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- Phone : 1-877-934-7778
- URL :
- Global Rating
- Very Good
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Weiss Ratings offers a suite of financial products that cater to a diverse array of traders and investors. They're an independent ratings agency that, like Moody's and S&P, offers proprietary ratings of investments that are free from the conflicts of interest that the other agencies are impacted by. With nearly 30 years of experience behind it, Weiss is a legitimate service backed by Ph.D.-accredited founders that can certainly help take your trading and investment career to new heights, as they've consistently outperformed other top ratings agencies since their inception.
Pros:
- Unique insights you won't find anywhere else
- Daily ratings of over 56,000 companies
- Accessible to investors of all backgrounds and skill levels
- Vast community of experts in stocks, bonds, ETFs, real estate, asset-backed securities, cryptocurrencies, and more
- Proven track record of success since 1993
- Offers a huge variety of newsletters and research-driven reports by PhDs and accredited investors
Cons:
- Pricier service than some competitors, starting at $50/weekly and sharply rising
- Some ratings inevitably will lead to inaccuracies; traders and investors must proceed at their own risk
From our investigation we have found Weiss Ratings to be a legitimate organization with a wide selection of products, from stock picks to insurance, stock options, and ETF ratings. Weiss Ratings also has a wide range of products for crypto investors.
Our assumption of legitimacy initially comes from two factors: first the amount of traffic to the Weiss Ratings website and second the longevity of their business, which has been operational for over 50 years. That doesn’t mean all things have been rosy for all of Weiss Ratings’ customers, as we shall see further down.
First, let’s take a look at what we know of the people behind Weiss Ratings, their products, and customer reviews to then come to a conclusion.
Weiss Ratings Business Model
Weiss Ratings claims to be the only truly independent ratings agency in the financial markets. Simply put, companies like Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s have a conflict of interest. This conflict arises because these companies receive their revenue from the companies that they rate.
This presents a potentially monumental conflict of interest. Imagine that you’re paying someone to rate your stock or bond. Well, what exactly could that lead up to? I’m sure a lot of those reading can remember how in 2008 banks like Lehman were still rated as investment grade until weeks before they collapsed.
But it got worse as all the junk debt known as Asset Backed Loans, or Mortgage Backed Loans were also investment-grade up to the day of default. At Weiss Ratings, they generate their income from investors searching for valuable rating information, paid by those investors seeking information.
The concept is much less vulnerable to corruption, and I personally have always maintained that it makes no sense to use the ratings of firms that get paid to rate. In 2002, Mr. Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. made comments to the SEC and published a white paper. He outlined how countless times Wall Street firms recommend investors buy or maintain stocks in companies that ended up going bust within days.
In summary, Weiss Ratings customers pay for the ratings on the investments and assets they have an interest in. The companies or asset stakeholders do not influence the rating given by this ratings company. However, that doesn’t mean Weiss Ratings always gets it right or that they might not get it wrong at times.
Weiss Ratings History & Management
The Better Business Bureau shows that the company was founded in December 1993 under the name Weiss Research. However, Yahoo Finance has this company as having been around since 1971, giving ratings on stocks and bonds.
The company website states Weiss Ratings as the nation’s leading provider of 100 percent independent ratings on stocks, mutual funds, and financial institutions.
They also make a documented claim that the General Accounting Office reported that Weiss Ratings outperformed the nation’s largest insurance rating agency by 3 to 1. However, the only report we found from the GAO was dated back to 1994.
Let’s have a look at the senior management team and their experience. Weiss Ratings is not a publicly listed company, and we were only able to find three senior figures through publicly available information. But their website does list a long line of people and their roles within the company.
Martin D. Weiss Ph.D.
Martin Weiss is the CEO of Weis Research Group, he has a graduate degree from the University of New York, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University NY.
Martin Weiss has written several books as published on ThriftBooks.
- The Ultimate Safe Money Guide, January 2002.
- American Apocalypse, January 2012.
