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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 is how a recent ad from Louis Navellier begins… “For the First Time in Over 40 Years… “Wall Street’s ‘King of Quants’ Reveals His Secret $6 BILLION AI Blueprint “‘If you apply my “Secret Blueprint” to the red-hot AI market, the next 12 months could be extremely lucrative… even if you’ve only got $500 […]

Motley Fool Canada is selling their version of the “bundle” that so many newsletter publishers push — they call theirs Market Pass ($799 first year, renews at $999), and it includes access to the North-of-the-border versions of Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, Everlasting Stocks and a Canada-only publication called Dividend Investor. But what caught […]

Here’s the lead-in for the latest ad from Tim Plaehn’s Dividend Hunter ($79/yr): “In the summer of 2014, I quietly recommended 3 no-name dividend stocks to a small group of retired folks… “A decade later… these 3 stocks generated $671,727 of dividends inside an average IRA portfolio “TODAY — I’m releasing a new set of […]

It’s been a wild month, no? We moved pretty high on the “Fear and Greed” index of investor sentiment during November, which was one of the dozen or so best months for the stock market in the past several decades, so we’re firmly back in “Greed” zone now, an even more abrupt turnaround in sentiment […]

So… what’s Porter Stansberry’s “picks and shovels” play in online gaming? It’s not a sports betting stock, which is somewhat of a relief given how aggressively those were touted a few years ago, but Porter hinted at his latest pick in the free lead-in part of his article on Friday, and I’ve got a very […]

This makes two days in a row we’re talking about next-level “AI” teaser pitch — not so much the “pure play” AI stocks, but the companies who might benefit from AI, or might supply needed parts and services that make AI work. Yesterday it was Porter Stansberry with his “Artificial Illusion” stocks that he calls […]

Here’s the top of Porter Stansberry’s latest order form: “EXPOSED: The Big Secret Behind AI “The most remarkable talent in financial publishing reveals how to correctly profit from the real winners of the AI revolution” The “presentation” from Porter this time is similar to past presentations he has given — half “big picture” argument about […]

Time for another longstanding Stock Gumshoe tradition — every Thanksgiving, for 16 years in a row now, we have looked back over our teaser tracking spreadsheets and called out one terrible pick as the Turkey of the Year. That’s the teaser pitch that provided us with the worst-performing, most-overhyped, or otherwise just the goofiest gobbler […]

Happy Days are here again! Inflation is over! Woohoo! Or maybe not… but for the moment, at least, animal spirits are back, we’ve had three good weeks in a row for the broad stock market averages, coming out of the interest-rate panic that crested in October, and now everyone’s looking for a “Santa Claus Rally” […]

We had a couple quarter updates come through on Thursday evening last week, too late to make it into the Friday File… so I thought I’d take a look at those quickly and see if they change our thinking at all. Three companies to check on today, one of which ends up being an add-on […]

We’ve published several updates of this article since Porter started his ‘secret energy grid’ pitch in early May of 2023.  The following has been updated and revised, though the “secret” stock remains the same. Porter Stansberry knows at least one thing with absolute certainty: Using high-profile people and saying provocative things in your teaser ads […]

Recent Author Comments

On Answers: Tilson's "Nuclear Renaissance" Tease

Just going from memory, the first four sound like UEC, Oklo, Centrus and NuScale[...]

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On Answers: Altucher's "Secret AiPhone Supplier"

Yep, that was somewhat similar pitch from Luke Lango[...]

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On What's the "#1 Next-Gen Stock?" -- De-teasing Eric Fry's "2024 Tech Panic" Buy

Don't know anything about it... what makes them stand out to you?[...]

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On Friday File: Social Inflation Winner?

No news from LAB. I expect it to require patience. Haven't looked at the other two recently.[...]

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On Friday File: Social Inflation Winner?

I expect he'll be gradually selling smallish chunks for many years. In this case I wouldn't say it's a clear negative, it's more the absence of a positive.[...]

