The Casey Report is said to be "one of the world's most respected investment advisories"... and in the promotional material they show us some pretty amazing investment recommendations that have been made in the newsletter over the years, such as...
However, this doesn't paint a very clear picture of how good this advisory service actually is. Of course they are going to show the big winners... but what about all the losers?
In this review we'll be going over what exactly The Casey Report is and what it provides, the cost and refunds, complaints, who it's best for and more.
Take a few minutes to read it over before buying, or else you may regret your decision.
Overview
- Name: The Casey Report
- Type: Investment newsletter
- Publisher: Casey Research
- Cost: $199/yr
What Is The Casey Report?
The Casey Report is a monthly newsletter subscription service published by Casey Research that provides in-depth market/economic analysis and investment recommendations to subscribers.
In a nutshell, this is a follow-along investment advisory service where subscribers are told what to invest in and when... as well as provided with all the information as to why they should... along with more general information about the direction of the markets.
*But of course I don't recommend blindly following their recommendations.
The nice thing about the newsletter is that it takes a very broad approach towards investment. The focus here isn't narrow. It isn't just on financial markets, but looks at much larger macroeconomic variables as well.
Who Runs It?
Casey Research is the publisher and the two main people behind the newsletter are Doug Casey (founder of Casey Research) and Nick Giambruno (with information & insight provided by other's on the Casey Research team as well, such as E.B. Tucker).
[Source: CaseyResearch.com]
Doug Casey has quite the reputation as an economist and contrarian. He has been featured on Fox Business and Forbes. He's been part of televised presidential debates. He's provided advice to intelligence officials. And, he's even met with leaders like Fidel Castro.
He is outspoken in his views and, just to give you a better idea of some of them, a few quotes from a book of his (Totally Incorrect: Volume 2) include:
- “They’re always absolutely wrong on everything. It defies the odds of pure chance. They’re not just useless, but extremely dangerous. All the coups and revolutions they’ve plotted were disasters." - when talking about the CIA
- “These people have no idea what they’re talking about. The Fed itself serves no useful purpose. It should be abolished.” - on the Federal Reserve
Nick Giambruno "is Doug Casey's globetrotting colleague". He is a frequent traveler and goes all over the globe looking for hidden investment opportunities, as well as speaking at investment conferences all over the globe.
Is It Legit?
Yes, The Casey Report is legit and is not a scam. However, if you've been doing research online and read anything besides my review here, you may have seen people calling it a scam.
I'll be going over why in the complaints section.
What You Get
At the core of what you get as a subscriber is the monthly newsletter...
12 Monthly Issues of The Casey Report
This is the bread and butter of what you get, obviously. Here you are provided with a quite lengthy, 16-20 page report where the team at Casey Research analyzes the market and recommend investment opportunities. Every asset class is fair game here. They just want to alert you to trends you can get in front of to make some profits. The types of opportunities they look for here are those that are little-known and haven't caught mainstream attention yet.
[Source: CaseyResearch.com]
Subscribers will also get access to the model portfolio that tracks the progress of all the investment recommendations made as well as alerts for when to buy/sell.
Bonus Material
You also get some additional material, which I'll call bonus material. Right now, as I write this review, they following is included with a 1 year subscription, but this could change.
- Totally Incorrect - Included is an electronic copy of Doug Casey's book, Totally Incorrect, in which he criticizes the US government, calls the TSA a domestic terrorist organization, says that global warming is a hoax and so on.
[Source: CaseyResearch.com]
- Totally Incorrect: Volume 2 - This is a follow-up to his first book and provides Doug's viewpoints on cryptocurrency, college, the opiod crisis, and more.
[Source: CaseyResearch.com]
- The Gold Investor's Guide - This is a guide to investing in gold. In it, a list of trusted physical gold dealers is given, an analysis of gold prices, and the best ways they consider to invest besides just buying bullion.
[Source: CaseyResearch.com]
Cost & Refunds
The cost is $199/yr, which really isn't all that bad if you think about it. That is about $16 per monthly newsletter and then you get the alerts & bonus reports on top of that.
In the sales pitch they claim that the price for this service has been $10k and more, but I don't think this is true by any means... and if so... it wasn't worth it at that price.
Once you sign up as a subscriber your subscription will be placed on autorenew, which means that if you don't cancel you will automatically be billed the following year for another annual subscription.
No Refunds
They clearly state that they "don't offer cash refunds", but instead will give you credit towards another one of their advisory services or those of their affiliates, which include Palm Beach Research Group and Bonner & Partners.
This is basically like getting store credit... when you return something to a store and instead of them giving your money back, they just give you a gift card to use at that store.
If you do want to take them up on the offer you can contact them at:
- 888-512-2739
*Note: Apparently there used to be a 100% money-back guarantee, as I've read in other older reviews. I guess they did away with this.
