By John Drachman
With just about any stock with technology associated with it increasing faster than the broader market, new investors join the ranks of aspiring tycoons every day.
Confronted by the deluge of 24/7 business news, wannabe moguls need assistance navigating their way past the bad and the ugly to get to the good. “Why try to do it yourself when you can take advantage of the experience of some of the world’s most knowledgeable strategists and professional investors?” intones Top Consumer Reviews (TCR), which recently took a critical look at the leading investment newsletters:
- Want your returns “outsized?” It may be time to unlock your inner hedge funder with guidance from Capitalist Exploits, which came in at number one. While the newsletter is free, their Insider tier of specialized info costs $1995 annually and represents 70 plus “buy” recommendations with “asymmetric risk reward” in a payoff range from 3-to-1 to 100-to-1. According to TCR, Exploits provides “the broadest array of in-depth information to the widest variety of investors.” Potential downside: Insider cost may be prohibitive for small-bore start-up investors.
- The free-to-subscribe Motley Fool at number two is guided by the same two-person team that created it back in the early 1990s. For $99 annually investors have unlimited access to their Stock Advisor recommendations. MF’s results are downright compelling, typically beating the broader indexes, and is a good value for the price. Potential downside for non-early birds: the newsletter’s popularity means virtually every recommendation spikes as soon as it’s published.
- Companies that plough back profits into buying their own stock often see prices go up. To hitch a ride on that “buy-back” express, The Buyback Letter (standard edition: $59 per quarter; premium edition: $79 per month) at number three claims to have “everything you need to know about investing in companies that repurchase their own shares.” Income investors have been especially pleased with the Letter’s results as its income index soared 813% since its March 1997 inception, outperforming the S&P 500 by 545%. Potential downside: short-term trades generated higher transaction costs and greater tax exposure, according to one user’s post.
Other mentions include Investor Advisory Service, which according to TCR “has performed better than the market over the last 10- and 20-year periods” and Stansberry Investment Advisory’s multi-form newsletter approach that ranges across the risk and reward spectrum from True Wealth and Retirement Millionaire to Crypto Capital and Venture Technology.
Ironically coming in eighth place is one of the most famous: Morningstar Investor. “Not exciting,” summarizes TCR. “There’s not a lot of buzz surrounding Morningstar’s paid newsletters.”
Advice beyond Newsletters
Of course, no one should rely on a single source of information like a newsletter. It’s always better to collect information from a variety of sources before making an independent judgment about an investment decision. Even if the average investor can’t access the full range of Wall Street research, however, most can still access market wisdom through the proven insights of experienced financial advisors. The combination of timely information and second opinions from these expert sources can help fledgling kingpins stay their course.
John Drachman is a contributing writer MyPerfectFinancialAdvisor, the premier matchmaker between investors and advisors. John is an IABC award-winning writer, who applies his 30 years of financial marketing experience toward advancing the dialog between investors and investment professionals.
