Empire Insider Alert Review – Scam Or Legit?

Empire Insider Alert is a new investing service from Whitney Tilson.

The gimmick for the newsletter is Whitney will send you insider trading alerts that you can copy.

Is this a legit product or another investing scam?

We'll get to the bottom of this question in this review.

Additionally, we'll take a look at what you get and any red flags that I can find.

You'll know if Empire Insider Alert is worth it by the time you're done.

Lets get started!

Beware The MarketWise Sales Funnel

Before we get into the details of Empire Insider Alert, I just want to talk about the company that owns this newsletter.

Empire Financial Research is the publisher of this newsletter, and Empire Financial Research is owned by MarketWise.

MarketWise is a publicly traded company, and they make hundreds of millions in revenue every year.

They're sort of a remake of a horrible company called Agora that was fined recently for defrauding senior citizens.

The reason I say "beware" MarketWise and being in their sales funnel is because they are pretty manipulative with their sales funnels.

They make huge promises about the types of returns you can get and really try to squeeze every penny they can out of you.

Typically, their expensive products don't come with a money-back guarantee either.

which is a shame because most of their products don't perform well.

There's a lot of baggage when buying from MarketWise, and most newsletters aren't worth the baggage.

I personally doubt Empire Insider Alert will be worth the baggage.

Whitney Tilson's Decade Plus Losing Streak

Whitney Tilson is definitely part of the elite class of America.

He has a great-grandfather who was an important member of Congress in the early 1900s, and Whitney himself graduated from Harvard.

He rubs elbows with billionaires and used to run a successful hedge fund called Kase Capital.

In the early parts of the 2000s, Kase Capital was a market beater, and things were going well for Tilson.

However, shortly after the recession, things started going south for him.

His hedge fund could no longer beat the market, and in 2017, he shut down Kase Capital.

A couple years after this, Whitney launched Empire Financial Research and started selling stock picks to retail investors.

So far, Whitney doesn't seem to have regained his magic from the early part of the 2000s.

I don't think any of his newsletters have beaten the market consistently.

His flagship newsletter, Empire Stock Investor, certainly hasn't.

But if you did want to test out Whitney's stock-picking abilities, I'd start with Empire Stock Investor.

It's only $49 for the first year and is probably the top-performing service.

Or you could just try my favorite place to get stock picks:

Recommended: The Best Place To Get Stock Picks

What Are Whisper Trades?

I already wrote an in depth article about "Whisper Trades."

Here's a brief explanation of what it is:

Whitney Tilson is rebranding a common and well-known investing strategy with "whisper trades."

Whisper Trades is just investing in stocks based on insiders' buying their own stock.

Let's say executives at a company know that a merger is happening that will increase the price of a stock in the future.

The insiders will buy their own stocks, and they have to fill out a form with the SEC notifying them they're doing this.

This information is made public.

The reason for this is that insiders have an advantage over investors outside the company.

By filling out these forms, the public can speculate on the moves and invest in them.

With Whitney's new service, he'll be looking for insider trades and then sending alerts to you if he thinks the stocks are worth buying.

Revealing Tilson's "#1 Whisper Trade"

Tilson is promoting this newsletter the same way all stock pickers do - by hyping up an investing opportunity and withholding the name of it unless you buy the service.

The good news is almost every stock picker leaves enough clues in the presentations to figure out the stock.

Tilson left enough clues as well and the stock he's recommending as his "#1 Whisper Trade" is Blackstone Minerals.

Black Stone Minerals is a publicly traded mineral and royalty corporation with interests principally in oil and gas properties in the United States.

The company's headquarters are in Houston, Texas, and it has activities in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and New Mexico.

Black Stone Minerals was formed in 1876 as the Black Stone Oil Company, and has gone through several name changes and transformations since then.

The company now concentrates on the acquisition and management of mineral and royalty assets, primarily in unconventional resource plays such as the Permian Basin, Haynesville Shale, and Bakken/Three Forks formations.

The basic business plan of the company is to acquire mineral and royalty interests in oil and gas properties and then collect royalties on those properties' output.

Black Stone Minerals does not normally operate the assets itself, but rather collaborates with oil and gas corporations to harvest the minerals.

Black Stone Minerals controlled over 20.6 million mineral and royalty acres across the United States as of the end of 2021, making it one of the country's largest owners of mineral and royalty holdings.

The company's portfolio is varied, with holdings in both oil and gas resources, as well as producing and non-producing properties.

The New York Stock Exchange trades Black Stone Minerals under the ticker name BSM. The company's market value was roughly $3.8 billion as of May 2023.

Since becoming a publicly traded business in 2015, Black Stone Minerals has continuously paid a quarterly dividend to its shareholders.

The insider buying is exaggerated by Tilson but it is happening.

The CEO recently started taking payment in stock options which indicates something big is on the horizon.

Empire Insider Alert FAQ's

Still have some questions about this newsletter?

Here are the answers to any remaining questions you might have.

1) How does Empire Insider Alert work?

This service works like a lot of investing newsletters do.

Basically, you sign up, and you have a portfolio of stocks with buy prices that you can invest in right away.

On top of that, you get an additional two "whisper trades" a month.

These are just stocks that insiders are buying.

2) How much does Empire Insider Alert cost?

This newsletter is a little different than others in terms of price.

Signing up is very expensive and will cost you $2,995.

But this is only a one-time fee, and after that, you pay $199 per year just to keep the subscription going.

Then there are two more options for payment that look like this:

It's a little confusing, but the first offer I described is probably the best offer.

However, I still think it's overpriced for most people.

3) Is there a refund policy?

Yes!

It's actually odd for a newsletter that costs thousands of dollars to come with a cash refund.

That's usually for cheap newsletters.

So it was a nice surprise to see a 30-day money-back guarantee.

4) Do you recommend this newsletter?

No, it's way too expensive.

Other than that, I don't think Whitney can beat the market anymore.

And if you're paying thousands for stock picks and they don't beat the market, it's a useless service.

Additionally, the newsletter comes with a lot of baggage, which makes it even more unappealing.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get Stock Picks

Wrapping Things Up

So that's the end of my review of Empire Insider Alert.

I've covered Whitney a ton of times on this website, and I'm very familiar with his stock-picking abilities.

In the sales presentation for this product, he likes to hype himself up.

Tilson goes over his big past winners and name-drops some billionaires that he's friends with.

He'll also let you know that he went to Harvard and is Mr. Fancy Pants.

However, none of that matters.

The only thing that matters is whether Whitney can help you make money.

Everything else is irrelevant.

20 years ago, it looked like Whitney could do this.

But this last decade has proven he's lost the ability to beat the market.

If a newsletter can't beat the market, it's not worth buying.

It's that simple.

I personally don't think Empire Insider Alert will be a market beater, so I'd pass for now.

The good news is that there are some stock-picking services that actually beat the market.

To see my favorite market-beating newsletter, click below: