by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | October 15, 2013 11:49 am
[ed note: This teaser pitch is exactly the same as one that started running in late February this year, so we’re just re-running our teaser solution from February 28, 2013 below — the basic idea of the investments is the same, the four teased stocks are exactly the same. More on how those stocks have done at the bottom, but otherwise we haven’t updated this article.]
The folks at Investing Daily[1] are launching a new letter that’s promising a “Magic Formula” for finding stocks that can deliver huge returns. The letter is edited by Jim Fink[2], who I don’t think I’ve ever written about — he’s been writing an options[3]-for-income/">options income letter for a while and apparently also contributes to their flagship letter, Personal Finance[4].
And now he’s got a service that’s hunting the next Monster Beverage, Priceline.com, Deckers, etc … choose your favorite 3,00%+ percent gainer over the last decade, and you can bet there are plenty of folks looking for how to target those guys ahead of time.
That’s where the “90% of top stocks” bit comes from, by the way — the spiel is that 9 of the top ten stocks over the last ten years started out as very small cap stocks, with market capitalizations of under a billion dollars, so therefore 90% of “top stocks” share this “secret” that most companies who show massive returns in a short time period start out little. The exception, by the way, is Apple — it was a multi-billion-dollar company ten years ago, though in going from $8 billion to $500 billion in market cap it certainly outpaced almost all other stocks. The others in the top ten that Fink cites, by the way, are MNST, DECK, GMCR, NEU, CLF, SCCO, MIDD, CALM and QSII.
Which gives me plenty of opportunity to regret the picks I sold too soon on that list, but that kind of self-flagellation won’t get us very far.
So yes, the idea is that you want to find small stocks that can grow dramatically over the next decade — that’s not surprising, the long-term outperformance of small cap value stocks, on average, has been known for a long time. And Fink, of course, thinks he has some good candidates for you that he’ll share in this new letter.
Or, as he puts it …
“This same strategy still works today because it’s based on timeless qualities. Agile small-cap value stocks still create new millionaires faster than any other investment on the planet. And the best news is… plenty of these stocks are out there today.
“If you don’t believe me, just look at the numbers. According to Bloomberg[5], 1,003 stocks are up 100% or more this past year. 189 stocks are up at least 10 to 1. And that’s in the U.S. alone. Include foreign markets and you’re looking at 389 10-baggers in the past 12 months. So it can and does happen—a lot.
“In a minute I’m going to tell you where I’m finding stocks like that now.
“I’ve discovered dozens of companies in position to deliver 10-year returns anywhere from 1,000%, 2,000% and a few even higher.
“Will they all be big winners? Of course not.
“But I’ve identified a handful of these “Buffett-quality” Roadrunner Stocks[6] with the best odds for success in a new Special Report.”
So … assuming that you don’t want to shell out $127 for the introductory price on this new letter, shall we find out what that handful of stocks are? Heck, maybe you’ll be so impressed with them that you’ll want to subscribe … or maybe you’d just like to have a few ideas to sniff on your own.
His basic pitch is, “Think small and think cheap” … and he cites some of the things that make these kinds of stocks compelling, like the fact that they tend to be domestic companies with few constraints to growth, they watch their cash closely because they have to, they often have large insider ownership, and they’re far more nimble in changing industries than are their larger counterparts.
He says he’s got eight “strengths” he looks for in his stocks, here’s the rundown:
- “Unique product or service. I like small companies with something exceptional to offer. Uniqueness is a competitive advantage, because it means that consumers can’t get what your company sells from anybody else. When there’s no competition, a company has almost unlimited pricing power.
- Impressive management. The greatest idea or breakthrough product means nothing unless you’ve got smart, dedicated people running the show—preferably the founder. I’ve made more money investing in firms with sharp managers and so-so products than in companies with great products and mediocre management. And the smaller the company, the better the management has to be.
- Strong earnings-growth prospects. I want companies whose profits are likely to grow by 15% or more for at least the next five years.
- Low price-to-earnings ratios—ideally, lower than the company’s growth rate. I’m especially fond of “shoe-size” P/Es in the 9 to 11 range.
