I have been a Hedgeye subscriber for 5 years and tested long-term almost all their (expensive) services, except the individual sector coverages (I opted to buy "The Call" on their annual subscription where the analysts share their views on the most important/best ideas by decor).
I have also been buying competitive market r research/stock analysis services for over 15 years, many of the research firms and analysts I have been subscribing to are from Hedgeye's competitors (e.g. FS Insights, Elazar Advisors, Elliott Wave forecasts and many others). Some have been producing better results than others for my investment style, but all are often vehemently ridiculed and insulted by Hedgeye's front man, Keith McCullough, a self professed "winner", always playing at the "elite level" and here to rescue the retail investors from the pervasive lies of old Wall (Street).
My experience with Hedgeye was mixed: performance wise, tracking all their services and investment recommendations, on average I have noticed an ongoing under-performance relative to market indexes, tracking since 2021 (time period 2021-2025 to date). The analysts calls are mediocre at best, with some exceptions. The analyst teams feels always deferent and subdued to McCullough and lacking a true edge on what moves markets. I can mention more than dozen recommendations that crashed 60-80% while been "best ideas long". The Macro analysis I have found superficial and lacking predictive power, it gets often rejigged and changed in terms of forecasts and prediction with subscribers learning about the change in perspective after the fact, when markets have already moved.
Keith is very entertaining and a true force in front of the camera. It is refreshing and fun to listen and watch at his jokes, and if you like sports and hockey there is plenty of that to go around in his broadcasts. You will learn a lot about his family of hockey players, his past as a hockey jock, and his passion for the game, and for most sports in general.
At times they do have good recommendations, and their short term approach of buying ONLY on bullish trends up with tight stops, at least numerically show a decent hit ratio if you're a short term trader. Problem is: the returns are often minor and negligible, often less than 1% before exiting positions. That may work if you manage millions, but it isn't worth the time and the costs for retail investors that need a more holistic, long term approach.
In conclusion: they are very entertaining and make the world of finance a somehow fun topic to listen to, but if you're buying to drive solid returns and beat the market, you won't likely get that consistently, except maybe in significant market crashes where their short term orientation will keep you more protected to drawdowns of 50-70% (because you won't have much capital at risk when price action breaks trend). read more
