The Three Online Financial Advisors I Actually Pay For — And Why
If you’ve spent any time trying to figure out how to grow real wealth outside of a Bay Street mutual fund, you’ve probably stumbled across the world of online financial advisors and independent financial research. Newsletter guys. Paid advisors. Contrarian investors who write multi-thousand-word breakdowns of junior mining stocks and macro geopolitics from their homes in Argentina and Vancouver.
There’s a lot of noise in that world. A lot of hype. And honestly, a lot of outright garbage.
But over the years, I’ve found three online financial advisors who I think are the real deal — worth your attention and worth the subscription cost. I pay for all three. I read all three. And I’ve learned a lot from all three.
This isn’t a puff piece. I’m going to tell you who they are, what they’re good at, what they produce, and who each one is best suited for. Think of it as my honest take after years of reading the newsletter space.
Let’s get into it.
What Even Is an Online Financial Advisor?
Before we get to the names, a quick framing note.
The guys I’m talking about aren’t registered advisors in the traditional sense. They won’t file your RRSP paperwork or call you when the market dips 3% to talk you off a ledge. What they are is independent researchers and professional investors who publish their thinking — their actual investment thesis, their macro views, their stock picks — to a paying subscriber base.
The value proposition is access. You’re buying a seat at the table of someone who has spent decades in the trenches, built the networks, done the due diligence, and is willing to share their best ideas for a few hundred (or a few thousand) dollars a year.
That’s a different animal from what most Canadians are used to. But once you get it, it’s hard to go back to generic portfolio advice.
1. Frank Curzio — Wall Street Unplugged
Who He Is
Frank Curzio is the CEO of Curzio Research and the host of the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, which has ranked as the number one most-listened-to financial show on iTunes across multiple ratings cycles. That alone tells you something.
But what makes Frank worth paying attention to isn’t the podcast rankings — it’s the pedigree. Frank learned the trade at an early age from his late father, Frank Curzio Sr., who managed over $150 million in assets and wrote an acclaimed investment newsletter for over 20 years, averaging nearly 20% annual returns and earning a number-one ranking from Hulbert Financial Digest multiple times. Frank grew up in the business, literally.
Before launching Curzio Research, Frank worked for one of the richest hedge fund managers on Wall Street, where his job was to find the world’s best small and mid-cap growth stocks. He later spent time at Stansberry Research before going independent and building his own shop. His research has been featured on CNBC’s Kudlow Report, ABC News, CNN Radio, and Fox Business News.
What He’s Good At
Frank’s sweet spot is small-cap and mid-cap stocks — companies that are under the radar but sitting on real growth potential. He’s also been ahead of the curve on crypto and digital assets, launching his Crypto Intelligence advisory in 2018 and becoming the first in the financial publishing industry to execute a security token offering in 2019.
He’s not a doom-and-gloom macro guy. Unlike many newsletter writers, Frank doesn’t believe the world is coming to an end — he believes that if you know the right people and have access to the right information, there are more big money-making opportunities in the markets than you’ll ever have time to invest in. That’s a refreshing perspective in a space that can lean heavily on fear.
The podcast is genuinely valuable on its own. He interviews hedge fund managers, CEOs, economists, and analysts — and he asks the questions a real investor would ask, not the softball stuff you get on Bloomberg.
What He Offers
Curzio Research runs several subscription products:
- Wall Street Unplugged — The flagship free podcast (weekly). A great starting point before you commit to anything paid.
- Curzio Research Advisory — His large-cap flagship letter, focused on best-of-breed companies he calls “Dominators” — cash-flow-heavy, dividend-paying leaders in their sectors.
- Curzio Venture Opportunities — Small and mid-cap advisory for investors willing to take on more risk for asymmetric upside.
- The Dollar Stock Club — Weekly stock pick delivered from his podcast guest network, formatted as a brief but actionable idea.
Best for: Investors who want a mix of macro context, small-cap discovery, and some crypto exposure. Also great for people who learn well by listening — the podcast alone is worth your time.
