Jeff Brown, the man, the myth, the legend. Who is he really? Is Jeff Brown a scammer and a fraud, or can you trust him enough to invest your money in his recommendations?
When it comes to the world of investing there are a lot of "gurus" and "experts" out there, many of which are only so by self-proclamation. Jeff claims to be an expert indeed, and claims to have graduated from top level universities as well as having worked at high-level positions at tech companies in Silicon Valley and Japan.
This is why he tells you to trust his tech stock picks and buy his advisory services.
But, can you really trust these claims? After all, there is quite a lot of concerning content about the man posted online, such as one comment I found on Quora questioning the legitimacy of his claims: "you cannot find him, and you cannot check anything he claims".
Well, to the person who wrote this, maybe that's just because you haven't done very good research.
It seems that most reviews looking into this guy just rehash the same old information, but in this review, I dug a little deeper and even hired a private investigator to help find out if Mr. Brown really is who he says he is.
Let's get to it... first by going over some of the bold claims made by Mr. Brown about himself.
Bold Claims Made
In just about any promotion you find from Mr. Brown you'll hear all about his expert experience.
Why should you trust him?
Well, he claims to have around 30 years of experience in the tech industry working for large, globally-known companies. And, he says he has invested in over 130 startups with a 93% success rate.
Pretty impressive by the sounds of it. But let's make one thing clear before we dive any deeper.
That 93% success rate he claims from his personal investments is a bit misleading.
It sounds great and all, but this only means he made positive returns on 93% of these investments. There is no information given as to how large these positive returns were. So, while the numbers seem good, if the average positive returns he's made here are only 0.005%... then that's not all that great. I'm sure the returns he's made are better than this, but I'm bringing it up because we don't know all the figures here.
Besides this, Brown also boasts of his education. According to him, he's attended...
- Yale University from 2018 - 2019 for the Global Executive Leadership Program
- London Business School from 2003 - 2004 for a MSc
- Purdue University from 1987 - 1991 for a Bachelor's degree
- Stanford University from 2006 - 2008 for some type of certificate
- and there are some others too
Remember how I mentioned he's also claiming to have worked for large, globally-known companies? According to him, these companies, along with his position at the companies, include...
- Vice President of NXP Semiconductors from 2008 - 2012
- President at Trident Microsystems Japan from 2010 - 2011
- Head of Global Strategy & Development at Qualcomm from 2005 - 2008
And there's more. Most of what I've gone over above can easily be found on his LinkedIn profile.
Additionally, Jeff claims that:
"I’ve attended private meetings, along with some of the top lawmakers in the U.S. We typically gather in the Congressional Auditorium, which sits beneath Capitol Hill. It is a highly secured space often used for national security briefings."
This is supposedly him in the second row here...
And here is a picture of him behind the podium at the Department of Defense...
To get invited to attend private meetings at the Congressional Auditorium as well as speaking at the Department of Defense sounds like a big deal.
The pictures seem to be legit. However, I haven't been able to confirm any of these claims. I've spent quite a bit of time looking into them and checking the public records of visitors to the different federal buildings, but have come up empty. I suppose that "private" meetings might keep their attendee list a secret anyhow. So this could explain it.
More Boasting..
Some more claims:
"I was one of the first to learn about self-driving cars… inspecting one at NASA’s famed Ames Research facility way back in 2011. The semiconductor play I recommended after that visit, Nvidia, was the best performing stock on the market in 2016, going up over 3,000% since then."
There was a mention of a "Jeff Brown" as a test conductor at an event where NASA conducted high speed tests of a space exploration vehicle to learn about its stability during flight, but this was back in 2006 and this seems to be a different guy.
Jeff states that he was at NASA's facility back in 2011, and what's not mentioned here, which I've found from other sources, is that he supposedly got to sit and test-drive one of Google's Waymo cars.
I haven't been able to back up this claim, but have heard him mention it on more than one occasion in his marketing material.
That said, it is true that Brown recommended buying Nvidia's stock back in 2016, which performed extremely well.
Another claim:
"I was one of the first to cover gene-editing therapies and recommend exciting companies in this space… months before they made headlines in Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired magazine. The small company I recommended went up over 300% in 16 months."
This is true. Brown was recommending investing in companies involved in gene-editing technology back as far as 2016 from what I've been able to find, one company's technology he teased as the "God Key". This was before there had even been any human trials conducted with this new technology in the US.
He was early on this new tech, and another that he invested in early on was Bitcoin...
"And, I was invested in cryptocurrencies long before most people even heard of Bitcoin. I recommended Bitcoin back in 2015 at $240. Today, it’s trading for more than $30,000."
*Now trading for much more than $30k of course.
These are the claims made by Brown to try to gain credibility and trust from potential subscribers. I've gone over some that I've found to be true, but in a bit, I'll be looking more into his educational and career claims, which, if true, are very impressive indeed.
But first, let's talk a bit about his company and the services offered.
Brownstone Research & His Advisory Services
If you do a quick WHOIS search of brownstoneresearch.com you'll find that this website is rather new, having been just registered in 2020...