- Crash profits
- The Great Money Panic
- The Ultimate Money Guide for Bubbles
- Investing Without Fear
- The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide
- The Global Debt Trap
- Going Public: How to Make Your IPO Successful
- How to Survive the Money Panic
- How to Borrow Money and Use Credit
Dennis Zhang Ph.D.
Dennis is the Crypto Research Director at Weiss Ratings. He joined in March 2021 and brings a wealth of experience from the crypto world. He worked previously in crypto research for Judge Research and has several years of experience in banks as a quantitative analyst.
Gavin Magor
Gavin Magor is the Director of Research & Ratings and joined Weiss Ratings in 2010 as a Senior Analyst. Previously he had worked for TheStreet as a Senior Analyst for two years from 2008 to 2010. While his finance career started in 2003 at Ally, where his final position in 2007 was the Director of Commercial Lending .
Weiss Ratings Products
Weiss Ratings offers a wide array of products and services for various asset classes some of which are free. We like the idea of free stuff from companies because it gives the user a taste of their products before spending a penny. To get the most out of the free stuff from Weiss Ratings you might want to write things down.
Often, with free newsletters and tips we tend to not pay a lot of attention. This defeats the purpose and doesn’t allow you to evaluate properly if their services have any value.
The list of free resources from Weiss Ratings includes:
- Weiss Ratings Daily – A daily newsletter with the ratings from 56,000 companies and investments
- Pivotal Point – This is an e-letter to warn investors of turning points as they are approaching
- Wealth & Wisdom – Weekly newsletter on the hottest trends
- Wealth Wave – Newsletter on the latest tech trends to watch out for
- Weiss Crypto Daily – Daily newsletter on the latest trends and ratings from the crypto world
The free products list doesn’t end there. From each of the following categories, you get live ratings of the assets covered. The categories are the following:
- Stocks and funds
- Crypto
- Banking
- Insurance
For stocks and funds, you get a free investment rating for most of the big S&P 500 companies. You also get the same ratings for ETFs and mutual funds. You will also get news and analysis that is offered through their free newsletters relative to these assets.
Under Crypto, you get the same news resources and individual cryptocurrency, indices, and exchange ratings. While the banking and insurance categories give you free ratings on the safety of these financial institutions.
Subscription Products
- Disruptors and Dominators – Curated by Tony Sagami, twice named portfolio manager of the year by Thomson Financial. This is an analysis of the latest breaking trends, including market movements you haven’t heard of yet.
- Heat Maps – Provides a selection of top stocks and ETFs designed to bring protection and growth to your portfolio
- Safe Money Report – Early warnings of market crises such as the dotcom bubble in the 2000s and the 2008 crisis
- The Power Elite – Stock picking by Jon D. Markman, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Gerald Loeb Award.
- Wealth Megatrends – Investment advice in the alternative space, from precious metals to cannabis
- Weiss Crypto Investor – Crypto trading and picking
Premium Services
- Crisis Profit Trader – Put options trading with Jon D. Markman
- NFT wealth Builder – Investment guidance in the growing space of NFTs
- Strategic Options – Call and Put options trading with Jon D. Markman
- Supercycle Investor – Technical analysis of super-cycles in the financial markets
- Undiscovered Cryptos – Crypto picking new up-and-coming digital assets
- Weekend Windfalls – Trading strategy implemented on Fridays only
- Weiss Crypto Portfolio – Investment advice on creating a crypto portfolio
- Weiss Technology Portfolio – Investing advice for a technology portfolio
- Weiss Ultimate Portfolio – Complete stock ranking of 10,000 securities, ranked by performance potential
By invitation only, Weiss Ratings also offers Weiss Partners Circle. The service allows subscribers to access lifetime membership of all research publications. Partners pay a one-time fee and an annual maintenance fee for access to all of Weiss Ratings’ research. Plus, a once-a-week partners summary.
