do subscribe to Arch Crawford’s mostly astrological newsletters, although I suspect he uses technicals and fundamentals also. he’s esp. good at market timing and I think has been rated high in that category by Hulbert (but I haven’t checked lately…) His monthly newsletter comments on daily astrological events, and he’s good at advocating stops. I like astrology which perks up life. but, you take the Gold Medal.
Paul, does Prohostbiotech have any opinion on Questcor Pharmaceuticals QCOR?
Favorite is FUNDGRAF found here, http://rayparsons.com/fundgraf/ He’s a brainiac that developed his own investing bull/bear weighted equation for mutual funds/ETFs.
1) it’s free, 3 quick pages
2) easy to follow portfolios
3) updated 1x week, usually WED
4) Has real money portfolios; earning 8.5% to 12% average annually since 1984, without gut-wrenching ups and downs. Called the 2008 exit before it happened.
5) you can choose to time the market or stay “all in”, and he gives real results for both
6) gives you a “no lower than” number for the DJIA where he wants you “all out”
7) nice humble guy “mine doesn’t work the best with such a volatile market”.
If you like slow, steady, low volatility you can follow his recs. If you want higher returns you just look for his bull/bear mkt call and his “no lower than” DJIA as a trading floor. You can do well with a simple index fund and then exit mkt when he says for an ultra simple portfolio with reduced volatility and good timing calls. For example, he is currently “all out” if DJIA drops below 13,100.
Think “STEADY EDDY” not “Hit it out of the ballpark”
Drawbacks, no options, no hedge info, did not match S&P index last yr (tends to fare well in down markets though…and we could be seeing one of those soon)
We would all be better of by asking, when invited to subscribe to the latest financial news letter or advisory service, the following question. “If this person or company knows so much about financial matters with such startling profits, why does he or it want my few dollars for a subscription when by following his or its own advice, he or it would now have profited billions?”
This may be the best financial advice you will ever get – and it is free.
You are so right! It only takes 3% profit every trading day compounded to double your
money every month. Falcon Stocks probably comes the closest at 93% ave. for their 52 stocks a year.
Evan, I wholly agree with you. The reason they want your money, rather than making millions by following their own advice is that because first of all, most of them are liars and fraud. They pick few stocks to showcase in their advertisements, that the stocks they had previously recommended have done extremely well historically, but those stocks may have never been identified by their news letter. For example, who is going to research their claims and prove them “Lier”, if they say that we had recommended Amazon when it just started trading for few Dollars. Keep in mind that your few subscription Dollars adds up to millions, if thousands of fools subscribes to their news letter. Which is their goal. Hey, that is a good chunk of consistent income, as most of these news letters have automatic renewal feature, and most people, even after they stop reading it and using its advice, forget to cancel their subscriptions.
Hi have been following Carla Pasternaks Income investing and find the info accurate and concise. Carla is a canadian from Calgary Alberta and she gives alot more canadian content which is very weak in most newsletter coverage. As a canadian we could use some more coverage so please wake up and smell the coffee. Once you tasted our Tim Hortons brand you will want to move here.
Without a question, Daily Wealth Trader. They don’t just tell you when to buy something. They teach when to get out and why. Their picks are solid as are the results. After going through 20 newsletters over the past 12 years, I finally found a keeper.
As an alternative to newsletters, as a Fidelity Brokerage customer, I use screens of their highest rated research companies such as Ford, Ativo, EVA Dimensions, GMI, Thomson Reuters, etc. It is a very simple screen that combines one or several research companies on their “strong buy”, “buy”, “outperform”, selections. Additional screen criteria can be added to the list. This method works because the research companies have varying methods to come up with their lists (technical, quantitative, and performance analysis). This generates a consensus list of recommendations down to a manageable size to do further research from AAII, Morningstar, Seeking Alpha, and, of course, Stock Gumshoe.
I agree. Doing your own research is the best way to go. The Fidelity research tool that you mentioned seems like a good but simple tool, since you’re still relying on someone else’s ratings and recommendations, (Buy, Strong buy etc.). A better research platform that I came across was recommended in a Barron’s article a while ago. Its called: GuruFocus. (http://www.gurufocus.com). They do not recommend any stock. It is just a platform where you can enter your own criteria and do your own research and find stocks that pass your screens. You can also follow the stocks in the portfolios of some of the richest men in the world. I especially like the “Insider” trading feature useful when doing my research. Subscription fee is kind of expensive, about $350 per year, but if you do your research well, and buy few good stocks, you may be able to make enough in just few trades to cover the cost of the entire year’s subscription.