However, Jeff Brown is no newbie when it comes to running investment advisory services. He's been around for quite a while, having started working at Bonner & Partners in 2015, which you can see from his LinkedIn profile...
I still remember the days I would get emails from Bonner & Partners about Jeff Brown's next big investment recommendation. But, those days are past.
The company Bonner & Partners (BonnerandPartners.com) has been around since 2012 (Jeff Brown having started working for them in 2015), but has since spun off into Brownstone Research and Rogue Economics. If you go to their website now you will just find links to these two websites and that's pretty much it.
The website used to look like the rest of them: basically what Rogue Economics and Brownstone Research look like today, along with others that fall under The Agora umbrella, such as Palm Beach Research, Banyan Hill Publishing, Three Founders Publishing, etc.
Why did this company vanish and two new ones sprout up in its place? I haven't been able to find any good information on this, but one theory I have is that it simply had been around too long and the negative reviews surrounding the misleading advertisements these services are constantly pushing were hurting business too much... so they simply spun off two new companies with blank slates to replace the parent - just a guess, but probable I think.
It all falls under "The Agora"
Something worth touching on a little more is the fact that Brownstone Research, along with Bonner & Partners, Rogue Economics, and a handful of other investment research companies, all fall under the umbrella of "The Agora".
It's confusing, like a messy cobweb of companies branching out to form new companies, spinning off other companies, and so on. But, what our readers need to know is that much of these independent investment research companies are affiliated, in one way or another, with The Agora.
What is The Agora? According to Wikipedia and from what I know having been digging around in this industry for years now, it is a network of over 30 publishing companies that was founded in 1978 by Bill Bonner.
*Note: Agora companies are often easy to recognize because they all seem to follow the same misleading investment teaser blueprint and all of their websites seem to have the same basic layout.
The Bleeding Edge (Free)
This is Brownstone Research's free newsletter service. You are able to subscribe to this service and get emails regularly, or you can just visit the website and read the articles without signing up.
Jeff is the main guy writing articles for this service and here you can find articles on many things related to investing, with a focus on new tech.
You'll also find articles by Jason Bodner, Wall Street veteran and editor at Brownstone, and it's no surprise that there are some from Teeka Tiwari as well. I say no surprise because Teeka Tiwari is an investment newsletter editor over at Palm Beach Research, one of the many Agora companies.
The Near Future Report ($199/yr)
This is Brown's flagship service. It costs $199/yr and through this newsletter service he helps guide investors with investment opportunities in new tech, providing new investment recommendations on a regular basis as well as detailed analyses and more.
Exponential Tech Investor ($4,000/yr)
Another service by Mr. Brown, here he focuses on micro-cap investment opportunities in breakthrough new tech. The goal is to make exponential gains, and the same basic layout of providing regular investment recommendations, analyses, etc. is what subscribers get.
Early Stage Trader ($5,000/yr)
This is the most elite service he offers, and the price tag reflects this. If you have an extra $4k lying around to join you can get access to the early stage companies that Brown is targeting, which mostly are in the biotech industry. Subscribers also get regular investment recommendations along with the rest.
Blank Check Speculator ($4,000/yr)
With all the hype around SPACs, it's no wonder he came out with this service. Blank check companies, aka SPACs, are the focus and basically what you get access to as a subscriber are the companies he is targeting at "pre-IPO" prices.
Outlier Investor ($4,000/yr)
Jason Bodner, another editor at Brownstone runs this service. Here the goal is on finding "outlier" investment opportunities that have been overlooked by Wall Street, and to get in on them right before they do.
Unchained Profits ($5,000/yr)
This is a newer service launched by Jeff Brown in the spring of 2021. Here, Brown is assisted by fellow employee and analyst, Andrew Hodges, for finding blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused recommendations.
Brownstone Unlimited
This is a subscription that provides access to all the services offered. I'm not sure about the cost here. You'd have to contact them to find out.
Are his services worth it?
Well, if you Google around online you'll find a lot of mixed reviews. You'll find plenty of complaints, which I'll go over in more detail in a bit, and you'll also find a lot of happy subscribers.
However, after years of looking into investment advisory services, I can say that the services Jeff Brown provides seem better than most just based on subscriber reviews I have found. He gets complaints, sure, but not as many as a lot of the other more shady services out there.
This could be because 1) He really does have high level connections in the tech industry which provide the ability to make good investments at early stages, and 2) He does put a lot of effort into providing top-notch services, for example by giving updates on every portfolio position each month... something you won't find often in this industry.
But, to answer the question of whether or not his service are worth it, let's first start by taking a look at his background. Is he just some guy off the street? Or does he really have all the credentials he claims to have?
A Look at His Background
The PI I hired was able to find that a Jeffery N Brown bought a $6 million house in Darien, CT in 2021.
Is this our Jeff Brown? Well, it's still hard to tell, but it seems so since I've found him to have quite a bit of ties to Connecticut.
