Live From Las Vegas: Lance Armstrong, Porter, and Morgan Housel
What a start to the Stansberry Conference... Lance Armstrong talks about it all... Why he couldn't admit to cheating... Porter is back... A dire recession warning... Morgan Housel dishes wisdom...
We're coming to you this week live from Las Vegas...
I (Corey McLaughlin) am fortunate to be here at the luxurious Encore at Wynn on the Vegas strip for our annual Stansberry Conference, our biggest event of the year. My job is to share highlights and give you a flavor of what's going on here for the next three days...
(We're also keeping eyes on current market action and will pop in from our conference reporting with any updates as appropriate. Today, the major U.S. stock indexes were up again, continuing a trend from last week.)
We enjoyed a meal with some colleagues last night, before succumbing to jet lag and resting to prepare for a busy few days. The conference rooms are just off the main casino, and that's where we got started with business this morning on the main ballroom stage.
What a start it was...
To kick things off this year, conference attendees got to hear from Stansberry Research founder Porter Stansberry... Lance Armstrong (yes, that Lance Armstrong)... and Morgan Housel, one of the sharpest financial writers anywhere...
Here are some highlights from the opening of our sold-out Stansberry Conference...
Lance Armstrong talks about it all...
I know a lot of readers and subscribers were curious about what exactly Lance Armstrong – the winner (with a subsequent asterisk) of seven straight Tour de France titles – would have to offer a conference of investors. We understand it's a controversial booking.
As I wrote back in May when we announced Armstrong's appearance...
If you're disgusted by the idea of hearing from Lance Armstrong, I understand, but I'm keeping an open mind. I expect his talk at our conference to be interesting, entertaining, and enlightening, which is the point.
Well, it turns out, Armstrong was able to share a heaping dose of perspective and context about his life.
Attendees were treated to a wide-ranging sit-down interview with Retirement Millionaire editor Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig. Armstrong covered everything from his days as a kid in Texas and his path to becoming the world's top cyclist... to his cancer diagnosis and recovery... and the allegations of doping that he finally admitted to, disgracing himself and ending the fairy-tale narrative that he had created through his Livestrong Foundation.
Now 52, Armstrong has gray hair but still has the figure of a cyclist. I first recognized him in the hotel lobby this morning, grabbing breakfast, just by his calves. He says he works out nearly every day – logging miles on his bike in or near his home in Austin, Texas – though he admitted he wasn't quite able to get to it this morning on the road.
The elephant in the room...
Of course, everyone wants to know what Armstrong was thinking when he repeatedly denied allegations of cheating while winning all those Tours de France. For context, Doc shared a quote from Armstrong's contemporary Floyd Landis saying that if Armstrong didn't win all those races while blood doping, somebody else would have.
On stage, Armstrong got into detail about what he took: EPO, a hormone that boosted his red-blood-cell production by 10%, he said, and had a half-life of four hours, so it was mostly undetectable by regulatory testing agencies. While its use was pervasive in the sport, he still regrets how he handled the fallout...
Here's how he put it to Doc in a telling exchange...
I can sit here and try to justify it all I can, it never adds up. But looking past 10 or 15 years ago, this momentum and this wave of cycling, Livestrong, the cycling industry, to me it wasn't an option in the middle of this massive wave of momentum to stand up and say, "Hang on. Time out, guys. I left one part out." I wasn't going to do that.
That's one thing, and it's another thing to strongly and firmly deny and really take on the accusations as if they were a competition, which of course they were not especially when you're in the wrong. I was combative. In press conferences, in a room this big... I'm sitting there [of the people asking questions] thinking, "Who's this a****?"...
Looking back on it, I handled it terribly... I look back on things and certainly am wildly embarrassed and ashamed... of stuff that came out of myself. But all the same, that's shaped the person who I am today, as a husband, father, friend, business partner, albeit not perfect.
I can't get to all the details of the interview here on a tight deadline, but I think I can say that those in the room heard a comprehensive conversation about Armstrong's story. You can watch the entire thing as part of our replay package, which will include videos and transcripts of all the presentations at this year's event. Click here for more information.
Life on the other side...
Doc and Armstrong also compared wattage output when they ride their exercise bikes, and they discussed what Armstrong has been up to lately. The former cycling star is now a partner in a venture-capital firm investing in early-stage health-and-wellness companies, and he's a host of a popular cycling podcast. "TheMove" drew between 200,000 and 400,000 downloads a day during this most recent Tour de France, Armstrong said.
To that point, Armstrong said he has now "reemerged" into public life and was unsure if any sponsors would join up for his show and ventures. But given the size of his audience, they have.
He also talked about his outlook on life now, 10 years after he went public with an admission of taking performance-enhancing drugs in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Armstrong said...
That moment feels like yesterday. Ten years is a long time... but life is moving so fast. If truly 10 years ago feels like yesterday, then 10 years from now might feel like tomorrow, which is terrifying. So how can we slow all this down and capture these moments and memories?... I think we lose sight of how fast it's moving.
The message didn't quite pack the same inspirational punch that it might have at the height of Armstrong's popularity in the early 2000s. But today, he sounded like a guy who had regrets and learned a bit from what he described as a "public annihilation" of getting caught.
Porter's back...
