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Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe

Author Bio

Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe
Travis Johnson is an individual investor who founded Stock Gumshoe in 2007 as a way to air his dissections of overhyped marketing pitches... and to share the "secret" stocks that stock newsletters hype to get your attention and your subscription dollars. His thinking? If you already know what the "secret" stock is, you can make a much more reasonable and thoughtful decision about whether or not to commit to an expensive newsletter subscription. (And if you don't pay for the info, you'll be more free to think for yourself about whether or not the investment is worth your money.) In his charmed life he has been, among other things, a university faculty member, a fundraiser, a writer, and a world-champion ice-cream scooper. Now he runs Stock Gumshoe for you, allowing us all to discuss and dissect the latest overheated stock ideas... as well as review and talk about investment newsletters and enjoy the commentary and opinions of Stock Gumshoe's other special contributors and the discussion with our unusually attractive, erudite and polite readers. He lives with Mrs. Gumshoe and all their little Gumshoes in the wilds of Western Massachusetts.

Author Archives

August 15, 2018

Cabot’s “Next Amazon” Pitch

This teaser solution originally appeared as part of a Friday File for the Irregulars on December 15. The ads are still running, this time under headlines like “Time to Bet the Farm”, so we’re taking another look, including my updated thoughts following the last quarterly report (I own this one), but most of the teaser […]

August 13, 2018

What the heck is “Brandt Oil?”

Lots of folks have been asking about Dave Forest’s ad for Brandt Oil, which is apparently in every email inbox in the land this week… the ad is for Casey’s International Speculator, which is apparently helmed by Forest now, and for which they’d like to receive $1,995 from you for a year’s subscription (no refunds, […]

August 3, 2018

Friday File: Buys in Small Tech and Baby Berkshires

Lots to discuss this week, mostly because several Real Money Portfolio companies reported earnings… and because I added money to two positions this week, and brought a new company into the portfolio. Enjoy! Shopify (SHOP) had reasonable earnings when they came out, but “reasonable” isn’t enough for a high-growth momentum stock that’s trading at almost […]

August 1, 2018

Will 136 Million Tons of “Super Salt” provide “a monopoly on the entire supply of this new form of energy?”

I love this story… it brings to mind the Indiana Jones-style teaser pitches about top-secret mineral riches in strange places that were so prevalent a decade ago in newsletterland… here’s a little taste: “This Secret Research Complex… “Hidden Away in a Small Town in Australia… “Is About to Reveal a “$66 Billion Breakthrough…” Wow, so […]

