rewrite this title Gumshoe Gives Back — Charitable Membership Drive Ends 12/1

We do things a little differently at Stock Gumshoe — we love our free readers, we don’t offer “limited time only” promotions or trial periods to get you in the door as a paid member or sneakily raise prices on renewals, and we don’t try to upsell you every ten minutes. Every few years we raise our prices to keep up with expenses, though every existing subscriber is always locked in at the price they agreed to on day one, and that’s about it… we rely on word of mouth, and on all our free readers who decide to take the plunge and support this site, which we hope will remain a beacon of sanity in an often ridiculous investing world.

But once a year we run a membership drive to help sign up a few new members and give back to some worthy charities… and that’s what we’re doing right now.

So if you’ve been thinking about maybe joining this most exclusive club of premium Stock Gumshoe members, well, today is a great time.

You can get all the great premium benefits (the time-saving Quick Take, the weekly Friday File, access to my Real Money Portfolios if you want to follow along with what I buy and sell, and why), and if you join today it will do some extra good, too.

So what’s the urgency? Why the limited-time-offer “must sign up by December 1” stuff?

The urgency is that half of your membership payment will be donated to fight hunger, homelessness, illiteracy and support some other great causes if you join us as a Stock Gumshoe Irregular today.

And if you’re already a member, that’s OK — we’re also donating half of any upgrade payments, and half of any gift memberships you might want to order for friends and family. Whatever we take in from members like you between now and December 1, half will go to charity.

If that’s all the inducement you need, then I’ll let you get right to it — Click here to sign up or upgrade now…

Or click here to give a gift membership (you’ll have to be logged in to give a gift, and that gift will be tracked in your account for your convenience — otherwise, all you need is the recipient’s email address and your credit card).

If you don’t know who the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars are, I can explain…

Stock Gumshoe is supported both by advertising and by paid subscribers, and our premium members are called the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars (inspired by Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, who helped gather clues for Holmes’ cases.)

We offer two different levels of premium membership:

Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free, which gives you access to every single thing we publish but also gets rid of the advertisements you would otherwise see on the website or in the email newsletter, and puts you in the front of the line when we’re sending out our daily emails, so you get everything first.  That’s $119 a year, or $11 per month.

Or if you’re willing to live with a few ads, the basic Irregulars membership, which provides access to all premium content on the site.  That comes at the discounted price of $79/yr, or $7.99/month.

Both levels of membership are available as monthly, annual or Platinum (lifetime) subscriptions — monthly and annual payments renew automatically (unless you cancel, of course — and you can do that on the site or by sending an email, we won’t make you sit through a sales pitch first).

And your membership price is locked in for as long as you keep renewing (and you probably will, we’ve still got some great longtime members who are paying $49 a year because they signed up back in 2008 or 2009… the lowest annual price is now $79, but if we raise it next year you can remain locked in at $79 forever).

And Platinum memberships come with just a one-time payment, they never require a renewal or any other future purchase — we don’t even have a sneaky “maintenance fee.”  You can sign up for Irregulars Plus+ Platinum for just $599 and never see a renewal charge or an ad from us, ever.

What do you get for being a premium member?

What the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars get is, well, mostly more of what the free members get, more of my analysis … plus access to my stock trades, portfolios and opinions.

And, sometimes, less. But in the best way.

Irregulars get access to my Real Money Portfolio, including some detail on all those positions (it’s about 45 stocks right now), analysis of each investment (and any new investment I consider), and notifications when I buy or sell anything… along with two “buy below” prices for just about every position (my “max buy” and a more opportunistic “preferred buy” level).  That is the best way I can put my money where my mouth is and tell you what I really think of a company or how I think a portfolio should be positioned today, and what I think is worth buying right now… because this is real money, these are real investments I’m making, and this portfolio represents the vast majority of my family’s investable assets.

I’m not allowed to give you personal advice, but I can tell you what I’m personally doing with my money.

