Hi all, just wanted to let you know that I appeared on Frank Curzio’s podcast yesterday. Frank was a very good friend of mine at TheStreet.com (TSCM) and is the best in the business when it comes to penny stocks. Frank’s now with Stansberry and Associates, where he’s about to launch what might be the best penny stock/low-dollar/under $10 stock newsletter out there. Tim Sykes may have a new rival!
We touch on a lot of cool stuff: Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), video games – and what’s it’s like to work for Jim Cramer!
Click here to listen!
I wrote extensively on my other blog about Lenny Dykstra’s stint as an options “expert” at TheStreet.com (TSCM), for whom he authored an investment newsletter and many columns. To make a long story short, Lenny had an incredibly fast but short run in the financial media world, finally crashing to Earth in bankruptcy.
Lenny made good use of his baseball fame, but his incredible hubris and lack of risk control both on and off the trading screen led to his financial downfall. With it went his relationship with TheStreet.com.
Another famous fellow, former CNBC anchor Ron Insana, also saw his star shine at TheStreet.com. Ron authored the “Market Movers” newsletter, which I criticized heavily:
The problem is that Market Movers is taking credit for investments made BEFORE IT EVEN LAUNCHED. Sorry Ron, but that’s just not how investment newsletters work. Your subscribers did not receive the recommendations (since the newsletter didn’t even exist) that drove your alleged performance, so you have no basis for claiming this return.
And since Ron “manages investment portfolios separate from his portfolio in TheStreet.com Market Movers,” how do we know that this portfolio wasn’t cherry picked to maximize its performance?
Well, as it turns out, a little birdie told me that Ron is no longer with TheStreet.com – less than a year after his almost-certainly lucrative newsletter launched. Apparently, Market Movers is now run by a gentleman by the name of Ken Shreve.
Perhaps Ron wants to focus more on promoting his new book, How to Make a Fortune from the Biggest Bailout in U.S. History: A Guide to the 7 Greatest Bargains from Main Street to Wall Street
. I don’t know – you guys have any ideas?
I have to say, while I haven’t worked for TheStreet.com in nearly two years, I’m really disappointed that the company’s lost so much great talent, especially in its newsletter business. No, I’m not talking about Lenny Dykstra. I’m talking about smart former colleagues of mine like Steve Smith, Aaron Task, Larsen Kusick, and especially Frank Curzio, who ran the Stocks Under $10 newsletter. At least Jim Cramer’s not likely to go anywhere!
As others have written, TheStreet.com faced no shortage of bad news in 2009 – including major management departures and delayed financial reports. Besides my initial research, I have no clue as to how well Ron Insana actually did as a newsletter writer (an incredibly tough job), but there’s no denying that losing a big name is a bad sign, especially since the relationship was so short.