Comparison of well-known stock advisory services

How about quality of Katalystwealth vis a vis others like PE and so on.
They have been featured in Forbes magazine. Looks like they recommend for long term.

 

How about alphainvesco.com Any reviews on them?

 

anyone has tried finapple e-fortune?? how good is it? any other provider for short term tips??

 

How about alphainvesco.com Any reviews on them?

 

Hi,

Today i.e. Oct 1,2015. I have downloaded list of all registered SEBI research analyst. I think it is important for any Stock advisory firm to be registered with SEBI as a research analyst in the interest of the investor.

Before choosing a stock advisory firm we should check if a representative from it is registered with SEBI.

regards,

Adiy

 

Thanks everyone for all the tips on the various advisory services. I have subscribed to a few myself to test and will soon distill them to one or two. And some info coming in from friends who've subscribed to other services.

So here goes:

Note that I have recovered my investment from most of these advisory services because I do my own research and then buy.

1. Equity master:
Pros: The guys are good. They pay a high premium on valuation of safety. They helped bring in stability in my portfolio by their conservative approach. They are sticklers for honesty and clean managements. I like them because they do not like to trade and maintain strict discipline when buying and selling stocks. All based on valuations alone. They have a few newsletters that you can subscribe to (some are free) and you’ll learn a lot about investing. What I like about them, is that they are candid about their process and do a post mortem for customers of why some of their calls went wrong. Their reports are thorough and they do travel to meet the management (and not just rely on screens and the Internet for news).

Cons: Have too many services and customers. If you subscribe to all their services, you will have far more recommendations than money to invest. They hard sell their products and so have too many customers. The stock shoots up (or drops) around 10-15% when they recommend (buy or sell) so you have to wait for the price to fall to get in (so you need to keep monitoring). And as mentioned before, they recommend a stock but it is sometimes 20-30% away from the target purchase price. So you at times never get the purchase price (so an infructious call so to speak).

Recovered my subscription fees many times over. So I am grateful to them. But don’t forget they have some great calls (that they’ll always advertise) and some horrible calls (that you will rarely hear of). If there are so many calls (based on so many services), as per the law of averages, you will definitely hit a few multibaggers (to advertise) and a few horrible calls. Of late, I have seen them recommend stocks after they’ve run up. Dunno if they missed the stock and were playing catch up or if they were waiting for that margin of safety. I think it is the former.

The ideal advisory service will recommend just 5-10 stocks and compound your money based on that. Such a service is rare (but Alpha Invesco is coming close).

2. Katalyst Investing (Friend’s input):

Pros: Not been with them for too long but I like their reports. They show they have an understanding of the markets. Reports are reasonably thorough and professional. But I am not sure if they’ve seen bear markets like Equity master has. It is easy to pick winners in bull markets. As Mr Buffet says, “It is only when the tide goes out, you know who is swimming naked.” Offers just a few picks but of late some stocks are quoting around 20% below buy price. Doesn’t bother me because I am a long-term value investor.

Cons: Does not communicate often. Does not have a distinct purchase and sell price. Doesn’t have bear-market track record. Doesn’t seem to be too keen on valuation bands. He tends to ride the wave and that can be dangerous if we see more crashes when stocks correct due to sky-high valuations. His sell strategy doesn’t seem very clear.

So we’ll need to see how the service does in bear markets.

Friend should recover his annual subscription soon. So the subscription fees are no worry.

3.Alpha Invesco (Friend’s input):

Pros: Their reports are thorough and they seem to have a good understanding of moat investing. They mostly pick stocks with a huge opportunity size and so produce those fab results in stock price movement. Recommend just a few stocks. I have made very good money with their recommendations because they don’t recommend many stocks. Reduced their subscription price recently quite drastically to play the volumes game, I suppose.

Cons: Not much bear market track record. Don’t communicate much but enough when required (especially when there are volatility issues in the market).

Friend will soon recover his investment (one-time fees for 5 years) and I guess he should do well later.

4. **********:

Pros: Seems to have many winners to his name, some with a huge return (I joined late so I didn’t get the benefit). His fees are low and he seems genuinely interested in helping people make money. Communicates a lot but some of it is immature and any guy in finance can glean that ********* is not very finance-savvy. But make no mistake. The guys seems honest.

Cons: Not much bear market track record. SEBI license pending (not much of a con). His reports are not very detailed and a little superficial (rarely touches on cash flows, operating profits, and so on). His customers are very financially illiterate so they hold him in very high esteem (they didn’t even know how bonus shares work, and so on). Stock market veterans will tell you that you cannot evaluate a service based on if it gave you huge profits or not but on the process and the logic followed when recommending buys and sells. **********’s customers love him for the huge profits. We’ll have to see what they say in bear markets. He has the general instinct to be able to pick winners but maybe not the shrewdness of Alpha Invesco or Katalyst. Again this is subjective for he has had his fair share of winners.

