Stansberry Research has been the talk of the town. But still, many are not inclined to believe that it’s a legit business. Even those who are currently investing in the company are doubting if their investments are going to grow or get scammed.
Now, let’s settle this controversy. Let’s answer the main questions you have--is Stansberry Research legit or a scam?
What is this investment advisory newsletter all about? Stansberry's Investment Advisory is owned by Agora Inc, a newsletter conglomerate that controls the majority of investment newsletters.
To put it simply, Stansberry Research is a newsletter service that is affiliated with Agora. Agora and its branches and associates, as well as Map press, Stansberry, and other publishing companies, are also in the publishing industry. They have a standard direct email sales pipeline in place. They crank out free content and email sales copy in the form of emails and other resources, providing investing advice. Stansberry is one of their "premium" back-end providers. The company most likely rendered statements that are way outside the realm of plausibility. They're amazing at it, and they do it convincingly.
Porter Stansberry, the creator and executive producer of Stansberry Research, might be familiar to you. He was the brains behind the contentious "End of America" campaign. Stansberry Research recently posted a video of the Coming Currency Crisis with former Senator Ron Paul. Although the commercials seem to be all publicity, the video contains a lot of sound economics and truth.
You obtain entry to a members-only site after signing up for the email. This gives you access to a wealth of material, including all of Porter's monthly reports dating back to his company's inception in 1999. This is a useful function that adds clarity to prior judgments on how well or badly they performed. Many newsletters don't do this, and instead, only offer you links to the most recent problem.
You will also read Stansberry's special papers. Reports like these--the manual for gold investors, The Great Power Shift in America, and The world's most valuable asset in times of crisis.
Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
Now, what’s in the newsletter?
Porter and his editors write an excellent story for the monthly email, complete with a thorough examination of the investments in question. If you haven't read any other financial publications, let us warn you that all of them are just as interesting as a phone book.
Porter keeps each newsletter fun to read, and he backs up his claims with financial and economic facts. All of this adds up to a powerful case for the investments he proposes.
The newsletter tends to mainly include large-cap securities.
Porter employs a performance investing strategy in his investing. If you're trying to make your own aggressive investments, we think value investing is the best way to go. As a result, his and his team's suggestions aren't based on any technical metrics.
The monthly report is quite inexpensive, costing just $199 a year. Most academic papers going around the internet weren't quite as thorough in their findings and cost hundreds of dollars a year. The monthly updates provide a macroeconomic overview as well as one or three detailed stock recommendations. Any changes to the existing stock portfolio are also included. This is the good side of subscribing to Stansberry’s newsletter.
Though Stansberry's monthly emails are excellent, the free special reports he gives are not as reliable. They don't have enough actionable material for a beginner to use, and an experienced investor will have more than enough information on those topics, or you can find more details for free on the internet.
One of the concerns about this company is the way the content is promoted. Although the "End of America" seems to be well-researched and all Stansberry says is true, the result is almost certainly a black swan occurrence. Or, perhaps worse, it's an event that can't be predicted.
This is where every forecast, financial or otherwise, has a challenge. As a result, this is more definitely a publicity strategy to win popularity and recruit potential subscribers. Would you sign up if America wasn't about to end?
The other problem was Stansberry's run-in with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2003. Though the situation is perplexing — and has never been heard of before in relation to a financial newsletter — the SEC claimed that he engaged in insider dealing but never purchased the shares and never profited directly from it.
Furthermore, the stock did rise in volume, and the information was correct; it was just the timing that was off. As a result, Stansberry never profited directly from this material, instead of reporting it to its subscribers.
So, however, you want to look at it, this is an issue. In either case, the company has had a run-in with the SEC and, if anything, enjoys pushing the legal envelope in some of its analysis.
This isn't to suggest that Stansberry's, and any other investing newsletter for such a matter, shouldn't be taken seriously — no one can foresee the future or unexpected factors can alter it.
Although Porter's forecasts could turn out to be right in the end, the timing may be difficult to forecast.
Having a good side and a bad one at the same time doesn’t make a company scam. Yes, Stansberry is a legit company with a business system. However, their predictions are not something to be used when you are investing. There are better materials out there. You can do your own research.
If you ever decide to subscribe to this newsletter, just use the advice of an investment newsletter as a starting point when deciding which investments to create. Don't believe in blindly following advice. Learn about the patterns that the author claims are occurring while still looking for counterpoints to their case. Any investing recommendation can be taken with the understanding that it is just an opinion.