Wall Street's Proving Ground is an inexpensive investing newsletter run by Jason Simpkins.
However, there's expensive upsells and before spending money I'm sure you want to know if it's a scam.
Well I have good news!
I've reviewed hundreds of similar products and spent the day going through this product.
Below you'll see everything you need to know about this newsletter.
You'll see the good, the bad and all the red flags.
You'll know if Wall Street's Proving Ground is worth it by the time you're done reading.
Let's get started!
Wall Street's Proving Ground Summary
Creator: Jason Simpkins
Price to join: $49 to $79 per year
Do I recommend? No.
Overall rating: 3/5
Wall Street's Proving Ground is a mediocre investing newsletter.
I don't recommend it because the company that owns it is horrible.
Additionally, I don't think it's anything special and the stock picks are hit or miss.
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You Never Want To Buy From Agora
Agora owns Outsider Club, which is the publisher of Wall Street's Proving Ground.
The editor for this newsletter, Jason Simpkins, has been working for Agora since his mid twenties as well.
These are HUGE red flags and I never like to recommend products from Agora, even though they're the largest distributor of investing newsletters in the country.
I've reviewed dozens of their products and have probably recommended one or two.
There's many reasons to dislike Agora.
Here's my top reasons why:
They Sell Literal Scams
If someone were to rob all the grandmothers in your town, would you trust that person?
Of course not.
Anyone who targets elderly people are scum of the earth.
However, this is exactly what Agora does all time.
Just last year they were fined millions of dollars for selling fraudulent financial and health products to old people.
Agora promised elderly people if they buy their services they'll teach them how to get thousands from the government every month.
It was a lie.
Additionally, Agora sells health products and promised to cure diabetes in just 28 days without a need for exercise or diet change.
Another lie.
Because of this unethical marketing Agora had to pay millions in fines.
Did this stop them from targeting seniors?
Nope.
Agora makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year and spending a few million on fines is nothing to them.
It's basically a business expense for them.
An investigation from Truth In Advertising shows these fines did nothing to stop Agora from targeting seniors:
Agora is awful and extremely predatory.
You shouldn't trust them with your money.
Getting Trapped In An Agora Marketing Funnel
There's another reason to avoid any Agora products - even the cheaper ones like Wall Street Proving Ground.
Agora has very sophisticated and intricate marketing funnels.
You might only want to spend $49 on a newsletter but before you know it you might spend thousands.
Agora uses cheap products as bait.
But once you buy anything from them they start targeting you with promotion after promotion after promotion.
You'll get dozens of ads a day for products that cost thousands and even tens of thousands.
They use dirty marketing tricks to get you to buy as well.
It's a complete headache and this is another reason why I suggest avoiding Agora products.
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A Look At Jason Simpkins' Track Record
I don't have access to every stock pick Jason has ever made and Agora doesn't have track records you can look at.
But Jason has run several teaser campaigns through out the years hyping up stock picks.
These presentations are supposed to be the best stock picks Jason has.
You can get a good idea of his track record by looking at the performance of these stocks.
Here's a look at the performance of these picks:
Astra Space In Late 2021
Last year Simpkins teased a stock as being the "IPPO opportunity of the decade."
In this presentation Simpkins hyped a stock in the satellite market.. he went as far to call this company the "SpaceX killer."
This stock ended up being Astra Space.
How well did it perform since his recommendation?
Horribly.
Since the launch of this presentation the stock has lost nearly 70% and there's zero signs of it recovering.
This is why you should never buy into the hype of these Agora sales presentations.
A lot of times it just ends with people losing a ton of money.
VSBLTY In 2019
VSBLTY is a company Jason has been pitching for a while. Most recently he teased this stock as a "tiny tech stock just won the world war against Covid."
However, in the past this same company was marketed as a way to prevent school shootings and terrorist attacks.
VSBLTY apparently uses AI powered cameras and censors to ID bad guys.
This stock performed well but you had to wait years for it to mature:
For years it was a losing pick but it paid off in late 2021 if you were patient and sold at the right time.
Leonardo In Mid 2020
Leonardo is a supplier of laser diodes which are used in direct energy weapons.
In May of 2020 Jason called this company the "the laser defense firm that will let you retire early."
This is another stock that looked like a flop for years but has recently surged:
I'm guessing the surge is from the Ukraine conflict.
I don't think it's really high enough to sell yet.. so we'll see how high (or low) it goes.
Overall it seems it takes a while for Jason's stock picks to pay out, if they do pay out.
What Is Wall Street's Proving Ground?
Wall Street Proving Ground is an introductory newsletter being sold at Outsider Club.
This publisher, like we discussed earlier, is owned by Agora.