Weiss Ratings Prices & Fees
From the Weiss Ratings website, it was not possible to find pricing information on any of their products or services. We did see that the services listed above all indicate a toll-free phone number to call from the US.
This seems to us a touch unnecessary, but if they are still using this method, it must mean that they are achieving their subscription goals rather than not. However, from the various complaints we read online, we see that subscriptions run from around $50 a week for some newsletters to thousands of dollars for stock picking services.
Weiss Ratings Customer Reviews & Ratings
Weiss Ratings has received a multitude of complaints over the years, but they do in honesty seem to be due to incorrect expectations. Many of the complaints recite that after paying for a subscription, often thousands of dollars, they become aware that the service is not valuable to them personally.
This we feel is due to a lack of clarity on behalf of Weiss Ratings. They should go through the greatest effort to make their potential clients aware of all the risks, the initial capital requirements, and any factor that is not initially mentioned in their marketing material.
- Better Business Bureau: Rating A +
- BBB: Customer complaints: 75 complaints in the last 3 years, 18 solved in the last 12 months
- Business Consumer Alliance: Zero Complaints – Rating B
- Trustpilot:
From 117 Customer reviews - Google Reviews:
From 26 Customer Reviews - Facebook: Over 21,300 Likes
Weiss Ratings Review Summary
It hasn’t been possible for us to test the effectiveness or win rate of Weiss Ratings’ stock picking and trading advice. However, we do know that they have over 900 thousand visits to their website per month, or approximately 30 thousand visits a day. So, clearly, they have a high amount of traffic, and that traffic must come largely from customers.
From litigation documents with the SEC in June 2006, and another in June 2009, we can see that Weiss Ratings had 10,000 clients paying for subscription newsletters at the time. While the litigation may seem concerning, the causes brought to the SEC resulted in fines and no felony charges.
We know that banks and financial institutions are continuously paying fines as they walk the fine line between running their business as profitably as they can and staying in line with regulations. We don’t see this issue by itself as raising any serious red flags that would make you think twice about their services.
Having said that, if you do take an interest in Weiss Ratings make sure you get the sales representative to go through all your answers and doubts before you sign up for any services. Also, make sure you understand exactly what you are paying for and what limitations there may be.
Weiss Ratings Contact
- Weiss Ratings, LLC
11780 US Highway 1, Suite 201
Palm Beach Gardens
Florida 33408-3080
- Tel: 1-877-934-7778
- Website: www.weissratings.com
Bottom Line: Do We Recommend Weiss Ratings?
Weiss Ratings offers an independent analysis of the main traditional financial assets such as stocks and ETFs. They also have a service for precious metals investing, and what they claim to be one of the most extensive and quantitative services for crypto investing.
Although our research indicates that most of Weiss Ratings’ news and publicity seemed to come out in 2018 and 2019, the company is still active, with new blog posts being published on their corporate website as of Q4 2023.
Their product offering is wide and varied but we feel there may be some overlapping between products. If you approach Weiss Ratings, make sure you have fully understood what services the subscription gives you.
However, before committing any money to this company’s stock and crypto picks, speak to your financial advisor to best determine if Weiss Ratings’ investing and trading style is suitable for your needs. You may also want to check out the reviews of other top investment newsletters here to supplement your investment knowledge.
- Phone : 1-877-934-7778
- URL :
- Global Rating
- Very Good
User Rating
- 0 No reviews yet!
Weiss Ratings offers a suite of financial products that cater to a diverse array of traders and investors. They're an independent ratings agency that, like Moody's and S&P, offers proprietary ratings of investments that are free from the conflicts of interest that the other agencies are impacted by. With nearly 30 years of experience behind it, Weiss is a legitimate service backed by Ph.D.-accredited founders that can certainly help take your trading and investment career to new heights, as they've consistently outperformed other top ratings agencies since their inception.
Gino D'Alessio is a Broker/Dealer with over twenty years experience in various OTC markets such as Bonds, FX and Derivatives. Currently a Financial Markets and Investments Writer & Analyst