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On "The Oppenheimer Stock" to buy before June 27?

Oklo's Alaska project was rescinded almost as soon as it was "pre-announced" last fall. That still has a tentative deadline of 2027, but there's probably no way for it to possibly be built by then. BWXT is supposed to deliver a micro reactor for the ar[...]

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On Friday File: Social Inflation Winner?

No, but I invest in insurance underwriters who I'm pretty confident are better at evaluating weather risks than I am -- and most of them don't actually take much of the catastrophe exposure for known property risk areas on their own, they use reinsurance o[...]

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On Friday File: Social Inflation Winner?

Haven't looked at that one yet, but I think I've got a copy in my pile... thanks![...]

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On What's King's "The Next Gen Coin?" Tease says "Musk, Dalio and Cuban Are Loading Up"

This was back when ETHE traded around $20, several pundits teased that from time to time as an easy way to get Ethereum exposure for those who didn't want to dabble in actual cryptos.[...]

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On "The Oppenheimer Stock" to buy before June 27?

It's a cool story, for sure. I'd like to see the NRC license at least one non-light-water reactor before I invest in one of the hopefuls, since it's likely to take so long, but it certainly might work out fantastically.I like the idea of the Oklo reac[...]

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On "The Oppenheimer Stock" to buy before June 27?

True, though the Navy usually uses different stuff -- I think they primarily actually use HEU, the weapons grade stuff, as fuel in naval reactors, because it gives them a bigger power plant in a smaller space.[...]

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On What's the "#1 Next-Gen Stock?" -- De-teasing Eric Fry's "2024 Tech Panic" Buy

Sounds like you probably mean the nuclear proliferation risk -- that flows from a Science article that [...]

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On Friday File: Altucher's AiPhone Story, Homes, Nukes and, yes, more NVIDIA Chatter

Thanks bernigu! I'll take a look to see if that ad has changed, but it could just be a repeat of the "[...]

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On Answers: Altucher's "Secret AiPhone Supplier"

I'd say "no" and "no" -- they're certainly pushing AI at Apple now, and investors reacted with a cheer, but no big partnerships or deals announced with the several companies teased with such promos.[...]

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On De-tease: Alex Green's "Next Magnificent Seven" Artificial Intelligence-Driven Stocks

Thanks Sheryl... guess he hasn't updated all his ads to swap out the hints about PATH for ASML clues yet, I'll keep an eye out for that.[...]

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On What's the "#1 Next-Gen Stock?" -- De-teasing Eric Fry's "2024 Tech Panic" Buy

Following the feedback, I went back and checked the Q's and K's -- yes, it turns out most of the apparent dilution was the conversion of Class B shares into Class A, so the real shareholder count is relatively unchanged since the IPO in 2020 (was slightly [...]

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On What's teased in Tilson's "Peace Profiteering" Pitch?

Yes, Tilson's #1 investment, the "would feel safe putting half my kids inheritance in" is still Berkshire Hathaway (he used to say, "kids college fund," but his kids are I think all graduated now, or close to it) -- that's essentially a repeat of [...]

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On What's the "#1 Next-Gen Stock?" -- De-teasing Eric Fry's "2024 Tech Panic" Buy

In general, yes -- part of the challenge is that this was essentially a private royalty fund before going public, so they had investors in the fund who became shareholders, but there is also dilution. See tiger5's comments in this thread for some ameliora[...]

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On Answers: Altucher's "NVIDIA's Silent Partner" Poised to 100X in 2025 -- Who's NVIDIA's "Tiny Back Door Contractor" teased in the "Deadline May 28" pitch?

Haven't noticed that particular ad, but I'll keep an eye out.[...]

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On What's the "#1 Next-Gen Stock?" -- De-teasing Eric Fry's "2024 Tech Panic" Buy

Thanks tiger5, great feedback on the accounting.[...]

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