The Most Controversial Digest of the Year

The most controversial Digest of the year... It's Report Card time... Good or bad, we love reading your feedback... You won't find transparency like this anywhere else... The grading period and criteria we're using this year...

It's the most controversial Digest of the year...

Every year, we sit down and measure our investment results across all publications.

And we are brutally honest with our grades. Good and bad.

It provokes all kinds of feedback – positive and... well, let's just say, not so positive. We receive it from our editors... and we hear it from you, our valued subscribers, too.

Our inbox fills up with all kinds of notes...

I've read hundreds of feedback e-mails in which subscribers share their personal stories, expressing gratitude for the way our research has helped them become better investors... and for some, it has changed their lives. It's incredibly satisfying.

For example, paid-up subscriber Dan M. sent us this note after last year's Report Card...

Ever since the first time I read one of your Report Card issues, I thought you were probably the only ethical newsletter publisher out there. But, I was willing to reserve judgment – after all, maybe you were the innovator, but perhaps all the others would follow, and perhaps eventually the bloom would come off the rose. As it turned out, all of my tracking numbers squared with yours, and NO ONE ELSE that I'm aware of, ever stepped up to offer a candid critique of their performance. Many claims, but few data.

Others are more... colorful. As paid-up subscriber James L. once informed us...

Three-year Report Card is crap. One year or not at all. do it properly, were not dupes.

Some subscribers have offered interesting (and unprintable) suggestions about where we should put our grades. That's OK. We welcome all your feedback. And yes, we really do read every e-mail.

If you're asking yourself why we do it... you're not alone. I've received dozens of questions and comments over the years from friends, colleagues, and competitors who think we're insane. To my knowledge, none of our competitors do this. We wish they would.

Here's the thing...

Stansberry Research celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. Our founder Porter Stansberry instilled in our culture his philosophy from the beginning... We would always strive to provide you – our subscriber – the information we would want if our roles were reversed.

Porter began writing the annual Report Cards in 2006. He penned every single one of them personally until 2018. Like you, I (Brett Aitken) was a subscriber for many years before joining the firm in 2012. I always loved the transparency that Porter's Report Cards gave his subscribers.

As the publisher of Stansberry Research, I do my best to maintain the philosophies and culture he has built over two decades. Porter's my boss, but I would continue doing these Report Cards anyway... It's simply the right thing to do for our subscribers.

We have a lot to get through. So grab a glass of your favorite evening beverage, if that's your style. (Mine is normally an amber color and comes in a green bottle with the word "Stella" on it.) Once you have your beverage, sit down, relax... and read along with me.

You can take notes if you want. I'm sure you won't agree with everything I say today and tomorrow. But no matter what, I hope you'll share your thoughts and comments with me... I want to hear from you. Drop me a note at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

Before we dive in, let me briefly explain the methodology and criteria we use for our grading...

If you've been with us for a while, you will know each year we select a different period for measuring our results. We try to use a period that witnessed some volatility.

We don't want to just look at how our publications perform when the market goes straight up. We want to see how our editors' recommendations perform when volatility strikes... and the markets get a little bumpy.

Many results you read about in the mainstream press focus on one-year results. We mention them from time to time, too. But in our Report Cards, we look a little deeper...

For our traditional publications where we make a new recommendation almost every month, one year is simply not long enough to get a meaningful measure. You see, our model portfolios represent an ongoing series of investments. They have no single starting point – like a conventional index, fund, or portfolio would. Half of our editors' recommendations would have only been "open" for less than six months.

This is also why we encourage folks to become lifetime subscribers to our products. I know the skeptics will be saying, "Here we go with another sales pitch." But trust me, as an investor and former subscriber... one year is simply not enough time for most strategies – or even specific investments – to play out.

Sure, some of our recommendations may double, triple, or more in a year. But as we constantly remind readers... building wealth through the financial markets is a marathon, not a sprint. I know that we can help almost anyone with the right discipline and patience to become a better investor.

