Dan Ferris has a new newsletter called The Ferris Report.
He claims the market is going to turn sour and he can help you navigate the upcoming crisis.
Is this true or is this another investing scam?
We'll get to the bottom of this question in this review.
Additionally, we'll look at any red flags I find (and there is a couple to know about).
By the time you're done reading you'll know if The Ferris Report is right for you.
Let's get started!
The Ferris Report Summary
Creator: Dan Ferris
Price to join: $49 for first year, $199 per year after
Do I recommend? It depends (read summary)
Overall rating: 3.8/5
The Ferris Report is the newest investing service from Dan Ferris.
Dan is an investor I like and he's less sensationalist than other stock pickers.
The price is good and there's a good refund policy as well.
This newsletter is only two months old and is up about 1% in that time (there was one bigger loser that lost 25% but most stock recommendations are up).
Overall it's too early to judge how well this newsletter will be but Dan is reliable.
There are red flags, though.
This is a Stansberry/MarketWise product so upsells will be aggressive and you'll be sent very manipulative sales presentations.
You have to decide if the baggage is worth the stock picks.
If I had to guess this newsletter will do especially good right now with high inflation and with the market struggling - this is when investors like Ferris shine.
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The Ferris Report Video Review
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8 Things To Know About The Ferris Report
Before you buy The Ferris Report there's things you should know about it.
Here's everything you need to consider before buying:
1) I Actually Am A Member Of The Ferris Report
Before we get started I just want to assure you that I am an actual member of this newsletter.
You'll see a lot of reviews floating around from people that don't actually own The Ferris Report.
Additionally, I'm not paid by Dan Ferris or Stansberry either.
There's a few reviews out there that are compensated by Stansberry.
And finally I've reviewed 100+ stock picking services.
I know what to look for in a newsletter and have a lot of experience dealing with these products.
So without further delay, let's get into it!
2) A Predatory Company Owns The Ferris Report
Before we get into what The Ferris Report is offering I want to briefly talk about the company that owns this newsletter.
The Ferris Report is owned by Stansberry Research which is owned by a publicly traded company called MarketWise.
There's a lot of red flags with MarketWise which are:
Essentially An Agora Rebrand
Agora was the biggest distributor of investing newsletters for a long time but have recently started to crumble.
Agora's reputation took a beating after being involved in some shady stuff.
For example, they were caught defrauding senior citizens and were fined millions for doing so:
At the time Agora owned over a dozen publishers but they all fled shortly after.
Most of them came together under MarketWise including Stansberry Research.
And basically nothing has changed.
They've continued the manipulative and shady practices of Agora.
And it's definitely paid off for them.. they're going to make well over $500 in revenue in their first full year as a company.
Constant Upselling
Like I just said - MarketWise makes hundreds of million in revenue every year.
They're a fine tuned machine that's designed with one goal in mind - milking their customers for everything that they can.
You don't make hundreds of millions in revenue by selling $49 subscriptions which is what The Ferris Report costs.
MarketWise makes so much by upselling their customers for products that cost thousands of dollars.
The Ferris Report is just the first step in a very intricate sales funnel designed to get you to spend thousands on other products.
Every day your inbox will be filled with offers.
Dan Ferris has other products that cost thousands of dollars, like Extreme Value.
Many of these upsell offers are low quality and will lose you money.
You'll Be Dealing With Scam Artists
Another downside of dealing with MarketWise is you'll be promoted all of their products.
So if you sign up to Stansberry Research your email is shared with other publishers that MarketWise owns.
The problem with this is MarketWise employs legitimate criminals and scams artists.
They try to pass them off as trusted experts.
Louis Navellier was just fined $30 million for defrauding customers but MarketWise will send you emails telling you Louis has a perfect reputation:
Teeka Tiwari was thrown out of Wall Street and banned from working at companies that buy and sell securities on behalf of customers.
You'll receive emails telling you to buy his newsletters which cost thousands of dollars.
Dan comes off as legit to me but there's a lot of bad characters at MarketWise.
And you'll be pressured heavily to give them your money.
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3) Here's A Look AT Dan Ferris' Stock Picking History
The Ferris Report is a new service so it's hard to judge it yet.
However, Dan Derris has a popular newsletter called Extreme Value that he's been running for years.
He sells this newsletter the same way as everyone else - by hyping up stocks picks and withholding the name to get you to by.
These stock presentations are supposed to be the best stock picks a stock picker can offer.
Let's look back at some of them to get a sense of how well Dan can pick stocks.
Sportt And Altius Minerals In March 2022
A little under a year ago Dan ran a stock presentation hyping up assets to help you fight against inflation.
Two of the assets were Sprott and Altius Minerals.
Sprott is a gold ETF and has been pretty volatile in the last year:
The ETF performed pretty well for a while but has fallen a bit from its peak.