- High and rising operating margins. Earnings can be manipulated. Operating margins can’t be. That’s why they’re a great measure of a company’s true profitability.
- Low institutional ownership. I want to own a stock before Wall Street piles in and drives up the price.
- Low debt. There’s no magic number here, but too much debt can strangle a company. I never buy a stock with more debt than equity
- High insider ownership. I want management to be partners with us on a stock. It’s a key Buffett rule: Owner-operators want the stock to go up as much as you do.”
A reasonable list of criteria, not many folks would argue that those aren’t good qualities for your stocks to have.
And the goal, we’re told, is 25% appreciation per year across this new portfolio — a nice number to shoot for.
He says that 80% of his trades have been winners over the past year, not sure if that’s in his options income portfolio or if those are stock picks … or, indeed, what he means by “winner.”
So what are the stocks he hints at in this teaser ad as his “top four buys now?”
Clues, please!
“High-tech life-savers. If you’ve ever been blinded at night by someone tailgating you with their brights on, you know it’s a real safety hazard. This company’s solution: rearview mirrors that automatically dim when they sense bright headlights behind you. Our pick’s high-tech mirrors are already in 23% of cars worldwide, but that will likely jump to 45% in 10 years. That will generate more new revenue than the company’s entire market cap right now. So the stock-price appreciation potential is tremendous. Now is the time to jump into the stock while it is unusually cheap, thanks to depressed exports to Europe. Once the Euro economy rebounds, the stock should return to its traditional P/E multiple, which would push the stock up 60% in a hurry.”
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This one is almost certainly Gentex (GNTX)[7], which is indeed the dominant automatic dimming mirror supplier — and in their investor presentation they do say that these kinds of mirrors (not just from them, but from all competitors combined) are in about 23% of vehicles now and could be in 45% of vehicles in a decade … which, at $100 a vehicle estimated cost (that might be just a fancier rearview mirror, or a combination of auto-dimming interior and exterior mirrors) would mean a $3 billion annual revenue potential for the sector.
And yes, Gentex has a market cap below that now, at about $2.7 billion. So they’re certainly not teensy, but are arguably in the small cap neighborhood (different people use different cutoffs, but usually around $2-3 billion they start to be called mid-cap stocks).
Interestingly enough, they don’t fit perfectly in Fink’s criteria — the PEG ratio is higher than one (meaning the expected growth rate is lower than the current PE ratio), the PE is not in the “shoe size” area of 9-11 but the forward PE is now 14 (as a guy with a size-13 foot, I can accept that). And operating margins have actually been coming down a little bit over the last two years — not dramatically, and they’ve certainly done well with the resurgence in vehicle sales over the last year or two, but they’re not getting margin expansion just yet. I see a lot to like in this auto tech stock, they’re spending heavily on R&D for other advanced features too (like rear and front camera assists and sensors, more electronics crammed into the rearview mirror, etc.), they have raised the dividend now three years in a row and have a decent near-3% yield, and they’re in a growing segment. Don’t know them well, and they’re neither tiny nor dirt cheap, but this looks like an appealing one for a bit more research.
Next?
“The Costco of Latin America that could jump 20-to-1. The largest membership warehouse club in South America and the Caribbean, this firm serves 1 million cardholders in 12 countries. But it’s more than just a Costco wannabe—it was actually spun off from Costco and is run by former Costco managers. If it can mimic Costco’s North American success in Latin America, the stock will be a homerun over the next decade. My metrics suggest the stock could grow 20 times in value from here.”
This must be PriceSmart (PSMT)[8], a stock we’ve covered before a few times and that is also not much of a fit on those benchmarks — it’s growing fast, indeed, but is priced for that growth with a forward PE well into the 20s, and PSMT’s operating and profit margins that have been quite consistent and pretty flat over the past five years even as sales have grown nicely. They do have a very high insider ownership, as well as a pretty large short position in the shares (about 10% of the stock is sold short, meaning a substantial number of investors are betting that the shares will fall — that’s not that unusual for stocks that tend to swing pretty widely on earnings and news and that are richly priced like PriceSmart). I shared some more detailed thoughts about this one when writing about a Hilary Kramer[9] teaser last Summer, but don’t have much of an opinion on the stock for you today. It hasn’t moved much since then, incidentally — it’s up about 10%, but so is the broader market, and they’ve “beaten” on their last two quarters, but not dramatically.