Our Stansberry Alliance members understand this better than anyone. (I know, because I was one of them.) They join so they can receive everything we publish – for life.

This year we chose a flat, three-year calendar period. Our starting point is January 1, 2017... and our ending point is December 31, 2019.

Sure, the market climbed more than 40% over that period. But it also had a couple of sharp spikes in volatility... In February 2018, the market fell by about 10%. Then later that year – between September and December – it declined nearly 20%.

With all the math and clarifications out of the way, let's get to the grades. We'll start with our traditional, monthly, stock-picking newsletters and our two Venture products today. And tomorrow, we'll get to the rest – our trading and strategy-focused publications...

True Wealth: B-

True Wealth editor Steve Sjuggerud has been bullish since early 2009... just as this historic bull market began. His longtime subscribers will recall his "Bernanke Asset Bubble" thesis...

It's the simple idea that central banks – in particular, the Federal Reserve, led by then-Chairman Ben Bernanke – would reignite the global economy after the Great Recession of 2008. Steve believed these conditions would lead to a huge bubble in asset prices – including stocks.

Despite various distractions and bumps along the road, Steve stuck with his thesis. And he has been spot-on...

Steve has been so right with his Bernanke Asset Bubble thesis that it has outlasted not only Bernanke, but also his successor, Janet Yellen. And now, we're on the third Federal Reserve chair since Steve made his call (Jerome Powell, who took over in February 2018).

If you've been with us since the beginning, you also know Steve predicted the 2000 tech bubble... and then went long stocks as the market bottomed in 2002. He went long gold stocks at the start of the century, when no one would touch them. And then, he did it again as gold and gold stocks bottomed in late 2015. Both calls marked major bottoms in gold.

In short, it's no surprise to those of us who know Steve that his big macro calls are almost always right.

Of course, Steve continues to believe we'll see a period of tremendous gains before this 11-year bull market finally ends. We'll reference his "Melt Up" thesis often in this Report Card.

If you've followed Steve's advice in True Wealth for a decade or more, you've likely earned about 12% to 14% a year in stocks. And even better, you've done it without taking huge risks...

Steve finds alternative investments often overlooked by the mainstream media. And he identifies simple, "one click" ways for his subscribers to invest in a diversified range of investments – such as tech or biotech stocks, real estate, gold, and international stocks.

Steve's mantra is simple: He wants to buy what's cheap, hated, and in an uptrend. And his long-term track record is about as good as any you will find anywhere in the world.

However, some of the volatility we've seen over the past three years – especially a couple of times in 2018 – nicked Steve's overall performance for this grading period... Specifically, he got knocked out of a few emerging-market recommendations for losses.

But Steve also steered his subscribers into outstanding gains in the biotech sector... One of his recommendations in this space was up 70% at the end of 2019.

He also recommended a way to profit from an uptrend in tech stocks in early 2019... when most investors still feared that the market's near-20% decline from a few months earlier would continue. At the end of last year, that recommendation was up more than 60% in 10 months.

As I've explained, this is the type of situation in which Steve excels...

He identifies big trends and gets his subscribers in position to profit early. Sometimes, he's a little too early. And that means he sometimes gets bumped out before the trend takes off.

But he's OK with taking a small loss or two along the way, because when the trend sets in, the returns can soar much higher than what anyone can imagine... and last much longer than what anyone can expect. That's when Steve leads subscribers to huge double- and triple-digit winners.

For the three-year period used for in our 2019 Report Card, Steve's win rate equaled 53%. Meanwhile, his average and annualized gains both trailed the benchmark S&P 500 Index.

For those reasons, True Wealth earned a "B-" this year. I know Steve will be disappointed with this grade. But like I've said, you'll achieve the best results by following our analysts over the long term...

Nobody has nailed more big themes than Steve in his illustrious career. And if you're looking to make consistent double-digit gains over the long term, with simple and easy ways to play them... there's no one better in this business to follow than Steve.

