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What is TheStreet Pro?
TheStreet Pro is a subscription-based service offered by TheStreet. It provides you with articles, trade ideas, TheStreet Pro’s Portfolio, market commentary, and short-selling ideas.
Here’s What I Like and Dislike About TheStreet Pro
There are several contributors to TheStreet Pro.
First, let’s take a look at the trade ideas.
On average, about two to three trade ideas are published daily on TheStreet Pro.
Most of these trade ideas are based on technical analysis, like the ones shown below.
Coinbase was recommended to go long when its share price was around $302 with a target price of $386 on 3rd Dec 2024.
On the same day, Apple was also recommended to go long when its share price was around $239, with a target price of $275.
Here’s what happens after two months.
Initially, the two stocks did go up a bit.
But shortly after that, it came back down below the entry price.
Apple Stock Price Chart:
Coinbase Stock Price Chart:
Personally, I don’t like short-term trading, especially based on technical analysis because it’s a losing game in the long term for the majority of traders.
Today, while I was listening to the Founders’ Podcast (highly recommended if you are interested in history’s greatest entrepreneurs’ biography ), I heard about the story of J. Paul Getty, an American billionaire.
He said that most of the people in the early days of the oil business were just trying to sell contracts.
They had no desire to build a long-term business.
Getty tells this story about a guy who bought an oil lease for $4,000.
24 hours later, he sells it to Getty for $8,000.
This guy is like, “Hey, look how much money I made in 24 hours! I made $4,000 in 24 hours!”
Then, Getty said, “Yeah, but over the next 12 years, I made 800,000 on that lease. All the money is in the long term.”
This really struck a chord with me.
If you want to build your wealth, short-term trading is NOT the way.
Instead, it’s better to buy and own good businesses for the long term, just like billionaire investors Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger.
These are some stock research and analysis platforms that I use to find good companies to buy and hold for the long term:
- Morningstar Investor (Undervalued Stocks with Wide Moat)
- Motley Fool Stock Advisor ( Discovering Future Market Leaders )
- Hedgefollow (Follow Billionaire Investors’ Portfolio)
Now, let’s look at short-selling ideas.
TheStreet Pro contributors recommend stocks for going short by using price charts and technical analysis.
This is one recent example.
As you can see, they use indicators such as RSI and MACD.
I am not sure about you, but I have to say, ‘ The chart looks really messy and confusing!’
I don’t recommend short-selling stocks (I don’t do that myself) because there is no limit to how high the stock can go and your profit is limited.
The risk-reward ratio just isn’t in your favor.
Secondly, most of the technical indicators are lagging indicators.
In other words, they CANNOT predict future price movements.
Otherwise, you would have heard many stories about stock chartists becoming millionaires or multi-millionaires.
On a side note, please don’t waste money buying stock trading courses based on technical analysis.
Also, stocks can stay overvalued for a prolonged time because investors can be very irrational.
Lastly, let’s borrow a quote from Charlie Munger: “Don’t short stocks!”
Next, let’s talk about dividend stock ideas, written mostly by Bob Ciura.
Here’s what it looks like.
I was intrigued by all the catchy headlines such as ” 3 Dividend Aristocrats to Buy and Hold Forever”, ” These 3 Stocks Offer High Dividends at Undervalued Prices”, ” 3 Healthcare REITs To Profit From the Aging US Population”, and ” 3 High Dividend Stocks For Retirement Income”.
After going through the dividend stock recommendations, I was a bit disappointed that Bob has no position in any of the dividend stocks.
On top of that, the analysis of the dividend stocks is very general and mostly summarizes quarterly earnings results, which you can find online for free.
I would have more confidence in the stock recommendation if the analyst himself could put his money where his mouth is.
Also, if you are interested in dividend stock ideas, there are better alternatives (e.g. Seeking Alpha Premium) that you can use to find stocks that meet your criteria (e.g. monthly income, high dividend yield, etc)
Seeking Alpha helps you evaluate dividend stocks by looking at the following:
- Dividend Safety
- Dividend Growth
- Dividend Consistency
- Dividend Yield
As you know, one of the biggest risks that dividend investors want to avoid is dividend cuts.
Based on back-tested results, if you stick to stocks with Seeking Alpha Dividend Safety Grade of A+ to A-, you would have avoided 99% of dividend cuts since 2010.