Another?
“Policing Obamacare for profits. Now that Obamacare is a reality, 30 million more Americans will be consuming government-subsidized healthcare[10]. This means a whole lot of work making sure providers are properly paid. Our pick is in the business of ‘payment integrity.’ In other words, it’s a fraud-buster that has been helping government agencies and corporations save money since 1974. And business should be GREAT going forward.
“60 Minutes calls Medicare fraud ‘one of the most profitable crimes in America.’ So this company’s opportunity is immense. By 2015, the government will spend $1.3 trillion a year on Medicaid and Medicare, and $107 billion of it will end up as waste or fraud. This is the company’s bread-and-butter business. Last year alone, its clients recovered $2.5 billion, and saved $7 billion more. Considering its market is about to explode from $9.5 billion to $160 billion, I see tremendous growth ahead.”
This one, sez the Thinkolator, must be HMS Holdings (HMSY) — which, again, is big for a small cap (market cap $2.5 billion), priced for growth,
They’ve given some recent presentations at investor conferences that you can see here if you want to get a backgrounder on them — it’s a very good story, and though I’ve spent just a few minutes taking a gander at them I do like what I see so far in terms of growth and potential growth … but it ain’t cheap with a trailing PE of 50 and a PEG ratio of about 1.3, and it also has a pretty high short interest (about 11%) and not much insider ownership (the insiders were buying a bit last Fall, but selling more recently). The shares have had a pretty bumpy ride, seeing both the low $20s and the high $30s over the last six months, I haven’t looked into them much yet but that may well be because of the fluctuating perceptions of what health care reform might mean to them (and the threats that this reform might have been rolled back last Fall). I’m adding this to the list to look into a bit more for myself, but, again, it’s not that small and it’s not at all cheap — this is a growth stock.
Last one:
“Back-door ‘fracking[11]’ play. This is the world’s largest ceramic proppant supplier, used in hydraulic fracturing to ‘prop’ open cracks in shale rock. Ceramic proppants account for 20% of the market, and their share is increasing. Because ceramics are highly permeable, oil[12] and gas escapes to the surface more easily, and well productivity jumps 20% to 50%.
“The company has been profitable for 25 consecutive years, with compound annual growth of 20% during that period. That turned a $10,000 investment into $794,968. Thanks to today’s shale boom, the future looks just as good.”
That one, you’ll probably be unsurprised to hear, is Carbo Ceramics (CRR). I haven’t looked at them recently, though I do remember them being teased a time or two during the early days of the fracking boom and having a huge run until they peaked in mid-2011. Based on analyst expectations, this one is far more expensive than the others — it’s got a PE that’s twice the expected growth rate (a PEG of 2.0, in other words), and I don’t know what the issue was in 2011 or 2012 but their earnings and margins did decline in 2012 from the peak 2011 results. They also have a huge short interest, almost 30%, so there must be quite a bit of disagreement among investors about their prospects — I can’t pitch in with much in the way of opinion here, but from a quick glance they’re not growing fast enough to be confident about the valuation — maybe it’s the decline in natural gas[13] fracking jobs with the fall in gas prices, maybe it’s competition from sand or other proppants, I dont know.
So there you have it — four “Small Cap Wealth Builder[14]” stocks from Jim Fink that are teased as “small cap value” but that I’d call “mid cap growth” ideas, all interesting in one way or another, but your friendly neighborhood Gumshoe’s fifteen minutes with each of them isn’t enough to give me great confidence that I know the whole story … so I’ll toss it out to you, got any favorites among those four picks? Any that you think we’ll look back on as 1,000%+ gainers in 2023? Let us know with a comment below.
[So how have those stocks done since this article first ran (and the teaser campaign for this new newsletter began) in late February? You can always double-check on our tracking pages[15], but the four of them are actually doing quite well, on average — Gentex, the one that was most appealing to me (though I never bought it) is 38% higher, PriceSmart is up 33%, Carbo Ceramics is up 14%, and HMS Holdings has lost 27% of its value.