Retirement Millionaire: A

For this publication, I'll let the numbers speak for themselves...

In Retirement Millionaire, Dr. David Eifrig – or "Doc," as we call him around the office – has produced some of the steadiest, most reliable gains in our company's 20-year history. He has earned an "A-" or better in nine of the 11 years we've published the newsletter.

Congrats to Doc and to all his subscribers who are enjoying some of these gains. Great job!

Doc's biggest winner over the past three years came from Match Group (MTCH), the company that dominates the online-dating scene. While it was a more speculative play than most of Doc's recommendations in Retirement Millionaire, he noted that it was "poised for huge growth" and "trading at a slight discount to the market" in his January 2018 issue.

Doc's recommendation proved to be spot-on... If you followed his advice, you would have been sitting on a 196% gain at the end of last year. And the position remains open today.

At the end of 2019, Doc was also sitting on significant returns with other household names – such as a 72% gain on JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and a 94% gain on Amazon (AMZN).

Many folks simply want the next "hot" stock tip – something that can help them get rich by next Tuesday. But as longtime Digest readers know, that's just not realistic...

Following Doc's advice is a much better way to grow your wealth. Many of his recommendations might not sound sexy, but he picks them at the right time. By following Doc into these safe, mostly large-cap stocks, you'll earn steady double-digit gains... year after year. It's much better than what most investors get when gambling on hot tips.

With a win rate just shy of 60% and average gains of 20.5%, Doc beat the S&P 500's 17.9% annualized return over the same span. That performance easily earns another "A."

Stansberry's Investment Advisory: A-

This grade always garners a lot of attention... from subscribers and analysts alike. Everyone loves to see how our company's flagship publication is judged each year.

Longtime readers know Porter started the company with this newsletter. And in all the years he personally wrote these Report Cards, he was always hardest on himself... He gave the Investment Advisory an "F" in 2012 and a "C-" in 2016.

I don't play favorites either. This year, though, the success is undeniable...

Over the past three years, this publication provided a string of successful investments in many of Porter's favorite themes – like capital-efficient stocks, companies with Trophy Assets, and property and casualty ("P&C") insurance firms. Porter's research team also looked for the best ways to profit from the latest breakthroughs in medicine and the next booming technologies – like 5G, artificial intelligence ("AI"), and machine learning.

Since our initial recommendation in November 2017, we've seen triple-digit gains from MarketAxess (MKTX) – a capital-efficient company that offers a bond-trading platform. Over the three-year period, we also led subscribers to 93% gains in weight-loss program innovator Weight Watchers International (WTW)... 86% gains in food-delivery pioneer Grubhub (GRUB), 81% gains in graphics-chip maker Nvidia (NVDA)... 60%-plus gains in coffee chain Starbucks (SBUX)... and 44% gains in one of the world's largest gold stocks.

Keep in mind when reviewing the Investment Advisory's grade... this newsletter is a bit different from our other basic offerings. In this publication, we recommend short positions to hedge against volatility. ("Short positions" are ones that profit when a stock falls.)

In a downturn, investors hope the gains from short positions will offset any losses suffered across the rest of their portfolios. Few investment newsletters do this. Here's why...

First, it's really tough to short stocks – especially in a raging bull market. When almost everything is rising... including the weakest stocks... short positions will normally be a "drag" on the portfolio's overall performance. And second, few subscribers will ever do it. Many people simply harbor negative feelings about betting that a stock will lose value.

But I've noticed more and more subscribers reaching out to us over the years, looking for short ideas in this publication. And when volatility hits – like it did in December 2018 – almost every investor wishes he had more "hedges" to offset the losses in his portfolio.

The short side of our Investment Advisory model portfolio almost always outperforms when volatility spikes. So even though it might suppress your overall returns most of the time... we'll continue to offer short positions in this publication.

