Author/Editor
Nathan Slaughter
Publisher
Street Authority
Description
Focuses on high dividend stocks, trusts, closed end funds and other high income securities. Formerly edited by Carla Pasternak.
Overall Rating
Rating: 3.9/5. From 34 votes.
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3.8
Rating from 119 votes
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Investment Performance
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Rating: 3.6/5. From 33 votes.
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Quality Of Writing/Analysis
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Rating: 3.9/5. From 25 votes.
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Value For Price
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Rating: 3.9/5. From 27 votes.
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Customer Service
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Rating: 3.9/5. From 34 votes.
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A two-person show. They ferret out high yields that are pretty uncommon–but they underestimate the risk, or at least don’t explain the risk. Like everything, high risk is high reward–and in this market you’re likely to go bust. But I compliment them on finding some pretty unusual situations. Buyer beware.
I have read this letter for years. I am retired and need
this data. Carla had a BA, MBA, Phd and teaches and used to
write annual reports. He husband also writes a newsletter
of a go-go sort.
She is very thorough and analytical. She keeps tracks of her
recommendation and has added stop points in last 6 months.
This is the best High Yield letter I get and the total is about 6. There is a first of the month letter and a mid month
update.
For only $99 a year this is a steal.
(Carla is in Calgary and knows the Canadian market very well.)
I agree with Smokey as to the risk of her picks. I subscribed to her newsletter for a year, but did not renew it, nor would I subscribe again. I bought several of her suggested picks and in general they had poor overall performance, as prices on average went down. She seems to pay little attention to price, and does not have a problem with recommending things that have already had a dramatic run-up in price. Especially in the fixed-income arena, this seems to increase the risk, as prices tend to mean-revert. Overall, a disappointing newsletter.
I have subscribed and bought a couple of her picks and they promptly lost====big time. They were not good choices and if anyone has followed her, they will notice that most of her picks from last year lost @ 40 to 50%. I just quit. Watch them though, they debit your credit card every quarter and the rest of the Street Authority gets your e mail and you get inundated with their terrible picks.
To summarize, I had approximately five problems:
(1) She picked shipping and Business dev corporations on the eve of a major recession, which I think was insane.
(2) She mentions underlying volatility in her wripte-ups, but there have been additional factors such as people dumping because of yield freezes and cuts, or recession-sensitive sector picks
(3) Compounding (1) & (2), she claims to be writing this for really cautious investors looking for the safest picks, including actually her mother and is supposed to have twenty something years of experience in market analysis, but if I were a little old lady right now, I’d probably be having a coronary based on these picks.
(4) The happy talk continues blithely on in March, as though in denial that anything really happened to the market during February. Or, she is not writing this for people who actually follow the market, or she is hoping you didn’t notice if she sounds up-beat enough. She sent out a kind of urgent update in March suggesting dumping just ONE pick because of a div rate cut, while I was actually sitting in the middle of a graveyard of her picks.
(5) The write-ups are not very analytical. They read a bit like a review of a private school sporting event or amateur dramatic performance.
In more detail now:
I am a very new investor. I subscribed to HYI in December 2008 because I thought the yields might render the underlying instruments resistant to loss. However, several of Carla Paster-Knacker’s picks dropped like stones during February.
Her picks that I think were unforgivable were business development corporations (during a recession ! eg. AINV, ARCC, HTGC). “Invest like a venture capitalist !”. These corpses are still in my portfolio, down 50 – 80%, and not tracking back up with the rally. If I had had more than a couple of weeks experience investing at the time, I would probably have thought twice about the utter insanity of these picks. The other insane ones were in shipping. The streetauthority folks have blathered a fair amount about the Baltic Dry Index being at an all time low and due for a spring back, but their shipping picks (eg. FRO, DAC, etc) did the same lousy downward plunge of 50 – 75% and stayed low).
I assumed the above picks would come back and simply had a lot of volatility as she had mentioned in newslatters from around December, but about half of the picks I purchased (mainly the above plus some globals with a lot of european exposur) did not, and I jettisoned them at significant loss after realizing (too late) that everyone else was dumping because of concern about dividend cuts, sending them down into a deep-death zone.
At this point I canceled my subscription.
However, I kept 3 or 4 pipeline/energy picks such as MGG, ERF, NSH , which seem to have come back or not dropped. Moreover, two picks that I had jettisoned (AOD and AGD, actually came roaring back during the rally, from minus 40% or more, to + 8% of purchase price, outperforming the S&P during the rally. Moreover, AGNC seems to be holding, along with Capestead. So I actually reinstated my subscription, because for SOME of the picks it really is looking like volatility only, though the longevity of the yields I is anybody’s guess. Moreover, I was interested what she might have to say about the bond market, which is still relevant. However, I may cancel again within 3 months 🙂
Another thing is that when you subscribe, you get about five past newsletters as a kind of gratitude gesture, and it is probably a mistake in volatile times to purchase, like, November 2008 picks during December, since there was a sizeable market dip in November that sent yields high temporarily.