What does that mean? Well, it means that if you’d put $1,000 into each of those four stocks on February 28, when we ran our article, you’d have about $4,580 now and be up about 14.5%. No 1,000% gains here, I’m afraid, but that is a hair better than the 12.5% return you would have gotten over that same time period in an S&P 500 index fund.]
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I think it was the weekend pitch but I bought 1000 sh of LNCYF at 2.42. WOW, let’s ride this one
Good for you Jolly. I had LNCYF on my watch List but didn’t buy. If it comes down I might buy some.
Thanks Travis. I’d only pick GNTX from these four, and buy at current prices (which is around $19).
OK so tell me agin why anyone would buy ANY newsletter when we have our fearless leader Travis? LOL Thanks
If you want to spend little money for ANY newsletter, Go for Irregulars……….
Deborah I think that is best investment advice that can be given. I think
controlling costs at least as important as increasing income.
I believe that Low natural gas prices and decliing drilling for natural gas hurt Carbo in those years. There are synthetic proppants which I am sure they are into. But also imported proppants. I think it is high risk.
I disagree. When you consider that road blocks have been holding back the fracking of our natural resources and headway is being made in spite of that by private firms anyway. And that the infrastructure is slowly being put in place for natural gas use in large and small vehicles. Not to mention the number of transport businesses and retail outlet owned shippers converting to CNG. I think it’s just a matter of time before we see this industry of clean environmentally friendly gas become the new giant to replace gasoline. Which will also produce spinoff profitable after market companies for conversion of older vehicles. I may be wrong; only time will tell but I wouldn’t bet against it just yet.
Wayne are their any company(s) that you feel would be good plays if this happens?
Wow! That puts me on the spot here. I am not an adviser but I have my philosophy on the subject. I would research first good quality oil and gas companies. They may be expensive but you can buy in on sites like Share builder in small increments. You will still experience the same growth percentage according to your investment. What you have to remember is that this is not an over-night proposition. You have to be willing to give the investment time to grow. Another inexpensive company that I think has an eventual future is Cal Dive Int. (DVR). But, and I emphasize BUT, do your own research to determine if it is right for you and your objectives. My gut tells me that this small company will be a major player in it’s field. There are a lot of companies out there in varied areas of the infrastructure building and actual production/recovery of natural gas and oil. think of all of the areas from construction to retail that would be affected and just start digging. Many may not have even came out of their infancy yet so don’t just jump in until you have a chance to look, research, and even seek the opinion of someone like Travis Johnson who is a lot more savvy than I. I hope this helps. However you invest, be comfortable and willing to stick to your conviction. Happy and patient investing. My hope for you is constant prosperity. But remember that not all investments go our way so know when to say when and move on.
Wayne I don’t mean to crack your crystal ball but CNG is only realistic in fleet operations.
It will not replace gasoline or diesel in this century– if ever. As a driver of a turbo diesel VW Golf CNG will never get the performance ( 45 MPG and 700 mi/tank ) of diesel or the fun of running thru the gears. As a chemical engineer the only suitable replacement would be liquid propane which already has the infrastructure in place and a 2.5/1.0 BTU/FT 3 storage and range considerably better.
It may in time replace trucking operations but that would require a Marshall Plan to build out the system nationwide but the Luddites in Washington might never support it.
Those Luddites in Washington will keep us energy dependent to those who dislike us but love our money!
I have ERII on my watch list due to water shortage.
Hi I just found this site today, amd am trying a free membership, after getting off a site that wants me to buy their newsletter using fear- I know the world will end, I just don’t expect to be ’round to see it. In the mean time, looks like nice people here, with a savvy, broad analytical approach to learning about the world and investing with an informed social and environmental conscious. And a bit of a sense of humor really helps! Will be following you!
Hey Travis,
I just read an article about the latest study of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. According to the latest report, there is no foreseen peril to allowing it. This could be the thing that finally get Obama to get off his hands and sign the go ahead permit Guess we’ll know in the coming months. Could be a game changer in oil and gas, not to mention jobs and the economy. Whadaya think?