A $6 million home? He must be doing pretty good for himself. But is this coming from profits from his amazing investments? Or, is this coming from the loads of subscribers he's been getting to pour into his services? This is the real question.
Let's start off this background section by talking about his ecuction. Did Brown really attend those prestigious Ivy League schools?
Here are some of his more important education claims..
Education:
- Yale University from 2018 - 2019 for the Global Executive Leadership Program
- London Business School from 2003 - 2004 for a MSc
- Purdue University from 1987 - 1991 for a Bachelor's degree
- Stanford University from 2006 - 2008 for some type of certificate
- and there are some others too
Information on this is limited here due to privacy laws surrounding education records.
I have not been able to find any proof of him going to London Business School after looking on a 3rd party website that allows you to look up university alumni (graduates.name). That said, since this isn't a website run by the actual university and since it's normally not that easy to find lists of graduates from universities, just because I can't find any proof as to him going here doesn't mean it isn't true.
As for him attending Purdue, I was able to find his name on a list of Honor Roll Donors in a newsletter that was sent out to alumni of the School of Aeronautics & Astronautics back in 2007...
Other than this there wasn't much I could find regarding his education claims. Unfortunately (in this case), due to Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), student records are private. Because of this, I am not able to contact these universities and request official verifications. All I have access to is what's public.
A picture of him with a dog and a Yale School of Management curtain in the background is some evidence that helps validate his education claims at this university, but certainly isn't concrete. That said, through the investigation of the PI I hired, I was able to find out that he did indeed live in Connecticut when he claims to have have attended Yale in 2018 (Yale is located in New Haven, CT).
Did he go to all of these schools? Well, I guess you can decide whether or not to take him at his word.
Career Experience:
Again, these are the claims (some of the more prominent ones)...
- President & Representative Director of Juniper Networks from 2012 - 2014
Employment Duration1 yr 8 mos - Vice President of NXP Semiconductors from 2008 - 2012
- President at Trident Microsystems Japan from 2010 - 2011
- Head of Global Strategy & Development at Qualcomm from 2005 - 2008
Some evidence that backs these up includes a people search where I found irrelevant information about him contributing money to Ron Paul (presidential candidate) in 2012, with additional information about him being employed at NXP Semiconductors...
Additionally, I was able to find some evidence of Brown working for Qualcomm.
Below is a screenshot of an article talking about Qualcomm's business success in Japan and the UK, with mention of "Jeffery Brown, director of international business development"...
Now, if you look on his LinkedIn profile it states that he was the "Head of Global Strategy & Development" at Qualcomm, but these titles seem to be referring to the same position.
Another article I found on RCR Wireless News, a website focused on wireless tech news, mentions a quote from Brown and states that he's (at the time) an "executive at Qualcomm Inc.'s MediaFLO division".
This was posted in 2007 and goes along with what Brown claims on his LinkedIn profile as you can see here...
Validating some of the 3 educational claims above is good. I couldn't find information on him working for Trident Microsystems Japan, but searching through Japanese websites is rather difficult to do unless you speak the language (Brown is fluent in Japanese by the way).
Some Concerns..
Did he really work at Juniper Networks?
As for the claim of working at executive levels at Juniper Networks, I haven't been able to find evidence of this.
The concerning part: The private investigator I hired was able to find a list of the last 1,800 employees at Juniper networks and Brown's name wasn't listed anywhere.
Brown claims to have worked here from Nov 2012 - Jun 2014. Now since his name isn't in the records this means that either this company has an incredibly high turnover rate or somehow his name has been scrubbed from the company, which brings me to the next concern.
Why so little about him on social media?
When I was looking into Whitney Tilson, another guy that I reviewed lately that runs investment services similar to Brown, I was able to find quite a good bit of social media activity.
Looking into Brown I've come up short. Even the PI I hired couldn't find anything, which is likely because "someone is doing a good job scrubbing the internet of him". His LinkedIn profile is all you'll find.
But why go through the trouble to scrub the internet of his existance?
Is he really an angel investor?
Back to that claim about investing in 130 startups with a 93% success rate.
What Brown seems to be referring to is investing in these companies as an angel investor, which is something he's mentioned being involved with.
Angel investors are high net-worth individuals that invest in start-up companies early on and usually are rewarded with convertible debt or ownership equity (shares).
I looked into this more and found some proof of his angel investor status being true.
Below is a document showing he invested early in a mining/exploration company in Canada...
Not much, but it's some proof and I have no reason to doubt his angel investor claims.
Fraud Claims?
There have been some questions about an SEC fraud case surrounding a "Jeffrey Brown" and his real-estate investment scam called Quadwealth. This is NOT the Jeff Brown of Brownstone Research. It's just another guy with the same name (well, almost the same name - different spelling).
I've read some content online where people are accusing the Jeff Brown from Brownstone Research as being this man, saying things like "he has the same name" but we aren't exactly sure if it's the same "Jeff Brown". This is ridiculous. The two men absolutely do not have the same name. The man we're reviewing here is Jeffery, and the man who was running some real-estate investment scam is Jeffrey... two different names!
