Author/Editor
Brett Owens
Publisher
Contrarian Outlook
Description
Stock investing newsletter that tries to help show you “how to take advantage of market misperceptions.” Income/yield focused, replaces what had been called Contrarian Advantage.
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Last night I watched one of Stansberry’s cohorts, Dr. David Eifrig, recommend MIC in his Income Intelligence letter. MIC is one of Mr. Owen’s recommendations. BTW, Doc Eifrig also recommended BX.
You don’t take anyone’s advice blindly, why would you do it here? I find that Brett “narrows the field” for me. I’ll then use CEF Connect to do some diligence (UII, leverage, etc.), my broker to get up to the minute info, then pass or play. True, I’ve done a lot of passing but, after a year, I’m happy with the results. Of course timing has a huge impact. The key is, as many fellow subscribers have said, that this vehicle is primarily for income generation and, much less so, if at all, for appreciation alone.
I’ve been a subscriber for about 2-years now, and fully support Brett’s approach and analysis, but you have to understand the goal is dividend INCOME and dividend growth, versus just share price growth. He recommends investments selling at a discount to NAV, so there is some implied share price growth potential on top of the dividend income stream. I have grown to really appreciate his “Contrarian” mindset, and to listen to him when he recommends selling a particular investment.
If you’re looking for the next 10X bagger, this isn’t the newsletter for you, but if you are looking to build a portfolio of income investments, then I recommend it. Doesn’t mean you can stop paying attention or doing your own homework, but I have found the approach to be very effective.
I’m an old retired guy, who invest for income. Most of my picks have come from gleaning information posted by others on line. I’ve always used my $4.95 a month subscription to Weiss Ratings as a final filter. If a position doesn’t rate a B- or higher, I pass on it. Thus far that has always worked well for me. Many of Brett’s picks or C- or lower. I mark the ones that interest me on my Weiss watch list, and if they I eventually get an upgrade alert they’ve made it to B- I’ll consider a position. Not rocket science, but it’s been good so far!
Thanks for the post. Like your thesis. Which sub is 4.95? i only see 29.95/month on Weiss.
Mickymike is right – I too only see a 29.95 per month price, which I find a little steep..
it’s not $4.95 a month. it’s $495 for the first two years. gordon probably forgot how much he paid. there is a $999 lifetime subscription. if you spread that out over 17 years, it works out to about $4.95 a month.
Checking the site on this day (11.24.19) and see a subscription option for something called “Weiss Ratings Access” for $4.97/mo. Not sure if this is a targeted offer or limited time. This is different than the “Platinum” plan you guys are describing, which was $24.97 as of this date.
Hope this helps if you sign up.
not sure how you found it, but after doing some more digging i can confirm. here is a link to the sign-up page for the weiss ratings access. note that you do not get any of the other premium services that are offered on the site. you only have access to the ratings.
https://weissratings.com/subscribe/access?e=201BEE48
Yes, I just checked, a year later, and that “Weiss Ratings Access” is still only $4.97 monthly,( about $7.00 or so Canadian), and it appears to be strictly ratings, no advice. Possibly a bargain.
How did you get a 4.95 /month membership? I looked and it is more than double that amount?
I checked the claims on Brett’s latest mailing “How to Retire on 8% Dividends Paid Monthly”. None of the ten funds come even close to his claims. Let’s take a look a just a couple.
1. BlackRock Science & Tech – BST claims 5 yr ave. return of 22.32%. 5-yr price change was 23.62% or about 4.72% annual average (simple) gain. Assume today’s yield of 5.55% plus 4.72% capital gains only adds up to 10.27%, not bad but nowhere close to the 22.32% claimed.
2. BlackRock Health Sciences – BME claims 5-yr ave. return of 14.34%. 5-yr price change was 12.68% or about 2.54% annual average (simple) gain. Assume today’s yield of 5.96% plus 2.54% capital gains only adds up to 8.5%, decent but nowhere close to the 14.34% claimed.
All the other results were materially lower than the claims made in the marketing material.
Hey members thanks for all your information , specific examples and comments. I am evaluating CIR and Stockgumshoe is one of my first stops. It looks pretty disappointing .
Can anyone tell me how with so many negative reveiews CIR gets an overall 4.1 stars…??????
Can anyone pont to other resources to evaluate reports and letters.
I dont ever see any mention of Harvard Trained veteran newsletter evaluator Mark Hulbert & his rigoris evaluation & commentary!
Confused!
Reading a lot of these reviews it appears too many are blindly taking the advisors advice without doing your own due diligence. I have been in several of these bad investments but exited before I tool it in the shorts because of my own analysis. An example is Brad Thomas, probably the most informed advisor in REITs, who has pushed a lot of well established mall REITs and promotes them as great values today. They are great values but in a declining industry. I stayed away from mall REITs and very glad I did. You have to do your own due diligence before and during holding an investment. Use advisors to find potential investments then do your homework.