Who It's Best Suited For
The Casey Report is best suited for those who lean towards the right side of politics and would like to be kept up-to-date on the economy and financial markets... and of course who would like to be pointed towards investment recommendations.
The newsletter has a contrarian view and goes against much of what the mainstream media says.
Doug is a big-time contrarian and speculator. Right now he predicts the swing towards more left-ward politics will lead to the next bit economic disaster... and he very well might be right about this.
Subscriber Reviews/Complaints
If you look on review sites where subscribers can independently leave reviews/complaints, what you find is usually somewhat misleading since people are more likely to leave a negative review when something is bad rather than a positive review when something is good.
On Stock Gumshoe, for example, the overall rating of The Casey Report is a lousy 1.5 out of 5 stars with over 200 votes...
[Source: Stock Gumshoe]
However, we can still learn a lot from these reviews and complaints.
I found that a lot of people are leaving negative reviews and low ratings due to all the promotional emails subscribers receive pushing the other higher priced advisory services at Casey Research...
[Source: Stock Gumshoe]
[Source: Stock Gumshoe]
And as far as performance goes... well... they don't provide any clear track-record to the public, but based on some of the reviews I've found it doesn't seem all that great.
Below is a review from someone who joined The Casey Report and back-checked a years worth of recommendations to gauge their performance. What he found is they they performed worse than the S&P 500 overall...
[Source: Stock Gumshoe]
However, the service is changing and E.B. Tucker is now part of the team making recommendations... which is a good thing according to many.
So to summarize, some of the complaints worth mentioning (some of which are shown above) include:
- No Refunds
- Lack of Transparency
- Promotional bombardment
- Losing recommendations
- Misleading advertising - There are complaints on multiple platforms, such as the BBB's website, where people are upset about basically being tricked into subscribing to various services that Casey Research offers. ALWAYS read the fine print when dealing with this company. There are also quite a few over-the-top/misleading teasers that this company lures in new subscribers with, such as the "Gold Placements" teaser for example.
Pros v Cons
Pros
- Provided with broad view and analysis of what's going on with the market, and anything that might have an effect on it
- Experts behind it (most notably Doug Casey)
- Features information you often won't find in the mainstream media (contrarian often times)
- Actionable investment recommendations given
Cons
- No refunds
- Lack of transparency
- MIsleading advertising
- Risk involved (as with any investment opportunity)
Conclusion - Worth Subscribing To?
I'm of the point of view that The Casey Report can definitely be worth subscribing to but it all depends on what exactly you are looking for and how you use the information.
At the very least, The Casey Report can keep you up-to-date with what's going on with the economy and the markets, as well as give you some interesting viewpoints, being contrarian as they often are. Their free newsletter, Casey Daily Dispatch, might be something else worth looking into (be warned however, this free newsletter is packed with promotional material).
We have no idea how well the recommendations in this report have performed historically, but it is always best to use investment recommendations as guidance rather than blindly following their every play.
Anyhow, I hope you have found this review helpful in some way... and if so, please share this post to help spread the word and to help out my website here.
And before you leave: Here is my #1 recommended advisory service, in case you're interested.
Kyle, thanks for the review. It clear all these schemes get on my nerves. They just don’t get to the point. When you do buy into a investment opportunity before you start learning they hit you with something else to buy. Its very annoying. What do you think about Bob Diamonds Overage program? I am curious about your thoughts.
I have not subscribed yet to the Casey Report. But what drew my interest was the move to a Cashless Society. I was more interested in where to invest the money I have and not lose it to a digital cashless move and my privacy. Does he offer solutions to that in his reports. Donna
Nick Giambruno is now advertising for the Casey Report under the banner of the US government’s move to a cashless society which he says is imminent by 1/1/21. In his pitch, he offers a special report on the “New Crisis Currency” that has nothing to do with precious metals and promises “This asset has the potential to hand you enormous gains of 1,000% (or more) over the next few years.” I am assuming that he is probably referring to some form of cryptocurrency, but that may not be a viable option, given that if the Feds are moving toward their own creation of Fedcoin, all other cryptos will be neutralized by the Feds, the same way that they removed gold from investments in 1933 under the auspices of FDR. There is currently a special offer of $49 for the year including that report and two others. My experiences with these “special reports” as part of the subscription is that they are usually outdated and offer no actionable advice that you can’t get for free from a search on the internet. Hope this helps.
Hey Kyle
Was considering this and went looking for review. Very informative, unbiased and to the point.
Great job.
Is he creating fear amongst us. He is making money and then telling us if you have over $5,000 in the bank the government could take it out without permission. So how much does this guy have in the bank and isn’t he afraid the government will take his cash that we sent him?