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Hanrod
Guest
Hanrod
December 18, 2010 6:23 pm

I subscribed to Safe Money and Real Wealth for a few years, several years ago; and though I let my subscriptions lapse I still regularly read the e-mailed version of M&M, which I think useful.

I read with interest, but did not act on, the Weiss recommendations over the years; instead chasing CD rates, etc. and so I lost nary a dime during the “great recession” and market crash of the last few years. Of course, I missed the earlier “boom years”, and the more recent partial “recovery” too.

Saving, not “investing”, has kept me at least solvent; and today continuous active “trading and hoping” (i.e. speculating on the future actions of expert, professional, traders and on the trends of popular emotions) is all that is left of the old concept of sober “investing”; except in your own property, business or education.

Reading not only Weiss, but also much mainstream business, market and investment news over most of my 73 years, has been a real education, and a sobering one. I have watched both businesses and the financial markets become increasingly more deceptive, fraudulent, corrupt and volitile, over the past thirty years particularly. This was facilitated (and thus in the resulting increased competition, mandatated) by a deregulating government that has acted in the narrow interests of the lobbying and campaign funding corporate organizations that buy, and now effectively own, that government; and against citizen interests.

I am currently considering the $600. “one-time” packaged service, and at least re-subscribing to SM and possibly RW; and particularly to the newer Nilus Mattive Dividend Superstars and Dad’s Income Portfolio letters. Of course, I may do as little in acting on these as I have done in the past, however, unless I come to feel better about some coming new honesty, stability — and re-regulation. [I do want to get hard copies in mail as well as e-copies, however, and am not sure that they now continue to provide that, anymore.]

The Weiss Ratings services are, I think, exemplary; and an important alternative to the “pay to play” ratings of Moodys, S&P, etc.; a fact that does not get nearly enough popular investment news publicity. However, I have to think that the Weiss people often know no more about future market performance than we do; and when they venture into historical “trend charting” as a predictor, it becomes humorous.

Too, I have to give Weiss, generally, a poor grade for consistency, as I think that the varied recommendations of his various newsletters are often quite inconsistent between them; and that the Weiss organization should be consistent throughout in its recommendations to its clients.

Still, we can’t blame Martin for agressive “sales” efforts (providing he is not deceiving); this is only a necessary part of business. We can blame him for not prominently posting the historical results of all recommendations, in order not to be deceptive; but maybe he will change that in future, remembering that “past performance is not indicative of future results”.

_____

[My response to an invitation from one of my “financial gurus”, Martin Weiss, Phd, of the Weiss Group (publishers of Safe Money and other financial publications) to contribute our own subscriber “financial / investment” thoughts to his website; in honor of his birthday, 2008.]

THE INVESTOR, (ANALYZED AND) ARRESTED

Some years ago when I was young,
My life a song, as yet unsung,
Important though I thought wealth was,
I did not know its path, its cause;
I undervalued wealth, at best.

I knew, at heart, to save a part
Of all I earned, as mine; but art
And life and love were most in mind;
And though I saved, another kind
Of cost — life’s own, was time, at risk.

But stocks and options, puts and calls,
Slow, breathless, climbs, then frightful falls
Made me decline their profits, thrills;
I thought much more of Treasury bills,
Or bank CDs, a safer buy.

My savings grew, but then I knew
Of all I’d not done, ne’er would do;
The cost to me, deposits lent,
Deflated funds I should have spent;
Time valued cash far less than I.

As Weiss reminds us, you and me,
Investments not a guarantee
But speculation — former are
No better than the guarantor;
The rest is but deception, lies.

The brokers are the wealthy ones,
No mutual in mutual funds;
Though in the last analysis
All life and love, all time, has risk;
The Weiss’es tell it as it is —

So, Happy Birthday, Martin Weiss!

HANROD

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Ken Berns
Guest
Ken Berns
January 6, 2011 3:25 pm

I have been with the Safe Money Report for over 10 years. I have found Martin and his writers to be very interesting and fairly accurate when it comes to picking stocks, but what I like best are the areas of investment that I would have never discovered on my own. Their predictions on major events tend to be real early but surprisingly accurate. Not all picks work out and I don’t trade every recommendation either, I use the service more for direction and timing. I have found SMR and their other publications to be a big help in managing my portfolio.

david robinson
Guest
david robinson
February 8, 2012 5:41 pm

very important to me—-

al brann
Guest
al brann
June 24, 2012 1:09 am

There is some interesting reading, but the endless pitches for bigger and better ideas for just a few dollars more is a real putoff. I’m already paying for the advice, what kind of clown admits he’s peddling mediocre goods?

jrlowelljr
Member
February 28, 2013 2:46 am

This letter saved my butt twice when it was written by Dr. Weiss. Not as good or as interesting since Mike Larson is writing it. Guarantee is outstanding.