Complaints
The complaints I've been able to gather mostly come from websites like Trustpilot, the BBB, and Pissed Consumer. A number of these complaints are more of a reflection of Brown's company (Brownstone Research) being a part of "The Agora", which is known for rather unethical business practices, but I'll go over them as well anyhow because they are relevant.
1) Misleading Advertising
Hyped-up claims, the idea that you're going to strike it rich, talk about being able to set your kids up with an inheritance that will guarantee them prosperity. Maybe it's just good advertising, but I don't think anyone will disagree with me when I say that much of Jeff Brown's investment teasers are misleading.
After watching these you often walk away with thoughts of cruising around in your future private yacht or buying that new sports car just because you can.
Sure, nothing he's doing here is illegal, but he does know how to play with his words and the goal here is to lure in as many subscribers as possible.
Since you're reading this review of Mr. Brown I'm sure you are familiar with the investment teasers I'm talking about. Some recent ones I've come across have included this "Tech Melt" one where he teased massive gains investing in a biotech company...
And then there was his "Elon Musk's Next Big Project: S.A.V." teaser where he teased a company supplying Tesla with image sensors for their autonomous vehicles...
And, for example, in this teaser, it was mentioned that investing in this company "could put up to an extra $30,000 in your pocket every year"...
Misleading? Absolutely.
We are told here that you could make an extra $30k per year, but there is not much information on where this number comes from. How much would I have to invest to earn this much? Of course, the starting investment needed makes a world of difference, but they don't mention anything about this... just a bunch of vague claims to get people excited so that they buy into the investment advisory service being pushed by Brown here, which in this case was The Near Future Report.
And sometimes the way they push people into subscriptions is even more tricky. In fact, sometimes subscribers to one of their services, or to a service of another Agora company, will get a "free year of a Brownstone Research newsletter service". It sounds fine and all, but the problem is that this service will auto-renew... and the people getting signed up for it didn't even want it in the first place. So what often ends up happening is in a year's time people will get billed for the additional service and have no clue, or have forgotten, they were even a part of it.
This is crooked business in my opinion... not very ethical.
From a FAQ page at Brownstone Research
2) No Refunds
This is another common complaint you'll find surrounding Brown, but it's a complaint about the business rather than the man himself, which happens to have a no-refund policy...
However, that doesn't seem to be universally true and depends on what service you buy into. There are some moneyback guarantees, such as this (which was for his The Near Future Report service)...
However, they seem to be rather tricky to get, and the customer service is has been described as almost non-existent.
3) Losing Recommendations
It's expected to find complaints about losing investment recommendations. Of course, people are going to be upset if they lose money and of course, not every investment is going to be a winner, no matter whose investment advice you follow.
Below is a complaint I found on the BBB's website talking about how a key recommendation Brown made has been performing poorly since 2016...
Other than that there's not much to say because there is no information as to what this investment was.
Another complaint I found on Pissed Consumer mentions is from a subscriber who claims to have "went from being up over $17k and now I'm down over $10k"...
That's quite a big loss, but again, there isn't much information provided here so it's hard to say how good or bad these recommendations are actually performing, not to mention that we don't even know what Brownstone Research service this is related to.
But going along with these, here's another mentioning that "Jeff is full of crap" and that, while he has claimed to have a 97% success rate, the actual rate is more like 10%...
Sounds horrible and all, but I can't say much without more information and proof.
4) Fraudulent Fees
Here's another complaint that is more to do with the company, not the man himself.
Some people, such as shown below, have complained about fraudulent and unauthorized charges to their credit cards after signing up for their services.
This is nothing new. If you've read our Agora review you'll know that companies under The Agora umbrella don't have the best reputation.
In my opinion, Jeff Brown seems like one of the most legit investment advisors you can find when it comes to investing in new tech. He's worked high-level jobs in the industry for years, and even since semi-retiring he still is heavily involved as an angel investor and advisor.
HOWEVER, you already know that he's on the payroll of The Agora. So it's not like he's running his own independent research service here, and this is why the pushy and misleading ads coming from Brown are common. It's just the typical blueprint that all of The Agora companies seem to follow to a T.
Track Record
I already spoke a bit about Jeff Brown's track-record in the complaints section, because there are people complaining about losing money, but let's dive a little deeper here. After all, if you're going to be putting your hard-earned money into his recommendations it would be nice to know how well they perform beforehand, wouldn't it be?
We've already looked into his background and can see that he is a highly qualified individual to provide advice on investments in the tech world, but just knowing this isn't good enough.
Unfortunately, due to a lack of transparency on his recommendations, I'm not going to be able to paint a clear picture of his performance. All we can do is put together some pieces and extrapolate.
Let's start off by looking at a few positive reviews since we've already read some complaints from subscribers to Brown's services that have lost money.
The subscriber below claims "I made more money than I have lost on his recommendations"...
And here we have someone who claims to be subscribed to several newsletters and has made the most money from this one, referring to Brown's Near Future Report as well...