It's debatable who folks in the room anticipated hearing from more today: Armstrong, or Stansberry Research founder Porter Stansberry, who returned to the conference stage.
After introducing himself to new subscribers who might not have heard from him directly before, Porter admitted what he was about to say about the economy and markets was "pretty terrible"...
He shared his latest view on the stock market, including the "overinflation of tech stocks," and the present state of the U.S. consumer, like how one-third of Americans have more credit-card debt than savings... And he shared four recession red flags to watch, including the jobs market, which we've talked a bit about here lately...
Consider Porter in the camp of "recession is coming." As he said...
By this time next year – I want you to write this down – there will be more than 10% unemployment. And by the time this recession ends, there will be more than 20% unemployment. And that's the good news, because that means if you are one of the eight in 10 people who don't lose their jobs, you are going to get a raise.
Porter also described what he sees coming next as the big forces of record consumer and government debt and higher interest rates converge. Without giving too much away, he thinks one of the biggest banks in America is going to fail – and soon. Not only that, but he laid out why a major crisis is brewing in a specific and large sector of the U.S. economy...
In short, it's because Uncle Sam is not in a position to bail anybody out anymore.
As Porter said...
For the first time in my lifetime, the government is broke. Truly. If the government prints more money, the bond market will absolutely crash and so will the dollar. If the government borrows more money, there will be more inflation, the bond market will crash and so will the dollar. We are absolutely at the end of our ability to finance our way of life.
While admittedly a sobering message – "I know you're wondering why you got up this morning," Porter said – it was a straightforward, honest take on the risks he sees in the economy and market ahead. And for those in the room and watching online, he offered a free special report that covers stocks that will do well in the next crisis.
He described these winners as "companies that don't require capital to grow."
Wisdom from Morgan Housel...
In between Porter and Lance, Morgan Housel, the great financial writer, brought the wisdom in his written words to life in the ballroom at the Encore at Wynn...
Morgan is the author of the terrific book The Psychology of Money, which has sold more than 3 million copies. I've been reading his work for years – including his blog for Collaborative Fund Management, an investment firm where he is a partner.
Regular readers know we've shared a pair of special guest essays from Morgan in the Digest here and here over the past few months, and he dispensed more knowledge to conference attendees this morning.
He started by explaining how when he got started in financial writing, back in 2008, he simply wanted to know why the financial crisis actually happened. He determined...
If you were looking through the lens of psychology, greed and fear, sociology, keeping up with the Jones, political science, all the rules and regulations from the Fed and Treasury, played a role in it...
That opened up this idea that investing is not the study of finance. Investing is the study of how people behave with money. There are so many lessons we can learn about investing from all these fields that have nothing to do with investing.
In his presentation today, Morgan was true to his work. He didn't share specific stock tips or trends, but rather how to think about investing and notably the importance of determining your own goals, an idea that we often share in these pages. As Morgan said...
The most valuable financial asset is not needing to impress anyone.
Through a fascinating example of a centuries-old global sailing race in which one character took his own life and a leader quit when he was ahead, Morgan talked about managing your expectations... and thinking more about what you really want.
"If your expectations grow faster than your income, you will never be happy with your money," he said. He added that most people's first investment question – "what are the highest returns I can earn?" – isn't the most important.
Instead, Morgan suggests investing consistently in pursuit of your goals and consider "what are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time?" to achieve those goals.
Hopefully this is already a familiar message to you... But if not, heed the wisdom.
Catch our replay...
As we send out the Digest at around 6 p.m. Eastern time, our conference's afternoon sessions are still going on out west in Vegas.
Watch for reports on today's afternoon sessions – which include talks from True Wealth lead editor Brett Eversole, Cambria Asset Management's Meb Faber, and Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond – in a later edition.
But I can't cover every presentation in the Digest... If you want to follow along live with everything that's going on at the Encore at Wynn, watch all the presentations, and hear the stock recommendations on stage, I hope you heeded my advice and checked out our livestream package.
We're no longer selling live access... But you're not too late for our replay package.
Once the conference wraps up, you'll get access to video replays and transcripts, so you can take in all the insights and exclusive stock recommendations at your convenience as many times as you want through the end of the year.
Check it out, and I'll be back tomorrow with more highlights from Vegas.
New 52-week highs (as of 10/13/23): Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), Liberty Energy (LBRT), Novo Nordisk (NVO), and Shell (SHEL).
In today's mailbag, feedback on Dan Ferris' latest Friday Digest on the dawn of a new investing "epoch"... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Fantastic article, I'm going to read this every Monday morning, thank you!" – Subscriber Jay R.
"Mr. Ferris, I always enjoy your emails, and I always learn something. Most important, they make me THINK. BTW, I've started diversifying into agricultural real estate: farms, orchards, vineyards. The high Sharpe ratio and lack of correlation to traditional financial assets are compelling arguments in their favor." – Subscriber Andrew S.
"Dan, I do look forward to hearing from you on Fridays. Also in The Ferris Report once a month!
"I would definitely include real estate in the must-have asset classes. Again, I am looking at long-term wealth preservation. As well as income streams. Real estate serves both purposes.
"I'm diversified. Some of my holdings are at 52-week highs and others at 52 (or multi-year) lows. Hahaha." – Subscriber Jeffrey G.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin
Las Vegas, Nevada
October 16, 2023