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miltonmoney
Member
February 5, 2014 7:41 am

Well written, and great service WIEES dish out..very professional.

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D
Member
D
April 22, 2017 10:03 pm

Investment performance spotty. Good during crises, but overly conservative in the great 2012-2015 QE bubble and the 2016-17 rebound.

Good instincts, though. Like many, Larson was lacking in the imagination to foresee just how far central banks and financial markets would take asset prices in a world where economic reality has limited influence over, say, stock prices. As he himself named it, we’re living in the “everything bubble.”

Larson concentrated on credit markets, which is a good place to start any analysis and much better than starting with equities. That alone made it worth reading. And it did use the respected Weiss rating system, which often stood in contradiction to the gloomier mood. Sound rules and methodology beat would-be gurus and shamans any day.

SMR is now edited by Bill Hall and I’m waiting to see what happens. I read newsletters partly for the thinking they provoke with their distinctive methods and approaches. Not necessarily looking for a guru with pretensions of clairvoyance to tell me what to do.

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WILLIAM K. HAYES
Guest
WILLIAM K. HAYES
May 26, 2017 6:33 pm

Last year Mike Larson predicted that bank stocks were going to tank disastrously and recommended significant investment in financial reverse ETFs. As a result I bought SEF, only to lose a big hunk of my investment when financials went sharply UP with the election of President Trump. Larson’s reasons seemed plausible at the time but I don’t pay him to be plausible. It was the capstone of my experience of a long number of years as a SAFE MONEY REPORT subscribers, during which my total results were at best borderline. They recently phoned me about renewal and I told them I’m done.

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Mike
Member
Mike
June 10, 2017 8:52 am

In my opinion, Weiss has missed many investment returns because they seem to favor Conservative Republicans when history has taught us otherwise… In my opinion, they were very negative during Clinton which was wrong, then positive in Cheney/bush which was wrong, then negative during Obama which was wrong and now positive during Trump, which may also be wrong…

Publications such as Forbes, Fortune and the Huffington Post have written articles which demonstrate that the markets do much better during Liberal Progressive Democratic Administrations with Majority Democratic Congresses , yet Weiss seems to be going the opposite direction, again, in my opinion.

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Patrick
Guest
Patrick
August 11, 2017 3:01 pm

Solid! Devoid of hype but basic and clear over the last 15 years of my subscscription.

d7wolfe
Member
d7wolfe
November 28, 2017 1:27 pm

I just cancelled my subscription to Safe Money Report which was sent to me as a substitute for my subscription to Income Superstars which was discontinued in the summer of 2017. Bill Hall became the editor of the newsletter in January 2017 after a dismal performance by Mike Larsen in 2016. In my estimation Bill Hall is a pompous egotist whose large cap growth portfolio could be acquired in any number of large cap growth ETFs. As of August 28, 2017 the Safe Money portfolio was again badly lagging the iShares Morningstar Large-Cap ETF. This newsletter is a waste of money and time.

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T-squared
Member
T-squared
November 30, 2017 5:09 pm

Current subscriber. So-so performance. But then this is not one that promises rapid growth. I do learn something from each issue.

Dave S.
Dave S.
January 12, 2018 4:13 pm

This service, along with Real Wealth Report, has just been offloaded to Banyan Hill and subscribers dumped into Total Wealth Insider w/ Jeff Yastine. See my post from 1/12/18 under “Real Wealth Report”.

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hawk5000
Guest
hawk5000
March 19, 2018 4:58 am
Reply to  Dave S.

I knew something. was. up. at Weiss. I enjoyed. the read and comments but their comments. on investments. were. a. mile off. track they constantly. same as banyan. say to. back the truck up on silver and gold I’m glad. god gave me my own mind to think. with reason and thought. with clarity but if. you invested. with these losers. you lost twice once on their investment decisions and two paying for their worthless services

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Jeff G
Member
Jeff G
January 22, 2019 5:49 pm
Reply to  Dave S.

Are you as disappointed with Weiss Research for having done this and now reopening that original service under a similar name?

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Dave S.
Dave S.
October 27, 2019 9:34 am
Reply to  Jeff G

At this point I am very glad they sent us over to Jeff Yastine, who I think is a much more responsive and accessible stock picker. I like his thoughtful approach. I was also profoundly SICK of the (in my opinion) repulsive Martin Weiss fear/greed machine. Very interesting indeed that Weiss, Inc. have decided to restart Safe Money Report. Possible they regret dumping their sucker-stock? Oh, I hope so. 😉

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Arthur F
Irregular
Arthur F
March 23, 2020 7:50 pm
Reply to  Jeff G

Yes! See comment above.