And here's another, newer, review also from StockGumshoe from someone who has joined both The Near Future Report as well as Exponential Tech Investor and claims to be up anywhere from 11% - 140% on every single one of his recommendations...
So, there are good reviews too. And I could show you more, but what's the point. There aren't any detailed reviews that clearly lay out his winners and losers so that we can understand how well his recommendations perform. And not only that, but we want to know how they perform over an extended period of time. Most people leaving reviews are either happy because they made some quick gains or upset because they lost money fast... but a short-term view doesn't really tell you much here.
What's also worth bringing up are the investment performance ratings at StockGumshoe. If you look at the investment performance rating of The Near Future Report you can see that it's a little over a 3 out of 5...
Now that is fairly decent if you compare this service to other investment newsletter services... even though a 3 out of 5 really isn't that good.
That said, this really doesn't give us much information.
So, pretty much the only way to find out how well his recommendations actually perform would be to sign up to all of his services and keep track of everything, and you'd have to do so for a decent amount of time.
As mentioned, his track-record isn't transparent at all, which is nothing unusual considering he works for an Agora company. According to some people, like the subscriber who left this review, "he conveniently removes his losing picks rather quickly while continuing to tout his winning picks"...
Or maybe it would be better to say that "The Agora conveniently removes his losing picks..." in order to rake in as much money as possible.
Anyways, the point here is that I have no idea exactly how good Brown's track-record actually is, but I hope the information presented here helps you out some.
Everything above is about the track-record of the recommendations Jeff Brown has made for subscribers. In addition, we can also take another look at that claim made of his personal investments as an angel investor, which is that he has invested in over 130 startups with a 93% success rate.
Sounds good, but this is yet another very vague statement that tells us not much of anything. If he has winners 93% of the time this means he has losers 7% of the time. And what if the 93% that are winners are only winners by a small margin, and the 7% that are losers are absolute disasters? Then this means overall he loses money. Now I don't actually think this is the case here, but it's something worth thinking about.
In conclusion, Jeff Brown's investment performance record lacks transparency and is unclear. It's filled with vague statements and incomplete data.
*Any comments on his track record from subscribers to his services would be greatly appreciated!
Conclusion - Fraud or Legit?
I've already known about Jeff Brown and his investment services for years. At first it seemed to me that he could be a scammer. However, after learning more about him and digging deeper, I do not think he is, although there are still definitely some concerns about his claims that I haven't been able to verify.
At first you just see the surface... the over-hyped marketing teasers about how you can make big money following the advice of an expert. Sounds good, but many will simply exit the sales page and write it off as a scam.
It's a shame that The Agora companies all seem to follow the same deceptive marketing blueprint. And, unforunately Brown works for one of these companies, which puts somewhat of a stain on his name.
That said, the guy most definitely has an impressive background in the tech world. He's been involved in the industry for decades and know what it takes to make an investment-worthy company, having worked at high level positions (at least some of them are proven).
If the "next big thing" in the tech world is what you want to put your money into, then Brown might be the guy to listen to. Just don't fall for the marketing hype when you join his services.
I hope you've enjoyed this write-up and I hope it's provided value. As always, I'd love to hear what you think in the comment section below.
Read an interview of him by Chris Hurt, which was more like a lengthy sales pitch… he just tries to be interesting and sort of mystique with his answers; however, what seems fishy to me was that when the graphs of his #1, top choice biotech company to invest in, which he doesn't reveal there exactly by name, it shown the stock going up from like 20$ to 45$ (my approximation by looking at the graphs) in 2007, when the company supposedly came up with a new device model, an immense rise of 238% according to Jeff. Now, in the next graph he suggests that the price of the same company's stock, with another new device model coming out, increased 3-fold, in 2009, depicting the curve in the graph going from 20$ per share to around 70$. He goes on with year 2012 and 2017…. but it does not make sense. Did the price fall back to 20$ in 2009, from 45$ that it went up in 2007? In 2012 it goes from 30$ per share to 170$ per share?? Again, did the share price drop to 30$, when in 2009 it was up to 70$ per share? Here is the link for the interested: https://bit.ly/2XqSlCK
Thanks for the review of Jeff Brown and his services. I am a subscriber to the Near Future Report and have, in the year that I’ve been following it, gained more than I’ve lost, but I feel it’s still way to early to see the big results he’s anticipating on some of these companies. Remember there were a lot of Apple shareholders that gave up on their investment before the company took off. They’re all shaking their heads now.
That being said, what I don’t like is the teasers that require an hour or more of my time where he may or may not reveal the name of the company he’s referring to. It’s almost always a sales pitch for another service, and I’ve learned to start deleting these and stop wasting my time. My email inbox was down to 10 or 20 before I joined. It’s now over a thousand, and I just started to delete them as I’ll never get to all of them. Too much mail and too many sales pitches!
Thank you for all you’re doing for us! Exposing the teasers is worth what I pay to subscribe to them, and then some!