My take: What I like most about Frank is that he doesn’t have a single-issue obsession. He’s not a gold bug, not a perma-bear, not a crypto maximalist. He covers what’s actually moving, across sectors, and backs it up with real analysis. I use his picks as one part of my self-directed RRSP — the kind of names that don’t show up in a typical index fund but have real upside if you’re patient.
2. Marin Katusa — Katusa Research
Who He Is
Marin Katusa is a Vancouver-born investor and the founder of Katusa Research. His story is a genuinely good one. Born and raised in Vancouver to immigrant parents, he graduated from UBC with a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Education, then found work as a calculus teacher and eventually began teaching calculus at the university level — starting an investment club to share his ideas along the way.
He dug into the tungsten market in 2003, made his first major resource investments, and then never looked back. He eventually got introduced to large players in the resource market and began working alongside Doug Casey at Casey Research, where he became the Chief Energy Investment Strategist.
Here’s what separates Marin from most newsletter writers: he actually puts his own money in. In every monthly issue, Marin and his team disclose all the companies they have a position in and all the companies they intend to buy — and subscribers get to buy before he does and sell before he does. That’s skin in the game. That matters.
During his career, Marin has sat on the board of a public company, arranged over $2 billion in financings, and written the New York Times bestseller The Colder War and the Amazon #1 bestseller The Rise of America.
What He’s Good At
Resources. Full stop. If you want to understand junior mining, uranium, oil, copper, gold — Marin is one of the best in the world. He has been involved in raising over $1 billion in capital for early-stage and producing resource companies and was the lead financier in the first two financings for Cuadrilla Resources, one of the largest and most successful unconventional natural-gas plays in the UK. He also structured the financing and sale of a world-class oil block in Kenya to Africa Oil, a Lundin-held company with a market cap of over $2 billion CAD.
He’s not writing from a desk. Marin has travelled over one million air miles visiting more than 500 resource projects in over 100 countries. Boots on the ground research. That’s rare.
He’s also a macro thinker — his books on Russia’s energy strategy and American economic dominance are legitimately interesting reads even if you don’t invest in a single stock he recommends.
What He Offers
Katusa Research is focused and not trying to be everything to everyone:
- Katusa’s Resource Opportunities (KRO) — His flagship monthly newsletter covering the resource sector: mining, energy, commodities. This is the core product and it’s where he shares his personal investment ideas, analysis, and private placement access for qualified subscribers.
- Free Content / Education Center — Marin publishes a significant amount of free material including a Market Intelligence Center with gold and oil stock screen data, educational articles, and regular commentary on commodity markets.
- Books — The Colder War and The Rise of America are both worth reading as context-setters before or alongside a subscription.
Best for: Investors who want serious exposure to the resource sector — mining, uranium, energy — and who want to follow someone with actual deal-making experience in the space. This is not a product for passive, diversified-portfolio types. It’s for people who want to speculate intelligently in junior resource stocks.
My take: Marin’s analysis is genuinely deep — more depth per page than almost anyone else in this space. He’s resource-focused, with some utilities in the mix, and there’s a meaningful number of Canadian-listed names in his coverage. That actually makes his picks flexible from an account strategy standpoint: some of his ideas fit well in an RRSP, some are better suited to a TFSA depending on the growth profile and dividend structure, and some are the kind of speculative plays you’d keep outside a registered account entirely. Having that range of Canadian picks gives you options most US-centric newsletters don’t.
3. Doug Casey — Casey Research & International Man
Who He Is
Doug Casey is, to put it plainly, the OG. Born in Chicago in 1946, Doug is an American writer, speculator, and the founder and chairman of Casey Research. He describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist influenced by the works of Ayn Rand.
He’s also a bestselling author with a track record that is hard to argue with. His book Crisis Investing spent multiple weeks as #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and became the best-selling financial book of 1980 with 438,640 copies sold — surpassing books like Free to Choose by Milton Friedman and Cosmos by Carl Sagan. His next book, Strategic Investing, received the largest advance ever paid for a financial book at the time.