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Having said that, there are a few TheStreet Pro trade ideas that I find interesting.
For example, one of TheStreet Pro contributors, Bret Jensen, likes to use covered calls to get into a stock that he likes.
For example, he was recommending a stock called “RAIL” when the stock price was around $10.
His option strategy is to buy the stock and then sell covered calls on this stock at the same time.
The premium received from selling covered calls is used to reduce his average cost price for the stock, hence providing him with downside protection.
In this case, his effective cost price for RAIL was reduced to $8 from $10, which gives him a downside protection of about 20%.
However, the disadvantage of this option strategy is that you have limited upside potential.
For example, he sold January $10 strike calls.
That means even if the stock price goes up to $15 or even $20 by the time the option expires, he has to sell his stock at $10.
In the end, his call option expired in the money.
He had to sell his stock at $10 when the stock was about $12.
However, he pocketed the premium (that he received from selling call options) as profit.
So, do you get back in the stock again (now the stock is $12.77 ) or move on to another stock?
Is this limited profit with limited downside protection option strategy better for you?
Or do you prefer buying and holding a good stock for huge upside potential in the long term?
Personally, I don’t like to keep buying and selling stocks for short-term profit.
It’s because wealth is built in giving time for the good stocks to compound over the long term (think Netflix, Apple, Google, Amazon, etc)
TheStreet Pro Portfolio & Stock Picks
TheStreet Pro Portfolio started back in 2001.
You can see the detailed performance of TheStreet Pro Portfolio compared to the S&P 500 as of Jan 2025.
As of 5th Feb 2025, there are 29 stocks in its portfolio (but only showing 23 stocks below with stock ticker names blurred out).
As you can see, one of their best-performing stocks is one that they’ve held since 2014.
They have a Rating system for the stocks in their portfolio:
- Rating 1 means Buy Now
- Rating 2 means Stockpile (adding to an existing position on pullbacks or successful test of support levels)
- Rating 3 means Hold
- Rating 4 means Sell
From time to time, they might trim their position to take some profit off the table.
For example, they reduced their Amazon holdings by 10% in Jan 2025.
However, they also seem to like to take losses quickly on some stocks after holding them for a short time.
For example, they bought Builders First source in June 2024 and added to their position a few more times.
Then they exited their position completely in Jan 2025 after holding it for only 6 months.
This happened again to another stock called “Coty”.
It also happened to Pepsico.
TheStreet Pro Portfolio Performance
Below is the performance of TheStreet Pro portfolio compared to the S&P 500 since inception.
As you can see, it mostly underperformed the S&P 500 for the past 24 years.
That means if you had simply bought the S&P 500 index ETF and held it, you would have done much better than following TheStreet Pro portfolio.
| Time Period | TheStreet Pro Portfolio Return | S&P 500 Return |
| 08/01/2001—12/31/2001 | -2.67% | -4.64% |
| 2002 | -19.79% | -21.97% |
| 2003 | 34.46% | 28.36% |
| 2004 | 5.25% | 10.74% |
| 2005 | 5.19% | 4.83% |
| 2006 | 7.05% | 15.61% |
| 2007 | 9.51% | 5.49% |
| 2008 | -37.67% | -36.55% |
| 2009 | 31.14% | 25.93% |
| 2010 | 14.29% | 14.82% |
| 2011 | -9.58% | 2.10% |
| 2012 | 16.67% | 15.89% |
| 2013 | 25.78% | 32.04% |
| 2014 | 1.33% | 13.52% |
| 2015 | -2.33% | 1.37% |
| 2016 | 4.86% | 11.76% |
| 2017 | 12.66% | 21.60% |
| 2018 | -9.86% | -4.23% |
| 2019 | 30.39% | 31.19% |
| 2020 | 24.95% | 18.05% |
| 2021 | 27.64% | 28.56% |
| 2022 | -19.99% | -18.11% |
| 2023 | 16.53% | 26.29% |
| 2024 | 25.21% | 25.02% |
| 12/31/2024-1/31/2025 | 4.84% | 2.78% |
All in all, I don’t think I will personally get much value from TheStreet Pro subscription because I am looking for good stocks that can compound over the long term instead of short-term trading ideas based on technical analysis.
Also, there is no in-depth stock analysis that I can use to help with my stock research.
Lastly, its portfolio performance is nothing spectacular.
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