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Is Charles Mizrahi’s Alpha Investor really good?
How have Alpha Investor’s stock picks performed so far?
Could it actually help you achieve better investment results?
Are there any better alternatives?
After trying out Charles Mizrahi’s Alpha Investor, I want to share with you everything that I find out and help you make an informed decision.
Who is Charles Mizrahi, Expert Behind Alpha Investor?
Charles Mizrahi started Hampton Investors Inc in 1985 to help clients manage their money in discretionary accounts where clients paid him a fee that is equal to a percentage of the assets under management.
In early 2002, the assets under Charles Mizrahi dropped significantly by roughly 70% from around 20 million to around 6 million.
It is unclear if clients pulled out their funds because of performance or other reasons.
In 2006, Charles Mizrahi joined CGM Partners Fund LP as a managing partner, then left the company 5 years later.
Between 2000 and 2016, he also started several investment publications to make money from selling stock recommendations:
- www.insiderwealthalert.net (Defunct)
- www.HiddenValuesAlert.net (Defunct)
- www.InevitableWealthPortfolio.com (Defunct)
- www.StealthStocksOnline.net (A guy named Dennis Slothower bought it and used it to sell his investment newsletters)
In 2017, Charles Mizrahi started another new value-investing service called “Park Avenue Investment Club” under Angel Publishing.
Park Avenue Investment Club newsletter is now defunct.
In 2019, he started Alpha Investor under Banyan Hill Publishing.
Under Banyan Hill Publishing, there are a total of three investment newsletters sold by Charles Mizrahi:
- Alpha Investor
- 8-Figure Fortune ($1,495)
- Microcap Fortune ($2,950)
Last but not least, Charles Mizrahi wrote a book called “Getting Started in Value Investing”.
Alpha Investor Investment Strategy
Below is the so-called “Alpha-3” stock-picking approach used by Charles Mizrahi for the Alpha Investor newsletter:
- Alpha Market: The company must be in a large industry that is projected to grow 100% over the next few years. (e.g. 5G, A.I. cloud computing, etc)
- Alpha Management: The company must have a management team with good track records of increasing revenue, earnings, and share price over time.
- Alpha Money: The company must be financially sound. Is the share price fully reflecting the company’s future growth?
Charles Mizrahi does not set a stop-loss target, but he uses three key things to decide whether or not to exit a position:
- Has the stock become absurdly priced in comparison to the underlying company’s value?
- Is there a better opportunity that has come along that is better than what I am holding?
- Has there been a fundamental change in the company or its strategy that has reduced its underlying value?
Now, let’s look at how he uses his investment approach to pick stocks for Alpha Investor subscribers.
In May 2021, Charles Mizrahi recommended buying the stock “Illumina Inc” up to $458 per share, based on his Alpha-3 Approach.
He thought that Wall Street was overestimating the risk disruptive technology could pose to Illumina, thus he thought the share price was not fully pricing in its fair business value.
However, about 16 months later, after the share price of Illumina tanked more than 50%, he then decided to go deeper and check out its competition.
Shouldn’t a competitive advantage analysis have been done BEFORE recommending the stock?
As a value investing book author, Charles Mizrahi should have known that “competitive advantage” is one of the most important factors in stock research and analysis.
Illumina’s competitors such as Ultima and Element were not new companies that just started out.
Ultima was founded in 2016 while Element was founded in 2015.
It just clearly shows that he does NOT understand the industry well.
Fast forward to April 2024, Illumina’s share price is $120.25, which is more than 70% lower than Charles Mizrahi’s purchase price.
Alpha Investor: Stock Picks & Performance
So, how have Charles Mizrahi’s Alpha Investor stock picks been performing in the past two years?
In 2020, almost everyone who bought stocks made money, so I am not going to analyze the performance of his stock picks in that year.
How is the performance of Charle Mizrahi’s stock picks in 2021?
Charles Mizrahi’s Stock Picks in 2021 | Performance (as of 3rd May 2023) |
Jan 2021 | 55.99% |
Feb 2021 | -8.42% |
Mar 2021 | 50.85% |
April 2021 | -57.05% |
May 2021 | -51.41% |
June 2021 | -35.81% |
July 2021 | N.A |
Aug 2021 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | -57.86% |
Aug 2021 | -11.95% |
Sep 2021 | 1.25% |
Oct 2021 | -22.38% |
Oct 2021 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | 16.02% |
Oct 2021 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | -72.6% |
Nov 2021 | -19.47% |
Dec 2021 | -11.16% |
Also, how is the performance of Charle Mizrahi’s stock picks in 2022?
