Speculative Investor by Steve Saville

The Speculative Investor (TSI) provides subscribers with information that not only helps them understand and profit from changing financial market trends, but is also interesting and thought-provoking. Our analyses cover equities (primarily the US stock market), gold and gold stocks, currency exchange rates, commodities (primarily base metals and energy), and bonds. In addition, we look at monetary and economic issues from an “Austrian Economics” perspective.

Our approach to the financial markets is, we believe, unique (or, at least, highly unusual!). The first thing that separates us from the pack is that our forecasts are conceived by integrating the analysis of fundamental, technical, psychological, monetary and political factors. Whereas others often focus on one or two pieces of the puzzle (the pieces include charts, cycles, investor sentiment, company valuations, interest rates, economic conditions, currency exchange rates and global capital flows), we attempt to see the ‘entire picture’ and develop our market forecasts accordingly. The other aspect that sets us apart is our dual focuses on the stock market (primarily the technology sector) and the gold market. We attempt to use the counter-cyclical nature of gold stocks to achieve good investment returns regardless of the state of the major stock market indices (scaling into gold stocks and out of technology stocks, or vice versa, to match changes in the investment climate).

TSI subscribers receive two reports: a Weekly Market Update on Sunday and an Interim Update on Thursday morning (NYT). The Weekly Update typically has 3000-4500 words and 10-15 charts, while the average Interim Update is about half that size. As well as containing information about the gold, currency, stock, bond and commodity markets, these reports regularly include discussions about macro-economics. The economics-related discussions are from an “Austrian” perspective, because I’ve found that the Austrian School is the only school of economics that is consistently logical and explains how the world really works.

TSI subscribers also get access to a list of stock selections. The TSI stock selections have provided very good long-term returns; however, due to the highly speculative nature of the stocks I tend to focus on, my year-to-year returns have been ‘lumpy’, to put it mildly. For example, since 2000 my own equity portfolio, which comprises many of the stocks covered at TSI, has had six triple-digit years (years when the portfolio was up by at least 100%, without using any debt-based leverage and maintaining a cash reserve of at least 20%) and two years of 50%+ losses. The year-to-year ‘lumpiness’ of the performance that goes hand-in-hand with my focus on relatively risky (by traditional standards) equities will make the TSI stock selections unsuitable for many people.

Steve Saville Biography

My approach is ‘top down’; specifically, I first ascertain overall market trends and then use a combination of fundamental and technical analysis to find individual stocks that stand to benefit from these broad trends. This approach is based on my experience that it’s an order of magnitude easier to pick a winning stock from within a market or market sector that’s immersed in a long-term bullish trend than to do so against the backdrop of a bearish overall market trend. Fortunately, there’s always a bull market somewhere.

SNR Review:  Steve shows in mastery of the markets with very intelligent and witty writing.  He provides regular weekly updates that cover current financial events and include updates on the 5 or so stocks that he follows.

He calculates a target share price based in his valuation methodology and does lots of comparisons to other companies in the gold mining space.

At $240 per year, the value for money is very strong.

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