I haven’t yet gotten to a few of my largest holdings in our Annual Review, so that’s where I’ll begin today — with the insurance conglomerates Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), Markel (MKL), and Fairfax Financial (FFH.TO, FRFHF), as well as the somewhat related names Fairfax India (FIH-U.TO, FFXDF) and Boston Omaha (BOMN). I should be clear […]
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
January 30, 2019
Total Wealth Insider
Monthly “entry level” newsletter with a monthly stock pick and analysis, along with weekly and trade alert updates, seems to focus particularly on stocks with insider buying.
Today I decided to sit down for a while with a teaser ad from Dr. Mark Skousen’s Forecasts & Strategies ($50/year) — this letter is actually from his publisher, Roger Michalski, but it focuses on an idea of Skousen’s that he calls “American X”. So what is this secret “American X” company? It’s apparently got […]
January 25, 2019
Annual Review Part 3: Commodities and Real Estate (mostly)
I’m going to get to several updates on Real Money Portfolio stocks at the end, including those questions “What to do with Qualcomm (QCOM)?” … but first, I’m going to go through the stocks where I’ve completed my Annual Review this week. Each year I promise to re-analyze and reconsider my opinion about each stock […]
This is an odd one, so be forewarned. A bunch of readers jumped in to ask me about emails coming out of Investorplace that pitch a tiny private company heading into FDA approval as the focus of their “Blockbuster FDA Approval Summit 2019” presentation… and yes, of course, the Mighty, Mighty Thinkolator can tell you […]
January 22, 2019
Premium Income Letter
Entry-level newsletter from Profits Run aims to supply monthly investment ideas, presumably with an income/low risk focus.
January 18, 2019
Friday File: Annual Review pt. 2, FANG and TOAST
The “Trade War” is getting real, and the higher prices imposed by governments in China and the US. Tariffs are just import taxes, paid eventually by the customer, so they raise prices… which, our economist friends will tell us, suppresses demand… and since the higher price is going to a tax, not to a company, […]
January 16, 2019
What’s Skousen’s “2019 Trade of the Year?”
We seem to be on a bit of a dividend kick this week, with the “Extreme Dividends” of Monday leading to the “Secret 6.1% Stock” yesterday, so it seems natural to stock with it… plus, readers have been asking about Mark Skousen’s latest teaser pitch, and we haven’t covered him in a while. So that’s […]
January 16, 2019
Five Star Trader
Newsletter driven by “smart beta” strategy, includes both options and equity trades to leverage Skousen’s “Five Pillars of Profitability” (previously advertised as: Sales growth over 11%; Profit margins over 12%; Profit growth over 23%; Price-to-earnings ratio under 29; Major institutional buying)
January 15, 2019
Cabot’s “Secret Stock” — 6.1% Dividend, Anyone?
Quick and dirty today, dear friends — I’m running short on time, so we’re jumping right into a simple teaser solution for a stock that a lot of people hate, and a lot of people have made a lot of money from. The ad I saw was from Tom Hutchinson, who is chief analyst of […]
This teaser solution was originally published in a Friday File for the Irregulars on November 30. The same ad is still circulating and several new folks have asked about it, so I’m releasing it for all to read today. What follows has not been updated since the end of November, and the ad is also […]
January 11, 2019
Friday File: Annual Review, pt. 1
Time, once again, for the Annual Review of all of the stocks I hold in the Real Money Portfolio. Many of my positions are built up over many years, and sometimes they’re stocks that don’t generate a lot of news or attention for months at a time, so I promise each January to cover every […]
January 10, 2019
What’s Moors’ “Tiny $2 million startup and a $7 trillion bounty?”
