Stock Gumshoe Review – A Unique Research Tool

Stock Gumshoe Review

Product Name: Stock Gumshoe

Product Description: Stock Gumshoe is a unique news platform aimed at dissecting the hundreds of popular stock advice newsletters that are aimed at beginner and intermediate traders. Stock Gumshoe provides reviews of each of the newsletter services as well as helps readers determine whether the recommendations from these newsletters are to be trusted.

• Research Tools
• Trade Alerts
• Value

4.1

Summary

Any trader knows that stock news can be an important factor in determining their trades. Stock Gumshoe is an interesting stock news platform that provides reviews of newsletter services. Does Stock Gumshoe have what you need? Read to find out.

Introduction To Stock Gumshoe

Stock Gumshoe is a unique news platform aimed at dissecting the hundreds of popular stock advice newsletters that are aimed at beginner and intermediate traders. These newsletters, such as those from The Motley Fool, Banyan Hill, and many more, will typically tease that their analysts have found massively undervalued stocks and require readers to subscribe to find out the identities of those stocks. Stock Gumshoe provides reviews of each of these newsletter services as well as helps readers determine whether the recommendations from these newsletters are to be trusted.

Stock Gumshoe Pricing Options

Access to most of Stock Gumshoe’s website and articles is free and does not require a login. Paid memberships cost $7 per month or $59 per year and come with quick summaries at the head of each article as well as access to see the stocks that Stock Gumshoe’s founder is holding. You can also opt for a lifetime membership to Stock Gumshoe for $329.

Stock Gumshoe Content

Dissecting Stock Newsletters

The bread and butter of Stock Gumshoe are articles written by its founder, Travis Johnson, that analyze the latest claims from popular stock newsletters such as Rule Breakers, Stock Advisor, and Stansberry Research. For example, a newsletter may tease that it has a set of stock picks that their analysts project will grow by several hundred percent, requiring readers to subscribe to the newsletter to find out the identity of the picks. In this case, Johnson will use clues from the teasing marketing text to try to discern which stocks the newsletter is potentially referring to – and reveal them to readers.

Johnson’s articles typically go one step further, offering his own analysis of whether the stocks that the newsletters are apparently hyping are actually worth buying. In many cases, Johnson will paint a broader picture of a stock than newsletter authors, and does an excellent job of pointing out when newsletters have found a potential growth stock but have a track record of mis-predicting entry points.

Newsletter Reviews

Stock Gumshoe also keeps user reviews of most prominent stock newsletters for investors interested in getting more information before subscribing to one. These reviews are not particularly detailed – they are based on a star rating in several categories – but they are contributed by investors who have actually signed up for these newsletters in the past. Users can also leave more detailed comments in a thread at the bottom of each review page, which is often a more useful source of information about their first-hand experiences.

Stock Pick Tracker

One of the more interesting features of Stock Gumshoe is a set of spreadsheets that show the return on investment for stocks picked by the newsletters that Johnson dissects. The spreadsheet demonstrates what would have happened if an investor bought a stock at the time it was marketed by a newsletter and held forever. Since holding any stock forever is unlikely, especially for someone following a newsletter’s recommendations, the spreadsheets may not be completely accurate. However, they can be helpful for getting an overall idea of the track record of any particular newsletter.

Premium Content

Johnson’s articles tend to be relatively lengthy – each about a five-minute read – which is where having an executive summary as a premium member can come in handy. The premium summary jumps right to calling out which stock is being discussed in the article and gives a brief overview of Johnson’s analysis.

The other useful feature that comes with a Stock Gumshoe membership is access to view the stocks that Travis Johnson is himself holding. While Johnson is not renowned for his stock picks, this list is a place to start for developing long-term investment ideas.

Customization and Layout

Although no account is needed to use Stock Gumshoe, creating an account does give you a personalized member profile from which you can comment on articles and leave reviews on newsletter services. An account also allows you to post discussion threads in the forum – however, the forum typically does not spark discussion among members as evidenced by the lack of comments on topics.

The organization of the site is easy to follow, as there are only a handful of pages. A search page allows you to query articles, stocks, or newsletters, and content is linked across the site so that it’s easy to see what articles have been written about particular newsletters.

One issue with Stock Gumshoe’s website is slow loading speeds. Moving between pages on the site often takes more than 10 seconds.

Platform Differentiators

Stock Gumshoe is a very unique platform in that rather than offering another newsletter filled with stock picks, it actually tries to pick apart the marketing teases for those newsletters to figure out what stocks they are recommending. As the curator, Travis Johnson seems to focus his attention on newsletter picks that he has enough clues to crack with relative certainty, rather than speculating about a list of potential stocks that a newsletter could be referring to in its ad text. Stock Gumshoe can also be useful as a one-stop shop for figuring out which newsletter is the best, thanks to its user-contributed reviews and tracking history of stock picks’ performances.

What Type of Trader is Stock Gumshoe Best for?

Stock Gumshoe is primarily intended for long-term value investors, since this is primarily the same audience that stock newsletters are targeting. In particular, investors who are barraged by stock newsletters and either don’t have the money to pay for a subscription or the time to do their own complementary research can benefit from Johnson’s clue reading and ad-hoc stock analysis. While premium Stock Gumshoe investors do get access to Johnson’s personal stock holdings, Stock Gumshoe is not itself designed as a stock recommendation site and should be used cautiously for that purpose.

Pros

• Reveals the identity of stock picks from popular newsletters
• Added analysis of stocks picked by newsletters
• Most content is free to access
• User-contributed reviews of most stock newsletters
• Tracker shows performance of newsletter picks over time

Cons

• Primarily useful for value investors who don’t do their own research
• Articles are lengthy and summaries are a premium feature
• Site loads very slowly