What is Obama waiting for? Jobs there will be ton’s of jobs from Keystone moving forward. Canadians will be very happy sending our oil to the USA our biggest trading Partner. We are one Nation under God. There are jobs in the Oil Sands and the Americans can apply. Just think we are all brothers who have to stick together. Wake up Obama we need jobs in the USA. Canada is willing to help.
I think GNTX’s market will eventually be taken over by REFR, which has a much better technology.
Kathy, your perceptive satire is certainly welcome if not on target. You could have mentioned that Warren and George S who bought most of the worlds chemical market for sinking crude they used in the Gulf disaster that has polluted the bottom of the Gulf for the next 1000 years or so, as an addition to the wealth accumulation for a few ranking donors near the top of the food chain at the White House. ESPH was there to raise the crude for the Dutch ships that skim the top of the waters, but lost out the BP settlement. ESPH is on top of the clean water game, but they have tough competition from the chemical companies. Their under reported technology may win out some day, but they are still under utilized in spite of Jean Michel Cousteau’s constant effort to clean up industrial and lake waters. There success in fracturing shale rock with clean waters without chemicals for the oil and gas drillers has proven itself since 2009.
Obama has a train to protect the Warren rail road makes $10.00 a barrel more than the pipeline it is not the EPA Warren is getting a 22 Billion $ extra because no pipeline yet and him and Obama are trying to figure how to get Warrens secretary tax breaks, Also Warren is making the rail road tanker cars . It is a sad day that we pay for Warrens insider White House sleep overs, the Keystone might still go but it is lie on lie as to the reason why, and China loves it! Our good neighbor Canada is getting ripped by the man with no budget in DC. PLUS WARRENS BACK HAUL WITH FRACK JUICE AND SAND he knew he had a political gold mine and Big Oil would get blamed for the prices they still pay more in taxes than there profit line. Warren is the Tax master even when he says he will pay his fair share his secretary pays more than him I would be embarrassed if I was a Billionaire and my private secretary had tax problems. They did not say who left the Rail Road Commission who control the freight rates what his new job pays take a guess and all the Rail Lobbyist guy’s know when Christmas comes. Look it up . Kind of like all the Secretary’s for Obama quit. Labor ,Transportation , Defense, State (Hilary), Health etc. but the Secretary of ENERGY IMAGINE THAT he quit and did not go to work for Solar, Sorry John if Obama really wanted jobs he would have did your Keystone oh yeh the EPA GUY QUIT TO! New York just had 77,000 signatures to Cumo for Fracking and pipelines cause PA. is getting rich , but there are two many tree huggers in New York . Warren had Sulfok on his to buy list but they signed a bio fuel for Obama deal and the Navy the biggest fuel user in the world has to use Obama’s bio fuel from Tyson Foods (Syntoleum) and A Multi Bil $ PRIVATE REFINERY MANSFIELD is a 1/3 partner kind of like Solyndra but cost the tax payer even more for that fuel deal with a DOD gag order, but Big Oil needs to pay more Taxes. We have more NAT/LIQUID gas that is still 1 1/2 year away to export because he won’t use here. One week it is the coal miners daughter next week pipelines then the frackers he better hope that none of those oil trains don’t derail because that would be Bush’s MLP fault. We have jobs China has our money it does not make any sense because the product is going to come out of the ground, watch out for those Rail Road crossings but don’t worry Warren has Ins. and a lot of it he is brilliant he is the next Rockefeller. Just go on Govt.org and the Energy site it is live history all aboard. Nice article about the Keystone Wayne but it is two years and 1 election to late but it will still help and there is such a glut of oil in Canada right now I am surprised China did not get more already but a pipeline west has the same envi. deal or they would have, one way or another that oil is going somewhere that is a big chunk of there economy it has to, there Rail Road is raking it in to.
Hi, Cathy – Please let us know which stocks you would recommend that we take a look at.
Thanks!
THANK YOU for speaking truth. I could not say it better.
When I read things like this in today’s news, I’m proud to be what you may characterize as a “Tree Hugger”, especially if that means caring about our the long term effects of these increasingly desperate efforts to squeeze every available dollar’s worth of fossil fuels through questionable methods at the expense of potentially ruining our nation & environment for short term gains. I want to make money,& I do, but not this way!!