Buying stocks on someone elses opinion has too many pitfalls.You have to row your own boat and be patient,sometimes very patient. Stock Gumshoe is the counter balance to all news letters.
After thirty years of investing you get to see the big picture,and the profit from buying when stocks are out of favour,and selling very rarely,patience is the name of the game.
I had Mining Spectator with Greg McCoach and he did have a few home runs, but I feel his track record was not accurate because he kept Poly Met in his averages forever to balance out his blunders. I really enjoyed the Gumshoe’s tract record and it opened my eyes to the one that had the best picks also had some of the worse. I am looking for the one that is conservative enough to get good picks without terrible blunders. I do appreciate Gumshoe and the members candid remarks keep it coming!
I currently subscribe to Lifetime Income Report. They are big on stable companies that pay increasing dividends. I have used the system for about a year. and I have to say that I am up about 25% based on my selections of thier recommendations. I am satisfied with the portfolio, however they are part of the Agora empire and as such tease and push newsletters like an addict pushes his/her shtuff. While Lifetime Income Report is good, some of the other Agora products leave something to be desired.
Edgar,
Thanks for your thoughtful input
George
I get Stanford Wealth Management. I don’t follow it religiously, but Mr. Shaefer always provides interesting viewpoints. I was very successful with his recommendations on SAND and MCP, took a small loss with LYSDY.
What has been on my mind recently is a sold dividend stock that is based in Australia (more stable currency) Anyone have an idea?
I just signed on with Lombardi’s 100% Letter. I like the premise. The premise behind this newsletter is that each week, they go to their top stock-pickers and ask them which stocks, out of the many they are recommending, they believe have the best chance to double in price. The results are published each Tuesday. This newsletter is not cheap, costing me
$520 per year, but I am supposed to be getting the best ideas from the staff which produces all of Lombardi’s 24 newsletters. We shall see. I do trust Gumshoe more than any. I am an irregular, (in more ways than one).
In my first two weeks the 100% Letter has listed 17 stocks. Since I was reorganizing my portfolio, I have taken a moderate position in 7 of those stocks. Moderate position means around 4% of my meager wealth. It is more meager than it used to be, since in my stupidity I got caught by a pump and dump on a day when I rushed heavily into a “Hot Growth”, didn’t do my due diligence, didn’t set a stop loss, and was away from the computer. I just did everything wrong. Needless to say, I am 1000% more vigilant today.
Hi, I tried Larry Edelson Power portfolio on may 2012 and I unsubscribe 3 or 4 months latter, bad timing and all were losers, the portfolio was down about 3 or 4 % when I got out. But I am also subscribe to his Real wealth report and even though i do not follow must of his recomendations I admire his job and analysis and I have understand and learn a lot of the markets, If I had followed his advise to stay away from bullion i could have cash to buy more gold or silver now or in the next months once they bottom, but at leats I followed partially and I saved 100 usd per oz when I bought it. Real wealth report is a great explanation of what might be ahead in the next 6 to 18 months and I have followed 2 of his recomendations with my trading plan and I have secured 3 and 5 % gains when I trade them. I also tried Bert Dohmen Fearles ETF for the last 2 months, he was expecting a correction in the market but with yesterdays S&P new high, he just became bullish and that bear actions made me lost 3.42% of my total porfolio, my stock portfolio is not that very big and recover those $720 USD plus the two months of $250 usd subscription is going to take me a long time to recover it, Now he gave bullish recomendations but I am using filters and aplying my own studies before just jumpling into the trade becasue it was recomended. Again a lot of knowladeg but at least in the action of the last two month very poorly, on the bullish side now I have to wait to let you know if it will be good, bad or ugly. I a mlooking to jump with Sean broderick from Uncommon wisdom on his millionaire junior resource millionare, any comment on this or on sean broderick? thanks
Only one absolute favorite:
Stockgumshoe Irregulars!!!!!
Another GEM stock information service I currently subscribe to is http://www.muathe.com.
The man in charge runs the site basically himself with some limited help. He does a great video technical analysis of his picks , with simple easy to understand instructions in the video…….you actually can learn by watching …..or just take his pick.
For less than $100 per year , IMHO opinion it is a bargain. You can contact him by phone , and he does respond promptly to your email.
The website listed above is very detailed ….and will probably answer all your questions!