Thanks a lot for that investigation!! I have been looking for some information of that kind, here is my context: here in Europe, an intermediary french speaking company (vauban-editions.com, registered On: 2016-08-03) based in Switzerland sells (1790€ a year, or 500€ the quarter, including already the 55% discount on the "real" price) the Jeff Brown's hot recommendations on the new cryptos that will launch the future web3.0 in which it would be theoretically the best investment to do these days what I can understand and accept (taking into account the risks that investing supposes) but the sales pitch of promising high revenues (on a long term) is always suspectable: Again, why Jeff would lose time sharing so valuable information with unknown people? well not sharing but selling 🙂 Beside this, that company was already sending Jeff's newsletter about High-Tech news, etc…the content was/is still really interesting but on the other hand I'm sure this was a good way to get people interesting themselves in Jeff, having more and more confidence in him to then try to sell them that special WEB3.0 program ..this is the typical way that company is doing for years now: sharing free and interesting information about health, etc through xx newsletters -too many inf fact- and then it leads to a paid special program which isn´t illegal nor scam: people decide if they wish to go further and pay…I personnally trust that company which is a unmbrella of different companies related to health (I know one good friend working for one of them) but I am wondering if they did not fell under the Jeff's sales pitch…I'm finally half convinced to follow them on that one: Their advices are surely very interesting to make some good profits (again taking into account the risk that it supposes) but their marketing way of selling them finally results always disturbing and again why someone would share (sell) so valuable information to thousands of unknown people? if they apparently would earn much more money than from these subscriptions…. Any feedback to that post will be welcome! (sorry for my english)…
Hi….. Let me clarify a few things for you and your readers. I have known Jeff for 25+ years. He has worked for me twice…. Once in Asia (General Instruments Communications, acquired by Motorola) then again for OpenTV, a top tech/software IPO in 2001. I was the guy that suggested to Jeff he should attend London Business School when the tech market exploded in 2001/02 and he did. All of his work and educational claims are absolutely true. And sure, his videos and internet videos and promotions are designed to attract subscribers and excite investors….. that's his business. I have run multiple tech start-up companies and Jeff has helped me raise funds and he sat on the BOD of one of my start-ups. I am currently an Executive for Climatec LLC (owned by $90 Billion Robert BOSCH family of companies) and have been for ten years. Summary is, Jeff is one of the smartest and hard working professionals I know. He's honest, and a good human being. So do your homework and follow his advice or not, but you won't find a better straight up guy than Jeff Brown. Hope this is helpful for investors.
I appreciate the comment. If true, and I have no reason to think otherwise, then it’s great to hear from someone who personally knows the man.
One of his subscription (a group of many stocks) is down 50-70% in 2021. I lost 40k this year not including the lost opportunity if I have stayed with NASDAQ or Dow. He does write lots of research; but in my opinion; it’s not on target and the market seems to agree with my assessment. Hopefully next few years will pay off; but I would have invested much less and trusted h much less if I knew what I know now.
Received call from bank regarding charges on my credit card. I have never subscribed to Brownstone research. Charge was for about $350.
Hi Ken. It could be that they got you to subscribe in some sneaky way without you realizing it. Have you subscribed to other services from companies under the umbrella of The Agora?
I subscribed to his newsletter after being intrigued by his world IPO day claim. I wanted to see what this was all about. And how to participate in it. In a nutshell, his recommendation was to invest in ethereum. Ethereum, really ? I already own ethereum. Saying your way to participate in World IPO date is akin to advising someone how to make money in the stock market is to invest in equities. Thanks for the advice Captain Obvious. His tech stock picks are down between 10 and 50% as of January 2022. And the thing that gets me the most. There are no numbers to back up his investment calls. It’s all qualitative analysis, not backed up by actual numbers. And after joining I was incessantly upside more expensive packages. Do yourself a favour and don’t bother with this guy’s newsletter. Invest in the Gartman newsletter instead.
Hi John. I’m concerned about the digital dollar which I have also read about on another site. Now he is warning about this. Do you think it’s legit, and if so, recommend investing all in crypto?
In one of Brownstones hyped sales pitch it was clearly stated many times there was no start up fee if you joined today-it won’t cost you anything as the start up fee had been wavered for today only-Follow the steps 1-2-3 etc and very quickly ………..
I thought why not got nothing to lose-stupidly i followed all the steps and after an outlay of $4392 i was signed up-that was over 2wks ago-nothing-no contact no adviser no support person no reply to any |text emails or calls
Some of that $4392 was payment for my own support advisor to get me up and running-I want my $ back-For those who need help and guidance it’s a scam-you can’t get hold of anyone for advice or help let alone a request for a refund
Brownstone don’t do refunds but may give me some credit for ….. more trading
I took a chance and signed up for Jeff Brown’s Brownstone Research promotion on 30MAR2022 with the special offer of $49.00 for one year. Over the past week I receive a lot of clutter on my emails and cell phone text for his upcoming “State of the Tech Market Strategy Session” via email. This session lasted from 22:00 ET to 24:00Hrs on 06APR2022. I was initial interested by Jeff’s presentation, but after an hour and a half I had heard enough with the “special deals” for six different promotions I could purchase for a mere $7,500.00 for a savings of…. get this $32,500.00. I had enough of this scam. I thought Jeff Brown and Bernie Madoff had much in common, and what was that statement made by PT Barnum many years ago?