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/15/oil-unwelcome-discovery-for-north-dakota-farmer/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D392137
Not all investments go our way . Markets goes up or down “always”. Investing with an informed social and environmental conscious really helps!
OKay here are some long shots I would welcome any an all comments s,nok,mtg,usu,aig,aeg,cfn,kog,qcor lng,hnsn, I own them all
For compelling information and for developing a proper base for understanding of REVI stock, check it out at, pennystockchief dotcom/ticker.php?ticker=REVI (Dot means .) or Vippennystocksite dotcom (Dot means .)
Hi, everybody –
I looked at both pennystockchief. com/ and Vippennystocksite.com. I believe that the above post is a cheap (almost a scam) attempt to get us to visit those sites. Worked for me . . . . . . :>(
One has to sign up for their newsletters in order to get any information onf a stock. I was not impressed. As always, use your own judgment. But don’t waste your time unless you are particularly interested in “FREE” newlestters.
Jim Fink put together a portfolio in Chicago over 20 years ago with original startup cash at $50k. Ten years later, it was worth 5MM. NOT saying this will happen again, but I am willing to spend a couple hundred dollars to follow the portfolio for a couple of years. I bet I make a nice return on that investment. Besides, I have been in the investing world for over 25 years and I have never run across anything FREE that wound up containing any value. Of all people, F. LEE BAILEY once said, IN MY PROFESSION, I ONLY HAVE ONE THING OF VALUE TO OFFER MY CLIENT AND THAT IS MY ADVICE. It also happens to be the only way for me to make a living, so therefore, it is not free. What does anyone, especially a stock analyst, gain by giving out free advice? I am new here so what is offered free?
To Carl:
What is ‘free’ is teaser stock names.
The newsletter companies are in the publishing business. Don’t forget that. The writers or the people actually writing the missives are journalism majors. They may have some real experience in the Markets (read some TheReformedBroker.com, and his book, “Backstage Wallstreet) but their objective is to entice the reader to subscribe to their newsletters. Most people, once they subscribe and provide a credit card number for automatic renewals are there almost forever. The economics are simple: Cost of annual subscription X number of subscribers pays the staff, the ‘name’ person credited with the information in the letter, some profit. When the number of subscribes does drop, or staff members move to new jobs, new newsletter names are created to replace the old ones and the hype brings in new subscribers.
The ‘free’ is stocks that are doubtful and old in the specific newsletter’s listings. No paying subscriber should get hurt by the specific stock names being made public. Travis may accelerate the making public process but by now Stock Gumshoe is figured into everything in the newsletter publishing business. Some of the effect of Stock Gumshoe is also limited by the relatively limited audience he has and the reluctance of most retail investors to use this data. That is, we read it but few of us either can or do actually buy or sell.
Stock Gumshoe is immensely valuable because Travis provides critical information about these stocks that takes away the mystery and explains why most of them are marginal and therefore eligible to be ‘teasers.’
I have spent $1000’s on newsletters and have never found any worth the money. I wish
gumshoe existed years ago. for service rendered it is the best money I have ever spent.
Joe Blow put together a stock portfolio in atlantis over 20 years ago with $50 .
Today it is worth $00.00 Maybe in 20 years he has learned what he did wrong but I still
would not give him $200. Remember even a stopped clock is right twice a day & as
is standard disclaimer ” past performance does not guarantee future results”.
Good evening Travis. I do hope you will not mind me drawing your attention to an advertisement which came with today’s missive. It started “Hi, my name is Dr. David Eifrig Jr. I immediately turned it off. It rather like getting on an aeroplane to be told over the public address system my name is Captain Fred Smith. I always think how clever his parents must have been to know, when he was born, that he would, when he grew up, be an airline pilot or in the army or the navy, with the title captain. David Eifrig’s name is just that. Doctor is title which I assume he has earned and I doubt that junior appears on his birth certificate. Anybody who does not understand the difference between a title and a name is not somebody I wish to listen to for investment advice.
En passant, where does your organ stand in relation to the content of advertisements which you carry? Can they contain whatever they choose or do you exercise editorial rights?
