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Business/Finance See other Business/Finance Articles Title: "Best" investment newsletters What’s Your Favorite Newsletter? Your fellow Gumshoe readers are crying out for your opinion -- please help! That’s the question that I receive from readers more often than any other — and my response is always disappointing, because I don’t and can’t really have one. And the real answer is getting to be a bit of an overused question here at Gumshoe HQ — a big “what do you think?” for the masses of Gumshoedom — but it’s at the core of what we’re trying to do. OK, so most of what I spend my time at is sifting through investment newsletter teasers and finding the truth (and sometimes the gem) that’s buried beneath the pile of, well, fertilizer. But we’re really all about people getting more fully informed, putting some of the hype aside, and making their own choices and sharing opinions — no newsletter is going to manage your portfolio for you, or make you rich, or turn around a sagging financial life. But lots of them can help. I’m not anti-newsletter, I don’t think the folks who put out these missives every day or week or month are criminals or shysters … with some exceptions, of course — most of them, at least those from the major publishers that we see most often, are really trying to come up with good recommendations and helpful commentary. I don’t like the hype-filled promises of wealth that fill their ads, because I think those boasts and promises are what stick with people even as the more sensible and nuanced commentary that fills most of the actual newsletter issues is skimmed over or quickly forgotten by many investors. The big promises are what catch our attention, and they remain there in the lizard brain at our core, giving hope for ridiculously flashy financial salvation without work, research, patience, saving, discipline or sacrifice … or luck. So when we look past the overpromising and the large type that promises 20% dividends or 800% gains, which letters do people actually end up finding most useful (and hopefully profitable)? Is it the background or education that these letters provide, or the udpates on their portfolios, or the unearthing of heretofore unknown investment opportunities or particularly nimble skill in picking buy and sell points for stocks or options? Or is it just the reassurance of having someone in your inbox each week, advising you to stay the course even if the headlines are freaking you out? I can’t tell you that — I don’t subscribe to these ad-hyping newsletters that I write about, partly because there are too damn many of them, but mostly because it wouldn’t be very fair or sporting as I try to dissect their ads and unearth their “secret” ideas with the help of the Mighty, Mighty Thinkolator. But your fellow readers can tell you — that’s why, in addition to sharing the teaser picks we unveil, we collect reader reviews of newsletters and allow for lots of free and open commenting on our articles. And we collate and average those reviews to give rankings of the newsletters — not rankings based on my opinion or on any measure of actual portfolio performance, but rankings based on what subscribers actually think of the letter. The subscriber reviews section of the site is accessible many ways, you can go under one of the Strategies and Sectors options in the green bar and see the top letters for mining and commodity stocks, for example (along with any recent articles we’ve written on that topic), or you can simply go to the “By Ranking” page to see the top rated overall letters, or to the alphabetical listing to see every newsletter on which we’ve collected at least one review or written an article. We haven’t been calling the reviews to your attention much of late, so for many of these newsletters the subscriber reviews have gotten a bit stale — they might reflect a surge of pessimism from 2009, for example, or a particularly good few months from 2008 or 2011 that made folks love a letter … so we need your help. If you’ve ever subscribed to a newsletter, please review it for us. As we’ve seen from many, many comments in recent months, readers are overwhelmed by the number of letters, their crazy marketing aggressiveness, and their inability to keep up with dozens of email updates, so folks clearly want help in separating the wheat from the chaff. Can you help? If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter, just click on it in the alphabetical listings or search by title (search box is in the green bar above) and on each newsletter page you should see a little box on the right side of the screen for submitting your opinion, thoughts, comments and a star ranking for a few different aspects of the newsletter experience as you see it. (You’ll have to log in to review the letter, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a free or paid member of the site but we had to institute logins to cut down on the overwhelming review spam that some newsletters were trying to flood us with. Please contact us if you have any trouble logging in). Reviews are moderated to try to cut down on spam, so your review might not show up instantly. And though we add new letters and trading services frequently there are some newsletters in the cast of thousands that just aren’t in our system yet, so please contact us if you’d like to submit a review of a letter that you don’t yet see on the site and we’ll cheerfully add it. And I’ve got an extra inducement for you today. The person who submits the most thoughtful and helpful reviews over the next couple days will either get upgraded to a lifetime membership in the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars (a $200 value, if we do say so ourselves), or, if you’re already a lifer, I’ll send you or your favorite charity a check for $100. They can be positive or negative reviews, and you can submit one or two or a dozen or more, whatever you have time and inclination to share. So please, think of the letters and services you find helpful and useful, and those that you’ve found frustrating and disappointing, and share your opinions with us. Not only will you be helping your fellow investors to sift through the fog, but you might even earn a little something for yourself. And while you’re at it, hop on over to the most recent plea for help from one of our valued readers and let them know what your top two or three newsletters are with a brief comment. Poster Comment: From among 78 comments: Rick Wheeler says: My favorite is The Dividend Machine by Bill Spetrino. The newsletter focuses on getting into good quality dividend stocks when they are at a good value and holding on to them for a long period of time. The stocks in his conservative portfolio are always strong performers and in the event of a market downturn, they are the first to come back. The results are very good and it is a portfolio that you don’t have to constantly manage, which allows you to sleep at night. Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe says: Thanks Rick, we’ve received a lot of reviews of that one over the years — they’re here if anyone wants to see them: http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/the-dividend-machine/ Peter Watts says: Motley Fool, but only until my subsciptions expire. As Wayne says, once you are in they spend forever trying to sell you a “different” service. I have tried and tried E-mailing them asking “what do I get if I subscribe for this new service which I do not get under my existing subscription?” No answer has yet been forthcoming. Or alternatively I tried”if I have paid you for your best recommendations, why are some new ones being witheld from me, until I pay you more money?” Still no response. I am not sure that I have ever found an answer a satisfactory answer to the question “if these guys are so good why do they have to sell advice to me. Why not just get on and invest their own money and make a fortune?” I don’t buy the altruism answer. Deborah G Flynn says: I subscribe to only one now. I tried Motley Fool but it was so uber bland any kid with $200 and a lifetime can’t go wrong with their long term picks but it didn’t do it for me. I have only one now it’s a $5 a month dividened reporting service and I doi my own reseach based on their selection.s Never found a whole lot. My favoirite beside Stcok Gumshoe which is my ALL TIOME favorite is DTA a free newsletter that is quite good actually and have made many successful trades based on their anaysis. The point is most of them have a good teaser and we have Travis so why waste money? read the teasers and see what the Gumshoe says. I am a paid subscriber too but I hate to say this Travis? you are too cheap ! THANKS Deb Ekbal Rayani says: A great newsletter is more than one persons opinion or an update on the markets or your portfolio or your future health issues and how to avoid them or financial traps or governmental initiatives that will improve or totally screw up your life , or places to get discounts or foods and medications to avoid or to partake and of course sound financial advice. There are hundreds that do one or two of them and i have subscribed to lots of he in the past. There is only one that does it all! The winner hands down has to be: is the Retirement Millionaire by Dr. David Eifrig Jr. Besides giving relatively safe stock buy recommendations, he gives health tips and everyday money saving tips. He has an incredible success record, patiently explains how to utilize options and puts and calls in a manner even the most simple person can understand and effect. What’s even more enticing about him is that he truly seems to cares about his subscribers, their well being, both financial and personal. Best of all Stock Gumshoe has very little bad to say about his newsletters or even his recommendations! P.S. I did not get paid anything to write this … Lol! Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe says: Thanks Ekbal — we do have some reviews of that service here if you or others would like to add theirs: http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/retirement-millionaire/ Mike Sullivan says: I’m not sure there is a “best” newsletter. I’ve subscribed to many over the years, the only one I’ve come back to is Bryan Perry’s Cash Machine. The Dividend Machine is good as is Investment Quality Trends. However, I’ve found that my low volatility selection is out performing almost everything else right now. I select from the 104 PowerShares ETF (SPLV) holdings. I filter them through a 10 year chart on Big Charts checking Rolling EPS and Rolling Dividend – the trend line should resemble IBM. It’s easy using the Advanced Chart feature. I look for those that have doubled their dividend payout over the past 5 years on yahoo charts (the big charts would show trend for 10 years). I then compare price appreciation for the 5 years. This is after I’ve narrowed down via Big Charts. You can do this with others stocks as well, however yesterday (2-25-2013) when the market had its mini crash because of the Italian elections my low volatility stocks dropped a measly 0.25% compared to the rest of my portfolio which had a 5 figure hit! Needless to say I trust my own judgment more than any newsletter I’ve subscribed to over the years. However, for those interested – a new one will be released soon by a fellow blogger on the Pirate Cove. It will be called the Retirement Goal Letter. He uses the same filtering but doesn’t check for low volatility – however many of his picks are the same as SPLV holdings. So try this method if you want boring Warren Buffet type picks that just go on and on making money and increasing their dividends, you’ll sleep better at night. At my age that’s a real plus!!!! Lynn Clark, Stock Gumshoe says: Thanks, Mike. We have a range of reviews on Cash Machine. Here they are if you’d like to look and/or add to them: http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/25-cash-machine/ We also have entries for the other two as well: http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/the-dividend-machine/ http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/investment-quality-trends/ Ray Lavallee says: Comments on Newsletters: 1. Morningstar Stock Investor — Honest thoughtful evaluations. Used to seek out VALUE stocks. Monitor Star & moat status and Fair Value updates. 2. Prudent Speculator — Provided monthly ideas for current value-rated stocks. Well done but dropped when they raised the price. 3. Oxford Club — Very pleased with Analysis, use of 25% Stop Loss, Asset Allocation Model and timely e-mail Alerts. Provides ideas for further analysis. 4. Wall Street Daily — Provides speculative ideas and 35% Stop Loss. limit to 1% of potfolio. 5.Perpetual Income — My personal favorite to invest in income generating stocks. I use it to develop a steady monthly income stream since I am retired. 6. Complete Investor— Many different categories, but provides good substance and ideas in selected categories. 7. Outstanding Investments — FAIR 8. Energy Advantage — POOR 9. Dion’s ETF — Helpful & cheap Generally, I only renew those that are prioviding meaningful investment ideas and analysis. Don Buchanan says: Hi have been following Carla Pasternaks Income investing and find the info accurate and concise. Carla is a canadian from Calgary Alberta and she gives alot more canadian content which is very weak in most newsletter coverage. As a canadian we could use some more coverage so please wake up and smell the coffee. Once you tasted our Tim Hortons brand you will want to move here. John P.M. says: Without a question, Daily Wealth Trader. They don’t just tell you when to buy something. They teach when to get out and why. Their picks are solid as are the results. After going through 20 newsletters over the past 12 years, I finally found a keeper. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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