During this year's grading period, the Investment Advisory had a 55% win rate and an average gain of 10.3% (14% annualized)... beating its benchmark over that span.

Normally, I'd like to see a slightly higher win rate before handing out an elite grade. But beating the market with hedged positions is tough when stocks have essentially gone straight up for a decade. So with that said, our flagship publication earns an "A-" this year.

Commodity Supercycles: F

We've been expecting a bottom in the commodities sector for the past couple years. In last year's Report Card, we published the following chart – which we've updated again today...

As you can see, the chart shows the ratio between commodities and regular stocks. And it shows that commodities have traded cheaply compared with stocks for about four years.

I recall saying in early 2018 that we expected to see commodities do well starting at that point. Two years later, you can see that we're still waiting for the turnaround to happen.

Brutal doesn't even begin to explain what commodity investors have endured recently...

Except for a few flashes of life here and there (like gold and silver, recently)... it has been incredibly tough to find winners in the commodities sector for most of the past decade.

The commodities sector – as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index – is down nearly 70% since mid-2008. For the past three years – the grading period for this year's Report Card – the sector has kept falling... The index is down about 10% in that span.

Almost everything... from oil and gas... to copper... to coffee, and soybeans... has taken a beating. And most commodities are taking another pummeling as we kick off the 2020s.

We don't like to hand out "F" grades for any publications. And in the case of Commodity Supercycles, I believe it's important for you to understand some background...

In addition to the broad market decline in commodities, we've had our own share of challenges with this publication over the past few years. We've made various changes to the analysts and editorial staff leading this publication. But now, we're on the right track...

In late 2017, we asked Bill Shaw – senior analyst and editor of our Stansberry Gold & Silver Investor service – to take over. We believe he's the right person to lead this publication...

If you've followed Bill in Stansberry Gold & Silver Investor, you know he travels the world visiting mines, interviewing executives, and attending conferences. Last year, for example, Bill went all the way to Kazakhstan – the large former Soviet Union state in central Asia. He also visited Canada's Yukon territory, Alaska, Nicaragua, and Chile.

Bill's "boots on the ground" research has paid off for folks who subscribe to Stansberry Gold & Silver Investor. And I'm confident it will be the same way with Commodity Supercycles.

His first full year leading Commodity Supercycles – 2018 – was another painful year for the sector... The Bloomberg Commodity Index dipped almost 15% for the year. But last year, Bill produced great research and got the publication's model portfolio back on track...

In July 2019, Bill recommended silver producer Pan American Silver (PAAS) as the market was punishing the stock – and silver, in general. It was a gutsy move. His experience in the sector proved valuable... Subscribers who followed his advice are up roughly 75% today.

He also told subscribers about the diamond industry in February 2019 and showed them the best way to play a major change happening in the space. His recommendation was up more than 15% at the end of last year, and it remains up about 10% as of yesterday's close.

And just this past December, Bill made a bold call on the down-and-out oil-tanker industry. His recommendation soared more than 40% higher in a matter of weeks at the end of 2019. (This position has since pulled back to start 2020, but it remains an active "buy" in his portfolio.)

These types of gains are possible when you catch a commodity supercycle at the right time. These stocks can soar much faster – and much farther – than you can imagine.

But in the end, we can't run away from the facts... I'm grading the publication for the entire three-year period. And based on the numbers alone, we've failed our subscribers with this publication through the three-year period. Because of that, an "F" is appropriate.

However, we're not giving up on the sector or the service. When commodities start their bull run... you'll want to be part of it. And with Bill's experience in the space, as well as his boots-on-the-ground research, Commodity Supercycles will be a must-read resource.

Stansberry Innovations Report: A

We launched Stansberry Innovations Report almost two years ago to take advantage of the major trends we see emerging across the technology landscape. I'm thrilled we did...

Since April 2018, we've uncovered stories in gene editing, 5G, robotics, AI, cybersecurity, mobile payments, driverless cars, video gaming, and vision and sound technologies, among others. And the incredible amount of brainpower behind this publication is a big reason for its success...