Charles Mizrahi’s Stock Picks in 2022 | Performance (as of 3rd May 2023) |
Jan 2022 | -13.18% |
Feb 2022 | -26.06% |
Mar 2022 | -2.17% |
April 2022 | 8.72% |
May 2022 | 9.05% |
May 2022 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | -1.92% |
June 2022 | N.A |
July 2022 | 28.1% |
Aug 2022 | -0.45% |
Sep 2022 | -16.6% |
Oct 2022 | N.A |
Nov 2022 | -15.45% |
Dec 2022 | 0.37% |
What about Charles Mizrahi’s latest stock picks in 2023?
Charles Mizrahi’s Stock Picks in 2023 | Performance (as of 3rd May 2023) |
Jan 2023 | N.A |
Feb 2023 | -14.61% |
Mar 2023 | -3.7% |
Mar 2023 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | 2.5% |
Mar 2023 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | -5.32% |
Mar 2023 (Special Bonus Reports Stock Pick) | -3.57% |
April 2023 | -2.11% |
As you can see above, there are many more losers than winners for both 2021 and 2022.
We are now four months into 2023, and the stock picks for 2023 are not faring too well either.
Let’s take a closer look at the individual stock positions (both open and closed) in the model portfolio.
There are currently two portfolios:
- Alpha Open Positions (i.e. core portfolio)
- Special Bonus Report Portfolio (i.e. speculative stocks)
Charles Mizrahi’s Special Report recommendations are companies are in the early stages of groundbreaking innovations.
He only recommends allocating only 2%-3% of the portfolio because of the high expected volatility.
I must say that I am quite surprised that Charles Mizrahi who wrote a book on “value investing” is recommending moonshot stocks (story stocks that are not even profitable yet).
This is the total opposite of value investing.
In fact, two of his recommended Special Bonus Report stocks lost around 60% or more.
But, what about the core portfolio positions inside Alpha Investor Model Portfolio?
Let’s first take a look at the closed positions.
As you can see below, out of 17 closed positions, ten are losers with three of them losing more than 50%.
Delta Airlines stock was bought in late Feb 2020 right after covid-19 news came out (China imposed a lockdown in Jan 2020).
Two months later, Charles Mizrahi sold Delta Airlines at a loss of 58.38%.
This is super bad timing.
Also when everyone was trying to avoid and dump airline stock, it was extremely imprudent to jump into airline stock in the face of a global pandemic.
Another losing position is Netflix which was bought at $508 in late March 2021, close to the peak of a tech bubble.
7 months later, Netflix reached its historical peak price of $690 before crashing 70% to a low of $198 by May 2022.
Charles Mizrahi sold Netflix at $218 in late April 2022, around the time its share price was about to bottom out.
Again, Charles Mizrahi grossly overestimated the growth and earning potential of Netflix and was wrong in his analysis of the streaming industry and Netflix’s business.
Now, let’s look at the open positions.
There are a total of 26 open positions with 9 losers and 17 winners.
Most of the profitable stock picks came from 2019 and 2020 because the stock market staged a strong rally after the pandemic market crash and almost all the stocks went up.
The majority of the stock picks in 2021, 2022, and 2023 so far are also not impressive.
I think you would do much better just investing in S&P 500 index ETFs.
Alpha Investor: Pricing
So, how much does the “Alpha Investor” subscription cost?
What do you actually get as a member?
Here’s what you get:
- 12 monthly issues with one stock recommendation every month
- Model Portfolio
- Weekly updates on the portfolio
- Two free reports with one on battery and the other on energy storage
The usual price for an annual subscription is $199, but new members get a discounted price of $47 for the first year.
It’s a very low entry price because this is the lowest-end product in their sales funnel.
Once you are inside their sales funnel, they will start marketing to you the other high-end products.
Personally, I think that is how they get rich, but I am not so sure if that is how you could get rich.
Thank you Gladice. Appreciate your research and suggestions on Alpha Investor and Motley Fool.