Live From Our Biggest Event of the Year
Highlights from Day One of the Stansberry Conference... Why Elon Musk will buy Twitter this week... The 'second-worst acquisition in history'... The metaverse doesn't work... Mark Zuckerberg's 'insane vision'... Watch our livestream...
We're live in Boston this week...
The Digest is on the road for our biggest event of the year, our annual Stansberry Conference.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the conference, and dozens of our editors and analysts, along with special invited guests, many Alliance members, and subscribers have gathered at the luxurious Encore Boston Harbor resort and hotel for the event.
Starting this morning and continuing until Wednesday evening, an abundance of bright minds and big names from the world of finance are presenting exclusively to a sold-out in-person crowd of Stansberry Research subscribers, plus the folks watching online via our livestream.
I (Corey McLaughlin) am fortunate to be here. And starting today, I will be sharing highlights and on-the-ground reports from the Encore's conference area. (Our meeting is just a short walk from a tempting casino floor, but the tables and slots will have to wait...)
Without further ado, here are some highlights from Day One...
'Prof G' got us started...
After our publisher Brett Aitken welcomed everyone to this year's conference, New York University professor of marketing Scott Galloway took the stage. Among other things, Scott hosts the Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway podcast and authors a weekly newsletter called "No Mercy/No Malice."
He's a noted market commentator with a wide following in the tech community in particular. We published a guest essay from Scott in the Digest last week about the super majors of the "attention economy."
Today, he kicked off our lineup of guest speakers with a thought-provoking talk on the current state of technology...
Scott analyzed a list of 10 market predictions that he made last year and showed how they've played out (or how they haven't) or are still up for debate. Now, you might recall that we always say "Prepare, don't predict." We still think that's good advice, but here's why Scott predicts, then reviews...
It's like Eisenhower said, "Plans are useless, but planning is everything." Predictions are useless but predicting is everything. It starts a conversation, and I like to go back and try to hold ourselves accountable... and [see] what we can learn.
In the process of reviewing his recent predictions to our audience, Scott wasn't hesitant to share opinions on some of the hottest topics in the markets today. He also offered up "silver linings" in today's world and a "profound opportunity" to pursue right now.
In fairness to paying attendees of the conference, I won't share all the details of any of the presentations this week, but we do want to give a few highlights... and encourage you to follow along with our livestream if you're not already. Details are available here.
Scott took aim at two of the biggest names in tech today, starting with Elon Musk...
Scott's first prediction in November 2021 for this year was that Frances Haugen, the Facebook "whistleblower" – who is speaking here at the conference on Wednesday – would be Time's Person of the Year.
Well, Elon Musk was bestowed that honor. "If you are the wealthiest person in technology, there's a one in three chance you'll be Time's Person of the Year," Scott said. He then went into a deep analysis of Musk, Tesla's (TSLA) polarizing founder who is always in the financial headlines...
First, Scott said Musk's deal to acquire Twitter (TWTR) will go through... and it will happen by the end of this week.
A Delaware judge set a deadline of 5 p.m. Eastern time Friday for a deal to be reached or go to court. And because Musk is a "serial liar and does not want to go under oath," Scott said, he believes Musk will make a deal to acquire the social media company.
Next, Scott said when the deal does happen, it will immediately be the "second-worst acquisition in history," trailing only the AOL-Time Warner merger back in 2000. Twitter, a platform with a reported 200 million or so daily active users worldwide, has $13 billion of debt and is a "flat to declining business," Scott said. He continued...
This is a highly influential company and a terrible business.
After blistering Musk and the likely Twitter acquisition, Scott moved on to talk about another well-known tech billionaire... Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta Platforms (META) CEO and founder of the company formerly known as Facebook.
Hey, Zuck, what the heck is the 'metaverse'?
Another one of Scott's 2021 predictions was that Zuckerberg's plans for the "metaverse" would fail. "I think we got this right," he said. In reviewing the metaverse, Scott laid out pretty clearly that he's bearish on Meta's business.
While many market commentators have shared similar views over the past year or so as Zuckerberg declared he was turning Facebook into a metaverse company, Scott shared a few notes we haven't heard much in the mainstream...
First, if you're curious what the metaverse is, Scott distills it down to this... "a 3D rendering of the World Wide Web."
It doesn't sound as profound when you think of it that way...
Second, Scott said that Meta's supposed signature product, the Oculus virtual-reality headset, "doesn't work." People get nauseous using it. And Scott is deeply concerned with the concept, its impact on teens' health, and its impact on Zuckerberg...