Editor John Engel leads these efforts. He holds a master's degree in science from Johns Hopkins University and worked in the lab of a large, publicly traded pharmaceutical company.

We've also tapped the expertise of Dave Lashmet – editor of our Stansberry Venture Technology service. Dave has been finding and researching opportunities in tech and biotech investments for a couple of decades. This newsletter also benefits from the expertise of analyst Christian Olsen – another tech and biotech veteran who holds bachelor's degrees in molecular biology and biochemistry and a master's degree in bioinformatics.

We don't have a full, three-year grading period on the books yet for the Innovations Report. Still, I think our subscribers should be happy with the results so far... In this publication, the team has made 25 recommendations. And they've only closed five positions for losses.

Overall, this publication has an impressive 68% win rate. (And even the closed losing positions have rebounded and trade higher today... So John and the rest of the team will look to use wider stops to give some of those volatile tech stocks more room to run.)

The publication's average gain equaled 10.1% for an average holding period of just 210 days... resulting in annualized gains of 18%. All solid returns for a two-year track record.

And beyond that, most – if not all – the positions in the open portfolio possess huge upside potential in the months and years ahead. So I expect to see these gains grow over time.

Plus, we recently added "Crypto Corner" to the Innovations Report...

We hope to show subscribers what's happening in the blockchain technology and crypto world. We've asked Crypto Capital editor Eric Wade and analyst Fred Marion to share some of their industry insights each month (but not their Crypto Capital recommendations).

We're thrilled with the results of this publication... It's deserving of a solid "A" grade in its inaugural appearance in the Report Card. With technology evolving at a breakneck pace, it's tough to keep up – let alone find the best investments in the space. But so far, this publication is doing both. And we're confident these gains will continue going forward.

Extreme Value: D

Like investors in the commodities space, value investors have also struggled in recent years. That's not particularly surprising, since we're about 11 years into this bull market.

We're now living in a world with market caps greater than $1 trillion...

Tech giants Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) sit comfortably above that figure today. Alphabet (GOOGL) – the parent company of search engine Google – is hovering around that mark as I write. So is Amazon (AMZN), the online retailer for almost everything you can imagine.

Apple currently trades for more than 5 times last year's sales, while Microsoft trades for nearly 10 times sales. For perspective, the Nasdaq Composite Index currently trades at a price-to-sales ratio of 3.8.

Over the past decade, growth stocks – as a group – have outperformed value stocks by roughly 130 percentage points. It's an extremely tough environment for value investors like Extreme Value editor Dan Ferris...

Regular Digest readers know Dan is a student of the lessons from legendary value investors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, authors of the excellent book, Security Analysis. Dan dives deep into each company's financial statements to try to figure out its intrinsic value.

He looks to buy everything at a discount, so he has a margin of safety. Think of it like someone asking you to make change for a dollar bill, and you offer him 80 cents...

That's Dan.

Over the long term, Dan has uncovered some of the biggest winners in our firm's history...

At the bottom of each Digest, you can see that the Stansberry Research Hall of Fame includes his recommendations of Constellation Brands (STZ) and Prestige Brands (PBH)... which gained 631% and 406%, respectively, in about five and a half years. And the largest active winner at our company is Dan's October 2008 recommendation of Automatic Data Processing (ADP). It's currently up nearly 600% over the past 11-plus years.

Since 2008, the average annualized gain on his recommendations is around 10%. Between 2008 and 2015, he earned a grade of at least "B-" in every annual Report Card. But the big, triple-digit gains like the ones he scored in the past haven't materialized lately...

For the past three years, Dan's win rate was 47%. And he recommended many of his winners in 2019. Because of that, these winners haven't led to big gains... yet.

Many of Dan's winning recommendations still need time to play out. The average annualized gain of his recommendations over the three-year period is just 3% – significantly lower than the S&P 500's 19.2% annualized return in the same span.

