Become a Member

Checking out Lindzon’s “How to bank up to 1,000% gains thanks to the ‘Crypto Terminal’ … All without buying a single cryptocurrency!”

What's the "shocking announcement" teased for April 25 that is being used to lure subscribers to Howard Lindzon's Peloton?

I like reading Howard Lindzon, a hedge fund/venture capital guy who became a widely-followed trend pundit and co-founded StockTwits, and he now has a newsletter in partnership with Agora… so Gumshoe readers were curious about what he’s selling, and, frankly, so was I. Let’s dig in, shall we?

Lindzon is a prolific opiner, so you can easily follow his stuff on Twitter or his blog, which is worthwhile — like anyone who has developed a following, he has and voices strong opinions that I’m sure you won’t always agree with, but I find him interesting (in the Twitterverse, as in the world of investment newsletter teaser ads, being wishy-washy or undecided doesn’t get you much attention).

He launched his paid newsletter, called Peloton (in what so far seems to be his own private imprint as an “Agora affiliate,” Charles Street Research), late last Summer and claims huge average gains from the recommendations he has made in Peloton. Like many “entry level” newsletters, it seems to be mostly focused on a monthly writeup of a single appealing investment idea, though I don’t know what most of those recommendations would have been (he says that “all seven of my trade recommendations are up with an average open gain of 259%!”).

So that’s the backdrop — we’ve got a new lower-cost newsletter being pithed by Howard Lindzon… and like so many newsletter ads, it’s baited with a teased investment idea that he says “could easily double in just a few days or weeks” following their upcoming announcement.

And that means we’ve got an answer to find for you — you can go ahead and subscribe to Lindzon’s Peloton if you want to, I have no idea whether it’s up your alley or not, but don’t ever turn over your credit card just to learn about a “secret” stock… that’s likely to mess up your ability to think clearly about that stock (among other biases that will hit). Let’s ID the ticker first for you, then you can go make your decisions.

So what is it? Lindzon teases that…

“This company’s patented technology could single-handedly disrupt the $800 billion (and growing) cryptocurrency markets and help early investors turn every $1,000 into $10,000.”

Other clues?

“I’ve just discovered a NEW way to score massive crypto-like profits WITHOUT having to risk a single cent on Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Ripple, or any other cryptocurrency you’ve been hearing about in the news.

“I call it the ‘Crypto Terminal’….

“… the very existence of this “Crypto Terminal” could not only disrupt the way investors get information about cryptocurrencies

“It could completely disrupt the stranglehold old-school media outlets––like Reuters, CNBC, and even Bloomberg––have on the financial news… and become the biggest player in a $3.5 billion dollar market in the process!

“And, on April 25, a shocking announcement could send shares of this tech company skyrocketing!”

He goes on to describe how the chat feature of the Bloomberg Terminal is the most-used part of that closed platform, connecting hundreds of thousands of the biggest traders in the world in real time… and that Bloomberg doesn’t track most of the cryptocurrencies… so this “secret” stock…

“… opened up a ‘back door’ for folks all around the world who want access to real-time information about the only market that’s traded 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

“And in the coming months… not only could this tech company become the Bloomberg Terminal for the cryptocurrency markets…

“It could turn every $1,000 invested into a whopping $10,000!”

So what is it? Well, after feeding those clues and a few others in the ad into the gaping maw of the Mighty, Mighty Thinkolator, we can confirm that here Lindzon is touting… Twitter (TWTR).

No surprise there, I suppose, Twitter is the engine behind Stocktwits, where Lindzon is still Chairman, and he has made that “Bloomberg” comparison in past years as well.

And Twitter has had an absolutely spectacular few months — after being effectively left on the side of the road in early 2016, forgotten and ignored as revenue stopped accelerating (and largely stayed stagnant, actually, as user growth stalled), the stock did start to come to life toward the end of 2017 and has surged 50% in just the past six weeks.

That’s not enough to get them back tot he glory days of 2014, when the stock briefly peaked near $70, but I’m sure it does a lot to encourage longtime Twitter users that yes, they may finally be figuring out how to grow beyond their core audience and, importantly, turn that audience into money.

The $3.4 billion opportunity is not particularly remarkable — certainly the advertising world is much bigger than that, and even after not growing much over the past several years Twitter’s annual revenue is just over $2.4 billion (Facebook’s is $40 billion, just for comparison’s sake).

Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...


And yes, lots of people talk about cryptocurrencies on Twitter… and the attendant surge in cryptocurrency ad spending at the end of last year and the beginning of this year probably had a meaningful impact on Twitter’s earnings and might even be worth a comment in the conference call, though bitcoin and blockchain did not garner a mention in the last Twitter shareholder letter. There’s also some reporting about Twitter being a vehicle for cryptocurrency scams, though I don’t know if that’s fair — every scam artist in the financial world has spent the past six months trying to ride that wave of speculative bitcoin ebullience, their tentacles are likely in every publishing or communication platform.

And Twitter does indeed have big news coming in late April, though YCharts expects it to be April 26, not the 25th — that’s the likely date for their first quarter earnings report. Twitter is still a tiny little thing compared to Facebook, with a market cap of “only” $26 billion, so there is plenty of room for huge moves if they seem to be doing very well or very poorly, and though they did just go “adjusted EBITDA positive” in the past quarter it’s not really earnings per share that investors are likely to be paying attention to — they’ll probably be much more focused on the growth in ad revenue and the growth in users and traffic as they try to begin dreaming about huge future growth.