[It's an] insane vision of creating a different world. That is a threat to us. The good news is no one uses it. About 24% of teens have one and about 2% use it regularly. This is not working.
He hilariously pointed out that in one recent quarter alone, tens of millions more pairs of Crocs – the super convenient slip-on casual shoes – were sold than Oculus headsets. (Count me among those contributing to that statistic.)
Scott detailed his eight other predictions for 2022 and how they fared, and he covered a lot of fascinating ground while doing so... including why he believes tech companies in general are in the "denial" stage of an economic slowdown... and why we've seen a "Patagonia vest recession" and an "Easter parade" so far this year compared with the dot-com bust.
If you want to see his entire talk and all of the rest of the presentations we have lined up in Boston at this year's conference, as I mentioned, you still can catch everything via our livestream package.
Again, click here for more information and follow along "in the room" from wherever you are. You can watch live or "on demand" with access to recordings of all of the talks and recommendations made by our editors and guests for 60 days.
It was a jampacked first day...
In the morning, attendees also heard from Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, True Wealth lead analyst Brett Eversole, Cambria Investment Management co-founder Meb Faber, and Altimetry founder Joel Litman. Joel made a compelling argument that fears of China overtaking the U.S. as an economic superpower are wildly overblown.
Here is Joel during his talk...
Other speakers, including WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski, also addressed the room to close out the morning sessions.
After a lunch break, our colleague Dan Ferris welcomed hedge-fund manager Hugh Hendry to the stage for a sit-down interview to start four more hours of market insight.
Tomorrow will be just as busy...
More than a dozen speakers are on the schedule tomorrow alone, including Crypto Capital editor Eric Wade, Chaikin Analytics founder Marc Chaikin, Stansberry Venture Technology editor Dave Lashmet, and Stansberry Research partner Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig (who still has a very long "playoff" beard given his streak of Retirement Trader winning trades).
We're also looking forward to a special presentation tomorrow evening at the hotel with Colonel Jonathan Shaffner...
Finally, I spent some time at one of the sports bars here last night with an Alliance member, Jeff G., who flew in all the way from Alaska. We had a great conversation. Among other things, he told me Dan and Doc are "my guys" – his favorite follows.
I'm excited to see what we get into this evening.
A Global Monetary Reset Is Here
In an exclusive interview with our Daniela Cambone at his residence in Italy, billionaire philanthropist Frank Giustra lays out his thesis for the global monetary reset he says is underway...
Click here to watch this episode of the Daniela Cambone Show right now. And to catch all of the videos and podcasts from the Stansberry Research team, be sure to visit our Stansberry Investor platform anytime.
New 52-week highs (as of 10/21/22): Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), Humana (HUM), Northrop Grumman (NOC), O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY), Schlumberger (SLB), Texas Pacific Land (TPL), and ExxonMobil (XOM).
In today's mailbag, more thoughts on Dan's recent market warning... and one case for "the bottom" being in... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Since I started work at an NYSE firm in December of 1971, I've seen all the disasters you write about. Somehow I think the decline won't be quite as bad as before...
"I vividly remember people saying they would never buy another stock again. I suppose the magazine cover indicator will show us the bottom, since the bottom is an emotional event not a rational Price/Sales event." – Paid-up subscriber Robert S.
"Humble opinion: the bottom is in. Humble Reasons:
1) The strong US Dollar is a commodity killer
2) Energy crises averted and severe downward pressure in Natural Gas as weather is mild and the EU has more LNG than needed
3) The Fed is likely to pause after one more hike / the market can and likely will look past that (forward looking)
4) Too much idle money on the sidelines that needs to be put to work
5) Increasing 401K amounts for next year
6) Conditions are still oversold
7) Corporations are in great shape / good balance sheets / idle cash / great buy back potential
8) Few new IPOs so the money will flow to existing stocks that have fewer shares floating around to buy (due to the buy backs)
9) Valuations are much better now than before the large correction; and, profits are good to great
10) Fewer new shorts as valuations are not too high and the big money on the short side has already been made
11) Consumers continue to spend; jobs are plentiful; and sentiment is in the perfect spot to change the balance of power in the next election... which will mitigate fears of further spending sprees by the government
"Hope you enjoyed the thoughts above." – Paid-up subscriber Allen L.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Boston, Massachusetts
October 24, 2022