That may be an exciting benefit at times when my portfolio is beating the market, like it is right now, though that’s certainly not always the case.  I hope my portfolio will continue to do well over time, and that sharing my thinking about buying, selling, and analyzing those holdings will help you implement your own investing strategy and build your portfolio.

My best investments have generated gains of as much as 3,000-4,000%… but that’s rare.  As of today, the top ten holdings in the Real Money Portfolio have total gains ranging from 45% to 897%, and annualized gains ranging from 10% to about 70%.  It’s going well, but there are stinkers along the way, too.  Here’s a screenshot of the top 20 positions in my Real Money Portfolio from earlier this week, with some of the details blurred out:

And that “less is more” value?

Probably the most-loved feature for our paid members is the Irregulars Quick Take that I post at the top of all of my articles — not all of you have the time to appreciate my blatheration when I’m slogging through the solution to a newsletter teaser pitch or digging into data, charts, projections or whatever else, and that feature gives you the instant ID of the stock being teased (or whatever else the article might be about), and a quick summary of my thoughts.

Pay a little, save some time.

But there’s more…

The Irregulars own Fridays here at Stock Gumshoe… on the last day of the work week, I write something just for our paid members that I call the Friday File.

Sometimes that’s another teaser solution article if one catches my attention that day, sometimes it’s more of a “big picture” article, and it usually includes updates or some commentary on the Real Money Portfolio holdings (and often a trade or two that I’ve made, or analysis of a new investment I’m considering).

I’ll also update you when something changes.  If I buy or sell a stock, I’ll send out an email that day to let you know in a Trade Note.  (For smaller trades (1/10 of 1% or less of the portfolio) or little options positions, I’ll wait to update you once a week in the Friday File, so you’re not getting too many emails.)

And there are other benefits -— Irregulars get to start their own discussion threads if you’re interested, which can occasionally turn into sharing pretty long and involved commentaries… over the years, some of our readers have written more than I do. Heck, write enough interesting stuff and we might try to hire you. I often jump in on these discussions, or try to help answer questions in those threads.

You’ll also get access to my second portfolio, the $100K Lock Box Portfolio — that’s a separate real money portfolio that I’m putting into 20 smaller growth stocks, with a commitment to hold each position for at least five years no selling allowed even if it turns out to have been a terrible idea (there are a couple), or have gotten much more richly valued (also a couple of those).  I’m still building that portfolio, and I’ll be honest, it doesn’t look that great right now (it’s doing a little worse than the Russell 2000 since I started, but we’ll see how it finishes).

Finally, though, there’s the best benefit of all — the warm feeling you get in your belly from knowing that you are an important part of keeping Stock Gumshoe going as a valuable resource for other investors. I’ve been solving and writing about newsletter teasers for more than fifteen years, trying to short-circuit the misleading marketing machine and writing for readers like you, helping investors seize the reigns and use common sense for their own portfolios.  During that time we’ve invested heavily into expanding and improving this website and our community for the benefit of investors… and our paid members make that possible (yes, we also host some advertisements, which allow us to keep offering valuable articles even for free members, but paying members like you cover more than half of our operating expenses… and if you hate the ads, the Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free option might be for you!)

And this week, in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, you get a bonus warm fuzzy feeling: the knowledge that you’ll be supporting a worthwhile charity. I haven’t finalized which groups will receive our Stock Gumshoe largesse this year, and the other folks at Stock Gumshoe get to direct some of the total to their favorite charities, but in the past we have generally focused on disaster relief, education, hunger, medical relief and similar causes, both in our local area and around the world, and that’s not likely to change. Over the years, the largest gifts have been made to organizations that fight homelessness and hunger.

The details? We hope to set a new record each year for our charitable donations, so I’m making this deal count: I’ll DONATE AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO 50% OF EVERY MEMBERSHIP PAYMENT WE RECEIVE during this campaign, including renewals, gifts, upgrades and new memberships… no gimmicks, no exclusions, no expenses taken off the top. So if you’re going to sign up do so by midnight on Sunday, December 1 .  Make me write some really big checks, please!