I joined but have NOT received any reports. What are the reports labeled?
Search on Google for: http://www.contrarianoutlook.com; The page that pops up has a subscriber sign-in box on the right side. Enter your email address and create a password and click signup here. I f they received your payment you should be able to sign in, if not, hit the “contact us” tab at the top and send them an inquiry re: your account. Your reports are made available online at the beginning on each month.
I have used stockgumshoe numerous times through the years but have never contributed anything. I read the comments on Contrarian Income Report and that motivated me to gather some data on that newsletter mainly for my own use but to also share it here. I have been a CIR subscriber since August 2017.
Some of the negative comments below are made from the perspective of investors looking for large share price escalation. Although that is possible and is teased in some of the advertisements that is not really what this service is all about. It is about generating income and the portfolio performs well in that regard. It is suggested that 8% is achievable and that is probably right, or close to right. When I signed on I figured I would be happy with 7% – 8% income and if the share price went nowhere that would be fine. That share price thing can be problematic as several commentators have pointed out. There have been several rather large loses on the CIR books. I decided to take a look at share price performance of the CIR portfolio and my personal portfolio independent from the income generation. So, I ran the data as a snapshot, accurate on a specific date, 12/15/2019. Here are the results:
Portfolio – there are currently 18 issues in the portfolio and 16 closed trades on the books. That is not exactly “no withdrawal” is it? Anyway, in the active portfolio the average share price has appreciated 9.3%. The 16 closed trades averaged 2% loss, not nearly as bad as some commentators suggested. The weighted average for both active and closed trades is 3.98% appreciation. This meets my expectations.
My personal portfolio, a subset of the CIR portfolio, is not quite as good, due in part to operator error. I have 13 active issues and 1 closed trade. The average share price of the 14 issues decreased by 1.2%. Had I not been playing with covered calls and let what became a big share price winner get called away my share price would be positive.
So, there you have it. On that day all was looking good. Of course, we have been in an upward trending market during the entire life span of this newsletter. Things could go downhill. Only time will tell. But for now CIR has performed well as an income generating and share price preserving/appreciating service.
Thank you for reading.
I just joined CIR for a specific purpose, which a few people here have mentioned – but many have missed – so if I could help some a bit, I’d like to comment a bit on VISION!
There are many different goals in stock investing from swinging for the fences to ultimate safety (there is no perfect safety). You can also have different goals at the same time: real estate, retirement, funding new boat, a high return stock portfolio, and more. Each of those might need a different investment vehicle! As you all know, there are tons of vehicles to try to accomplish your goals, some better, some worse. This means it is critical to know what your goals are or you may be looking at, or misjudging, different systems – to your harm.
In earlier years, I took some home run swings, hit a few, missed a lot but, being new, it was with semi-fun money I did it with (I now know there is no such thing in this arena). As we aged, I became increasingly aware how important it is to have a goal for different financial investments – and to pick the type of investment to accomplish that specific goal.
In stocks investing, I became more and more appreciative of dividend stocks for better safety and growth. I enjoy research, stats and spreadsheets so, over the years I developed my own system of looking for dividend stocks that showed the best stock price growth, with 15+ year history and safety. Sure enough there are over 20 with less than a 5 yr. Beta lower than 30 that have consistently averaged in the 20+% annual growth. (The amount of dividend was not an issue, as long as it had one, as we have a high income and didn’t need withdrawals.)
Now, as we enter our seventies, a different goal has entered the scene. I don’t know how much time I will be willing to give to this in the future. So, I wanted to learn how to develop a dividend stock investment plan that paid INCOME without needing a lot of attention from myself. Here are some important consideration for this type of investment (which Mr. Owens included several of):
1. Higher dividend payout is very important if your investment amount is limited.
2. You don’t have to sell some of the stock to add to the distributed income needed.
3. If this is a long term plan you don’t want to spend a lot of time on, one commentator’s remark here is very valid: it doesn’t matter if the stock price drops or rises (still preferable) – if it pays the same, or more, dividend PER SHARE, you still receive the same income.
4. INCREASING stock dividends are very important long term. Some commentators mention this but few say WHY (including Mr. Owens). In a word, INFLATION. Not too often in history has the cost of living gone down. It usually cost more to live in the future. If you can avoid selling shares (for income – it’s ok to sell shares to buy other shares), then your want your dividends to rise enough to cover increasing prices. With the same number of shares, your income continues to rise.