It's currently down about 23% which is definitely not going to help you with inflation.
Altuis Minerals is down as well but not as significantly:
inTest In August 2021
inTest is a company that is tied to the semiconductor industry.
Their main focus is on creating test product for semiconductors.
This was all pitched as an EV play because electric cars use more chips than gas powered cars.
Here's how the stock has done since being recommended:
There's been a pretty big shortage of chips these last couple of years because of lockdowns and covid.
inTest is pretty much connected to how well the chip industry is doing.
The stock went down because of the chip shortage.
If the industry can rebound you'll see a pop in the stock price.
CTS In June 2021
CTS was marketed as another electric vehicle play.
This company makes products for automotive companies like braking systems, sensors, etc.
Back in June 2021 they were expanding business to include more electric vehicle products.
The stock is up a tiny bit but nothing significant:
In these market conditions breaking even is considered good so not a bad stock pick.
Brown and Brown In August 2020
Back in August 2020 Dan hyped up Brown and Brown as an opportunity to make 1550% on the "best business in the world."
The best business according to Dan is the insurance business.
Brown and Brown is a big insurance company and here's how the stock has done:
This stock has been pretty steadily gaining and plateaued recently (that's just how stocks are right now).
Overall a good stock pick that definitely has nice long term value.
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4) Here Are The Upsells When You Sign Up
MarketWise and Stansberry exist to make as much money per customer as they can.
That's there #1 goal.
Because of this you're going to get many upsells when you buy.
You'll get immediate upsells once you sign up and upsells to your email inbox after.
There's three upsells after you buy.
The first is urging you to spend $350 more and become a lifetime member of The Ferris Report:
Once you get past this upsell you're offered a 50% discount on DailyWealth Trader.
It typically costs $99 per month but you get an offer to try it for $50:
After you get by this you're offered a free 30 trial of DailyWealth Trader:
Once you get past this upsell you're allowed to access The Ferris Report:
So three upsells before you're allowed to see the product you paid for.
I've seen some newsletter offer as many as seven before giving you access!
Just one of the things you're going to have to deal with if you buy from MarketWise/Stansberry.
5) You Get A Monthly Newsletter
This is the main part of the offer and essentially what you're paying for.
Once a month (fourth Wednesday) you'll get a new copy of The Ferris Report.
In these newsletters you'll get new stock recommendations.
There's really no set limit to how many stocks will be recommended in each issue.
For example, in the latest issue Dan wants you to buy three oil stocks and the issue before that there was only one pick.
This could be because the portfolio is still being built out and perhaps it'll be just one stock a month in the future.
Overall the newsletters are about 15 pages long and pretty full of information.
There's some charts and illustrations but it's mostly words.
Additionally, in each newsletter you'll get a "chart of the month."
This analysis looks at a new data set that "shows a current or impending investment opportunity."
Lastly, you get analysis on some of the stocks that are in the portfolio already.
Typically you'll get information on just one or two of the stocks.
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6) The Portfolio Is Off To A Decent Start
As of right now there's 11 assets in The Ferris Report portfolio:
Most of the recommendations so far are either funds or oil stocks.
There's one stock that was recommended that isn't in the portfolio anymore which is Smith and Wesson.
Dan Ferris has a stop loss of 25% for all of his stocks.
So if he recommends a stock and it eventually loses 25% of its value he sends out an automatic sell alert.
Smith and Wesson apparently had a bad earnings report and it caused a big drop in the stock.
Here's the alert that went out that told subscribers to sell:
If it weren't for this stock the portfolio would be up around 5% in just two months.
That's pretty good compared to the market being even since December 1st.
However, when you factor in Smith and Wesson the portfolio is up about 1%.
Still beating the market since launch but not by much.
Keep in mind, though, with Ferris you're typically holding stocks for the long haul.
So it's silly to judge the portfolio in two months when the stocks are meant to be held for 3 to 5 years.
The jury is still out on how good the recommendations will be.
7) You get 5 Special Reports
As part of your subscription you get 5 special reports as well.
These special reports act as a sweetener and focus on an overall theme.
Usually they tell you about certain stocks to invest in or which to avoid.
The first special report you get is called "Avoid At All Costs: These Stocks Will Never Trade This High Again In Your Lifetime."
This is a special report that focuses on stocks that Ferris believes have peeked.
He marketed these as "The Dead Zone" on the sales page.
Many of these stocks are well known.
Included are EV stocks, major tech stocks, popular investment funds and cryptos related stocks.
The next special report is titled "The Most Valuable Assets In A Time Of Crisis:"
This special report is put together by another newsletter at Stansberry called Retirement Millionaire.
The idea behind this special report is during stock downturns you should focus on hard assets.
The recommendations here aren't gold and silver which do well in these times.
The reason being gold and silver won't actually have practical use in your life.
Instead the two assets are in food and timber.