Annoyingly in the last week I have received over 50 emails for Jeff Brown promoting a video you cannot control stating he in his video he is going to give his most recommended crypto coin absolutely free. When you get to the end of this repetitive hype the colluding host brings up the free offer and Jeff states it would not be fair to give that recommendation when his clients paid a lot of money to get the info. So he never intended to give out any free coin recommendation. This is disingenuous and as far a I am concerned, unacceptable. “Free” means according to Mr. Brown it will cost you from $2,500 to $7,500 to get his recommendations. Then when you reject his “generous” offer you get inundated with his obnoxious emails about missing out. I finally unsubscribed and started looking elsewhere. for NFT opportunities.
I’m glad I found your article. I was really convinced by Jeff Brown’s marketing, but as Digital Marketer I did some homework and screenshotted the images used in his testimonials and used google lens to search, and guess what?.. They are all on Shutterstock. Why would someone with such a great record use fake testimonials? Just another red flag on this guy. I’m actually disappointed as I was quite excited about his predictions.
I appreciate what you have shared …. the good, the bad and the ugly. Very helpful to me.
DEC
Florida
I had the newsletter for about a year. Right after subscribing I would get an email offer saying he was going to give us a ticker that was set to take off for free. By the end of the offer you could get the ticker and more if you paid $4000 for his tech letter for a year. You would get up to 5 of theses emails every day. I did invest on 1 of his tickers that he gave and its performance is a 320% loss.
I appreciated hearing about your personal experience right up until you said one of his picks lost 320% that is not possible. All losses end at 100%. Thats just basic math.
VERY HELPFUL AND FAIR IN YOUR COMMENTS. AFTER READING MANY REVIEWS ON TRUSTPILOT IT WAS NICE TO COME ACROSS YOUR RESEARCH INTO JEFF BROWN. I JOINED BROWNSTONE IN 2020 AND HAD A GREAT RUN BUT HAVE LOST THE GAINS DUE TO WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE MARKET THIS YEAR. MY ONLY REGRET WAS NOT TAKING THE PROFITS THEN BUT ALL OF US CAN SAY THAT. I AM HOPING FOR A COMEBACK WITH JEFF”S RECOMMENDATIONS.
I have five of Jeff Brown subscriptions. I would be pleased to provide screen shots of my portfolios, I have many online brokers which I have set up, in order to follow his advice. My investment has been more than $15,000AUD.
I trust Jeff Brown, but there are some fishy practices around the business, and I’d be wary of the cryptocurrencies.
Obviously the people commenting as subscribers have come here due to wanting to reassure themselves, and there is something not quite right. This article has been reassuring, and also explained some of the ingredients.
I trust Jeff Brown as an expert, and I needed an expert, because I am not. His reports & newsletters are full of information about the stocks he recommends.
He is not a scammer, because he delivers what he promises.
My portfolios are rather sad looking, but I think that is the nature of the stock market right now.
I am disappointed in my cryptocurrencies. But I am grateful for his expert knowledge that he has shared, so that I can protect my wealth, which I plan to implement.
Unfortunately I have lost thousands of dollars on my cryptocurrencies, and it is worth explaining, that he has recommended the currencies, he has recommended the brokers, and one of them is Coinbase which he says he owns a share in, from when it was a start up.
All I am saying is that it might be a bit scammy, but it doesn’t seem to be so. It seems to me that stocks & cryptocurrencies have all dropped, and everybody has lost.
I still own the stocks & I still own the cryptocurrencies, and so I have the possibility & potential that they will all go up again.
I believe that Jeff puts his heart & soul into his work, and genuinely gets excited about the small & large companies that he investigates.
The Neural Net Profits is a new subscription, and it isn’t working out. I think it is very likely that he will give us a free subscription for another year, if our portfolios don’t bounce back. I say this, because he agreed to do this for Early Stage Trader for this year, for those subscribers who were subscribed through the (pandemic) global revolution.
I don’t think I have anything to worry about with Jeff, and I also think that my stocks are going to turn into profits in the long term, and the crypto has to soon, otherwise, I’ll have to cut my losses, and I hope that won’t happen.
I was thinking that it won’t happen, because as mentioned before, I own the currency, I just have to hold on to it until it increases in value again.
I’m not sure what else I should include, I have been subscribed and investing since November 2021, and my subscriptions are:- Near Future Report, Neural Net Profits, Exponential Tech Investor, Day One Investor & Early Stage Trader. The Neural Net Profits are the cryptocurrencies.
I would be very interested to share my progress with this with you,
I really appreciate the informative comment. It’s unfortunate that you have lost money, but as you mentioned, this is largely due to the market in general at the moment. I’m sure this comment can be helpful for many other readers looking into the man, so thank you for this.