H T
H T
August 10, 2020 12:58 am
Reply to  Dave S.

At the end of July, 2020 Jeff Yastine has moved on and Total Wealth Insider has also ended. So far Banyan Hill has closed all his recommendations, but 3 and where it transfer to references Automatic Fortunes, but no acknowledgment found.

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George Sechrist
Guest
George Sechrist
April 2, 2019 3:20 pm

I paid about $500 for a LIFETIME subscription to the Safe Money Report. I am still living and the Safe Money Report is still publishing, but I am told that my Lifetime subscription is no longer, as Mr Weiss sold it to Banyan Hill. Does this make sense? How can someone promote and promise a lifetime sub, then sell you off and not continue the subscription that was purchased for life. How does someone treat loyal customers like that and still stay in business?

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Dave S.
Dave S.
October 27, 2019 9:36 am

As far as I can tell, Banyan Hill honors the lifetime subscrips, and I think we have come out far ahead with BH.

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Arthur Fagen
Irregular
Arthur Fagen
March 23, 2020 7:48 pm

I agree with you 100%. I paid over $6000 for the Weiss Ultimate subscription in January, 2017 which included all the Newsletters and subscriptions. Shortly afterwards, I was bumped off to Banyan Hill. Recently they reinstated something similar to Weiss Ultimate called VIP Coalition. I should have been grandfathered in but Weiss refused. Perhaps, further action should be taken by those of us who paid for lifetime subscriptions.

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Kve
Guest
Kve
May 18, 2020 6:11 pm

I too paid around $500 for a lifetime subscription. It went from a hard copy service to one that was online only. For many reasons, I stopped accessing the report. Earlier this year I decided to put the report in my reading queue only to learn I no longer had access. I do get emails from Banyan Hill but the Safe Money Report is what I paid for. Safe Money Report is still in publication and they are offering lifetime subscriptions. I have been unsuccessful in getting Weiss to honor my lifetime purchase. Based on the comments, maybe that’s a good thing?

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mfhammer
Member
mfhammer
July 10, 2019 4:59 am

Hmm! Maybe you’ll win if you do the opposite of his Safe Money Report recommendations on changes of Administrations. I was considering a membership. So I came by to see what you experienced members thought.

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Jan Scott
Guest
Jan Scott
January 13, 2020 1:25 pm

Thanks to Safe Money Report I have missed out on the greatest opportunities of the last 100 years. These people are incredibly bearish so they are only right once every 10 or 20 years. In the mean time you earn little or nothing while everyone else makes bank. Their writing seemed compelling to me and I kept expecting the stock market to return to 1980s levels while it did the opposite. Even when there was a crash like in 2009 they expected the stock market to fall even further when in fact it was the greatest buying opportunity of the last 70 years. I eventually wised up but I lost over a decade of returns. If you need a ‘system’ to get in and out of the stock market you’d be better off following the 50 and 200 moving average crossovers than any so-called advice newsletter. The reality is that nobody really understands the stock market or world economics. Nobody really knows the future and nobody can really make reliable guesses about it. I dedicated years to investigating all kinds of systems for beating the market and this I learned: they all eventually fail. I’m guessing people are attracted to Safe Money because they have a bad experience with losing money and they are concerned to conservation of capital. If this is the case then you need to look into money market funds and only put about 20% into speculative markets like the Nasdaq.

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randy
randy
July 30, 2020 1:30 pm

The folks at Weiss do tend do be on the bearish side of the equation. However, I have found Mike Larson does very well with his bearish puts which included shorting certain banks during the 2008-2009 Great Recession. He recently had a homerun with FAST. I exited the stock before the recent decline. Also, I subject all stock recos, regardless of publisher, against Fidelity’s Starmine to identify stocks with bullish sentiment from top analysts. Also, Recogni on Fidelity provides sentiment on short, medium and longer term analysis. It helps to learn technical analysis, so you make your own decisions when stocks or the overall market are overbought or oversold. I consider Mike’s Safe Money Report to be well worth the price paid.

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calvin e. sturdevant
Guest
calvin e. sturdevant
July 30, 2020 6:46 pm

I subscribed to Safe Money for a number of years. I lost more than I gained. Most of this time each stock trade was expensive; Safe Money often recommends buy/sell which to me was counter productive as I was only trading with several thousand dollars. Also I often do not stay up on my investments and when time to sell I often lose track and lose again. I just do not have the temperament to buy and then later sell. I just recently found a stock advisory that fits my temperament- buy/hold. Will see how The Motley Fools do.

ED MLODZIENSKI
Member
ED MLODZIENSKI
September 16, 2020 10:51 pm

The Fool’s stocks are for the long term. They may have big drawdowns on many of the stocks. I can’t tolerate that so I didn’t re-subscribe.

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