Here’s the lead-in that got Gumshoe readers banging on my door this week: “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT IMMINENT! SHOCKING PROPOSAL COULD IGNITE 59,850% SURGE “This serial entrepreneur guided his first company to a massive gain. And now, his latest venture has harnessed a patented technology that unlocks new $7 trillion energy sub-niche…” So even though this is […]
We’ve gotten similar “liberty check” pitches from Stephen Mauzy and Ian Wyatt in the past, but they always sound so very compelling and bring a lot of questions our way… so we’re looking at another ad today. I’m going off of a promo for a special “webinar” that they were hosting today, and I didn’t […]
The first version of this article ran way back on March 30, 2016, so it might look familiar to a lot of you — but a few folks asked about it today, and it looks like the ad is running again, still without much change to the spiel, so I’m re-publishing this teaser solution. I’ve […]
It’s the beginning of the year, and that means we’re going to see lots and lots of “top stock for 2019” pitches — so, naturally, your friendly neighborhood Stock Gumshoe will be trying to solve ’em for you. There are two that caught my eye this Monday morning, the first was Alexander Green’s “No. 1 […]
Happy New Year to the best readers in cyberspace! I hope your 2019 is fabulous… and that you don’t have too many heart palpitations following the last couple weeks of market and political brinksmanship. I haven’t written to you in a while, thanks to my much-appreciated time away with family and friends in the mountains, […]
January 4, 2019
$10 Million Portfolio (defunct)
Paul Mampilly’s high-end (~$5,000 one time fee plus $499 annual maintenance, no refunds) advisory that aims to “turn $10,000 into a $10 million fortune” — monthly stock picks with analytical commentary. Newsletter is closed. Mampilly left Banyan Hill in 2022.
Ray Blanco makes (part of) his living looking for biotech moonshots, like most biotech-focused newsletter writers — and like his predecessor at Agora’s biotech and emerging tech-focused newsletter Breakthrough Technology Alert, he has often touted companies that are trying to end the scourge of Alzheimer’s Disease. Why? Well, two main reasons: First, and by far […]
December 26, 2018
Best Teaser Stocks of the Year
We have a couple traditions here at Stock Gumshoe… we call out one of the worst teaser stock ideas around Thanksgiving and identify the “Turkey of the Year,” and then, as the year comes to a close and holiday merriment washes all around us, we call attention to the best teaser stocks of the year. […]
Recent Author Comments
Posted on May 19, 2024
Posted on May 17, 2024
Thanks Jamshid! I do love it... most days :)[...]
Posted on May 17, 2024
Thanks... not all that surprising to see higher margins leading to grumpier customers. I wonder whether that will lead to real market share loss, or if it's mostly just grumbling.[...]
Posted on May 17, 2024
Nothing really changed about my opinion of the five-year potential, I dom't see problems with the business model or the possible growth as ad monitoring continues to go more mainstream. Just a bad earnings report with growth a little slower than expecte[...]
Posted on May 17, 2024
Thanks Terry![...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
I wrote some about SMCI and VRT as the[...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
:)Thanks Carolyn.... some days are more ridiculous than others.[...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
Yes, that's EXAI -- the ad from Alexander Green has been running since last year, I covered it here: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/reviews/oxford-club/answers-kansas-welder-story-leads-to-company-alex-green-believes-will-become-the-most-important-ai-company[...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
Thanks for the kind words, Dick![...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
Rolls-Royce has certainly had a STRONG recovery... though of course that's almost entirely due to the resurgence in air travel post-COVID, and to a good order book for engines, and some pretty impressive leadership from the new CEO after a long period of m[...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
I've never looked at that one, sorry -- I tend to shy away from the folks who talk up their secret indicators or chart patterns or trading triggers, just because all those things that can be done by a computer are going to be done better by the bigger comp[...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
I don't use AI directly for research, though I do sometimes experiment with it for summarizing articles (it still lies a lot when doing that, which is disconcerting). Google's increasing use of AI-powered summaries for search is really speeding up a lot [...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
Thanks Dennis, I appreciate you reading it![...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
Michael often covers a variety of health/medicine topics in his columns... they're not always connected by a "narrative."[...]
Posted on May 16, 2024
Yep, in retrospect it was clearly overvalued in the early days, lots of optimism about what they would do with their cash, particularly around the DFH windfall and their SPAC during the boom times. I think it's clearly undervalued more recently... though [...]
Posted on May 15, 2024
Well, the secret's finally out... Warren has been copying us and buying up shares of Chubb (CB), so our favorite insurance conglomerate now owns a little over 5% of the shares of one of our other insurance companies. We'll see if he builds the position be[...]
Posted on May 15, 2024
Yep, about 1.03b[...]
Posted on May 15, 2024
Don't know what the "FDA investigation" might be, don't remember running across anything like that... but there are certainly lots of lawyers circling, trying to gin up a class action suit over the departure of the CEO (the "inappropriate relationship with[...]
Posted on May 15, 2024
That's a reasonable way of looking at it -- and yes, if the stock is in the $10-11 range in November I'll probably feel conflicted. This is mostly some minor protection against any big surprises... and if I'm being honest, probably this is partly just a w[...]
Posted on May 15, 2024
Didn't know you were a pirate, tim![...]
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Yep, I consider those minor delays... but hitting HII too, which I own.[...]