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Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe

Author Bio

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

This isn’t really about a new teaser pitch, but I’ve had lots of readers ask what’s going on with the flurry of changes at Palm Beach Research and MarketWise recently… so if you’re interested in that bit of publisher crisis, stick with me for a few minutes and I’ll share my perspective, a little back […]

This article was originally published on January 24, it has not been updated but new versions of the ad with different headlines are driving questions our way so we’re re-posting here. If you’re looking for Stansberry Innovations Report’s “#1 AI Stock for 2024” that was covered separately here. Today I thought we’d look into a […]

We’ve got a couple trades this week in the Real Money Portfolio, as well as some updated thoughts on portfolio companies who reported recently, so let’s just skip the jibber-jabber about the S&P 500 hitting a new round number (closing above 5,000 for the first time) and get into the details. Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) […]

Here’s the lead-in to Porter’s latest ad: “Why Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and even Warren Buffet are all investing hundreds of millions of dollars into this controversial new technology. “THE A.I. KEYSTONE “Without it the artificial intelligence market will collapse” And then, after a brief lesson in classical architecture to explain just what a “keystone” […]

Sheesh, Netflix (NFLX) reports a great quarter, enthusiasm for AI remains high, and we get new record highs for almost everything again this week. Things were especially lusty for most of the big tech names, including AI darling NVIDIA (NVDA) and Alphabet (GOOGL) in our portfolio, but also Microsoft (MSFT), which just bumped up against […]

Sounds like the name of the world’s strangest law firm, right? Car accident?  Call Dino, Berk, McCormick & Acacia, justice will be served and we’ll make you rich! Maybe not.  But those are the things that caught my eye this week — that’s Dino Polska, some more mild updates on Berkshire Hathaway, a slouching dividend […]

I’m getting this Friday File out to you a little earlier than usual, because I’m bringing one of my kids to Detroit for the first Lions home playoff game in 30 years (well, I’m trying to bring him, at least… crossing my fingers that the weather allows planes to land in Detroit tomorrow). The city […]

This article was originally published on September 18, when we first saw this Teeka Tiwari ad circulating… it is still in very heavy rotation, and still has a “September 2023” date, so the ad has not been updated. What follows has also not been updated, but questions are still rolling in so hopefully this will […]

Recent Author Comments

On Oxford's "Single Stock Retirement Play" (Solved and Revisited)

They've been banging the drum for that one in their "special reports" tease since May of 2018 -- it enjoyed quite a run from the surge of laptop demand in 2020, and server demand (or perceived demand) during the AI surge of the past year, but rarely builds[...]

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On Oxford's "Single Stock Retirement Play" (Solved and Revisited)

I wrote about IONQ a couple weeks ago here: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/blue-chip-growth/detease-navelliers-qaas-and-bezos-next-trillion-dollar-bet/[...]

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On Microblog: George Gilder is hyping some type of new material

Much more likely it's a bait and switch, "buy Universal Matter when/if it goes public, and in the meantime buy this other graphene-related penny stock" ... but perhaps that's just my skepticism showing through.[...]

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On What's the "#1 Gold Play for 2024?"

FYI, a reader called attention to the fact that they've recomended a different gold stock recently at this newsletter, too -- in their list of recent articles is a headline, "Buy This Beaten-Down Gold Producer Ahead of the Crowd”, which is, a reader says[...]

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On De-tease: Lango sez "Buy Before June 30" to Profit from Musk's "Project Apollo" -- What is it?

He usually showed up on Hulbert's list as one of the best performers in bull markets... but also gave back a huge amount of that by being one of the worst performers in bear markets.[...]

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On Explaining (and revealing) Katusa's "Project Gold Rush"

Looks like Marin is again out with a tease about his "Project Gold Rush" -- he doesn't drop as many clues this time around, but the few he does give are the same as they were a year ago... and the "special report" still has the same title, so I would imagi[...]

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On De-tease: Lango sez "Buy Before June 30" to Profit from Musk's "Project Apollo" -- What is it?

Thanks Paul, we love you, too!Let us know what you think about those new letters...[...]

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On De-tease: Lango sez "Buy Before June 30" to Profit from Musk's "Project Apollo" -- What is it?

They followed the specific portfolios of a group of newsletters for about 20 years, as I recall, maybe a bit longer, and provided some really valuable data from that subset, but they essentially shut down that project about ten years ago. Not sure if it [...]

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On De-tease: Lango sez "Buy Before June 30" to Profit from Musk's "Project Apollo" -- What is it?

Yep, your comment went through -- that just meant it was waiting for moderation.We love receiving real-world feedback about newsletters, either directly from our readers or as postings on [...]

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On De-tease: Lango sez "Buy Before June 30" to Profit from Musk's "Project Apollo" -- What is it?

Thanks for the positive slant on my work, but yes -- for those who don't know, gum shoes, which is what they called rubber-soled shoes in the 19th century, when they were rare and almost all shoes had leather soles, were quiet and gave you an advantage whe[...]

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On Reveal: "The AI Patent Powerhouse" teased by Banyan Hill

The price of bitcoin has gone up in the period after the previous halvings... but we should be careful about extrapolating a lesson from something that has only happened a few times. The price of bitcoin has gone up so dramatically over that per[...]

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On Friday File: Intuitive Reports, plus some more Preferreds for the uneasy

The drop in the preferreds last year was primarily driven by interest rates, I expect.[...]

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On Friday File: Intuitive Reports, plus some more Preferreds for the uneasy

Good ones to think about, thanks -- there's a whole world of adjustable preferreds that reset their rates, which, as you know, could be good or bad over the next few years. I like this idea but haven't looked at these specific issues, probably mostly bec[...]

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On Reveal: "The AI Patent Powerhouse" teased by Banyan Hill

I'm not the guy to talk to about altcoins or alternative exchanges -- I pretty much stick with Bitcoin and Ethereum, and just use Coinbase. Lots of other folks here are way more into crypto than I am, so perhaps they'll have suggestions.[...]

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On Reveal: "The AI Patent Powerhouse" teased by Banyan Hill

I expect that's the general "AI bubble might be bursting" panic that washed through the market today because SMCI didn't pre-release their earnings. Most "AI plays" down similarly today.[...]

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On Microblog: Dylan Jovine wants you to invest in secret alien UFO project from the Pentagon -- WTAF?

That ad has been running, with some variation, for a long time -- the primary stock he teases for these "UFO" weapons has always been Leidos, which has a division working on hypersonic weapons (though is primarily a tech contractor for the US government), [...]

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On Reveal: "The AI Patent Powerhouse" teased by Banyan Hill

Bitcoin has probably surged this year in part because of the "halving", plus the new ETFs, so it's an open question how the price will react to the actual event.It's not really "splitting," to be clear -- the halving means that the reward for mining is [...]

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On Friday File: Cutting Down the Tower, Speculating on Gold

It has really become more of a quarterly to 2-year ladder these days. It's fairly simple, just requires some activity once a quarter -- I started out by buying roughly equal values of three month, six month, nine month, 1-year and 2-year bills and notes, [...]

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On Answers: "The #1 AI Hypergrowth Stock: Your Second Shot at Apple, Amazon or Netflix" (teased by Oxford Club)

That's still Exscientia (EXAI), which Oxford Club has been pitching for more than six months -- covered here: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/oxford-club/answers-kansas-welder-story-leads-to-company-alex-green-believes-will-become-the-most-important-a[...]

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On What's O'Dell's "Small North Dakota Oil Miner" Primed for 100% Gains in 100 Days?

That's a midstream MLP (pipelines, storage and processing/refining gas), not an energy producer.[...]

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