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Be Honest With Yourself

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The market is full of uncertainty… Don’t try to ‘play’ the trade war… Think about your sense of conviction… Be honest with yourself…


‘There’s no telling what President Donald Trump will do next… And there’s no telling how the market will react to it…’

I (Dan Ferris) have heard that sentiment a lot this week.

But we’ve never known those things. Investors are only remarking on it now because they don’t like what the market is doing.

As investor and author Howard Marks pointed out in his latest memo, “Nobody Knows (Yet Again),” there are no experts in the field of predicting the outcome of Trump’s trade war:

There have been no large-scale trade wars in the modern era; thus, the theories are untested. Investors, businesspeople, academics, and government leaders will all give advice, but none of them is much more likely to be right than the average intelligent observer. The things on which everyone will agree are obvious, such as the likelihood of higher prices. The less obvious truths will be harder to discern.

Our only choice is to accept the backdrop against which we’re investing right now. Accept the uncertainty… and follow your own investing convictions. That will determine how your portfolio fares over the coming weeks and months.

Marks notes that the best time to buy is when you absolutely don’t want to. Marks is a debt investor, and interest rates have been generally higher for three years.

But U.S. stocks are still in bubble territory. The cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (“CAPE”) ratio is at 32.55 today. That’s within spitting distance of its third- highest peak of 37.58, reached in January. (It’s also worth noting that each of these peaks have occurred since November 1999.)

I suspect that this mega-bubble will eventually end like all the previous ones – with a huge rout in the stock market. I would have preferred to have that rout in 2022 and 2023. Then we’d be past the peak. The excesses would have been washed out of the stock market by now, and I could have changed the tenor of my weekly Digests from avoiding the mistakes people make near the top of bubbles to the mistakes they make by not buying after those bubbles have crashed, burned, and been washed away by a steep bear market.

As it is, I’m stuck having to be skeptical about the S&P 500 Index delivering decent returns over the next decade.

Maybe that’s why Mike Barrett and I have had an easier time finding short-sale recommendations for Extreme Valuesubscribers recently…

Of course, the market gyrated so hard in both directions over the past few days that it almost didn’t matter if you were long or short. But we only short when we believe a company is being abandoned by investors, is obviously deteriorating financially, and has little to no chance of a turnaround. So we don’t care about the Trump tariff gyrations. The companies we’re betting against are “dead companies walking.”

So to be clear… I’m not saying selling short is a means of “playing the trade war.”

When folks ask how to “play” the trade war, the only real answer is not to do so. If you try to play it, you’re just gambling.

In Extreme Value, we’re sticking with our long-term strategy, even though the trade war has brought markets down. We recommend buying good businesses for the long term and selling short dead companies walking. The “tariff tantrum” hasn’t changed that.

So as long as you’re using a sound investing strategy (like buying great businesses and holding for the long term), you shouldn’t do anything different. You should be no more willing to make changes to your portfolio than at any other time. Stay on course.

But I do recognize the human need for action in the face of anxiety.

So think about your sense of conviction…

My colleague Corey McLaughlin and I recently interviewed investor Chris Mayer of Woodlock House Family Capital for an upcoming episode of the Stansberry Investor Hour podcast (look for that out soon).

Chris is a long-term investor who uses a stock-picking system he created called CODE, an acronym for “cheap, ownership, disclosures, and excellent financial condition.” In other words, he buys cheap stocks of companies run by operators with significant ownership stakes, which provide good financial disclosures and are in excellentfinancial condition.

Chris is very good at holding great businesses during tough times. For example, he told us that he has owned insurance broker Brown & Brown (BRO) since the inception of his fund nearly seven years ago – and that he’s still holding it, despite three bear markets.

Chris gets his conviction by buying shares of companies in which management owns a big stake. In other words, he likes when management teams’ incentives are aligned with other shareholders. If these teams simply do what is good for the value of their own shares, they’re doing exactly what you want them to do for you.

I understand exactly what Chris means. My two highest conviction stocks in Extreme Value are the only two recommendations with management teams I’ve known personally for many years. I also get a lot of conviction from being in the right industry.

For example, one of our biggest winners in Extreme Value was Constellation Brands (STZ). The stock rose more than 600% over a period of about five and a half years. But we wouldn’t have seen that gain if we hadn’t held on to shares after they fell around 25% within the first two months of our initial June 2011 recommendation. The stock dropped nearly as much a few years later after a merger was scuttled by regulators.

Mike and I liked the business of selling branded alcoholic beverages. We knew folks tend to stick with their favorite brands and that they also tend to drink at regular intervals (like once a week or a few times a month). And we felt that folks’ love of Constellation’s beer and other brands would see it through. We were right.

We’re still holding payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) in Extreme Value, nearly 17 years after our initial recommendation in October 2008 (during the depths of the financial crisis). I’ve always believed ADP would be a consistent cash-gusher. Plus, it holds employee funds overnight in interest-bearing accounts before disbursing them, so it can potentially earn billions of dollars straight to the bottom line when interest rates go up.

