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FAQs

What’s your favorite newsletter?

Stock Gumshoe does not recommend or endorse specific newsletters, out of fairness and because we don’t subscribe to them. You can see the newsletters that are currently favored by the Stock Gumshoe community under the “Newsletters” menu at the top of this page.

What are the Irregulars and Premium Members? Why the blocked articles?

Stock Gumshoe is supported both by advertising and by paid memberships, the paid/premium members are called the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars. As thanks for their support, they get access to some content on the site that is only for them — this includes the weekly Friday File commentary, Travis’ comments about his personal portfolio, and current lists of equities that he owns.

We now offer two different levels of premium membership: Irregulars membership, which is the standard access to all premium content on the site, and Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free membership, which includes the same content access but gets rid of the advertisements you would otherwise see on the website or in the email newsletter, and also puts you in the front of the line when we’re sending out our daily emails. (Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free emails are sent first by our system, though we can’t guarantee delivery times or deliverability of emails).

Both levels of membership are available as monthly, annual or Platinum (lifetime) subscriptions — monthly and annual payments renew automatically, Platinum subscriptions are one-time payments which never require a renewal payment.

Can I upgrade to Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free?

Absolutely! If you are already a paid member, just log in and click here to choose your upgrade membership (or click the blue Upgrade button on the top of most pages). Your membership will be reset from today’s date, and you will be credited for whatever time remains on your existing membership. You can also switch to a different membership term (from monthly to annual, for example), and similarly get credit for any unused portion of your membership fee.

How do I see or make changes to my membership?

To get to your account page, log in and click on either the “My Profile” link, or the “View Account” link, in the upper right corner of the page. There, you can see your current subscription, expiration date, and past payments, as well change your password, email address, payment method and more. As always, you’re also welcome to Contact Us with changes or questions.

Do you offer Gift Memberships?

Yes! We’d love it if you want to give the gift of Stock Gumshoe membership to your friends and family. On your Account page you’ll see a Gifting tab, that will let you buy a membership (or multiple memberships) for other people. All you need is their email address and name, and we’ll send an automatic email with a link that gives them credit and lets them set up their account with their own username and password. You can give either an Irregulars membership or an Irregulars Plus+ No Ads membership, either for one year or a platinum “lifetime” membership.

Gift memberships do not renew automatically, so neither you nor the recipient is under any future obligation. They are not refundable, but if the recipient doesn’t want the gift you are welcome to transfer it to someone else — that’s easy, you can just just give that person the code you’ll see in the “Your Gifts” part of your account, but we can also help you with that if you like (just use our Contact Us form to let us know).

What is “Gumshoe Gives Back?”

Stock Gumshoe runs a charitable membership drive near the end of each year. It changes a little bit from year to year, but typically Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe’s founder and owner, will make donations to our favorite charities that equal at least half of whatever membership payments are made by folks who sign up during a particular period of time (usually a week or two). Those donation recipients are all charitable nonprofit organizations, they are not focused on any particular cause, religion or political issue. Stock Gumshoe writers, employees, contractors and readers may suggest recipients, but the gifts are generally given to reputable and efficient humanitarian and arts/literacy-focused charities, over time our largest gifts have gone toward fighting homelessness and hunger.

How do I see my Author Page, with my bio, posts and comments?

To see your Author Page, log in and click on “View”, next to “My Profile” in the upper right corner of the page. You will be taken to your Author Page. (Only Irregular members can display a bio or create discussions on Stock Gumshoe).

How do I change by bio and/or what name is displayed when I post?

You can create and edit your public Stock Gumshoe persona on your account page. Just log in and click on the “My Profile” link (or the “Edit” link next to it) in the upper right corner of the page. Under “Display Name Publicly As”, you can choose from a dropdown menu of options. This is what will be shown when you comment or post. If you are an Irregular member, here you can also create/edit your bio, which will be displayed on your Author Page. (Be sure not to include any personal information like your email address in your bio).

How do I cancel my paid membership in the Irregulars?