She could have emphasized that energy picks are likely to be more recession resistant than some of the others (so far at any rate).
After trying many many other newsletters over the last year and a half I have just started to give Carla a chance.
To me what distinguishes Carla the most is that she really never over hypes one of her featured picks. She presents them more as “food for thought”. She warns you to do your own due diligence before investing to determine yourself whether the risks seem reasonable to you. But she sure does come up with intrigueing possibitlities that I have never uncovered on my own through simple stock screening.
Similar to all letters, if you jump on the latest rec your sure to be disappointed as too many subscribers just act before checking. I suppose if your a day trader this might work out if you sell right after the rec. And if Carla is “front running” here latest, it sure can explain why some of her more obscure research can be had at such a reasonable subcribtion price.
In sum: I think Carla has some good ideas but you are on your own to make the right decision as far as risk and timing are concerned. What else do you want for this price?
The information included in this letter is well presented. Carla covers in fairly good detail many aspects of high-yield investing, letting an investor pick according to their needs. A good value for the money. I noticed that all who reviewed the letter before April give it a very tepid or negative review. That is the time most investments lost money, particularly high-yield investments, as they were considered at high risk, and risk was out. Now that the market has gone up, so have the investments.
The one serious problem with this letter is its accuracy, particularly in the Dividend Capture Dates section. I have found two errors in two months. RUS interest as printed in the April letter and TKG dates (and probably interest rate) in her May letter. My email regarding the April problem was noted, but not addresses at all. I suspect it is a very thinly staffed operation, thus one should take their admonition to do your own due diligence seriously, and confirm all dates and rates from other sources.
After cancelling my initial subscription, I commenced the second subscription to this letter 6 months ago on a teaser rate. Sadly, the content quality is still sub par to other publications. I already own most of the recommendations meeting my criteria, and the dividend capture selections are ridiculous. The ex-div date of some listings are before receipt of the newsletter, and most of those listed are so thinly traded they are not worthy of additional research. I did submit this and other suggestions in a survey, but no response. I will not renew as there are many better choices for my subscription dollars.
I took the 3 mo subscription for $40; one of those auto renewal schemes I hate. Marked my calendar for the final week of service so I could cancel if I chose to do so. Lo and behold, my credit card was charged several weeks early. When I contacted them, they gave a lame excuse, but did quickly refund my money.
Their service does contain some advice not easily found other places. Example – the tech stock hybrids – ELKS, STRIDES, & CORTS. Kind of a combo stock+bond. Sounded great, but difficult to research (even on Fidelity, Morningstar) and trade very thinly.
I will not renew, mostly because of their early charges and the fact that searches on other sites can identify quality higher yielding opportunities. They did, however, open my eyes to other investments.
Note that stocks, funds, etc have high dividends for a reason. As long as you’re aware and do your due diligence, you can profit with minimal risk.
I lost a lot of money with Carla on the one pick of hers I bought. That was DHT, which had been paying an astronomical dividend, as shipping companies often do. However, minutes after I eagerly bought in, the company announced they were dropping the dividend and the stock instantly crashed. I don’t know if Carla could and should have foreseen this coming based on info that would have been available to her, but I would think she should have been able to tell if the dividend was unsustainable given the available data at the time.
Anyway, I have never trusted her since. I bought Lgcy, Line, PVR, PBT, KYE, and PWE on Roger Conrad’s advice and I’ve been very pleased with all of them. I trust Roger more than any other advisor (not counting Gumshoe, of course). I also have a good feeling about Larry Edelson and Sean Broderick, and watch their videos every time.
I subscribed around 2007, and many picks sank like a stone. It could also have been my timing in entering market, so don’t want to blame their newsletter entirely.
They did introduce some pretty interesting investin instruments such as ELKS. But I once emailed their website when I realized they were miscalculating yields on ELKs. They acknowledged this, but didnt change anything.
Aesthetically, the website is horrible, but I have not deducted points for that (after all, look at the Berkshire Hathaway website!)
I subscribe to several income and dividend orientated newsletters. I have found this one to be the least helpful for my style of trading. Most of the funds and stocks Carla recommends seem a little risky for me. Many of them are trading significanly over NAV.
I like to trade on margin to compound my results. Many of Carlas recommendations can not be traded on margin due to the price or nature of the investments.
Most street Authority letters trade with real money, this one does not as near I can tell. So she does not have any closed trades or a true record of performance like the other street authority letters do.
