The Wall Street Gurus: How You Can Profit from Investment Newsletters

Greg Ioannou was the past president of the Freelance Editors' Association of Canada and a partner in The Editorial Centre, Toronto.

Investment newsletters all claim that by following their advice the reader will be able to beat the stock market. Of course, the newsletters vary greatly in their ability to meet this claim.

The Wall Street Gurus discusses most of the best-known U.S. newsletters, and some of the more obscure but prescient ones. The performance of hundreds of newsletters from 1980 to 1985 is evaluated, with most of the book devoted to background information on “the winners.”

Alas, although the cover blurb describes the writing as “witty and irreverent,” in truth it is stultifyingly dull. Only the most money-obsessed readers will make it all the way through — but then, who else would be interested in a discussion of hundreds of investment newsletters anyway?