You can cancel future renewals anytime on your account page (log in and click on “My Profile” in the upper right corner of any page, then choose “Subscriptions” and click “Cancel”). Cancellation prevents future renewals so your membership will remain active until your expiration date. You can also Contact Us, and we can cancel for you.

All of our memberships renew automatically, either each month or each year. Depending on your account settings and on the payment processor, you might be alerted in advance about pending automatic renewals, but we can’t guarantee that you’ll receive such an email (don’t worry, if the renewal went through and you hadn’t intended to renew, we’ll cheerfully cancel and refund it — you just have to Contact Us to let us know).

We are always happy to refund your most recent payment within 60 days, and we can usually process a refund directly to your credit card. (For refunds of older payments, which will be prorated for the remaining time on your subscription, we may have to send you a check, that depends on the credit card processor’s policies). Refunds are not automatic, and you do need to ask us if you would like a refund. For refund or cancellation requests, please use the Contact Form to make sure we don’t miss your request (no, you don’t have to call us or sit through a sales pitch — no questions asked, we just need to make sure we get the message). The Platinum membership (“lifetime” payment that never renews) is never refundable, so please start with something else if you’re wary of commitment.

Do you have a trial period or refund for the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars (paid membership)?

We don’t have formal trial periods, though you can sign up for as little as a month if you like… and that is what we suggest if you’re not certain of your interest — if you sign up for a monthly membership, you can cancel it during that first month and you’ll never be charged again.

We’re also always happy to refund your latest renewal payment or a pro-rated portion if you don’t like the site or if your subscription renewed and you had meant to cancel before the renewal, or for any reason at all (or no reason) … but you do have to ASK for a refund using the Contact form, none of our systems are set up to process them automatically. Platinum memberships are not refundable, and they do not incur ongoing recurring fees of any kind.

Cancel future renewals on your account page by logging in and clicking on “View Account” in the upper right corner of any page (then choose “Subscriptions” and click “Cancel”). This will work to make sure that you don’t get charged again, but your membership will still be active until the next expiration date unless you request a refund.

Will the Thinkolator solve a teaser ad for me? I need to know the name of this stock!

If you’ve come across an investment newsletter ad that is promising you riches, and lots of clues, but no answers, send it our way. Email the ad link to us at ILoveStockSpam@gmail.com and we’ll put it on the pile for consideration. Unfortunately, we can’t tackle them all, but we try to cover the most popular ones. You can also send them through our Contact Form.

How do I change my email address?

For the Irregulars emails or the free Daily Update newsletter, you can change your address here using your StockGumshoe login. If you haven’t set a user name with us before and have a legacy subscription to our original Daily Update free letter, you can sign up for a Free membership here with your new email address and we’ll start using that. You can also Contact Us if you have any trouble with this and we can help.

Why isn’t your email newsletter coming to me? I signed up!

If you signed up, we are certainly trying to deliver it.

Some email systems and providers block all or most mass emails, even those from respected providers (we currently use Campaign Monitor, which has an excellent anti-spam reputation and policies, but all of them get blocked sometimes). If your email is getting through the ISP or email service you use (ie, Comcast, AOL, Gmail, etc.), it could still be caught up in your personal spam filter — if you add travis@stockgumshoe.com to your address book or whitelist, that can help.

If your email “bounces back” to us as undeliverable or is repeatedly flagged as spam, our provider will blacklist your address and stop trying to deliver to you. Both the free and paid member (Irregulars) emails are sent from this same email system, so blocking or unsubscribing from the free email will also stop the paid emails from being delivered. You can contact us with questions, and we can reset your email delivery and resume trying to deliver the newsletter if this is the case.

How do I unsubscribe? Take me off your email list!

It’s easy — just go to the last email newsletter that you got from us, and click on the unsubscribe link — there’s one at the bottom of every email. If you do this you will still have a Stock Gumshoe username, we just won’t send you the email newsletters. This will NOT change your paid membership in the Irregulars if you have one, but it will mean that you’re blocking the Irregulars emails from reaching you (along with all other Stock Gumshoe emails we send). If you want to get less mail, we can switch you to a once-a-week summary, just contact us and let us know.

Every Day is too much! Do you have a digest option?