Doug has lived in 10 countries and visited over 175. He has been a featured guest on hundreds of radio and TV shows, including David Letterman, Merv Griffin, Charlie Rose, CNN, and NBC News.
What He’s Good At
Doug is a big-picture macro thinker and a contrarian investor, first and foremost. He is widely respected as one of the leading authorities on “rational speculation,” especially in the natural resource sector. But his thinking extends well beyond stocks and commodities — he writes about geopolitics, personal liberty, the philosophy of money, and how to structure your life and assets to reduce dependence on any one government.
That last part is the real reason many people follow him. Doug has been preaching international diversification, second passports, and offshore asset protection since before it was fashionable. His InternationalMan.com platform is built around the idea of living and doing business wherever conditions are most advantageous — diversified globally, with multiple passports, assets in several jurisdictions, and residence wherever you choose.
Rick Rule — himself a legend in the resource investment world — has called Doug “the most instinctive contrarian I have ever met,” calling it the key to his remarkable success as a speculator.
What He Offers
Casey Research has evolved into a broader publishing platform, but Doug’s core products include:
- The Casey Report — His flagship macro newsletter covering economic trends, investment strategy, and big-picture calls. This is where his macro contrarian worldview gets applied to investment positioning.
- The International Speculator – A long-running advisory focused on junior resource stocks — mining and metals — for investors willing to take high-risk, high-reward positions.
- InternationalMan.com – A free daily publication (with a paid tier) focused on global diversification, personal freedom, offshore strategies, and living internationally. A great free starting point for getting familiar with Doug’s thinking.
- Crises Investing – The book that started it all. If you’ve never read it, start here. It spent 29 consecutive weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and remains one of the most important financial books ever written on profiting through economic turmoil. Still relevant. Still worth reading.
Best for: Investors who want to think differently about money, sovereignty, and asset protection — not just which stock to buy next. Doug’s work is as much philosophy as it is stock picks. If you’re interested in the idea of reducing your dependence on Canada (or any single country) and want a macro framework for investing through uncertainty, he’s your guy.
My take: Doug is the one I follow less for direct stock picks and more for perspective. His libertarian worldview and “international man” philosophy — the idea that you should be diversifying not just your portfolio but your life, your jurisdictions, your options — is genuinely thought-provoking stuff. He’s been saying things that sound radical for decades, and history has a way of proving him right more often than not. If you’ve ever felt like the government has too much say over your financial life, Doug Casey will feel like a kindred spirit.
So How Do I Use All Three?
Good question. They’re not redundant — they’re actually complementary.
I think of it this way:
Doug Casey gives me the philosophical framework and the macro worldview. He helps me understand why certain assets matter and why the system works the way it does. He’s the foundation.
Marin Katusa gives me the ground-level intelligence on resource investing. When Marin has a thesis on uranium or copper, I know he’s been to the mines, done the due diligence, and has his own money on the line. He’s the tactician.
Frank Curzio keeps me connected to mainstream market trends, small-cap opportunity, and the emerging world of digital assets. He’s the broadest of the three and the most accessible, especially through the podcast.
None of them are cheap. Between the three, you’re looking at a meaningful annual outlay. But compared to the cost of making poorly informed investment decisions — or worse, handing your money to a mutual fund that underperforms its benchmark year after year while charging you 2% MER — it’s not even a close call.
Do your own due diligence. Start with their free content — Frank’s podcast, Marin’s education centre, Doug’s Podcast and InternationalMan articles. Get a feel for their style, their worldview, and whether their approach resonates with how you think about money. If these guys don’t resonate with your style, there are many more online financial advisors out there.
Then decide what you want to pay for.
That’s the Sovereign Canadian way.
Disclaimer: I’m not a financial advisor, and nothing here is investment advice. These are my personal opinions on content I subscribe to and find valuable. Do your own research before putting money into anything.