Hi Peter, I don’t mind you calling our attention to anything.
I don’t much care what people call themselves, though, of course, listening to a doctor about investment advice because he’s a doctor would be silly. You can be sure that most publishers will trot out anything they can to buttress the credentials of their pundits — I never did get a doctorate, but I sometimes feel that I should call myself Master 🙂
We do not approve or review the editorial content of advertisements — we do approve the text that appears in the email ads to make sure it doesn’t say that Stock Gumshoe is endorsing the advertiser, and we try to avoid pump-and-dump stock promoters in the ads that we individually see (we don’t see or approve most of the Google ads that appear on the site, Google is targeting those to you individually as they can now almost see what’s inside your brain), but otherwise the ads are just ads — folks who advertise with us may be more discerning in choosing the world’s finest readers to advertise to, but other than that they’re probably no different from any other financial advertisers. I have no idea whether the services they’re advertising or the promises they’re making are better than those of folks who don’t advertise with us. Ads are sold by either a broker or network for the most part. Often, but not always, the ads we host are ads that we’ve already discussed or teasers we’ve already uncovered here on the site.
MAESTER..Travis..MAESTER..not MASTER.. 🙂
Thank you Peter. Titles really mean nothing. However feel free to append any
letters you please to my name from the following list. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST
frankly speaking your question was one I was wondering about.
what is worrying me about repetition of old ideas by newsletters is: did they go up in the first place because people subscribed and bought what the letter plugged? and is round
two intended to push the stock higher without any ground for it? and then comes round three and more people are brought on and the stock goes up some more. But at some point the number of new subs will have to go down (there are only so many suckers for newsletter pitches out there who do not read this commentary, after all. When they run out of suckers the price of the ballyhoo’ed stock will crash to earth.
You don’t need to be afraid of ghosts or goblins or vampires. Be afraid of newsletters
It’s a pretty small group of publishers that could move a “real” stock over a long period of time just by promoting it to new members, but it could certainly be happening to some degree. I suspect that some of them really do try to “game” the ads when they’re teasing little microcap stocks that any newsletter of any size could drive higher, but in this case these are decent-sized billion-dollar companies and I don’t imagine this particular newsletter is all that large. I think the motivation for re-using the teaser stocks in their ads is more prosaic: They’ve found stories that they know work to rope in new readers, and they’ve already paid the copywriter, so they keep using them until they stop working.
Once a stock trades a few million dollars worth of shares a day it becomes harder for any but the largest newsletters to have a long-term impact on the stock — they could bump it up a few percent in a day or two if it’s a new recommendation, to be sure, even sometimes 5-10% if the stock is on the smaller side (or take it down similarly if it’s a sell), but usually time and the institutional investors bring it back to fundamentals unless it’s a small cap stock.
People volunteer their money to these newsletters. Some make interesting reading,but you still have to do your own diligence as there is no cheap,free lunch. Success in anything requires hard work. Also, sharks are everywhere.
I agree. you can pick stocks by the “dartboard method” with as much success as using
these hyped up newsletters. do your own research & pick stocks with increasing margin
is best advice.
dear Master Travis……
once again no investment commentary from me, just my bi-annual thanks for your always entertaining analysis, and an excellent thread from the world’s most erudite financial readership. Deep joy! it would be wrong of me not to point out that the weather here, 2/3rds of the way down France in the ‘Tarn et Garonne’ is mighty fine for mid-October….(yeah, i’m an arse like that!)
re the government shutdown, whether imminent or no….recalls a Churchill quote to the effect that ‘Americans can always be relied upon to do the right thing….once they have exhausted every other alternative’
bon chance tout le monde! x
Historically, Carbo Ceramics was founded on synthetic ceramic proppant technology designed to address the severe and rapid degradation that occurs to sand when used as a proppant in deep [10,000 ft or more] wells, and those having high acidic content [even water becomes acidic and aggressively attacks silica sand at great depths]. Most shale gas and oil wells are less than 10,000 ft deep. Thus, Carbo Ceramics synthetic proppant materials are not needed for completion of the vast majority of shale formation wells.
I think if your going to invest you should get to know as much about the people running the company as the possibility of growth.