The editor of this newsletter is Jason Simpkins and he started working for Agora almost straight out of college.
Jason didn't have a degree in finance or anything like - his degree is in communication,
You'll see Agora do this often.
A lot of times they recruit college kids with degrees that have nothing to do with stocks or finance.
Jason eventually worked his way up the Agora ladder and became editor of this newsletter.
In the past Wall Street's Proving Ground was called The Wealth Warrior and was published under Angel Publishing (another Agora owned publisher).
The main focus of this newsletter is defense and weapons stocks - cybersecurity too.
Although, sometimes Jason branches out and will recommend stocks from other sectors as well.
But the main focus will be on defense stocks.
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What Is Wall Street's Proving Ground Offering?
Wall Street's Proving Ground is a typical Agora newsletter.
These products offered by Agora may have different themes and different editors but the offer is usually the same.
Here's a look at everything you get with this newsletter:
Monthly Newsletter
Every month you'll get an issue of Wall Street's Proving Ground.
Here you'll get stock picks and commentary on the markets (mostly space and defense markets).
Alerts
The idea of a monthly newsletter is pretty antiquated.
It made sense in the past when physical newsletters were sent out - that just takes more time.
But we live in a digital age.
Still most newsletters stick to the monthly schedule.
The big flaw here is if something happens in the market that effects your stocks you'll have to wait a month to hear about it.
This is where the alerts come in.
If something happens in the market and effects your stocks, you'll get an alert telling you what to do.
Model Portfolio
This is one of the core parts of the offer.
Once you sign up you'll get access to all the stock picks in the Wall Street's Proven Ground's portfolio.
With this you'll get buy prices and sell prices.
Special Reports
Additionally, you'll get access to a bunch of special reports.
These special reports are always changing and they're a lot like the teaser stocks we looked at earlier.
When Jason wants to market Wall Street's Proving Ground he creates new special reports and markets them.
By the time you read this the reports might be different.
Currently the special repots are:
- The New Space Age
- The 10X Space Infrastructure Gem
- The $12 Billion Satellite Linchpin
All of these reports detail a different company and why Jason likes the investment idea.
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Wall Street's Proving Ground FAQ's
Still have some questions about this newsletter?
Here's some answers to any remaining questions you might have:
1) How Much Does Wall Street's Proving Ground Cost?
There's two different prices for this newsletter.
The first is $49 per year and there's a second option for $79 for two years.
This is what you expect for an introductory investing newsletter and what you should expect from Agora.
Just realize this is product is just part of a larger marketing funnel.
There's products that cost thousands a year at Outsider Club.
The thing is, the expensive products really never perform better than the cheaper ones.
It's not like there's secret stocks that these guys know about and will only show you if you pay more.
Agora just knows how to get people to spend more money.
2) Is There A Refund Policy?
There's a 6 month refund policy.
This is a good refund policy and gives you time to see if the stocks work for you.
However, if you're getting bad stock picks you're likely going to lose thousands
So getting $49 back when you lose thousands isn't that big of a deal.
Keep in mind as well, Agora typically doesn't give refunds on more expensive products.
So if you upgrade you better be sure you want the upgrade.
3) Is Jason Simpkins Legit?
I guess he's been in the stock picking game for a while.
He started working for Agora in his mid twenties and has been researching stocks ever since, starting in 2007.
But all this experience has been with Agora.
Agora hires legitimate criminals and pretends their experts.
I'm personally not going to call Jason legit - I have a hard time thinking anyone truly legit would work for Agora.
4) How Much Do I Need For Investments?
There's two ways to look at this.
The first is the cost it'll take to invest in a new stock.
Every month you'll be getting investment ideas and you should have at least $500 per stock you want to buy.
The second thing you need to consider is the model portfolio.
There can be up to 30 stock picks in the portfolio and you'll have access to all of them when you sign up.
You're not going to want to invest in all of them but there's definitely some you'll want to buy.
You should have at least $5,000 for this.
5) Are There Similar Newsletters?
There's a lot of these kinds of newsletters out there.
Some of them include:
Most of these newsletters actually come from Agora.
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Wall Street's Proving Ground Pros And Cons
Wall Street's Proving Ground Conclusion
Wall Street's Proving Ground is just another Agora investing newsletter.
Agora pumps these products out like Coca Cola pumps out soda.
They're basically all the same.
The all use the exact same marketing funnel and the websites all look the same.
At the end of the day I could excuse all of Agora's shenanigans if they created products that could make you money.
However, I just don't think that's going to happen with Wall Street's Proving Ground.
At best this product is decent, at worst it's going to lose you money.
Regardless there's better alternatives.
Here's A Better Opportunity
I'd pass on Wall Street's Proving Ground - nothing about this newsletter excites me.
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