Recent Author Comments

On What the heck is "Brandt Oil?"
Posted on August 19, 2018
For battery material speculation, beyond the Clean TeQ position I still hold, I’d probably be pretty wimpy and stick with the bigger guys — Albemarle, SQM and perhaps Orocobre in lithium. Haven’t looked at any of the more speculative juniors recentl[...]
On Friday File: What's that "Cancer Sniper" Stock promising a "5,320% Bonanza?"
Posted on August 17, 2018
Yep, that was the basis of the “Superman flies again” pitch a few years ago.[...]
On What the heck is "Brandt Oil?"
Posted on August 17, 2018
The battery makers aren't necessarily surging -- Panasonic, for example, has been down all year, and they're one of the largest lithium ion battery makers in the world. Cobalt prices surged into the spring, but then fell about 30% in the summer, and that'[...]
On Alex Green's "Single Stock Retirement Plan"
Posted on August 15, 2018
Rough quarter for Foxconn this time out, they reported a decline in profit a couple days ago -- though the stock is cheap enough that it didn't fall dramatically on the news. Continued margin pressure, continued focus on building their new businesses (as [...]
On Friday File pt. 1: What's Ernie Tremblay's $7 Prostate Cancer Fighter?
Posted on August 11, 2018
Why would it appear that way? We're just going by the promises in the ad, which builds this "you'll make a fortune" premise on the back of the ~50 million US men over 50... you need a big number to come up with absurdly huge profit targets. Though yes[...]
On Friday File pt. 1: What's Ernie Tremblay's $7 Prostate Cancer Fighter?
Posted on August 11, 2018
Thanks for the feedback -- this idea of taking something that is perhaps valuable and important for a subset of the population and inflating it into something 50 million people will be using next year (thereby making you rich) is pretty typical in stock te[...]
On Friday File pt. 1: What's Ernie Tremblay's $7 Prostate Cancer Fighter?
Posted on August 11, 2018
I think that's just a reference to PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen) -- there's a good brief note about it here on the Sloan Kettering website: https://www.mskcc.org/blog/psma-new-target-prostate-cancer-treatment[...]
On "Hyper-X" Weapons and "The Next Cold War"
Posted on August 10, 2018
I think of most of the pot stocks as "not ready for prime time," so I'm probably not the one to ask. There are a great many pot stock promoting newsletters out there these days, and almost as many self-proclaimed experts in marijuana as there are in crypt[...]
On Will 136 Million Tons of "Super Salt" provide "a monopoly on the entire supply of this new form of energy?"
Posted on August 2, 2018
Thanks, Magma -- didn't know that... though I guess we still don't have much of a picture of what the cost and production of the Jadar project might be if it does get built. The real positive about the project that might not be appreciated, is that it c[...]
On What the heck is "NanoCrystal Electricity?" Will it "Magically Power Everything" and "pay out 78 times your money?"
Posted on August 2, 2018
Another quarter, another announcement that product launches are not proceeding nearly as quickly as management had expected, and another few months of essentially no revenue, though Dialog did ship enough WattUp chips to generate a little bit of royalty re[...]
On Will 136 Million Tons of "Super Salt" provide "a monopoly on the entire supply of this new form of energy?"
Posted on August 1, 2018
If you look from the right angle, Skousen kinda has Gru’s nose :)[...]
On What's the "Tiny $6 Million Company" with a "Stunning Patent Verdict?"
Posted on August 1, 2018
Thanks Bryan... welcome aboard![...]
On Biotech Discussion... continued
Posted on August 1, 2018
For what it's worth, that's the reason I tend not to dabble in clinical-stage biotechs -- you have the double uncertainties of science-in-progress, with drugs that could succeed or fail or do something in between, and the actual market dynamics (pricing an[...]
On Can Americans now collect "Federal Rent Checks?"
Posted on August 1, 2018
Sounds like a typical scam, not related to investing but more likely they get you excited then tell you that you have to pay some fee or tax in order to receive the "cashier's check", which you do because it seems so small compared to the check... then you[...]
On Microblog: What is the next superstock military stock selling for .80 cents a share
Posted on August 1, 2018
Interesting to hear that blast from the past, Kraken used to be called Kraken Sonar, it was teased by a penny stock newsletter more than two years ago... glad it finally got some traction for you![...]
On Microblog: GOOG vs. GOOGL
Posted on July 31, 2018
I haven't written about that disparity in quite a while, mostly because the premium for the voting shares has finally eroded, but back in 2015 I shifted all of my holdings from GOOGL to GOOG because the non-voting shares (GOOG) were trading at a 5% discoun[...]
On "Free Shares" of "Covert IPO" Biotech to hit $100 Billion?
Posted on July 30, 2018
I expect probably 1:1, but there’s no real way to quantify the assets so it’s partly just a trial balloon to see how the market values AgeX.[...]
On "Free Shares" of "Covert IPO" Biotech to hit $100 Billion?
Posted on July 30, 2018
The specific preclinical drugs are for diseases that tend to be exacerbated by aging bodies — diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease.[...]
On Can Americans now collect "Federal Rent Checks?"
Posted on July 30, 2018
$800/month on a $60,000 investment would be about a 20% annual return. My immediate reaction is that you can’t do that without taking a lot of principal risk... or getting lucky. Even half of that return would have to accept some meaningful risk of los[...]
On Friday File: Turmoil in Tech-Land, earningspalooza continues, plus some small buys and a couple new watchlist stocks
Posted on July 29, 2018
One real driver, financially, is having advertising money continue to move from television and other outlets to digital and social, the move is happening but it’s still not proportional to the time spent online versus watching television.[...]

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