An extra note on **********: I have seen a bit too much in this forum on *********’s ethics. As a youngster, he made the mistake of confessing by email. So hats off to him for acknowledging that he copied a few recommendations. I have seen some of the better ones do that too, but they carefully mask it based on experience. J

I don’t think copying is bad! If Ramesh Damani buys a stock and RJ thinks it is a good buy too, he is free to buy because he runs the risk of loss too. So why crucify *********. Some of the top recommendation companies blatantly copy from other forums like valuepickr but rarely admit it. Net net you need to see if ********* made money for you or not. This is not art or music so let us keep originality out of the discussion. If he shows you the money, he has earned his wage.

Coming back to **********, the guy seems raw and might have had beginners luck on his side. He tells you stuff that you will never incur a loss with him and we all know that this is immaturity speaking. Even biggies like RJ have had to exit at significant losses. His notion of long-term is 1-yr plus. This again is ridiculous. It must be 3 years and beyond, especially for cyclical plays he recommends.

And to be fair again to **********, I recovered my subscription fees (many times over) by intelligently buying a pharma company that was one of his good picks. With all the data around, we need to investigate the stocks further than asking him or anyone else silly questions. I think one of his calls is horrendous because the company has no operating cash flows and I checked with him. He came back saying that it is ok. From his tone, I figured out that he didn’t bother to read the annual reports before recommending , or doesn’t realize the significance of operating cash flows. Like all amateur investors, he seemed to have been fixated totally with the P&L statement and not the CFS. But again, I might be proven wrong and he might have a multibagger up his sleeve.

Bottomline:

Try every service for a year or so and then in 2-3 years you will know which ones to keep and which ones to discard. It is like a barber. Your friend might hate the barber you swear by.

 

Hi everyone,
This is regarding *********. I am with them since a long time and I am fully rewarded.

-ve point- They are non-professional. I received many emails which clearly shows the attitude of ****. Looks like they are not able to handle the success. What is the point in scolding your members? They say don't ask question. I ask why?

+ve point- They give timely update on their stock. Stocks give multibagger return after 1 year. Replies come at lightning speed, even during night. They provide solution 24*7. Founder has bad attitude but is very honest.

 

Reward was there but not anymore. For last 1 and a half years, only two pharma stocks have performed. Rest is average. if you calculate the returns are only 13-15% from all stocks combined for 18 months. this is below average. not worth paying 15k. There are others who are doing much better.

 

Have you tried Saral gyaan any time in the past ? Any feedback on their service will be much appreciated .

 

The analysis of the stock advisory services is excellent. All services have their hits and misses. One has to apply his own mind and develop conviction before acting on the recommendation.

 

No, sorry. But I use all these services as streams of ideas and then act on my own. So if someone is recommending Kitex Garments at these prices, I need to really ask myself if I am comfortable with these valuations, given the tailwind of cotton prices, growth plans and so on. If not, I'd rather not buy irrespective of the recommendation.

Conversely, I might want to look at real estate (like Ashiana Housing, Anant Raj, and so on), even if nobody is recommending it right now. This is because valuations are rock bottom and the risk is far outweighed by potential reward.

 

Some negatives on Alpha Invesco : Their track record in 2011 and 2012 was horrible. Strangely they are not showing bad calls on their website. Only the best are shown.

In their philosophy section they are showing a quote by Warren Buffett. Exactly what is their philosophy is not shown. How can a quote by Buffett that too so general be their total investment philosophy? At one place on this website I saw them confess about their bad performance which is good. Bad is that those stocks are still hidden on the website. Good talk bad action. Returns shown on their website will be very different when bad ones are included.

 

Which month recommendation did you refer as to not having cash flow ? No Need to mention the stock name, just want to know the month of recommendation. Thanks

 

Pharma company in July 2015. If you think I have made a mistake please let me know.

The operating cash flow is almost zero as against 8-12cr of Net Profit from 2013-2015.

 

Oh ok, in that case, I have no idea as my trial membership with them ended in July but that recommendation was for only premium customers.

 

Heads-up!!!

Past few weeks I had been interacting with few stock advisory firms to avail subscription.

When I asked them on sharing SEBI registration number for research analyst, they were smartly replying
by providing SEBI registration number for investment adviser.

 

Dont apply who dont have license.

 

Anyone who has recently subscribed to any equity research firm, please share your experience?

 

Go for Prudent Equity Sonia and don't believe in all the negative reviews being posted here by some people to malign it without any substantial data.

But don't expect periodic stock recommendations as PE is very particular about margin of safety and will not publish a new stock report until it meets all the parameters.

 

Sonia, I subscribed to PE in 1st week of Sep. 2015. I bought 4 scrips from their 'current buy list' at more or less the recommended prices and ALL are up between 4-16%. How does it matter whether they are old or new recos as long as you are earning money?

I am NOT advocating that you subscribe to PE, am just sharing my experience.