That revenue, called “interest on funds held for clients,” rose roughly 144%, from $422.4 million in 2021 to $1.03 billion in 2024. And the stock is up more than 1,000% since our initial recommendation. Anything can happen, but it’s one of the highest conviction stocks we’ve ever recommended in Extreme Value.

I’m telling you all this because you need to know what your investment convictions and risk tolerances are. If you don’t know, times like the present will teach you, and the lesson could be painful.

Think about if you owned a farm instead of a stock portfolio…

Market fluctuations would mean less to you. Thinking about what your farm is worth every minute of the day would be pointless.

Economist John Maynard Keynes underscored this point by imagining a farmer behaving like a skittish stock investor in Chapter 12 (an absolute must-read for investors) of his 1936 classic The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money:

In the absence of security markets, there is no object in frequently attempting to revalue an investment to which we are committed. But the Stock Exchange revalues many investments every day and the revaluations give a frequent opportunity to the individual… to revise his commitments. It is as though a farmer, having tapped his barometer after breakfast, could decide to remove his capital from the farming business between 10 and 11 in the morning and reconsider whether he should return to it later in the week. But the daily revaluations of the Stock Exchange… inevitably exert a decisive influence on the rate of current investment.

That’s the mistake many folks make.

I suspect the uncertainty of the past several days have led many investors to reevaluate their long-term investment holdings based on the belief that tariffs will prevail indefinitely, or otherwise permanently impair the value of the businesses they own. Many likely cited tariffs as a reason to sell. In reality, their actions were based on fear and uncertainty, not knowledge of the future of global trade.

Be honest with yourself. At times like these, when you’re watching your stock portfolio lose 5% or so in a day or two, do you know where your emotions end and your rational thoughts begin?

If you’re selling stocks because you believe you understand Trump’s tariff policy, you’re probably making a mistake. I don’t know that he even has a tariff policy, except to play chicken with other countries in his belief that the U.S. economy is stronger and can take a lot more pain than other countries can.

So don’t obsess about stock prices…

Legendary investor Warren Buffett sounded a bit like Keynes when he commented on the folly of paying too much attention to stock price movements:

If you bought a farm or an apartment house, you wouldn’t get a quote on it every day or every week or every month… So it’s a terrible mistake to think of stocks as something that bob up and down and that you should pay attention to those bobs up and down.

Buffett didn’t explicitly say don’t look at prices at all… but he came darn close to it.

You’ll never have the conviction to hold on to your investments through tough times by studying price action.

The best traders get their conviction from their long-term strategies and using risk controls (stop losses and position sizes). That’s very similar to what the best long-term investors do. As long as your strategy is sound, a little volatility in the market is no reason to abandon it.

If you want to obsess about something…

Focus on understanding the businesses you own. Understand their revenues, earnings, cash flows, margins, balance sheets, investment policies, and returns on capital.

That will help you get to know yourself as an investor.

Even if, like many Stansberry Research readers, you’re an old hand who has been in the market for decades, you’re still only human. Everyone with capital at risk in the stock market will feel an undeniable pull on their emotions as the market continues to fluctuate.

But as long as you’re pursuing an effective long-term strategy – like holding great businesses for long-term compounding – there’s no need to take any new actions just because the prices are moving around a bit.

So know your sense of conviction… and lean on it as this uncertainty plays out. That’ll prevent you from making the all-too-common mistakes others make in turbulent times.

How to Save $750 on Your Conference Ticket – Sale Ends Next Week

Our 2025 Conference & Alliance Meeting registration has opened. And, for the next few days, you can secure your seat and save big…

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We just confirmed some incredible speakers for this year’s event, including Silicon Valley’s “most feared journalist,” a CNBC regular, and a tech futurist.

You can read all about them and check out the location for this year’s event right here.

Of course, all your Stansberry favorites will be there, like Doc Eifrig, Dan Ferris, Greg Diamond – plus Marc Chaikin and Joel Litman, too.

Tickets will increase to $2,999 next week. If you’re planning on attending this year, take advantage of this limited-time presale price and get your discounted ticket today!


Recommended Links:

What You Do in the Next 24 Hours Is Critical

Over Eric Wade’s 30-year career, he has identified ONE specific strategy that shines when markets are caught in a trade war (and it works whether the market is rising or crashing). It’s not stocks, options, futures, gold, real estate, or bonds… but if you act today, this could help you potentially see a series of 1,000%-plus gains regardless of what the market does next. See this time-sensitive market update here.


World Economic Forum: ‘Arguably the Most Exciting Human Discovery Since Fire’

Sam Altman, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg are all investing vast sums of money into a radical technology. According to Bloomberg, this could become 10 times bigger than AI, quantum computing, electric vehicles, cryptocurrencies, and robotics combined. And one stock is at the center of it all. Click here to access its name and ticker symbol – for FREE.


New 52-week highs (as of 4/10/25): Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM), Alamos Gold (AGI), VanEck Gold Miners Fund (GDX), VanEck Junior Gold Miners Fund (GDXJ), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), Kinross Gold (KGC), Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS), Royal Gold (RGLD), Torex Gold Resources (TORXF), and ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL).