For that reason, Extreme Value earns a "D" in this year's Report Card.

Still, before we move on, I want to point out one bright spot for Dan... In August 2018, he recommended Starbucks when the stock traded for less than $52 per share. Today, Starbucks is trading at about $86 per share – an impressive gain of around 70%.

As I've said before, Dan is a staunch value investor... If anyone can find value in the markets today, it's him. And as regular Digest readers know, Dan believes value stocks will soon have their day in the sun. He believes we're entering the "Golden Age of Value." If that's true, we're confident that Dan will find the best ways to play this shift.

In his model portfolio, Dan holds a couple stocks that he believes could rise five times... 10 times... or even 20 times from their current prices. If you agree that the cycle is about to switch from growth to value, we hope you'll consider following Dan's work. You won't be disappointed.

Stansberry Venture Value: A

The birth of Stansberry Venture Value unfolded over several years... two decades, in fact.

Throughout our firm's 20-year history, Porter and his team of analysts have always searched for the secrets to finding the world's best businesses... learning what made them great investments... and sharing the results with their subscribers.

They've studied the successes – and mistakes – of legendary investors and businessmen like Warren Buffett, Shelby Davis, T. Boone Pickens, and Sir John Templeton. They've researched strategies employed by private-equity giants like Blackstone (BX).

They've written extensively about capital efficiency, P&C insurance, so-called "Magic Stocks," Global Elite businesses, and more. And if you followed the advice in our Investment Advisory, you've likely done very well – earning around 14% annual gains since its launch.

But Porter also wanted to show subscribers a different kind of investment... He wanted to identify opportunities in small, rapidly growing companies with big runways ahead of them. As these tiny companies grow into large, world-class firms that dominate their respective sectors, Porter believed investors could realize gains as high as thousands of percent.

Unfortunately, a big challenge stood in the way...

You see, most of these companies are too small – with market caps of less than $500 million in many cases – and too thinly traded to recommend in an established publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers... like the Investment Advisory.

These stocks are also too small for money managers... and most of them have little to no analyst coverage. But the thing is, that plays to our advantage... It allows everyday investors to get into these stocks before the big money starts to pour in from Wall Street.

That's why we launched Stansberry Venture Value at the start of 2017. We put Bryan Beach – one of our most senior analysts – in charge of finding these small-cap jewels. And now, after three years, I'm delighted to say that it's performing almost exactly as we expected.

Bryan has done a superb job finding exactly the type of companies we envisioned for this publication. He has recommended many stocks you won't hear about anywhere else.

And more important, subscribers are already seeing massive gains...

Consider a boring distributor of building and industrial products based out of Atlanta that Bryan recommended to his subscribers back in January 2018. This business isn't fancy at all... But the company had an interesting backstory related to the private-equity space.

Thanks to its unique situation, Bryan was confident that subscribers could buy the stock at roughly a 50% discount to where it should be trading. And his recommendation proved to come at the perfect time... This stock quickly shot up more than 200%. He recommended selling half the position in April 2018, so his subscribers could lock in some of those gains.

Since inception – which coincides with the three-year period chosen for this year's Report Card – Bryan has achieved a win rate of 61%. His average annualized gain of 13.4% thrashed the 8.9% annualized return of his benchmark – the Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund (VSMAX).

Perhaps more outstanding, Bryan has identified five "doubles" over the past two years. In 2018 and 2019, his win rates were an incredible 80% and 64%, respectively. The average gains of his recommendations in those years were 36.6% and 20.8%, respectively. On an annualized basis, that's 33% for the 2018 recommendations and 48% for the 2019 ones.

That's a phenomenal performance. Needless to say, I'm thrilled with the results Bryan is producing for his Venture Value subscribers. And I expect these results to continue.

If you already subscribe to Venture Value, I hope you're enjoying some of these gains, too. If you don't, I encourage you to give it a try today... I'm almost certain this publication will have one of the most successful track records over the long term in our company's history.