The price is reasonable and the picks are ok if you are willing to buy above nav and not trade on margin. The site does not have a track record. I would not buy again since other letters offer better value for the money. However I will not be asking for a refund as I feel I was not mislead when I purchased this service.
These are considered to be slightly conservative newsletters as they invest goals are for income. Trading on margin is a more aggressive approach to trading.
High-Yield Investing is a joke! They (publishers) want you to invest in a financial product, such as a mutual fund, limited partnership, etc, but they never give you the name of the fund, so you can do due diligence and research the fund to see if it really is paying those types of dividends. The Sept.2010 issue promises returns of 24.9% a year – yeah, right! As soon as I figure out how to go to the moon on a dollar, then I might believe this 24.9% a year stuff! Give us a couple of names to research and then, then ask if we want to take your newsletter. Otherwise, this is just more crap to put in my birdcage! Thanks.
Recent subscriber. As will all newsletters, I paper trade all
recommendations that pass successfully through a screen. Most
email sites have good screener software as will one’s online
broker: Scotrade, OptionsXpress and Schwab.
After 3 months I reject those recommendation that are not performing on par with the S&P500 or better.
So far High-Yield paper trading has produced 8.5% gains not including dividends. That is since July. I compare this
gain with other emails I receive tauting their dividend stock recommedations. Guess what, High-Yield is ahead. I repeat, I
paper trade only those recommendations that pass a screener
test. As with any newsletter, one can incur losses without
doing more research, e.g. Cabot, Navellier and Motly Fool.
Read the fine print: due diligence is stated over and over again.
I will continue paper trading until market conditions clearly
indicate the bull is going to rage on.
I subscribed to this newsletter form about June 2008 through June 2010. I believe I paid $79 for a 24 month subscription.
As it’s name implies, its focus is investments providing high yields. In that department I believe it does a very good job, not necessary excellent buy very good. It appears to be good newsletter for those investors who are focused almost totally on income.
The editor, Karla Pasternak, in my estimation really does her homework. She does the research to find prospective hi-yield investments of various types (they are many different types – perhaps many most of us have never hear of) and after identifying some possibilities within an investment class, does the analysis to determine how solid the companies are, their ability to sustain dividend payouts, and the overall risk of investing in the security.
I decided not to renew my subscription because I’ve focused only about 30% of my portfolio on income (although if I can find good-dividend paying stocks for the rest of it, that’s just great). For the 30% that I do put in income producing securities, I have and can continue to find investments with good yields without this newsletter. Most of those I chose were recommended by other newsletter.
During the time that I subscribed I chose two stocks recommend by her and one was recommended by someone else as well. The latter I sold for a 12% gain plus enjoying about a six percent yield while holding it. The other I still have and has gained 70% since purchase in it and currently yields 6.5% (rats, I only put $5,000).
If you are oriented almost solely toward income this could be worthwhile newsletter.
After reading all these negative reviews, I wonder if we’re all talking about the same newsletter. I have been getting her newsletter (and another one) since August 2010. I have been quite happy with the resulta. Following her recommendations my portfolio has grown about 16%. I don’t buy everything she recommends, I’m selective. I research the stocks myself and try to buy them when they are trading at their 50 day moving average. I’ve been quite happy with the dividends and I find that her stock picks fluctuate less than the market. Maybe the key is to do your own research. I have subscribed to other newsletters and find them full of hype and scare tactics.
I have subscribed to Carla Pasternak’s newsletter for years and find it to be excellent. I have made money from her recommendations. However, I do my own research to select from her suggestions and do not blindly take all of them. The cost of the subscription is low, the content highly analytical but with a practical and clear presentation. This is the best financial newsletter I have subscribed to in decades of personal investing. She comes up with interesting ideas and suggestions in every issue. The key is to do your own research too.
I don’t understand why this newsletter does not have higher ratings. I have been subscribing to this newsletter for about 6 years, and never been disappointed. Her coverage and research is thorough, her picks well considered. During the downturn, I actually increased the value of my portfolio. She is not always right – some of her choices have tanked. But overall, those which I purchased at her suggestion have generated both good capital gains as well as generous income in the form of dividends. It is true that some of her recommendations are not terribly liquid, but that cana be an advantage in certain situations. If you are purchasing primarily for its yield, then the illiquid aspects become secondary. I particularly like her deep and informative research, and I am delighted to find a newsletter that leaves out personal political biases and recommends a pick solely on its financial merits.
So far (2 or 3 years) I am quite pleased. Almost all comments are currently irrelevant, since Carla Pasternek no longer is associated with High Yield Investing.
I have been subscribed to this service for several months, and find the quality of his writing, and the depth of his research to be outstanding. I have been making a significant amount of money selling puts on the his recommendations, with the understanding that occasionally I get put the stocks at a a bargain price.