The next special report is titled "Trade Your Dollars For Potential 1000% Gains, Thanks To Gold And Silver:"
This special reports focuses on why gold and silver is a better investment than the US dollar.
However, the recommendations here aren't just gold and silver - they focus on different gold and silver trusts and ETF's.
There's three recommendations here.
The next special report is called "The Recession Haven That Could 7x Your Money in 10 Years:"
This recommendation takes advantage of the Russian/Ukraine war.
It's a play for defense stocks that benefit from weapon sales and war.
The last special report is a counter to the "Dead Zone" report.
This is where you should be putting your money in times of high inflation and economic uncertainty.
There's two ETF's recommended in this report.
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8) There's Updates When Needed
The last thing you get with your membership is updates.
These are typically alerts on changes in the portfolio.
If a stock hits a 25% trail loss Ferris will send you an alert to sell.
Again, this is a new newsletter so there's only been one update so far and that was a sell recommendation for Smith and Wesson because it lost 25% of its value.
The Ferris Report FAQ's
Still have questions about The Ferris Report?
Here's answers to any remaining questions you might have:
1) How Much Does The Ferris Report Cost?
The Ferris Report costs what all introductory newsletters at Stansberry and MarketWise cost - $49 for the first year.
Every year after is $199 (there's an option to be a lifetime member for $400 once you sign up as well).
This is meant to just get you into the sales funnel so they can upsell you more expensive products down the road (and right after you buy).
2) Is There A Refund Policy?
So all MarketWise publishers do the same thing with their refund policy.
They offer a refund on their cheap newsletters but not on their expensive ones.
So The Ferris Report comes with a 30 day refund policy.
BUT if you were to buy Extreme Value (Dan Ferris upsell) you wouldn't get your money back.
Just something to keep in mind if you're thinking about the upsell after you buy.
3) Is Dan Ferris Legit?
There's a lot of scummy stock pickers out there and Dan certainly works alongside some of the worst.
But there's a lot to like about Dan.
He's definitely less sensationalist than a lot of his colleagues and avoids really risky stocks.
If you're someone who likes low risk investments and libertarian ideas you'll probably like Dan Ferris.
4) How Much Do I Need To Start?
According to Stansberry you only need $1,000 to start but you'll want more than that.
$1,000 means you can invest in new stocks but won't be able to put much into the model portfolio.
Personally I think $10,000 is a good place to start.
Anything less than that and you might be missing out on some of the stock picks.
5) What Is The Investing Style?
Ferris is a value investor and stays away from growth stocks.
So if you're looking for the newest tech stock with 1000% potential this isn't the newsletter for you.
The investments aren't sexy but they are low risk.
These kind of assets do well in times of high inflation and they'll give you a pretty solid portfolio.
However, with that low risk means lower reward.
6) How Does The Newsletter Work?
Basically you sign up and you're thrown a bunch of upsells.
After you get by them you can access your subscription in the members section.
There's three sections that are most important:
- Newsletters (past and present)
- Portfolio
- Special Reports.
The newsletter goes out once a month and will contain investment advice and stock, fund, trust and ETF recommendations.
The portfolio currently has 11 positions in it and 1 has been closed out for losing 25%.
7) Is The Ferris Report Beating The Market?
It's only been two months but so far it's 1% above the market.
The 25% loss on Smith and Wesson really hurt the portfolio, otherwise it would be up about 5%.
But really it's too early to judge any of Dan's picks.
He's a long term investor and his recommendations are expected to be held for years.
8) Are There Similar Newsletters?
Yes, there's many newsletters just like this one.
Some include:
- The Distortion Report
- Stansberry Investment Advisory
- TradeStops
- Retirement Watch
- Intelligent Income Investor
- True Wealth
- The Opportunistic Trader
- Jeff Clark Trader
- Behind The Markets
- The Oxford Income Letter
- Power Gauge Report
- Chaikin Analytics
As you can see there's no shortage of people wanting to sell you stock picks.
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The Ferris Report Pros And Cons
The Ferris Report Conclusion
So that's the end of my review of The Ferris Report.
Overall I like Dan Ferris more than most people in the stock picking world.
His investments tend to be common sense and he's a lot less manipulative in his pitches than most.
His stock picks are low risk but don't offer the biggest upside.. which is fine for a lot of people.
And definitely good right now.
The main issue is the newsletter comes with some serious baggage.
It's owned by Stansberry Research which is owned by MarketWise.
You'll be sent the most manipulative sales presentations on earth as a result of being their customer.
The goal is to get you to spend thousands of dollars.
I just don't think MarkteWise treats their customers well and it's hard for me to recommend anything from them.
If you do buy you might want to create a separate email address just for the newsletter.
That way you don't have to deal with the constant promotions and upsells.
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I think The Ferris Report may be worth it if you can resist the upsells.
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