This is a specific goal that most of the people here don’t have (yet). So, of course there will be comments against what Mr. Owens is doing. However, he understands and is doing most of what my goal is for that specific portfolio. He is not my only source for this goal but I joined because I liked his approach enough to check his system out more and may use part of it and enjoy the data. His Reports were available the same day and I took time to read, specifically, his methodology and HOW TO USE his information – so I know how to evaluate what specifically fits my goal.
I encourage you all to take the time to really think out what goal(s) you want. Then you can better evaluate the systems to accomplish them.
I’ve subscribed to CIR for two years now. I am working on my portfolio to use as an income stream when I retire in 5 years. I will not be touching these funds unless it is to sell and obtain a new position in a new fund.
I love the monthly reports. My portfolio is healthy. I current yield about $10,000 a year in dividends that are automatically reinvested. I’ve only had to sell one position in 2 years because of performance (Park Hotels) and the rest are up.
I will continue to subscribe. I’m hoping to get that $10,000 a year up to $20,000 a year by retirement so new funds will be added when we sell our home at retirement.
Between the 20k/yr , my wife’s teachers pension, my social security, as well as our 401k money, we should have a comfortable retirement. Our retirement property will be paid off this year so no mortgage there either.
Hello Terry and Richard Ouellette, your comments about CIR resonate with me a lot: it sounds like our investing goals are similar and we are on the same page in terms of Brett Owens’ vision and strategy. However, you posted your comments about Brett’s Contrarian Income Report two months ago. Wondering how you feel today when all his positions are sharply down and no different from the rest of the market. I’ve been Brett’s subscriber for about a year and I invested heavily in his recommendations. The money was from my traditional IRA account. A couple of days ago Brett issued an alert to sell everything. …easy for him to say! I did not sell because I just simply cannot afford losing 30% of my IRA. I’m kind of glad I did not sell because some of the positions gained from 3% to 20% today (3/26/20) but I’m still (and most probably will be)way far from breaking even for quite a while. If you are in the similar situation, could you pls share what you are planning to do with your CIR investments: did you sell? are you planning to? I’m looking forward to hearing from you both, as well as from other Stock Gum shoe members who are kind enough to respond. My email is. Appreciate your support! Thank you.
You don’t need to withdraw the money out of your account if you sell. Sell the position but leave it in your IRA and you won’t have money at risk and you won’t have any taxes due on it either.
I held through the pandemic except for my 3 REITS which I sold when the alert came out and put that money in DSL. Here we are over a year later and my portfolio still looks good. My dividends held steady for all of my funds but DSL (it dropped $.04 a share) so I was able to get more bang for my buck as the monthly DRIP was picking up shares at bargain prices during the couple of very down months. My income stream has grown with no “new” money added. Is it fool proof? No, nothing is. I’m not in it for the gains, I’m in it for the income.
Hope you did not sell. The entire market took a wallop due to Covid. Now it is up. I had the same thing happen (after reading CIR and investing) and, unlike my normal panic pattern, I just waited. AND I BOUGHT ON THE DIP with extra cash I had floating around. So glad I did!!!!
i just subscribed to cir about a month ago. not extremely impressed at what you get, but then it was only $39 for one year, so what did i expect? i was pleased to see that two of my recent investments were also in his cir portfolio. i considered a couple of his “buy” recommendations, but i’m a little uneasy about closed end funds – which seem so comprise a large portion of the portfolio. i’m considering buying into his “hidden yields” on a highly discounted one year subscription with a two month “trial”. but if that also turns out to be a bunch of cefs, i will ask for my money back.
Hi, I’ve been surfing through articles on this website and I have enjoyed reading your comments. I think we have similar investing interests. (Looking for quality dividend stocks) Did you end up subscribing to the Hidden Yields service, and if you did, do you think it is worth it? I have almost signed up for Contrarian so many times.
Please feel free to email me if you would prefer that to replying here. Wyld2006@hotmail.com
I have been investing in dividend Stocks and growth stocks for a couple of years now, and what I have found is that no matter how good an advisor is or how good a stock is – when a crash happens all the stocks take a nose dive and when your portfolio drops by 20 -30% having a 3% dividend won’t make a bean of difference.
The only logical course is to become a swing trader and milk the stocks when they are growing and dump them when they take a nose dive.
That’s my 2 cents worth.
couldn’t agree more. That’s exactly what I do.
I spent the last year moving cash into dividend positions according to Brett’s recommendations, not a lot, but what fit into my budget. I had 100 shares in each of four of his recommendations. So….the stock market starts to tumble and he issues sell alerts for these recommendations. It irked me. I didn’t buy these things to then turn around and sell them into a down market. This is supposed to be contrarian. What’s contrarian about doing what everybody else is doing? I’m not feeling very fond of Brett right now. And I didn’t sell so if they don’t recover, I have no one but myself to blame.
I’ve found through trial and error over the years it’s best to make your own judgements as to how to manage your share purchases and sales. Newsletters are good up to a point but most of them revert to the mean over time. There’s plenty of free options out there, the non premium version of Zack’s, Seeking Alpha, etc…..I tend to cherry pick their ideas and run with it. With this virus thingy going on I’m sticking pretty much with essentials these days. Grocery chains, telecoms, utilities, dollar stores and the likes. No matter how bad things get these are things everybody needs. I’ve even got a couple of reits in the mix, however the are apartment owners and retirement home and medical clinics operators not the mall types who are getting slaughtered. I’ve also been buying and selling Fedex and UPS with all the online commerce going on their volumes are through the roof. When one of my picks goes south I average down and swing trade the 2nd and 3rd if necessary position to lower my break even costs on the highest cost shares over time.
I subscribed to all four of Brett Owens Contratinan newsletters. I can only tell you that I am out a lot of money on his stock picks. 3 of the 4 newsletters are written by him. I invested in his options newsletter and then he canceled it and put me into a newsletter called Swing Trader. I lost my shirt on this and even asked for my subscription fee back since I did not sign up for that losing newsletter. I lost close to half my money and he won’t even refund my money for something I did not even buy. Just like the other poster, he just started telling us to dump the stocks and no explanation, just dump them. I went with him because I felt he had the right core beliefs of investing I had, but when chaos sets in you see the real person comes out. I should have done like the other subscriber and hold on to my picks. He told us to sell with deep losses and sadly, of course, the market did rebound a bit after that. The thing is this is a Contrarian Fund we are supposed to be in for the long term.
I do want to say one positive thing, the 4th newsletter called “CEF Closed-End Fund” run by a guy named Michael Foster, not Brett Owens, it’s not up either as the whole market is down but he kept his cool and gives real logical calm insight to the market and economy. I don’t think he even sold one CEF during the market crash. I canceled the 3 subscriptions and only follow Michel Foster’s newsletter.
listen to Raoul Pal on you tube and listen to what he tells you .
The economy and stock market is about to fall off a cliff – buy physical gold, short stocks and treasury etf’s to protect your income.
Been with Contrarian Outlook since 2016. Still pleased. His specialty is CEF’s, it’s a plus, I believe. Monthly short list of current choices to deploy new money is a good feature. I make my own choices for exiting positions. It’s not exciting, just profitable. (Adrenaline junkies needn’t look here.) You don’t have to look at it very often as it’s hard to get killed when the dividends are such a large factor in the stock price and CEFs are just a backwater of the market. No one is doing HFT and algo trading on these, too small to matter.)
I lost money following Brett. Worst, he alerted his followers to sell almost all equities at the rock bottom of March. Maybe to make his pick loss percentage looking better in his service, in case it might drop more. Though he was touting not sale all the time even in recession. He sugared coating his explanations of his ideas as if his followers are all novice not wanting to understanding what works under hood. I used his Contrarian Outlook, hitting landmine from time to time such as Six Flag, MIC, Colony, Park Hotel … Not to mention the sale recommend at March.
The first 2 years I subscribed Brett constantly said do not panic and sell in a market correction. When the market corrected in early 2020 Brett panicked and said to sell nearly everything in his portfolio. That’s when I canceled my subscription. During the correction , because of the low prices I received 100’s of shares of stock I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Brett’s picks were basically good and I still have most of them but if I had followed his advice I would be much poorer.
I have subscribed to the Contrarian Income Report since Jan 2021. As of May 5 2021, the returns on dividends and performance of the overall recommendations is pretty pathetic. Most likely I will ride out the subscription for another 1-2 months, but soon plan to discontinue following his portfolio as returns have been unacceptably low. If you are truly looking for dividend investing funds or a related portfolio, I might suggest elsewhere.
I’ve been a subscriber to Contrarian Outlook Report since 2016. In general I’ve gotten some good investment ideas from Brett, especially when holding them long enough for the dividends to add to the returns.
In looking at the open positions in my Roth IRA from his recommendations, these are my current returns (including dividends), rounded to the nearest year: 19% in 2 years, 18% in 3 years, 59% in 1 year, 27% in < 1 year, 24% in 4 years, 35% in < 1 year, 25% in 1 year, 28% in 3 years, 9% in < 1 year, 33% in 3 years, 105% in 1 year, and 6% in 1 year.
I have had losses in some closed positions, but in general I have been pleased. And I especially appreciate the ideas that he includes in email updates in between issues. Some of the CEFs that he mentions in those emails as being undervalued have paid off, and are worth further research even though they're not part of the newsletter's portfolio.