Anyone have an opinion on Jim Shepherd?

[buriedbeds]

I've been reading Jim Shepherd (jasmts.com) for a while and I find him interesting. Does anyone on here have a strong opinion about him one way or another? I'm just getting started in researching investing and Shepherd, Bob Brinker and the books you guys recommend in various threads have been my big resources so far. I'm just wondering because I'm in that "I don't know enough to know what I don't know" phase, so I'm interested to know what others think of the quality of my resources.

Thanks for any opinions-

-bb.

[buffett]

Warning: the following opinion is based on about 10 minutes of research. I had never heard of this guy until your post, but as Shakespeare said, "the empty vessel makes the loudest sound."

* Bottom line: I'm very skeptical of this guy.

* If he is really capable of doing 19% cagr (as his $10k->$593k chart implies), then he should be managing a 1&20 hedge fund and not selling $500 newsletters.

* But that's the knock on all the people like him, so how about this angle...if he's really capable of calling the market's "signals," he could be earning a lot more money by working in the forecasting group at a big i-bank. According to this guy's website, he's been way more correct than Abby Joseph Cohen ever dreamed of being.

* His bio is a shade (or two) too promotional for my taste.

* Pretty basic typos always turn me off: "investments that have enjoyed a consistant rise" and "If cancel, you may with my compliments, keep all Reports received to that date."

* And this one was a real head-scratcher for me: "We anticipate the very high probability, that during the next year, Jim's investment recommendations should appreciate by an additional 50%, not including the possible use, again, of options that brought Jim's clients huge profits in 1987, 1991, 1994 and 1998. We cannot and do not recommend the use of options."

[DesertCat]

I tried looking him up on Hulbert, but he wasn't listed. Is there another investment letter rating service out there?

[buriedbeds]

[ QUOTE ]
Warning: the following opinion is based on about 10 minutes of research. I had never heard of this guy until your post, but as Shakespeare said, "the empty vessel makes the loudest sound."

* Bottom line: I'm very skeptical of this guy.

* If he is really capable of doing 19% cagr (as his $10k->$593k chart implies), then he should be managing a 1&20 hedge fund and not selling $500 newsletters.

* But that's the knock on all the people like him, so how about this angle...if he's really capable of calling the market's "signals," he could be earning a lot more money by working in the forecasting group at a big i-bank. According to this guy's website, he's been way more correct than Abby Joseph Cohen ever dreamed of being.

* His bio is a shade (or two) too promotional for my taste.

* Pretty basic typos always turn me off: "investments that have enjoyed a consistant rise" and "If cancel, you may with my compliments, keep all Reports received to that date."

* And this one was a real head-scratcher for me: "We anticipate the very high probability, that during the next year, Jim's investment recommendations should appreciate by an additional 50%, not including the possible use, again, of options that brought Jim's clients huge profits in 1987, 1991, 1994 and 1998. We cannot and do not recommend the use of options."

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks very much for putting in any effort checking at all checking the site - no need to apologize for "only" spending 10 minutes, since that's 10 minutes more than I could reasonably expect. I've read a lot of your posts in this forum have they've been a valuable resource for my education about investment; I appreciate your opinion.

The points you mention above make me suspicious as well, which is frankly why I made the post in the first place. However I have a friend who has been following him since before his well-timed exit from the market preceding the .com burst, and he has apparently been pretty accurate regarding his moves. His newsletters are interesting and seem to be somewhat insightful.

This being said, my level of competence for knowing the difference between the insightful and the outright kooky is not all that high. As I said before, I have only been studying investment for the past several months...I'm in my mid-20's and have been saving to begin investment beyond my retirement/emergency cash savings.

If anyone has any firsthand knowledge of him, or if anyone could point me in the direction of where the I could do some more research on him (other than a standard search engine, obviously), I would very much appreciate it. My friend places a *lot* of weight on Shepherd's opinions, so I'm interested to be able to know more about him. Like you said above, if he's such a first-rate resource, why isn't he more well known?

Thanks again for any insights and help-

-bb.

[buriedbeds]

[ QUOTE ]
I tried looking him up on Hulbert, but he wasn't listed. Is there another investment letter rating service out there?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be interested in knowing the same. Thanks for checking into it either way.

Thanks-

-bb.