How does it work?

Simple math, half of whatever you pay this week gets donated.

If you join up with an annual payment of $79 for the basic membership, I’ll donate $39.50.

Go with the monthly plan and pay $11 as an Irregulars Plus+ Member, I’ll donate $5.50.

Join as a “lifetime” Platinum Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free member at $599, our highest membership level and I’ll donate $299.50.

How does that help Stock Gumshoe?  Truth be told, I’m hoping you’ll love what we do here, and will stick around and renew for years, or tell all your friends or give gift memberships, as many of our readers do, and then we’ll enjoy your support far into the future… it will work out in the end. And for right now, half of your membership payment will go to support our local food bank, or disaster relief in the path of the latest hurricanes or wildfires, or literacy programs… or, well, you get the idea.

A small note on logistics:  We’ve been running these charitable membership campaigns since 2008, and Stock Gumshoe, Inc. used to make the donations directly, but that gave my accountant a headache.   Now I’ve simplified things, which also leaves more cash in the company to pay for our work:  I make the final call on the charities we support, and I make the donation personally.  Same impact, since I own 100% of Stock Gumshoe, but I just want to be transparent that it’s not technically Stock Gumshoe, Inc. making the donation — I will personally donate an amount equal to half all Stock Gumshoe membership payments over the next week.

And to be clear, your membership payment will not be deductible as a charitable donation, there’s no “pass through” in that regard.

Travis and Jonah present their check for the Pan Mass Challenge bikeathon

I know that all of you have your own favorite causes — one of mine is the Pan Mass Challenge that benefits Dana-Farber Cancer center, and I am also very thankful that so many of you have participated in supporting my son and I in our cancer-fighting bike rides over the years… here’s the large novelty check we presented a couple years ago!  (That photo’s getting a little old, he’s as tall as I am now… and my beard seems to be a bit whiter, but he did the ride with me again last year and together, thanks in large part to Stock Gumshoe readers, we raised close to $40,000.)

So if you are deciding between supporting your favorite charity and joining Stock Gumshoe, please support your favorite charity — there’s a whole lot of need out there in the world, and we’ll be fine, nobody here at Stock Gumshoe is missing any meals. We love our readers, whether they pay or not… and I promise that I only love our free members a little less.

Thanks for indulging me with a few minutes to pitch our “Gumshoe Gives Back” campaign, and thanks so much for being a Stock Gumshoe reader and helping to build the finest community in cyberspace!

Cheers,

Travis

Travis JohnsonFounder and President, Stock Gumshoe

P.S. Sometimes it gets a little hinky when folks are trying to upgrade or sign up, particularly if you’re a free member from long ago but don’t remember your login credentials, so here’s the lowdown:

You know you’re logged in if it says “My Profile” at the top right of the page, so if that’s the case you can just click here to upgrade to a paid membership in the Irregulars (or upgrade to Irregulars Plus+ Ad Free, if you’re already a member). If you’re not on a tiny little phone screen, you can also click the blue “Upgrade” button you’ll see at the top of most pages on the site. You’ll keep the same username and email address, everything will be easy and simple.

If you’re already a member of the Irregulars, and you want to know whether your membership is renewing soon, you can click here to see your current subscription details. And, of course, you can click here or click that blue “Upgrade” button if you see it — that will let you switch to a different membership if you like, with full credit for any unused part of your current subscription.

And if you don’t have a username or password, well, then welcome aboard… and it’s easy as pie to get going — just start here.

If the system tells you that your email address or username is already in our records and you don’t remember your password, you can request a password reset via email… or if that doesn’t work for any reason, you can always contact the redoubtable Lynn (email payments@stockgumshoe.com) and she’ll help you get everything cleared up in time to participate in this campaign.  Thanks again!