Stansberry Venture Technology: B

Stansberry Venture Technology editor Dave Lashmet does something that, to the best of my knowledge, no other analyst in the industry does... at least not with the same results.

Dave travels the globe, looking for huge opportunities in tiny biotech and tech companies. Every year, he logs thousands of miles – more than anyone else on our staff.

Over the past couple decades, Dave has built an impressive network – a list of "who's who" in the tech and biotech spaces. He's on a first-name basis with some of the smartest people on the planet... and he has many of their personal cellphone numbers, too.

That's no exaggeration. I've seen him in action several times...

Dave attends more conferences than anyone I know. More important, he doesn't shy away from asking difficult questions in front of hundreds of people in large auditoriums. I've seen him essentially tackle keynote speakers in hallways at large conferences around the world.

As Porter once said... after Dave asks his second question, everyone standing nearby shuts up. And the interviewee asks something like, "What did you say your name was again?"

Dave has found a niche in the biotech space, focusing on the small companies that offer treatments for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, and obesity... to name a few.

It's incredibly difficult to navigate – let alone succeed while investing in – this space. After all, some companies he recommends are biotech firms with only one drug in development.

Most of the companies Dave recommends are working on a drug with blockbuster potential – more than $1 billion in sales. But if it fails in clinical trials – it's a bust for investors.

For most, these stocks are a complete gamble. But Dave has developed a strategy that helps narrow the field and find which companies – or drugs – are most likely to succeed. This strategy reduces a lot of the risk involved... and stacks the odds of success in his favor.

And he has the track record to prove it...

Since we launched Venture Technology in November 2014, Dave has recommended 56 stocks. An incredible 17 have gone on to double or more. That's roughly 30%. In other words, on average... almost one in every three stocks Dave recommends, jumps 100%.

I don't know anyone... anywhere on the planet... who has that kind of track record.

Still, for this year's Report Card, we're only looking at the past three years...

And in that span, Dave ran into some headwinds – particularly in 2018 – that hurt his overall performance. You can expect to book some losers in this space. The important thing is to make sure you find enough big, triple-digit winners to more than offset the losers.

As his track record shows, Dave has proven that he can consistently do that.

I should also point out that Dave normally recommends selling half of a position when it doubles. That way, you can re-deploy your original capital into other opportunities. And at the same time, you still get to participate in future gains if and when the stock soars higher.

You're playing with house money at that point. So as Dave says... let it ride.

Over the three-year grading period, Dave made 31 recommendations. At the end of 2019, 18 were winners – a solid 58% win rate for the publication. His average gain during that span equaled 16.7%... His average annualized gain of about 12.5% trailed the S&P 500's annualized gain of roughly 16% over that span. As a result, he earned a "B" grade.

New 52-week highs (as of 1/29/20): AllianceBernstein (AB), Blackstone Mortgage Trust (BXMT), DocuSign (DOCU), Facebook (FB), Franco-Nevada (FNV), Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital (HASI), Hologic (HOLX), Invesco Value Municipal Income Trust (IIM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Lundin Gold (LUG.TO), Lonza (LZAGY), Microsoft (MSFT), Nuveen Municipal Value Fund (NUV), ResMed (RMD), ProShares Ultra Utilities Fund (UPW), and Aqua America (WTR).

We've reached the end of the first part of our annual Report Card. Tomorrow, we'll cover our strategy-focused and trading publications. What do you think so far? Do you agree with our grades? If not, we'd love to hear why not. Tell us what's on your mind at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

Until tomorrow,

Brett Aitken
Baltimore, Maryland
January 30, 2020

P.S. If you haven't yet watched our big event from earlier this month, you're running out of time... Porter, Doc, and Steve all shared their top ideas for 2020. They also covered the latest on Steve's "Melt Up" thesis... what's going on with gold and bitcoin... and much more. But don't delay... The full replay will come offline tomorrow night. Get started right here.