In today’s mailbag, feedback on – what else? – tariffs and the wild market movement this week… Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

“Looking on as a foreigner I am amazed. I thought that the rules in a democracy were made by the people. What I see is your president doing whatever he wants… All my worth is in U.S. stocks, chosen not just for their earnings but because of your administration, an important safety net that sadly I can no longer trust.” – Subscriber Simon K.

“I think we will end up with a deal with China. Soybeans, natural gas & oil… we can more than likely work something out. However, what about coal? They use coal and we have a lot of it. Maybe a very large offsetting purchase of coal might work.” – Subscriber Mark N.

“Hi Corey, I believe [Wednesday’s] Digest was one of the best I’ve ever read, and I’ve been a reader for a long time. The exploration and explanation of why the bond market is jittery was so interesting… Thank you ALL at Stansberry for your expertise. I learn so much, all the time, and make some good money decisions some of the time, as a result.” – Subscriber Arthur G.

Good investing,

Dan Ferris
Medford, Oregon
April 11, 2025


Stansberry Research Top 10 Open Recommendations

Top 10 highest-returning open stock positions across all Stansberry Research portfolios. Returns represent the total return from the initial recommendation.

Investment Buy Date Return Analyst
MSFT
Microsoft
11/11/10 1,305.0% Doc
MSFT
Microsoft
02/10/12 1,219.1% Porter
ADP
Automatic Data Processing
10/09/08 1,063.4% Ferris
BRK.B
Berkshire Hathaway
04/01/09 814.6% Doc
WRB
W.R. Berkley
03/15/12 605.3% Porter
SFM
Sprouts Farmers Market
04/08/21 492.5% Ferris
AFG
American Financial
10/11/12 461.1% Porter
HSY
Hershey
12/07/07 415.9% Porter
FSMEX
Fidelity SelMed
09/03/08 377.3% Doc
PANW
Palo Alto Networks
04/16/20 357.1% Engel

Please note: Securities appearing in the Top 10 are not necessarily recommended buys at current prices. The list reflects the best-performing positions currently in the model portfolio of any Stansberry Research publication. The buy date reflects when the editor recommended the investment in the listed publication, and the return shows its performance since that date. To learn if a security is still a recommended buy today, you must be a subscriber to that publication and refer to the most recent portfolio.


Top 10 Totals
4 Stansberry’s Investment Advisory Porter
3 Retirement Millionaire Doc
2 Extreme Value Ferris
1 Stansberry Innovations Report Engel

Top 5 Crypto Capital Open Recommendations

Top 5 highest-returning open positions in the Crypto Capital model portfolio

Investment Buy Date Return Analyst
wstETH
Wrapped Staked Ethereum
12/07/18 2,291.8% Wade
BTC/USD
Bitcoin
11/27/18 2,017.9% Wade
ONE/USD
Harmony
12/16/19 1,106.0% Wade
POL/USD
Polygon
02/26/21 665.9% Wade
HBAR/USD
Hedera
09/19/23 278.8% Wade

Please note: Securities appearing in the Top 5 are not necessarily recommended buys at current prices. The list reflects the best-performing positions currently in the Crypto Capital model portfolio. The buy date reflects when the recommendation was made, and the return shows its performance since that date. To learn if it’s still a recommended buy today, you must be a subscriber and refer to the most recent portfolio.


Stansberry Research Hall of Fame

Top 10 all-time, highest-returning closed positions across all Stansberry portfolios

Investment Duration Gain Analyst
Nvidia^* 5.96 years 1,466% Lashmet
Microsoft^ 12.74 years 1,185% Doc
Inovio Pharma.^ 1.01 years 1,139% Lashmet
Seabridge Gold^ 4.20 years 995% Sjuggerud
Nvidia^* 4.12 years 777% Lashmet
Intellia Therapeutics 1.95 years 775% Root
Rite Aid 8.5% bond 4.97 years 773% Williams
PNC Warrants 6.16 years 706% Sjuggerud
Maxar Technologies^ 1.90 years 691% Lashmet
Silvergate Capital 1.95 years 681% Root

^ These gains occurred with a partial position in the respective stocks.
* The two partial positions in Nvidia were part of a single recommendation. Editor Dave Lashmet closed the first leg of the position in November 2016 for a gain of about 108%. Then, he closed the second leg in July 2020 for a 777% return. And finally, in May 2022, he booked a 1,466% return on the final leg. Subscribers who followed his advice on Nvidia could’ve recorded a total weighted average gain of more than 600%.


Stansberry Research Crypto Hall of Fame

Top 5 highest-returning closed positions in the Crypto Capital model portfolio

Investment Duration Gain Analyst
Band Protocol BAND/USD 0.31 years 1,169% Crypto Capital Wade
Terra LUNA/USD 0.41 years 1,166% Crypto Capital Wade
Polymesh POLYX/USD 3.84 years 1,157% Crypto Capital Wade
Frontier FRONT/USD 0.09 years 979% Crypto Capital Wade
Binance Coin BNB/USD 1.78 years 963% Crypto Capital Wade

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