If you’re getting the free Stock Gumshoe Daily Update, you can choose to instead get just the Weekend Wrapup — that’s our weekend newsletter that shares links to all the articles from the week. You’ll miss occasional email commentary, but will get most of our stuff. Contact Us and we’ll change that setting for you.

Do you trade these stocks that you’re writing about? Are there rules about Travis buying and selling these stocks?

Stock Gumshoe, Inc. does not actively invest in stocks or anything else, but our writers and employees, including Travis Johnson, do own and trade stocks and other investments.

Sometimes stocks that Travis writes about, or that are otherwise covered by Stock Gumshoe, do move as a result of that additional attention — usually because they’re small-capitalization stocks or are otherwise lightly traded. We promise not to try to profit directly from that movement, and our basic trading rule is that Stock Gumshoe employees may own a stock that is covered in published articles, but they must disclose that ownership clearly and may not buy or sell any stocks for three trading days after those stocks are covered in an article on the site — usually any kind of pop that’s caused just by our articles will be very short-lived, so that should prevent buying the stock, writing about it, then profiting from the pop (not that we’re going to try do to that anyway).

If Travis owns a stock before publishing an article about it, he will disclose that either in the text of the article or at the bottom in a disclosure note, and he can not sell that position within the three day window. The only exception to this is if Travis writes about a stock for which he has a limit buy or sell order with one of his brokers at the time of publication — ie, a stop loss order to sell a stock if it falls by 20%, or a limit buy order to purchase a stock if it falls to his target price — in that case, the limit order will be disclosed in the article and it’s possible that it could trigger in the three days following the article publication, but the limit order may not be changed during those three days.

This does not apply to indirect ownership, as through a mutual fund or ETF that might own the stock in question, or to follow-up comments that might be made by Travis or another author on a particular investment, since we’d never be able to keep close track of that effectively. Travis also discloses the individual equities that he buys and sells to the Irregulars as part of his writing that follows his Real Money Portfolio. He does not necessarily write about each option or mutual fund trade he makes, though he will always disclose those if there is a connection to a stock he’s writing about, and the 3-day trading rule does apply to leveraged or derivative investments like options or warrants as well as to equities. Commenters, guest authors, and Irregulars who post opinions or questions in the Discussions section are not bound by any such trading rules, but paid authors are.

How do I contact you? Will I get a response?

We try to respond to everyone who asks us a question — if a few dozen people forward the same teaser ad, we might not get individual responses out to you individually, we may well “respond” by covering it in our newsletter. For many questions about ads you’ll find we’ve already answered it, and we’ll usually try to respond with a link, but the article can be found much more quickly using our search box, which is at top of every page on the site. Some questions we can’t answer (like queries about whether we like your favorite stock, or we think you should buy ABC or XYZ) other than to suggest that you start a discussion about them to see if you get any feedback … but for others, if we haven’t gotten back to you within a day or two … well, sorry, we do get a deluge of email and we do sometimes miss one. Feel free to ask again. If your email system bounces back some kind of spam-fighting message that requires us to put in a code or respond to an anti-spam registration before you can receive our email, we probably will miss that bounceback message and you will probably never receive our email. You can always send customer service queries to payments@stockgumshoe.com, but the absolute best chance of your email not being missed is if you use our Contact Us form.

Who are these guest authors I see on the site?

We have guest columnists from time to time at Stock Gumshoe, some of whom stick with us for years and some who submit just a few articles. Paid columnists and guest authors agree to follow the same trading rules as Travis (no trading in stocks you write about for at least three days following publication, and disclosure of any personal ownership of a stock in the article). We also allow our paid members, the Irregulars, to submit new discussion topics, and sometimes those can be long and involved — the Irregulars do not have a disclosure or trading rule in this case, nor do any folks who comment on the articles on the site and otherwise participate in the discussions that follow many of our articles. Guest authors are generally chosen because of their ability to write and discuss specific topics, often topics where a perspective different from Travis’ would be particularly valuable — we choose them based on their content and contributions and discussions, not based on the specific performance of the stocks that they might write about.

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