I missed this recent recovery in Twitter, it got stuck in my head as the “boy, that’s a shame that they can’t figure out how to make money from this great business” stock for quite a while and I haven’t been watching it (though I do browse some of my favorite folks on Twitter most days), but it certainly goes without saying that having a huge communications platform is a great business if you can make it grow… and, yes, perhaps Twitter is as close as we’re going to get to a “Crypto Bloomberg”.

In the world of Wall Street prognosticating, Twitter is penciled in with 59 cents in adjusted EPS for 2018, rising to 67 cents in 2019 — with revenue growth anticipated to be roughly 10% both this year and next. So that’s not an absurd proposition if you think Twitter is valuable and has a long future as a great platform company… but it is expensive for a company that’s growing so much more slowly than Facebook despite its dramatically smaller size. Maybe that’s the idea behind Lindzon’s pick here, that they could have room to grow a lot faster than this… or, perhaps, just that their growth will accelerate because of the cryptocurrency chatter increasing interest in (and spending on) the Twitterverse (could someone have spent even more on advertising than James Altucher’s cryptocurrency newsletter publishers over the past few months?). I don’t know… but compared to Facebook, at least, Twitter is still beaten-down and enjoys pretty low growth expectations.

But you, at least, can now think it over. Let us know if you’re all a-twitter over Twitter with a comment below. And if you’ve tried out Lindzon’s Peloton during it’s first half-year or so of existence so far, please click here to share your thoughts with your fellow investors.

Disclosure: I own shares of Facebook. I do not own any shares of any other stock mentioned above, and wont’ trade in any covered investment for at least three days, per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules. And I’m also a fan of bike racing, but when I get in the saddle I usually end up looking at the Peloton from behind.

Irregulars Quick Take

Paid members get a quick summary of the stocks teased and our thoughts here. Join as a Stock Gumshoe Irregular today (already a member? Log in)
guest

12345

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

10 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
sschechter
sschechter
March 7, 2018 3:49 pm

The only way you’re going to make 10x on Twitter with crypto is by getting in early on an active pump & dump. If you’re looking for a Crypto Bloomberg, try Cindicator instead

Add a Topic
5993
👍 53
Niko
Guest
Niko
March 7, 2018 6:55 pm
Reply to  sschechter

I agree with CINDICATOR, I’m a user of their trader bot and it’s been pretty accurate.

Big Al
Member
Big Al
March 7, 2018 11:21 pm
Reply to  Niko

Use Cindicator also and agree 100%

sschechter
sschechter
March 8, 2018 1:56 pm
Reply to  Big Al

I have not tried it yet but it is on my watchlist

👍 53
jeremiahberndt
March 8, 2018 1:07 pm
Reply to  sschechter

Just tried using Cindicator, I found their site rather clunky and hard to understand

👍 65
Graz nNahas
Member
Graz nNahas
March 7, 2018 6:06 pm

I thought it was Hashchain Technology inc

D K
Guest
D K
March 7, 2018 10:22 pm

I’ve been a follower of Howard’s for quite a while on StockTwits and got in on the Peloton newsletter when it was first offered. Mostly, his recommendations have done very well. For public markets, he’s an early-stage momentum investor with an excellent eye, especially in technology and media. Get and read his “8 to 80” book. For me, it’s been an education in learning how to do momentum investor. Value is deeply ingrained in my makeup, but the bull market that started in 2009 has been momentum-driven, especially since 2012.

To clarify, there are two things going on here. One is his recommendation of TWTR as a stock. Since his recommendation, it’s done pretty well. The other is his point that TWTR has turned out to be a kind of “real-time continuous front page” for financial markets, not just crypto.

Don’t know anything about Cindicator beyond the name.

(To clarify further, I have no connection to Lindzon other than being a subscriber and longer-term follower. It’s not a bromance or a fanboy-dom, as I’m not that kind of girl. 😉

Add a Topic
6136
Add a Topic
6138
Add a Topic
5971
brucesjun
Member
brucesjun
March 16, 2018 1:01 pm
Reply to  D K

DK…did you get a copy of his other book(ebook?) that he’s throwing in as a bonus for subscribing to the peloton newsletter – “How to Buy the Perfect Stock at the Perfect Time” that is supposed to be geared towards small cap stocks? If so, how is that book? and what about his weekly alerts and updates? should one go for peloton when (s)he gets the alerts? (there is another, much cheaper, offer for just the first book (“8 to 80”), and the alerts). I will highly appreciate your reply. You can also email me at brucesjun@gmail.com. thank you in advance.

Add a Topic
6138
Add a Topic
5971
Add a Topic
6138
👍 1
👍 21649
Dion Argueta
Dion Argueta
May 7, 2018 3:19 am

I don’t think its too much a stretch for twitter to take off!!!! Social media is all the rage and it wouldn’t be hard to figure out more ways to income stream with twitter. For example, they could charge a subscription fee to those that want to get a following for direct advertising through twitter and have an exclusive contact subscription through twitter. That would be a huge revenue generator!!!! I am relatively new to twitter, if they already have this, I am unaware???? Just like other social media advertising twitter can copy or mimic success from successful companies. Eventually twitter should mimic success in my opinion. Either way more people are having reason to go to twitter like myself. I got on to see Donald Trumps tweets to see policy that would effect the markets

Add a Topic
996

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.

More Info  
32
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x