I’m going to send you an email. I’d be very interested in you sharing your progress and providing portfolio updates as to the performance of Brown’s recommendations. With new information like this, I can update this review to make it more helpful for fellow readers.
Thanks!
I took this off Brownstone’s web site 3/30/23. Sorry it didn’t fit in your comment box better. If you send me an email address I’ll send you a PDF. The % number on the left is value today divided by recommended price. Note the minus 90%+ numbers. In Browns defense there were a couple of big winners a couple of years back and one BK so far. Thanks for your research. I wish I knew of you before I invested. I’ve bought every recommendation so I can give you some first hand knowledge if you want. Buzz Bartholomew
Early Stage Biotech
Investment Open Date Open Price Recent Price Dividends Returns Stop Loss Notes
Alector Inc (ALEC) 07/25/19 $20.86 $6.31 $0.00 -69.8% – Buy up to $26.44
Gossamer Bio (GOSS) 07/25/19 $19.24 $1.33 $0.00 -93.1% – Buy up to $23.00
Editas Medicine (EDIT) 08/13/19 $24.59 $7.41 $0.00 -69.9% – Buy up to $40.00
Harpoon Therapeutics (HARP) 08/21/19 $12.78 $0.66 $0.00 -94.8% – Buy up to $15.00
Precision BioSciences (DTIL) 09/11/19 $9.38 $0.76 $0.00 -91.9% – Buy up to $10.75
Homology Medicines (FIXX) 12/11/19 $19.92 $1.01 $0.00 -94.9% – Buy up to $20.18
Hookipa Pharma (HOOK) 12/18/19 $9.17 $0.73 $0.00 -92.1% – Buy up to $12.00
Atreca (BCEL) 01/24/20 $18.26 $1.30 $0.00 -92.9% – Buy up to $20.21
Stoke Therapeutics (STOK) 01/30/20 $26.56 $8.36 $0.00 -68.5% – Buy up to $30.84
Black Diamond Therapeutics (BDTX) 04/15/20 $26.50 $1.86 $0.00 -93.0% – Buy up to $29.68
Cabaletta Bio (CABA) 06/26/20 $10.92 $7.57 $0.00 -30.7% – Buy up to $11.00
Revolution Medicines (RVMD) 07/31/20 $24.12 $21.52 $0.00 -10.8% – Buy up to $26.47
Passage Bio (PASG) 08/28/20 $16.02 $0.99 $0.00 -93.8% – Buy up to $16.50
Akero Therapeutics (AKRO) 01/08/21 $28.52 $40.30 $0.00 41.3% – Buy up to $28.52
Pliant Therapeutics (PLRX) 02/02/21 $27.89 $27.15 $0.00 -2.7% – Buy up to $34.25
Avidity Biosciences (RNA) 02/19/21 $25.27 $20.20 $0.00 -20.1% – Buy up to $25.27
ADC Therapeutics (ADCT) 03/16/21 $29.25 $2.16 $0.00 -92.6% – Buy up to $29.28
TCR2 Therapeutics (TCRR) 03/26/21 $23.26 $1.45 $0.00 -93.8% – Buy up to $23.68
Codiak BioSciences (CDAK) 04/22/21 $14.36 $0.21 $0.00 -98.5% – Buy up to $19.00
Nkarta Therapeutics (NKTX) 06/29/21 $29.68 $3.51 $0.00 -88.2% – Buy up to $30.50
4D Molecular Therapeutics (FDMT) 10/18/21 $29.86 $17.80 $0.00 -40.4% – Buy up to $30
Sana Biotechnology (SANA) 12/09/21 $17.94 $3.27 $0.00 -81.8% – Buy up to $20
Homology Medicines (FIXX) 02/25/22 $2.76 $1.01 $0.00 -63.4% – Doubled Down on Position
Solid Biosciences (SLDB) 03/11/22 $15.90 $4.40 $0.00 -72.3% – Buy up to $18.75
(T) = Trailing Stop
(H) = Hard Stop
I’m really curious to know what he’s doing now after leaving Brownstone. He is a big Twitter cheerleader yet he hasn’t participated since 2/14/23 and he has numerous imposters on social media.
I’ve been trying to get some information as to Jeff’s whereabouts as well!! I emailed Brownstone (I am a Brownstone Unlimited Subscriber) and they told me, in a nutshell, that they have “parted ways” and, due to privacy laws, can’t tell me anything else. I subscribed to B.U. BECAUSE of Jeff. I liked his research, his manner, his beliefs and his reasoning. I’m feeling very let down that he, so suddenly, was just……….gone. Now, due to the $ I already laid out, I am trying to give Colin Tedards (Jeff’s replacement at Brownstone) the benefit of the doubt but he came in with a very different outlook and recommended that we sell a LOT of the positions Jeff had recommended and start investing with a different emphasis. I sure hope he knows what he’s doing. Time will tell but I would still like to know where Jeff has landed.